Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Yeah, there are
plenty of deer at this new place
, whitetail doe.
And then there was a buck, alittle tiny buck that was around
here earlier.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Yeah yeah, they call
them spikes when it's just
little tiny horns.
They don't have any like splitoffs, yet they're called spikes.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Oh, I wouldn't know
any of this terminology.
I'm a city boy.
I don't know.
You're called spikes.
Oh, I wouldn't know any of thisterminology.
I'm a city boy.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
So I don't know.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
But education is real
, Clark.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Yeah, deer are real
and one day you will go to my
house and you will drive pastprobably 10 of them on your way.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Just like so, like
just easy prey right there, like
available to you as you drivethrough.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Yeah, yeah.
What we do around here is wejust swerve a little bit off the
side of the road and you justgive them a little hit and then
you got dinner for the night.
Pretty sweet deal I've hadvenison, chili, that's pretty
good venison's great, it is goodI've actually had it too.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
It's not bad yeah,
I'll skip.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Like the liver.
I'm not really I'm not aboutthe liver.
Like the texture of liver justisn't my thing.
I don't know if you guys havehad it before, but everything
else depends on the liver.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Some livers are
better than others.
Um, really good for you.
I've heard that.
Yeah, I had um at um, what doyou call it?
Oh, a monkfish liver.
That was pretty darn tasty yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Yeah, fish liver, I
bet, is pretty good.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
It was different.
Yeah, the monkfish itself isweird.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Welcome back to MonkfishStrategy, the podcast.
That could have been a monkfish, I'm Bruce.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
And I'm Buck.
Who else we got?
Speaker 3 (01:45):
I'm Alex.
Welcome back to the pod.
Alex, Welcome back.
It's been too long.
It's been an entire series.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yeah, it's been a
minute.
Lots of change.
I know y'all been busy.
I've been pretty darn busy, soit makes sense.
It happens, life happens.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Vibe check man.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
How you doing
Exhausted in a good way.
I started a new position at thebeginning of the month, so at
the beginning of August Itransitioned into a leadership
role here at my company and soI'm taking on a team of
relatively early in career salesengineers and guiding them
through being successful, beingmore productive, getting ready
(02:26):
to get promoted, all that kindof stuff, all that good stuff,
but, as a result, ultra busy allthe time.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
And the dairy queen
is lucky to have you.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
There we go, yep I
mean, if you've seen his twisty
treats, the cones and the swirls, they're just immaculate.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Amen, you know
quality matters right and then
you take care of that, take careof your customer.
The numbers will tend tothemselves.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
We're going to have a
banger quarter me here to rip
on you, and I want to beconscious of all of our time.
You've got some.
Not only do you have someupdates on life, but you've got
some knowledge to drop on us,and we do love when you drop the
knowledge on us.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Yeah, so updates in
life right Are, like I said, the
new role right.
So I've actually been inleadership before but I haven't
been in.
Oh, it's been 13 years sincethe last time I was in
leadership 13 year gap yeah, Iwent back to being an individual
contributor for not to beconfused with a Discord member
(03:34):
individual contributor.
But I've been an individualcontributor for the past 13
years, ever since I joined BigCorp over where we all met
initially, and prior to that Ihad been in leadership for about
three and a half years leadinga pretty diverse and interesting
team.
But I had a great run as an IC,as we call, and happy to be
(03:56):
back in a people leader role,mostly just to leverage the
stuff I've learned from folkslike previous podcast guest
Danny Yonkers.
In fact, I'm in a role a lotlike the role he had when we all
met him, and so for me it'sjust fun to be able to pay it
forward in terms of theleadership I've received and the
mentorship that I've received.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Good question how
much has your meeting load
increased since you've been inmanagement?
Speaker 2 (04:29):
coming to management,
probably at least three times.
Wow, yeah, so each one of mysales engineers is working with
a number of account executivesthe sales folks, right and each
one of those have a couplehundred accounts that they're
attending to and so you know,it's just like exponentially.
You know, like the math goescrazy, like I don't know if
you've ever heard the storyabout somebody saying, oh, I
(04:50):
don't want a lot of reward forsome great deed they did.
You know they were going to bepaid in rice and they say just
give me one rice kernel here onthis checkerboard of chess and
then double it for every otherchecker in the stack, and then
by the time there's 64 of these.
By the time you get to the lastone, it's like the number is
larger than, like, the amount ofrice that could fill the volume
(05:11):
of the earth, or somethingstupid like that.
It's a ridiculous numberbecause people don't understand
big numbers and exponents right,and so, at any rate, the math
gets wonky, but my calendar isjust jam-packed all the time.
Yeah, I was going to say howlong have you been in this role,
this specific role?
(05:33):
Technically, I kind of got arunning start at it because I
was able to kind of do a softtransition right before
officially cutting over, but Iofficially cut over August 1st.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Okay, so yeah, still
really, really new.
Yeah, I was curious, you know,fresh perspective of switching
from individual contributor backinto management.
You've done it before, so youkind of you know what you're
doing, but did you feel like youwere like, uh, I guess,
overloaded when you first did itand you're like, holy cow, this
is a complete change of what Iwas doing before.
I don't know if I remember howto do all this successfully, or
(05:59):
did you?
Just feel like yeah, you know.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
I've done this before
.
It's like riding a bike, it's alittle bit of both, all right,
and I think the difference iswhat my last role was.
And so, even though I was anindividual contributor, I was in
an enablement role and I washelping enable sales engineers
at my company globally, right.
So, helping with taking newtechnology, translating it,
helping new, higher SEs andhaving them ramp up all that
kind of stuff.
Those activities, a lot of thatskill set is like, directly
(06:31):
transfers over.
So instead of doing enablementfor you know, 280, 300 SEs or
whatever we have, I'm doingenablement for my five SEs,
right.
And so when you think aboutcoaching and and developing your
people, it's really enablementin just micro sessions, right.
So it's like I I like to thinkof it like, instead of doing
(06:51):
stage shows, you know, at like acasino in las vegas, I'm doing
street close-up magic, right,like that's kind of my analogy
that I have in my head in termsof what the role is, but that's
kind of in the transition.
Now there is stuff I've had tolearn right, like reporting
stuff and QBR, how to be readyfor all that stuff and what
leadership is looking for, yada,yada, yada, right.
(07:12):
So there's definitely thingsthat I've had to learn along the
way and I'm still learning andI will probably continue to
learn for a while still but themeat of what I have to do in
terms of interacting with myteam and helping them with what
good looks like, since I've donethe role myself at this company
, I've been frontline at thiscompany and I've also been
working in enablement at thiscompany two different roles so
(07:35):
this is my third role now atthis company.
Those things have prepared meto really hit the ground running
on that front.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
That's awesome.
Yeah, I was thinking about thatbecause I've never, after I
went into management, I haven'tgone back to being an individual
contributor, and I think you'vementioned you know why you made
that decision before, maybe onone of our prior episodes.
But what was the motivation forswitching now?
Was it a shit or get off thepot situation, or was it?
You know, it was just a betteropportunity and you were excited
about it.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
So, uh, it's funny,
you ask right, Because Bruce and
I are in another podcast,another Discord, together, and
one of the guys in there he'sanother, he's a sales
engineering manager and he askedme why would you do this to
yourself, why would you punishyourself?
And I gave him the truth right.
The true answer is I have tworeasons for doing it right.
(08:23):
One is, you know, be the changeyou want to see in the world,
and I mean that in both thepositive and the negative way.
The positive way is optimistic,like you know, go out there and
do something.
You know that, like, if youthink something needs to happen,
go be the person that helpsmake that happen.
Number one.
But the kind of negative wayand kind of cheeky way is, if
(08:45):
you think you could do, ifyou're so much better and you
could do such a better job, go,do it.
Prove it right, like in your,my own head, right Like we.
You've had an episode one timewhere you talked about like
being a CEO and how neither ofyou would want to be a CEO.
Well, at some point, though,you had to have had the
conversation in your head.
Do I want to be a peoplemanager?
Because both of you have peopleand at some time you probably
(09:06):
said, nah, I don't want to dothat.
And now both of you are in thatrole, and the question now only
is do you want to continuedoing what you're doing or do
you want to eventually have evenmore responsibility?
And so I had to answer thatquestion for myself.
The second reason to do thiswas just literally to pay it
forward.
I've had absolutely top-notchmentors throughout my career,
(09:27):
and at this company there's noexception.
I've met tremendous leadersthat have helped me learn and
expand and be better as an SE,but also as a person just better
human and I figured look, if Ican help pay that forward in any
way, I feel obligated to.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
It's awesome.
I love awesome.
Love that I mean.
Personally speaking, I'd ratherjump through a waterfall made
of pure glass that's lit on firethan ever manage people again.
But you know, it's uh, it takesits toll.
Just give it time there.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
There's no doubt,
there's no doubt um speaking of
it taking its toll, it doesbring, bring up the topic I
wanted to bring everybody here,and so, in part, the way I
pitched it to you guysoriginally and you all agreed,
was, like you know, preparingright for failure, and so that's
(10:17):
how I pitched it to you.
But so the idea is thatnormally everybody prepares to
succeed, you role, play out inyour head what good is going to
look like.
But what happens when thatdoesn't go your way, right?
What happens when you receiveadversity in some way shape or
form?
You get turned down for the job, you get turned down for the
promotion.
You don't get the raise youthink you deserved, right,
(10:39):
you're selling and a customersays no.
You're pitching a project as aproduct manager and leadership
says no, we're not going to dothat right now, or we're going
to do it in a different way.
Some roadblock hits the pathand things aren't going as you
planned.
And so the question is righthow do you prepare for that
event?
Because it's inevitable thatit's going to happen to you,
(10:59):
right?
And so I guess first, you know,ask you guys the question just
off the top of your head what doyou think you got to do to be
ready for that?
Speaker 3 (11:07):
For me, rejection it
almost feels a little bit like a
callous, because I would say inmy early days it hit me really
hard when I'd have a really goodidea or what I thought was a
good idea, pitch it forward, putall this effort into the pitch,
whatever it be.
And then maybe someone says,let me go talk to leadership,
let me take my time.
Or they just come out and saystraight up, nah, no, it's not
(11:29):
gonna happen.
It would crush me and I'd belike, well, you clearly don't
see the value in like what I'mdoing and what I'm thinking,
what I'm saying.
But over time and I think it itreally started to change when I
had to start rejecting ideasand things other people were
saying Like.
(11:51):
Now I like it truly does notphase me at all the word no, and
sometimes it even excites me ina way.
I'm like, oh, thank God theysaid no, we don't have to do
this, this is someone else'sproblem, right, like it's.
I've really done a 180 onrejection and the expectation of
no.
It's a lot of just sort ofreasoning and rationing with my
rationalizing with myself thatnot everything is going to be a
yes scenario and no is okay.
(12:13):
No means move on and dosomething else.
It's not a uh, it's not aninsult towards me, my ideas,
what I'm trying to do, uh, somuch as it is just a decision
that was made and it's justbusiness.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
So you kind of took
the personal feelings out of it
and you said, hey, you know,it's just business at the end of
the day.
You know I'm not tied to thispersonally.
I think it's a good idea, butmaybe there's something I don't
know.
It's a good way to look at it.
Yeah, I agree with what you'resaying like curiosity and
jumping into those scenarios,knowing you don't know
everything.
Like a lot of the times whenyou're pitching to senior
(12:47):
leaders, they have more contextthan you.
And so I think once you realizethat even when you go into a
meeting and you kind of feellike you went in the wrong
direction or you're pitchingsomething that doesn't make
sense, it's usually becauseyou're not in the same rooms.
They are, so you don't have thecontext that they, as
leadership, are supposed toguide you with so that way you
can present the right things.
And so I look at it similar tothat it's.
(13:08):
You can't be prepared foreverything because of layers of
corporation.
You're just not going to everhave all the knowledge to make
every decision or always hit thenail on the head.
But I think there's kind of twoschools of thoughts you can
look at it.
You can say kind of like whatyou said, bruce it's.
You can take the personal partout of it and just say it's
business.
I'm going to control what I cancontrol.
I'm going to crush it, I'mgoing to let what happens
(13:29):
happens.
I'm going to let the cards fallwhere they may.
Or you can say I'm going to tryto prepare for every scenario
that could ever pop up, and Ithink the latter is a failed
effort because you're nevergoing to know all the context
behind it, which is why I saidwhat I said in the beginning.
So I think I kind of do whatBruce said and I, very similarly
, just control what I'm going tocontrol.
I'm going to make the best outof this scenario and if things
(13:50):
start going in the wrongdirection, I'm going to be
curious, I'm going to askquestions, I'm going to say, hey
, you know what I think I'm.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
You kind of played in
a little bit into what I was
talking about More.
So I think, Bruce, I thinkClark's perspective is like the
process of accepting it and nottaking it personally, which
Bruce already talked about doing, but at some point, right,
you're still going to bedisheartened, I know for a fact.
I'll give you an example.
I'll say some words that aregoing to trigger Bruce.
And that's okay, boomer, right?
(14:32):
So how do you deal with, likeyou know, like sometimes you put
so much energy and effort intoa project that becomes your baby
and it gets rejected for whatyou know are no good reason?
There's no good reason, it isbad leadership making a bad
decision and it happens Allright.
So how did you pick yourself upfrom that?
Speaker 3 (14:57):
I mean, I can't.
That was so long ago now.
Well, oddly not, maybe notoddly there has been similar
levels of rejection for thingsthat I put the same amount of
effort into multiple times,probably more than 10 since that
rejection.
And again, it is a little bitlike a callus or a muscle the
(15:17):
more it happens, I think, thebetter you get at it.
And the funny thing is is, insome of the more recent examples
, when I've been rejected for anidea or something that I've put
a lot of effort into, sometimesit comes back like weirdly.
And you know, for the one thatyou brought up, the OK Boomer
example, which was a lot of work, a lot of money, a lot of
(15:40):
energy, and it represented a lotof my core, who I am, of energy
, and it represented a lot of mymy core, who I am, what I think
is good marketing, like what'sa fun way to get a new idea out
there.
And it was.
It was crushed in its entirety.
You know it.
I was upset and more thananything like in that moment I
was just like, well, dang,everyone sucks but me clearly.
(16:08):
Uh, this is, this is.
It's not my fault thateveryone's an idiot.
I'm just surrounded by them, um, and you know that's a coping
mechanism, clearly, but uh, atthe same time, you know in, in
retrospect, it was, it's greatbecause it prepared me for the,
the future of rejections to comethere you go, there you go.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
So I'm gonna, I'm
gonna eventually get to the, the
real material that I want toshare with y'all, uh, that you
probably may already be familiarwith.
But before I do that, I want touse a history analogy, because
I know there's, I think, atleast one person listening that
likes the roman empire stuff.
Um and so, uh, there was a.
So I listened to anotherpodcast called tides of history.
If you're a history buff, Ithink it's a good one.
(16:42):
Anyway, he's going through fromthe beginning of mankind
literally prehistoric fossilevidence, dna.
He's gotten all the way up tothe Roman Republic and at this
point he's talking about why didRome win?
In the Mediterranean, there wasa lot of powers equivalent to
Rome, and why did Rome win?
(17:03):
There was a lot of powersequivalent to Rome, and why did
(17:29):
Rome win.
And basically, it comes down toRome was a better loser is why
they ended up winning.
I think it was something like80,000 dead in one battle, the
Battle of Cannae that is.
I mean, to this day, the Battleof Cannae is studied by
military folks of all kinds tosee how Hannibal won that battle
, because it's ridiculous.
But that was only one battle,and they lost other battles
where they lost tens ofthousands to Hannibal in a
five-year period, like in thatwar, in just that war.
(17:50):
Right, had that happened to anyother kingdom in the
Mediterranean, it would havebeen all over, but for Rome it
was never in question.
Could Hannibal win the war?
He never could, because Romecould absorb losses.
And so I think it's fascinatingthat Rome won.
By the way, rome had goodwarriors.
It wasn't like Rome wasterrible at fighting.
It wasn't like Rome hadterrible generals.
(18:11):
They had good generals andeventually they did produce some
of the Africanas.
But not the point.
The point is absorbing lossesand being able to bounce back is
what led Rome to beat everyoneelse, including what eventually
were the successors of Alexanderin the East, where they were
able to beat the Ptolemies, theSeleucids, all of those folks.
(18:31):
And it all had to do with thefact that if they went into a
big fight and they lost, theycould come back the next year
and the next and the next year,whereas all of their enemies, as
brilliant as they were thesecond, they ran across one
defeat.
It was all over for them.
And what you're telling me isthat you were able to be
successful in your careerBecause one defeat.
(18:52):
For a while there you were inthe doldrums, you were down on
yourself, but eventually youformed the callus and now you're
real good at taking those hits.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
Sure am.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
And look how
successful you are.
I would argue that at thispoint, right, that feeling you
had that was incorrect.
It was copium back then that noone else knows as much as me,
and blah, blah, blah.
Now you kind of are the mostimportant person at your company
.
But I would argue it's thelosses that made you better and
made you that person in reality.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
But I would argue
it's the losses that made you
better and made you that personin reality.
I couldn't agree more.
I'm still like just shook bythe 80,000 number.
There's just a lot of lives.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Yeah, if you ever get
a chance, like if you want to
know about one Roman battle ever, look up the Battle of Cannae
and it's a battle they lost by alot Like it was awful.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
It is staggering the
amount of human life lost in
that battle.
It definitely minimizes thefact that I couldn't get a fun
ad produced out you know, likeon a scale of things.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
I feel like maybe I
was a little overreactive with
my so I always like addingperspective, right, we've talked
about that before, right?
Like you know what's luck,what's not, but I'll tell you
what's not luck, right, andthat's what.
The resilience that Rome had,the resilience you had, I think,
comes down to a term that aparticular professor and author
(20:13):
coined, which was basicallyaround grit G-R-I-T.
Grit, around grit.
G-R-I-T grit, and so if youhaven't heard of her, her name
is Angela Duckworth and shewrote a book on it.
I'll share the book and her TEDTalk with everybody in the
Discord.
I'll put it in the CorporateStrategy channel.
(20:35):
Really good stuff, her podcast.
She also has a podcast calledno Stupid Questions, which is an
excellent name for a podcast,so if you ever get a chance, you
can listen to that.
I actually got thatrecommendation to listen to that
one from an old coworker ofours, alexandra Alexandra
Matheson, so she recommendedthat one.
But regardless, I had alreadyseen her TED Talk prior to that
and her TED Talk just goes into.
She had been an educator in NewYork City public schools and she
(20:56):
was trying to determine whatled students to succeed right,
what led to positive outcomes inher students, and there's been
a lot of debate in the deep,dark bowels of history.
There was a lot of concernsaround ethnic makeup, and that's
obviously been debunked bystatistics the hard way.
However, there were still a lotof concern about just natively
(21:18):
intelligent individuals liketalented folks versus
non-talented folks, and from herperspective, it wasn't even
that, because there are plentyof talented folks who end up
homeless.
Right, that happens right Forany number of reasons, and it
wasn't even necessarily beingwealthy, like you know, having a
wealthy background or anythinglike that.
The biggest differentiator shesaw was folks that could bounce
(21:40):
back from adversity right, andthat's something that she called
grit right, the ability tomuscle through the hurt right,
and the examples y'all havegiven are basically talking
about that.
And, for the record, I've had ittoo.
Right, where you get turneddown for a job you don't get,
you know, the promotion you want.
All that stuff, all thoseexamples I gave, that's happened
to me.
Right.
But you're right, don't take itpersonal.
(22:02):
You're right.
You know, figure out what youcould have done better, figure
out what was in your control,what wasn't in your control, and
then do better on the stuffthat you can control, right.
All of that, I think, is sorelevant right to how you
persevere.
I don't know if y'all had heardof her before or her TED Talk
or her book.
I'll pause and see where yourthoughts are on that.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
I feel like I have
listened to, at least maybe seen
a snippet of the TED Talk,because as you're kind of
talking through it, I'm likeit's kind of coming back to me.
I kind of remember this, so I'mgoing to have to go back and
watch when you post it.
But no, I don't think I'veheard that specifically.
But I agree with everythingthat you're saying and I think
it's like the hardest part aboutit and I think why more people
(22:47):
don't prepare themselves likeyou know the Romans, it's
they're afraid to do it becauseit sucks.
It sucks to get rejected, itsucks to be in that place and
you know the reality of it isyou have to put yourself out
there into those situations soyou can build that, that grit,
that muscle, a little bit more.
And I think that's what a lotof people like after they get
(23:07):
rejected or face really hardloss.
You know that's exactly whatthey.
They have a choice to make.
I'm going to do this again andI'm okay with the rejection, I'm
going to learn from it.
I'm going to bounce back, I'mgoing to start building more
grit, or I'm just not going todo this again because it was
scary, it was hard, like I don'twant to put myself in that
vulnerable position again and Ithink that's like the pivot
point to you, to what you'resaying around success.
(23:28):
You know the successful peopleare the people keep on doing it
over and over again, even thoughit sucks, even though it's
going to hurt.
You're going to build thatmuscle and you're going to learn
something from it and you'regoing to be resilient and at the
end of the day, you're going tofind ways to make it or end up
homeless I guess one of the two.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Spot on.
She has advice on how to buildgrit right, and part of that is
stuff that we've already said.
Another thing she talked aboutis like that concept of having
passion right, so having like aNorth Star right that you follow
.
So like what is your north star?
So, like you know for, you knowfor, for bruce it may be like
staying, you know, creative andhaving fun with things and not
(24:07):
taking it too seriously.
And if you can, you know, staythat way, you're going to be
successful.
Right.
For clark it may be how do I,you know, develop my teammates
or team members so that they'reable to be the best selves and
get promoted?
You tell me what your NorthStar is.
I could tell you what mine isright.
But regardless, whatever yourNorth Star is, have one, and the
reason that's important is whenyou hit those tough times you
(24:28):
can bounce back.
The Roman Republic had itsNorth Star right.
It had its different morals andethical code and all that that
made up the identity of what itmeant to be Roman and that's
what helped them absorb theselosses.
But I think for all of us, ifyou know who you are, deep down,
it's going to help you dealwith rejection and adversity
(24:49):
right.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
One of the one of the
cringiest things I've ever seen
, but in retrospect maybe not.
I mean it is cringy, but I'lllet you decide.
I had to sit through thisnegotiation training that was
partially orchestrated by ChrisVoss hostage negotiator.
I'm sure you've you've heard ofhim before, this weird New
(25:12):
Jersey guy who's like I don'tnegotiate with terrorists, kind
of dude, kind of dude.
But one of the things that theymade made me deal with just
everyone in the class had todeal with is like going through
negotiations with people andbasically like trying to get
discounts on things.
When you go to, you know,starbucks or wherever you are
(25:34):
like, oh, can I get a discount?
And the idea behind this, thispractice of like putting
yourself out there, puttingyourself in situations where
you're trying to negotiate,everything you're doing is
because the more you do it, thebetter you get at it and like I
think it's cringe as all get out, but at the same time, I could
acknowledge that it works.
Um, I do think that there islike, like I said before,
(25:56):
there's that muscle right whenyou get rejected, when you go
out, when you're like, hey, I'velearned how not to pitch that
idea or I've learned how not todo that kind of work in the
future.
You do a sort of a win-lossanalysis on why did this not
work, and in the case of the OKBoomer ad, truly it was because
(26:17):
timing came into play right whenwe started working on that ad.
Ok Boomer wasn't a thing whenthe time we stopped working on
it it was.
And you know, something I'vecarried with me ever since then
is don't delay when you canright Like.
That loss taught me about theimportance of like.
Ideas have expiration dates andyou never know when something's
(26:41):
going to come and disrupt thatidea and like.
Yeah, force of nature canhappen and it can totally throw
things to the wind, but inpractice I try to get things out
quicker and quicker.
Because of that, that, thatfailure, that rejection, and I
think a lot of my rejectionsthat I've encountered over the
years carry with them a lesson.
I could call it a scar, but ittruly is a growing in me.
(27:03):
How do I not run into this inthe future?
How do I avoid this at allcosts?
Moving forward and I think thesame principle applies to
anything, whether it'snegotiation, creating new ideas,
going off and building projects, pitching projects, selling the
more you do it and the more youfeel that pain of rejection,
the more you're actuallylearning and the better you're
getting.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
You know it's funny.
I have a personal anecdotebecause, like I said, I'm in a
different spot because we justmoved, but I was going through
the process of canceling myinternet service provider and my
cable provider and it was sofunny Like this.
Is this kind of ties to like?
Nobody likes having those hardconversations and negotiating,
(27:45):
like you were saying, bruce,because the second I called him,
they're like, hey, we can likelower your monthly bill by $50.
And we can upgrade your internetservice and your cable package
for no additional charge.
And it was just because Iwanted to cancel.
Like I should have called themthree years ago when I first
signed up with them and beenlike, hey, I'm going to cancel,
I'm like gotten $50 off plusbetter service.
Like I should have done that inthe first place.
(28:05):
But that's their tactic,because they know so few people
are going to do that that theycan continue overcharging people
and having, you know, beingable to mitigate their losses
for that cost by keepingexisting customers on.
And so to your point about,yeah, nobody likes doing that.
It's true, nobody likes havingthose hard conversations and
negotiating, and it does flexthat muscle a little bit.
Now I'm about to call everysingle service provider.
(28:26):
I have my phone bill.
I'm going to call my water bill.
I'm going to be like, hey, I'mcanceling and see if they offer
me a better deal.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Well, and I mean
that's something better too,
right, like you know, keepingwith the OK Boomer example that
was brought up earlier, you know, I think a path that could have
been taken by leadership is sayno, do it better, do something
even more.
You know ridiculous, just don'tlean into this thing.
That's a little bit politicallysensitive at the time.
(28:58):
That wasn't the outcome, but Ido absolutely believe that on
the sending end, the rejectercan use no as an opportunity for
betterment of both the personthey're rejecting as well as
themselves.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Awesome, and I love
that.
You segued into my next point,which is Angela Duckworth
actually has a sequel to herbook and it's called now the
Limits of Grit, basically, andit's just talking about how grit
isn't enough.
It's not everything, and I gotto agree with her and I think
(29:33):
she's going to have her own take.
I haven't read the second book,I'll be honest with you, so I
don't want to speak for her, butI can tell you what my take is
right, and that's you took whatwas a bad experience and now you
look at it as a positiveexperience.
It's a choice you made and Iwould argue that having optimism
, right, and trying to see thevalue is the other half of this,
(29:55):
of this.
You know coin, right?
So grit is just being able todeal with the fact that you're
in a negative situation or youhave been dealt a bad hand, and
getting over it and just movingon.
But optimism is saying what canI take from that?
Right, instead of justsurviving?
Right, how do I thrive as aresult not in spite of, as a
result of the negativeexperience, right?
(30:17):
What can I learn from that?
And I got to tell you, ifanybody's out there struggling
to find a job.
I think that this is so hard todo in the moment, like if
you've been looking for work fortwo, three months a year some
folks out there and you're stillstruggling.
I think finding that optimismgets harder and harder every day
.
But if you can do it, you'regonna be so much better off when
(30:38):
you do get into that interviewwith the next job and the one
after that, anyway.
But I just thought that yourexample there, bruce, was spot
on in terms of taking a negativeexperience and again, don't
just survive it, thrive from it.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
I mean think of all
the available housing after that
battle.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
You know what?
That reminds me of the economicboom that happened after the
bubonic plague in europe.
Like the middle class saw aflowering that hadn't happened
in centuries after the bubonicplague.
You're actually not wrong.
It was a terrible, terriblething that happened, but, oh man
, this quality of life for thesurvivors was excellent.
I thought you were going to saysomething totally different.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
I thought you were
going to say think of thing that
happened, but, oh man, thisquality of life for the
survivors was excellent.
I thought you were going to saysomething totally different.
I thought you were going to saythink of all the single people
that are now available in yourarea?
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Man, my chances just
went up to go ask Valeria or
whatever.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Yeah, my Tinder is
boiling up.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
So, many singles in
my area.
But I mean, it's so true andhonestly, I think it's one of
the most important things that Ihave learned in my career of
being stuck in the corporatehellscape is learning to be
positive about things that areinherently not positive and
being able to find goodtakeaways in this environment.
(32:00):
Like, yeah, I get down justlike everyone else, as you hear
on the podcast when I'm talkingwith Clark at the beginning of
each episode.
But it is so important for notonly my mental well-being but
also for my professional growthand success to be able to find
the positive and not only findit but use it as a weapon and
(32:20):
you absolutely can, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
And it brings us full
circle to the very beginning of
the podcast.
In my new role, I'm hiringright, or at least I will be
right, because I'm going topromote people.
People are going to leave myteam and get promoted in
somewhat the near future.
It's just figuring out exactlywhen right, but regardless, I'm
going to be promoting and I'mgoing to leave my team and get
promoted in somewhat the nearfuture.
It's just figuring out exactlywhen, right, but regardless, I'm
going to be promoting and I'mgoing to be hiring right.
(32:44):
Terrific, what am I looking for?
I'm looking for someone thathas grit, is positive, is
coachable, is willing to learn.
I don't need someone who knowsour technology.
I need someone who can learn,because our technology changes
every quarter, right?
The business world is movingtoo fast, and so I'm not looking
for what you know, I'm lookingfor what you can learn and I'm
(33:05):
looking for how you do thatRight, and so all of these
lessons, it's going to help youas like, like I said earlier, as
you're looking for that job,because I'm probably not the
only one looking for thesequalities.
If I had to guess, y'all hireright.
What are y'all looking for whenyou go to hire?
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Yeah, yeah, I think
very similar to what you're
saying and for me, I really likepeople with diverse backgrounds
because it shows they'rewilling to step into something
new, not be afraid to take on achallenge and you know they they
might fail.
I think I've hired some reallyinteresting people that were
like teachers in the past andwere like hey, teaching was
great.
It was a lot of fun teachingthose kids, but, to be honest
with you, I didn't get paidanything for the amount of work
(33:41):
I was doing.
So I stepped into tech and nowI'm making way more money and
I'm getting fulfillment out ofthe roles that I've been doing.
So it's always just interestingto see that diverse background,
which I think builds characterin people and gives them a wide
perspective on things that makethem successful in product
management in my case.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
And I just like
people who are smarter than me,
because it means I don't have todo as much work.
Fortunately, there's a longlist of those folks out there.
I just got to find the payrange and get them in the slot.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
You know what's funny
?
First of all, I also likeworking with people who are
smarter than me and, second ofall, I want to hire people who
are comfortable working withpeople that are smarter than
them.
I don't want to hire the personthat thinks they're the
smartest person in the room.
I don't want that person.
I want someone who is smart,can learn, but is actually
excited about the prospect oflearning from their peers.
(34:33):
That's the personality you wantto hire, or at least I think so
.
I don't know, your mileage mayvary.
I actually, oh, go ahead.
But I think you actually ohsorry, I was gonna say you yeah,
I think you talked about thison a podcast a long time ago,
like years ago, where you knowthe, the, you know the
personality that is the rockstar but is poison to the team
(34:57):
versus, you know hiring peoplewho aren't rock stars but all
gel together and which one'sgoing to do better right, and I
think you've talked about,you've played this out already
and, for the record, Icompletely agree with what your
takeaway was was I would takequote unquote B players that are
B players in terms of technicaltalent but a players in terms
of collaboration, positivity,you know, focused on goals, all
(35:18):
that kind of stuff all day,every day, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Yeah, a hundred
percent, yeah, over.
You know the, the 10,000 Xerwho can do everything but has a
giant ego or doesn't work withothers Like there's, there's
really, especially when you're amanager, there's no place for
that on a team.
You know people look at thatand they're like, oh yeah, I see
the short term upside, causethey can help us get through
this project or get past thismilestone, but then ultimately
it just builds a cancer insideof the team and it doesn't ever
(35:45):
end well in my experience.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
Yeah, I don't think
it's fixable the way that you
can take a B player and turnthem into an A player.
It's weird that that is thecase.
I feel toxic personalities arejust such a hard thing to
wrangle thing to wrangle and Ican't think of a single example
where I've ever seen a toxicpersonality in my personal work
(36:11):
experience turn around andbecome something good.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
I think it is
possible, but it takes so much
effort, right?
And then think about all thecycles you're spending on that
one person versus helping outthe rest of your team, right?
Speaker 3 (36:22):
Yeah, the cost
analysis is just not there.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Exactly, and so,
ultimately, this is something
that that person needs to cometo terms with.
I'm obviously not going to talkabout names or anything like
that, but, like there's someonethat I had had to let go of a
position in my last go around asa leader, so over 12 years ago,
right and I ended up workingwith them at another company and
I saw them in the break roomand I was like, oh boy, this is
(36:48):
going to be bad, right, like Ihad to, you know, you know,
process this person out of theprevious company, right?
They're they're probably not abig fan of me and I wouldn't
blame them, right?
Um, they talked to me and and Isaid, how's it going?
And they said, actually, great,uh, I know that I was messing
up at that previous company, butI'm so happy over here and I'm
just doing better work now andI'm actually pleased with how
(37:11):
the direction my life's taken,so thanks, and so kind of sort
of thanked me for firing them,and I want to be clear that only
kind of sort of.
I don't think they literallysaid those words, but what they
said was they were actuallybetter off as a result of being
let go of the previous role,because they learned something
from that right.
Why was I let go?
Speaker 3 (37:32):
I absolutely believe
that, and I think that that ties
into exactly what you know,angela duckworth, and you've
been talking about this wholetime is like taking that moment
of rejection and being able toearn something with it.
Not just let it define who youare, but become something more
because of it.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Sometimes it's just a
wake up call, like that's all
you need.
Is that really big wake up callto be like man?
Maybe it is me, like, maybe Iam doing something wrong.
You know, after you might be anincredible individual
contributor but you've been, youknow, laid off from two
previous roles.
Maybe you got to lookinternally and say maybe it's
something I'm doing and I thinkthat's awesome, because I have
had situations like that before,that I've let people go because
(38:14):
of big egos most of the time.
Or you know certain ways thatthey work with people and
unfortunately I haven't had thefull circle moment yet, but I
can kind of see, you know, inthe way this person's
interacting with other companiesand what they're posting online
, that I'm like I see themturning.
So maybe that turning point iscoming.
But, to your point, it's goingto take a long time to really
get over that hill and be in aplace where they're going to be
(38:36):
successful wherever they are.
So fingers crossed, I'm hoping,hoping it'll work out for them.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Yeah, I mean, I
genuinely wish the best for
everybody I meet.
So absolutely, I completelyagree with you, yep.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
I had one closing
brain teaser because we only
have a couple minutes.
Okay, so you have the rejectionturned positive.
I see the opportunity.
I see how we can improve.
I'm going that direction.
You have the way you can go andbe a negative Nelly.
You can say, hey, that reallysucks, like, I'm not putting
myself out there again.
I the way you can go and be anegative Nelly.
You can say, hey, that reallysucked Like, I'm not putting
(39:07):
myself out there again.
I'm going to avoid these typesof meetings.
The situation, never doing itagain.
What about just being like,yeah, it's cool.
Whatever, you know, I don'treally care.
I mean it's, it's stoicism, theright word.
And what are the pros and consof doing that versus the
positive?
Speaker 2 (39:18):
I would argue a true
stoic would be the former
example, which is to say whatcan I learn from that?
How can I react better nexttime, right?
So, like a real stoicunderstands that it's not, it's
not about not caring, it's aboutrecognizing that the only thing
you control is how you react tostimuli.
That's true stoicism.
True stoicism isn't being blaséor inert to the world.
(39:41):
It's not being, you know,deadened, you know, in terms of
nerves or feeling or anythinglike that.
That's not stoicism, that'slaconicism, which is something
else entirely being laconic,being laconic and being stoic
are actually different.
The stoic philosophy, again, isabout reaction to stimuli, and
that that's what you can control, and so that's what I would
argue.
What you described is beinglike the dude right, like the
(40:03):
dude abides right, and look, ifthat's actually how you feel and
it's not just you know, copium,great, right.
I would argue, though, thatthat person probably doesn't
have the drive to be like reallysuccessful out there in the
world, like they're going toreach a certain level of success
and just kind of coast andthat's okay, perfectly fine.
The world needs all kinds offolks out there, right?
(40:25):
But if you're someone who hasaspirations to bigger and better
things in their career.
I would argue that's not theright disposition to have.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
And I completely
agree.
The only thing I would add is Idon't think those kind of
people are going to be the onesgoing out of their way to pitch
new ideas or try differentthings in the first place,
because they're yeah, what is,you know, like that's just,
that's not the kind of attitudeand energy that that really
tries to set up for success or,you know, attempt something that
might fail.
(40:56):
They're they're not risk averse.
That way, they're very muchjust like comfortable and and
coasting Again, not a bad thing.
I very much wish I could get tothat space in my own life where
I can just kind of comfortablycoast one day.
It's the dream, but not today,right?
Speaker 2 (41:15):
I don't know man, I'm
working harder than I have in a
while in this current role andI'm having so much fun.
I'm getting fulfillment out ofmy job right now.
And so I don't know man, like Idon't know, that I want to
coast.
Speaker 3 (41:28):
I felt that way for
the first year or so of my new
job.
Yeah, I feel you.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
What's the saying?
It's you know, the true joy isworking, but not feeling like
you're working.
You know what I mean?
It's just living life.
When you're in that state ofmind, that's when you fit
nirvana.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
What if you're not
working and you feel like you're
working?
Speaker 1 (41:55):
Yeah, what if I'm
sleeping and I?
Speaker 3 (41:57):
wait for therapy
every day yes.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Do we need a
real-life vibe check, like a
wellness check, like are you allright, bruce?
Speaker 1 (42:10):
well, I told him the
last time I'm good.
I told you I'm gonna show up atyour door like I'm like this
close to showing up at your doorwith a box of cookies, just to
make sure you're doing all rightyeah, but you live like a
hundred miles away.
Now he really does like deepinto the interior of the
hinterlands you have to actuallylike george of your jungle
through a jungle, uh, to get toclark's home I'm surprised he
(42:32):
has internet you know, it'shilarious because now I think I
had better internet than I didbefore and I'm even more more
into the the winterland out herewell, I know we're coming up on
time, so one I want to thankyou for joining us again, alex.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
It's always good to
have you on and you know I'm not
going to throw this out thereper se, but you know you have
set the qualifications for whatyou're looking for Now.
If you heard this podcast andyou're like maybe I'm the kind
of person that would you know,thrive and flourish on Alex's
team Guess what?
You can actually message andtalk to him on our Discord.
(43:12):
You can join the Corporate Fam,which is our podcast that we
all participate in, or podcastit's our community we all
participate in, and you can getthere by going into your show
notes, clicking on all the linksand joining the Discord.
Hop in here.
You can chat with any of us andif you're looking for work, we
(43:36):
might be able to help find yousomething.
Whether or not it's with any ofus or someone else in the
community, it's a great place tohang and we all focus on both
personal and the growth of ourcommunity.
Clark, what else we got goingon?
You nailed it.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Like, share,
subscribe.
I'm not going to name names,but someone's buying the baby
onesie.
We have a merch shop andsomeone's buying it.
We have Erd.
This is huge.
Someone is buying the babyonesie and I cannot wait for
this to happen.
It's happening.
So we've got a shop.
Go on there.
We've got a bunch of cool swagand stuff like that.
You can support Bruce if youwant to give him a dollar or two
for all his funding of thispodcast.
(44:07):
For the last what?
How many years?
Five years now, he has solelypaid for everything and I've
done nothing.
Actually, I bought myself myown mic and I've contributed
nothing else to this podcast.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
Somebody put up a
baby onesie.
Does your wife have some newsto share with the team here,
Clark?
Speaker 1 (44:26):
It is not me, it is
not my wife, it is an actual
listener of our podcast.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
That's a fair call
out, because they reached out
basically asking if we had moreoptions for the baby onesie, and
good news is we actually have alot of options for the clothes
and swag that we can create theepisode that I should have
posted today that hasn't beenbecause Buzzsprout's been down
all day, but it'll be up soon.
We mentioned this and I'm justgoing to mention it again in
case you didn't listen.
We can actually create morecorporate strategy, adjacent
(44:56):
swag gear, whatever the heck youwant to call it.
It's completely nonprofit forus, so we keep the prices as low
as we possibly can for you.
But if you want a fun shirt andI put Clark on the job of
creating us some new logos,taglines, catchphrases that we
can put on clothing let us knowin the Discord and we can go and
create those things, becausethere are so many things we
could put clothes on, like thoselittle slap wrist brace
(45:19):
bracelets.
We can get our logo on there,why not?
And you know, I think that's asgood a place as any to call it
End on the capitalism note, eventhough we profit nothing.
Thanks again, alex, for joiningus on the pod.
We love you, we appreciate youand we thank you for the topic.
As always, I'm Bruce and I'mClark and you're on mute.
(45:41):
We'll see you next week.