Daphne E. Jones: Tactical Frameworks to Take You from Secretary to Fortune 500 CIO

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Make It Happen Mondays, where we talk about sales, business, entrepreneurship, personal growth, mental health, and everything in between with guests who I truly respect and I think make a positive impact on the world around us. And today's conversation is with Daphne Jones. Now, Daphne is an extremely interesting and extremely accomplished individual, but she started her career with a career counselor who told her that she should be a secretary. And because she didn't think she had too many options, she kind of followed that advice. But then one day woke up and said, instead of being a secretary, I want to have a secretary. And so we talk about this mind shift that she had about making the impossible and changing it to the inevitable and many other things about her as a young black woman getting into STEM as a career, which very few do, and then getting into the highest levels as a CIO of some Fortune 500 companies and other leadership positions, including IBM, Johnson & Johnson, and General Electric.

And she has a lot of cool things that she talks about. She's got some great frameworks where she talks about how to envision and design and iterate and transform. So really dealing with adversity and owning your career and a lot of very, very tactical, structural things that she talks about, especially with her new book coming out called Win When They Say You Won't, breaking through the barriers and keep leveling up your success. So I found this conversation absolutely fascinating and inspiring in a lot of ways. I hope you enjoyed as much as I did. Let's make it happen. What's happening, make it happen, family? Big shout out to our partners today, Gong, Vidyard, and Chili Piper. Gong's data is more than valuable.

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And now let's pass it over to John to find out who's joining him today. See you soon, everybody. John Jones. Welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today? Hey, John. I am doing fantastic. I'm actually here in Miami, Florida. And somebody actually said to me, are you stuck in Miami Beach? And you never think of hearing the word stuck in Miami Beach in the same sentence. I was going to say stuck. Right? But the hurricane or tropical storm Nicole is on her way. So I'm planning on leaving to go to New York tomorrow. So how am I doing? I'm actually waiting for Nicole to get the heck out of here. I actually just missed her, Nicole, because we were just down in the Caribbean for a little cruise on Virgin Voyagers.

Yes. And we hit it perfect because it was last weekend. So it was like a Wednesday to Sunday and it was crystal clear. So there was a nightmare before. And then as soon as we landed, we heard about Nicole coming in. I was like, thank God, because I don't want to be on a cruise ship. I know. I know. And I don't think they want you on the cruise ship either when it's coming. So thank you for asking. Perfect. And I know you're doing good because you got a book coming out here that caught my eye and is going to be the basis of this conversation. And it's when, when they say you won't. So I'm excited. When is this dropping? You said November. It's dropping next week, next week, the 15th of November.

So I'm hoping that everybody, like everybody just wants to come in and buy this book. So I'm really excited about it. And it's a life work, apparently, as I think about it. What drove you, before we get into the kind of the background and stuff, what drove you to write a book? Because I think everybody has their own kind of motivations, if you will, at certain points of their life, if they write a book for what it's about. So what drove you at this point in your life to put this all in writing? Well, it wasn't just at this point in my life. It was at this point in my life that I was able to get it out. But I had been writing this thing for 12, 12, 13, 14 years. It's absolutely wild. Yeah. And because I had these big, so I'm a teacher at heart.

I'm a informer. You know, when I look at my strength finders, it's, I'm a maximizer that says that my job is to take whatever is there and make it amazing and make it great, maximize its capability. So that's what I do. I do that with people or companies and organizations. And I always want to find out how can we win. And so I said, well, how do I get my message out about how I won and what happened to me in my past and how I was able to meander, you know, to the top and sort of stay there? And I can't, I can't hold enough microphones. I can't get enough people to talk to with me in front of them or whatever. So I said, you know, good way to do that would be to write a book. And so I started it a long time ago when I had a, again, big jobs and it was really tough to sit there and say, okay, in 30 minutes, I'm going to start working on the book again for like 40 minutes.

Well, you try to do that for 40 minutes because your next meeting is coming up. First of all, you get a cup of tea, you use the bathroom twice. And next thing you know, 40 minutes of your free time is gone and you can't get in the groove in your mind. So I had to wait until I retired from my corporate role. And then I was able to really put the press on. So I love that. Yeah. I had the same thing. Like I've had this book in me and it's more of kind of a foundational thing for sales that I want to. So I wrote that book with my daughter, but I want to write that next one. And I'm like, you know, that exact scenario, I'm like, I'm trying to find 30 minutes, an hour here, two hours there on a plane there.

And I'm like, this is not, this is just not flowing. So I'm going to go lock myself in a room for at least a few days, one of these days, just so I can get the core guts and then iterate, iterate, like you're talking about. Yeah. And I think find a way to win. I mean, if I was going to go on vacation, for example, for two weeks or 10 days or seven days or whatever, I would devote and say, I'm going to spend the first two days of this vacation focusing on my books and I'll have fun the rest of the time. Because if you wait for that big, perfect moment where you've got 12 days or 12 weeks or whatever, it may never come. So we just got to find a way to always find a way to win. So even if it's incremental steps, next thing you know, they say 10 dimes, make a dollar.

You save a dime here, a dime there, a dime there. Next thing you know, you got a dollar. So take the 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there, if you can, like on vacation or something where you are somewhat unencumbered from the day-to-day job. Yeah. Yeah. Cause it's a mindset thing. And I think that, you know, going back to winning, cause that's what this is all about, right? Even when they say you can't, what was interesting to me about kind of your background is as I dug into it was, you know, it's amazing how people early in our lives can have such an impact on us one way or the other, right? Like my wife, I remember when she was a kid, you know, she was an art and the art teacher said they have places for people like you, you know, like literally said that to her.

And so my wife would like, cause she's like, it was like what she was drawing, like was crazy. Right. And they said like, they have basically like you have, no, like, like that, like there's something wrong with you. Basically like, you're not an artist. They have places for people like you type of thing. And so she gave up on art early in her career. Right. She was like, okay, apparently I'm not an artist. And, and you had a counselor, um, who told you to be a secretary, right? And, and I'm curious at that moment, if we could talk about that moment for a minute, did that, was that an accepted thing for you or even at that age and talk to me, I forget what age that was, but was that a high school?

Yeah. Okay. Was that a kind of a motivator for you or at that moment when they told you that that was kind of like, uh, okay. Like what was that, that conversation like first and how did it impact you? And then let's talk about your journey of how you proved a wrong base or him or her wrong. Yeah. Um, well I grew up with my mom saying that everything is education. Education is everything. And the readers lead and leaders read. And so there I was doing hardy boys and Nancy drew always reading, always doing that. I skipped first grade. So I didn't think I was a chump. I thought I was pretty smart and, and I was, uh, what they call a lassie. You know, I was actually a Scottish dancer in high school.

And yeah, I mean, I do the, you know, hold your fingers like this and you do the Highland fling. I can do the Highland fling even to this day. How did that happen? How did you, how did you get exposed to that? Wait, I'm sorry. I got to pause on this for a minute. How did you get exposed to that? Yeah. So what happened was I was living in a small town called Phoenix, Illinois. It's a very poor town. We don't have a grocery store or post office. We don't have a bank. We only had some bodegas and liquor stores and a bunch of churches. And, um, and so they desegregated us, I guess is what you call it. They bust me to an all white community. And in that all white community, uh, there was, you know, the high school football team, the basketball team, et cetera.

And there's pom-poms, lassies, pom-pom girls, lassies, and cheerleaders. And, and, and so there was always this pyramid of cheerleaders were on top. Lassies were second. Pom-pom girls were on the bottom of terms of respect or difficulty of getting onto the squad. I tried to do cheerleader, couldn't do a split really well. So I said, okay, the next best thing is going to be a lassie because, you know, I want to always be on the top. Right. And so lassies were, you know, Scott, I mean, I did the kilt, uh, the, the garter on the, on the thigh and, uh, we had sword dancing, drum dancing. I then, so we were entertainment. We actually performed for the Chicago bulls. We were that good. And, uh, Jordan, uh, is that back with Jordan?

Uh, yes, yes. Yeah. It was great. And, uh, what's his name? Uh, his sidekick and, uh, yeah, yeah. So, uh, yeah, Pippin. So it was really a great thing. So yeah, I, I got introduced to that. So I thought I was just pretty good. A popular high school magic, uh, chorales, um, choir and just on and on and on. And so the next thing I know, I'm saying, okay, well, isn't it time for me to be getting ready for college? And I think other people were being called in for conversation, um, with their counselors about it, or they put themselves on this, on the schedule. So I put myself on a calendar and I, I went and talked to him and it, it wasn't a him, uh, white male. And he said to me, Daphne, you can probably either be a secretary or a teacher.

And, and I find that strange because a teacher has to know something. I'm not saying secretaries don't know anything, but to put them, put me here, put them both on the same playing field was really weird for me. I'm like, really? But since I had taken typing, that was the thing I, so I didn't opt for the sec for the teacher thing. I opted for the secretarial route and I had taken shorthand and I took it specifically so I could learn how to take notes in college. But because I had taken shorthand, I was a perfect fit for a secretary apparently. And so that's what, uh, that's what happened. He told me to do that. He says, you know, black girls like you don't really go to college. If you try to get in, they won't take you.

If you do happen to get in, um, you're not going to get out, which meant I'm not going to graduate. I'll have to quit. And then when you, if you do graduate, no one's going to hire you. And I, and I had to think about, I didn't understand that. I didn't ask him why not. I just knew black. Okay. Cause I've been called the N word before I've been chased in South Holland with my, you know, with my girlfriend, my white girlfriend. So I understood what he meant. Um, and, uh, I had to really think about that and I ended up actually going, uh, and listening to him and, and going to, to, uh, the magazine that I ended up working at. And it was, uh, it was, it was hard for me to really realize that that wasn't, that that's all he thought of me.

Um, but yeah, so that's what it was. I did it. And I went to a Moser secretarial school. They taught me how to, how to make coffee. They taught me how not to sit in my principal's lap because that's the thing. Apparently you see on TV, you sit in the boss's lap and take dictation. And, you know, they taught me how to, the rules and the etiquette of being in an office. So when did the, you had a quote that I read that you went from being, you know, being a secretary to wanting a secretary, when did that mind shift change for you? Well, it wasn't that long. Cause you know, I wasn't a secretary for a year or two, you know, it was just a couple of months. And, um, women's day magazine was run by white men.

Shocker. Yeah. And so that thought it was interesting, but he, uh, my principal, it was the assistant editor of the magazine. And, um, he would call me in his office and I would take dictation and he actually used a word that I thought he used, but I didn't know what it meant, but I, I transposed it as copulation. But what he really, I think he said it was compilation. Well, I didn't know what copulation was. So he called me, he said, Daphne, this is not what I said. I said, yes, it is. This is exactly what you said. And, uh, and it was talking about compilation of demographics and whatever. And so it was mistakes that I just made that were just horrible. They would joke about us and, you know, wouldn't think that, that we could hear them, uh, in their office.

And then what they would be talking about at other times was not rocket science to me. It didn't seem like so hard. I said, the only thing that they got over me is they've been to college. And so instead of, you know, me being out here, I should be in there instead of me being a secretary, I should have a secretary. And, and that is where I began to realize that setting your own narrative and defining yourself is really what matters. And, and my mom would always say, whoever's got your mind has got you. And it's not you that's, you know, um, locked up and tied up and chained up. It's your mind. And so when I freed my mind to say, I'm going to have a secretary, then I said, what must be true in order for that to happen?

And what must be true is I had to go to, I had to go to college and not, it's not always true. I mean, not everybody that has a secretary went to college. It was just where my mind was, my mind's, uh, my mindset was, and, uh, and that's what happened. So I called around, asked my friends who had gone to Thornridge with me and, and, uh, et cetera. And I ended up and ended up at Illinois state university, uh, after my high school class, you know, got in there. Um, but not too late for me to graduate, you know, still be young. Now you talk about the limiting beliefs, right? And I think, you know, I think a lot of people struggle with limiting beliefs because we're, we're in a society where, you know, it's not rewarded to be different in a lot of ways, or at least we're not structured that way.

Um, and I've noticed it personally, because for instance, you know, I just dipped my toe in TikTok, right. And I am getting my ass handed to me. At least you've tried it. Yeah. Well, I, well, we could talk about that conversation, but, but I'll go, you know, I'll put some tips out there about like, you know, business and business tips about how to, you know, get in touch with people or how to reach out to a CEO and that type of stuff. And, you know, obviously the people that are in tech and SAS and kind of my ecosystem, if you will, they get it. It makes sense. It's the LinkedIn world, but, but the vast majority of people, oh, that's ridiculous. Like no CEO, whatever. Like I, you know, I just need a job to pay my bills.

And I'm, and I'm trying to kind of be like, no, you like, you can do better. You can have more. You're just stuck in this limiting mindset. And so what are some of the things, I mean, you've got a lot of stuff, right? Like you got your edit and we'll get into all these different things, but let's start with the breaking, even knowing that you have a limiting mindset. How do you even recognize in yourself that you have a limiting mindset? Is it an itch? Is it, is it something that, that it just doesn't feel right? Like help us figure out kind of how to identify that you have a limiting mindset in the first place. And then we'll talk about what to do about it. Yeah. I think that everybody has a limiting mindset.

I mean, I know not to, because a limiting mindset can save your life. I can, you know, say, I'm not going, I'm going to touch that stove or I'm not going to touch that stove. And, and, and so I'm going to limit my, my potential for, for, for being in harm's way. And so I, I don't start to think that having a limit is a problem. I think having a limit that says that you can't achieve something that you aspire to is a problem. And so when you see that in every conversation that you have or with yourself or with other people, that your, your, your, um, comment starts with no, because, or I don't think so, because, um, um, how could that be, you know, when, when the conversation is one that is seemingly full of doubt, as opposed to saying what must be true in order for me to be able to do that.

That means you're open to the possibilities. And there's this, uh, the book about growth mindset and fixed mindset. And I think it's a great book. And I talk a little bit about that in my book. And that when you have this growth mindset, you say, you know what, I've won before I can win again. I have so much to offer. I have so much to gain. Um, I am not done. Well, I can do whatever I set my mind to, and that may or may not be true, but I'm going to start going to die trying. I'm going to go as high as I can. And only my end of my life will stop me. That is, if you, if that is how you speak, that's a growth mindset right there. If you believe that, uh, kind of done all I can, I'm a black woman, you know, black, we look like somebody who cleans somebody's house.

We look like somebody who takes care of somebody's children. Ain't nobody going to hire me. No one's going to want to invest in my company. Uh, I'm not going to really win at this. I may go, I may get a hundred dollars or a hundred thousand, but I'm never going to get a hundred million. Wow. That would be amazing, but I'm not going to do it. It's, it's how you approach the problem oftentimes is the problem. So I think it's how you speak to yourself is if it's in open words, open possibility words, um, you know, the word impossible, uh, I don't really use that because I've been told impossible from my counselor all the way up, including as a senior vice president. And my perspective is that the word impossible is just somebody's opinion because they really don't know Roger Bannister running the form in a while.

It was impossible, but it really wasn't impossible. It was just inevitable. It's just a matter of time before he was able to do that. A black Supreme court female justice, that's impossible. Uh, no, it's inevitable. Just a matter of time. And, and we may say that about a female president, it's just a matter of time. It's inevitable. So if we have that mindset that says it's inevitable as opposed to impossible, that lets you know if you're in a growth mindset or a fixed mindset. Hope that. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's, that's, and you talk a lot, I mean, in there, you talk about the positive self-talk, you know, affirmations and those type of things. And it's hard to, to be positive in a world that is in a lot of ways, very negative and always trying to put you back.

And, you know, again, you talk about like, if you can see it, right, then, then you can be it. But in a lot of cases you haven't been able to see it. You know what I mean? Like we haven't seen a woman president. We haven't seen, you know, a lot of things. And so in, in, in, in absence of being able to see it, how much does like, I mean, at the baseline level, just affirmations in the morning, talking to yourself positive, even, you know, fake it till you make it in a lot of ways. Do you think that would help somebody in a, in a situation that is just, they, they, is negative on a regular basis? Let me know something that I wanted to share and I can say it now is we have won before. My book is not for somebody who's never won.

I mean, the only person who hasn't won is somebody who was just born yesterday. Well, that's even a win. Being born, you, you, you came out, so you won. So everybody who reads my book is a winner. The question is how can they systematically and systemically, continually learn how to apply some, uh, tool sets so they can have the skill sets for being a, a, not a one hit wonder or one time winner. And so in the book, I talk about, give me an example where you, where you knocked your something out of the park. Give me an example where you just did a great job. What was the environment? And you actually write out what the situation was, what, what happened? What was your role? Um, what did people say?

How did you feel? And, and then you have the same situation, the, the, the reverse that says, give it an example to yourself or to remember when you just nailed, you, you were crushed at something, you know, didn't do so well. What was the environment then? How do you compare and contrast? So the reason why I do that is I want to be able to say, remember up here where you nailed it. Remember up here where you were, you know, were you strategic where I have something called that I created called the ship methodology. Are you strategic? Are you hands-on? Are you, are you, um, influential or are you a people type in, you know, person? And remember when you nailed it and remember when you failed, what, what do you see?

How can you be more of this and less of that? Because the goal is to find your purpose and to understand your purpose. It's a combination of what you're great at, which you are really amazing at and what you love to do. I may be a great in science, but I hate science. Then I, that's not going to work. It has to work where I love science and I'm amazing at it. Maybe I'll be a doctor or I'll be a scientist or whatever. And so I think an NBA basketball player, right? It's like, I love basketball, but I ain't playing with Jordan. So you may not be good enough at it or tall enough at it. And so it's, what are you amazing at? Every time you go on the court, you sweep everybody away and you love it.

Then you may need to pursue something as it relates to, to, to sports or basketball, what have you. And I think it's the combination though. So back to your question, it's not just the happy talk. It's remembering that you won before it's remembering that you fell down before. Did you stay down when you were riding a bicycle? No, you said, I want to ride that bike and I'm going to get back up and I'm going to get on it again. And now some people got off the bike and said, I'll never ride again, but I don't think there's that many of people that do that. So it's really about remembering your greatness and saying, I want more of that. 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 a hundred percent of the time, 24 hours a day. And then at the same time, you're going to get access to our biweekly 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 guest for this week. So how much of this is trial and error to figure that passion out, right? Because a lot of advice I hear for kids coming out of school, for instance, you'll follow your passion, follow your passion. And I personally think that's terrible advice because at a young age, you don't really fully understand what you're passionate about. You got to try a bunch of things to really hone in. I mean, you know what you love, you know what I mean?

But that's a very limited mind. That's a very limited exposure, right? You're 18, you're 20 years old, you've only been exposed to so much. So you really don't know what else is out there. So how do you coach people on kind of how to, outside of what they're good at, because they might not be good at a lot of things here, you know what I mean? That might be able to build a career out of or something like that. So how do you really start to hone in on what you're good at and what you love? That is not like the typical, like I like art and I like that and nothing wrong with those things. But if you're looking to build kind of a career, if you will, what would you, what would you suggest from a trial and error standpoint on that?

Well, and I would first start, because I did the Myers-Briggs and I really believe that some may not believe in Hogan or DISC or Jahari's window, but it's about being introspective. And sometimes you don't know what questions to ask yourself. And either you have a coach that may be able to bring it out of you, or you use certain instruments that are available to you. Because I realized that I'd make a great lawyer. Well, that's what my Myers-Briggs said. And isn't that funny? I wanted to go to law school, but I didn't. I ended up just getting my MBA instead. Not just. I wanted both. I wanted to join MBA and JD. And I, and I didn't go after it. And I took the Myers-Briggs after I was in corporate America.

And I'm like, God, I could have done, they say I could be a judge or a lawyer or some other salesperson. And so sometimes you have to have people share with you through instruments, if you believe in that, what's possible. And then you go down that path and you read up on it. You meet people on LinkedIn and say, this person's a lawyer. I wonder if I could spend some time with them and understanding how they did it and what they did and what they love about it and do some more research and exploration. If, if you're really, because some people just, um, I always told my son, you got to do what you have to do until you can do what you want to do. Some people spend most of their life, all of their life doing what they have to do, and they never get around to exploring what they might love to do.

And so if, if, if the listeners are wanting to not just do what they have to do, but do what they want to do, they got to know what that is to your point. So I think it's, it's, it's being introspective, finding those tools, reading those books. The strength finder was good for me because it can tell, it'll tell you then if you have these characteristics, then this is sort of what you probably will be good at. And then you say, well, how far am I from that in my life, in my job and my career that I'm doing today? And if it's, and if you really hate what you're doing and you don't a hundred percent love it, but you really want to try this over here, then again, I believe in taking the long game.

You know, they talk about short-termism in business and a lot of companies, you know, hire somebody, they, they do something for a year and a half and they quit and go somewhere else. That's really short-termism. But I, if you play the long game and you say, I really want to explore my ability to be a X, Y, or Z, then you go after it, but you're still over here doing what you have to do. But eventually you get closer to doing what you want to do. You look at what job can I get next in what I have to do that takes me closer to what I want to do. Maybe I want to do more with customers. Right now I'm always inside. Well, can I get an internship or can I shadow somebody? Can I take a stretch assignment where I'm going to be doing more with the outside customer?

There's always a way. And I, you know, my hashtag is find a way to win. Find a way to go after what it is that, that you want and don't let what you're doing today prevent you from going after what you want to be. I love it. And I think that, you know, you're talking about being purposeful with your life and your career, right? As opposed to reactive about it. And I think so many people just kind of go through the motions and they, you know, I say, there's two types of people in this world. There's people that life happens to, and there's people that life happens for, um, people who life out. And unfortunately the vast majority of people, life happens to them. Uh, you know, always me, Nancy Kerrigan, why me type of stuff.

Right. Yeah. Versus that, that mentality. It's almost that mental switch. And, and I wish I'm always searching for ways to get that, that, that to switch earlier for people. Right. Because I think Elon Musk was the one who said, interesting that it was either Elon or, or, um, Steve jobs, where when your mind shifts from realizing that it's easier to make $10,000 than it is to save $10,000, things change. Right. And that's kind of that, that mentality is like, if I, Oh, I got to save money here. It's like, no, it's actually easier to go make that if you put your mind to it. And so that, that mental switch is such an important one, but it's, it's elusive. I just say that, you know, you got to be sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Um, when you go to a doctor and, and you say, doctor, it, it hurts when I do that. What does the doctor say? Don't do that. Yeah. So you can't, or, you know, somebody asked me about a diet that I was on. I got to lose these six pounds. I feel like I've been on vacation for three months. And so I've gained six pounds and they said, okay, well, does the food taste good? Do you get to eat as much as you want? No, it's a diet. It, you can't be on first base and get on second at the same time. So in order for you to achieve what you want, you have to want it and you have to be willing to do what's required to get it. And complaining, you know, there's a saying that I, I didn't make it up, but I'm, I sure I'm claiming it like it's mine.

It says, when people try to bury you or you try to bury yourself, remember that you're a seed. And so when this woe is me, poor me, they tried to bury me. They tried to hurt me. Remember that you're a seed. If, if you believe that and I'm, cause you know, we're not seeds, we're humans, but pretend that you're a seed. And what does a seed do? A seed goes down, is in the, in the ground and it's scavenging for water and it's trying to get its roots put together and, and it's finding the silt and the soil and nutrients, and maybe a little bit of sunlight might be coming through. And then it gets its sea legs. And what happens is it kind of slowly comes above ground and it says, Hey y'all I'm back.

Right. You, you buried me. You thought you'd never see me again. And that seed just grows and grows and, and it becomes a tree full of fruit and it should, it throws shade on those people who buried it, but it also bears fruit. And so in the middle of, of feeling sorry for yourself, find a way to be a seed, find a way to find the nutrients with your mentors and your sponsors and your role models and your accountability buddies and your community leaders, your peer, your priests, find a way to win and not just sit there as, you know, hoping that somebody will notice you. I think that, you know, and that even with that seed, right, all of that stuff that's going on below the surface, those are all the roots.

Those are all the strength that will allow you to grow. Right. And if you look at it that way, you know, like failure, a lot of people look at failure in a negative, right? No failure is failure only if you don't learn from it, right? Failure is weak roots. If you don't learn from it, failure is massively strong roots. If you actually learn from it. Right. Yeah. There's a winning and then there's a lesson. Uh, it's not the losing unless yeah, if you don't learn. So yeah, that's exactly right. So don't, don't be afraid of being underground for a minute. You know, I don't know, um, what Michael Jordan had to go through or Jay-Z had to go through, but I, I'm sure that they weren't famous at two years old.

Nope. They weren't famous at 10 years old. So there's a point in time when the seed, the root is underground, getting its strength and getting its act together. Um, but it has one purpose. And that one purpose is to sprout, grow and deliver value to whoever happens to be under that tree. Love it. So let's talk about the, the, you have some really good kind of acronyms and structure to help people who are not, um, who aren't getting the support, right. So a lot of women, you know, we do, I deal with a lot of women in sales, right. And it's a bro culture and it's a very male dominated, right. And forget about being a black woman in sales, um, in general. So there's not a lot of people that you quote unquote look up to that look like you in these fields.

And so in lieu of the support structure, right. That, that hopefully people have, but many people don't, you know, you got this edit methodology. Could you dive into that a little bit as far as what, you know, that help transform your mindset a little bit so that you can kind of support yourself and some of the other kind of structural things that people can, you can help people who aren't getting the support that they desperately need. Yeah. Um, I kind of feel like there's two questions in there, but let me just start talking about edit. Um, and cause edit is an acronym and it's the name of the framework, but it also is a word that means change. And I believe that, um, if you do things and think things and hang with the people that you've always hanged with and always done and always thought you'll keep getting what you always got.

So edit means change your mindset. And then when you have a new mindset, a growth mindset that says, you know what, you know what? I've been wrong all this time. I can do that. All of a sudden your expectations will change. And if your thoughts change, then your actions will change. So there's T-A-R, another acronym T-A-R, your thoughts will change. How you act will change because your thoughts determine what you do. And then when you, what you do changes, then your outcomes or your results, the R and T-A-R will be the results will change. And I think, um, you, you, you start there and the E then, um, talks about your envision with your mindset change. Can you envision yourself at a new role?

Can you envision yourself doing something different? Um, can you envision yourself doing what you love or doing what you've always wanted to do? And that's the next getting promoted or opening up your own company or taking your company public, you know, whatever it happens to be, can you do that? So the, the, the E and edit, the EDIT word means to change, but then you look at EDIT as an acronym, which stands for envision, design, iterate, and transform. You envision that you are successful. You envision that you are going to be these things, this thing that you've always wanted to be. And, and part of that is, um, I don't get into stakeholders, but it's hard to imagine that you have no support.

You may not have support in your little department or on your floor, but there's somebody who wants to root for you. There's somebody who, uh, if nothing else, there's a role model who is another female who is a district manager, and you may not be, or they may be a regional vice president and you may not be, then that's your role model. And you're going to look to them in a way for support, even though if they don't know it, but then you'll find a way to meet that person. If you're the only woman that's in the whole company, well, that's odd. If there's 20 women, 30 women, somebody up there is doing well. And I would find a way which like, which I had done before when I was a J and J find a way to get on her calendar, find a way to, to, um, uh, say, you know what I see, I saw your presentation that you did at all hands meeting, or I, I saw the article that you wrote in fortune magazine, whatever it is.

And I would love to pick your brain. I would love to just hear your story. And because I admire you so much, you know, people want to talk about themselves all the time. You would, and it may not be next week. It may not be next month, but she will find a time. So it's hard for me to imagine there's zero support or there's zero role models. That person then can become a mentor of a female. Um, and I'm not saying it has to only be a woman. There are men who will support women. Not everybody's a bro. My husband's a pastor. He's a man, but you best believe that he is into driving women to be successful, especially, you know, being married to me. And so there's men and women that you can say, that's a role model.

I like their style. I see how they embrace diversity. And then you get on their calendar. And over time, when you say, you know what, this is really a great meeting we just had for this last hour. Do you mind if I come back at like next month and let you know how I did with your suggestion? Oh my goodness. Then you're on their calendar every month or every other month. And next thing you know, they're your mentor. When you start to climb up the, uh, the doing well in your performance, they might even become your sponsor if they have the right amount of, of, uh, credibility and, and power. And so the E is for envisioning what is it you want to do. And the D is for you to design your plan to get there.

And so designing your plan includes understanding who your stakeholders or, or, you know, your stakeholders might be understanding what could be an accelerator for you. Um, what, what's your SWAT? What are you really good at? And what is a weakness that can hurt you? What are the opportunities and what are the, what are the threats? And you'll notice, um, John, as I talk about the different tools, these are the tools that we use in business because we've been doing these things with our company for our company for years, but we never thought that we could use them for ourselves. And we, we are, if we act like a business and use the tools that a business uses, we will probably have some level of predictable results as a company tends to, right?

And so the design, the D in edit means I'm going to design a plan of action. Well, we do plans of actions and sales and marketing and how are we going to go after our customer? And what do we think our customers want? And what's going to hold us back? Could be competition. We don't have the greatest product in the world. Our price is too high. What are the things about us as a product that makes us not as competitive or makes us uber competitive. Um, so the design allows you to create a, a, a, a plan of action, and then we risk adjust it. What could go wrong with my plan? Let me put it in there. And so that's the D the I says, let me put my plan into action. Let me go out there and see, uh, what it is that I can learn and, and see if my experiment is going to work out.

And if it, if I get a little bit of negative data, I'm not going to quit. I'm just, I'm just going to iterate and go back to my design. So I'm going to go from design to iterate back to design and back and forth until I know that I have a great outcome that's coming. And then you move from iterate to transform and transform is where you have reached some success. Maybe it was higher than you expected, lower than you expected, but it was still a move forward than where you were when you first started. And, and that's when you transform yourself, then you have the ability to transform people around you. You now used to have shoes that were this big and you used to only do this. Now you do a little bit more.

So now you've got a pair of bigger shoes that you got to fill, um, because you've done that much more. So edit allows you to just think about what you want. It relies on stakeholders. It relies on your community. It relies on your buddy because we are not here by ourselves and we're not here only for ourselves. We are here to, um, send the elevator back down to pick people up and send them up. So if somebody that doesn't have support, you have support. We just haven't looked hard enough. Yeah. And I think there's all sorts of communities too. Like I've, I mean, even LinkedIn itself is, is their support there. You know what I mean? Like, all you got to do is put it out there. Uh, and, and people are willing to help, you know, some platforms are better than others when it comes to that type of stuff, but we're no longer in a, in a society where, you know, you're limited by your location.

Yeah. By your proximity. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I'm a black MBA. There's a black MBA organization. There's NSBE for the society of black engineers. If I was going to look for people of color that do what I do or similar mindset, I would go also there and, and rest assured that they know someone. And at the end of the day, with quiet quitting going on and this being an employee, uh, market, um, if, if you're not getting the support, don't suffer in silence. Don't ask for permission to prosper. They're going to, they might say no. And then what are you going to do? So find a way to win, even if it doesn't mean staying exactly where you are. So let's talk about reactions. Uh, you talk about never react without a strategy, right?

And I think it's in our, uh, it's hard for me, for instance, I'm a very emotional person, right? So I've had to learn, uh, over the years and I'm a very opinionated person as well. So when somebody usually comes at me, like I tend to react to that and, you know, and almost, and almost S almost, almost always escalate the scenario in the wrong direction. Um, so I've had to really work on myself of taking a, taking a deep breath and realizing whatever it is. So you talk about challenges and looking at challenges as opportunities and, and ways to react. So could, what are some of the tools that you use to help people who might be in situations where again, it's negative and it's challenging and, and instead of reacting, looking at it from a learning standpoint or looking at it in a more positive light is that, are there some tools that you get to, to change that mindset?

Well, there's at least two tools that I, I use and, and think about. Um, and one is weight and it's, it's, if you look at my LinkedIn post, I did the weight and it's got like almost 30,000 impressions. Um, I think people can relate to weight. And, and that says, uh, I used to be in, when I was in the office, you know, I would always be in a meeting. I'd be raising my hand and, you know, I got another question. It's me and trying to show how smart I was. And at some point when you talk too much, nobody's listening anymore. And, uh, so the head of HR said to me, Daphne, you've got to learn how to wait. You just need to learn how to wait. I said, wait, are we waiting for, where are we going? Like what?

And he said, no, wait, wait stands for why am I talking? And why am I talking really says, is what I have so important that I have to interrupt the silence that is there with my voice. Um, could it wait? Could it, maybe it's going to be answered in the next slide or in the next 20 minutes or, or what have you. And, and I realized that when I learned how to wait and not ask a question every five or 10 minutes, but ask it maybe once an hour, I found that I was a better listener and I was a better contributor. Now I say that, that we're not only talking about talking and the T can also stand for, why am I texting? Like, you know, why am I transmitting anything whatsoever, like body language or an email?

You know, sometimes they say you should wait, uh, 24 hours before you send that horrible email, but it's, why am I reacting? Why? And so, so that is, that's one thing that I would say, just learn how to wait, count 10 seconds. And it works at home too. When my husband's is arguing with me and I want to, you know, get him back with a zinger, I say, wait a minute, am I trying to like divorce this man? I mean, I'm trying to, I want to have peace in my house. So why am I trying to, and so it works also at home. Um, and then, um, I think thinking about, because what happened to me one point, uh, and I'm going to use this example to talk about my next tool. Um, what I call the four C's. Um, when I was a senior executive, somebody came up to me an HR and said, Daphne, you should drive a nice car.

I'm like, thank you. Thank you so much. And, and then he said, and you dress nice too. I'm like, oh yeah. Okay. I'm a little diva. Yeah. Thank you. But like, what's this all about? And, and, uh, his comment was, well, we don't really dress so nicely here. We kind of do boat shoes and khakis. And as if to say that me wearing jeans would make me a better leader or something, but that was, you know, I guess you got, they want me to fit in. And I said, that's interesting. Why didn't you tell me this before? I mean, I've been here four years, whatever. He said, I was afraid you were going to go black on me. And I kid you not what I was afraid you were going to go black on me. And, and so when you talk about reacting in, in the moment, like you say, you, you know, you may escalate something.

I had to kind of put a little edit together. It's like an envision. How do I want this conversation to end? Or, you know what? So I had to envision and design it like a response. And then I had to try it out there. And, and, uh, I ended up saying to him, and then I'll tell you about the four C's in a moment. I ended up saying to him, I tried to make it a bigger thing and say, you know what people that look like me or don't look like me, we could all use feedback. Whether that feedback is good or not good, you need to do what is important for the people because only when the people are good, will the company be good. And so he was like, yeah, okay, I'm sorry. And, and the way that, and so what I do with the four C's as I talk about it in the book is first of all, get clarity of the impact.

Does, is everybody feel this way? Or is it just you? Is it just the department or is it the whole floor? I mean, understand because you need to know how big your, your job is going to be to undo this mess. If there, if there is a, if you are going to undo it, how big is it? Is it tiny? Is it the CEO believes this? Okay. The CEO, then you got another challenge. So what's the clarity of the impact and helps you size your challenge. The second C is then confirming the culture fit. Do I belong here? You know, do I need to be in a place where I can't wear that my hair the way I want, or I can't drive what I want to drive, or I can't dress the way I want to dress, or I can't put, you know, Martin Luther King up in my bullpen or in my, my cubicle or whatever.

Is there, is there a culture fit? Do they value what I value? Do they support what I support? And if not, or if so, the third C is where you choose your action. You know, if you accept the feedback, if you realize that you may be actually at fault with whatever it is, it's always possible. Then you have to decide if you're going to address it with your stakeholders, with your peers, with your accountability buddy or whatever, you're going to choose some kind of an action. Either the action is to do something about it or an action, it could be to totally ignore it. And, but there's consequences either way. And then the fourth C is to confirm the impact or close the loop. You know, after three months, four months, you go back and say, here's what I've done.

Here's what I've tried to do. What feedback have you been getting recently? Because you don't want to have this open wound there that you don't know if it's ever been sealed shut or stitched up because it can just grow into a, you know, a deeper problem. And so those are the four Cs. So it's hard to, it's decision, deciding to wait is a decision. But you have to play the long game. If you, I'll show you, I'm going to quit. Okay, well you quit, you showed them. No, you showed you that you quit. And so you have to, I think, take the long game, play the long game and think things strategically and, and not think about things personally. Yeah. And I think that, you know, it's a good place to wrap up because I think that the reaction, so many people are reacting right now to short term things, right?

What they see on the news or what somebody says about them. And what I find is that when people react to whatever that feedback is, it usually reinforces what that feedback was, right? Whether you, whether you think so or not, now all of a sudden, you know, you're, you're now you're emotional and see, you're proving my point as far as how you're reacting to it. Yeah. But if you just take the, to your point, long game and just wait. And, and, and, and sometimes you look, you don't always bite, like you don't bite your tongue all the time. You need to say something, right? When things are wrong, things are wrong. Right. Exactly. And when people are wrong, people are wrong. And there are certain things that if they cross your values, you have to speak up about them because they won't be true to yourself.

Right. But there's a lot of other stuff that just doesn't matter. Really, if you look at it at the big picture, it just doesn't matter. And if you let it matter, it's going to drag you down versus lift you up for where you want to go. That's right. I agree. Well said, John. I love the message, Daphne. Well, look, uh, let's wrap this up here. Tell people again, the book is called when, when, when they say you won't break through barriers and keep leveling up your success and it's dropping next week. What else, where else? So where else can they find it? Can they find it everywhere? Is it Amazon? Is it Barnes and Noble? Talk to us. Um, yeah, Barnes and Noble, amazon.com. Uh, you can go to my website, uh, www.daphneejones.com.

And you could put the forward slash and type book in there. Some people may want to get the free intro. So you can go to my website, www.daphneejones.com/free-intro to actually see what the book is all about. And you'll see my four step framework of edit, uh, in there. So it's, my goal is to make a movement. My goal is to help eradicate the poisons that have poisoned many people, women of color, women, and even men who want to win or men who may want to know, well, how, how is my behavior impacting women? You know, I have a section in there that talks about when a man repeats the same thing that you just said five minutes ago, they ignored you, but they gave the man a standing ovation. What do you do then?

What do you do if somebody you think somebody took your promotion? What do you do? So there's a thing in there about office politics that I have that's I learned along the way. So I think there's in that there's something in there for everybody to be able to, uh, enjoy, get inspired by, get empowered by, get instructed by, get informed by. Yeah. I love that. And it, and again, this is not just for people to your point who have not won before. This is for everybody. And this is not just for women. This is for men too. And it also, I'm guessing gives a very good perspective for both sides of the equation, whether you're winning or not. So I think this isn't, you know, siloed into one type of person that should read this book.

It sounds like almost everybody should pick up a copy here. So awesome. Well, look, uh, and I, and for those of you listening on the podcast is Daphne D A P H N E. So if you're looking for the website is Daphne E jones.com. Daphne, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate it. And I wish you all the luck on this book and I hope that movement does start and grow and, and put that tree together that can create the shade on the people that have thrown shade on you. You got it. Thank you so much, John. Absolutely. So everybody, thank you all for listening. And hopefully you got something out of this that made you think a little bit differently. And again, I would pick up this book cause I'm guessing there's a whole bunch of stuff in there that'll help you get through this weird world that we're all in right now and build your own career here.

Love it. There it is. And like I say, at the end of all my podcasts here, look, go out there and make somebody smile today. Cause no matter how bad your day went, or you think it's going, if you make somebody smile today, you know, you had a good day and the world needs a lot more of that right now. So thank you all very much for listening. And I will 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. We're 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 delivering 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. So you can go to jbarrows.com/open to check out the details. Thanks again and have a great day.