84: Switching Careers Into Sales - ChrissiBeck

good afternoon everybody this is john barrows make it happen monday hopefully you all had a fantastic weekend i'm super excited for our conversation because uh we're gonna i think we're gonna get real real practical on this one for a lot of you out there uh so i would like to introduce everybody over to chrissy back chrissy say hi to everybody hey everybody this is back i'm from rhode island and a little bit about my background um worked as a hazmat chemist all around boston after college so drove a truck how to cdl you know moving around some hazardous waste chemicals avoiding sorrow drive and wait can i i gotta pause right there just i don't want to interrupt you but how the fuck did you get into hazmat shit out of college like what was your degree in uh bio and chemistry okay that was an eight when i graduated and i mean there weren't a lot of jobs going at that time for entry-level college uh graduates so i found a company at a job fair and just went for it nice cool all right so i didn't mean to interrupt it's like that was no no it's fine well like we talked earlier like my so my wife's an environmental scientist too right yeah that's the same thing she did like she she worked around she had hazmat i mean and this was before like they really gave a shit about like your health you know what i mean so she'd be at like contaminated sites like you know with nothing on being like oh what's this right and like so anyways i uh i burned off part of this eyebrow i used needle in a monkey lab in brown i had to go to the hospital and get like an anti-hiv shot oh gross oh gross like spilled chemicals on myself like it was a disaster all right so you did that for a little while which which got you so from from there i decided maybe that wasn't the best thing for me i ran away to sea and i'm self-taught chef um autodidact i was able to weasel my way into the yachting community and that enabled me to travel around the world for six years i was an international private yacht chef and it's pretty incredible yeah incredible experience and you know now i work in software sales and i'm here to share my journey my really rapid journey from a ldr to an isr in 10 months which is pretty unheard of at my company i think it was i'm the only one to have done it and i want to share this process and hopefully people can get some value out of it like i've gotten from this podcast and be able to apply it to their own situation awesome i appreciate that so let's talk about how that switched from being a yacht chef right yeah to now going into software sales like what what was that what was that yeah absolutely so you know i'm i'm be bopping around i was super successful uh i was having a ton of fun i can't imagine so just for some context here one of the things that my wife and i like so two years ago we decided to go to italy right and we wanted the italy trip and because i fly all over the place and have a lot of miles we covered the majority of the trip with miles and points so we went um we went uh uh rome and then the amalfi coast and then sicily right and the amalfi coast we said you know what fuck it we're gonna do this right so we got a yacht we got like a 50 foot private yacht with three with a with a chef a deck you know and and it was me my wife my daughter and our friends and it was one of the most incredible experiences and i just kept looking at them being like this is what you do i'm like this is your life you cruise up and down the amalfi coast and just hang out with cool people like holy shit so my question for you is why the fuck did you go from that to software sales i get asked that a lot and to be honest um it was just time for me like i got to the point and for the first time ever i was getting homesick um my family and i started looking around at some of the other women that were in their late 30s early 40s i mean they had a ton of money they had disposable income they didn't have any expenses and they're dating like gorgeous 23 year old deckhands but it was kind of it was kind of lonely and sad i didn't want that yeah i could see that being a stage of life not a life right yeah and that was always my my take on it it was very hard to leave because you know i i didn't pay for rent i didn't pay for toothpaste i didn't pay for anything the money that you're generating which is quite good is all disposable you can save it you can spend it um i've done both yeah like you always say you kind of fall into sales um i'd worked in sales and it just seemed like a really good transition for me i had made a ton of relationships you know i got to have breakfast with billionaires and millionaires i had practiced my communication and i generally really like people and seemed like a really good spot to land for me right so how'd you pick the company so would you start as an ld is this is this a chronos yeah chronos so i worked for a hot second at a staffing company in rhode island and while i was there was working to to get into software sales or like pharmaceutical um not pharmaceutical uh like joint and uh surgical like replacements for people so it's like medical devices or software sales yeah get up in software sales and so because i always find this interesting um for kids in their career like you you made a conscious choice of i'm doing now i want to go to do something different yeah what did you like so software so those two choices pharmaceutical software software but like when you were looking for a company to go work for yeah um to transition that passion that you had right because i mean i think we're both on the same page here like you have absolutely successful you have to love what you do right so just going to get a job anywhere just to get some experience that's you know some people take that when they make that drastic of a career shift they're like you know what i don't give a shit i'll just go work for anybody who i can who will give me some experience here yeah what's your mentality with like did you did you look at chronos and say this is where i want to build my career or were you just looking for anybody that would give you a chance in software sales to be honest i was looking for anybody that would give me a chance i really felt like it was going to be a difficult story to transpose like how am i going to talk about my transferable skills to these people like i hadn't used outlook in eight or ten years i didn't know what zoom or fuse i go to meeting i i didn't use a computer i made messages with my computer and like edited my photos and my videos with my gopro i didn't know any of this stuff and i was at a severe disadvantage so i was just looking for really anyone to give me a shot um i talked to a ton of different companies i really liked the vibe at chronos and you know it was it was big time for me it was like a serious job um it was paying more than some of the jobs i saw in rhode island and i thought it was a while i really liked the managers um but i mean i was just willing to get my foot in the door and i told them that i was like just let me get my foot in the door you won't be disappointed but i mean i need this i need something to happen and it wasn't it wasn't a glamorous job i mean i went from being like an executive yacht chef like walking in no no limit on my company card buying thousands of dollars of wine and and i spent like 13 000 on meat one time and just rocking and rolling not having a boss you know doing my own event management planning working directly with some of these super successful people and you know there's no middleman like we're directly come conversing and forth to go into an ldr making 100 phone calls being kind of bottom of the barrel like it was a big eat swallow like it what i'm making a third of the money or less so because i think that and you know the beauty of that though is and this is this is um you know that's why i continue to come back to sales being one of the best professions because you know and this is where this conversation is going like you can start at the bottom and very quickly move your way up if you if you decide you want to go get it right as opposed to just going through the motions and say all right you know i'll spend my two years being an ldr and then i'll get my you know my chance for a promotion here you know sales is one of those careers that at any stage of your life i mean you could be 40 50 years old for crying out loud and if you if you're willing to suck it up and yeah take some shit for a year or two you know i mean it'll it'll pay off so so what kind of what was your approach when you came in the door obviously pretty self-motivated person um what was your what was your mindset coming in the door i'm just going to stick my head down and do you know work my ass off or i'm going to try to figure things out uh and play this game i really had more of the approach of like i don't i'm at a disadvantage here i don't know the industry i just learned about what sass even was in 2017 um just i was bobbing around in the south pacific i didn't have an awareness and i was like i need to immerse myself in this and just put my nose down and try to figure it out along the way and just lean on that newness and just ask for help so i mean when i interviewed with my manager i was like look i want to get my foot in the door i'm not as interested in this position as i am in the next one i want you to know that when you hire me but while i'm here while my butt's in that seat i will kill it for you and just help me that so that's a that's important right because i think there's what bothers me is as a former hiring manager right is the rep who basically looks at oh this is yeah this is my stepping stone right now it doesn't bother i understand it's the stepping stone but my whole mentality is look you got to earn the right to get to that next level so like yes i appreciate that's where you want to go but you have to execute at this level better than anybody in order to be able to get there right so you were pretty up front like look i want that but i'm here to win here so tell me tell me what you need me to do there exactly and i just consistently asked my manager i was like what do i need to be doing while i'm here and i was you know in the beginning i like blew my quota out of the water got like rookie of the year and then i slowly just like started creeping up and i was like number two number two number two number two and then i was number one and stayed there and i used that momentum and every every meeting i had with my manager i was like i want more responsibility i want more of this like what else can i do and because i was operating at a at a high level and like just refusing to be like number three or number two um and i was being successful in these other projects i ended up supporting um the australian business development team so we can a ton of overtime hours uh scrubbing data like getting meetings and doing a ton of outbound stuff so i had the inbound side i had the outbound side and i was like doing really well at both to meetings i was constantly asking what i could do better and just like rocking and rolling and i knew i knew that it was temporary like 10 extra hours of overtime is is a joke compared offense but it is what i was doing as a chef it's like hours is like a half day i was just like this isn't so bad just keep going and i made sure that i stayed super super organized i spent the last like 10 or 15 minutes of my day every day planning for the next morning because i'm not a morning person and like a list that i can just like drink my coffee and hit um while i start to wake up that helped a lot and uh the other thing that helped a lot was i reached out to anyone and everyone that would listen to me at my company i was like let me shadow you let me sit in on your discovery calls let me be a silent observer on your demos like let me be a sponge you know i'm not going to say anything i'm not going to mess it up just let me let me be there so i was spending a ton of time doing that on top of you know being in that number one or number two spot and i tracked everything so when it came time you know right before our sales kickoff when i met with my manager and i'm like it's been nine months what am i doing and i was like well i think you could run your own book of business now she's like let's talk after sales kickoff i'm like all right and when we started to have those meetings i had you know 30 hours of discoveries and discos with all these different reps from all these different verticals i had all this extra overtime i had like measurable quantifiable data that was like got to that point because i had been doing those little incrementals over that period of time when i sat down with our sales director and i was like i want to apply for this position that you have open he's like yeah great that's awesome you know i don't know if you're ready and i was like well all right um i ran a report and i showed him the territory that was open for the spot i was going in i showed him my plan for how i was going to execute who i was going to target i'm like i already started the job and he's like wow you're pretty prepared and i'm like yeah i am like you you want to give this to me and then so i got him on board and then i got pushed back from hr and hr was like hey we want butts in seats for 12 months and it's only been nine and i was like well if you look at my overtime i've done 12 months of work in nine months it was cool to be able to say that because and i could show it it just made it really easy for them to give me the promotion ah shit man there's a lot to unpack there right i mean yeah sorry i rambled on there no it was all great i mean it's spot on i think you know the the themes i hear there um you know the three big ones work your ass off ask you know ask for more than what's being asked of you uh and then be a scientist um those three themes right um i always tell reps you know in order to get to that next level you know science art right uh you know the artists the reps that just are out there doing their thing whatever okay fine but if you can't show me how you've got to where you are and first of all you're going to be a terrible manager right because you're never going to be able to replicate that um you know if you don't have an approach to something you can't then tell anybody else how to do your approach um but also if you're like if you're not scientific about your approach then if and when you do miss your number as a manager i have nothing to i have nothing to go on you know ultimately i'm just going to have to fire you because if i don't know how to coach you based on where i know you need help then sorry case next so let's talk about i'd like to talk about the um the asking for uh asking for more than what's being asked of you right because i am very similar to you in the sense that i was always anytime i came into a new situation i would seek out the most successful people in the organization and i would just want to be a fly on the wall you know i mean i remember vividly when i worked when i first started at basho i started my company had sold off to staples so i was really successful there now i'm just a little trainer at basho and i remember jeff hoffman who's my mentor you know he was walking around the office one day being like all right we're gonna you know brainstorm and you know this and it was it was a marketing thing and i you know i'm my background's marketing um so and i but i was just curious how they were thinking about marketing because he had brought some pretty heavy hitters in with the funding that he got so i was like hey i jeff do you mind if i just sat in on that marketing meeting that you're about to have here and he's like he kind of looked at me like why would you want to do that i go look again i'm just here to learn i want to hear what you guys are doing and what you know so i can translate that to my customers and what the messaging is but i will literally fly on the wall he's like okay and i used to do informational interviews with executives as well i'd be like let me grab you know an hour in time i'll take you out to lunch i i would prepare and i had very specific questions about you know what i wanted to learn from you on what your career was so was that you know it sounded like it was obviously a conscious thing but where did it start because because there's a fine line there of yeah i i appreciate you coming to me asking for all this stuff but again chrissy do your job first so so what was the trend like when did you start uh like okay i gotta do my job i gotta make those dials and all that other stuff what were some of the things that you started to do early that were a little bit outside of what your responsibilities were so i think probably this is the discovery calls first so what i really did what what started on that path was i was doing a new job i was qualifying leads and i would whenever i got a good one i would walk over to the other side of the building i would start to i would talk to these people i'm like is this good is this you want how can it be better um i was doing that selfishly at that point because i wanted them to convert the lead so i would get paid right through that process it started building relationships and understanding like how i could make this easier for them to convert faster um so improving my process like i would do little extras like i'd send an intro email or send the calendar invite just get it nice and tied up and like a pretty little bow for the reps and then like this is awesome i would have like an actual real conversation i would ask a bunch of questions that i knew were relative relevant and you know type the notes in i just spent some extra time i just tried to put a little bit of extra effort in but the thing was i started getting to a point i'm like i don't know what else to ask so as i had these conversations with the reps i was like well you know what are you asking because at that point it just seemed like this big scary discovery call that people are having i'm like what are they saying what's happening like what secrets are going on and chefs are secret are like these mixed masters like some kind of sorcerer it's it's it's a process it's a recipe i'm like recipe so they were really receptive to it so i started doing that and that built and i'm like well discovery calls are just like i'm already doing this what's next i'm like let me see a demo because that that was the next scary thing and you know i started really exploring different elements of the company like do i want to do the sales like this pre-sales thing seems pretty good these people sit at home and like do demos all day that seems cool so i reached out to a woman that i was friendly with katrina she's amazing she does pre-sales enablement and i was like katrina what do you think like who else should i talk to she gave me a list reached out to those people and started having some like great conversations similar to like the executive ones you were having and that snowballed because i was like killing it at work telling my manager i wanted more work doing well at my extra responsibilities thing like doors just kept opening and i just volunteered for everything and created a little bit of chatter um internally and it was like it was that helped a lot too i guess so so let's i'd love to focus on that kind of ldr ae right yeah because i always find it amazing that most organizations you know i've i've said it before i'll say it again you know the ldr sdr vdr role is i think one of the hardest roles in sales because first of all it's the the lowest conversion ratio so you get your ass kicked the most and as an ldr sdr you you usually have three or four aes that you're that you're working with right and all of those aes have different likes and dislikes you know some of them are like hey i would qualify all the way through so it's pretty much a layup others are like i don't give a shit just give me a meeting with a janitor um some are like don't touch my executives you know go after anybody else some really work with their ldr and are like yeah you're great others like screw you you're a piece of shit elite yeah so what so how many ld how many aes did you uh originally work with so that's kind of crazy so i was inbound velocity so you're calling white papers and anybody so i had like soup to nuts inside and enterprise sales across all verticals so i had i don't know 100 plus plus talk to so it was really really difficult um i definitely had some i would work with more uh the way that the leads came in it was so random we did a round robin so you never really know um so you just try to over communicate you try to do a really good job do your due diligence i did work with an enterprise rep on the side um did a ton of stuff with with her we had a great partnership we got a lot done and she taught me a lot so that naturally developed where it's like i need practice in this area i want to get better at like this enterprise level and like understanding what's happening in these accounts um but it was it was hard like because i don't know and people don't know you you're like who are you who why are you sending me stuff well i think that's why you said you're gonna you build the chatter by going above and beyond like you know i i get a little frustrated with aes who who are who are looking for that uh lead on the silver platter if you will but at the end of the day if you're a ldr or bdr or whatever in order to get to that level unfortunately you're gonna have to force the scenario a little bit and do that work to put that person in a better position to be successful because then they'll start looking at you in a positive light and start to chatter around internally right yeah uh any suggestions you have well actually no let's take it let's let me ask you this um because it sounded like you sought out a lot of people internally for advice and those type of things what's your theory or approach to mentors versus sponsors versus like how do you look at that because i think a lot of people have a lot of different approaches because i get approached all the time hey john will you yeah i personally think that's a dangerous thing so i'd love to hear your thoughts on on how you approach it so i have a funny a little bit of a funny story but i'll i'll start with i don't think it's fair to ask for anything unless you've done your homework and you've done the work it's like if you want to come and ask me a serious like in-depth tactical question about something i know about don't just ask something stupid it's kind of like what you always say about you know don't ask me what my background is like on the internet do your homework so i would try to reach out to people that i knew were good at like something specific like uh brendan at work you know he's he's known for being really good at some of the later sales cycle processes so i was super specific in my ask i was like will you go over this with me for 15 minutes just this i mean that's not really a mentorship or a spoiler in my opinion um i was working with our vp of like pre-sales for a little while having conversations he had kind of like taken me under his wing and was like let's see what we can do to help you out here but not a mentor like he would check in on me and like give me homework assignments like read this email me after you've done this kind of um to kind of keep me on track but when i got to sales kickoff after i had that meeting with my manager i was like i need a mentor and i went after b glass who's like a little bit grumpy sometimes and i was like you were the one that did the best on all the dem the discovery calls and demos i sat in on would you be my mentor and it was a little scary because he isn't really like a mentor kind of guy and he's like you know what i respect the crap out of that you know i'm humbled and honored to to help you out i don't have a lot of time so tell me what you need and i'll do that and we pretty much just had like a list six weeks and he's like you're done that's it so i get you're on your way it's up to you now so i think being really specific in your ask um and and keeping it short like don't don't be like hey let's sit down for an hour and we're gonna it's like can i have 15 minutes really specific i need help with just this and then i'm gonna let you go on your way and i and i think that's important for everybody to to hear because and i you know i travel all over the world i do my thing right and look i want to help everybody i can but i i get five to ten requests literally a week for kids saying hey john will you be my mentor and i'm like you know that's a first of all that's a dangerous thing because i might not be the best person to guide you through your career you might like what i say on social and you like my persona but you might peel the layer back here and you find out that i'm a raging asshole you know what i mean and i might give you some advice like you know i'll give you an example and this kind of transitions to something else i wanted to talk to you about and it relates to sponsorships and stuff like that but like the grant cardones of the world you know what i mean like some people look at grant cardone and i fucking hate him but some people look at him and like oh man look at him he's so successful be my mentor if you were i will tell you right now if you if you said to me if you were interviewing me right for a job or if i was interviewing you for a job and you told me grant cardone was your hero and your mentor i would end the interview right there and you wouldn't get a job because you are now tying yourself to somebody that might not be the best person so i love what there is being super hyper specific with what you're asking for from people and making it easy for them to mentor you because i will take your time any day of the week if you come to me and say hey john i've looked at your background here's what i'm looking at like i need some very specific help with this thing could you jump on the phone with me for 10 to 15 minutes yes holy shit i'll have that all day long yeah but like the mentor thing is a is a challenge for me because i just i that that entails a lot of i am i am coaching you and i'm working with you on a plan type of scenario you've got to do some of that on your own got it right yeah and i think that that that so for you and i shift a little bit gear here into the into that that that we need to talk because i know that you know you see you kind of mentioned that and you saw that um as as a pretty strong-willed woman in an organization who's pretty it's pretty obvious that you know what you want and you know how to get it um do you look at it as like having sponsors in it sounded like you had some people within the organization that you latched on to that really helped you navigate through um and and from a woman's perspective what what advice would you give i guess if you were on that webinar uh of talking about women who sometimes you know speaking out is a little bit uh you know they're in a boys club those type of things so what's your advice on on how to kind of navigate the the the the process as as a woman uh in a male-dominated world here from a south yeah and i'm happy to talk about that and it's something that definitely resonates i mean to my core um so when i first started being a chef or when i was first pursuing that i had to do a ton of work on my own end but i also had to work with a lot of males and like reach out to males and the relationship uh you know it can be good or it can be not so great um i worked in a french only speaking kitchen i was the only female in the place and like it's just you're an american in a french oh shit yeah yeah did you not speak french at least no holy shit no no they would like they would be like regard and they would do it and then they're like yeah it was rough it was really rough so sitting in a warm dry chair making cold calls after that wasn't so bad i already i already take some i'd already gotten hit a few times you know what i mean navigating the waters as as a as a female especially if you're young especially if you're you know attractive in any in any way it doesn't matter if you're not you just have to be tough like you and and that's that's how it is like if if men are going to act like little boys then you kind of have to go into a role where it's like not taking that shit and we're not in that conversation and um you just got to be tough i guess you know you got to say what you think you got to stick to your moral compass and you can't take any junk were you able to find some some male counterparts um that were able to help you um absolutely absolutely help like support you you know what i mean yeah it kind of backed you up when you were because as a chef or as in in this position right either because like as a woman like i totally appreciate that hey stand up you know tell the guy to fuck off but then there's a good old boys club that comes in and says yeah yeah sorry so having a having a sponsor or somebody to support you and that is pretty pretty helpful right it was easier as a chef because you could say f off generally i would be holding a knife and playing yeah that helps nobody really you know you give somebody the eyeball or you like your eyebrow and you're like you really want to you want to talk about that like as i'm holding like a frying pan and a knife that was a very good point so but in a corporate standpoint um you know i've had a couple of instances and you know not naming any places or any names where you you kind of have to do the same thing you kind of have to raise your eyebrow take a step back and be like conversation you want to have yeah this is where you want to go and unfortunately i found that being really aggressive it nips it in the bud like that you can't be like oh that was yeah it's flattering like i it's really is this really where we're going with this and like any bully ever i mean i have never had a problem if i have taken that approach yeah it's funny it's like you know and i i really don't want to get into politics but what nancy pelosi is doing right now is fucking brilliant i mean i i'm not following yeah sorry what's she doing he's just she's now that she's in power right now that she took over the the house if you will i mean you're watching donald and again i don't care one way or the other i don't want to get into that but you're watching him who is who was bullying his way through everything and she's now standing up and saying no like just not even negotiating like absolutely right and you and you're literally watching him back off yeah and you can tell he respects her yeah and the reason i know he respects her is because he you know how he gives everybody names like you know lion ted or whatever it is well with her he was like you know i've been talking nancy the other day you know i call her and you're expecting a nickname to come out and he goes i call her nancy and it was like yeah yeah what so so i think your point is nip it in the bud hit him in the bud trust your instincts even get a whiff of some other ulterior motive just find somebody else there's plenty of people you know but make sure you're contributing enough value where other other people are accessible to you love it cool i know you threw a couple of questions in here did you want to kind of flip some over on me and and throw some out there because i thought you had some good ones yeah absolutely um so i mean i'm a selfish one i guess let's start with that i'm in this spot now where i'm a farmer so i basically work with our customers trying to find solutions to upsell them or flip to new software um any any familiarity in this space any do you this a familiar role uh like any any little tips or advice there absolutely so you know so i for me i manage 30 or 40 accounts on a regular basis and i sell 30 or 40 accounts on so i do both right okay and so and with the existing accounts you know you have to know more about them obviously the new ones right because otherwise you know you can't just come to them and say hey what's new you know touching base and checking in type of shit so i actually um you know i i do more research on my existing accounts than i do on my prospects to to find out really you know from a business strategy standpoint and those type of things and almost ground up so there's this there's this trend going on right now in sales which is design thinking um they're they're taking a design thinking and they're applying it to sales which in design thinking for those of people who are listening who don't know what it is it's you know when apple creates a product right they don't create a product in a vacuum and then bring it to market and say here we're smarter than you go use it yeah they watch how you work right so they watch how you work they and then and they learn and then they that's why the ipad is so intuitive right like my six-month-old daughter when she when she was six months i got her an ipad and she immediately picks the thing up and knew exactly what to do right so same thing in sales so let's go back to my experience at xerox i came into xerox i came into a territory that was burned to the ground they had five reps in three years it was the government so like so and i thought and all these other reps were getting into their territory sort of flipping boxes type of stuff so i figured okay that's what i'm going to do right so i started and basically when i would go into these um agencies they'd basically tell me to piss off because there's going to be another one you in here six months yes you have no interest and i was like holy shit so i had to take a step back and really relationship repair a lot of those but ground up so outbound with it with the new accounts is top down you know research and hey who can i talk to and whatever i think actually account management or or you know upsell cross-sell stuff is a lot more bottom up it's learning the business uh talking to the people on the ground floor about what their experiences are understanding the workflow because that's what i had to do with the copiers i had to go in and understand how were they using the copiers how what where did people have to walk to get to them uh you know how much were they paying on click-through rates and all that other stuff and i would literally map out their entire office on a diagram and and then would come with a new plan and i had to earn it to get to that level and by to your point of like creating a little bit of the groundswell you did it internally with with like your brand i would do that internally with my customers so i would know so you'd hear like holy shit i would add value along the way if i could help somebody else you know throughout the way i would do it um because i was building that story to go up and bring something to the executives that i could teach them and i and i don't mean like because i'm the smart kid here because most executives at this level they don't really have a ton of insight of what's going on on the ground floor so if i can be that third party that brought them that insight and shared with them some ways to get you know to to address that uh you get a lot of you get a lot of leverage that way cool oh that's great thank you um you know i saw your instagram uh feed like hey it's 2 a.m or i got in at 2 a.m doing sales kickoff what what motivates you and what are you afraid of like in the business sense not the like not um i'll say i think it's um i'm not afraid of much i'll tell you the one thing i am afraid of um is uh first of all becoming irrelevant you know what i mean like is it is getting too comfortable with being good um because as soon as you're comfortable with being good somebody else comes comes back so that's why i'm constantly trying to evolve and trying to learn shit on my own like you know even you know nobody like that's the beauty of sales you can't be ever you can't be perfect in sales it's like golf you can't shoot a zero right so i think you know being irrelevant is is uh is something um i love failure because that's the way i learned the most uh the thing i'm most afraid of is is to make sure um i so it is a personal thing is it's so it's it's based on my daughter um you know i'm traveling all around the world i'm working my ass off i'm trying to support my family um and i pray to god that i'm i'm doing it for the right reasons in the sense that my my fear my my god-given fear is if it all ended tomorrow would i look back and say fuck i wish i would have spent more time with my family that's so you talk about the work-life balance and working your ass off and making sure i try to do that you know what i mean we have great vacations yeah i'm home on the weekends i'm with my you know my wife and daughter but i i i'm you know everybody uh at the end of their life what is their regrets right most people say they they don't regret what they did do they usually regret what they didn't do right right i'm never gonna regret what i didn't do you know what i mean because i'm gonna do my hope is is that that i don't regret that you know looking back on it that i didn't i wasn't around more and i and i and i was and i had that balance not just for me like i don't give a fuck for me i can sleep three hours a day and still be fine um but that balance for my daughter to to make sure that because my happiness you know when she was born um there's a big shift right there in priorities and now my happiness is dictated based on hers yeah as long as i'm happy um i you know i'll feel like i've been successful in my life that so then my biggest fear is her not growing up and being happy and i don't mean like success is determined she could be an artist she could be broke but as long as she's happy i'll i'll feel like fulfilled and and happy about that so that's beautiful that's my fear do you think you could step back like do you think if you know morgan gets up to speed you get three more morgans would you ever be happy being able to step back i don't think so yeah i know i don't think i'm gonna find a way you're just gonna find a way to incorporate incorporate here so i think like i kind of follow a little bit of the gary v you know i'm what i'm trying to do is i'm trying to as i get um more and more you know as i grow more and more in my career i'm trying to put more structure in place to force the so for instance you know he i think he takes seven weeks of vacation a year so he doesn't and i because i asked him i went to his 4d session and that was my question gary how do you deal with the guilt of being away from your kid right and he's like fuck that he goes my when i'm with my kids i'm with my kids when i'm not i'm not and they understand that i'm like that's easier said than done man you know what i mean when your daughter's crying when you're leaving you know what i mean when you're taking off on the plane but i think he does it by seven weeks a year that's his thing and he tells everybody to fuck off and like leave me alone and that's his downtime so what i've tried to do is say look for instance i'll only train on tuesdays wednesdays and thursdays so i so i'll travel on mondays and fridays but i'm i refuse to leave on a weekend you know what i mean or come home on the weekend um last week of the month uh i will not travel right so that's my parameters and what i want to do is get that a little bit tighter so it's like two weeks out of the month i'm training where two weeks i'm home and then eventually start to so i'm on my journey to to ratchet that back but to your point um you know retirement's a relative term here uh i'm never i i don't i i'm just not wired to sit back and chill and do nothing um uh yeah even even when i quote unquote hit retirement age at 65 i'll be brought out of my fucking mind if i don't have something to do so my hope is is that i've built my career up enough to that point where i can then do whatever i want to do not because i have to do it but because i want to do it right now i do both right i do it because i have to because i have to pay the bills i'm not independently wealthy by any stretch at this point but i also love what i do i want to be able to wake up when she graduates high school for instance and just basically say all right we're financially independent now let's go work on whatever we want to work on type of scenario yeah you get into any of that um financial independence that fire community you watch any of that stuff you know i do not really um you know i try to do my thing you know uh and kind of diversify and all that other stuff my money in the right places uh i probably could be doing a lot better with it i also like to spend a lot of money so but you know it's uh there's a balance there of like uh you know i that's i mean that and that is one big thing i don't want to regret i don't want to save for retirement i think that's sad right it's like people work their whole life so that they can quote unquote retire and then live their life yeah live your life at 60 like you shoot me like these are the prime years of my life i ain't gonna look this good for that but you know i'm not saying i'm not saying like why live for that why just like live for tomorrow like you're present where you are now enjoy now so many people are like i'll be happy when i lose 10 pounds i'll be happy when i get married i'll be happy when i'm actually independent it's like you can be happy right now yeah you can choose to be it's a choice it is really a choice one big thing that did help me though was i had some you know i spent an obscene amount of money when i was in yacht but i i did save some you know we had i had a heck of a time but i did save some and i had a nice chunk so that when i did want to take time off and figure it out i could live off my savings i could hire a career coach i bought a car in cash and i could just kind of sit and figure it out and make a really good choice for me because i mean it wasn't f you money but it was it was something like it was it gave me a choice and that's one big thing i would say to anybody young now like just have five or six grand in the bank just skip those brushes skip the champagne whatever just like put it put it away like have a little cushion because you will have so many more choices yeah yeah you got to put yourself in a position where again you can choose right because if you're if you're in a situation where you don't have any savings and if you've been just kind of just doing that thing and then all of a sudden the shit hits the fan now you have to react and and you have to go get whatever's available and a lot of times that isn't what is what you want to do or what's best for you or what's best for you so yeah cool uh we got one more what do you got one more question or did uh fail here in a couple minutes but anything else yeah no i i think i think that's it yeah it's fantastic thank you so much yeah no thanks for coming on this was a fun conversation it was a lot of fun yeah i think um you know hopefully people get a lot out of this one and and realize that you know it's funny people ask me you know john what's the secret to success right it's a very simple answer it's just working your ass off it really is somebody one of my buddies said it the other day and he's like man getting up and going to work every day is the only hustle i know that works it's the only game that works you just gotta do it and you gotta take no shortcut like i tell so i did so go back to my daughter one more time like we uh we get a scratch ticket right one of those like like 30 scratch tickets like the ones that nobody ever loses on right and we do it once a month we do it once a month and i let her scratch it because i've been doing this for years but i let her scratch it every time and we never never win right and i tell her and she now knows it i go charlotte what does that tell us she's like we have to earn everything that we got right daddy i'm like that's exactly there ain't no free they're like we ain't lucky like make your own luck by working absolutely right i've never been good at gambling even though i have a little gambling problem but uh i've never been good at it because i'm just not lucky you know what i mean like like fundamental lucky in the fundamental sense i am very fortunate to be born to parents that love me to be born here in america in the northeast you know what i mean like i am very fortunate and i do not discount that in any way shape or form but i get very annoyed when people call me lucky because i just fundamentally don't believe in that yeah it's it's the same thing you know being being in tahiti or being in the french alps and people are like oh i'm so jealous it's like i had to scrub toilets to get here to get in the door like i have a college education i scrubbed toilets changed dirty bed linens for six months nobody wants to talk about that when you're in your bathing suit in tahiti yeah they don't see that i mean i think that's the problem with social these days is everybody sees the cool shit they see the yacht they see the car but they don't see what it fucking took to get there um so you know hopefully everybody out there realizes that uh you know it this world ain't gonna give you shit unless you don't get it right yeah absolutely awesome chrissy well let's definitely keep it moving forward buy a beer or gin and tonic or something definitely especially and uh are you a pats fan i just don't care about it all right good all right i just don't care that's okay well you spend you spend enough time overseas where that probably kind of like faded away yeah this will be a fun weekend coming up here in the next couple weeks because good luck enjoy i'll keep my fingers crossed for you but yeah awesome thanks so much again and uh have a great day and good luck with everything else all right thanks so much john Bye-bye.

Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.