141: Getting Through This With Michael Sadeghpour

Thank you to our sponsors, LeadIQ, Costello, SalesLoft, WorkRamp, and Dialpad for helping us produce this podcast. Head over to jbarrows.com slash blog for the highlights of this episode and explore resources you can use right away. Let's make it happen. Good afternoon, everybody. This is John Barrows. Make it happen Monday. Yeah. I'm not going to say I hope you had a great weekend because I can't imagine there's too many people that are out there that had a great weekend based on the shit show that we're in right now. So instead of releasing a normal podcast, because we usually do a bunch of the podcasts and, you know, kind of drip them out. And, you know, so we did a bunch of interviews. We had them in the stack.

We just usually roll them out on Mondays. I paused all that because I think we all need to be very conscious of what's happening right now and try to talk about it, truck it through. So I am actually bringing on my good friend, Mike Sadipour, Sadipour, right? That's how you say I always called you Sags. Is it Sadipour, right? Sadipour. I always fuck that up. Sorry, man. And over at EdgeThink. And the reason I'm bringing Mike on, actually, this is a great example of social selling. You know, Mike hit me up, even though we're friends. He hit me up on a post that I did and he said, hey, man, I'm doing a lot of, you know, positive thinking, motivational stuff right now for some teams. And, you know, would you be interested in talking about it?

And I immediately said, yes, let's get on the podcast and have this conversation. So, Mike, you want to introduce yourself to everybody and let everybody know what you're working on right now? Sure. Thanks, John. Thanks for having me. You know, I approach my work just on the mental side, right? The mental side of performance. And then I try to apply that to sales organizations and non-sales. So, today, in our discussion, in the last two weeks, I think I've spoken to virtually about 1,500, you know, folks with a bunch of different companies about, like, all right, we are in a shitstorm here. And then how do we navigate this? You know, what role does our internal dialogue play? Totally. And then how powerful that is and how that shapes our behavior.

I love it, man. Yeah. And quite honestly, I need a little bit of this right now, too, man. So, yeah, man, let's talk it through because, I mean, I'll tell you where my head's at. You know, I've had some ups and downs, obviously, through this. I'm trying to stay as positive as possible. I will say last night, I mean, just to be very, very upfront with everybody here, you know, last night was a down night. Like, it was probably my worst night through this whole thing. It got really heavy for me. I don't know about you, Mike. I mean, a lot of people are looking at you, looking at me for, like, hey, what do we do and that type of thing. And so there's the outside of the personal stuff of your family and taking care of your friends and family.

You know, you got some people leaning on you a little bit. And I want to make sure that I'm staying positive for them, too. But yesterday was tough, man. You know, we lost $100,000 out of the pipeline that, because we had, you know, we'd obviously, all of our stuff is on site, right? So, well, not all of it, but a good chunk of it got dried up. But then we still had some people that were like, no, no, no, we still got to do this. And like, all right, let's shift to remote. Let's do the remote online stuff, right? And we had somebody who, like, had been telling us we got it. We have 25 grand right now. We have to spend it by the end of Q1 or else we lose it, blah, blah, blah. The woman was fighting for us through procurement, a champion of all champions, right?

Told us we got this. And then last Friday, you know, we got an email saying, oh, it just has to go one. You know, now our CRO is getting involved in everything just to make sure, but we're still good. And as soon as I saw that email, I was like, fuck, we're dead. And then sure as shit Monday or yesterday, I'm sorry, sure as shit yesterday, we get an email. Sorry, we can't. Everything's on lock, right? So we lost, you know, what I thought being super conservative, I thought we had an extra $100,000 in the pipeline, right? Poof, see you later. Then, and not for anything, I really am trying not to be political with this, but, you know, when our leader is standing up there saying he wants everybody back in the churches for Easter, I almost had a heart attack because that's just going to make it nothing but worse.

And then I got this, I got this Instagram from this woman who had gone through my public workshop yesterday and, or last week and was all fired up. She's like, John, I took your public, you know, your remote public workshop. I was fired up to get into work and dah, dah, dah. This Monday, I got laid off, okay, but she's seven months pregnant. And that was the one that broke me, man, because I'm sitting there, I'm like, I can't imagine being pregnant right now. First of all, being pregnant in and of itself is stress, right? Being pregnant in this environment and having to go to the fucking hospital right now, are you out of your mind? And then being pregnant, going in this environment and getting laid off two months before, like, holy shit.

So I just went, I, like, what I did was I lit up Instagram and I just started talking. I said, hey, I gotta, I gotta just, I gotta talk right now. I don't know who I gotta talk to. Anybody wants to join me. I got wicked stoned and I just, you know, lit it up and said, hey, you know, and, you know, a bunch of people joined and I just kind of shared where my head's at. So, you know, today I'm better. I'm in a more optimistic mood right now. I think we do have an offering that can get after it. But what do you, like, that internal dialogue, man, like, help, help me out. Help, help us out. Think about how we need to be dealing with this shit on a day to day basis. Because if you watch the news right now, you're going down a fucking, I, I'm not watching the news anymore.

I can't. I made a decision this morning that I am no longer watching the news because I go down this dark hole every time I do. So help, help me out here, man. Help us out. Oh, geez. You know, it, you know, and full disclosure for me, I've been studying this. And doing this for a long time, I had the same reactions, too. And it's just, it's this internal battle that you have, right? And so when we talk about the internal dialogue, it's really the vocabulary that we use to describe or to interpret what happens. And the reason why the vocabulary is so important, because vocabulary gives the event meaning. And once you give it meaning, that's where the emotions come from. And there is nothing more powerful that we have than our emotions.

Right. And so if we think about it just from a, you know, just being a person, forget about being a professional salesperson right now. It's, you start creating those emotions and you find the negative, you know, and you just start tilting that way, then you start seeing negatives. And it's something called negative stacking. And, you know, if I was to kind of put my fingers up and you went through like different episodes, different events that you went through. And what happens is we go into like this tension ball, this fist, and I'm making a fist and you can see the white knuckles. And all of us, in anything that we do, sports, performance, selling, tension kills us. And so the first thing that I try to do is like, all right, I'm going down that hole.

I go like this and I open my hand up and I'm like, all right, blood coming back into my hand. And I'm like, okay, I'll take this separate event, this event, this event, this event, and this event. And I actually write them down. So the example I'd give you, last Wednesday, my son Jack is a senior at the University of Miami. And, you know, they were, you know, extending the spring break and they would go online and then we got the notification, he's got to come home. So like you, my last time I looked at the financial news, it was down $1,300, first one. Second one, I'm on the phone with Jack and I'm like, you got to come home. And usually Miami to Boston, you know, there's tons of flights. There were two, nine and six.

So from my perspective, I'm like, Jack, get on the nine o'clock flight. 9 a.m. And he's hesitating and I'm not really paying attention to him. I'm like on my agenda. And my wife's in the room and she goes, put it on pause. And she's like, honey, this is how he's going to leave a place that he loves and his best friend. You got to let him have some closure. And I'm thinking, damn, I didn't even think of that. So sure enough, hey, six o'clock work. Yep. Thanks, dad. Blah, blah, blah. We get him home. Third, high risk with the coronavirus. Dad has COPD, 81. Mom's 84. Elena's mother lives in Utica by herself at 84. And my wife's a cancer survivor. Another one. And then I have my own business like you.

I'm like, how do I navigate this? So I can go from that to this. And if I said to you, John, open up my hand, you can't. No way. But if I open my fingers and said, okay, I'm going to hold my fingers as tight as I can. In two seconds, you can take one of my fingers and bend them back. And the idea is when these things hit you is to recognize it and break each one of them down separately so that you don't get that negative stacking because that's the emotion that, you know, like you said, you were smart enough to vent and connect, right? And that's one of the things that we can't do in these times is like stay on an island because these are real emotions. And like I said, like I talk about you're in a demon and you're in a hero, you're in a villain.

And I'm never like 80, 20 with the hero. I'm like 55, 45, 60, 40 is a really good week, right? And so I'm just trying to monitor, is my mindset working for me or against me? And if I can just keep it so that I feel like I'm in control or I'm at least navigating some of these things, I'm like, okay, I feel like I'm in control and there's some things I can do, but I'm not denying the landscape that we're in. It's going to be challenging for a while and really hard. And it's like, how do we navigate this and keep trying things and stay connected? Yeah. And how do you, I mean, so I've always said, because this falls in line with something I've always said to people, um, you know, momentum is, is killer, right?

One way or the other, it's good and bad. And, you know, and I had this, a friend of mine a while back, you know, uh, this was way before, uh, any of this shit hit and she was going through really a tough time. Right. And, and every, every time I called her, she was, it was negative every time. Right. And I'm like, God damn it. Like you're just such a, like she's in touch, such a tailspin. So I said to her, I say, Hey, do me a favor. Um, I want you to, and I gave her a notebook and I said, I want you to go around today and I want you, or tomorrow was the day before. So I said, tomorrow, I want you to go down and I want you to write down every little thing. Like, I don't care how small it is, every little positive thing you come across.

So if you, if you hit a green light on your way to work, write it down. If somebody opened the door for you, uh, going into Dunkin' Donuts, write it down, right? That type of thing. And no matter what it is, if somebody calls you, texts you that, just write it down. She's like, why? I go, just do me a favor. And, and she did it. And she came back to me with like four pages at the end of that day. She was like, Oh my God. She's like, I've had the best day that I've had in months, John. Look at all the positive things that happened to me. And I said to her, I go, do you think today was any different than yesterday? Other than your lens, other than your lens, you were looking for the negative and you were finding it.

All I did was change your lens to look for the positive and you started to look for it and you found it. And she was like, Holy shit. And, and, and so it kind of feeds into that, the fist, right? It balls up and then it goes deep, right? I guess right now, like, what are you looking for? And like the positives, first of all, does that resonate with, with kind of what you talk to people about? And second of all, in a time like this, when there's so much negativity, there's like, every time you turn around, you hear another heartbreaking fucking story about what's happening, right? That type of thing. Even if you don't turn on the news, like what are the positives that we can look for right now?

I have some of my own that are, that are keeping me sane. But what are some of the, what are, what are you trying to like? So we look at the problem, right? We, we, we, we got the, we undo our fists and we look at them individually. Well, I'm going to actually, let me take a step back from this. Cause let's, let's feed off of that. How do you now deal with each one of these individually? And then after we deal with the negative, let's talk about how we shift to the positive. So talk to me about how we deal with this, like fucking a, this one. Yeah. Yeah. So one of the techniques is, um, it comes from Dr. Seligman down at the university of Pennsylvania. He's world renowned. He's kind of the, the, the founder and leader of optimism, the science and the research behind optimism and how important optimism is.

Um, he not only is a salesperson because they've seen the research. It's 30% higher than non-optimists, but in your health. And it's because of the lens in which you see things. Right. And that's all based on your inner dialogue. So it's shaped from early childhood through adolescence. But he talks about, you know, one of the things to make sure that we're, we're, we're not kind of, you know, really kind of the perspective, we lose perspective and that emotional, everything is wrong. He calls this technique, learning to argue with yourself. And, you know, when I first, when I was in class, like, I'm like learning to argue with yourself with me, walking around, talking to you like, what, what is that?

And, and he, and he said, look, you do it already as third party. Like you were just coaching that salesperson who was really struggling. Right. Cause your emotional state was pretty good. And so you're a dad, you know, I'm a dad. You got, you know, you're an uncle, you're a coach, you're, you're a trainer. You do this all the time, which is two people are, are at an emotional state where they're, they're, they're going at it. Yeah. You come into the room and what's the first thing you say? What's going on? What happened? Yeah. What happened? What happened? Well, and one says the other, and they're both inaccurate because they're misaligned in what they're arguing about. And you try to get to the facts.

It's the first thing you do because the facts, 50% of the time, the conclusion or the position someone has, the facts don't back it up. So that's the first one we're talking about this fist. The second filter is based on those facts. Control. What can we control and what can't we control? And the can't we control is as important as what we can control. Cause that's where that negative mental chatter comes. Right. You know, like, you know, you said, Hey, I'm not even watching the news because when I saw 1300 points, what do you think my, how many thoughts I was having in my head? Right. It went amps and give people perspective, John, the, the, the, there's research out of Stanford that says, Hey, give or take 40,000 to 60,000 thoughts a day that we're able to take in, digest, organize, be pretty objective and make pretty good decisions.

While when stress hits or we start getting that negativity, that funnel that we're able to do that with was like this. And it's the same thing with water pressure. You got it here and you take the funnel. It comes out hotter and faster. Well, that means our thinking is not as accurate. And if our thinking is not as accurate, now we start taking these defaults and they're called thinking traps. And those thinking traps are like emotional reasoning, right? Our emotions are driving our decision-making, magnifying the negative, only seeing the negative and then magnifying it. Tunnel vision, no positive, negative only. And so these thinking traps undermine our ability to think clearly and also deplete our resilience level.

So back to what we're thinking about, okay, so how do we start turning that in this learning to argue? We're taking that spigot and we're trying to open it up again and slow down. Then we get to what we can control. And when you start thinking about, all right, I have this one thing that's really bothering me. What can I do about it? So you and I were talking about our businesses. The same thing with the 100,000, the 25,000, I get these, I'm like, all right, what can I control? And I'm like, how do I add value? What can I do for my clients? Because most of us, we've talked about this over drinks, like we love what we do. You know, we love the journey that we're on because at the end of the day, we're helping companies and people.

That's a pretty good idea. I kind of like waking up to that. I love it. Right. That's why I do what I do. Me too. And so that's one. I'm like, all right, so what can I do? And that's where I was like, I'm going to reach out to my former clients. Yep. How can I help? Yep. And my current clients and prospects, like, let me just do this for you. Yeah. Second. All right. How do I get my content to really be applicable to today? Yeah. You know, and so those are the things that give me that feeling of going more in a proactive and now it's not, it's not the fire hose coming at me and I've changed the dynamic. So what can you control? And then the third is perspective. And this is the one that's really important because if it's making a mountain out of a molehill, we have a reaction, right?

And that's that fight or flight reaction, you know, that adrenaline shot. Well, that chemical in our body is cortisol and that's designed for like running away from big animals. Right. We're taking someone on a better night. That thing's been wired for a long time, but it's only designed for minutes. And so you get this unbelievable burst of energy, you know, your eyes dilate, all the blood goes into your big limbs, right? Your muscles. Well, we're not built to do it six times a day or 25 times a week because we're depleting our system. And now if we keep doing that, we're trying to operate in what they call like level three exhaustion, where, for example, and I went through this at Forrester during the dot com and then nine 11, I remember sitting in a room.

Um, and I know how to do this. And here I was and I blocked it out for two hours. I did nothing. I got nothing done. I couldn't even write it. I couldn't even write an email. Right. And two plus two is five because I was exhausted. And that's where this perspective is so important to kind of monitor our emotions. So that learning to argue is a way to start really looking at this black and white. And then yeah. Can I ask you like when you say learn to argue like, like literally what do you say to yourself when you're arguing with yourself? I mean, word for like, what are some of the words that you say to yourself? Like, shut up, asshole. Like things are going to get better. Like, fuck off. I'm they're going to be miserable.

Like, do you literally do the, you know, that type of thing? Like, like, talk to me there. Yeah. I go 90 seconds. Okay. Right. I heard this from a doctor. Her name is Dr. Rosenberg. She's an expert in emotions. And she calls it the 90 second work. She calls it the Rosenberg reset, which I thought was kind of cool. And she runs through. She goes, look, you're going to have emotions. We're emotional beings. So we're not fighting that. Let's lean in, accept the emotion, give it 90 seconds, and then let's go. Now I'm over here preaching at 57 years old. If I told you what I was like in my younger days is the antithesis of this. I had no idea. And I was my own worst enemy. Right. I was that person who would just fly off the hook and it undermined my ability to be effective in the best version of myself.

So it's okay to feel that. But the discussion, like what words I use, I always come back to like, what are the facts of what can I control? And it's like, when you ask yourself what you can control and you put pen to paper, it forces you to slow down. You're opening up that spigot and then it goes black and white. And I'm still a pen and paper guy and bullet points. And all of a sudden I'm like, okay, this is kind of the landscape I'm operating on. And now let's move forward. I like it. Yeah. You know, it's funny. I, um, you've, I don't know if you've seen, but, uh, you know, a while ago, um, the first election, right. Uh, again, we're not huge fans, whatever. Or, and I, my wife and I were getting very, very animated about what was happening, you know, some, almost four years ago.

Right. And I could tell my daughter, you know, she was three, uh, shoot. No, I'm sorry. So this was three years ago. So, or almost four. So she's nine. So she was like five, right. Five or six. And I could tell that our emotion was impacting her. Right. Like she was getting stressy. She, she was getting short and all that other stuff. And so I said, you know what, stop again, stop watching the news. And then we came up with this little acronym, um, the, to, to, to get through this. And I said, sweetheart, we can only focus. We should only focus on what we can control. And we came up with this little acronym called eat, which is effort, attitude, and how you treat people. Right. Those are those, those are the three things you control your effort.

You know, how hard you work, you control your attitude of positive or negative, and you can control how you treat people. And so every morning we now get up and say, all right, what can we control? We get this little handshake where it's EAT, effort, attitude, how we treat people, boom, dynamite. Right. And, and it's this mindset of, you got to keep getting centered on that. Like you can't control what's happening on the news. You can't control what's happening in other countries. You can't control what's happening, you know, to a certain degree, you and I can try to control what's happening in our businesses. Um, but even that, you know, there's certain things that I like, I'm, I can't control right now.

You know what I mean? I, I had a, I had a meeting with my team this morning and I said, guys, originally to literally two weeks ago, I said to him here where we are right now. Um, I can pay salaries, no, I can't pay commissions, but I can pay salaries through Q2. And then after Q2, uh, then it's going to have to go straight commission. And then after that, if we can't sell our way out of this, I'm going to, I'm going to have to make some very hard decisions. That was my original mentality. Right. Yet just yesterday, we lost a hundred thousand dollars out of the pipeline. We have a bunch of receivables that are in question now because who knows if clients are going to actually pay those bills.

And so I had to tell him, I go, look, as April, I'm like, I can, I will cut my salary to the bone. Um, and I will pay you all, uh, salaries through April, but then at the end of April, I might have to make some really hard decisions here and we're going to do what's best for everybody and all that other stuff. So it's almost like with that, there's certain things you can't control about your business, but you can control the message, right? You can control. And I think now is, is a time for leadership over anything else. And, and, and, but you don't have to be the CEO of a company to be leader, right? You can be an SDR who just got into school to be a leader, to, to stand up and try to give people positive, you know, mindsets and get people out of that negative fucking dark hole that they're going down.

Right. Cause man, it also festers. Like we're talking about it as you and I, right. In the sense that we're, you know, we see this fist and that's, that's my fist and that's your fist. But then you and I get together and we have fists and another person has a fist and now all of a sudden we're kicking the shit out of each other and it's all negative. So somebody has to be that light to come in and open up that fist. Right. And you can lead right now. I think that was a great opportunity for people to take that leadership role, um, in a lot of ways, right? No matter how experienced or inexperienced you are, I think the mental component of this is what's going to get people through because I mean, I, I'm trying to be optimistic here, man, and, and say that we're going to, you know, it's going to peak in April.

It's going to level off in May. It's going to start to reduce in June. And then July, we're going to start to move into the right direction. Right. That's, that's me being optimistic, but I just found out London fucking shut their doors until September. London said, fuck off everything. We are in lockdown until September. So it's like, okay. Right. So, so, so I guess let's, let's transition there then to that positive side. Like, like how are you looking for, what are you looking for to, to keep you going right now? Yeah. It's, you know, I just want to emphasize what you just brought up about how you're treating people because, um, I did a, a, a session with IBM Monday night. Um, we had like 450 people and there's such a need from these professionals.

And you think IBM, right? How, you know, that, that's a world-class organization. I mean, that's a tough environment to sell. I mean, and they wanted kindness and support like all of us. And years ago I was sitting with Dave Silk, you know, they, they've been, um, um, celebrating the 80 Olympic team, uh, the men's ice hockey team that beat the Russians. And, um, he was a member and, um, he was talking to, he was talking about, he was giving a talk to the kids and, you know, sometimes they folks that have played, give these like new rock these speeches. And he talked about be a great teammate and talk about what that really is and what that looks like. And in pressure in times like this is when everyone reveals where they really are.

And people never forget how you treat them in times like this. And your compass is like, what's the right thing. And to your point, be as transparent as you can, because this is painful stuff, John. We've been, how long we've been at this building our businesses. It's like, I am emotionally attached to my business and right. And, and so with people that you work with, if they are part of your family and, you know, as you, as you think about this and if people kind of digest this, look at this really, really powerful research on emotions and, you know, positive and negative emotions. And here's where I'm going with this. If we think of negative emotions, we know they're contagious and they're unbelievably powerful, right?

They're really powerful. Well, that's anger, frustration, right? That's that whole. And if we think about like, all right, if we need resilience right now, negative emotions, but deplete our resilience levels, that's no good. Second, if we have to be really creative and kind of think outside the box, active problem solving, be in touch, be really good communicators, negative emotions constrain all of that. That's my example with my son. I wasn't listening to him. I put myself in his, you know, in his shoes and then third negative emotions. They it's, it's like, um, shutting down collaboration, right? It just shuts it down. And so then if you go on the other side, positive emotions. So you, you know, that, um, exercise you asked that a professional sales person to do in some way or another, she was doing a gratitude exercise, all the good things that happen, shaping it.

Optimism is one of those joy and happiness. And so if negative emotions deplete our resilience levels, positive emotions fuel them. Okay. Really hard to be positive right now. Yeah. But I can tell you connecting with really good people, like when we finish this podcast, I'll feel better. Yeah. Cause you and I talk, like I'm sharing kind of my, my stuff and you're sharing your stuff and you get it. And I get it. Like we're coming from the same area. That's a positive, right? The second. So that fuels resilience. The second positive emotions, just think when you're in a good state, how creative you are, how much you want to learn. You talked about attitude with the, with your, uh, your acronym.

That's your on and off button attitudes, your on and off button to learning and engagement engagement. And then you go to the third and you go, well, negative emotions are really powerful and contagious. Well, a positive emotions undo negative emotions. You know, when you're in a bad spot and someone picks you up, that's positive emotions at work. And there's this, uh, research, uh, the Lasada effect. And they talk about every negative interaction, you need three positives to get back to zero. And we've all been there, right? And you and I've talked about having our own businesses versus working for some knuckleheads, you know, and people who are just so net, you're like, I don't want you in my life.

And right. And so that understanding that, that, okay, so how do I become more optimistic is the question I would, I get right. And it's like, all right, we go, back to that inner vocabulary, inner dialogue and vocabulary. Are you kind of thinking in your head always and never, um, you're connecting a negative event to a future event, or are you personalizing it until a point where you're like, I'm a bad salesperson or I'm a bad person, right? Because that pessimistic view of interpretation, there's three buckets that we fall into. So always and never is kind of the visual of you are from, uh, Winnie the Pooh. Well, always and never is permanence. That's the fancy term for like, well, think about it.

If you don't think you're never going to sell again, or this is always not going to work, you're in the process of giving up. You're not doing it on purpose. You're just taking your foot off the pedal and in sales or owning your business. That's, that's like a written death notice, but you can't do that. So you've got to figure out how not to do that. So instead of always this time, never is it, is it never like the diets never work? No diets don't work when I have to travel a lot. I know that, but if I'm home for three weeks, I'm actually pretty good, but you, you don't do those long-term things because that is your ability to get back on the horse. And so if you don't think you can change the outcomes, be doing this.

And then the second one is that spatial control, that universal versus specific negative event. Does it mean the rest of the day? Right. A bad, a bad, a bad call. Like we can't survive this. So how do we compartmentalize that? And then the third is like, don't beat yourself up and just being aware of that. That's when you start writing down, like, is my mindset working for me? Yeah. Great. What are the, what's the vocabulary you use? Momentum, you know, those small wins you were talking about for me, it's a routine. Like, um, uh, like I'm, I've been telling folks, I said, look, it can go leave it, but here's my suggestion. Given the stress that we're under and the uncertainty, I would suggest to you and recommend that you should be thinking of yourself as an elite athlete, meaning sleep, nutrition, and rhythm and physiology.

So get your sleep as best you can start your, your routine. For me, I'm an early riser coffee, something light to eat. And I stretch, you know, at my age, when I stretch, it sounds like a door open, right? Yeah. I'm moving the toxins and my physiology helps my emotion. Sure. And then I kind of think of what outcomes am I trying to drive? And people like, oh, that's nice. And I'm like, dude, they're changing all the time because to your point, I'm getting news and I'm like, how do I, how do I navigate this? But at least I'm trying to drive some outcomes versus making a to do list. Yeah. And that helps me kind of stay on that and recognize like today. Like, well, I have a good day or not. I'm not going to make any money today.

Today's not a revenue day, but I've probably touched a couple of, you know, a couple of hundred people today and that's good. Yeah. Right. So that's, that's kind of how I try to do it. Yeah. I love it, man. I think it's, uh, I think we all got to find our ways, you know, I think that, you know, Jeff Hoffman. So, you know, Jeff, um, you know, he did a work from home, uh, webinar yesterday, I think it was, and he had an interesting take on goals versus activities, right? He said, when you work at home, usually when you work in the office, you focus on goals and activities are secondary, right? He's like, when you work in the office, you got to, or when you work from home, you got to flip that over and you got to be very activity oriented.

Like you have to like, like hit those activities to stay productive, right? Because goals, whatever, like, yes, you should still have them, but he's very metric, you know, very activity oriented. And, and to me, you know, that's a lot of what keeps me going too, which is, you know, having, having a to-do list, having a, a, a list that I feel like I accomplished something. You know what I mean? Like I, I, I gain a lot of satisfaction personally from, um, an empty inbox. You know what I mean? Like, I know it sounds small, right? But, but like when my tasks are up to date, I feel good. When, when my inbox is empty, I feel good. Um, when I, when I paint my daughter's, uh, bedroom or, or, you know, um, you know, this weekend, you know, I made the mistake of, uh, I was like, oh, you know, all these projects around the house.

Right. And so, you know, we've been meaning to paint her playroom and I was like, I'll start doing that. So I started moving the furniture and, you know, and getting the room kind of set up Sunday night and I put it all in plastic wrap and everything like that. And I woke up Monday morning and I was like, oh fuck, I thought this was going to be like a project to keep me going for like a week or something like that. I'm like, fuck my daughter's home. And I just put all of her shit that she plays with under plastic wrap. I'm like, uh, I gotta get this. So I, I, you know, did everything I could and I painted the room, but I felt good after I, I completed that, you know what I mean? So, you know, I think there's, there's good to look for, right.

You know, not turning on the news, but maybe turning on something else. Uh, you know, I think now I've had this idea for a long time, which is I wanted to start the good news network, which was only good news. Right. I think now is a better time than anything for that. Right. But it's, it's almost like, you know, um, I don't know if you watch the nightly news, right. For NBC, uh, used to be Ryan Williams, uh, whatever, but now it's whatever Lester Holt. Um, they always have at the end. Uh, I don't watch it anymore. Like starting at six 30. Um, but I, I turn it on at six 50 and because they always end with something positive, always end with something positive. Like somebody doing something for somebody, some, whatever it is.

And I just watch that one thing. Cause I just want to see that one positive thing happen. You know what I mean? And see that there are good things happening right now. I mean, I said that, you know, I look for my own things. Um, you know, some of those things are, it's funny. Um, you know, we, we've, uh, with technology, um, I, what I ended up doing was, you know, the Facebook, uh, portal, you know, the little device, right. The Facebook was on, it's basically an iPad. Right. But, um, so I bought it, they're like 120 bucks. I bought one from myself, you know, us, our family, uh, my sister and her, her kid, uh, my mom and dad, and then, uh, my wife's mom and dad and my wife's grandmother. And I just shipped them all to them.

And now you've one click button. It's a face and there's, you know, a little funny things you can do with the, the, the haircuts and stuff like that. And, and we also, uh, we use zoom and we've been sending out virtual hangouts with friends. Right. So nine o'clock, 10 o'clock at night, we got a text thread going and we just light everybody up. Hey, everybody want to have a drink. Right. And we light up zoom and I've got it hooked up to my TV where I can now see like 10 people on zoom. Right. And we just sit there and shoot the shit and drink, play some, play some drinking games and stuff like that. You know, and it's funny, she, you know, we've been doing that for the past week or two and my wife made the comment.

She's like, you know what the, the silver lining here is we've connected with more people, more of our friends, uh, in the past week than we have in the past six months. Yeah. And, and then, you know, so that's keeping me going. Right. Um, the other thing that's keeping me going is, you know, my wife's an environmental scientist and, um, the environmental impact of this is so positive. It's ridiculous. I mean, I, I, you know, I don't want to discount anything that's happening to humans and how people are dying. But I mean, if you look at the emissions of China before the virus, it was like this big dark cloud. And then now it's crystal clear. Right. And it's almost like this is mother nature's way of saying, Hey, humans cut the shit.

You know what I mean? Stop fucking around right here because this whole thing's going to burn to the ground if you don't start paying attention. And this might be just might be that shift that we needed to stop and recenter a little bit and stop. And then the other pieces, I'm hoping this is a globe, you know, globally is that we look at this and say, you know, let's, let's, let's get back to being real. Let's, let's get back to the, you know, like saving money every, you know, and, and not spending on stupid, ridiculous things that aren't important and, you know, not having relationships that don't matter. Um, you know, and, and, and, and that's my hope and prayer. You know, my, my, my, what's keeping me moving is that I really do believe that this, we are going to come out of this stronger, that each one of us, some people unfortunately won't come out of this at all.

Um, and God bless them and their families. Uh, but those of us who do come through this, a lot of us who come through this businesses, individuals, that type of thing, I think we're going to be stronger and, and, and have a long, a lot better perspective on things, uh, than, than we did in the past. And what's really important, right. And relationships are important. You know, I mean, there's, there's a group of people, you know, that I reach out to that, that I haven't reached out to in a while, but are on my list. You know what I mean? Of, of people I give a shit about, you know, I've been calling them around and saying, Hey, I just want to let you know you're on my give a shit list. I just want to see how you're doing, you know, how your head's at, you know, is there anything I can do to help or whatever it is?

And these aren't customers, you know, these are, these are partners. These are friends. These are, you know, people I've been in business with for a while, but, um, there's a lot of power in that, John, you know, in, in, in the, you know, uh, I'm on a text with, um, guys that I went to school with from 85 and 84. There's 30 knuckleheads connecting from Canada and the U S laughing out loud and sending things, but also checking on each other, right. In the check-ins and the phone calls, the Face times. And to your point, like reaching out to people is unbelievably powerful because the, you know, they're like, Hey, thanks for calling, but thanks for connecting. And everyone's in the same bucket.

And, and what, you know, one of the things you said that I really liked was the completion, you know, and, uh, they talk about completing projects or to-do lists and then creating complete and create keeps you moving. Um, and it, there is this tennis match emotion, you know, we're all emotionally off balance right now. And so there's that tennis match that we're trying to navigate. But if you think about it and ask that question is you got to believe you're going to come out of it. And so what you're going to be a better version of you in all kinds of ways. It's not just business. It's like who you are and what, yeah. And I think that to your point, you're really kind of doing some soul searching with downtime as am I about like, what's really important.

And that's like, you know, you've got to look at it that way. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, uh, it's heavy, man. Hey, can I, I'm going to ask you more of a personal question. Cause this is one I'm struggling with. I think this is, uh, um, so I smoke a shitload of weed, right. And that helps me. Is that a bad thing to turn to something like that? And I mean, and I mean, by the way, my mentality on this drugs, you know, whatever, everybody's got their addictions and those types of things and problems with that type of thing. I've, thankfully for me, I've never been in, I'd never had an addictive personality. So I, you know, I can kind of do something, test it out and be like, all right, you know, I like that, but you know, type of thing where other people get hooked on it.

So I appreciate that all over the place. Um, alcohol to me to, I've always said is, is, is negative because it, it changes people in a fundamentally bad way. Right. And people turn to alcohol and they become alcoholics and that's an addiction, right? Uh, I've read a ton of studies on, on marijuana and all that other stuff and how it's not addictive and all these other things. Um, is it so, so for me, I've come to peace with, I think weed is okay. You know what I mean? Yes. Okay. There's bad things for my lungs, right? And that type of thing, but it definitely helps me calm down. It helps me relax. It helps me recenter. Um, is it bad for me to look to something like that for comfort? And please be honest with me.

I like, cause, cause I don't want, like I'm, I'm asking this in a, cause it's been something I've been thinking about. Like I justify it because like, for instance, last night, what I did was I was, and look, dude, I, I've been blessed. Um, I am pretty emotionally stable. I don't, I don't get depression. I barely get stressed out. You know what I mean? Like I I'm pretty cool. Like, you know what I mean? In most, like, even in super stressful situations, I rarely tee off. I rarely go down that dark hole. You know what I mean? I've always been like, all right, yep, I got this. No problem. Let's keep moving forward. Let's stay positive. That type of stuff. That's always kind of been my, my mantra.

I don't know where it came from. I don't know how nature nurture you call it, whatever you want. Um, but I found myself yesterday, like, like for the first time in a long time, like starting to, starting to freak the fuck out. Right. So what I did was I grabbed a fucking joint. I lit it up. I threw out on Instagram and I was like, I got to talk. I got to talk. I don't know who I want to talk to, but I got to talk and I got to, I got to work this out right out loud, but I was doing it with, with some help. Right. Um, is it ultimately a bad thing, uh, to, to turn to something like weed, uh, in control, in moderation without, you know, going crazy and being a fucking pothead all day, every day?

Right. Is, is that a bad thing? Well, if it's, um, you know, kind of the end of the day and to relax, people have to drink a glass of wine. If it becomes your, your, your, your, your, your default of to take away anxiety or that you start, you, any of us would start going down the road. It's, it's like one drink becomes two drinks becomes three drinks. You're not realizing it. And then the question is then, uh, you know, what are your coping mechanisms without it? Because it gets back to look at the, the, the, the emotional kind of the things that we're working through, you know, our cognitive, the way we work this in our brain, our brain is malleable. And so there are techniques that you can incorporate, um, to help you bring that anxiety level down.

It's a one-off, a one-off. Look at that. Am I going to have a martini at the end of the week? I'm going to have one cause I like them. Right. It kind of sets me up for dinner and I enjoyed it on a Friday night, but I'm not having them in Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday nights. I'm not doing it. So that's kind of how I think about that. Yeah. That's kind of where my head is at. Cause I, you know, I, I do, I do, you know, worry a little bit about like, you know, the health and, you know, again, the lungs, you know, my, it's funny, my doctor said to me, he goes, look, I don't care whether you like have weed or not. He's like, just don't smoke it. He's like, cause he's like the THC, it doesn't hurt you.

It's, it's the, it's your lungs. It's, it's the smoke in your lungs. Right. So he goes THC, fuck it. You know, you want to eat some brownies, you want to do whatever you want to do there. I like that. That's not going to hurt you at all. It's totally natural. And it's really good to do. So, you know, that's kind of where I've been like, okay, you know, as long as it's not overboard, you know, that type of thing. But I, but I, to your point, I don't want to get it to like, and I've smoked weed for years. So it's not like, so I'm kind of a functional weed smoker, but, um, it's one of those things where I want to make sure that I'm keeping it in check and not having a be the vice, you know what I mean?

Having it be the thing that is the thing I constantly turn to, um, when I'm stressed out. Right. So cool. I appreciate that. Do you, um, do you exercise? Uh, I, so I used to, I'm going to, I have to get back into a different form of exercise here. Um, but I used to at least go to, um, I got a boxing gym, uh, right behind my house. And so every Saturday morning, uh, this military guy who was my, you know, my age, 42 years old, good kid, you know, and we just sit there and hit the heavy bag, you know, group of 10, 20 of us, you know, one, two, one, two, three burpees, that type of thing. So it's a fucking, I don't know if you've ever done a boxing workout, man, but that's a fucking workout and holy shit.

Um, so I do it. I, I was doing that at least every Saturday. Um, now obviously we're going to the gym is probably not the best thing to do. So I got to figure out a new normal for me, um, of, of how to at least do a little bit every day, you know? And, and what I used to do before that was, you know, just a few, like to your point, stretch a little bit in the morning, if you push up a few sit-ups, hit the elliptical for 10, 15 minutes, something like that, just to get the blood flowing. Right. Um, but yeah, I, I got, I have to, this, this past week has been a, obviously a shit show mentally and, and, and everything else. And I'm trying to find the new normal here, at least aspects of a new normal, um, for at least, you know, fucking a couple of weeks, you know, but I think that things have been such a rollercoaster right now, at least for me.

And I think for a lot of people that it's been hard for me to wrap my head around, uh, building a routine. I know how important it is. I talk about it all the time about, you know, get up in the morning, do, like you said, grab your coffee. Like I'm still going to dunks, you know, I still get up and I leave my house. I still go to dunks, grab my coffee, even though I got a Keurig here. Um, and, uh, you know, so I, when I get back, I'm in the right mindset, but I need to, I need to kind of now with the wife home and the daughter, you know, and all that other stuff, I got to figure out how to fit that, that part into it again. But yeah, it's definitely on my list of, of got to get back into that shit.

Yeah. It, um, I know when I'm not exercising what I'm like and when I am, it's a huge difference. And so I got one of those Pelotons, uh, and, and it's, it's almost a daily ride, uh, if I can. So it's, it's five days a week. Sometimes it's seven, 15 minutes to 90 minutes, depending on my schedule. But it, that gives me that, you know, that, that, that, you know, the what ifs, you know, that you can get ruminating and I, you know, people ask me like, what does it feel like? I'm like, take jumper cables and put them on my brain. That's what it feels like to me. So I have to, then for me, my outlet is I go through some of the things that I've been, you know, training and working on, but then I know that I need to have that exercise to get like exhausted and then I can breathe again.

Um, but when I start feeling those jumper cables, man, that's for me, that's what, that's the big signal. I love it, man. All right. Well, Hey, um, so let me ask you now about you and your business. Um, you're doing these calls with people to help them out, right. From a, just a positivity factor. People are looking for it. They need help. Right. Uh, what does that look like? Is it an hour? Is it two hours? Like how are you, what are you doing here? We're doing an hour. Okay. That's conversation. No PowerPoint. Okay. Conversational. Right. And so, you know, it's like, look, here's the framework. How do we keep our best foot forward, put it forward, given the freaking fear and uncertainty in the neck, the bombardment of negativity?

That's it. Like, how do you do that? And so what I try to do is, you know, we've, if it's, we work or I did rapid seven, I just did IBM recorded future. And it's just, it's like, okay, um, let me give you some content about the inner dialogue. Let me give you like a framework. Right. And then we get into, okay, this, this inner villain versus the inner hero and how important that is and what emotions do. And we get into like, all right. So then if you understand the emotional piece, what are some of the techniques to get back to the good? How do you recognize when you're kind of going in the negative down that spiral? And then I get questions. I get everything, John, from like, I'm not sleeping.

Right. I can't, I can't get to sleep. I'm like, all right. And she's like, what do I do? I said, here's a technique to try. It's get up, write down what's bothering you. Pen to paper again, slow the brain down. Great. Um, what did you exercise at all before you went to bed? Did you like how, before you went to bed, you were, were you on the electronics? What was your downtime? Well, how did you kind of get yourself there? And the whole idea around slowing down in your nutrition, that's why it's like so important now for that, like physiology, sleep and the nutrition it's because the, the amount of stress we're carrying. Um, so, you know, just, we know in the environment, it's much heavier than we're like, we're letting on to.

Oh, we got to be really cognizant of that, you know? Yeah. Um, if you don't mind me asking, how much are you charging for that? Cause I want to promote. I'm not. Are you not? No, I've reached out and I just said, look, let me help you. Um, I want to spend an hour with you, but what's happening, uh, people on their own are coming to me and want to pay. Yeah. And then, um, a couple of companies have said, how do we do more with you? And we'll pay. Okay. So, but my leading was just a gratis, you know? Um, do you, do you have like a one, like a one pager or is, do you have anything that describes this? Yeah. All right. Cause I want to, I want to share this with my audience. I'm going to share it with my audience.

I'm going to share it on LinkedIn. Um, because I'm Morgan and I, and James are doing our best. Like what we're offering people is we we've gotten, I told you we've gotten our packages down to like five grand, right. Even though, you know, it used to be 1700 lot in person. Now it's five grand for this remote delivery and it hits on a couple of marks. It hits on, you know, skills development, obviously, but there's also a project there. So that keeps reps busy. And then there's the emotional part of it. The, the, the, just the motivational piece. So we're offering that, but a lot of, obviously people don't have five grand to spend. And so we're saying, okay, for an hour, if you just want to do just an hour, just Q and a, like, you know, just, just, just to keep them distracted for a little bit and maybe, you know, bring a little bit of positivity into this, this thing.

Um, I'm, you know, I'm happy to do that. Right. But I don't have a lot of structure to it. I'm just telling people, if you think I can help because your team either likes me or knows us or whatever, and wants somebody to talk to, right. I'm happy to give that out. Right. So we're, we're offering that, but we don't have the expertise that you do when it comes to the real like psychology around what's happening. You know what I mean? Um, so I want, I want to help promote that. Cause I think a lot of people and, and shit, man, maybe, maybe you and I do, um, you know, maybe we do a webinar on this and invite the fucking world to it. And, uh, and you know, last webinar we did, we got like 3,500 people.

Um, you know, maybe that's something that I think I want to do if it's okay with you, um, to, to, to have this conversation out loud. I mean, we're going to post this on Monday. Um, but I, I, I think, I think everybody needs to, to, to, to have a little bit of pot, you know, something to hold onto some type of technique, like you said, something tangible to do as opposed to get better. We'll get through this. You know what I mean? Like, I don't need any more of that shit. I don't, I don't need any, I need some very tactical fucking things that I can do right now to keep myself from fucking going off the deep end. And, uh, and I think, you know, you're, you're, you're probably the best that I know to, to give people that stuff.

So awesome. And we'll, we'll tell me, um, in lieu of that, that we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll get together on, um, what's, um, how can people find out more about what you're doing and, uh, and, and find out more about you and stuff like that? Where, where, where's the best place to go? You know, if they just go to my LinkedIn page, you know, you can see me there and my contact information, the website is, you know, what is your edge.com. Um, and I'm just like, this is 10 days old, 12, you know, almost two weeks old of just kind of doing this. And, you know, one of the things I did, um, I'm going to do it for my, the place where I went to school for the alumni association. Um, and we just talked about it, went out in the newsletter and we're going to have a pretty big group of, you know, I went to a place that I was way over my ski tips.

So, you know, on the plate, like, and they're coming because these are people that are in all different industries, but they do want this piece. But the other thing I'll kind of reverse it, John is, um, you know, you're talking about people, they want access to third party sometimes in a fresh voice. But if you had a virtual one hour, uh, for salespeople on like their email, a product, like the message, like, cause they, you know, you know, you see it, they still, they're not adjusting and they're not right. And it's like, okay, here it is. So here's another shift that we can make. Um, you know, I, like my question would be on the other side of it with all the training you do is, you know, the targeting and the messaging, like if, if someone asked themselves, if I was this much more effective at writing or researching or targeting and understanding the buying cycle versus the selling methodology.

Um, cause you know, I think you had a, you had a great, uh, a podcast about the whole selling methodology hasn't changed forever. And the buyers have changed quite a bit. And they've, you know, they're, they're outpacing the sellers. Um, like that alone, like, how are you thinking about that? And what are you doing for skill development? Like an athlete, like, are you doing that kind of assessment? What I want to be better at? I just think there's a lot of power in that and a lot of get people kind of feeling like they're in control again. Yeah. We're trying to, we're trying to put that out there. Like, so we're, so we're still doing our content, but we're putting it in context of where we are right now.

Right. To say, stop. Like I'm telling people right now, if you saw my last few LinkedIn posts, I'm like, cut the shit with the template, like stop with the templated generic cadences. Okay. I'm not saying stop prospecting. I'm not saying stop with the cadences. I'm saying stop with the bullshit template, press play cadences. This is a time to a lead with empathy and be go deep on personalization because look, everybody's talking right now. Uh, it is Alex, oddly enough. Now it is easier to do research that's relevant than ever because every CEO has posted what their position is on COVID-19. Everybody, every company is tweeting about it on a daily, if not hourly basis. So all you have to do when you're reaching out and I'm, and I'm also telling people now is a time to, to your point, get to know your customer a little bit more.

You have to go two, three layers deep in the sense of knowing not just your customer, like who you're selling to, but who they're selling to. Yes. Because if you look at who they sell to, you can start to figure out what you can sell them that would help them. Right. Like I said, if you're, if you're selling into the travel industry right now, shut the fuck up. Like, don't even bother calling me right now. You know what I mean? Because like, come on, you know, if you're selling into doctors and hospitals to leave me the fuck alone, I got to go save people's lives. You know what I mean? Um, so, but what are those industries that are kind of in that, that, that we're still moving direction, right?

We're not mission critical for any life-saving things, but we're still moving in the right direction and, and, you know, be empathetic with where they are. Right. And, and, and really be genuine, but don't fake the genuine. I mean, I'm, I'm already starting to see people like use the, Hey, I hope you and your family are okay with COVID-19. So I got this great thing to sell you. And it's like, dude, fuck off. Like, come on, man. So that's when I, when I say my hope, you know, my, my, um, my hope is as we come out of this, that people will recenter and realize what's important. And to me, what's, what's really important is giving a shit is just genuinely giving a shit about people. We've gotten into this automated world of just pressing play and not even thinking about the person we're making that phone call to not even thinking about that email that we're sending that person to, you know what I'd like not even thinking about the person that is receiving that email.

We're looking at them as a name on our list of people that we need to call so I can make some money that that's how we've been looking at people for a long time now, at least in the SAS and the, in this space. Right. Um, but, but now is a time to actually look at these people. You know what I mean? To, to actually look at the companies to actually be empathetic with these people that we're reaching out to and give a shit. And if we come out of this with that mentality that we have to start giving more of a shit in lieu of all the deaths, I would say it was, it was a good thing. You know what I mean? If we could make sure that people didn't die, then I would say this is a good thing. Um, you know, obviously the deaths trump everything else, but, um, but yeah, man, I think it's, um, I, I do have optimism.

I mean, we're going to get through this period, right? I mean, it is that regardless how long it lasts, um, it will end eventually. Uh, some people won't make it out of it, but I have confidence that most will. And, and it's just, what does that new world look like? And my, my, what's keeping me going is that I think it's actually going to be a better world coming out of this, uh, than it works. Yeah. And, and I agree, John. And I, and I, you know, the thing that I would leave everybody with, um, I don't know if it was, I'm trying to think who I heard say this, but it just resonated with me. It's, you know, we've all met people that have resources, you know, and you meet people who are resourceful.

Yeah. That's, if you can be resourceful, that's your, that's your secret sauce to get through this and come out on the other side. Yeah. Got to get creative. I mean, that one more point on to, to, to highlight that, put a pin on it. It's, uh, you know, some people are just going to have to reinvent themselves, like literally reinvent everything about themselves because their industry is now gone. That job is no longer going to be there when you come back. And the ones who are sitting down going, Oh my God, what is, you know, woe is me and what, what can I do? And dah, dah, dah. They're, they're gonna, you're going to be in real trouble. The ones who say, okay, fuck it. Let me go see what I can do.

Uh, you know what I mean? Let me go learn something new. Like right now, talk about a time to educate yourself. You can go get a Harvard degree for free. If you wanted to, you can go get a Harvard degree for free. If you really wanted to, you won't get the degree, you won't get the, you know, degree and says, Hey, you graduated from Harvard, but the fucking information's out there. You want to become a coder, go become a coder. You know what I mean? Like, like this is the time to reinvent yourself. If your industry has been leveled, right. And to your point, the people who are resourceful and be able to figure that out about how to make that shift, they're going to be the ones that come out of this so much stronger.

Yeah. It's self-education is man. I'll tell you the folks that embrace that. Yeah. That's who's going to come out. Yeah. All right, brother. Well, look, I appreciate you coming on, man. And I, and I do, uh, you know, I genuinely appreciate you reaching out to me cause you know, impinging me on this cause cause I needed it. I'll tell you that. Um, you know, I'm, I'm trying to be the, you know, like, all right, you know, let's get through this. Right. But shit, man. Uh, when I start to freak out, I know there's, I know there's an issue cause I don't freak out all that often. And so I genuinely appreciate the conversation. And like you said, I'm going to walk away from this feeling better. So thank you.

Um, and for everybody else, uh, Mike and I are going to do some, I, we're going to do some more stuff. We're going to do a, we're going to do a public, uh, webinar on this, uh, have this conversation out loud, but this is podcast. But for those of you who want to learn more about Mike, uh, even though I always butcher, butcher his last name, it's, uh, S A D E G H P O U R. All right. Write that down, look them up. And it's what think, uh, what, what is it? Uh, edge, think.com edge, think.com go take a look at it. Sorry. What is your edge.com. What is your edge.com. All right. Go there. Check out Mike on LinkedIn. Uh, hit him up. If you need a talk like this, like I did today. And, uh, Mike, thank you very much.

All right. That you too, John. All right, everybody. Um, like I say at the end of every podcast, and I'm going to keep saying at the end of every podcast, cause I think it's now more important than ever, even though we're in the right now. Uh, and even though you might be having a miserable day, if you make somebody happy, if you make somebody smile today, you had a great day, you had a great day. Just make somebody smile. Just one person. All right. Make it a great week. Everybody's to hang in there. We'll get through this.