Adam Jay - Authenticity in a Culture-First Environment

Hey everyone, welcome back to Make It Happen Mondays, where we talk about sales, business, entrepreneurship, personal growth, mental health, and everything in between with guests who I truly respect and I think make a positive impact on the world around us. And today's conversation is with Adam Jay. Now, Adam is the owner and president of Adam Jay Consulting that he actually just went off on his own to do for many of the same reasons I did. The corporate culture wasn't really working for me and I just wanted to control my own destiny and that's what Adam did recently. And so we talked about a lot. He works with a lot of sales leaders and organizations and has done a ton of development of sales professionals to become leaders.

So we talked about how he creates a culture first environment. I asked him about his definition of leadership versus management versus coaching and how and why we all need to have all three, but where we need to focus. Also talked about something he does, which is asked, gives his employees a how to work with me document, which is very similar to my 12 personal guidelines to success and it's about expectation setting. And then we dove into AI coaching and how that's going to change the game and where the human factor is still going to be necessary. And then we just got into work ethic over the hustle culture and authenticity and transparency and explaining the why and understanding your why.

So this is a fun episode. I hope you enjoy it. Let's make it happen. Adam J. Welcome to the Make It Happen Monday podcast, my friend. How are you doing today? I'm good, man. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, thanks for coming on board, man. I appreciate you reaching out on this one. I know there's been some changes in your life recently and career and everything else, and we're going to get to that. But before we dive into that, because I think we're going to focus the conversation today around like leadership and leadership development and kind of entrepreneur, like getting off the ground and some mistakes we've all made and everything else. But let's give a little context to the audience here, Adam, about kind of where you're coming from and your sales career and how you've evolved to where you are right now.

Yeah, I appreciate it. So I always start when people ask my sales career by starting with, I'm a parent, so I have a 12-year-old son, and the reason I start with that is I've coached his basketball since he was six, and it talks to the way I believe in leadership, which is your job is to be a coach, right? At the end of the day, managers are for factories. I started my career in radio, so it's nice to be back in front of a microphone. I realized very quickly that there is no money in radio unless you have a syndicated morning show. I made like $6.37 an hour, man, like doing overnights. It was brutal. But I loved it. Doing overnights, too. Not even like during the day. No, not even like afternoon.

Like I was like midnight till 5 a.m. Like there's probably three people listening. But I had a good time. And I started dating someone who was in sales. She was in pharmaceutical sales. And at the time, that was the creme de la creme sales job. Like, oh, wow, you're going to sell the doctors. And what I realized is all you're doing is like catering lunch. Did that for a few years. Yeah, you're bribing doctors to sell your shit. That was back before they put the regulations in place, right? 100% going out to the nice steak dinners. Like I was out every night. I had probably 40 extra pounds from that job. No joke. Progressed my career, got into tech, got into tech sales, and then very quickly advanced into leadership, man.

I've been very blessed. I've worked for super early stage companies, everything from Seed to the latest was probably Series D at Toast prior to their IPO. Learned a lot of things throughout, how to lead, how not to lead, what's important to me, what's important to my team. And ultimately, I built a career on building what I call culture-first environments, creating these sales environments where people are encouraged to be their authentic selves, not to be 27 of me on my team, and making sure that everyone has an opportunity to shine and ultimately grow in their career. You led to it, I'll tease it, but recently I made the decision to go out on my own and try to help as many individuals as I can, as many founders as I can, kind of transition from founder-led sales, but still holding true to those values.

Let's dive into some of the things you said there as far as, let's start with leadership versus management. Um, you know, you said leadership is about being a coach, but how would you, I also, also think anybody in the organization obviously can be a leader, right? So what is your, what are some of the characteristics of leadership compared to management in your opinion? It's a great question. Uh, managers are for factories. Leaders are to lead. I think when you look at the difference in the two, a manager is someone who is a supervisor, right? They're going to make sure that you, and this is still an important part of leadership, but all a manager is going to do is make sure that you're hitting your numbers, whether that be inputs, outputs, you're entering your notes in your CRM, you're calling the right number of people.

And I'm going to manage you. I'm going to tell you what to do. I'm going to tell you how to do it. And when you do something wrong or not necessarily the right way, I'm going to say, go fix it, go do it this way. This is how, and then I'm going to walk away and I'm going to check on you. Um, and what I found myself and certainly anyone I know who is a top performer doesn't want to be managed. No one really wants to be managed, right? You and I were talking about this a little before we started. No one wants to be managed, but I do believe people want to be led. And to me, what leadership is, is number one. And I touched on this a minute ago. It's encouraging people to be their authentic selves.

And that comes in across a couple of different ways, whether that is how you dress tattoos, your piercings, your green hair, whatever it happens to be. But it's also speaking the way that you speak. That's authentic to who you are. You have to be professional. Don't get me wrong. Like, don't go dropping F-bombs on the discovery call. Um, but I tell people all the time, like when I'm going over scripts with them, this is my example, but please don't read this word for word because at the end of the day, someone's going to, you are not Adam. And if you say it the way I said it, they're going to know you didn't say it. I think the other part of leading is also really understanding where people want to go in their career and what's important to them and setting up objectives that align with that.

The easiest example I use is I had a BDR, um, in my last role that hated being a BDR, like despised it and told everyone how much he despised it. And it wasn't very good. Um, but he's like, I, I want to, and he owned it, but he's like, I want to go to marketing. He's like, I took this role, um, because, and these are his words, not mine. He's like, I'm a 26 year old black kid. Who's never going to get a chance to just come in and be in marketing. No one's going to hire me. And I disagree with that entirely, whole separate conversation. He's like, but I, I came in and I want to, you know, bust my chops and prove that I could do this. I said, great. Why do you want to be in marketing? And we really dug into his why and the fact that he loves building content and he loves getting his voice out there and all of these great things.

And my job as a leader was to get him to be there. So we focused on getting him better at being a BDR, but also giving him things to do on the side to really show to the CEO that he was a fit for marketing. And that's really where he belongs. And I remember having a conversation with my CEO and she was like, but we can't promote someone who's not great at what they're doing right now. And I get that mindset. I do. But as a leader, my counter to that was, listen, he wants to be in marketing. He's either going to do it here or he's going to do it somewhere else. And right now we have a kid who is so passionate about our products, so passionate about the team, so passionate about what we do. Why in the world would we want to give that up to go let him do it somewhere else?

So through coaching him and developing him, we actually got him that promotion. Um, and I think the other part, JB, is you got to partner with people. I've always said to my team that I'm the lowest ranking person on the totem pole. My job is to be your administrative assistant. It's to take all that admin crap out of your way. If you need to get me on a call and use my title, fantastic. If you need to build credibility, tell them I'm your damn trainee. I don't care. Um, my job is to empower you and make you better. Um, and I think that by doing that, you show people that you work for them instead of them working for you. And that is probably the single biggest definition of what I think is a leader versus a manager.

Yeah, I think that, that, that mental shift of, again, I work for you versus you working for me. I think that the dictator, if you will, approach to, to leadership is, uh, you know, I, I think it probably still works in some scenarios. Um, you know, and I think you, you have to look at it from sort of like, if you look at the military, right? Like there is a very hierarchical structure and there's a reason for that. Cause if you don't, if you don't follow those orders, people die and, and there's no dissension, right? But I think in most with what's happening with most other organizations and the shift that we're seeing right now in with mental health, with job satisfaction, with people's why and people's values, like if you are not inclusive, if you are not bottom up leadership, you know, I think you're, you're not going to attract that.

Well, I, you know, I guess it depends on the type of leader you are too, right? Cause if you're just not that type of leader, you need to go find people that fit into your system of your leadership style. But I think eventually you're going to have to change because most people aren't going to be attracted to that leadership style. So what do you, um, like you talked about management, like how both your piece of leadership is coaching, right? The problem that I see a lot is that, that most organizations that I work with are trying to make their manage, like get their managers to do coaching. Cause we all know that the number one thing, the most important thing I think any of us can do as management leadership, whatever is coach, right?

So if we, if we really coach and, and, I mean, that is the fact, but, but that's not a short term thing, right? Deal chasing. I got to close this deal. So most managers are, are, you know, the, the thing that I think most companies fail at is they promote their best sales rep to be their manager. And usually that's the worst thing you can do because your best sales rep, your best sales rep for a reason. They're typically an artist. They're typically somebody who just has the, the ability to do stuff kind of subjectively if in a lot of ways. And so for them to translate that as, is a really hard thing. So when they get into that management role, they end up doing least path of resistance, what they know how to do, which is close deals.

So they'll jump in on a deal, but it's not, that's not coaching. That's not basically, I'm doing it for you. So I see all these companies for years, try to get their managers to coach, but the managers never coach because they never have time to. So do you think a manager's job should be to coach or should we look at coaching in a different way and really let managers do what managers typically do? I think it's a balance. There's an interesting approach that we tried way back when I was at Hologic, which was a medical device company and we had separate coaches, right? We had managers who their job was get the number, let me help you close the deals, et cetera, et cetera. And then we had, we called them field sales trainers and their only job was to go out and coach people and make them better.

That was their sole function and their compensation was tied to reps improvement. Not necessarily the deals closing. And I think it's an interesting approach. I think that with budget constraints and the economy, the way it is, I don't think you're, there's going to be an appetite for companies to hire, you know, separate coaches besides managers. But you, you, you hit on something that I was actually just writing about this morning for an article, which is most managers want to, they are, it's the historical, like let's hire the best rep and make them a manager. And it's a wildly different skillset. And now I'm a manager. No one trains me how to be a manager, by the way. It's just, here's your team, go have fun.

And I'm on a call with a rep and they're saying or doing something, I don't want to say wrong, just different than how I would do it. And I expect them to be me, right? Because I was promoted to be the manager for a reason. Yeah. So now I just need to interrupt them, stop that conversation and derail it. And I'm going to close the deal. And it doesn't work. Number one, your rep loses all respect for you. The customers don't particularly like it either. And now what you're doing is you are taking your reps credibility away. And I will oftentimes, John, I'll joke with customers when I introduce myself, I'm like, all right, I'm going to go ahead and put myself in unit. I'm going to sit on my hands now and let, you know, Eric or whoever do their thing.

And it's the hardest thing to learn. But I think that when you allow your reps to make those mistakes and then you go back and coach them afterwards, you are empowering them to learn number one, because nine times out of 10, in my experience, they know the mistake that they made when they made it. They are going to go on afterwards because they don't call it out. But it's different. I think to do it successfully, you arguably have to separate those one-on-ones and those coaching conversations. It's something that I've done for a long time is I try not to have a coaching conversation on performance, on skill, on how to get better. And the same conversation is, all right, John, let's go through your pipeline and talk about your deal progression.

They're wildly different. If I'm going to coach you, it's unbiased that has anything to do with your pipeline. I would love to see one day dedicated coaching roles. I don't think there's a budget appetite for it right now. Well, let's talk about AI, because I'm starting to see some pretty interesting AI coaches out there. I mean, I posted this a few weeks back on even me, right? And I'm actively trying to replace myself, quite frankly, because I know if I don't, somebody else will, in the sense that you can now take, you know, all, because I mean, think about how much content I have online, right? I have podcasts for days, like this conversation is out there, right? So you can scrape my voice, you can scrape my opinions, all my YouTube, all my blogs, right?

So you can take that and you can ingest that into an AI version of me that is a coach. And then not only just my- I commented on that post, it was scary. Brutal, right? And so, and even more scary is not just that it's going to be John Barrows with my knowledge of what I've put out there on the internet, but you can now make it so that you can, I can ingest any Sandler, Miller, Hyman, you name the sales guru, you can put it in through my avatar. And so I do think that we're coming to a point where we're all going to get like a personal assistant, if you will, that will be a coach for us. So do you, do you see AI, where do you see AI fitting, um, for coaching moving forward? And, and where does that leave the human coach as part of this?

Oh, great question. Um, so I am not of the belief that AI is going to put everyone out of a job and we're all doomed and the world is going to end. Um, I am of the belief that AI is going to put the lazy people who have no origination, who just copy and paste shit and do the same thing over and over again out of the job. Like if I was a content creator, uh, and when I, or content manager, marketer, I'd probably be worried. Um, specific to coaching, I actually think it's a good thing. I think that being able to take, you know, your views with your subjectivity, tie it to your avatar and whatever it happens to be, I think has a place. And I think that, you know, when you look at tools out there that have AI coaching that could pop up on my screen as I'm talking, um, I think it's incredibly beneficial, but what I don't see happening right away is AI that I've seen can't learn a hundred percent of the context of every situation.

It can't have the background of every company's history, every person's history, their interpersonal skills, what makes them tick, how it makes them tick. Um, and I think that's where folks like you come in. AI is great for super tactical, um, coaching, like in the moment, um, I say, if I, if I work for gong and let's say chorus and I'm doing a sales call and someone says chorus, pulling up that battle card right away and telling me what to say. Great. How to sell and how to resonate with buyers and like the subtle nuances that go into, you know, verbal cues and body language and all the things that, you know, you teach, I don't see AI taking that over because it's right now, maybe one day, God, I hope not.

Um, but it's not smart enough to do that yet. Yeah. And I think it's, I also look at this as, you know, experience versus unexperienced, right? Because the challenge with a lot of these, you know, younger reps coming into the system, right? We just don't have the time to really, I, you know, the other post that I did was I, you know, I feel like we've lost sight of the fundamentals, right? Like we, over the past 10 years, we've over-engineered the sales process. We've started with technology first and we basically kind of, I don't want to say rolled our eyes at the fundamentals and the basics, but we have, like we've skipped over it, right? Because we've tried the technology to do it for us.

And so now that's all coming to roost because now you have all these kids in the down economy that don't know how to actually have a conversation. And, and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that we were growing at all costs, you know, money was free, but also like, we just didn't have the time, you know what I mean? People were growing so fast that there were so many people coming through the system that coaching was like a, eh, you know what I mean? Like, whatever, we're going to train you. We're going to onboard you. We're going to give you the tools and then we're going to let you go. And then we're going to throw gong on there that your manager is not going to listen to. And we're going to pretend like we're doing some shit, right?

Um, now I think there's a unique opportunity to teach those fundamentals, to teach the tactical components of the coaching to the mass audience of, of new reps. Right. But for somebody like you or me, I, I, I've tried some of these coaching tools and quite frankly, I, I look at their coaching and I'm like, give me a fucking break. Like, dude, like, if you think about every email coaching tool starts with, um, hi, John, my name's Adam and I'm the C like shit that, and we were talking about this yesterday and a totally unrelated, like a shit that we would never say, I would never start an email with that or, Hey, John, I see that you own a consulting company. Like I'm never going to do that, but that's the best that AI has to offer right now.

And that's what I think. I think it's better than the, I'll, and I hate to say this, but it's true. It's better than the average human. Okay. Sure. AI is better than the average human. So that's why I think coaching at a certain level from an AI standpoint is a great foundation, depending on what it's coaching on and what the system it's pulling from and everything else. But as you evolve, I think that's where the human gets more and more relevant as far as experience and context and your background and me understanding you as a person, not just the tactics and figuring out what your growth path is. And you had said something earlier about like, from a leadership standpoint, your job is to, you know, help them get to wherever they want to go, like bottom up.

And I do, I take a similar approach in that, you know, I call it the pursuit of happiness. And I say like, you know, I ask all my team members and all my employees, like, okay, what is happiness? What's your pursuit of happiness? Like, what's it look like for you? Like, like lifestyle wise, five years out, what's it look like for you? Because my goal is to help you get there, whatever that is. And that doesn't have to be here at my organization. You can be here for one or two years to go to that next level. I don't give a shit. Let me just get the most out of you for that time. That's the key. And a lot of people don't realize that. And I feel very much the same way. It used to be that, hey, like you, you need to be here five, seven, 10 years.

And, you know, if I even get the hint that you're looking to leave, like, I'm going to fire you. And my mindset is very similar to yours. Like, listen, I want you to work very hard when you're here. I want you to do everything you can to make us successful and to also make yourself successful. But I actually, I have a employee career development plan that I've taken with me over the years. And I give it to everyone. And one of the questions is like, what's your crazy ass dream? Similar to your five plan. Like, where do you want to be? And my job is to get you there. And if you tell me like, hey, I want to be here for two years and then I want to go open my own business. Awesome. Let's get the most out of you I can to help our business grow over the two years.

At the same time, my commitment to you is to give you all of the skills and development and training possible so that I can help you achieve that goal. And let me know when you're ready to make that move. Don't blindside me. I don't want to be blindsided. Let me know. And you have my word. I'm not going to fire you. I am going to help you get there. And I did this with one of my reps a couple of companies ago. She wasn't happy. She had told me she wasn't happy. That she was looking for a different role. She just didn't like sales. She wanted to get into customer success. Sales wasn't her thing. And she's like, I'm petrified to tell you this because I don't want to be fired. And I went back to the conversation we had when I hired her.

I said, listen, like, you're being honest with me. I'm not going to fire you. Let's help you find that role, whether it be here or somewhere else. Because I don't want anyone to do something they don't want to do. And thank you for being honest with me. And thank you for being transparent with me. How can I help you get where you want to go? It's so important and something that so many leaders overlook because it's all about, I got to get everything I can out of you. And you have to be here for the rest of your life. But the chances of someone being in your company for the rest of your life these days are slim to none. If you can get, unfortunately, it's sad. But if you could get two to three years, you're doing really well right now.

Yeah, exactly. And I think that's the, you know, the key is I tell my team, like, you're not going to be surprised unless I'm surprised. Yeah. And don't surprise me. Right? Like, nothing will piss me off more than if you and I, that if I think you and I have a good thing going and I've got plans for you and I'm helping you achieve your why and your values and all that other stuff. Then one day you're like, hey, John, he has my two week notice. Then I turned into a raging asshole. Then I'm like, then fuck you. Get out of here because you just screwed me because now I got to, I was planning with you. And if you had just been open with me about it, but it's the same thing on my side. I tell my team, you will not be surprised unless I am.

So for instance, like an acquisition or something like that, like sometimes those come out of nowhere and there's nothing I can do about that. But unless, you know, I'm not going to just sit you down one day and say, sorry, Adam, like you're gone. Like you're going to know well in advance about when we have to transition. I tell everyone in a very similar way. I'm like, unless you lie, cheat or steal, you're never going to have a conversation about losing your job that you don't expect. If we are, if we're, if we get on the zoom and that have that conversation, when the zoom starts, you're going to tell me what the conversation is. Cause we've had 27 other conversations that have led to that.

That's why I like, you know, and this is, you know, for junior managers listening out there, if you, and I'm guessing Adam, you're going to agree with me on this one. But if not, let me know if you're doing a performance review on somebody and anything in that performance review is a shock to the person that you are delivering that performance review to. You're an asshole manager. A hundred percent. You're an asshole manager. They, they should know exactly what that performance review is going to, and, and all their areas of improvement and all that. But that, you know, I love, you know, I hate managers that are like the gotchas. It's like, well, you didn't do that. It's like, what the fuck?

But it goes back to coaching. If you're coaching them, you've had these conversations. A hundred percent. You, you, I I've been in that role. I've been blindsided where I've got that performance review. And I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? Oh, like this happened, you know, six weeks ago with this. But you never told me about it. We never spoke about it. Like, what the hell is this? Or somebody had a problem with you, or I got an email from somebody three weeks ago about how you did this. It's like, why didn't you tell me three weeks ago you held that until now? Like, now I'm pissed. The gunny, the gunny sack for the performance review. Yeah, exactly. So let's talk about, you have some interesting, and this goes to alignment and coaching and everything else.

You, you have a document that you use. It's how to work best with me. So this is, as a man, like, so this is, let's, I want to unpack and understand this a little bit. Because my, my mentor, Jeff Hoffman, used to, you know, he would do management training. And he actually had this thing where he would say, let me share with you what makes me happy, right? And, and I also, at first I was like, okay, well, this is kind of a, like, who gives a, what makes you happy, right? But I think as far as the, the, the transparency and understanding, like, I want to know what makes you happy. And I want to help you with your pursuit of happiness. Let me explain to you my pursuit of happiness and what makes me happy here and, and how we can work best together.

So it sounds like you have this, how, how to work best with me and, you know, talk to me a little bit about that and how that works. Yeah, it's, um, it's, it's called work working with Adam. Um, I adopted it. God, it's gotta be five years ago. Um, now from a leader that I had, who I actually won't mention because she was a shit leader, if I'm going to be honest. But this was the best takeaway I got from her. Um, and it was, it was, uh, working with so-and-so doc and the way it was framed really resonated with me. It's like, listen, we only spend so many hours a day together. Um, I have my expectations of you as an employee. You should have your expectations of me as a manager. And like to everyone listening, like it is okay to have expectations of what you want from a leader.

Like don't go in blindly and turn down a role. If there's not alignment, that's okay. Um, but it went through, you know, all of these great things that I've since modified and adopted. And I think my standpoint is I can't tell you and remember every single thing about my personality and how I tick and what's important to me and what's not and what I expect from you. So I was like, let me write this down and let's talk about, you know, what motivates me. Let's talk about my why. Let's talk about my coaching style. Um, let's talk about who I am at my best, which is like personable, funny, outgoing, coaching, spirited. But there's also a section on there that says, I can't take it personally, call me out on it.

It's something that I'm actively trying to improve upon. And it's, it's my way of showing a little bit of vulnerability, um, as well and letting my team know that I, I'm human. Um, but it goes into, you know, very clear expectations of the things that are important to me. Um, everything from like how to communicate with me, um, in like a hierarchy standpoint. So like, not hierarchy in the sense of the company, but like area of urgency, right? Text, Slack, email, um, and things along those lines. And then it talks about, you know, how I will give my all to help you develop. And it even goes into like coaching meetings are different than pipeline meetings. Um, but it's something that I found to be so beneficial to share with people, to give those insights into expectation, personality, and working style.

Cause there's only so much you get out of an hour, two, even three hours of interviews. Um, and I tend to share it with people before they accept a role. Um, because when we go to blindsiding, like, I don't want you to like suddenly take a job and then you're like, oh, you sometimes are going to get short and snippy. That's a deal breaker for me. Um, I want you to know upfront and I encourage everyone on my team to create their own document as well. It doesn't have to be as long or as detailed, but I found that it really helps kind of align those expectations. Make sure that we are on the same page and that we're on a, where we are on a different page. We can have a super transparent conversation, um, about things that may need to change or things that might not necessarily be, um, as important to someone on my team as they are to me.

Yeah, I think that's huge. I think it's expectation set. I, I, you know, I've said this before, I'll say it again. I think life is about expectation setting. You know what I mean? Like if you think about the last time you're pissed off about anything, I almost guarantee it's because your expectations are misset. Right. So if we have clear expectations, then we're good. And if we share values, I think that's the other part of this, which is important. Right. I, and that's why I think everybody right now needs to go through that value exercise as an individual, but also as an organization, because if you and I align on core values, we can, we'll get through this. But if we don't, we're just going to argue.

And so I think that's a, that those, cause I used to, I think I read when I was young, you know, in business, I read the, what, think and grow rich, right. That book. And somewhere in there it talks about, I think it's a little dated these days, but somewhere in there it talked about like understanding your core values, but also like, I forget how they phrased it, but it ended up making me put together what I called my 12 personal guidelines to success. And it was 12 different things that I, of how I lived my life. Right. So one is work hard and smart. What goes around comes around. You can learn something from anybody in any situation, like all these different things. Right. And what I would do is similar to you as I would share that with my employees or, or, or, you know, when I was in the hiring process and I'd just be like, look, here's the deal.

Here's the 12, my personal 12 guidelines to success. I want you to know that anytime you get feedback from me or anytime I'm going to react about something, this is where it comes from. Yeah. You know, for instance, like work hard and smart. I I'm, I'm a work ethic guy. Like if you're, if you check out at five o'clock, you and I aren't going to get along period because people say I'll work smart and I can really optimize my, fuck you. You have to work your ass off right now. And if you are constantly checking out at five o'clock before your shit's done, don't get me wrong. If you can get all your stuff done by five o'clock, God bless you. I don't know a single person on the planet that can, but if you can, good for you.

But if you're just like punching the clock at five and then you get pissed off and you don't respond to my emails after hours and that type of stuff, sorry. Like, that's just not how I work. Now that's, that's not good for some people. And you need to know that coming into this. Because if you're one of those, like, nope, five o'clock, I'm family and you can't touch me after that. And I hire you where it's not going to last. You're going to mismatch. Exactly. So actually that's a good transition to the hustle culture. You did, you did a post recently on, you know, can we please stop celebrating hustle culture? And I want to dive into this because I'm actually a little concerned that we've swung the pendulum a little too far to the other fucking side.

And don't get me wrong for people who have real mental health issues and real stress issues as it relates to too much work. I do not believe that we need to grind, grind, grind seven days a week, 17 hours a day, that type of thing. I, I, however, I will say doing that is what allowed me to get to where I am in my career today. Sure. So early days, I did work 16, 17 hours a day, six to seven days a week. I did that for probably 20 years of my career, quite frankly. Um, it was cause I loved what I did. So it wasn't like, I wasn't working to just work. Where are you on this hustle culture versus checking out at five o'clock and taking, and I'm sorry for people listening here and you're probably going to piss at me, but taking a fucking mental health day because it was just hard.

Because you're, because you're, because you had a bad day in sales. Look, sales is fucking brutal. Okay. It's a hard job. It, it is. So just because you had a bad day doesn't mean you're, you should check out and take a mental health day. If you have actual mental health issues, then fucking a, take as much time as you could possibly imagine. But I'm starting to get very concerned with work ethic. And so how do you balance work ethic with the, with the toxicity of the bad side of hustle culture? So this is probably the best question you've asked. Um, and, and my favorite thing to dive into. I will also start with a disclaimer that I'm probably going to upset some people and I'm sorry. Um, and I agree with you that if, and having family who does suffer from anxiety and real mental health issues, if you have those, please treat them.

Tell me as a leader and I will work with you to treat it. And if you need to disappear for an hour or a day, I'm all for that to your point, the term mental health day, or I've had a bad moment and I need to take time. Um, I think it is being overplayed. So when I'm talking about hustle culture, I work 12 to 14 hours a day, every day I am in my office at six 30 in the morning. I typically don't leave till six 37 at night. I love what I do also. So I don't consider it work. Um, I do work on the weekends. Um, what I don't do, um, is I, I have a 12 year old. I do a week on and a week off with him, his mom. And the weeks I have him, my calendar is blocked from six 30 on. Um, and it says Zachary time.

Um, I'll put him to bed. I'll come back online to me when I'm talking hustle culture, it's, you can't take an hour to go pick up your kid from school. You can't, you know, take a vacation. You're not allowed to take time off. You're getting emails at two, three in the morning and you, in the response it's expected. So I'll give you a perfect example. I start my day at six o'clock in the morning. I will send an email at six o'clock in the morning to those on my team. But we've had conversations that listen, just because that's when I work doesn't mean it's when I expect you to work. You don't have to respond to me immediately. You do have to respond to me in a timely manner, but that's a whole separate conversation.

I think that there's been such an emphasis on, we got to be on 24 seven all the time, every minute of every day and respond to customers and founders and managers instantly. That to me is what I'm talking about. Hustle culture, being afraid to step away from your computer to even eat lunch. What hustle culture is not is the expectation of working hard. It is the expectation of same day response. It is the expectation that, you know what, you might have to do some shit on the weekend because you're busy during the week with customer stuff. If you're not willing to do that, you probably aren't suited for any startup transparently. And to your point, if you think that you're going to clock in at nine and clock out at five, I'll go back to saying work at the factory because that's not what this is.

I think it's a balance and it's a balance of working hard. You said it, working smart. That doesn't mean clocking out at five o'clock. But letting your boundaries be known up front and being comfortable saying, hey, like I work 12 hours a day, but I'm going to take, you know, 45 minutes and I'm going to go pick my kid up from school. And my answer to that, when anyone says that to me is great, have fun, take an hour and go stop and get a slice of pizza with them. Like do whatever you need to do and we'll see you when you get back. The mind shift that I think has been created, and I didn't even think about this when I posted it, honestly, is that, oh, you know, we're being too hard on people.

And we really need to understand that people should really only work from nine o'clock to five and you need your two 15 minute breaks and your one hour lunch. And like, I can't send you, I have to make sure to schedule that slack because if I send it at 602, like you're going to be mad at me because it's 602 instead of six o'clock. That shit can't happen. It's got to be a balance. The fact is, and you said it, sales is a grind. Sales is hard. You're going to hear no more than you're going to hear. Yes, you're going to have shit days, probably more than you're going to have great days. Um, and if that in and of itself requires you to take a mental health day, it's not that there's anything wrong with your mental health.

In my opinion, it's that this probably just isn't the right role for you for issues other than mental health. And that's why I think I wish that we would stop bucketing everything as mental health because mental health is, there are real mental health things. Like you said, anxiety, depression, bipolar, like there are some legit actual medical mental health things. I am also not against giving you just a fucking break because you need one. Sure. Like, I, like if you to come to me, like I am much more empathetic towards somebody being like, dude, I am just stressed out right now. Could I, can I just take the afternoon off? I mean, I guess you could umbrella that under mental health, but you just need a break.

You've been stressed out. Like, just ask for a break. I need some time to, you know, whatever it is. But, but my fear is everybody's like immediately going to this. Well, I need mental health. And it's like, now it's this, now it's like this untouchable thing from a man. So let's go back to leadership and management. I'm now scared to death to, to do anything because now it's a legal HR thing. And this is where transparency and we'll go, we're going to move into transparency, authenticity. This is where transparency as a leader is really hard because, because of how bastardized mental health has gotten as far as people using it. I now don't know how to approach you about mental health. And if you approach me, like you said, like, I, I would love it if people come to me and tell me, John, here's what I'm dealing with and whatever it is.

But the problem is, is now people are using that to preemptively address some negative consequences in the future. It, it, it's a crutch. Um, it's to your point, I'm going to go, like, I told you, I started my career in pharmaceuticals. I, the joke is I sold speed to kids. So I sold ADHD medication, right. Um, to pediatricians. And I think what you're seeing now with the term mental health is what we were seeing that. And no, again, my kid has ADHD. So no offense to any, anyone who does or any kids who don't, but what we saw was this proliferation of every misbehavior. Every time a kid acted up, every time a kid got out of their seat, oh, it's ADHD, it's ADHD, it's ADHD. So now what people are doing is, oh, I'm stressed.

Oh, it's, it's my mental health. There are real, and you named off a ton of them, real mental health issues that absolutely have to be addressed. Being stressed out, having a bad day. Um, I think people know, and it's, it's sad, but I think people know that they could use it as a crutch, that it makes them untouchable. There was the old joke in pharma when, you know, you knew you were going to get fired. Um, can't believe I'm even saying this, but so many years ago, it's fine. Um, when you knew you were going to get fired, you would, you would go out on short-term disability, um, because you'd be, you're literally untouchable. Um, they can't even call you when you're on short-term disability, and then you start looking for a new job.

Um, now people got hip to that. And I think now it's unfortunately like, oh, you know, it's, it's making my mental health struggle. And then to your point as a leader, what do I, I'm paralyzed. Like I now have to go to HR or, you know, my CEO or whoever and be like, listen, like John's having some mental health issues. We need to step back. We need to lighten his load. Um, and now I'm scared to address performance issues, um, because it's a mental health issue or, or, or is it? And that's what I caution people out there who are like, again, if you have a diagnosed real issue, that is bring it to your manager, bring it to your HR and tell them, look, I am, I am dealing with this. I have medication for this.

I am dealing with this. I want to let you know, so I can be transparent. There are certain days I'm just not going to show up and it's, and I can't even get out of bed. Right. And okay, cool. But also realize that if you don't have real medical and you start pulling the mental health card, you have immediately put a wall up between you and I, you have put the HR wall up between you. When I, which is going to really limit my authenticity and my transparency with you, because now I have to document every conversation I have with you. I have to probably have somebody in the room with me when I have this conversation about your performance, because now you, you know, if you're not producing now you can lean.

Now, my fear is you're going to lean back on this while I have mental health issues. So you're also doing a disservice to those that really have mental health issues. Have it. Exactly. Like I, I hired someone in marketing, one of my last hires, and she told me in the interview process, she's like, listen, I'm going to be super vulnerable with you here. Um, she's like, but I want, and it was like the third interview. We, we built up a level of transparency and trust. She's like, but I want to be honest with you. Um, she's like, I am bipolar. I'm on medication. She's like, and the reason I tell you is if I'm having a bad day, I want you to understand why and recognize it. She's like, and I'm, I'm risking myself here.

Cause like, you may not hire me. Cause we did hire her PS. Um, but that transparency and that candor, when you start using excuses and the mental health word, when you don't have it, it's people like her that you're hurting people who really do need a mental health day. People who really do have an issue that like, holy shit, like I need to step away for a minute. Yep. Yeah. So let's talk about how that, you know, the transition between, you know, transparency and authenticity, you know, you talk about showing up as your authentic self. You had mentioned it earlier in the conversation, whether you got blue hair or, you know, whatever, I want you to show up as you, right. You know, and, and I'm glad that we're moving into a world where we are, we're not all supposed to look in exact, you know, look exactly the same, talk exactly the same, dress exactly the same, right.

So, um, but, but again, there's a balance of that. So how do you, let's talk about a leadership. How do you show up as your authentic self and what is the line of authenticity? And, and I want to also maybe explore the line of transparency too, because there's a, there, I want to be as transparent as, as I possibly can, but there's obviously some things I just can't be transparent about. Right. So how do you, what's the line for you on authenticity as far as who you are as a leader, how you show up and then how you communicate that with your team. And then we'll talk about transparency. So I think when it comes to authenticity for me, um, like you said, I, I want people to be who they are and whether that is blue hair, tattoos, gay, straight, non-binary, male, female, like none of that matters to me.

Um, and I don't think it should matter to customers either. Now, listen, there are certain roles where you are not going to be able to show up with your blue hair and your nose ring. Like if, if you're selling to big giant banks, like no company is going to find that acceptable. I get it. Um, I've never worked in those places, but I, I want people to be able to be real, um, with who they are, with what motivates them, what inspires them. And I think the way that I kind of do that from a leadership standpoint, so I try to be very authentic about myself. What motivates me? I talk about my kid a lot. I talk about my wife a lot. Like if you look behind me, you know, even in this picture, you could see pictures.

Um, and I think by bringing down that wall and recognizing that you could mix, you know, work and play and like, listen, we spend 40 hours a week together. I want to know your husband's name, your wife's name, your kid's name to the point that you're comfortable telling me. And I actually go into that in my work with Adam document. Um, but I think that allows people to feel that it's a safe space that they can be authentic and talk about what's important to them and who they are. But it is a delicate balance, right? Like when we talk about authenticity, like regardless of what your sexual orientation is, like, don't come to work and talk about shit that you, you do. That's inappropriate. Like that's not authentic.

And I've had people do that too, where they've crossed the line and they, they start telling a story. It's like time out. Like there's a line we can't cross here. Um, I want you to be comfortable being you, but I need you to be a professional as well. I think that when you look at kind of how you show up, it's remaining true to like you touched on it with your values, right? It's remain being authentic and having that authenticity is remaining true to who you are, to what you stand for and to everything, being able to tie back for that. Because then when someone is like, Oh, like this doesn't make sense. Why are you acting this way? I mean, it ties back to my core principle of work smart, work hard, whatever it happens to be.

And that is being very authentic. Um, I say, and I joke a lot, like when we talk about authenticity, like the only way I'm the typical sales leader is I curse like a fucking sailor. Um, it's just, it's very true to who I am. And at the end of the day, and then there's a sentence that says, if it offends you, please tell me. And I will big bold letters try to scale it back, but I can't make a promise. Like, I'm, I'm not going to promise you that I'll be able to, cause I probably won't. Um, but it's little things like that, that I think encourage people to come and be honest. I think that as a leader by opening up a little first and being vulnerable about yourself first, it allows people to be a little more vulnerable with you.

Hence the candidate that I interviewed who had bipolar. Like I venture to say, she probably doesn't tell that to everyone in an interview. Maybe she does. I don't know. Um, but I think it's because I try to create an environment where people are very comfortable and I'm very transparent that there's never going to be a repercussion, um, for being honest and for telling me how you feel for challenging me. Um, some of my best learning moments have been from people way, way junior to me, challenging me in a private and respectful manner and making me think differently. Um, and you have to create that environment that makes people comfortable. Transparency is a whole different conversation. Yeah.

And I think that, you know, authenticity though is, you know, it's, it's funny because it's weird that authenticity is actually a superpower these days, right? Because we're living in such a fake world where everybody's pretending everybody's okay and everybody knows everybody's not. And so the minute you come out with some authentic, you know, Hey, whatever, to your point, I'm, I said, same thing. I swear, like I curse like a sailor. So, you know, I get up on stage and I'm like, fuck this. And, you know, I go to a conference and you know, there's all these stuffies, people in suits presenting or whatever. And I get up there with my shell toes and my fucking jeans and I'm like, yeah, well, anyways, it's a fucking day.

People like, holy shit. It's almost like this breath of fresh air. Yeah. And I think that's where, you know, I think we all need to figure out what our authentic self is, but also what the line is, right? Because to your point, I am cautious. There'd be one thing about working for me versus me presenting. So I'm similar to you. I'll actually ask a client, hey, what's the temperature level of your team here? Like, if I swear, will they be offended? And for that day, I can control it. But as far as working for me, if you're going to get offended by swearing, you're not going to work for me, period. Because there's no chance. I tried in the past and it's just not my authentic self. If I have to constantly be thinking about what I'm saying so I don't offend you, then you're not going to get the best of me.

You're not going to, and I'm always going to be worried about you. So that, I wouldn't say swearing is a value of mine. I think that's a ridiculous value, but it is a characteristic of mine that I'm not going to change, period. Right? And so I'll alter for periods of time. But that's one of those things where it's like, I don't want to say a deal stopper for me, but it's like, I know for a fact you're going to get offended in the first week I'm here. Right? So let's finish up on transparency. That line of transparency, I think it's important to be very transparent. But as a leader, you can't be fully transparent. You can't, like, you know, if you're financially, I mean, there's a line, for instance, in startups and stuff like that where it's like, holy shit, we're going to run out of money in two fucking months if we don't get this funding.

Right? But there's that line of like, okay, we got to tell everyone that. Right? But you can't fucking tell everybody because then everybody will run screaming for the hills and they'll be immediately looking for jobs. So how do you set the expectations of transparency and how do you find that line as a leader of what you can be fully transparent about versus what you have to hold back on? Yeah, I think the expectation that I set is I'll always be as transparent as I can. And I know that isn't a lot like it's very vague, right? But like, if I can tell you, if it's not something that can impact the business, if it's not something that would be restricted by an NDA, if it's not something that I have a fiduciary responsibility to hold close, I will be super transparent.

But you have to understand, and this is especially important in startup land that there's going to be certain things that, you know, I can't tell you and I don't go into all the worst case scenarios. I try to, the way I try to handle this is I always try to explain the why behind the what when I'm leading, you know, so I'll roll something out and I'll give the why as to why we are doing something, not doing something, cutting, not cutting as much as I can. Never going to tell someone, oh, we're running out of runway and like we're going to be done in two weeks. But I think that there's a balance, right? People want to know that you have their best interest at heart. People want to know that you're looking out for them.

And by being transparent about changes that are taking place, changes that may take place, things that you're even exploring, like I've gone so far as like if I'm going to roll out a new initiative, like seeking feedback in the spirit of transparency, people start getting comfortable and understanding that you do have their best interest at heart. The line has to be drawn, again, when it comes to that fiduciary responsibility. And, you know, if anyone has ever read five dysfunctions of a team, we talk about first team versus your team. Like the more senior you go, and this was very hard for me to learn, the more your responsibility is to that first team. And that, I think, is where that line of transparency gets drawn is like I have to protect the company first as much as I want to protect my team and my people.

The line has to be drawn with something that could cause damage to the business. And I think that's the thing I had to learn. You know, I've always been an advocate for employees and I've always been against like big corporate, fuck you, you know, you chew and screw people out. But now as a leader, now as a business owner, I also realize that you can leave anytime you want. So your loyalty to me, like, yes, I think a lot of corporations are, you know, blank and they make decisions without any type of thought, you know, to the person itself. But then being as a owner of a non-finite, you know, non-VC-backed company, like, as soon as there's a sniff of trouble, like, you're fucking out the door and I'm screwed here.

So we have to have a balance of full transparency on both ends here. It's not just big, bad corporations and leadership and the poor little employee here. It's like leaders get screwed sometimes because they are too transparent and their employees say, fuck off. It's just like, it's like, I mean, let's talk about and I got to, we'll finish up here, but the shit that happened with SVB, right? The bank. Absolutely. The leader of that bank came on and said, look, everybody, like we stuck with you when you were going through hard times. Now you got to stick with us. And he said the word that you should never say, which is panic. He said, don't, the worst thing you could do right now is panic. And as soon as he said the word panic, everybody fucking panicked.

And I look at that from a leader standpoint saying he was trying to be a good leader. He was trying to say, we can get through this. I just need you guys to buy into this. And yes, we're in deep shit right now, but if we stick together, we're going to do this. And that would have been quite frankly, probably my approach to this. And he got slaughtered for it. So there's an example of a leader trying to be too transparent and don't get me wrong. They did some shady ass shit on the back end and they, they, they made, they, they made their bed and they have to lay in it. But in that moment, he crossed the line of transparency. I think it, he did. It's listen, it's a tough line that I think we're all learning and we all continue to learn.

Um, where, where do you stop? What is acceptable to tell? What isn't? I certainly have said things that I shouldn't have that have gotten me in trouble, you know, throughout my leadership career. Um, it's also part of the reason I'm choosing to work for myself. So I don't have to worry about what I say to who, like the consequences. If I choose to say it, I, like I made my bed. It's my company. I'll lie in it. Um, but I, I would rather always are on the side of being overly transparent and overly authentic. Um, and remaining true to who I am. It's one of my core values is remain true to yourself. Awesome. Adam, let's wrap this up. This is a good conversation. I think we could keep going for a while here, but, uh, tell people, uh, where they can find out more information, especially now that you're off on your own, man, what you're up to and where they can connect.

Yeah, I'd love it. Uh, you can find me on LinkedIn. Um, it's backslash Adam B as in boy, J A Y, or to make it easier. The website is super easy. It's Adam J A D A M J A Y dot. I. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks for coming on, man. I really enjoyed the conversation. So hopefully, uh, hopefully then you're, you'll find that balance with this new gig. Like I said, you know, going off on your own is, uh, is, is stress, but it's a different stress. It's a, it's a healthier stress in my opinion, cause you're working for yourself. So congrats on that. And I hope, uh, wish you nothing but success here and let's keep the conversation going. All right. Cool, man. Cheers. Awesome, man.

Well, and everybody, thank you very much for, uh, sticking with us here and hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did. And like I say, at the end of all my podcasts here, go out there and make somebody smile today because no matter how bad your day went or how bad you think it's going, you make somebody smile today, you know, you had a good day and the world needs a lot more of that right now. So thank you all very much. And I will see you on the other side. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did with your support and our incredible guests. We're one of the top sales podcasts out there right now. And I can't thank you enough now to keep the momentum going. It would mean the world to me.

If you could go and leave a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform and share some of your favorite episodes with your network. Also check out my new website at www.johnmichaelbarrows.com where you'll find even more ways to engage. There's a ton of free content and you can also get trained from me directly as an individual or for your team. Look, I'm out there selling every day just like you are. And I'm doing my best to stay on top of all the latest trends in technology. So if you're looking to level up and you give a shit about this profession of sales, let's connect and let's make this happen together.