Ian Koniak: From Skirting Death to Finding Meaning In Life

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 my good friend, Ian Konyak. Now, if you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you know Ian, he's been on it a couple of times before, and we've talked about some really cool stuff. And he's got a great background with a ton of really interesting experiences that he is happy to share with everybody on his journey. You know, he started as a teacher and then he got into copier sales, which is kind of similar to my background.

And then he started working for Salesforce and failed miserably for three years in a row, but then became the top enterprise seller at Salesforce for two straight years. And after that, decided to go off on his own and start his own consulting agency after a very death-defying situation where he hung upside down for hours on a roller coaster where he had to contemplate life and think about what would happen if his life ended today and all the regrets that he had. So he changed his mindset completely after that. And then unfortunately got stuck on some drugs and got hooked on some dopamine things that we talk about throughout this conversation and then decided one day to turn it all around and refocus on his family and now is more successful and happier than he's ever been.

So throughout this conversation, we talk about the short-term dopamine effect that so many people chase and how we need to be long-term focused. We talk about mindset and happiness and what your definition of happiness is and what your definition of success is, because they're two different things. We also talk about the rewiring your brain to think differently, addition by subtraction and what to focus on. And also things like patience and building blocks and how to deal with some of the lows that we're all going through these days. And he's got some great tactics, some great tips, and just an overall fantastic perspective on things that I really, really think we all need right now. So I hope you enjoy this conversation 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. It's cornerstone in any organization looking to collect the data that's going to tell them where they can improve and where they need to spend their time making changes. Vidyard makes it easy for people to use videos anywhere. No matter whether you're sending videos in email or on social media, posting them somewhere, or sending them in a DM, Vidyard has got you covered. Our friends at Chili Piper are so much fun to be around. They make it easy for people to get on your calendar. And every sales rep has got to have this function locked in.

It's one of the most important things we can do as a seller. How can I get you on my calendar easily? Chili Piper can make that happen for you. Be sure that you're checking out all these great tools. And now let's pass it over to John to find out who's joining him today. See you soon, everybody. Ian, brother, what's going on, man? It's been a minute. How you doing? Great to see you, John. It's been a while. Great to be down here a couple years later. I think it's been like two, three years since I've been on the show. Yeah, since you've been on the podcast. I mean, we caught up recently and I've been following what you've been doing, which is pretty cool. So why don't we, for those of the audience that do not know you, give them a quick little recap of your journey and where you're doing today.

Because I think it's pretty, a lot of people, I think, find it pretty interesting going from corporate, sales, enterprise, and then going off on your own entrepreneurship itch. So why don't you educate the audience a little bit and then we'll dive into a couple of the topics that I think are poignant for people. Well, I'd say for anyone who has that itch or that calling, scratch it, you know, because we only live once. And, you know, now more than ever, we have to control our own destinies and we're seeing that. But for me, the itch started really in 2019. I was coming back off of back-to-back years as a top enterprise sales rep at Salesforce. I had made, you know, very good money and I got stuck on a roller coaster hanging upside down for 30 minutes.

And I've shared this story a few times, but I thought I was going to die. I was 180 feet in the air on one of those flying coasters, just literally staring down at a drop with nothing below me. It was horrific. And in that moment, that was my come to Jesus. That was my, if I die today, I will have so much regret. And I just, you know, decided at that point that I wanted to start serving and helping other people and not keeping everything that I knew to myself. I had been very selfish up to that point. So I originally started with just going on Instagram and making videos and had this idea that I would post every day for a year. And, you know, just share words of wisdom or things that I, that I could help people with, not just in sales, but in life.

And I was doing that in the process. I got, you know, a decent following and people started wanting coaching. So that evolved into the side hustle of coaching. Then 2020 hit and I had my own struggles with my own family and challenges with addiction. And then I kind of took a step back and basically said, you know what? I need to take care of my mental health. I need to take care of my family. And I ended up getting sober and from multiple vices and then decided that I wanted to be all in with this calling of helping people. Because now I truly was in a place where I'd help myself on the personal side and any of the business side. So I combined this into this program that I call Untap Your Sales Potential.

And I teach mindset, habits, and skills. Because without the mindset and the habits, the skills are not going to be adopted. People will not take the time to change how they sell. So it's really a three-pronged approach to development. It's really personal development for salespeople. And I've been doing that full-time now for over a year. I have 90 people in a mastermind. I have an online course. So it's really been this great journey that evolved out of a desire to help serve other people and follow a calling for, you know, taking what I knew and sharing it with the world. Love it, man. And let's dive into mindset for a second. I mean, you had a pretty, you know, instantaneous mindset shift on that roller coaster, right?

And I think a lot of people also, life, it's funny the way life works, right? Because if you're not paying attention, it will eventually force you to pay attention, right? Whether it's a sickness, an illness, or something like that. It's going to eventually catch up to you. So let's start here. How do you know you need to change your mindset? Because I think a lot of people are going through the motions quite a bit and might not even realize that they have an unhelpful mindset. Let's put it that way, right? Not necessarily a negative mindset, not something that's self-harm or anything like that. But a mindset that has just got them stuck and they don't even realize it. So how do you know that you need to...

You talked about that itch, right? We scratched that itch. If you had it, go get it. But how do you even know you need to change your mindset or you needed reset, if you will? Yeah, I think it's a great question. And I think the simplest answer I can give is if you're not happy, right? And how do you know if you're happy? It's who's truly happy, right? We all like to want more and it's human nature to always think about what we don't have per se versus appreciating what we do have. That's why gratitude is so important, but it's easier said than done. And so I think what it comes down to is if I use the word integrity because I think that's the best description. But if you're... For me, integrity means that your actions and your behaviors match your thoughts and your words in its simplest definition.

So if you're telling yourself, I should do this, I want to do this, and you have this constant thought of should and could, and it's completely different than your reality, that means that your mindset needs to change to one of I take action versus I just, you know, think about all the things that I should be doing. Because if you're thinking you should do stuff and then you don't do it, whether it's related to your relationship or your work or your health or your finances or your faith or whatever you're knowing that you want to put more time into and your actions don't match that, you are going to be in battle with yourself. In other words, you are not keeping your commitment to yourself. Our thoughts are our commitments.

What we want to do, right? If our actions match what we want to do or what we think, we are in full alignment. We are in full congruence. And so that's the best way I can describe it is if you're thinking things and you're using a lot of shoulds and you're not living a life that you truly want to live, but you're not taking action, you're going to be in this purgatory in your own mind. And that's a great sign that your mindset probably needs to shift. Yeah, and I think it comes, you know, you hit the nail on the head, I think, with the happiness piece, right? And defining what happiness means. Because I think a lot of people, and I think you and I have been on a similar journey as far as what our perception of happiness was versus what actual happiness is.

And, you know, the cars and the, you know, the houses and the trips and the drugs and, you know, all that stuff is, it seems really cool and it feels cool in the moment. But really, you know, if you peel it back, it doesn't, you know, they always say money doesn't buy happiness. I think that's, you know, a lot of rich people say that, right? So I think it's disingenuous. It's different if you're struggling to pay your bills and you're in debt and like, yeah, you can say that when you have all the money in the world. It's easy to say. Yeah, it's, you know, but what I will say is I definitely agree that money gets rid of a lot of unhappiness, you know, bills and those type of things. So there's a perception there and I think the happiness piece, you know, I tell my daughter this all the time when somebody asks you, what do you want to be when you grow up?

The answer is happy. And I'm a Gary Vee fan, right? And he says, you know, if you make 40 grand a year and you're happy, you know what I mean? Because you get to go home to your wife and kids, you get to, you know, play baseball with your kids and all that, you win. Like, because I know millionaires who are miserable pricks. And so what's your advice to people to really hone in on what their definition of happiness is? Yeah, I think happiness and success are two different things. What you just said is success is to be happy, right? So I think that if you look at it from, I'm all about simplicity. So if you look at it as what is my definition of success, right? That's a better way to look at it.

It's like, what's my definition of happiness? Because my definition of happiness is really simple. It's the joy I feel in the pursuit of my full potential. That is my definition of happiness. Because potential expands through all areas of life. It's potential as a business owner. It's potential as a husband, as a father, as a creator, as an athlete, right? So if you're pursuing your potential, there's always going to be a pursuit. It's the joy in the journey. But that's me. Not everyone is going to get the joy of like running a marathon or going to start a business, right? So I think you need to look in the mirror and figure out what makes me happy and how do I define success? In other words, if your definition of success is spending quality time where you're present with your family, and then you find yourself where at night you're not present, you're on your phone all the time, you're distracted, then that's another sign you need to make a change.

So really think about what makes you truly happy. And I know for me, happiness comes from hard work. And happiness also comes from being able to provide for my family and spend time with them, provide for them financially and experiences, but also spend quality time. And I know you're in the same boat because of the shift you've made in your own business. And I'm the same way. I won't travel. I won't do on-site. I recently left business trainings so I could focus on coaching, which makes me happy. So defining the type of work that makes you happy, defining how the lifestyle that you want that makes you happy, and defining how you're going to spend your time. I think that's ultimately different for everyone.

But happiness is being able to do the things you love when you want to do it with the people you love. And that's, to me, if you don't have those relationships, if you're going at it alone, you know, it's going to be an uphill battle. And even if you climb the biggest mountain, you're going to be lonely when you get there. So it's all about family, it's all about friends and connections, and even doing something like this, being able to see you. It's like, that, to me, is really important, making time for those connections, not being isolated, looking at, you know, work and accounting stuff on my computer. So I bake my day so that most of the day is filled with connections and with interactions with people.

So love that. And I, you know, I do, you know, I don't do coaching on career stuff, but I do, similar to you in the sense, get a lot of people asking me, hey, John, I'm currently in a job that I don't really love or whatever it is. You know, any advice for me? And I always do ask them the question, well, like, what's it look like five years out for you? Like, what does your life look like? If you were to paint that perfect picture of your life, forget about job here for a second, forget about money for a second, but envision five years out, what do you want to be doing? Do you want wife, kids, house, family, travel, whatever that is, paint that picture in your head and then back into it as far as how much money do you need to make to be able to live that lifestyle?

And therefore, what job do you have to make? And therefore, whatever job you have today, if it's helping you get to that next stage of your success ladder, your happiness ladder, then stay in it because even if it might suck, it's a stepping stone to the next one. But if you don't have that vision for yourself of what happiness, what success looks like, you're just going to keep skipping around to different piles of shit and hopefully some taste better than others, right? So without that plan, I think, and that's the struggle that I have is I think so many people go through this life without a guiding light, without an understanding of what real success means to them personally. And it's and I think that's a huge problem with a lot of people's happiness, if you will, in their careers.

Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. In fact, I made a video. I posted a video today on my YouTube and LinkedIn, and it's called Grit Versus Grind. And I'm reading a book from Daniel Pink called Drive right now. And he defines grit as passion and perseverance towards long term goals. So it's exactly what you just said. You see, grinding is pursuing very short term outcomes. So if you're in sales, most likely you've been grinding for many years and you're grinding towards hitting your quota and maybe making some money that you can go spend on some things, right? But grit is, again, that passion and perseverance towards long term goals. So if I am working, I was in sales for 19 years before starting my own business.

And I always was one to chase grit and not grind, because if I didn't know exactly why I was working, I knew that I fundamentally would not perform my best. So I had to reset my goals every year. I had to keep them short term enough to motivate me daily, but long term enough to know where I was going. So I'll just give you one example. My first year I made seven figures in Salesforce was not because I was so determined to make seven figures. It was because my wife, we were living in a condo. We had just had a baby. It was a three story condo. We had to go up and down. There weren't many windows. And she complained and she complained and she complained. I said, give me five years, honey. Let me save up enough.

We'll buy a nice house. So five years comes around. And sure enough, we're looking and we just can't get that much for what she wanted in L.A. And it was very discouraging. So she says, Ian, why don't we move back to my parents in Temecula? In that area, we can buy a huge house versus living by the beach in West Los Angeles. And so I was like, negative. As much as I like your family, that's probably not a great idea for multiple reasons. But I didn't want to live in Temecula. I love living by the beach. So at that point, we had been looking at properties that were around one, two, one, three. And the properties that we really wanted were in the range of one, five to two million. So I didn't know how I would do it.

And I was resigned to say, we can only afford this. And I ended up going to a personal development conference. That was the year I decided to get coaching and join personal development. And they had me visualize living in a beautiful home. And I'm not kidding you, John. I saw the house I'm living in now. And that night, even before, even before I knew in any way, shape, or form how I was going to get it, I told my wife and I said, up your budget. Let's start looking at one, six and above. And that, within six months, I had closed the largest deal in my career. It was a $3.5 million ACV deal, eight-figure TCV deal. And it put me at number one in the enterprise select. And then I used that money to put $600,000 down on a down payment of a $1.8 million house.

So it's truly remarkable when you know what you want, and you tap into that, and you really see it. Not just think it in your head, but really see it, visualize it, imagine it. There's a lot of talk about manifestation out there. But if you truly can see success before it happens and program your brain, you'll figure out a way how to do it. And so that, to me, I think is everything. It wasn't about me. It was about providing for my family. It was about creating a space where we could really raise kids and have great schools. And now, you know, I'm living that dream. And it really is because of sales. But it started with, you know, raising my own standards for what was possible and eliminating those limiting beliefs.

And that's another example of mindset shifting. Totally. I think the limiting beliefs is, you know, there's so many people that have them. But I think it also stems towards part of this discussion about the short-term focus of so many people, right? It's like, you know, you talk about the dopamine effect of, you know, that feels good here in the short term, but doesn't necessarily get to me to where I want to go. And I'm curious, you know, just as a society, you know, I think the technology is forcing us to be, you know, have less and less attention spans and be more and more geared towards that dopamine rush because it feels good, right? There's a lot of stuff out there right now that does not feel good.

And so we search for stuff that does feel good. But it's really, you know, disappointing to me in a lot of ways because I'll use the election as a perfect example. I mean, we're sitting here on election day, right? And I don't care who you're going to vote for, but it always drives me crazy when people are looking at the economy as the number one reason of why they're voting. Because if you're voting on the economy, right? And that's the problem because gas prices today are at $5 and your milk costs $3.50 today. And you vote people out of office because of two years of whatever policies they put in that aren't really going to impact you for another six to 10 years at the end of the day. But they blame the short term on who's ever in front of them.

And they never think of the long term. And I bundle this in with a lot of things that I'm concerned about, for instance, like the climate change and all this other stuff, like big macro things that any idiot can look at on a piece of paper and say, holy shit, we are fucked. Like if we don't do something, we're fucked. But because today it's not hot out, because today my air conditioner actually works, I don't really care about global warming. I'm going to throw that thing in the trash. So why do you think we are such a short term focused, dopamine oriented society? And why don't you think a lot of people think long term? I think it's not our fault. You know, I think fundamentally our brains are being programmed.

I did a lot of research for a recent keynote that I gave, and I shared a little bit about this for you in the pre-call. But one of the books that I've been reading, and I follow a guy named Andrew Huberman. I definitely recommend if you're interested. He's a Stanford neuroscience, and he talks a lot about what's happening as a mass society on our brains and the effect of dopamine. But the book that I read was Dopamine Nation. And she, the author, quote unquote, says, because we've transformed the world from a place of scarcity to a place of overwhelming abundance, drugs, food, news, gambling, shopping, gaming, texting, sexting, Facebooking, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, tweeting. The smartphone is the modern day hypodermic needle delivering digital dopamine 24-7 for a wired generation.

So that's kind of the intro to the book. And I read that because it sums it up, right? We have this in our hands all the time. And this has so many immediate gratification apps on it, whether it's the news or whether it's LinkedIn or whether it's texting or sexting or whatever the heck we're doing. We're always on. And because of that, the pleasure center in our brains are being massively overstimulated. So the pleasure center in the brain, it's two points. One is called the VTA, the ventral tegmental area. The other is called the nucleus accumbens. And without getting too technical, this is a part of our brain that every time you release some dopamine, get a like, get a follow, check LinkedIn, go on the sports app, whatever fantasy football, that is getting activated.

Well, there's a whole different part of our brain, which is the prefrontal cortex, which is where executive functions occur. So when we think executive functions, think of anything which is used to create, which could be decision making, future planning, problem solving, storytelling, emotional regulation is in there. So you have this one part of the brain, which is instant gratification, which is really around consumption every time we're consuming. And you have the other part of the brain, which is around executive functions or creation. So if I'm going to go write something, a post and have to sit down and really think about it, if I'm going to have to create a course, if I'm going to have to plan for my business, right, I'm using a different part of my brain.

So what's happened is we become so heavy in terms of hitting the lever on the pleasure center that the brain is actually trying to maintain homeostasis. So when you're not hitting that pleasure center, what happens? Well, the pain receptors are equally balanced. So just sitting down and having to do hard work or normal deep work that's required in sales, whether it's research or prospecting or having to actually plan for a proposal or QBR, you name it. I can give you a million examples, but any deep work actually feels a lot harder. It feels like anxiety. It feels like boredom. It feels like restlessness. It feels like overwhelmed just to do simple things that require us to sit down and focus for a period of time.

And it's because we are literally programming our brains to the point where the normal mundane stuff that actually is required when you want to master any skill feels really, really hard. And then what do we do? Because it feels hard. We go back to the pleasure center. And ultimately, we continue the cycle. So if you're interested in this topic, again, dopamine nation is a great kind of scientific explanation of it. Once I learned that, it made me so much more comfortable to remove the blame on myself and stop beating myself up over things and really recognize, hey, I need to minimize some of the dopamine consumption so I can rewire my brain. Because the good news is the brain is neuroplastic.

And you can actually, you know, just like anything, you use it or you lose it, right? When you're learning a language or a new skill, an instrument, right? You're using it. It's hard at first, and then it becomes easier. So these type of harder, focused, deeper activities that, you know, feel really hard, that require patience and discipline, if you do it consistently, your brain actually is wiring in those areas of the brain. And then it becomes easier because you're using that part of your brain and you're building new neuropathways. So it's just fascinating. But that, to me, has been key in terms of how I've been able to launch and scale my business very quickly is doing a lot of that deep work and kind of cutting off and doing what I call a dopamine detox, a dopamine fast to get rid of a lot of the, you know, the auto-programming that I honestly do by default and just by habit sometimes.

I don't even think about it. Yeah. And I think that, you know, that kind of leads to the next part, which is the, you know, the addition by subtraction, right? Of making, you know, we do so much and some is important, some is not, some is dopamine, some is deep, some is all over the place. And so I think a lot of people have the excuse of, I'm too busy, right? I don't have time for this. And so for you, how have you kind of been able to hone in on, you know, what's important and remove the stuff that's not? I mean, I think there's obviously easy things we can all say, oh, we got to put our phone away and be, you know, be more present with our family and those type of things. But how have you gone through the process of subtracting things and also prioritizing what you should subtract, right?

Because there's certain things that people don't know, like, hey, I shouldn't, I probably shouldn't be doing that. But I don't know, maybe you should be. So how do you do the addition? Are we on camera right now? Or is this going to be a video? Okay, so I can show you what I do. So I use a system. So again, taking a step back, you have to know what your goals are. And once you know what your goals are, you need to map the proper activities that will align to your goals, right? So if you, it's like the 80-20 rule, right? 80% of our results is determined by 20% of our activities or our tasks, right? So in sales, it's really simple. It's revenue-generating activities, either we're creating or advancing pipeline.

In business, it's not so simple, right? You could say yes to all kinds of side projects or passion projects or affiliate market. I'll, you know, I mean, shoot, you coached me on starting a business. So fundamentally, like, there are so many opportunities that come your way. So you want to make the main thing, the main thing, right? That's the key. So for me, I'll just give you, again, real examples is the easiest way I can convey it. I had three revenue streams from my business when I started. And I said, this is great. I want to have my eggs in a few baskets. And, you know, that's all good. It made sense. One of them was doing training, business to business. So I go to companies and I do training on enterprise sales.

The next revenue stream was advisory. So I would advise sales leaders and CEOs on how to set up their sales orgs, how to set up the right, you know, the right team, what to look for, their messaging, building a sales playbook, essentially, similar to what Scott Lease was doing or what he does. And the third revenue stream was I'm going to do an online course and program. So I had all three going. And what I found is that I had no time. My business was booming, but I wasn't happy with two-thirds of the work that I was doing, okay? The advisory work, I'm like, you know what? Helping CEOs build out their business, yeah, it's cool, but not really. Consulting, I don't think I want to be doing that.

The business to business work, I actually enjoyed, but what I found is a lot of times, you know, people were forcing their employees to go to those trainings. And they didn't necessarily want to be there. So even if I had great content, sometimes you just didn't have people engaged and, you know, and there's nothing I can do to make them, right? Some people just don't want to learn and develop themselves. Now, the coaching side, everyone in that program wanted to be there. They were paying out of pocket. They were highly engaged and they were getting massive results. So I made a decision that I was going to go all in on one revenue stream, okay? And by doing that now, all the activities and all the tasks that were associated with running a training program or an advisory program, now I got to say no to.

So now I use a system and it's really simple. I have a 12-week year. The book is called The 12-Week Year. And my 12-week goal, I do this every quarter. I treat each quarter as a mini year. So my quarter, this time, the goal is launch my second course, okay? So I've already done my first one. Now I'm doing the second iteration. It's going to launch in January. So the next, really the next 12 weeks, all in on this. So everything I'm doing right now is about getting the content right, getting it into Kajabi, getting it filmed, making sure I'm marketing it, doing the launch plan. And everything else I'm saying no to because those distractions will still come in. Those are things that, you know, if there's another project that someone wanted me to do a thing on Adderall and ADHD and they were going to film me and that would have been a lot of work.

So I told them next year. Another guy wanted to meet on something else. I told them next year. So I'm pushing things off. It's not that I'm not interested. I was going to do a podcast. I'm delaying that. It's that this goal is the most highest priority. So the way that it works is every single week, I write down all of my tasks for the week, most revolving around launching this course, right? And making sure it's ready. And then I prioritize from one to 15 or however many on here. And I literally at the beginning of each day, I task block and I time block from one. So most to-do lists don't have a prioritization component. It's just everything buckled down. But the 12-week year, the cool thing is you can prioritize.

And that's how my week essentially goes. I go from one. It's not always perfect. But in general, I do the one to four or five on Mondays, Tuesdays, and as I go through the week. So this way, you're always doing the hardest thing first. So this way, I get the thing done. And at the end of the day, I can feel good about what I've done because I took the time. And that's where most people fail is they don't plan and prioritize at the beginning of the week or the beginning of the day. And so everything seems important and urgent, and they can't distinguish between what's truly important and what's not. Everything's just urgent. They're running around with their hair on fire. And I just don't do that because I know it's important because I already took the time to prioritize at the beginning of the week.

What's up, everybody? I know you're enjoying this conversation. John does a great job with genuine curiosity on these episodes, and our guests consistently bring the heat. We want to take a moment here and let you know that you've got an opportunity, an opportunity to become better than you were, yesterday, and you can do so by gaining access to all of JB Sales' content. All of their training tips, techniques, tactics, and takeaways can be yours for $1 a day. $365 for the year gets you annual access to everything, including our private Slack channel for members only, which you get access to all of us directly 100% of the time, 24 hours a day. And then at the same time, you're going to get access to our 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. There's a lot of people out there who are not happy with what they're doing. They're kind of going through the motions, and they've got all these side hustles. And so there's two arguments on a side hustle, right? One of them is it's good because that's probably what you want to be doing, and that's what you're passionate about, and it's good for you, right? Mentally, everything else, and maybe even for the future.

But the bad part about it is that side hustle is distracting you from your main responsibility, if you will, from a job standpoint. So how do you balance the focus with potentially something that is a side hustle that's maybe long-term going to help me get out of the position that I'm in right now? Yeah, it's such a good question. I'm getting so many people asking me. I feel like more than ever, people want to follow in your footsteps, John, because you kind of paved the way in a lot of this. And now in my footsteps, and I'm all for it. I'm all for, like I said, people serving and creating this ripple of people that can teach and help others. Because if we do that, if we're all creating, we're all helping, the world is going to be a better place, and we're going to lift each other up.

But the reality is that a lot of times that can be another distraction, and it can be another avoidance and escape of what you're doing. So my first question is, do you have the experience to teach what your side hustle is, right? So a lot of people are doing that pretty early, where fundamentally, they may not have the background, and you can teach some things. But if you really want to go deep, your experience is going to shine through, through your examples, through your failures, through your hardships. And people are going to see that, and they're going to want to work with people who have been in the trenches for whatever you're teaching. I think that's really important, right? I wouldn't get marathon coaching from someone who's obese, right?

I wouldn't get marriage counseling from someone who's four divorces in, right? So it's like, that's the thing you want to think about, is if you're going to do a side hustle, do something that you're really good at, right? Don't pretend or do something you think is going to monetize. Do something that actually is unique to you. So there was a guy who I coach, and he's like, what should my side hustle be? And his whole thing is like, I got to Salesforce, and now Asana is where he's at, in the enterprise space without a college degree. I got there. So I'm like, so teach people how to get into sales and SaaS without a college degree. Share your journey. Share your story. Share your struggles. Share your path.

Show people how to get to BDR. How to succeed as BDR. Then go to AE. Then get to enterprise. Share what you know, right? So I think people get so caught up on the monetization piece, and they skip the building and audience piece, right? And I think fundamentally, that's what I would advise anyone, is don't worry about monetizing yet. Don't try and build a book, or don't try and build the course, or whatever. Build an audience first. Build an audience. And then when you have somebody to sell them, right, they're going to be knocking at your door because you've gained trust with them, and you don't have to go through all these fancy funnels and mechanical marketing and all the stuff that, you know, is needed to sell courses or info products.

So that's really, I think, knowing, doing something you're super passionate about that's real to you, right? And it could be totally personal. It could be helping. You know, there's a guy I know who's like all about personal development. He's 25, but he's at Microsoft now. He's phenomenal, and he has been doing affirmations and visualizations and recordings, and it's just amazing. And now he's helping other people do the same thing because he knows personal development. He's been doing it since he was 17, right? So it's like, again, fundamentally, you don't have to be John Barris. You don't have to be Ian Koniak. You don't have to be anyone but yourself. We all have unique stories. But if you're going to have a side hustle, do something that you are actually really passionate about and that you know.

And if you don't know it, develop it and build it and be patient, right? It goes back to that patience piece of it. I didn't start making money when I started my side hustle. So all I wanted to do was to help people and to make videos. And then what happened is I got really good at making videos, and I got a following. And then when I had a product, I was ready to go. The thing sold out, one, two, three, because I had been doing it for three years of just going on podcasts and creating content. So now I finally had an offer, and then it was like there. So play the long game. Don't play the short game, or else you're going to lose purpose of what you're trying to do. Well, and I think that's the thing I worry about quite a bit these days is the patience factor, is that you look at it, and if you go traditional approach, right?

I mean, you have a 40, 50-year career ahead of you one way or the other, right? And when I say career, whatever you think that looks like. And so many people are trying to get to, quote unquote, success in the first five years of them being out in the workplace, if you will, and skipping all the things that are necessary to be successful. It cracks me up, for instance. Like a few years back, almost every millennial I knew wanted to be a motivational speaker. And Morgan included. So Morgan, who doesn't work with us anymore, but when he came on board, he was 25 years old. He wanted to be the number one motivational speaker in the world. And I said, good for you. But let me ask you, walk me through your journey and your struggle.

And what's your story that you can share with people that is motivational? Because if you don't have something to anchor on from an experience standpoint, then you standing up there and being like, you can do it and you're going to be great and positive affirmation is just going to be bullshit. But, and for me, at 46 years old, like, I've never looked to be the overnight success. You know what I mean? Like, I never really understood. I even said, like, even if I won the lottery, I don't necessarily know what I would, if I would change much about who I am or where, you know, or what I do. And so the mentality for me has always been earn it long-term, but there's just so many options for people now to make short-term cash and build the lifestyle that they want.

So I don't necessarily blame the kids coming out of school today for the eagerness to be successful because there's just so many more opportunities and all the rules are broken. But if you don't go through that pain, if you don't go through that experience, it's going to be a hollow, whatever the fuck it is when you get there. Yeah. I couldn't agree more, dude. You're speaking my language. I mean, I was at two companies my whole career. I was at Rico going door to door, selling copiers, getting thrown out of buildings in Koreatown at 23 years old to building a sales team to then going to Salesforce, having to start over. But I spent two companies over 19 years before I got to, you know, retire from corporate sales and now do my own thing.

I'm still selling, but it's, you know, my own products and services. So fundamentally, someone called that out. They're like, you're still selling. You didn't retire from sales. I'm like, you're right. I'm not going to say that anymore. So corporate sales. So here's the thing, John, you are absolutely right. And I think the concept of having to pay your dues, it's this idea of building blocks. Building blocks. So I don't like to only talk about myself and my building block, but I can tell you right now that's all I have to draw upon in my own experience. Before I started sales, I was a teacher. Then I go in and develop this grit from copiers and door knocking and constant rejection. And then I go and become a sales leader, right?

For leading 80 people at Rico, $60 million business. Then I go to Salesforce and have to learn it all over again, fail on my face, misquoted three years in a row because I'm a transactional guy. I have to learn strategic selling, end up getting the number one. Then I fall on my face to addiction, have to get in recovery, right? So it's this constant one step forward, two steps back, or two steps forward, one step back, two steps forward. So it's like, fundamentally, these experiences are what I call building blocks. So now, fundamentally, I'm teaching, which is what I did first. And I never thought I'd be a teacher, but I'm teaching sales. And then you go back to leading, right? I'm leading people and coaching people, which draws upon leadership.

And I know I'm teaching strategic selling, which I had to do as an individual. So if you think of the challenge, wherever you are, people are, they're miserable because they're looking too far ahead and they're not appreciating the gift and the lesson that lies in the present opportunity of what they're doing. So if you're a BDR and it's really hard and it feels really hard, that's a good thing because you're building discipline. You're also going to build your skill in terms of how to interact with people, how to engage, how to write email copy, how to talk to people on the phone, dealing with rejection. So it's like, fundamentally, you have to realize that everything you do in a career is a building block for whatever's going to come next.

And even if you don't see it, you're going to draw upon those skills in a future role. And if you just try and jump ahead and you just try and take the shortcut, you will not learn the lesson. You will not grab the gift in the experience that you're getting. So that's always the piece of advice I give is be where you are and don't look too far ahead because there's wisdom in giving your all to the current opportunity. It's always going to take you to the next level if you can be successful in the current capacity that you're in. Absolutely. I mean, so when you talk about building the skill, something was really interesting to me. I've been a pretty loud proponent or naysayer of school, of undergraduate degrees, right?

I think college is a bit of a scam these days, right? To spend $400,000, to be $400,000 in debt to get a $40,000 a year job is bullshit, right? And so if I extract that, I look at and I kind of shit on, and my daughter's 12, right? And so I'm like, I don't care if my daughter can solve a math problem. I don't give a shit if she can solve a science. I care if she's a good person. She has critical thinking and she's got some ability to deal with this. It has confidence, right? Those are the things I instill. And so I kind of use calculus, right, as their kind of joke. It's like, who the fuck needs calculus? But I heard something from Neil deGrasse, which I thought was really fascinating. He said, everybody shits on calculus because nobody ever uses it in the real life.

And, you know, a fraction of a fraction of percentage of people ever go into PhDs and stuff like that to use calculus. He goes, but that's not the point of calculus. He's like, the point of calculus is figuring it out because your process to go through of how to learn calculus is building neurons and stuff in your brain and connections to help you learn how to learn. And when he said that, I was like, son of a bitch, he's right. You know what I mean? Like, I looked at the short-term gratification of calculus and say, what the fuck's the point of this? You know what I mean? It stresses kids out. It's zero applicable in any real world scenario. So, and our iPhone now can pretty much answer any of those damn questions.

But when he took that second layer of that bigger picture orientation of it and said, no, no, no, no, no, the simple act of you trying to learn calculus wires your brain in a way that's going to benefit you tenfold in the future. And so, I think that's the lesson. It's like cold calling in our world, right? Like, what the fuck? Cold calling? I mean, seriously, the results of cold calling are like 0.0 whatever percent. I don't give a shit how good you are. Cold calling sucks right now. But cold calling, I think, is an extremely valuable and critical development component of a sales professional's career. You need to get your ass handed to you for two fucking years and get people to scream at you, tell no, you know, I died, all that stuff, so that you can build that grit so that as you evolve, you can always lean back on the ability to make a phone call and not have to worry about rejection, right?

Yes, yes, exactly. I mean, it's, it's, again, sometimes you don't see the point in what you're doing and that's what patience is. It's faith. It is, it comes down to faith. Faith is the ability to see success even if you don't experience it or get the benefits in the immediate time, right? It's like why we can't see God, right? But we believe something's there. We can't see our future and our success, but we know we trust the process. And if we show up and do the right things, like there is this, you know, there's this rule of the universe, law of the universe. I don't care what you believe. I don't care, you know, what your religion is or, you know, whatever. This is a universal law. And I found it to be true over and over again.

People who show up on good days and bad days, show up when the things were, are really hard. We are always being tested. And if you bail out, you miss the opportunity, right? But if you can sit with the pain, if you can sit in the fire and continue to show up and keep your head high and power through, not power through, that's the wrong word. If you can bear the burdens and the heat while you're in the fire versus just trying to find something better or escape, right? You are going to be rewarded when the fire gets put out, right? And I've seen this over and over again. I had missed quota three years in a row at Salesforce and I was this close to leaving to go working in another company, a competitor.

And instead I said, you know what? That would be terrible. I would have felt so horrible that I left after failure. I'm going to sit through it. And sure enough, that year after I finished number one, I was the same person the year that I missed it versus number one. So what changed, right? What really changed was me and the view of what was most important. I was so focused on myself and so focused on my own goal. I missed the whole point of sales, which is actually help other people hit their goals. And so it took me literally missing three years and being in so much pain where I said, I will do whatever it takes so I don't have to feel this pain again. And that's when I was receptive and humbled enough to actually go get help.

And so I think, again, that's what faith is. It's continuing, even though you don't necessarily see the immediate results. And if you're starting a business or a side hustle or you're in a position in sales where it's really hard, I think you just need to kind of have that faith knowing that the journey is the reward. Every time I've had a really, really bad failure in my life, I've had such a miracle on the other side, right? The Salesforce thing is one example. But after recovery, my family relationship and my kids and our happiness level and the personal side is greater than it ever was before I got in recovery. So it's like I had to sit in the fire of going through recovery and nearly losing my family and coming clean with my wife on what I had been doing before I actually was able to experience this true intimacy that came afterwards when she accepted me for all of me, not just the good sides that I was putting a face on.

So these are just lessons that are universal to life and we always will get rewarded. There's always a gift on the other side of stepping through and continuing when you're in pain. And that's where, again, that's where God finds us, I believe. So I'm all for doing that hard now so you can have things easier later. I love it. Now, let's finish up on kind of the dealing with the lows, right? I don't know, but I'm guessing that in the past, you, if you were low, you know, got in a bad spot, you turned to dopamine-oriented type things. Oh, you know. You don't know, but you know, John. And so now with your mindset, with, you know, going through some of those lows, they still happen to all of us, right?

Let's not sit here and pretend like everything's fucking hunky-dory for everybody. As long as you have a good attitude, everything's going to work the fuck out, right? Because it just won't. So there are times where shit just sucks, whether it's business or personal or whatever. So what is, what's your process now for dealing with the lows? And is it a, do you deal with them? Do you recognize them and deal with them immediately? Or are they still things that creep up on you where it's a slow, because there's the immediate low, like, oh my God, my dad died. Fucking A, what do I do here? But then there's the consistent, you know, the nitpicking that just gets you. And it's, and all of a sudden you wake up and you're just tired.

You just don't want to fucking get out of bed and you don't know why. So how do you deal with addressing the lows these days with your, with your kind of mindset? Yeah. And thank you for calling this out. And I appreciate you. We, I appreciate diving into this topic because I think it's what everyone needs right now, especially with where things are. And there's a lot of negativity. So how do we deal with the lows? I mean, I can give you my strategies and my playbooks. I think if you have a one-time low, like a father dying or, you know, trauma or something like that, you have to address it. You can't just ignore it and push it under the rug. You need to process, you need to be there. You need to let your feelings out, right?

But that, that'll pass with time. But I think more importantly is what you're asking about is like the day to day. The fact is that we can't always be happy. We can't always be gung-ho. There's going to be days where we're only able to operate at a five or six versus a 10 every day. So for me, what I consistently rely on, and I can tell you, if you just take a step back and accept the fact that there's going to be lows, there's going to be bad days, life's going to happen. There's going to be storms, you know, that, that's, I have my furnace not working. There's always shit, you know, the more you have, the more problems you have, right? So more money, more money, more problems as Notorious B.I.G.

So, but fundamentally, you want to equip yourself to be able to be resilient and to be able to weather those storms when they happen, knowing that they're going to happen. I think that is the biggest focal area is getting yourself to a state where you're able to respond to the lows or the events of the life inevitably happening in a way that is maybe not completely positive, but certainly not negative. In other words, neutralizing at the very least. So how do we do that, right? And it comes down to routines. It comes down to healthy routines that make us feel good or self-care, I think is the buzz everyone says. And for me, there's a few things that I inject into my day in my week that always will put me in a state where I'm able to handle whatever's coming my way every single day.

And for people who are interested in optimizing your state for peak performance, there's a great book by Hal Elrod called The Miracle Morning. And it's how to start your morning with these components which really make you feel good. So I'll just list out a few of them for me. Number one is exercise. For me, when I exercise in the morning, I'm getting a flood of dopamine that's going to carry into the day. Number two is coffee. I'm just kidding. Coffee is a big part. That's part of my routine. But really, starting the day with exercise, I have a cup of coffee, then I have an energy shake, which is filled with vitamins and nutrients and greens. And it does help me feel good. And I'm not having a heavy meal or anything.

So I'm fueling my body. I'm getting consistent sleep. I cannot tell you how important that is in terms of just how you respond day to day. So I have an aura ring and I track my sleep to make sure I'm actually getting the proper sleep and that my sleep is high quality. And again, paying attention to those things that optimize your energy. That's another thing. Drinking a ton of water. You probably saw me drink this throughout the day. So and then I have my spiritual side. So before, you know, again, before I start my day, I do a daily devotional and I do a meditation, right? So I do a devotional for my faith, remind me of the person I want to be. And then I have my meditation for 10 minutes. I use the waking up app and it just calms the gnats flying around to start the day.

So by the time I start my actual day, I am focused. I have dopamine. Oh, one more thing is I take a cold shower on the days that I work out. So if I'm going for a run or a bike, I hop in the cold shower that that releases like three or four hours of gradual dopamine after that's why the cold plunge is so effective. So I'm basically priming myself to be able to handle whatever stressors come my way because I'm feeling good physiologically, right? You're creating that state where you're you're primed. So I think that's the best way to think of it is the stuff's going to happen. But if you're putting yourself in a position where you feel good, you're going to be able to deal with it in a better manner.

I like it. Yeah. And I think that's, you know, you know, look good, feel good. Those type of things. They are as catchy as they might seem or as cheesy as they might seem. In some cases, they really do work, right? Like in the self-affirmation stuff and, you know, taking time to treat yourself and whatever that is. You know, some people are exercise. Some people are the spa. Some people are, you know, a cold shower. But I think there's a lot of different things that if you going back to, I think you said a word there that people need to pay attention to is a routine, right? So is a routine whether, you know, and ideally in the beginning of the day to get your right mindset in the right place so that throughout the day you can handle all the bullshit that comes your way.

And, you know, but I also think it has a lot to do for me, at least these days of going back to that why and values piece, right? I mean, that piece to me, you know, resetting that or actually formally going through the why exercise. I had never gone through it up until about a year ago. I kind of always thought I had a good why of what I did, but it was just more of like a, you know, yeah, this is why I do what I do. And, you know, and I got good values, but I never really articulated those values as far as really, really what they meant and what they prioritized. You know, one thing going through the value exercise, and you'll appreciate this. Um, you know, when I, when I redid the value exercise with my, my coach, you know, you go through the, you get 20, you know, 50 values or whatever it is, and you find 20 that you like, and then you get down to five and you prioritize and family was on the list.

And when we prioritize the list, he goes, um, and I asked him, I go, isn't family kind of a default number one always, isn't that really just default number one? And he's like, no, absolutely not. And I was like, what do you mean? Of course it is. And he goes, no, if you want family to be your number one priority and your number one value, you need to write it down. You need to live it. And you need to ask yourself with every single decision you make, how is this going to impact my family? And I sat on that for a bit and I had a really, um, uh, unfortunate realization for myself that, that for the 10 years that I was flying around going, you know, four passports, 2 million miles, making all the money and whatever.

I said that I was doing it for my family. I said, I was like, you know what? I'm doing this for my family. So we can have the house we want to live in. My daughter can be taken care of. My wife can do what she wants, whatever it is. I'm doing it for my family. When I really sat down and thought about it and said, why was I doing that for the past 10 years? It wasn't because of the family. It was because I was really fucking good at what I did. And going back to the dopamine rush, there was something about being the guy flying all around the world, standing in front of 30, 40, 50, 100, 200, 500 people, getting people to say, oh my God, that was fucking awesome. Telling people that I would go to Singapore for a day and having it be like, oh my God, that's ridiculous.

But that's pretty fucking baller too, right? Like I was really doing it for me at the end of the day. So now by writing that down and recentering and reprioritizing and putting family up top and literally asking myself that question with every decision I make, now family is more the value and the priority than anything else. But it took me a while to figure that out until I had to go through that process. But now with those values and with that why as crystal clear as I've had them in a very long time, I can handle the lows a lot easier. I can handle some decisions I make that might not be the best ones because I know where I'm coming from and I know where I'm going. It's living your values.

Yeah. That's simple. It's like you can profess your values, but if you don't live them, because providing for your family is not just providing financially, it's providing your time. It's being with them. It's being there and not being on a plane. So again, kudos to you in not only shifting your lifestyle to live your values, but also for recognizing that a lot of what you did was not for your family, but for your ego or for yourself or for whatever other reasons caused you to do it. Because again, that's what it takes to live your truth. Ultimately, I think it's a good place to kind of wrap up is what it's success. It's living your truth. It's living in alignment with your values, right? And your actions and your behaviors match your words, your thoughts, your beliefs, your identity.

And when you can do that, you're free. You're free. You have nothing to hide because you're successful in the definition that you created for it. Exactly. And it doesn't matter what anybody else thinks of you. It doesn't matter what, how many likes you get or how much, you know what I mean? Like, cause who fucking cares? I'm cool. You know what I mean? Like I'm good. So yeah, it's funny. Just a quick story on this. So when we talk about routines, for me, I have similar value. I have two kids and my wife, she's a full-time mom. And my value is to spend time with them. And something I do every day is I have lunch with my wife from 12 to 1. And if it's 12.03, you know, she's texting me. She's banging what's going on.

Even for this podcast, I had to tell her, hey, I'm going to be five minutes early. I got to leave. She's like, why do you do this? I'm like, honey, I'm going on with John Barros. I got to prep for this thing and make sure the tech is working. And she gets it. But like, that's living your values. It's saying like, my actions and my time is spent on the things that are important to me. So if work is a core value, spend your time on work. If family, great. Spend your time with the family. If you're an exercise, you need to be living it. When you're doing that, there is that gap, that integrity gap that I'm talking about is gone, right? That's the key. And I have a visual. I just actually copyrighted it.

It's called the integrity gap. It's when your identity and your actions and behaviors are aligned. So if there's a big gap and you don't do what you say you're going to do or you keep your promises to yourself, that's the source of misery. But when you're keeping your word to yourself and you're doing the things you know you need to every day, you're going to feel complete. You're going to be able to sleep well at night. And life is just going to be that much easier. So I think it's a great, great point. Living your values. Love it, my friend. And I think that is a great point for us to close on here. So Ian, I know you're doing a ton of cool shit right now, especially on the coaching side of the house.

So where can people find out more? I know you've got a ton of content you're putting out there these days for free and you've got your own program. But tell people where to find out more about you. So if you go to untap your sales potential, that is my flagship coaching program. I will be opening up again in January for enrollment. So if you want to work on your integrity, your mindset, your habits, and your skills, it's a one-year membership program. And it's a great group of top performers that are really trying to have holistic success, not success financially. So I teach all three areas. If you just want my content and you want to follow and get some cool videos, go to my YouTube channel.

It's Ian Koniak on YouTube or connect with me on LinkedIn and I'll send you a link to my newsletter and my YouTube. And you can subscribe there. Those are the best places to find me. Perfect. And for those listening, it's Ian, I-A-N, Koniak, K-O-N-I-A-K. Ian, it's been awesome catching up with you as usual, my friend. Let's do this again sometime here soon formally, but let's do it even sooner informally. Let's catch up. Keep me updated on what's happening, man, because I always love, I always enjoy our conversations. Me too, man. We're so aligned in the way we're thinking. And congrats to you on all your success and in the family side, especially. Yeah, likewise, my friend. Awesome, everybody.

Well, look, I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did. And it got you to think a little bit differently about your mindset of what you're going through right now and how to really macro out and start to define what happiness and success really means to you and then go after it. So, look, like I always say at the end of all these podcasts, ladies and gentlemen, if there's nothing else you do today, go out there and make somebody smile. Because no matter how bad your day is or you think it's going, if you go out there and 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'll see you on the other side.

Thank you so much for your time today and listening to the podcast. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. With your support and our incredible guests, 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.

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