Angela Kristen Taylor: The Emotional Productivity Connection

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 this was a really interesting conversation I just had with Angela Kristen Taylor. She's the founder of her own consulting and coaching firm called Integrative Productivity, where she works with entrepreneurs specifically around emotional productivity and helping them manage the chaos involved in running a business to lead a more balanced, productive, and meaningful life. We started this conversation as I usually do, digging into her background from childhood, and this is where she shared how her parents were divorced at five years old, and she basically lived in chaos for the majority of her childhood.

And this drove her to get out of the house eventually and into real estate, where she ended up buying and flipping and owning four houses and married by the time she was 22, which is pretty impressive. The only issue is that she was still living in chaos and she knew she needed to do something to make a change. And when she started her coaching business, she actually realized that many of the clients that she was working with to help with productivity were dealing with some of the same issues she had been dealing with. They all knew what they needed to do to be more productive, but they just weren't doing it. And this is where she uncovered the emotional productivity connection. And this is an internal story we all have that plays in our head and is usually dictated by some type of childhood trauma and tells us that we're not good enough or gives us the excuse for why we don't do things we know we need to do.

Now the conversation evolved to us discussing training and how too many companies take this one size fits all approach that just doesn't work anymore. And there are two types of people and they're motivated by different things. One are people who motivated by money and numbers and you got to train them one way, but then there's another group of people, a larger group of people who are motivated by purpose. And you have to take a much different approach to that. So I found this to be an extremely valuable conversation. And I really hope more leadership starts to pay attention to this concept of emotional productivity. Let's make it happen. What's happening, make it happen family? Big shout out to our partners today, Gong, Vidyard, and Chili Piper.

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Be sure that you're checking out all these great tools. And now let's pass it over to John to find out who's joining him today. See you soon, everybody. Angela Taylor, how are you? Welcome to the Make It Happen Monday podcast. How are you doing today? Oh, I'm great, John. How are you doing? I'm doing fantastic. I've been looking forward to this conversation because the little bit of prep that I've done on your background, I haven't read a ton of your stuff, but definitely read enough to be very curious specifically on how you have, let me just make sure I'm clear on this. Five kids training three times a week, four dogs, 16 weeks of vacation and done by two o'clock every day while running a business and going from chaos to that.

I mean, this is like four hour work week alive. You know what I mean? Like the four hour work week. Tim Ferriss, I always looked at Tim Ferriss. I'm like, shut up, man. Four hours a week. Come on, right? Yeah, I read his book. What's that? I read his book. Yeah. Yep. So you got to let's give the audience a little because we're going to talk a lot about the main topic here is emotional productivity and how you've gotten there. But I would love to hear your journey of going from chaos. And I know you were going through a divorce and all that stuff to where you are today and seemingly very tranquil, very balanced, purposeful life here. So could you give us some context on this before we dive into the details?

Yeah. Um, you know, there's a lot to give context on, but I can say overall, um, you know, I, I, I grew up feeling like I was the oldest kid. So, and my parents were divorced and they've been married four and five times respectively. So, yeah. Oh, yeah. Not to each other, but four and five times to other people. Other people. Yeah. So, um, I went through a lot of chaos growing up, but also, um, had just, you know, I grew up feeling like, you know, my parents were going through all their own crap. Right. So for me as the oldest kid and kind of like the Guinea pig, right. Um, I was always, uh, I felt like I was either not enough or I was too much and it could vary given the moment, you know, and I was very disorganized, very chaotic.

Um, I didn't know how to create structure or balance in my life at all, like none. Um, and, um, the only thing I could think of, especially as a teenager was how do I get out of here quickly? Get away from these people driving me crazy. And, um, I actually, uh, got started working in retail sales when I was 14 and commission-based retail sales. And I did that for six years. And then when I was 19, I started buying houses and I bought my first house at 19. By the time I was 22, I owned four homes. I was, um, I'd lived in each one, fixed it up and then rented it out and bought another one. And so I was 22 years old. I had been married for two years. I had, um, four homes and I was working as a real estate agent and I was just like, life is awesome.

Yeah. I was going to say that sounds pretty legit at 22. So legit. Right. I was so excited. It was like such a great place to be, but at the same time, it was like, you know, I had all these other issues going on. Like I was still trying to figure out like what went wrong in my childhood. And I was, had all these blocks around those types of things. And then, um, trying to figure out like, where is my life going? What am I here supposed to do? Are we like, what am I doing? And with as much as I had going on, there was so much chaos around me constantly. I didn't know how to create any feeling of calm. It was like I had created, I had gotten out of the house, but I still created a life that I was constantly in this state of fight or flight.

And I didn't know how to stop doing that. And what was interesting was that as I was working in real estate and then ended up segwaying into coaching, I found that my clients all had very similar issues. They were all facing this chaos and disorganization. I was like, wow, we're all dealing with the same stuff and we're all in sales. Like there's got to be something there, you know? And, and that's where I started to kick off kind of my, my research and my studies and all of this stuff that kind of led me to where I am now and in creating the life that I've, I've created. Yeah. I love it. Can we, can I ask, um, when, if you don't mind, uh, when was the first time your parents divorced? Like how old were you?

I was five. I was five. And then my little brother was three, two and a half, two and a half. I'm curious on this one because divorce, like chaos as a child affects, it's so interesting to me, the nature and nurture component of what that does to children. You know, as an example, my wife, you know, I think she was nine when her parents divorced. My, thankfully my parents stayed together 55 years before my dad passed, but you know, her, um, nine years old, but her sister was 13 and her sister went in one direction and my wife went in a totally different direction. My, my, her sister went downhill, like, like basically absorbed all that pain and, and, and that dictated her life basically. And unfortunately she's now in a position where she's just in a very dark space and everything.

Oh, always me. That type of thing. Whereas my wife on the other hand was like, fuck this, fuck my dad. Fuck. You know what I mean? I'm going to, I'm going to your point. I got to get the fuck out of here. Yeah. So do you think there's, I mean, it's, it's a weird question to ask, but I'm just kind of curious from your perspective of like, is there based on being the oldest and having maybe a slightly better perspective on what was going on, even though five years old is really, really young. Um, why do you think it's, it affects kids so differently when their parents at that young age divorced? Do you have any insights on that? I'm just more curious. Yeah, I do. And you know, it's interesting because, um, you know, I then divorced when my kids were five and two, um, and their dad is bipolar.

And so there were issues there just in getting divorced and custody and all that stuff. And then, um, my current husband, he and I came together with a blended family. So he had two kids from his previous marriage. And so, and we have a lot of experience between us, divorce and kids and all this stuff. I, my, I'm the oldest, my husband was youngest in his family. Um, and then I have my oldest and youngest. He had his oldest and youngest. And then we had a baby together. Um, so yeah, we have a lot of background and perspective on that. And I'd say that there's a lot of different things that can feed into it. And your perspective can also shift around what your beliefs are. Um, you know, just given that, but I'll say that I truly believe that each person here is an individual and that our individual state is coming with its own concepts, its own stories, its own, um, way of how they handle things.

Um, as the oldest, I had a lot of, uh, blame put on me around, um, things like, you know, if they weren't, if they weren't watching us or weren't watching things like, I remember, um, getting screened at when my brother was two and it was because I was four and a half, probably we're two and a half years apart. And it was because he'd taken his little motorcycle, um, right on toy and go, gone around the block. And my mother couldn't find him. And she blamed me for it because I should have been watching him, you know? And so the same thing that, you know, when, um, my dad worked nights and he had custody of us and he, um, was never around cause he slept all day and then was at work all night and we were left alone and I was six and my brother was three.

Like there was no one watching us. And I was trying to do laundry because we didn't have any clean clothes and I didn't know how to do laundry and I used bleach and bleached all of our clothes. And I got in trouble for that, you know, like stuff like this, you know, so as the oldest, I took a lot of blame. And then there was also, um, the piece where my parents would sort of try to lean on me emotionally for support because they had no one there. And so I took on a lot of that as well. And so I could have gone in any direction with that. If you take any child and put them in that situation, you don't know how they're going to respond. Me with what I came here with for whatever reason, I came here with a sense of nothing's going to stop me.

Nothing's going to hold me back. I'm going to push through. And I have a sense of, this is one of the things that I really feel like come from a traumatic childhood is you have a sense of courage and resilience that sticks with you. Um, I have an ability to handle change in an instant and be able to process that. Um, I'm really good in a catastrophe, um, you know, things like that where I just, I can handle it, you know? And so it's given me this sense of perpetual hope where I feel like it doesn't matter what's happening. I can always turn things around and that's how I've approached everything in my life. Right. But then I can give you another example. Um, and my little brother barely remembers the divorce and he didn't take the brunt of the need.

He doesn't remember a lot of the stuff and he's fine. Like he's a great, you know, he's 45 years old now. He's fine. He's doing great. But, um, like with our kids, um, my son, my oldest son, he is, um, in a space where he feels like he has to take care of his father. So he's 23 years old and he's chosen to live with his bipolar father and they have this very toxic dynamic with each other, but he doesn't want to leave him because he feels like his father needs to be cared for. And he doesn't need to be cared for, but he doesn't like to see him in that state. So he stays with him. Right. And so I feel like that's held him back in a way, but at the same time, I understand he's on his own journey.

He's got to explore his own path. So he's got to figure that out on his own. So I'm not behind him going, I'm not going to do that. I'll be like, Hey dude, you know, your choices, your choices. I'm here. If you want to make a change, you know? I think that it's weird that, that deep, you know what I mean? How that the, the, almost the nurture part flips, right? Like when you don't have a nurturing parent, you actually, in a lot of cases become the nurturer because you see them as such a flawed person that needs your help. And then that dedication from a family member standpoint is, is, is real, you know, that bloodline, as much as you want to throw that away and say, screw it, you can't choose your family.

So I don't give a shit. Like that's impossible to throw away in so many cases. Yeah, it is, you know? And, um, my husband's oldest son has, um, and this is kind of where that nature versus nurture thing comes in, you know, and, uh, where his, their mom, um, was just a mess. Um, she'd been in and out of jail. I mean, for assault and, and stealing and things like this. And, um, she basically abandoned both of her kids when they were four and eight and never saw her again. Um, so my husband had them on his own and, um, they just had dad, you know, and dad got a mother's day card and a father's day card. And they thought that was cool. Right. Um, but the thing is, is that as he grew up, he had a much more difficult time acclimating to life.

It was just seemed like he was always mourning his mother, the loss of his mother. And so he got into a lot of trouble in school and things like that growing up. And then, uh, now he's, uh, I think he's 27. And, um, I mean, we don't let him know where we live because he's stolen from us. He's been on drugs. He's been in and out of jail. And, you know, we've, we've given him a cell phone and we pay for it so that should he need anything, we can show up for him. Um, but outside of that, it's like, we can only go so far with him because of who he has become. Right. And, but who he has become is very much who his mother is. Right. So it's, you get into that space where you're like nature versus nurture.

Now his younger brother, great. No problem. He's awesome kid. We're very close, you know? Um, but you just never know. And I think it just depends on the person, what you come here with, what you have going on biologically, um, you know, who you are and what you're here to do. Yeah. And I think that leads to this emotional conversation, emotional productivity, because what I've noticed, I have a very similar, not similar, but, um, I've been focusing on emotional, um, or energy management, if you will. Right. Not necessarily. And I want to talk to you about that in terms of like times of day of when you should do things and all this other stuff. But what I really have been honed in on is it's been evident to me that there are things that I do that give me energy.

And there are things that I do that suck energy away from me. And that that's just not things. Those are people. Those are, those are, you know, so I have this matrix where on the X axis is helps you achieve your goals, does not help you achieve your goals on the Y axis is gives you energy, does not give you energy or sucks energy away. And basically you put everything that you do and all the people and everything in your life into one of those buckets. And you focus all your energy on the positive, on the, on the stuff that helps you achieve your goals and gives you energy. You know, the other stuff is good. Like the stuff that does not give you energy, but helps you achieve your goals. Those are things you should outsource Tim Ferriss for our work week or eat the frog, you know, early in the morning or the things that give you energy and don't, uh, but don't help you achieve your goals.

Those are hobbies. Those are things that are important, but man, the fastest way to get time back and some sanity is all that stuff that fits in that bucket of does not help you achieve your goals and sucks away energy. Just, just try to figure out a way to carve that out of your life. Friends, family, all that stuff, as hard as it might be, it's really critical. So for you, you know, you, you talk about going from chaos to calm, um, and how chaos is for a lot of us becomes the new normal. Um, and, and you really went on this emotional product, you know, the, the emotional productivity connection. I think you talk about, could you explain how you came across how impactful emotions were to what you were doing from a business standpoint?

Because a lot of people don't think of it, right? Like, like I think, Oh, I got business and I got to get my shit done and just suck it up. Like I'm going to work harder and whatever. That's, I don't feel emotion. A lot of people don't tie emotion to that. They type, I got to work. I'm tired. But so when did it all of a sudden dawn on you how important the, the emotion part of what you were doing was, was doing for you? Yeah. So it was, it was kind of drawn out process that just sort of happened over time, but I'll tell you the first thing that really started to kick it off was what I was saying before about how my early coaching clients were all coming to me with kind of the same stories that I had.

And, um, at the same time, one of the first things they would say to me, as far as like why they were looking for a coach is they would say, I know what to do. I'm just not doing it. And that was like the big thing. And they couldn't figure out. They're like, I know all the stuff I'm supposed to do. Like I've got a list. I've, I've, I know all these things. I've listened to all the people, you know, I've got it down here, but I cannot make myself do these things. And I don't know why. And that's where I was like, well, I know for me, if I don't feel like it, it's not happening. And so then I was kind of diving into, well, why don't I feel like it? You know, what's making me feel like not doing something.

And I realized that, you know, the big things that people would say when they, when they wanted to coach were the things that they, they needed to do was make more money. You know, they wanted to make more money. They wanted to make more sales. They wanted to build a bigger business, whatever. And their lack of motivation, which is what they would call it. They would think it was a lack of motivation would prevent them from doing the things that would create that level of business. So they had their list. I know if I do these things, it'll lead to success, but I cannot motivate myself to do these things. So I realized that there was so much of our internal stories that would hold us back. So like, you know, I worked with a lot of realtors.

I come from the real estate industry and, um, I would, you know, one of the things they needed to do was contact people, make phone calls, you know, call their sphere, call their database, reach out to people. And that was one of the hardest things for them to do. And most of them wouldn't ever do it. And then they would blame it on, well, you know, there's that CRM, I got to open up the CRM and, you know, and then when I'm in my computer, I kind of get distracted and I probably have ADHD, you know, they told me all these things. And, um, well, in reality was that there was an internal story playing in their head that if I reach out to these people, they really don't want to hear from me. I don't have anything that they really want to hear.

Um, I'm just being salesy and pitchy. That's not the kind of person I want to be. Therefore, why am I even making this call? I'm only making the call so that I can earn money, which means that these people that I care about I'm using, and they would just create the story on and on and on about that. And they could not segue on their own into this space of saying, I have something of value to them or someone they know that I truly care about these people and I'll do a great job serving them. And these people need what I, what I have to offer. They couldn't go there because there was that internal story playing. And that story is emotional. It comes from our experiences, our childhood, our emotional state, the things that people have said to us.

It's how we believe other people perceive us. So I think you just hit on something. That's a major issue of not just the emotional component of like, cause I think a lot of the real estate agents, you know, they're independent contractors. Like I got something, I got to make my money, that type of thing. But you know, a home is something that you can, you, I think you can make a leap once you break through that of like, Hey, I'm, I'm helping people find homes here. This is like a personal thing. I think that the, the issue is so much more pervasive too in the, in, in the world that I play in of the SAS and the tech world, because going back to purpose, you know, these kids are literally, I mean, software to, you know, human resources, software or cybersecurity software, they don't give a shit about it.

And they don't think about, there's your dog. Um, there, um, and, and so I think the emotional disconnect is just them going through the motions because they don't really genuinely believe they have something to value to offer. They're just trying to get their numbers. They're just trying to get their commission checks. And that leads to, what do you think that does to somebody? Cause I tell people all the time, the first thing that you need to be in, in, in order to be successful in sales, my opinion is a belief in what you do. If you do not believe in what you do, if you do not believe what you sell makes a difference to the right person, you can be monetarily successful in sales, probably by being a douchebag and just stuffing stuff down people's throat like Wolf of wall street, but genuinely successful and, and at peace and, and, and leading a, a meaningful life I think is, is a farce.

And so how would you combine what you said of, of the, the trauma that we've all dealt with that, that prevents us from doing that versus our situation that prevents us from breaking through that? Cause I don't work for a company that really cares. It's not really mission driven. It's just a software. So how do you balance those two? And how do you break through that scenario of somebody who's just kind of going through the motions in their life? Yeah. So there's a couple of different things that you've touched on here. So one is what I call sales matchers. So if you look at, yeah. So if you look at sales trainers, right. And sales training, it's very much geared towards those sales sharks, right?

There's nothing wrong with the sales sharks. They do fine. You know, they're out there, they're hitting their numbers, they're money, money motivated and numbers driven. Like you're saying nothing wrong with that. It's definitely a way to do sales. But the problem is that that's maybe 10 to 20% of your sales team. It's not the majority, but the, it is the majority of what they think they have. And then they think, well, the sales training training is only going to really work for about 20% of our staff. So you're going to have like 20% that's really successful. And the other 80% are just going to have constant turnover. And so you expect that in, in sales when you run a sales team. But the thing is, is that the sales training is not driven and the sales motivation tactics are not driven by sales matchers.

And matchers are genuinely people who are in sales to serve because they do believe in their product or their service. They do believe it has value. It's changed their life in some way, shape or form, and they want it to change someone else's life as well. And so they are literally in it to match what they have to the person who really truly needs it. He's going to benefit from it. They they're out for a positive impact. And so if that's the majority of your salespeople, then why are you trying to motivate them by competition? They're not driven by that. They're driven by how many people can I light up today. And, and so if you drive their motivation, their motivation, their rewards, everything, and their training on, you've got to hit this number so you can hit this, this number and income, and then you backtrack that and how many calls they need to make and all that stuff.

And you reward them based on their sales numbers, then all they do is feel like utter garbage inside, because their, their mission is at war with their training and their motivation and reward system. Does that make sense? Yeah, it totally does. But how do you balance it, right? Because I look at it and I say there, you know, obviously, there has to be a number back into it. So we can understand the metrics of just from a business standpoint, right? And I look at that, like, from a personal standpoint, for me, like, when it was just me out there, I was very focused on only working with clients I could know and make a huge difference for and being purposeful and having fun with it, and whatever.

But I mostly work with SaaS tech startups, VC backed, you know, grow at all costs, that type of thing. And so how the cool thing I think right now, though, is we're in this transition point, because I think code forced it for a lot of people, I mean, you hear quiet quitting and all these different things, but about people really thinking about purpose more. So how do you think organizations need to, let's paint that scenario of the VC backed, you know, just got 50 mil gotta grow. So we got to, you know, I'm a leader here, I got to figure out the projection. So our average deal size is this, and therefore our activities needs to be that. And so each rep has to make, you know, $50 a day type of thing.

Okay. That's an old school way of thinking things, but it's a way to get to the number to report upstream that what we're going to do and set expectations for what we need to do. So how do you need to transition as an organization? We talk a lot about people, but how do you transition as an organization to allow the purpose driven sale and not, but also allow the competitors competitors to be the competitors? Because I don't, I think you need competitors on your team. This can't all be hunky dory about, Oh, you know, just do what you want and only sell the clients that you like and that type of stuff. I wish, but we got to make money here. It is somewhat of a capitalistic society. So how do you balance that from a business standpoint?

So if you look at what I created as a productive flow methodology, right? Is emotion, energy, time, and focus. And if you look at that and you were to approach that as an organization, okay, then this is something that feeds into your training. So when, when you first get started in sales training and they're talking about your numbers, they're trying to make that your goal, right? Your goal is your numbers, but your matchers are not going to be motivated by a numbers goal. They, they need to be motivated by their purpose. And so, sorry. Um, what I do is I start with focus and then I work my way backwards. So for instance, um, when we get in our car, the first thing we do is program our destination into our GPS.

It doesn't matter if we even know where we're going. You know, if you know exactly how to get to the grocery store, you're still going to put it into the GPS, but it's going to tell you where the speed traps are. It's going to tell you where the accidents are. And you just want to get there in the quickest way possible. Right? But the thing is, is that we don't do that with our lives. We don't focus on that. We just, you know, every realtor that ever walked into my office and said, I'm a brand new realtor. And I'm like, okay, great. What do you want to do in your first year? They're like, I want to make a hundred thousand dollars. Every single one of them. It's like, okay, great. Why do you want to make a hundred thousand dollars?

And I'd be like, I don't know what you're talking about. What do you mean? It's a round number. It's a good one. It's a hundred thousand dollars. Isn't that what everybody wants to make? I'm like, well, no, not me. If I make that, I'm not paying my bills. So, um, but the thing is, is that they, they, there's, there's too much of a focus on the money for the sharks. That's great. They want the money. They want the numbers. That's all they need to know. But for the matchers, they need to have something beyond that, you know, and, and for a long time, people have talked about, Oh, let's create a vision board. And, and then it's like the vision board is filled with stuff. And it's like, your matchers really don't care about the stuff either, because it's just like the money.

What they need to be focused on are three things, experiences, growth and contribution. And if they write down a list of things that they want to experience in their life, how they want to grow and what they want to give back, how they want to contribute, then you've got their purpose from that. They can create a destination and address for where they want to get to. And once they figure that out, you can tie a number to that because you can tie a number to what is it going to cost you to have these experiences, to grow and learn in this way and to contribute in this way. Now they've got a purpose they can tap into because it's not about the money. It's not about the stuff. It's about experiences, growth and contribution.

What's up everybody. I know you're enjoying this conversation. John does a great job with genuine curiosity on these episodes and our guests consistently bring the heat. We want to take a moment here and let you know that you've got an opportunity, an opportunity to become better than you were yesterday. And you can do so by gaining access to all of JB sales content. All of their training tips, techniques, tactics, and takeaways can be yours for $1 a day. $365 for the year gets you annual access to everything, including our private Slack channel for members only, which you get access to all of us directly 100% of the time, 24 hours a day. And then at the same time, you're going to get access to our bi-weekly ask me anything sessions where you can bring real deals to the table and get the help that you need where you need it.

This is very, very important. Sales reps that invest in themselves are often found at the tops of their leaderboards. Join us today and get the help you need to become the seller that you deserve to be. That URL one more time is joinjbsales.com. Let's get back to the show with JB and our guests for this week. I'm rereading Simon Sinek's Infinite Game right now, which I'm a huge fan and believer of. And it talks about how these purpose-driven companies, they're really not. Outward bound, they look like they're purpose-driven. But if you really ask what they are about, it is not purposeful. The purpose is to make money. So how do you marry a company or how do you connect the dots there for reps and for companies that are genuine about those things, not just doing those things to pretend like they are purpose-driven and give back?

Yeah. Honestly, it doesn't really matter what the corporation's focus is, if they're pretending to be this or they really are that. I mean, I think it's great if they really are that. The same point is that if you have the right supports and the right training in place, then instead of 20% of your sales team being successful, you're going to have a much higher rate of percentage because you're engaging the matchers in the way they need to be engaged. It's like school. You go to school, they teach you one way. One way. If that's not your learning style, you're out of luck and you're not going to do very well in school, right? But if you have training where you like walk in the door and they have some sort of a, I don't know, some sort of personality, disc assessment or something, right?

A lot of them do that anyway. And you put this in front of them and you say, oh, okay, from here, I can see you're a matcher. From here, I can see you're a shark. Great. Right? Two different training experiences, two different types of motivating factors, right? As long as you get the salespeople on board to hitting their numbers, it's just how do you motivate these people? How do you keep them engaged? How do you keep them focused on doing the activities day after day that's going to achieve the numbers you want? You gotta, if most of your people are matchers, you gotta train to that specific type. Now, so I think the issue, and I think all of this is laziness at the end of the day, right? Because it's easy to kind of take blanket training and give everybody the training on prospecting, the training on negotiation, the training on whatever it is.

And this is also why coaching, even though you talk to every single manager or every single organization and say, what is the most important thing you can do? What's the best time you can spend as a manager? They'll all say coaching, but then you look at how much coaching do you do? And they don't do any of it, right? Because it's hard to coach individuals. And that's where I think we're in this transition of, you know, I'm a Gen Xer here, I'm 46. And I did grow up in the numbers game of cold calling. And so now you have a whole host of management, who, you know, now we're the thought, you know, we're the decision makers, if you will, or the management. And I think everybody fundamentally understands that quality is the answer to what the problems are out there.

But quality is extremely hard to manage to. Quantity is very easy to manage to. Did you make your 50 dials today? Did you make your 100 dials today? That type of thing. And if you didn't, you're on a pip, and I don't have to think about it all that much. So this is where I just get concerned. I mean, it's funny, I watch all these layoffs that are happening right now. And I keep reminding myself, this is why I've never taken money. This is why I've never taken VC cash, because I don't want that downward pressure. I want to grow the way I want to grow, which is a healthier way, my opinion, but it doesn't drive the economy. You know, I mean, it does from a different level. But there's such this mindset of, again, still grow at all costs that I don't know if we're, do you see it shifting?

Do you see it shifting in the right? Well, let me ask you this way. Do you see it shifting in the right directions at a macro level? And, and yeah, are we moving in a positive direction? Do you think? I think in general, if you look at generations, right? Yeah. So you mentioned being a Gen X or me too, right? You're 46, I'm 48. So our generation has a different outlook on things than the generation before or the generation after. Right. And so when you look at, you look at the 30 somethings right now, right? You look at the millennials. Okay. They're in a totally different space. And if you look at the, the Gen Zers even after them, right, you've got people who are much more collaborative in nature, much more accepting of diversity.

And they're, they're more focused on creating a win-win for everybody. And they're losing the sense of competition and out for themselves. They're losing that generationally. This is what's happening in humanity. It's not just here. It's not just in business. So I'd say based on that, we're absolutely moving in a positive direction, you know, but there's a lot of outdated systems that need to be pushed out as humanity is changing and shifting. We need to shift our systems. We need to shift our, how we're supporting our salespeople, right? How we're directing our salespeople. They have, that system has to shift as well because they're using the same old training systems that have been around since who knows how long, you know?

Don't even get me started about our education system. I actually think that higher education is a joke at this point. Like to go $200,000 into debt to get a $40,000 a year job that you have to pay back for the rest of your life is out of your, like you're out of your fucking mind. That's why sales to me is, is, is such an equalizer because you don't need a degree. It's a low barrier to entry. You can make as much money as you want if you work at your house. It doesn't matter what color you are. It doesn't matter what gender you are. And so that's why I'm pushing so hard to, you know, I mean, my first, my book was, I want to be in sales when I grow up with that. I wrote with my daughter because it's introducing it to kids at a fundamental level, right?

Because I think we are, you know, I do worry a little bit on, on going back to the competition thing of, of losing that competitive edge, because I think that everybody gets a trophy is a, is a bad thing for us as a society in general. I don't care what people think. Everybody should not get a trophy, you know, first, second, third. Those are, those are things that are real and they drive people for positive things. Now it's how they drive them. Like you, you talked about nature, nurture, right? There are certain people that are just driven that way and they want that gold medal. They want that. But I think if we, if we lowest common denominator, you know, it's like, it's like here in Massachusetts would bum me out when my daughter was going into school.

When I was in school, there were programs for advanced placement, right? If you were doing well, then you got into the better classes. But now with no child left behind, all the funding for the advanced stuff has gone away. It's all gone to the lowest common denominator. And we literally talked to teachers who are in the school system saying, if your daughter is above average, don't put her in the public school system here because we can't pay attention to her. We have to pay attention to the people who are the lowest common denominator here to try to raise them up. And so I worry a little bit that the, the lack of competition is actually moving us in a dangerous direction to say, Oh, you know, but that's okay that you didn't, you know, win because you know, you know, your emotions are too much for that.

So how do you balance that? We need to compete. Yeah. Okay. So let me, let me speak to that a little bit. Cause I love this, what you just said. So awesome. Um, I hated school sucked at big time. Right. And I, I got into the AP classes. I got into the 11th grade AP classes, the very first year they offered AP to 11th grade. And, um, I remember there were 10 kids in the 11th grade that were in the AP literature class. And I was one of them out of our entire 11th grade class. And the teacher hated me, hated me because, um, I asked a lot of questions. I didn't ever do my homework and, uh, I didn't want anything. If you know, they wanted us to read certain books. I'm like, I'm not reading that. I'm sorry.

That's very negative. It makes me feel yucky. I don't want to read it. And, um, you know, and so I, and I wouldn't, I would just not do it. And so I heard a lot of this. You're so smart. Why don't you apply yourself? Right. I heard that a lot. And what's funny is that I could go to any conference, um, real estate conference, sit down at the bar. It didn't matter who sat down next to me. I'd say, Hey, but when you were in school, you scored off the charts on all your standardized exam standardized tests, but you never did your homework. And your teachers always asked you why you didn't apply yourself. They're like, Oh my God, how did you know that about me? And I'm like, uh-huh. So, but here's the thing, right?

Is that a lot of times we're attracted to sales because of that. Our brain works differently. Okay. And, and that's the reason why you have the advanced classes as opposed to the regular classes, right? I did so bad in school that at the end of the 11th grade, I had like a 0.7, 0.7 GPA. Mr. Blutowski, 0.00. And so I was like, okay, 12th grade, I just need straight A's so I can graduate. So, um, I'm just going to take all the basic classes. Okay. And I took regular English in 12th grade after taking AP English in 11th grade. And the difference was like astounding because regular English class was filled with all these kids who could barely read. And I taught myself how to read when I was four.

So I started writing stories when I was six. You know, I was accused of plagiarism when I was in seventh grade because my teacher thought my paper was too good and she wanted to know where I copied it from. Um, you know, I mean, so, I mean, that, that was me. And here I was in a regular 12th grade English class and they were diagramming sentences and I'm going, are you kidding me? I thought we did this in third grade. Why, why are we doing this in 12th grade? I don't understand, you know? And, and then there were constant interruptions from all these kids that were just disruptive, you know? And so we never got anywhere in the class and I got an A because I did what they asked me to. And most of it was spelling tests and boring stuff.

It was like, you know, I, I was way beyond it. And, um, it just really struck me that even then that the advanced classes operated at a different level where in my 11th grade English class, they gave us Moby Dick and threw it on our desk and said, here, read it. We're going to talk about it next week. And it was like, okay, cool. So we read the book in a week, sat down and we talked about it. You know, we talked about foreshadowing and all this stuff and it was super cool. You know, we could have a group conversation and group debates in the class around it. And regular English was nothing like that. So the thing is, is that when you're in school and you're focusing on the common denominator, you're focused on people whose brains work differently, right?

And that common denominator may be the common denominator, but the advanced kids, their brains work differently. And here's the thing is that when my kids, I had them, the two younger ones, when they were in school, um, my daughter in third grade was her last year that she took in school. I pulled them out after that and homeschooled everybody. Um, but she was in third grade and they tested her for gifted. She passed and they said, well, we're going to put her in the gifted program next year. I'm like, well, what does that entail? And they said, well, she's doing all her regular classwork. And then a couple of times a week, we're going to pull her out and give her extra work for gifted program.

And I'm like, so she has to do more work. She has to do all the regular work and more work. I said, what subjects is she going to be doing the gifted program? And they're like, oh, it's, it's all or nothing. And I'm like, don't you know that gifted children have asynchronous development and that they're typically really strong in some areas and actually below level and others. And that she really struggles with regular math. And they're like, yeah, the gifted program doesn't account for that. Again, common denominator. Right. And so I pulled the kids out and homeschooled them so that I could tailor their education to them as individuals. Right. And it made a huge difference for every single one of them for different reasons.

Right. And it's the same thing. If you go back into corporations and looking at training is that, you know, you look at it as no child left behind. So you put everybody into basic, then you're leaving behind the kids whose brains don't work that way. If you put them all into advanced, then you're, you're, you're putting the ones that are, or don't think that way, you're putting them into a box. So you cannot do that. You have to break people into programs that speak to their, their way of thinking their, their brain processes. You know, it's like my husband, he's a regional project manager for a company that owns and manages apartment communities around the country. He manages, I can't tell you how many apartment communities, how many units across multiple States.

I have no idea. Multiple million dollar budgets every year. And he manages everything explicitly to a T. He is so organized, so great at his job, right? Everybody loves him. And that man could not spell a word to save his life. My wife, my wife looks at a paper and she can literally, it's almost like the matrix of a misspelling on a 10,000 page. She'll see it. I'm like, I can barely spell. I can spell, you know, almost nothing. And my grammar is horrible. My spelling is terrible. She looks at my stuff. She's like, I can't even look at your shit. It's terrible. Exactly. So, but me, I can spell really, really well. Right. But organization is something I had to learn how to do. I had to learn how to be organized because I had to figure out how to organize for me and my brain because I cannot be organized the way like my mother can be organized.

Okay. I can't because I'm, my brain doesn't work the way hers does. And so his brain, if he's like, he's trying to spell a word, I spell it out for him. And then I try to give him something to remember it, how to spell it correctly. And he's like, man, it's not, it's not going to work for me because I can't, I can't think about it like that. He goes, I've got to picture it differently. It's like me with names. For instance, I, and I've told myself this, so I think there's a self-fulfilling prophecy, but for some reason, Angela, I could meet you and I could do the Angela, Angela, white blinds, Angela, Angela, you know, green shirt, you know, and I, and I can make all these, I've done the millionaire memory.

I've done all those bullshit things. And I swear to God, even after I go through that in my head for like a minute while you're talking to me and I'm not paying attention to what you're saying, cause I'm just trying to remember your name. A minute after that, you could be like, what's my name? And I'll be like, I have no fucking idea. So it's just not like, it's not how I learned. I, you know, I said we had a, at a whiskey Wednesday last night, it was fun. It was nine o'clock. And then we talked about hosting a show and they said, well, John, why do you, why do you hope? Why did you decide to host your show from a podcast standpoint? My response was, this is the way I learned. I'm like, I don't learn.

I don't learn. Like I reading, like I wasn't bad at school, but I had to work my ass off in school. My problem is when I say I don't read, it's kind of in jest, but it's not five pages into any book. I fall dead asleep, like dead asleep. I could be in an uncomfortable chair. I could have a sun blazing in my eyes and, and, and literally within five pages, I'm like, my brain just shuts off the same thing with like listening to podcasts and stuff like that. Like I legitimately I'll zone out. I'll be driving. I'll be like, Oh, let me listen to an audio book. And then all of a sudden, like I miss my exit seven exits later, I'm zoned out. And I don't even remember what I listened to. The way I learn is by talking to people who are smarter than me and, and being genuinely curious.

And so putting me in a classroom, I'm the same as you. I'm like, what about this? What about that? What about this? Hey, because I'm learning this way, but you presenting something to me without me being able to engage is impossible for me to learn. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And this is why I'm saying it's like, you're talking about, um, you know, don't take away competition, right? There's nothing wrong with competition, you know, and I am all for, you know, let's, we're given the winners a trophy, right? And there's something for that. But the point is, is that you can't, you can't train everybody the same way because we're all different. Okay. I learn, I cannot learn by listening. That doesn't work for me.

Podcasts. I, I have a podcast, right? But I can't, I can't, um, learn from listening to a podcast or learn from listening to an audible book. I can't, but you give me a book. I will, if I'm interested in it, I will read it until I'm done. I will finish it in a day. And that's me. And I can do that really well. If you give me a software program, I will play with all the buttons until I figure it out. And I've got it. Don't give me a video on how to do it because I'll zone out and I won't have any clue what they told me, you know? So where my husband learns everything watching YouTube videos. He watches YouTube videos constantly, learns how to do everything. Our daughter wanted to dye her hair purple or red or something.

I don't know. She went through a bunch of colors when she was a teenager and, um, she, she wanted to do that. And he was like, he knew how much it costs when I would go get my hair colored. And he's like, no way I'm doing this twice. No way. He's like, I'll figure it out. I'll do it. And he watched YouTube videos on what hair color to buy and how to do it. And he colored her hair every single time for it, did a great job, you know, but it's like, I can't learn that way. And so when it comes to these corporations, if they want to see more success out of more of their salespeople, and here's the thing, have less turnover. And that's a big thing because now you don't have the attrition rate, right?

And there's an expense that goes along with that. So now you get people who are loyal to you, who want to stay with your corporation or your brand behind them. Right. And, and it's because you're serving their specific type, you're training to who they are and how they learn. And you can take the same content. You just break it down and deliver it differently. Right. It's just like the thing with the, with the numbers, you're always going to have to focus on numbers, but what motivates your people? Are they motivated by numbers or are they motivated by their purpose? And then we can associate a number to it. Some people have to get to the purpose first and then have a number associated to that purpose.

And now they've got something that drives them. Right. Love it. Well, Angela, look, I had all sorts of things I wanted to talk to you about, but we're coming up on 45 minutes and, uh, and I think we're going to have to cut it. So this will be a, I'm going to, I'm going to do a teaser for everybody listening here though, because these are the, these are the things that caught my attention in doing some research, uh, in the background, which is want to get your message out there. Social media might not be the answer at that one has me very intrigued. And I think it's time for another conversation, but it's on your website. So, so, uh, we'll go check that out. The other one is, and I think it's a timely one for people to listen to, and we'll probably push this out in the next couple of weeks here is avoiding burnout through, through the holidays.

Uh, you have some really good content on how to kind of emotionally, uh, compartmentalize, or if you will, uh, on, on the holidays and all the chaos that they bring so that we don't burn out, even if we're not working. Um, so I'm going to put those as teasers for the audience, uh, to go check out Angela, but Angela, let's, um, let's, let's point them in the right direction. Where, where can people find out more information about what you're doing? Uh, where do you want them to connect with you and everything else? Yeah. Um, you can go to Angela, Kristen Taylor.com and, uh, you know, check out lots of different things there. Um, and then also productiveflow.com is, uh, where I put all my programs and content membership and stuff like that.

So. Love it. Perfect. And for those listening, it's, uh, Angela, Kristen, it's K R I S T E N Taylor, T A Y L O R. Go check out her website. Anything, uh, anything that you want to leave the audience with here, Angela, before we sign off? Yeah. I think the biggest thing is if you ever got that thing inside of you, that's telling you you're too much, you're not enough or you're not good enough or whatever, like it's not you. Okay. It's not you. You're perfect. Just the way you are. You just got to rewrite those stories inside of you. That's all. Love it. Love it. And that is a perfect way to end. So thank you so much for coming on, Angela. I really enjoyed the conversation. Thanks for having me.

Perfect. And for everybody out there, listen, I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did. And as I always say at the end of all my podcasts here, go out there and make somebody smile today. Uh, cause no matter how bad you think your day is going or how bad you think it went, if you go out there and make somebody smile today, you know, you had a good day in the world needs a lot more of that right now. So thank you all very much. And I'll see you on the other side. Thank you so much for your time today and listening to the podcast. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did with your support. And our incredible guests were one of the top sales podcasts in the industry with over a million downloads.

And I can't thank you enough to keep the momentum going. If you could go to your favorite podcast platform and leave us a five-star review, I would greatly appreciate it. In return, I will answer any question that you have on Instagram. Hit me up there at John M as in Michael Barrows with a video question or a DM, and I will get right back to you. I promise. And last but not least, if you're looking for training, I'm adjusting my training approach this year, and I'm actually going to be training to the masses. I'll be delivering live training the first and second week of every single month with our two marquee courses, filling the funnel and driving a close to anybody who wants to join. And it includes membership in our on-demand platform with weekly AMAs.

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