Cynthia Barnes: Owning Your Awesome - Bold Women and Challenging Corporate Norms

The CEO of a fortune 500 company looked me dead in my teeth and say if I'd known how much trouble this DE&I shit was gonna be I would have picked the damn cotton myself. Oh my god. As if he didn't know I was black. 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. Today's conversation is with my friend Cynthia Barnes. She's an international TEDx speaker keynote and SKO speaker and she does sales training. She's a LinkedIn top voice and a four-time sales top influencer for Salesforce. Oh and she's the founder of the National Association for Women's Sales Professionals.

This conversation is one I think more people need to have out loud and more frequently. Cynthia is a woman of color and she is out there trying to help women own their awesome and I wanted to talk to her because for those of you who've been following me for a while about four or five years ago I did a we need to talk webinar and you can google it just j barrows we need to talk and I highly recommend you do and it was about addressing the grow culture in sales and it led to an extremely interesting and I think thoughtful and impactful conversation. So I wanted to talk to Cynthia about how things have changed and have we made any progress since then and she had a very interesting perspective on it.

You know she talks about owning your awesome because women you know a lot of times just deflect a lot of their you know praise that people give them and she has this very simple concept on her TEDx where she talked about when receiving a compliment saying thank you it's true and I think more people specifically women need to hear that but I think the men need to as well because there's a certain level of privilege that all of us enjoy but some of us more than others and for those of you know who know me and about following me along again you know when my dad passed away I found this little note on his desk that talked that said when you're accustomed to privilege equality feels like oppression and it was so impactful for me that I had it tattooed on my forearm to remind me every day of my privilege and again privilege is not about being born with a silver spoon in your mouth you know I earned everything I believe I earned everything I have right now but that's not what privilege is privilege is that I wake up in the morning and I don't worry about what I'm wearing so I don't get sexually harassed privilege is when I drive down the street and get pulled over by a cop I don't I don't think twice about it that's what privilege is and I think more of us need to wake up to what our privilege is and stop sitting on the sidelines here and do something to leverage it so I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did and please keep this conversation going out loud and do something about it let's make it happen cynthia barnes what's going on welcome to the make it happen monday podcast how are you i'm fantastic how are you i'm doing well i'm doing well like we said you know some ups and downs these days i think you know hopefully more ups than downs but it's uh it's one of those where i'm cautiously optimistic about the direction uh things are headed at least me uh for for where i was for a little while you know i think societal wise we can have that conversation as part of this um and yeah but uh but yeah all in all i can't really complain so i appreciate you coming i've been looking forward to this conversation for a while because i think it um it needs to be had more out loud um i like i don't know if you remember about probably shit when was this 2019 or something like that um when uh had that webinar we need to talk oh i remember i remember and your respect my respect for you went up exponentially yes yes i mean i was i actually was uncomfortable with that just because i remember you know i was talking to trish and and laurie and and by the way sorry for everybody listening google j barrows we need to talk grant cardo my least fucking favorite person on the planet said something about his wife in front of a conference at drift it made me just absolutely livid because the way he was talking about her and i did a linkedin post exploded and it led to this we need to talk about the bro culture and sales so if you want to see something go google that read that blog see that survey um but really you know for me it was one of those like i felt a little uncomfortable because i remember telling the three women who were there with me i was like am i the right one to be having this conversation like i'm the i'm the guy like i'm the you know quote unquote the man that that this world is built for right now and they were their feedback was absolutely john because and it wasn't just because i was a guy it was because i was a guy that had some confidence and they could see going up against a grant cardo right because you got all these eight you know these alpha douchebags who are very imposing in a lot of ways and scary for a lot of people it's like how you know i don't want to get i don't want to pick a fight with that guy because they might bury me and they're very right and they were like well john you're one of those people that we could see picking a fight with that guy and actually holding your fucking own and so that's why we need you to as as part of this conversation but i wanted to start this conversation because you know when that was um how much progress have we made since then is it progress or regression i'm gonna put that i i ask for you because and and because this is we're gonna put together we still need to talk yeah um and i remember having casey jones on and i remember lori talking like kind of circling back with them as we were talking about this and i i think one of them said like maybe a little maybe a little but in your opinion have we regressed or have we progressed in the past call it four years since covid it depends on who you are so if you are part of those who part of the majority who hold the majority of power then you have progressed then you have progressed because now you have people who are outspoken who share your beliefs who have emboldened you to be more outspoken and vocal without repercussion without consequences for your actions you are now allowed to do things without negative repercussions and you can say whatever you want for those who look like me for those who yes let's just put the period there we have regressed because certain laws are no longer in effect certain protections are no longer in effect certain voices are no longer heard or respected amplified honored tolerated what are some of those voices if you don't mind me asking like yeah i hear you i was gonna ask you about your thoughts on a couple of these things like the macro stuff that was happening right now but when you say voices could you could you give me some like either examples or or just a little bit more context on that so i understand yeah when when powerful people people that have the ear of of america if you will when they say d e and i must d i e that's just cringe worthy yeah how dare you say that in a land where we are the melting pot of the world how dare you say that things like that that just are icky and disrespectful and that's what really disheartened me when when they when the shit hit the fan at early you know 2023 or late 2022 and early 2023 you know all these and you know look we live in the tech and the sass world right so they seem progressive um and they have all these but i remember what you know my my friend roderick right uh roderick jefferson who my brother in every way um you know we were talking about how the only sea level board position is the head of diversity is the chief diversity officer and then these deis came up because it was it was you know seemingly obviously you know the right thing to do because to your point now it's not now it's okay to say this now you're being celebrated for being dei and having these programs but man when when the shit hit the fan and things got hard the first thing usually say oh marketing gets cut first and sales get cuts like that uh uh dei got cut like straight like oh sorry never mind and it was it was almost like it never happens and i was like whoa like come on talk about lip service talk about lip service and that's when you see the true nature and true colors of of the intent and i didn't want to say publicly actually i told you so i really was hopeful that when companies said we want to make an impact in the diversity of our companies we really want to change the face of of our sales teams i really was hopeful but john when i would go into meetings and i would sit down with the elt and i would say things like why do you want to diversify your teams because i really wanted to know why because i believe why matters yes they have quantitative reasons why yes there's a 15% jump in revenue when you diversify your sales team women sell 11% better we've got the empirical data but i wanted to know from the elt and from the executive around the table why and when i had the ceo of a fortune 500 company look me dead in my teeth and say if i'd known how much trouble this de and i shit was going to be i would have picked the damn cotton myself oh my god i knew john i knew number one he did not see that to you to your like i mean it's horrible to say in general but to say to your face i would pick the cotton myself are you out of your fucking mind as if he didn't know i was black so that taught me so many things one of which was it was never going to change in his company number two he is so used to living that life that he was comfortable saying it number three his elt never challenged him on it because they didn't challenge him in the room and he was comfortable saying it with them and then i thought how many other executive leadership teams are dealing with that lip service and i decided you know what this is not a fight that i want to fight i can but do i hey i hope you're enjoying the conversation so far i want to take a quick minute to share with you what i'm working on these days with my new jb sales membership it includes live monthly training delivered by me on my two signature courses which are filling the funnel and driving a close that cover all aspects of the sales process it also includes monthly workshops that i'll be running on specific sales skills and different tech skills like chat gpt and how to leverage ai throughout the entire sales process finally the membership gives you access to my entire online catalog with every course and every tip i've ever done and as an exclusive offer to my podcast listeners if you go to jbarrows.com click on the individual membership link and use coupon code podcast at checkout you'll get 25% off now let's get back to the conversation that so that brings me to and i want to get to your background of where you where you got your confidence from but that that question i had for you which is for you there's so many fights to fight right now yeah right how do you pick and and you know it's like my wife with climate change you know what i mean it's like you look at the matter like how big the problem is with climate change and it's like she wants to save the world she wants to make sure everybody does all this stuff but she's like like i have to pick my battles yes and and it's demoralizing because you want to think that you can make a change in certain areas to certain people and that type of stuff but you know and there are those that just say fuck it i'm just gonna keep beating this drum because i you know they have that higher calling but i think you and i are both similar in the sense that we're realists in some ways of like we want to wait we want to make change where we can make change and and we also have to have some type of satisfaction that we are making a change or else it is just insanely demoralizing and eventually eats at you as a person so for you what what fights are worth picking right now what fights are worth your your fight your energy your your what you're trying to accomplish and where are you directing that energy these days i used to think that i could take on the world because when i grew up my parents told me i could they instilled in me a level of confidence that would make the the biggest baddest boldest leaders say damn yeah i was the most confident child you'd ever want to meet i had to be because i was the only black family in an all-white town i had to be confident or at least appear to be because i was bullied for being the only black i was highly successful because i was told i had to be i was the best of the best and with being best of the best came a level of confidence i challenged authority respectfully of course but i always questioned well why does it have to be that way that mindset led me to think well if it can be done why not you cynthia so i learned to challenge the status quo to buck the system to debunk the myth so when it came time to change the face of sales to get more women in sales i thought well why not you you are a woman in sales and so i started that quest and i went after those male dominated sales teams and those homogeneous teams and i challenged those leaders until one day i woke up and i said in 2024 and this hurt my heart but i said in 2024 2024 if a sales team is homogeneous it's by design let me ask you on that is it do you think it's intentional or ignorance so so because this is the line i think what i heard you you talk about this and the and i go back to i'm gonna my experience okay when we did that we need to talk we didn't want to preach to everybody so we did a survey and we said hey here's a blank google doc put on there examples questions blah blah blah right and and so we want to see what was going on out there and all the examples you know i said look the overt sexism is overt sexism okay let's put that there's not like somebody asked like john what do you do when you have an overtly sexist boss you fucking leave like there's you are not going to change an overtly sexist boss but that's not the typical problem the typical problem is somebody like me who thinks they're doing well who thinks that they are are being inclusive but because of our privilege because of the lens that i i look through i just don't see the stuff that i'm doing that is not for instance and so i try to be intentional but you know stuff like going to the you know you made a point of like yeah the after hours going to the park you know those type of things well if you're a single mother with a kid at home like you're not going to that that that you know team building event and you're right therefore you're not getting the benefit of that so that's what woke me up and i said to any sales leader out there male sales leader specifically male white sales leader if they didn't think that they had a problem please just go read through that list because if you can't if you can tell me definitively that nothing is happening on that list then then okay then you're a better person than me but there was a lot of examples where i looked at i'm like fuck like how many times was i the good guy and because i'm one of the quote-unquote good guys i did something that was a little off or whatever it was and it was just tolerated because it's like john like you know you're mostly good man but jesus man do you have some blind spots here so would this i would the with the makeup of teams and that type of thing do you do you think it is intentional were they intentionally not doing it or they're doing they're just a basic ignorant thing where they post a job on linkedin and that's where the community is wouldn't so therefore that's the only candidates they're getting and there's we're not getting i'd love to hire black people but i'd love to hire women but none of them apply like do you think it's ignorance or is it intentional these days intentionality intentional you can go down the road and get stopped by a cop and say i didn't know the speed limit with 70 your ignorance doesn't matter it's your responsibility to know what the speed limit is you get behind the wheel there's a certain level of responsibility that you assume responsibility comes with the car right if you are going to be a leader of anybody it comes with a level of responsibility of inclusion to make sure that you do right by people so you not knowing how to be a great leader i call bs on that there are resources ad nauseam there's ai there's chat gpt there's books there's courses there's the phone there's linkedin there is no excuse in the world for you not to reach out and get help you don't know what to ask start asking how can i be a better leader and then go from there get curious there's no excuse for you not having a diverse team you know you have to have a diverse team i think it's intentional you are either intentionally being non-diverse or you're intentionally being diverse either or i think yeah and i like that distinction you know what i mean it is it's incumbent upon you as a leader it's kind of i mean similar to what i told a sales rep recently reached out and wanted me to be like this kid puts so much onus on me in general he's like john sorry i'm drowning right now i'm like dude don't put that on me i'm like he's like be my mentor i'm like dude sorry to be sorry to be a jerk here but fucking google it i'm like like there's so much free shit out there about what to do for somebody exactly in your position to be able to address this and and i kind of make that attuned to when some weird shit happens and i got one black friend and i don't know what to do and so i reach out to that black friend and i say hey how can i help and and that and as well intentioned as i think that maybe comes from from some people it's actually a double negative because they're dealing with their own shit right so so like literally google it so how do you i mean with that with leaders right now if they're listening to this and saying oh shit you know i got a couple of black people i got a couple of women on my team here but maybe i'm not being intentional outside of just googling it like where do they start to do an assessment of their own lens and how that shades or directs their decisions how do you start to put that mirror up i would first look at that first statement you said i got a couple of black friends that is your first problem i'm not racist okay if you can count the number of diverse friends that you have i don't care if asian lgbtq bgq whatever if you can count them there's a problem so let's diversify your circle so what does that look like there are meetups there's event bright go and immerse yourself in some events where you are not the majority majority is it uncomfortable it may be is it necessary absolutely because imagine walking into a room where you are the only one you now understand what you are putting that person that you invite to your sales team when they are the only one you're asking them to walk through the door being the only one and come to your all insert demographic sales team why would you do that to them if you go into a room where you are the only one it's uncomfortable as hell so why would you ask them to do that no you get three or four that way they can come together and be more comfortable the only way that you will get over those missteps is if you experience them or experience the discomfort yourself so go to an Asian Pacific associate with people who do not look like you who do not think like you get some friends so that you can no longer say I have two black friends yeah and please yeah I think I feel blessed that my dad you know it's interesting you know all intents and purposes both my mom came from like middle of the you know Chicago like middle of like cornfields in Chicago like talk about like country right and my dad you know grew up down here in New Bedford but he was a jazz musician and so I would be able to go to clubs and stuff like that and I was one of the only white kids in the room you know what I mean and I felt like all right this is different you know what I mean like just that to your point just that feeling alone of being like whoa okay I think just that perspective like going to a game here and I hate to say it because we got a bad reputation here in Boston I don't think it's as bad as what everybody says but I'm not the one who it gets driven towards but when I go to a sporting event they all look exactly like me you know versus if I go down to Atlanta and I go to a sporting event it's a different vibe you know what I mean I'm like oh okay all right this is different right so I think just that and that's what I'm searching for is the mirror like is I don't want to say the gotchas I don't want to say the but it's like the things that people who have that lens of privilege and don't understand it and don't understand what it is to kind of put themselves in a scenario where they can start to appreciate the burden that gets put on others to be in our world yes yes it's empathy it's understanding that people who don't look like you don't get to take off their blackness or their gender at the end of the day we wear it 24 7 365 when I go to Boston I'm immediately met with looks of she's a black woman fortunately I speak speak the king's English very well amen you're so well spoken Cynthia exactly you're so articulate so wait a minute John that puts people at ease and I know that and my parents made sure that I spoke the king's English because they knew that I would be in board rooms and that similarities put people at ease if I were to speak Ebonics being a black woman and if I had an apostrophe in my name the reality is that I would not have nearly as many opportunities as I do that's the reality where's that line sorry go ahead so I can put people at ease because I can talk about Jon Bon Jovi and I can recite some lyrics and I speak the king's English so it's okay that I'm black but I'm not too black I can assimilate to make you feel comfortable should I have to do that no I shouldn't have to I had a really interesting conversation with Guy Kawasaki last couple weeks ago on the podcast and he actually mentioned that he mentioned you know because he's from Hawaii you know he's he's Japanese so he definitely he's not a white male right and he's like look sometimes you just have to you know I think he quoted Michelle Obama where she had her hair straightened I think when she was standing up to give one of the speeches like a major speech and she said look if I wore my hair natural it'd be a large portion of who is watching me who would not even pay attention to what I had to say because they would be fixated on my hair she is like so I do this to try to get the message out to as many people as possible and remove the perception versus the reality so I guess for you where is that line are you a chameleon based on where you are and you reading the scenario or is there a line where you like like who I guess who is for years I straightened my hair it's called code switching and no matter where I was I would code switch and a lot of blacks do this because we assimilate being a chameleon in the environment and what that causes is almost an identity crisis to the point where people would say well what are your thoughts on this Cynthia and my initial reaction would be to ask myself who's asking because I would have to think my response depends upon the receiver isn't that crazy so I was talking with Sherilyn Castleman and I said I'm thinking of let going natural wearing my hair natural not putting any more chemicals in my hair and I said I don't know if I can do that because I've always been taught in corporate America that you can't wear natural hair even though this is the hair that goes out of my head she said perhaps now that you are an influencer it's time because those who follow you will have the confidence to do the same but that's what it took so to answer the question who am I I'm a God fearing woman who uses the influence she's earned to correct the wrongs of the past and to create a future that makes her parents proud that honors the sacrifices they made and one where my niece will no longer be judged by her gender her hair or her race but by her merit that's who Cynthia Barnes is and that is a fantastic person to be Cynthia thank you fantastic person to be thank you it's true um so let's talk about your niece let's talk about my daughter 13 you talk a lot about owning your awesome and I love thank you it's true I and I and I'll put some context on this one it actually you know for me I've always kind of deflected right but I don't know why like I have obviously much different issues as far as why where this comes from but I remember one time somebody told me like let's use apologies when somebody would apologize to me nine times out of ten I'd be like don't worry about it no matter how bad it was no matter how bad what they did me did to me was and how no matter how I felt about it that's all right man you know everybody fucks up whatever it is and I would I would literally and my thought was I would try to make them feel better but what this person said to me was actually you're robbing them from something and you're robbing yourself from something because when somebody has the you know gets the guts to actually genuinely apologize for something that like that takes a lot for somebody to come to somebody and say I am sorry for what I did to you and for you to diminish it by ah it's no big deal first of way you're taking away that from you from genuinely recognizing the fact that that person harmed you and now they're coming to you so that should make you feel better that they're doing this but you're also taking the happiness away from them or taking their regret away because it took that much for so it's actually negative all the way around and so could you talk a little bit about the compliment and why more women tend to deflect and say oh it's because you know you did this cool thing where you went to the mall I think it was and you just started handing out compliments oh your hair is beautiful today your makeup is great your earrings are gorgeous that type of stuff and every woman you said was like oh I got them off the discount rack or actually I look terrible today I can't believe you said that right so it's almost always deflecting where is that rooted and what is the simple message that you have to change this because I think it's a beautiful simple message which is all about what your TED talk was all about which I encourage everybody to go watch we're going to put in the show notes and everything else but could you talk me through that a little bit thank you it's deflecting compliments is we think it's about modesty and traditional gender norms value female modesty it's like as kids were given a rule book on how to be a boy or a girl and those rules often vary widely girls are taught to be humble not to brag we're taught to be sincere and think about others feelings and on the other hand boys are taught to be bold to be fearless to be outspoken and when we grow up those attributes can lead women to downplay our achievements and on the other hand boys men are taught to stand up and boast about their achievements and it has harmful harmful consequences so when women deflect and downplay those compliments we're actually doing great harm because it tells the sender I don't think I'm worthy of a compliment it also tells you the person who gave me the compliment that your compliment isn't worth anything and that has very harmful consequences and if you think about it back in the day and this leads to why women want to take the light off of themselves because for years we've been taught to play small to cower to basically dim our light back in the day bold women ambitious women were seen as unnatural or threatening if you think about Joan of Ark Malala Yousafzai women who were too bold too ambitious too awesome were seen as just weird and turn what's that yeah Amelia Earhart yeah Amelia Earhart they were beaten burned stoned and shot so we learned from a very young age that to stand up and be ambitious is to be in danger so we learn subtly through messages like that that we need to dim our light and those messages still linger so I started thinking about why is it that we deflect compliments and that's what I learned that it stems from generations of playing small no one ever gets to the c-suite by playing small yet we have all of this societal conditioning telling us to play small when women stand up and they say you know what I did do a good job we're seen as aggressive right but yet you ask nine out of ten male sales leaders what do women need they need more confidence well you can't have it both ways either we stand up and we're more confident or we need more confidence which one is it so I came across this story about women in Uganda when they accept a compliment they don't deflect no panic down playing they accept a compliment by genuinely saying thank you it's true so that does three things it acknowledges the compliment validates the sender and honors yourself so some people say you know Cynthia thank you is enough but it's not thank you it validates it yes but it's the ownership that we need because I say thank you that's fine but it's the it's true part that is like rocket fuel for my confidence that okay thank you my earrings are nice it's true I chose well I'm owning it that's the owning of your awesome and that's what we need to spark in everyone I love that and I and again I think the simplicity of it is beautiful too it's getting you tell this story though for those of you know people who listen to this and try it you tell the story of the first time you tried this when you were at a conference and you said thank you it's true and the guy was like well excuse me that's not the fear is always like I do this you know not nearly at the scale but you know when you try something it's like hey try it and if it punches somebody right in the mouth they immediately revert back to it sometimes it's even worse right they go way back like it's one step forward three steps back when that type of thing happens because that just they tried their confidence a little bit and they got kicked right in the teeth with it now they're like okay that just validated why I should not do that so what do you say to the woman to anybody out there quite frankly who says thank you it's true and somebody is like who the fuck do you think you are like I now you're that if they get the push back you know what and it happens and it happens my husband went out and he came home and he said this lady looked at me like I was crazy and I asked him is saying thank you it's true to boost your confidence or about her perception and he said it's about my confidence and I said exactly sometimes we're so caught up in how others perceive us that we lose sight of what it's supposed to do this is about building our confidence how we show up in the world because John when we own our awesome we give others permission to own their awesome in a spreads like wildfire John when you own your awesome you give your children permission to own theirs when your daughter owns her awesome she gives her school mates permission to own theirs it's bigger than us so when someone says thank you it's true and they're met with backlash remember my confidence is much more important than your opinion yeah I love that it's hard but this is bigger than that it's about our girls it's about my 12 year old niece your daughter who gets all kinds of societal instagram facebook or whatever it is that they watch saying you're not enough when they type into AI give me a picture of a beautiful woman and they see AI's ideal of a beautiful woman and it looks nothing like them we've got to combat that how do we do that we get them to own their awesome through messages like this yeah that's why I tell my daughter all the time her biggest ammunition against anything is self confidence like all these friends all her friends who are tearing her up or whatever it is bad day like if you have confidence you know you're rooted in core values like good ones and you have confidence in yourself you know you can weather most storms right you don't have to worry about everything that's on social and what all your friends are doing because you got confidence yeah will you be upset that you miss out on something whatever I want to ask one more kind of this one's been itching at me for a while and I don't know I can see both sides of this equation you brought up earlier the gender norms right about how we're brought up a certain way and males versus females and there are kind of like okay boys do this women do that there seems to be right now a very large transition in our society as far as norms there's like yes there are certain people who are holding you know on very tightly to traditional norms that's a different conversation that I don't want to get into right now as far as make America great again but anyways but what was interesting to me was and I'm going to macro this out but I want to then bring it back down to the male and female piece of this is you know I did a post a while ago called stop doing what you're supposed to do right like we're supposed to go to college we're supposed to get a job we're supposed to get married we're supposed to do all this other stuff right and I was fortunate where I had two instances that kind of forced me not to do it like I was going along the lines like I was engaged to my first wife and she broke it up even though I was wrong I was supposed to get married after seven years of being with somebody right and she broke it up with me thank God right and it kind of in the same thing with a job like I was supposed to work myself in it and I got fired from a job and I was oh my God but it was great and so I was like stop doing what you're supposed to do do what you want to do right but then there was a comment by a millennial and this was a few years back that said yeah that's all well and good John but there's actually certain comfort in knowing what you're supposed to do those societal norms there's comfort in it in the sense that you guys knew that you had to go to college you had to do that and again this is coming from a place of privilege so take that for what it's worth but now there's no structure I don't know what to do and so what's the line for you of societal norms that provide structure for guidance of certain things that are in a lot of ways based on very historically bad stuff but gave structure and comfort versus and and shoot you said you're a god fair I'm not like I'm not religious I'm spiritual right but you watch what's happening I look at the catholic church and those type of things like they provide a good structure right but now that that structure has been blown apart you start to see society start to unravel a little bit here so what is the balance between societal norms and not having to fit into a box I guess you know what I'm trying to get out of here I do I do because if if not if we don't have the box or a box we will run amok right right right so we have to subscribe to what is legal moral and ethical and that's kind of gray legal we don't have to worry about that because the law will snap you up moral and ethical it's open to interpretation I think when we look at our selves and what how we govern ourselves we have to take a look at our values and a lot of people don't look at their internal values and you say Cynthia well how do I know what my values are you have to look inward and say well what do I really value yep that is hard work do I value wealth maybe do I value this I mean there there's I think there's a list of 52 things that you can value yep I went through the process and by the way for everybody listening google it exactly google core value exercise and can go through it yes and so I went through that exercise and I thought it was winning wealth and fun and so I would say is what I'm about to do going to provide me winning wealth and fun and if it didn't I would chuck it and then I came across someone who said the way you find your values is this she said I may not know what happiness is but I know I'm never sad when I'm fill in the blank so I filled in the blank with three things and I examined and I journaled and it shook me a couple of weeks but I realized my core values had nothing to do with winning and wealth it had to do with connection and personal growth so now I know what my core values are and I can govern myself accordingly I also take a look at what are my wants at the time and what are my needs self awareness John is so powerful and it is necessary when you look at your core values your wants and your needs everything else falls into place too often we take a look at what is society doing what's popular what is the the the soup du jour that stuff will come and go but you got to live with you every single day whatever it is that you do now is going to affect you seven generations down the road it's affecting your kids and their kids and their kids choose wisely when we start to think that way things start to change today I love that yeah I remember you know the value exercise I just recommend every I you know I'm trying to go through with my daughter she doesn't really get it yet but we're kind of going through the process and I just ask her you know like to your point like what's the negative so instead of the positive what's the negative like what when something happens what's your reaction to it so like for instance if when somebody lies to you that is a visceral like you get pissed and really upset and have a hard time with that person ever you know trusting that person ever again well guess what honesty is the value of yours right so you can look at the like the negative of like when I react poorly of that thing right like for me freedom is a core value I react poorly I break things you know literally and figuratively but you go through that process but you also I think you also need somebody to help you with that because I didn't really to your point like I thought I had mine here's what stuff that I like and whatever and when I went through that exercise of the 52 things down to 20 down to five and then you prioritize force rank these now and I was like isn't family always number one on the list like isn't that just kind of a default and he's like no he's like if you want family to be number one on your list you have to write it down and then every single time you make a decision you ask yourself how is this going to affect my family and he's like if you're not doing that then family isn't one of your top values and it was like a brick in the face when he said that to me because I had spent 10 years 11 my daughter was 11 traveling all around this world being a weekend dad I would leave on I would always be on the weekends I would be home on weekends but I leave on Monday come back on Friday I tried to be present obviously while I was here but I made myself feel better about why I was doing this because I said I was doing it for my family so that my daughter could have the opportunities that she could have so my wife could do and by the way my wife is an entrepreneur and she owns our business so she was carrying the bag while I was flying around the world but I was making more money and all that other stuff and so in my head I was convincing myself that family was my top value but I realized that's not at all what I was doing I was doing it because I was really good at doing it I was doing it because it's you know there's a rush to be up on stage in front of a thousand people saying something and having you be like oh man look at that there's a rush to say oh I went to Singapore for a couple days I'll be back right like those type of things make like that boost the ego and so when I realized that I was so disappointed in myself for 10 years having this lens of you know what was a value of is no matter what happens in this world society wise or opportunities wise whatever if you're rooted in your core values and you know them and then you look for people and opportunities and companies and organizations to align with who align with those core values you can do some special things right because if you and I have core values aligned we might argue we might debate on certain things but we're going to come back to a point of understanding but if you and I don't we're just going to tear each other apart right right and the world is a lesser place because of it yeah and I think we've gotten away from that I mean whether you talk about religion or whatever I mean just I mean I think if you probably about I don't know let's call it 20 30 years the answer is there are people exactly and I think that's the problem it is right I mean we are a diverse group and we are the melting pot right but what used to hold us together was those values there's an opportunity to get back to that I sure hope so we can be the change we want to see one conversation at a time indeed indeed Cynthia it's been a pleasure I could talk to you about this for a while there's so much more to talk about but in the interest of keeping this to the hour time slot that we try to Cynthia tell us where we can learn more where the audience can go what you're doing right now Ted talk store you got some cool shit at your store so tell it to everybody what you got the training you got the keynotes everything so tell people where they can find out more information about what you're working on thanks john my website is cynthia dash barnes dot com that's the best way to get a hold of me you can always follow me on linkedin but I'm much more active on my website cynthia barnes dot com love it and everybody listening we're going to put this in the show but it's cynthia c-y-n-t-h-i-a barnes b-a-r-n-e-s go check her out she's doing some incredible things here cynthia thank you so much for coming on i really appreciate it thank you john for having me it's been awe inspiring so thank you you're welcome just like i said you know the same thing with thank yous by the way remember i said when people apologize right what you should do when somebody apologizes saying i accept your apology yes it's the same thing when people say thank you you're welcome don't diminish it you're welcome somebody compliments you say thank you it's true thank you it's true awesome all right everybody i hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as i did it got you to think a little bit different about your lens that you're looking through these days and maybe throw up that mirror against yourself and ask you if you're doing everything you can and like i always say at the end of all these podcasts go out there and make somebody smile today because no matter how bad your day is going or how bad you think it went 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 hey everyone 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 i am super excited to be launching my new newsletter where i'll be sharing everything i know and everything i'm learning along the way while i'm out there selling every day just like you go to jbarrows.com slash newsletter to sign up today let's all level up and make this happen together