217: Tim Clarke On Loss, Grief, And Moving Forward

What's poppin' y'all, it's your man James Say What Sales Buckley, and this is your weekly fix of Make It Happen Mondays with your host, John Barrows. Big shout out to all of our partners, Sales Loft, Proposify, Rise, Vidyard, and Chili Piper. Check out these teams, you guys. These people do amazing things for your pipeline, your prospects, your development, and your results. A quick note here before we get started, our team's mission is to simply elevate the sales profession. We work to accomplish this mission through not only great training, but also great content, resources, and partners. Make no mistake, the reason that top performers are top performers is because they learn and adopt new selling tactics and techniques.

Are you looking for new ways to break through the noise? The JBSales team's knowledge and experience can be obtained, and you don't need permission or approval to invest in yourself. Learn how to schedule more meetings more often, see how effective messaging should look in 2021, and it can all be yours with your JBSales membership. Join us today at ondemand.jbarrows.com. Today, our longtime friend, Tim Clark of Uncrushed and Salesforce, has a ton of focus on mental health and business, and he's here to talk with John about grief and loss. John recently lost his dad. JB still has to come in every day and perform. He still has to train. He still has to come in and make it happen day in and day out, despite dealing with this tremendous loss.

So let's give it over to Tim and John for this extremely thoughtful conversation today. Hey, everybody. What's going on? So I wanted to give a little preface to this podcast because it's a little bit different than the ones we typically do. It's a little heavier. So I wanted to warn you before you started listening to this. Tim Clark, who is a good friend of mine, he works over at Salesforce, but also started Uncrushed.org. And what Uncrushed.org is, it's a nonprofit organization trying to bring mental health to the forefront, specifically in business, and have open conversations about mental health. And he reached out to me about my dad passing away because his dad passed away a while back and wanted to discuss grief.

I wanted to talk about how people deal with grief and how we should be having these conversations out loud as well as mental health. And so I wanted to give you a warning on this one. It's heavy. It's not depressing, hopefully, but it is heavy. So if you were looking for kind of an uplifting podcast, you might want to put this one on pause and check out one of the other ones. But if you're looking for what I think is an important conversation about grief and dealing with it and business and everything else, then I'd love your feedback on this one. So thanks again for listening, and I hope you enjoy it. Good afternoon, everybody. This is John Barrow's Make It Happen Monday. Hopefully, you had a fantastic weekend.

Mine was actually nice and chill. I didn't do anything this weekend, which was a rarity for me, and I was super excited about it. But anyways, I'm here to have a very special conversation with a repeat guest here on Make It Happen Mondays, Tim Clark from Salesforce and Uncrushed.org. How are you, my friend? I'm good. We were just talking beforehand. The last time we did this was October 2018. And wow, things have changed a little bit for both of us since then. Yeah, quite a bit. They, what do they say? Like the days go by. The days are long, but the years are short. Like that is, that couldn't be more true, right? I mean, it feels like 2018 was about a decade ago, especially with everything that's happened in between.

And, you know, why don't to actually, Tim, why don't you set the stage for this conversation? Because I think you're the one who kind of thought that this would be a good time to reconnect on a few topics here. And I agree with you. So you want to fill the team in a little bit on, or people listening, what the context of this one is? Yeah, for sure. The last time I was on, I talked about some of the challenges that I've had in my life, which at the time I thought really went back to the sudden loss of my dad in July 2013. I now think a lot of the challenges actually went deeper than that, you know, back to childhood. And I opened up around, you know, some of my unhealthy coping mechanisms around drugs and alcohol.

And, you know, it's really been a journey there. And then, you know, you've had your journey more recently as well, starting that journey. And so, you know, I just, the background for this is I reached out to you and said, hey, do you want to talk about this? So I've had a few conversations with people in the sales community recently who have experienced close losses. And the reality is, like, grief and death are things that are not talked about. And so maybe, I think it may be a difficult conversation. But maybe there's, you know, someone that's listening that may be going through this or perhaps has a loved one who is sick at the moment and, you know, may not have an optimistic prognosis. And so maybe this will just help someone.

Yeah, no, I appreciate it. I think that's, you know, with what I went through with my dad back in January. And for everybody who doesn't know, if you listen to the podcast, you do. But, you know, my dad passed January, early February, and I was in Aruba for two months. And, you know, he had been going downhill for six months and with a disease nobody could figure out. And my mom calls me and was like, you know what, you got to come home. And so went home, and thankfully I was able to get to see him before he passed. And they figured out what he had literally, like, the day before he passed away, right? So it was just like, at least they, you know, at least they knew. But, you know, for me there was a lot that, there was all these inflection points in people's lives, right?

Where they kind of have to, almost are forced to take a step back. So, you know, I argue a little bit. I always used to say, like, everything happens for a reason, right? I tend to disagree with that now these days. I don't think everything happens for a reason, because I think that's a little bit morbid. And it makes you question too many things. I think a lot of things happen for a reason. And I think there are silver linings for a lot of things. But whether it happened for a reason or not, I don't know, right? Because when you get into somebody, you know, a really good person passing away way before their prime type of thing, and that wasn't my dad. My dad was a really good person, but he didn't exactly pass away in his prime.

He was 81 years old. And so that gives me a little bit of comfort there. But when you have somebody who's, you know, middle of their life and passes away in a car accident or something like that, I have a hard time thinking, oh, that happened for a reason. People search for purpose. And I think that if you take an optimistic view, eventually, and you have an optimistic view, you can find purpose in loss. And that's really what I've been kind of searching for right now, you know, as far as what does it mean for me as far as a father and as a parent and, you know, work-life balance, all that stuff. But it was definitely an inflection point for me to take a step back and reflect a little bit. Let's put it that way.

Yeah, just, yeah, sorry. No, I was going to ask, like, because you said your dad passed in, you know, 2013 it was? Yeah. Yeah. And I forget, was it sudden or was it expected? Yeah, it was sudden. So I grew up in a single parent family with my dad, which is kind of weird for those times. A lot of the, at least in England, maybe it's the same here in America. You were kind of raised with your mom if she was around. But yeah, I grew up with my dad and he was everything to me. He still is everything to me. And yeah, I remember when I worked full-time in a bowling alley and I was convinced this was going to be my career. And like, he kept me in college. He was like, no, this is not a career. But yeah, I was about a year into my Salesforce journey.

I started in Salesforce 2012. And I was out with some friends after work and got a call saying that he'd had a stroke and was in a coma. So I made it to the hospital the next day, along with my brother and sister. He squeezed my hand, which for me is really important. So even though he wasn't able to interact with me and it was extremely distressing, you know, seeing my dad like that with all these ventilators and tubes and everything connected up. And I don't think I'll ever get rid of that memory. But he squeezed my hand and then I went back the following day on the Sunday and kind of made made my peace with it. And what was interesting for me was that that was the last day that I cried. And I, it's taken me a lot.

I was Googling before his funeral, like, is it okay not to, not to cry at the funeral? But I also remember sitting by his bedside on that Sunday. I was an enterprise AE at the time and I continued to work on my laptop on my deals because I just did not know what on earth was happening. And he, his body passed away. He was probably brain dead on the Sunday and then he, his body passed away two days later. And then it was about a month before his funeral. Just, he had some people he wanted to speak at the funeral and then my birthday was happening as well. And so just, there's a lot around it, but it was so interesting to me in the context of how I cope with it. I had no clue how to cope with it.

And I remember a few years later, a BDR who I had at the time, he said to me, he said, I didn't know how to interact with you because you wouldn't speak about it. The next day, I remember the day before they pulled off his life support, I was doing a business meeting with Sky Broadcasting, big broadcaster in England. I was just having this lunch and then I went down to the restroom and I, yeah, pull the life support and then went back up. I had no clue how to deal with this. No one had taught me like, how, what do you do when you're losing your best friend? Yeah. And there's really, I mean, there's no good answer to that, right? I mean, I think the, you know, the reason I ask the suddenness of it, I consider myself somewhat blessed that he, this is going to sound bad, but the way he passed away, right?

Because it was this weird, you know, he was 81 years old, uh, but in the summer is when he started getting sick and nobody could figure it out. Right. So it's kept slowly kind of chipping away at him and one thing would go wrong and another thing would go wrong and, and all that other stuff. And then it ended up with him in the hospital, obviously. And when my mom called me to come home, like the fact that I was able to be there with him, the fact that I was able to see him before he left, the fact that similar to you, I mean, he, he could speak, he had actually where we started kind of unfortunately giving up hope was, you know, cause they still hadn't figured it out. We still were like, man, if they figure this out, maybe there's a drug for it that they can just give him and it'll, it'll fix.

Right. Um, but then he had a massive stroke, uh, like it just was complication after complication. Then he had a massive stroke and half his body, like his right hand half was gone and his mouth, you know, couldn't speak. He could moan and, and, and that type of thing, but he couldn't speak. And my dad is just not the type of person that would want to live that way. So as soon as that happens, I was like, okay, he's going to give up. I, I know I would, you know what I mean? If I was, I've always said, if I can't take care of myself, that's when you pull the plug on me. Right. And, and he's very similar to that. Um, and I, you know, but I was able to see him. I was able to like, God, thank God for the nurse.

Right. I always, I've loved nurses. I've always had a healthy respect for nurse nurses, but this woman was an angel in my opinion. Right. She allowed us, even in COVID time, she had allowed my, myself, my, my, uh, uh, mom and my sister to all go in and see him at the same time. And we had a good visit, you know what I mean? He, he hugged us all, you know, he pointed up like he wanted to go away. Uh, and, and as sad as it was seeing him in that state, right. Cause he wasn't really, I mean, he was my dad, but he wasn't the dad that I think of, you know what I mean? Like walking around physically able and all that other stuff. So, and it was, you know, and he moaned too, like, like all that stuff.

And so that unfortunate sound is stuck in my skull forever, but you know, I was able to see him and fast forward, um, you know, Elliot, right. Elliot more from, right. So all of a sudden I get a call from him or a text from him. Actually, I don't even remember if it was a text or an email or whatever, but he said, dude, you know, I've been following you on social. Cause I was, I was pretty open about it on social, you know, I was showing, I was talking through and asking for good vibes to be sent my dad's way figured, you know, why the fuck not? Right. Um, but Elliot said, Hey John, you know, I saw your post a few days ago about your dad and I was devastated. I felt so bad. And then literally less than 24 hours later, my dad passed away and it was sudden, like he had a stroke or a heart attack was thrown at, you know, and it was at the ICU and they couldn't revive him.

And so Elliot went from everything's cool. I feel bad for John. You know, that sucks to all of a sudden he gone, like no thing, no goodbye, no conversation. And I'll be straight with you, Tim. I don't think, I don't know where I'd be right now if I didn't have the chance to say goodbye. I really don't. I think, I think it would have fucked with my head so hard because my sister or sister, my, my wife and my daughter weren't, um, able to, cause I, you know, ran home. They, I left them at the house and, um, they didn't get a chance. So it's almost like it's not real for them in a lot of ways. And for me, it was very real cause I was there. And I think that's that, that closure is something that I definitely needed.

And I've had, I've had my times, you know, comes in waves as far as thinking about it and that type of stuff. But I've, I've come to peace, I've been, I've come to peace with it quite a bit, but my daughter, for instance, who had a really, you know, she's 10, she had a really interesting and cool connection with my dad. Um, and she, at least once a week, um, something triggers her to think about Papa and she just gets in a very quiet and then she starts getting, you know, and then we said, what's the matter? And then she'll bring it up and, and she'll be a mess, you know, just because I don't think she, now would I have wanted her to see him in that state? No, absolutely not. Do I wish that she would have seen him before he left?

Absolutely. Cause I think, I think that piece is what made it a lot easier for me to say, okay, you know, there was closure on this, at least in some way, shape or form. And it wasn't sudden. Like if it was sudden, uh, I mean, I mean, thankfully for you, like you said, like you were at least able to go see him and he is, I bet that squeeze of his hand meant the world to you and still, literally hold on to that. Yeah. Even though there was like, I don't know what it is, but to me it's important. And that's the key thing. Yeah. Well, and that's the, that's the same thing. Like my sister, my sister searches for signs all over the place. You know what I mean? Like, you know, oh, that was dad and, you know, those types of things and whatever keeps you going.

I don't give a shit. You know what I mean? I don't really, you know, she'll say stuff. I'm like, yeah, that doesn't, that, that just happens, you know, but, but you know, she's like, oh, a Cardinal. Cause when somebody passes, you know, Cardinal shows up, it kind of symbolizes them. And so she's like, oh, there's dad. I'm like, yep. Whatever, whatever you need to do to get through to, to like, what do they always say? You'll never move on. Right. But you can move forward or something like that. You'll never forget. Um, but you can, you can learn to live again. Uh, just, it's different, right? People, anybody says, oh, you'll get through this. Nah, you don't get through it. You always carry it.

Um, you just carry it. The baggage is less and less depending on how you deal with it. Um, yeah, like another one is time heals all wounds, which I don't agree with that. And, you know, I, I think my relationship with, with the wounds has changed over time. Um, yeah, I mean, on the signs, like I remember Tuesday morning, I was driving into work and, uh, and this song played on the radio, Swedish house mafia, don't you worry child. And one of the lyrics is says, uh, my father said, don't you worry, don't you worry child. See heaven's got a plan for you. And now anytime that song comes on the radio or Spotify, I have it in a few playlists. Um, I, I just pause. It's a moment to be like, oh, okay.

Like there's just, just that opportunity to remember and to slow down. But it's interesting what you say about the, all the different phrases. And I, I kind of, I wanted to ask you this, um, you know, what word for you? Because no one had a clue what to say to me. And also I didn't want someone to say to me, this is just to me. I know this is not the case for everyone. I didn't want people to be like, oh, you, you got my thoughts and prayers. Because I'm like, you know, I get that you're trying to sympathize, but are you empathizing? I, I don't know. Yeah, that I, I, unfortunately, I think the thoughts and prayers has kind of lost all meaning to me as with all the mass shootings. Cause that's all you hear thoughts and prayers thought and go fuck yourself with thoughts and prayers in the country, as far as that's concerned.

Um, if you can't do something, I don't want to hear it. Uh, it's a little different, obviously with friends and family and colleagues who are trying to, I think it's the most awkward thing in the world. Like you, like, what do you say? You know what I mean? Everybody kind of says the same thing. I'm so sorry for your loss. I'm here with you here for you if you need me, that type of thing. And yeah, so I didn't, I didn't really want to hear thoughts and prayers either. Um, I appreciated it for the people that, that, that put it in the chats and, you know, that type of thing. But from a conversation standpoint, you know, I think, um, I preempted a lot of the stuff with the way that I wanted people to react to me.

Um, cause I didn't want the awkward, so how you doing, you know, now the, the, the challenge is, is because of COVID and I haven't seen a lot of people. I got a lot of sympathy, empathy, all that stuff early days, but now I haven't seen a lot of my, like close friends since it happens. And so I'm starting to see those close friends again and you could tell they don't know how to bring it up, right? Because they, they usually just say, so how you, how are you doing? You know what I mean? And, and I go into, I know what they're asking. I'm, I know what they're asking about my dad. I tend to kind of focus on what here and now is, and I might bring in, um, you know, thankfully I have a, of a, of a good story to transition and I don't want to say minimize it, but recognize it and move on in the sense where people are like, so how have you been?

I'm like, oh, things are good. You know, you know, moving, the company's doing great, you know, moving in a good direction. I'm home all the time with family, you know, and, and, you know, one of the things that really did, you know, if we do want to look at silver linings of something that happens, you know, uh, from my dad passing is, you know, it got me to wake up a little bit. It got me to reassess, you know, it, and, and the real silver lining on, on my dad passing was, is that it legit ripped me away from my business for three straight weeks. I mean, I called up my team, uh, Megan, and I said, Megan, uh, and we had just signed some huge, like I had just signed to Amazon that I had been working on for three years and I was training every, you know, all 300 reps over at Amazon business.

And it was like, my schedule was Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, training, training, training, training, training, training. I mean, jacked for January and February for one of the biggest clients we've ever brought on board. And I called my team, I said, clear my calendar. I don't care if the client's pissed, give them their money back. I'm sorry. I gotta go. And I came back and everything, like everything was running great. You know, revenue was there. Clients were happy, you know, all sorts. And it was for the first time in my life, it was really a chance for me to, to realize that, you know, I don't have to be the one driving this company. Right. I mean, for a solid eight years, you know, my title CEO, but I might as well be chief training officer.

Cause that's really all I do. I, I, I train, train, train, train, train. And my CEO responsibilities are, you know, six o'clock stoned in a hot tub, calling in Chris and be like, Hey, check, you know, try this out or whatever. Um, and so literally for the first time in my life, I've, I've, I've seen that proverbial light at the end of the tunnel where I don't have to work 16, 17, 18 hours a day, six, seven days a week anymore to have this thing run. And so it really did give me a chance to, to reflect. Um, and so that story allowed me to make the person comfortable and me to explain and not dwell on it. Cause the last thing I wanted to get into was talking about the details, which is another thing that I did.

And I recommend a lot of people do, well, this worked for me. Okay. So, so take it for what it's worth. Um, there were so many questions about my dad's death, right? Like, what was the disease? Why did, you know, what hospitals did you go to? Why didn't they catch it earlier? You know, and, and, you know, what happened, all this stuff and friends, relatives, everybody wanted to know what happened. Cause it was such a fucked up. Like it was this weird ass disease that nobody knew anything about. So they were all like, what in the hell? So after it was mainly for my mom, because I, I didn't mind telling the story, you know, if people needed it. And I even told my mom, cause she couldn't handle it, telling it over and over and over again.

I told her, I go, ma, anybody who wants to know, just send them my way. I'll talk to them first and then they can talk to you. So you don't have to continuously tell this fucking horrible story over and over again. Right. And then I was like, well, yeah. And I'm like, fuck that. I don't want to tell this damn story over. And so I wrote it. So I wrote down what happened to dad. And I just wrote from the beginning of when he started to get sick all the way through the milestones. I had some fun with it. I kind of joked around about his personality and him being a, you know, kind of a piece of shit who really didn't want anybody to help him and hated doctors and all. And so I kind of put a little bit of levity into it, but I get, I wrote out the facts of what the story was.

And then I always ended with, you know, the, the, at least a spin of optimism of how to remember him or whatever it was. And so what I would do is I would just send that to, I sent that out on social. I sent that out to every, I get, I sent it to all our family. And, uh, and I said, Hey, could you please do me a favor for this along to anybody? It's, and when you call to talk to me, myself, my, my sister or my mom, like, don't, please don't ask us to tell this story again. You know what I mean? It'd be much nicer for you to call and just see how we're doing and, and maybe share a funny story, uh, that, you know, that you had with him to give a positive, memory on this one. Right. Cause the negative memories, you got to get through those.

I mean, I think we all have them. Um, and there's sometimes even people pass and there's real frustrations. I mean, there was a few frustrations with my dad passing. Cause it, we thought it was his stubbornness that, cause he didn't want to go to the, he's of the generation, like, fuck the doctors. Right. I'll take care of this myself. And, and he literally waited way too long to go to, to the hospital. And while I'm sitting there, I'm like, God damn it, dad, like, why didn't just for once in your fucking life, you know, trust the doctors, go have them take a look at you and dig into it. But we, we found out that the, the, even if they had found out whatever it was, right. If they had found out, unless they found out like the first month that he got it, um, the prognosis is living with it would have been a nightmare, like straight nightmare.

So in my head, I'm like, I can't blame him. Yeah. I can be a little frustrated. Right. But I'm not going to be mad at him because of his reaction to this. Cause ultimately at the end of the day, there wasn't a lot he could have done. Right. And so I got through that anger and my mom was pretty angry too, for a while. Cause she lived with him those six months and he was a fucking prick during those six months, apparently to her. Right. Just cause he was, didn't know what the hell was happening to himself. So she had to fight through that. But once you get through that and you start focusing more on the positives and that's what I would say to anybody out there who's trying to console somebody is don't say, I, I know where you're coming from.

Like, let's put it this way, Tim, your dad died. My dad died. I'm not going to sit here and say, Tim, I know what you're going through here. I have no fucking idea what you went through. I don't know. I didn't know what your relationship was with your dad. I didn't know how good or bad it was. I didn't know how he died, you know, those types of things. So for me to say, I know, even if, even if I had a family member that died, I'm never going to say, I know how you feel. I think the open up question is, is how are you doing? Right. And then let that person tell you however they're, and then maybe share a, you know, a positive or a funny story or something like that, that puts that positive and, you know, message in the brain to, to, you know, tumble around a little bit with all the negative ones.

Cause that helps, you know, all those stories that I saw on social and just a little snippet. It's like, I remember when your dad did this and he went down to here with us and blah, blah, blah. Like those little things are the memories that I want to keep in the front of my brain, as opposed to the shit in the back. Right. Yeah. I remember my, my dad was a minister. And I went back to a work trip for Salesforce back to London at the end of 2018. So on the weekend I went to his church, his old church, and I got to connect with, uh, with people that knew him. And that, that was so beautiful for me because for me, and I think I shared this in the last podcast, like my way of coping with it was don't feel, don't talk about it, suppress it, use cocaine, use alcohol, use women, use food, um, exercise and everything without actually dealing with it.

And also as part of that, like I pushed my family away and I still don't have a relationship with my brother, my sister, my mom, uh, you know, and that's, again, it's kind of hard for some people to understand that. Like I've had some people to say, well, you lost your dad. Why don't you try and get close to them? Because there's a lot of shit in there and there's a lot of reason why I haven't done that. And, and maybe it's something in the future. Um, but I, what I will say is I feel even like we, we go back for me, this is a long time, like we go back to 2013, 2014. And again, I'm, I'm, I'm the sort of person that holds people at a distance and, and it's, it's part of my therapy work to try and let people in a little bit closer.

Um, but when I, when I saw that you posted this, like instantly I felt even closer to you. And I just think there's something saying with like, I guess being with Dale Dupree the other day, you talked a lot about the loss of his dad, you know, Lindsay Boggs losing her sister. There's so many of us that are in this space that have experienced this loss. And I, it's like the one club that you don't want to be a member of. Um, but I do think there's a special bond, a special connection for, for the people that are in that club. Absolutely. And I think that's where, you know, and I'd love to, you know, talk with you about with Uncrushed and how, you know, you first came up with it to talk, to have this conversation out loud.

So that people feel more comfortable because we are in a, you know, in an Instagram world of everybody looks perfect on the outside and, you know, and all that stuff when we, we know that everybody's fucked up, you know what I mean? And we all got demons that we're dealing with. We all got challenges and some of them, you know, are deeper than others, but you know, having the conversation out loud, I think is important. I mean, for me, I do lean on, I'm a pretty private person. I actually, historically I've been extremely private, but there is a sense of community. There is a sense of, you know, with your own audience, right? If you, and I'll, you know, I'll spin it a little bit on the social side of the house.

If you are really active on social, you know, whether you're a rep or a thought leader or whatever the hell it is, like, you know, you create your own little mini community. And if you treat it right, these end up becoming not your friends. I'm not going to say anybody who I'm connected to and ever, never met in my life as an actual friend of mine. Um, but you know, there's a support structure there and I got so much support from, um, people when I started talking about this out loud. Now I do mine on Instagram, right? Cause Instagram, like LinkedIn to me is the business side of the house. And then I do Instagram to kind of let people know a little bit more of the behind the scenes and I'll do a little bit more of a mix.

So I felt it was a little bit more appropriate to be constant, you know, not constantly, but like providing story updates for those people. Cause I had a lot of people asking. And the other thing is, is once you have a lot of people following you, if you disappear for a couple of weeks, you get a whole shitload of questions being like, where, where are you? What's going on? I haven't seen you in a while, that type of thing. So I decided to bring my audience on a journey and, and on my journey and try to maybe tap into a little bit of their positive, you know, I do, I'm not a religious person at all, uh, but I am a spiritual person. I do believe that we are connected in a lot of ways. And so there is something about the collective will of a certain group, right.

That, that somehow manifests itself into positive energy that potentially does have a positive impact on certain things. And so I kind of played around with that one, you know what I mean? Like, Hey, I could crowdsource some goodwill here, uh, you know, send it my way if you could. And then, you know, just kept people updated along the way. But, uh, but yeah, I mean, leaning on my team for me was, and my family was the most important part for me to get through this. Um, and just being wide open with them, you know what I mean? I mean, wide open about exactly what happened, where my head's at, you know, where I am now day to day, you know, I think it, it goes from hour to hour to day to day, and then maybe from week to week, you know what I mean?

As far as the waves and how fast they come. And I was just open with them about all of it. I was like, look, this is where I am. I'm not in a position right now to have conversations with people about this, or I am. And I, and I just want to have it out loud. Uh, because hopefully to your point, when we kick this thing off, you know, there's somebody out there who's dealing with it and doesn't know how to deal with it because it just happened to them or whatever it is. And you know, there are ways, but you know, you can't do it alone. Uh, if you try to, you're going to be in a lot of trouble. So, yeah, there's, um, like I, I worked a 12 step program for my recovery and it's the first time in my life that I really feel like I fit in.

There's other people that are similar to me and there's a great analogy that talks about the antelope. There's a group of antelope go left, go right, being chased by a lion. Uh, but the lion can never get them, but then one antelope gets a better idea and they go off in their own direction and do their own thing. And that's the one that the lion gets. And so for me, I need to stay in the middle of the pack and whether that's for whatever reason, it doesn't have to be, you know, addiction. It can also be for grief. Like find, find people that you feel safe with, um, you know, one great nonprofit here in the U S that I love is called the dinner party. And this is for, um, you know, people that have experienced grief because a lot of the times like grief groups are normally for older people that have lost, lost, you know, a partner.

And so this specifically the way they market it is for people in their twenties and thirties and they meet up on a monthly basis and you get to connect. Um, I think the other thing I've seen with grief is, is the comparing game. It's very, very easy to compare. Like at least it wasn't this, at least it wasn't that. And so for anyone listening, like what I've been told is that everyone feels a grief at a hundred percent. And so it, it, it, it's not a healthy, you do what you want, but it is, I will say it was not healthy for me comparing like, well, at least he didn't die this way. Or at least he didn't die that way. Like my, my, my grief, either way, I'm going to feel it. Or as I chose to do, I chose not to feel it and chose to numb it.

When we lose loved ones, it can be one of the most challenging times of our lives. I've taken a liking to telling people that experience loss in this way, that they never really leave us. They live on through our memories, our families, and our stories. Tim and the Uncrushed team are a wealth of resources and knowledge. And I strongly recommend that you follow that team and get to know their volunteers. Send me your sales wins at james at jbarrows.com to be featured on next week's episode of Make It Happen Mondays with John Barrows. Today, we want to give a big JB shout out to Oregon State University's Colt Doyle. Colt took filling the funnel after gaining access to JB Sales On Demand, and he is now certified in filling the funnel.

This certification will undoubtedly aid Colt in finding his first sales role. Way to go, buddy. Big ups to OSU. We aim at JB Sales to help schools build curriculums everywhere that help provide a solid foundation of sales that can be built upon as graduates learn more throughout their sales careers. Since this talk with JB and Tim has a huge slant on mental health, I feel that I would be remiss not to bring up the fact that routines, structures, and plans improve your mental health and sales results at the same time. This is especially true for sales reps because no plan equals high stress. Having a structure and routine is key to flow, and we want to give you that flow at JB Sales. So join us today at ondemand.jbarrows.com.

Let's get back to John and Tim in the studio. Yeah, that numbing factor is a challenging one because if you've leaned on that in the past, you're going to lean on that again. You know, I look at, for me, for instance, like smoking weed. I've done that, you know, most of my adult life. And so it wasn't something that I did and was quote unquote addicted to and then had to get away from and then used it as a crutch. Like I, you know, smoke like I'm drinking beer, right? And, you know, a couple of beers after work type of thing. So for me, it was actually a very, and I really do want to separate weed from the drug conversation because I think it's a horseshit conversation to have weed in the drug conversation as a class A here in the States.

But, you know, that helped, that always has helped me deal with stress and it helped me to deal with stress, but it didn't help me any more or less. Whereas stuff like Coke and all those other drugs that a lot of times we lean on for to forget, you know, completely or to just take our state, if you are looking to escape, I think that's probably the wrong look, right? I mean, we look, we all need to escape, whether it's, I mean, for me, when I was in Aruba, after my dad passed, I was escaping, but it was me taking a walk to the beach and sitting on a pier and escaping from technology, escaping from, you know, you know, everything around me. And so there is a healthy part of, I need to escape.

But if you are turning to, or have turned up your usage of drugs to escape the mental feelings, look, you're going to, you're just hiding it. You know what I mean? Like you're just, eventually those, those feelings are going to catch up on you one way or the other, whether you like it or not. And the more you suppress them, the worse it comes back at you later, as far as the impact. And sometimes it cripples you. Yeah. I'm involved in this program at Salesforce called Soberforce. So we have employee resource groups for our BIPOC community, for LGBTQIA community. And the whole concept of Soberforce is for sober or sober curious or allies to connect with each other. And the first thing we talked about is like, we didn't want to be the boring bunch.

I think sometimes there's this mentality of like, he's sober, therefore he or she is sober. And therefore, you know, they must hate drugs or they must take, like, cool, if you can use weed, awesome. I wish I could. I can't. To be fair, I don't know because I've only smoked weed twice. But I know for, you know, the other drugs that I've used, like it just doesn't work. And, you know, right now there's all these, you know, Demi Lovato has come out being California sober. And, you know, and she talks about what works for her. And it's been a big practice for me again. Like, I have my own decisions if that was for her and she's able to live a happy life. That's the main reason why I stopped drinking and using drugs is because I want freedom.

And I'm a big believer that it wasn't actually anything to do with the drink or the drugs. It was to do with the fact that I lost my dad, that I went through so much shit as a kid, and I didn't know how to handle those feelings. And so, for me, my journey was actually the middle of last year. I went through this, there's a thing called the grief recovery method. And it's an eight-week program. It's kind of like therapy. It's a very structured database program. And that's the first time I finally felt peace around my grief. I continue to do, you know, childhood trauma work, stuff like that. But, again, it kind of moves back to the other conversation. I don't think there's any timeline of grief.

Like, the conversation we're having now, I don't think I would have been able to have a few, well, maybe I would have been able to have a few months after I lost it. But I wouldn't have been able to connect with it and to truly be present. And doing this work now, like, I'm able to truly be here in this moment. And I still struggle to connect with the emotions. It's like there's this switch that's just gone off in my head. And like I said at the beginning, that's why I Googled, you know, is it okay not to cry at the funeral? Because it apparently is pretty common. Yeah. No, I mean, I think we all, I mean, for me, you know, I had a good relationship with my dad. I didn't have, like, a great relationship with him.

You know what I mean? Like, you know, I always kind of joke, like, I wish I could have gotten stoned and talk and talk. I wish I could have gotten him stoned and talk because he's one of the most interesting people I've ever met in my life. But we never had deep conversations. You know what I mean? We never, like, were best friends, right? We were father-son. We shared what we shared. We mostly talked about sports and things that, you know, politics and things that annoyed us. You know what I mean? And so, you know, I wonder, that's something that is, you know, knocks around in my head. It's like, you know, was that a good relationship? Was there anything that I left on the table with that? And of course, there's always the, you know, man, I wish, right?

But you can't, you can't do that to yourself because otherwise you'll never be able to really move forward, if you will, with the grief. And so, yeah, I mean, it's something that I wonder, like, am I going to one day just all of a sudden fall apart? Because I was a mess for the few weeks that I was home and every day. But a lot of it was because my mom was a mess. My sister was a mess. You know what I mean? And that would trigger me to be a mess and those type of things. But since I got back, you know, it's, I have a, I think I have a healthy relationship with what happens. I think I have a healthy relationship with where I am as it relates to him. But who knows? You know, there's, I mean, there easily could be something.

Like, for instance, I'm going down this weekend. My mom's moving. So she packed up the house. You know, this wasn't my childhood house, right? So there's not those memories there, thankfully. But, you know, it's the house they lived in for, shit, 15, 20 years, something like that. So, but it's way too big for her. And she wants to move in. Now at her age, she's 77, 78. She wants to be, in her final year, she wants to be close to myself or my sister, period. And my sister's in California and I'm here in Boston. And my mom doesn't like cold weather anymore. So she's moving out to California with my sister. And so I'm going down. She's like, you know, her way of dealing with grief has been, she's just been cleaning and getting rid of everything.

Like everything. You know what I mean? People coming over the house, taking stuff they're going to do in a state scale. I mean, she is selling 90% of what, of what was, and she's keeping very select few things. And I'm going down there and my dad got cremated. So he's in an urn and we're going to bring him back to Boston because he grew up in Boston and his whole family's here. So we're going to have a ceremony kind of on his birthday in September where the whole family. And so his urn, my mom's going to go out to California and come back and then go to Boston. So I'm picking it up, right? So I'm driving, I'm flying down. I'm picking up a few pieces of art that she doesn't want to put in storage.

And then I'm going to pick up his urn and bring it up here. So when we're ready, she doesn't have to fly back and forth with it. Uh, it's an eight hour ride to, from, from Virginia to Boston. And I'm going to have, and I don't know how that ride is going to go. Quite honest, you know, I'm going to be, I'm going to be riding with my dad for eight straight hours, but he's, you know what I mean? But it's the, it's the representation of my dad. It's not my dad. So, you know, who knows what emotions will come out through that, through that little journey right there. But yeah, I mean, there's no timeline on grief and there's no telling. I always say grief is like waves, right? It comes and goes. Sometimes it's fast.

Sometimes it's harder. Sometimes it's calm. Some, but it always comes and goes. And so, you know, you just hope the, the, the valleys, if you will, are, are, are less extreme as they go. And the peaks are nicer as they go. Yeah. It's so interesting you say that because I, I took the mentality of throwing everything out as well because it was a church where they recorded the funeral. And I remember cussing the people out going, you're sick for recording this. How dare you? I refuse to have any of his ashes because I thought that was sick as well. And more recently over the last few months, I'm like, wow, I wish I had that. I really wish I had that. And again, it's just an indication to me of like how, how we need to talk about this stuff.

Cause there'll be some people that, and this kind of ties in with Uncrush, like there's some people that will relate to you, that will relate to me, that will relate to someone else that's sharing their experience. And like, I just, I wish that this stuff had existed before. And it, and I, I think we, we've got, you know, just as we're having so many important conversations around equality and inclusion, you know, gender diversity, all the ethnicity, all these other areas. Like, I think we need to do the same with mental health. We, we need to be talking about these conversations. Yeah. And I'm curious, you, you know, in the two years, cause you started Uncrushed a couple of years ago, right?

Yeah. April, 2019, we went live. What have you seen? And you're doing podcasts and you've been in just for everybody listening, it's uncrushed.org and it's a conversation about mental health in the workplace, right? And so you just get people on podcasts and, you know, other resources and you talk about, you know, grief or drug addiction or, you know. Whatever it is, how have you seen those conversations evolve, I guess, over the past couple of years, specifically now with COVID? And I'm wondering if you're seeing a shift in people's mentality, issues, challenges, or any of that stuff. Yeah. The first, I think we're ahead of our time almost. And maybe there's some ego in me saying that, but I look at like the companies that set up sales communities several years ago.

And now I'm like, wow, like everything is about community right now. And so like some of the biggest lessons I've learned is one, how willing people are to come forward and share their stories. And we've had some, you know, we had like this 19 year old lady who was sexually abused. And then she came forward and talked about it and she was cyber bullied, you know, and called a liar. There's some really, really powerful stories. One of my first lessons, though, is that we don't stay in the darkness because otherwise people would relate to that. And then it could send them spiraling downwards. And so we really look at like what it was like, what happened and what it's like now. And we try and shine that light on that.

I think the second thing is making it actionable, not only for, you know, when we created Uncrushed, it was all about getting people to share their personal experiences. Since then, we've gone in and done like training at Splash, at Salesforce, at Citrix. We're doing some other stuff with big tech companies because we're predominantly focusing on tech and sales. And the biggest area there, powerful moment, is when employees share in front of employees their stories. And I look back with Soberforce, blows my mind that there are other people at a Fortune 500 company that are willing to talk about this. And the reality is, is that the mental illness affects so many different people. And so the training aspect has been really cool.

And then the other aspect is just the community and the connection. You know, like when we, the first time we spoke on the podcast, I didn't know who James Buckley was, you know, and then you referenced him. He's not one of my closest friends. You know, Lindsay, I go back a long way with Lindsay and just watching her journey. Janelle, one of the other co-founders, like we all just had our own journeys. And I really will tie it back to what you said about the waves. There's some days that I have that are bad. And thankfully, there's other ones that people have a good. And then the final thing I would say is like, we're, I can't bring my Salesforce mentality into Uncrushed. And what I mean by that is like, you create a podcast at Salesforce, really high standards.

You know, we, we've got the brand to adhere to, the high quality. The thing is we're Uncrushed and we're all volunteers. You know, people have kids, people have full-time jobs and we're just spending our spare time trying to bring this all together. And so I think, and I'm happy to be corrected by anyone that's listening to this, but I think I've become more empathetic. I haven't always got it right. There was a moment last year where I didn't get it right and I pissed off some, some of the volunteers because I was just driving too hard. But it's been fascinating to me. It's like, how do you grow a nonprofit when you don't pay anyone and you're not trying to make any money, but you're still trying to serve a massive community that really need help.

So it's, I've learned a lot because, you know, I'm such a corporate guy through and through all my career with, with Vodafone and Rico and Salesforce. And so to build this startup with no money, deliberately having no money and just trying to hit as many people as possible or impact as many people as possible has been fascinating. Yeah. And I think you're right. The, you know, it goes against to do it right. It goes against everything that every growth company is based on. Right. I mean, go, go, go numbers, KPIs and all that other stuff. And, you know, my, my hope is COVID here has forced a lot of people to reevaluate what's really important in their lives, right? In their lives and their work and everything else.

And, and I think it is accelerated, hopefully has accelerated the quantity, quality over quantity conversation in the sense for so many years, for the past 10, 15, 20 years, it's all been quantity. Go, go, go, go, go. Numbers, numbers, numbers, numbers, numbers, go, go, go, go, go. But now with a reset here, hopefully people are realizing that, you know, the more authentic you are, the more, you know, thoughtful you are, the more personalized you are. It, yeah, it's not, you're not going to hit, you know, 10 X multiplier growth metrics or anything like that, but your growth will be sustainable. It will be real. And the audience will be far, you, you will get more value out of the audience and the, and the audience will get matter more value out of you if you were doing things with purpose.

And I don't mean purpose to make money. I mean, purpose to make a difference. And I, and I really do hope that, um, that's a little bit of a wake up call. Wake up call for the VC community specifically. It's like, could you cut the shit and drop, you know, and back up a little bit and let everybody take a fucking breath and do this right. As opposed to these bullshit, false, false evaluations of a company that's massively unprofitable, getting a 60 fucking billion dollar evaluation, which actually just insults me more than anything else. You know what I mean? It's like, you know, what? Yeah. Like where's the humanity, you know, it's people. I used to, you know, let's look back in with my dad when I was sitting by his bedside working.

Uh, I very much live to work. My whole persona, everything about me was work, work, work, work, work, work. And I, now, um, I work to live and I, I give a lot of my time and I don't say this to be like, look at me, but this is who I am as a person. The only way I can stay sober or mentally healthy is to give what other people have given to me. And so this is why, like I, I've said this in a number of calls recently, like on, on some social audio platforms is if you want to prospect into me, it's very clear on my LinkedIn profile, what I care about. And, and I, you know, speak to me about mental health, tell me something that you're going through. And I appreciate that it requires some vulnerability to build up that trust, but that's why I put myself out there because, you know, my, my biggest success this year to date is the fact that I had, um, a coworker reach out to me and say, Hey, I'm struggling.

And like, that's what fills me because in 2017, that's what I needed. And I didn't know who to turn to. Yep. Yeah. I mean, that's, I mean, it's, that's ultimately why, you know, I do what I do, for instance, from a training standpoint is, is, you know, I used to say that flying all around the world and, you know, and missing my daughter growing up and all that other stuff. The one thing that kept me going was that unsolicited email that I got from somebody said, saying, thank you. Right. The, the, Hey, you know, you trained me five years ago at Salesforce and I know you probably don't remember me, but right. And all those little like pieces, like when you find something, no matter how, and this is what I try to tell people when they're sharing on social and stuff, it's like, it doesn't matter how many likes or comments or shares or anything like that.

If you, if you connect with one person, if, if you help out one person who maybe was in your shoes a few years back and, and could have used that advice, then everything you're doing out there is worth it. Right. Um, and so that's what you hunt for, right. Is, is, is to, to make that difference, to have that person call you, you know, to get that email from somebody to realize it's almost like, you know, you hear people suicide wise. This is why I try to be as friendly as I can, uh, to almost everybody I see on the streets, you know, because that person who's depressed, you know, you've heard story after story where just somebody during the day said hi and asked them, you know, and, and said, Hey, hope you have a great day.

You know what I mean? Like just said something positive to them. And they went from being on their way to the bridge to jump off to, because that person was nice to them because that person gave them that extra love that they probably hadn't been feeling in a little long, in a long time. It shifted their mentality to say, well, fuck, maybe it's not that bad. Right. And so that's why you hear me at the end of every podcast say, you know, go out and make somebody smile today, because no matter how shitty your day was, if you made somebody smile, you know, you had a good day. Right. And, and I, and I really genuinely believe that that type of pay it forward mentality, that type of, you know what I mean?

And putting out stuff, positive energy with no expectation of return, this going back to spirituality, there's been way too many times in my life that, that, that what goes around comes around has come back around on me. And so I can't ignore it. Um, and so, and it, and a lot of it did come back around on me when my, when my dad passed, you know what I mean? So many people reached out. So many people, you know, were, were so thoughtful with their, you know, with their approach and, you know, mindset and, you know, any, you know, anything I could ask. That, that it made it, it did make it a lot easier for me, but I was able to pull on it and get for a while because I had really focused my, you know, a lot of my career on giving as much as I possibly can, whether that's my time, whether that's, you know, whatever it is to help people out.

And, you know, when you need it, that's when you can lean on it. Right. I mean, you don't want to keep score in life, but you want to be a net positive, right? You want to be, I think there's like a, you know, in hockey, I'm not a huge hockey fan. I love the Bruins, but I'm not a huge hockey fan, but you know, there's this, um, what's your plus minus, right? Which means actually any sports, what's your plus minus is like when you're on the field, you know, are there more, are you above or below? Right. So do you help the team score more points or lose points when you're on? Do you help them with more steals or less deals? And I try to live my life trying to be on the net positive side. So if, and when I ever have to tap into the negative to pull me to, to get support that it's there for me.

And I don't, and it's not an awkward ask when I need to, when I need it. Uh, cause that's, that's the problem is I think a lot of people are awkward. They know they need help, but they don't know how to ask for it. They don't know who to ask for it. And, you know, by opening up these conversations out loud, hopefully people can realize that there are plenty of people out there that, that you can reach out to. And sometimes it's a stranger. I mean, shit, sometimes it's actually, I mean, I didn't do this, but there was tons of people that hit me up on social saying, look, dude, I know we don't really know each other, but if you ever just wanted to talk to somebody that had, that was no judgment, no, you know, I'm not going to give you my opinion on anything, but you just wanted to talk, man, feel free to hit me up.

And I, there was a few times where I was like, you know what? I do just want to talk to somebody without somebody giving me their goddamn opinion on it, without somebody giving me their spin or whatever they think I should do to it. Like, I just want to fucking talk to somebody and have somebody listen to me. And I think that's what most people, and I'm not, I don't want to generalize, but I think most people going through groove grief don't want to hear. I know how you feel. They don't want to hear you'll get through this. They don't want to hear any of that. They just want to be heard. And sometimes that's just sitting in the same fucking room saying not a goddamn thing. You know what I mean?

Like literally just sitting there and not saying a word and letting that person come, come to the table, but being there for them. You know what I mean? Like there's been a lot of my friends who've had drug problems and stuff like that. And I, I'm like, yep, come over my place. Don't tell you don't have to tell me like we got it. We kind of have a halfway house here at JB, you know, at the barrels. Because I've had three friends with live with us, not all at the same time, but you know, for a year at a time, I've had different friends who have stayed at my house because they were going through some really heavy shit. And I always tell them, I go, look, you can come stay here. I'm not going to ask you a single fucking question.

I'm not going to give you my opinion on anything unless you ask. And when you're ready to have this conversation, man, I'll be downstairs watching TV or chilling out. So here for you. And I think that's what people need. They need the space, but they need to know that there is somebody there willing and able to listen without judgment, without opinions, without anything else, just to listen. And don't give people your opinions unless asked, especially soon thereafter griefs, you know, as, as we kind of rolled this up, but yeah, there's, there's like the mentality of fixing, you know, um, I always, you know, one, one guy that I've been thinking about a lot was, there's this English guy, 18, uh, who was diagnosed with cancer.

And he spent the last year of his life, uh, fundraising for, for teenage cancer. And he said, imagine you had a bank account on the beginning of every day, you put $86,400 into it. Uh, but at the end of the day, that money's gone. And so you got to spend it. Uh, and so then he said, well, there's 86,400 seconds in every single day. So how about you use that time? And I had this quote on the wall. He says, I don't see the point in measuring life and time anymore. I'd rather measure it in terms of making a difference. Um, you know, and I, I know you, you, you posted, uh, you know, a quote from your dad, uh, that you've got tattooed in your arm. And I, I look at that every single day on, on my Instagram.

Yeah. When you're used to, when you're accustomed to prove that quality feels like oppression. Yeah. And it, it's, it's just these little things. Like if I, if I show you, uh, like on camera, like I've got all these different quotes on my wall. Um, cause I, I need to get out of here. I need to get out of my head. And that's, that's why I do what I do. And that's why I think you do. What you do is like, let's just get out of ourselves. Let's use these 86,400 seconds and, and live the moment. And sometimes some of those seconds are going to be sad. And we're going to be hit by those waves as you say, but, uh, thankfully today's a good day. And thankfully I get to speak with you and hope there's someone that's listened to this, that it will help.

And, uh, I just want to thank you. Like James Buckley reminds me every single day about all it takes is that one person. And so if there is one person, you know, who doesn't want to publicly comment or like, or share totally. Okay. Send a private message to you, to me, like, just, just don't go through this alone. Don't, don't be that antelope. Yeah, absolutely, man. I think, uh, like you, like you've started with Uncrushed and everything else that I think the more, the more people, the more people can have the conversation out loud, the more others will realize it's okay to have the conversation out loud and to seek out help from this stuff. You know, I think I'm encouraged right now with, with as much shit as this world is going through, um, the shift in, in, in, in.

And people staying quiet is, is, is palpable. Right. I mean, just think of, you know, Asian stop Asian hate and those that, you know, we had black lives matter and now stop Asian hate, you know, the Asian community, like one of the big reasons that they, they, you know, got impacted so much is because nobody liked to talk about it. You know what I mean? Nobody knew how bad the issue was. Right. I'll be on a, now we're hearing daily that people, you know, from Asian descent are getting harassed, you know, daily on stuff. And it's like, wait a minute, what? Like, where did this? So, you know, in those conversations are hoping a whole bunch of people in that community say, wait a minute, I can now talk about this.

I don't have to be ashamed about this because sometimes it is a cultural thing too. You know what I mean? Sometimes culturally, whatever culture you're from, it, it isn't, uh, ingrained in us to, to have these conversations out loud. But it is ingrained in us to push it down and deal with ourselves and put on a happy face and a lot of cultures and, you know, and, and the SAS culture, you know, is one of them, unfortunately, like, oh, everything's awesome. We're crushing it. You know, we're 300% of quota and everybody's happy. And, you know, it's like, come on, dude. Like, yeah, those are all the real surface bullshit numbers there, but that's like, you know, the iceberg, man. So let's talk about the rest of this stuff.

So hopefully, you know, like you said, people listening to this, they, you know, could realize if they are going through struggles, whether it's for, through grief or drug addiction, or, you know, you just had a, you're just in a negative tailspin right now. You know what I mean? I mean, a lot of us, especially with COVID, there's not, there's not many people to have the conversation with, at least we don't think, because we're trapped in our little place and we crave that human interaction. And there are plenty of conversations. So, so let's, let's finish up with this, Tim. What's, where can people go to, to have this conversation out loud and tell them a little bit about Uncrushed and where they can find out more information.

Yeah, you can go to uncrushed.org. You can see so many of the people that are, you know, James Buckley's on the Uncrushed board of directors, Tiffany Bova on the exact committee, so many people. Check it out there. We're on all the social channels. You can just look at Uncrushed. And then you can connect with me, Tim Clark, with an E on LinkedIn. LinkedIn's probably the easiest one to get a hold of me. Yeah. Perfect. Awesome. Well, like I said, you know, always love these conversations, Tim, and I'm always happy to have them, you know, whenever you, on our, on our ends, or on your end, whenever you think that, you know, we need to. Cause we're all going through challenges one way or the other.

Right. And like you said, it's, it's not a competition, you know, this, and this isn't a zero sum game in the sense that if I'm feeling a hundred percent grief, that doesn't mean that you can feel zero. Right. Like we're all experiencing it and dealing with our own ways. And so, you know, figure out whatever that way is for you, but definitely seek somebody else out for their, their, so you can have a conversation out loud. It doesn't have to be on a podcast. It doesn't have to be on a webinar. Uh, it doesn't even have to be, you know, out loud in a conference room with somebody. It can be in your, it could be over the phone. It could be, you know, on a zoom call. It could be in your private, whatever, but have it with somebody.

Uh, cause dealing with it yourself is not a recipe for success. Yeah. Awesome. Tim. Well, thanks so much for coming on again, man. I appreciate it. Thank you. And everybody else. I'm going to say it again. Like I always say, hopefully you enjoyed the conversation and got you to think a little bit. Um, this one is, is when I say go out there and make somebody smile, this one has specific meaning into it because I do believe there are people out there that need somebody in some day or some way to make them smile and, and, and get out of the funk that they're in. And you have no idea the impact that that positive smile or making somebody else smile, what that'll do to somebody's life. So please go do it today.

If nothing else. And, uh, look, um, cause if you do that, you know, you had a good day, no matter how shitty your day was. So thank you all for listening. I really appreciate it. And I'll see you on the flip side. Thanks. All right, y'all. This conversation might've been a bit more somber than what you're used to from us, but know this success is not always about tactics and dollars. Sometimes success is about carrying on and making things happen. Even though our worlds seem to be closing in all around us, John and Tim and many others have had many experiences picking themselves up and moving forward after being knocked down. Before we wrap, I want to give a big shout out to the SDRs that are listening to this episode.

Know your worth. You are the tip of the spear, the first impression, the catalyst for all new business. Don't let someone tell you that you are at quote, the bottom of the food chain. End quote. I hear this all the time. And it drives me crazy. SDRs are what drives new business with new prospects. They have new conversations that lead to new conversions every day. Know your worth, y'all. You have my heart. JB sales is changing the game, delivering skills and techniques that drive results and earn engagement with prospects. Don't fake the funk, y'all. Join us today at on-demand.com to level up, invest in yourself, and don't think for one second that you're not worth it. You are everything. That prospect that's looking to solve a problem needs.

Know how to navigate these conversations. And again, we are here for you. Subscribe today at become a member at on-demand.jbarrows.com. Follow us on-demand.jbarrows.com. Follow us on Instagram at jbsalestraining, all one word, where we share daily tips and value for salespeople all over the world. And join us for our live weekly webinars. Find them at jbarrows.com in the blog and events section. We'll see you next week, everybody, and we'll have another stellar conversation for you waiting here that'll help you sell better.