JB's Keynote - Continuous Growth Mindset

All right. Before we get started on today's podcast discussion, I got to do a little promo here and this one's a big one. So HubSpot's annual inbound conference is coming up September 5th through the 8th here in Boston. And it's right in my backyard. I go to it every single year. It's one of the marquee events that I absolutely put on my calendar. And even if I didn't live here in Boston, I'd come to this one because this gets some of the best and brightest across sales, marketing, customer success together to talk about what's happening in the industry and share best practices, tactics, and all sorts of different things about where the industry is headed and what we need to do to drive results in this crazy big world that we're all living in right now.

And with inbound, they get some super cool guests on this and speakers. I mean, including this year is going to be Reese Witherspoon. We got Derek Jeter coming up and I know he's a Yankee, but we'll let him come to Boston because he's actually one of the Yankees I like. And then we got people like Sam Jacobs, a good friend of mine who's going to be speaking. And myself, I got a speaking engagement. So they accepted my speaking engagement at this event. It's about sales-ready messaging where I'm going to be talking about a specific equation that we use to create sales-ready messaging that aligns sales, marketing, and CS. And you can use to implement into some of these AI tools to really drive some pretty impressive results.

So if nothing else, you're going to get some free training from me if you come to this thing. Now there's two types of passes. You can get the general admission pass that gets you all the speakers, trainings, and programs. And then the VIP pass, which is limited availability and gives you VIP lounge access, exclusive welcome parties, and access to some of the speakers that you might not have otherwise. So you got to come to this one again, September 5th through the 8th here in Boston. Sign up at www.inbound.com to get your ticket today. Let's make it happen. 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 guest is me. And I wanted to take this as an opportunity to talk with you all directly and share with you what's been going on with me and where I'm trying to go. When I started Make It Happen Mondays, it wasn't even a podcast. It was a Facebook live session that I started as an attempt to provide office hours to my audience who was always asking me for these one-on-one conversations, but I just didn't have the time to do. And I remember when my team came to me and said I need to do a podcast, I was actually pretty annoyed because I felt like I was already doing a ton of stuff on social and barely had time to do my job. So I told him just, you know what, just take the audio and rip the file and throw it on podcast and see what happens, right?

I had no idea that the podcast was going to take off like it did. Now, for those of you who've been with me for a while, you know that I started this with the main focus on providing tactical sales tips that you could implement immediately. And that's what I've always been known for, cutting through all the noise and giving you practical sales tips and techniques to drive immediate results without all the fluff. And over the years, I've evolved as a sales professional, a business owner, and a person. And so obviously my content and my interests have as well. I still try to cut through all the noise and all the bullshit to provide tactical tips, but there's only so many times you can talk about what to put in a subject line or how to make a cold call before it gets a little repetitive.

And that's why you've heard my conversations evolve over the years from pure techniques to discussing higher level business issues and things like mental health and gratitude, but always with the angle towards the profession of sales, since that's really where my passion is. Now, a lot of times I use the podcast as an open therapy session for myself to work out my own issue, with the hope that whoever's listening can gain some value from my experience and the advice that I get from others. Now, I always tell people that you need to tell your story because you never know who's listening. And over the years, I can tell a lot of you are listening based on the feedback I get, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate that.

Moving forward, I'm going to be continuing my journey to explore different topics that I'm interested in, I think will bring value to you with interesting guest topics. And yes, I'll make sure to keep cutting through the bullshit and giving you the practical tips along the way. With that, I'm going to need your help to take things to the next level here. I'm going to ask for more of your feedback in different ways. And one of them is to email me at any time with feedback or requests for different topics that you want me to talk about. My email address is john at jbarrows.com. That's j-o-h-n at j, the letter j, b-a-r-r-o-w-s.com. Another thing I'll be asking more for you is to share some episodes that really resonate with you, with your audience.

And also, if you could, go and leave a five-star review on your favorite platforms, since sharing and reviews go a very long way to help improve reach. Lastly, I'm going to be taking over the ad roles myself with sponsors and talk about tools that I personally use. And I'll be working with these sponsors to get special deals for you all when possible. Now, for the rest of this podcast, I'm going to share with you a keynote presentation I put together called Continuous Growth Mindset Through Alignment, Execution, and Gratitude. It's a summary of the past three years of my life, which have been some of the most challenging years I've ever been through, both personally and professionally, and includes what I've learned along the way about companies and people who seem to continuously grow even through tough times, which more than a few of us are going through right now, including myself.

It's deeply personal. However, I hope you'll be able to hear the message through this. It might help you get through whatever tough times you're dealing with right now. And I would love for your feedback on it when it's done. So if you could email me again at john at jbarrows after you hear this and tell me what you think, I'd really appreciate it. I've been hesitant to bring this out to a broader audience because it is so deeply personal, but I figure this is a place to do it. And as always, let's make it happen. Hey, everyone, what's going on? So this podcast can be a little bit different. I'm not gonna be interviewing anybody or diving into specific tactics or anything like that. I'm going to use this as an opportunity to share with you a keynote that I've been working on.

And I think a lot of people need to hear this message right now because of all the stuff that's going on in the world. And it really reflects the challenges that I've been through over the past three years and what I've learned and how I'm trying to get through this and trying to deal with it just like everybody else. So after listening to this, I would absolutely love your feedback, direct feedback. So if you could email me at john at jbarrows.com, I'd really appreciate it. And again, that's john j o h n at the letter j b as in boy a r r o w s.com. And look, you can email me for anything moving forward here, any questions that you have any feedback that you have. But for this one specifically, I'd love to hear if you enjoyed the message, if you got something out of it, and if you think other people need to hear it.

So the title of it is continuous growth from challenging times. And it focuses on what I've learned from talking to hundreds of executives and working with dozens of companies over the past few years, and also doing a lot of self reflection on myself and my business. Because the last last three or four years have been some of the most challenging and disruptive years I've ever been through both personally and professionally. I mean, I don't know a single person out there who hasn't gone through something absolutely major in their life in the past few years here. Ever since COVID hit, it's like things have been on fast forward for crying out loud. I mean, something major used to happen every three or four or five years.

Now it seems like it's happening every week, or almost every day for crying out loud. But the good news is, is through all that, I've noticed there are certain people and certain companies that tend to continuously grow, no matter how challenging it is. And so that's what the next 30 minutes or so is going to be all about. It's the three main pillars or characteristics of people and companies who seem to continuously grow even through these challenging times. And those three pillars are alignment, execution, and gratitude. So I'm going to unpack each one of these and share stories of what I've learned and how I've leveraged these in my own business and personal life to get me through some of the toughest times I've ever been through.

And in order for me to tell this story right, I'm going to have to give you a little bit of context on this one and a little bit of background. Now most of you know me, but for those of you who don't, I grew up here in Boston and went down to University of Maryland, drank my way through four years of college, got my degree in marketing because I didn't really know what I wanted to be when I grew up. And then, you know, my first job was in DeWalt Power Tools. So it was kind of, it was a great entree into sales because it wasn't hardcore sales, it was more event marketing. But you got to drive around in a Dodge Ram pickup truck, giving away free tools to construction workers was pretty much the coolest thing I could have done out of school.

Now after that, I went to Xerox and sold copiers. And if you've ever sold copiers, man, I mean, talk about selling a commodity, right? I mean, 45 pages a minute over 42 pages a minute, but it scans the email. I mean, I mean, that's the definition of selling a commodity. So that's why I learned how to sell. I also learned relationship development and how to take rejection. And after that, I ended up joining a startup that a friend of mine had started and it was outsource IT services firm. And I came on board as the fourth person to run sales and marketing. And I didn't know what I was doing. So I took every training I could. I took Sandler, Miller, Hyman, TASP, and you name it, I was taking it.

And I came across this company called Basho. And it was the first training that I took that I loved because it wasn't this big theory about selling or this huge process I had to follow. It was, Hey, here's how to send an email, send an email. Here's how to make a phone call, make a phone call. So I used Basho and all the techniques to actually help grow, thrive up. And we ended up being the fastest growing company in Massachusetts for a few years in a row. And, um, got us to about 85 employees and about 12 million in revenues. And then we sold off to Staples. So Staples came and bought us. And, uh, I spent about a year going through that integration and come to find out, apparently I'm not a corporate guy.

Uh, as you all know, I don't have much of a filter and I really don't like playing politics. So after a while, Staples offered me another position, a really nice way of firing me. And so I was looking for a job and Basho came knocking and said, John, do you want to, you want to be a trainer? And my first answer to that was absolutely not, you know, cause, cause the problem was, is up until that point in my career, the only type of sales trainers I had ever come across were either failed sales professionals or professional presenters. And if you've ever been through a sales training where you could just tell the trainer's never actually done what they're telling you what to do, you know, I didn't want to be that guy.

And they said, don't worry, John, you have to use these techniques to sell so you can train, so you can get paid. I was like, all right, I like the whole practice, what you preach thing, right? So I joined, uh, Basho, took on some bigger accounts, brought on some bigger ones to make a very long story short. They screwed it all up and I took it over. Uh, so back in 2007 or eight or something like that, new CEO came in, tanked the company, uh, fired us all on the spot and I scooped it up, uh, with Kensei Partners, with another business partner of mine. And then about three years after that went off on my own with Jay Barrows. And things were going really good. I mean, I was traveling all over the world, training some of the coolest companies out there, right?

Fastest growing. We got Salesforce, LinkedIn, Box, Dropbox, HubSpot, you name it. I was training them and having a blast doing it. So we kind of grew the company and I, look, I never really started a business because I wanted to build a company. I started one purely mainly because I didn't want a boss, right? And the cool thing is, is after about 10 years of me grinding, being on the road and doing everything, uh, to drive revenue, we built a company with some incredible people doing some fantastic things and things were going really well for us. And now mind you, most of our stuff was onsite training. That's what we were doing, right? And people out there, uh, joining me, doing some of that stuff and then doing an all online community as well.

So again, things are great and COVID hit. And that was interesting because I legitimately watched 90% of my revenue disappear. I mean, we watched the dominoes fall. It was because we had sessions scheduled in APAC, EMEA, and the U S and we saw the APAC sessions, uh, canceling, then the EMEA ones, then the U S ones. And overnight, 90% of our revenue disappeared. And so a little bit of a panic, obviously, but we ended up getting through it as an organization because we knew what our purpose was. We knew why we were here, which is to elevate the people in the profession of sales. And we knew they were hurting. And so we went out there and instead of doing sales training, we did some motivational stuff.

We give away as much stuff as we possibly could. And because from a value standpoint, uh, family is top of our list. We ended up making sure instead of having everybody, you know, go for a revenue goal when that hit, we flattened it out and said, all right, our main goal now is to make sure that everybody stays employed. And so with that family mentality and going out there and doing what we could, we actually did really well. Um, I mean, we took a hit just like everybody else, right? Three months or whatever, but then we started to really take off. And so 2020 was actually a great year for us as an organization. And for me personally, I mean, it was fantastic because I was finally off an airplane.

Uh, I mean, for 10 years, I was a stay at home. I was a stay at home. I wish I was a stay at home dad. I was a weekend dad. I mean, my daughter was born and I was on a, I mean, I was there for her birth, but you know, every single week I would leave on Monday, come home on Friday for 10 years of her life. And that wasn't easy. Uh, but I, you know, when I'll talk about this a little bit later, you know, I had this mentality of why I was doing this and, uh, you know, thankfully I have a super supportive wife who was able, who also runs her own company, by the way. So she was juggling raising our daughter and her own business while I was traveling around the world. And so, you know, things were going pretty decent.

Uh, now at the end of, excuse me, at the end of 2020, we were still in quarantine. And I remember my wife, we live here in Boston and she absolutely hates the winter. Right. So I remember in December, I get this, if we're going to be in quarantine again, we are not staying in Boston for winter. So we're going to Aruba. And I was like, okay. I'm like, they got wifi. Yep. So I was like, all right, I'm in. So she goes and finds this, this killer Airbnb. Uh, it was like six bedrooms pool outside and nobody had, nobody had been using it. So she calls the guy up to negotiate with him, ends up getting it for more than half price for two months. Okay. So, I mean, she's a way better negotiator than I am, by the way.

So we go to Aruba and I mean, like I said, couldn't have been better. It was my wife, my daughter and I, I mean, Aruba was empty. We would get to go to the best restaurant on a Friday night, walk right up at six 37 o'clock for dinner with no reservations. I mean, I don't think I should go back quite frankly. Um, so things are good. Uh, but then my inflection point happened. So for a few months, my dad had been struggling with this virus or this disease that doctors just couldn't figure out. And, um, he was going downhill, but he's one of those guys that are from the generation that, you know, thinks he can fix it himself and yeah, screw doctors and stuff like that. And I knew if I had gone home too early to try to help him that it wouldn't have gone well.

And so I was really just waiting for my mom to tell me like, when's the right time here. And when I'm in Aruba, I got the phone call and my mom says, uh, he's, he's not doing well. You need to come home. And I remember vividly, I hung up the phone. I called up my team. I said, Hey, cancel everything. Uh, I'm going to go, I got to go take care of my, my dad and my family. And now mind you, I had just, we had just signed one of our biggest customers and I was training them personally. I was trying to about three or 400 of their sales professionals all around the world remotely. And I was doing stuff starting at six o'clock in the morning, going all the way to nine o'clock at night and scheduled out for about three, four weeks in a row.

And this was a huge contract for us. But when I got that call from my mom, hung up, told my team, cancel everything, give the client their money back. I don't care. And I don't know when I'm going to be back quite frankly. And so I went home and, uh, so I, you know, kissed my wife and my daughter and jumped on a plane and went to, went to hang out and see my dad and my mom and my sister. And, you know, thankfully when I got there, um, he was still alive, uh, but he was in the ICU and the nurse, God bless her. Uh, by the way, if you're a nurse out there, if you know somebody who is a nurse, please give them a hug for me. They are absolute angels. Uh, this, this nurse actually allowed me and my mom and my sister up to see my dad, even in COVID times when we were absolutely not allowed to, but she knew how serious the issue was.

And so we got to see him. And quite frankly, if I didn't see my dad before he passed away, uh, I don't quite know where I'd be right now because I hadn't seen him over a year and a half because of COVID and I at least got to say goodbye, which was great. Um, and so after that, yeah, I stayed with my mom and my sister and try to help my mom deal with, you know, how do you deal with losing your, your partner for 55 years? Right. Um, so got the house in order, some of the finances, those types of things and spent, I don't know, probably four weeks or so. And after I felt like she was in okay shape, obviously can't be in great shape there. I, uh, ended up headed back to Aruba to go deal with my own grief and, uh, see my family again.

And when I went back, you know, there was a lot of walking on the beaches, sitting at the end of peers, talking into space to the universe, to my dad, you know, hopefully he was listening. Um, and a lot of soul searching and, um, you know, then I decided after a while I was ready to plug back into work. And so I did. And the thing was, is that when I plugged back into work, it was, it was interesting because everything was running like a drum. I mean, clients were happy. Revenue was there. Uh, you know, employees were doing like, they were just doing incredible work. And I don't think we even lost, I think we've maybe lost like $5,000 worth of revenue for a keynote that I couldn't have done.

And it was amazing to me. So, I mean, for every entrepreneur out there, I mean, that's a dream come true, right? You, you start a company that doesn't need you. Now the challenge with that though, is it kind of put me in a weird space, weird spot, because that's kind of who I was for, for years, right? I mean, I was a guy, my main goal was to go out there and drive as much revenue as I possibly could to keep this engine going. And now it didn't look like I needed to be that guy anymore, which again is great, but it threw me for a loop because a lot of my self-worth was tied to being the guy, being the one driving that revenue. And so now I didn't really know where I fit anymore. And so with my dad passing away and me not knowing where I fit in the business, 2021 was a pretty challenging year.

It was probably the most challenging year I've ever had in my life. And I'm not saying I was lost, but I was definitely searching, all right, about where I fit. And when I tell you it got worse, it got worse. I mean, just shit like, you know, I had kidney stones. Are you kidding me? If you've had kidney stones, holy shit, I don't wish those on my worst enemy. That was the worst pain I think I've ever been through in my life. So I got hit by kidney stones. Like my cousin died unexpectedly, which was just crazy. My mom had surgery. I mean, the macroeconomic stuff that was happening, it was just so brutal. And so, you know, getting through that year, I felt pretty proud of getting through that year, just, you know, still standing.

And in 2022, my daughter has a two-week vacation. Okay. So she has a two-week vacation. Instead of a week in February and a week in March, we get two weeks, I'm sorry, February and a week in May, she gets two weeks in March. And so we always try to take a two-week vacation. And this year we had set it up where we were going to the Amazon jungle. And this was, my wife's an environmental scientist and, you know, the Amazon jungle is obviously, you know, the lungs of the planet. And so we thought it'd be a great opportunity. Now, I don't think any of us knew what we were getting ourselves into here, because when I tell you we were in the Amazon jungle, I mean, we were in the Amazon jungle. We took a flight to Ecuador and then another little puddle jumper to another section of Ecuador, and then an hour ride drive to the Amazon river.

And then we got into a canoe, a motorized canoe to take a two-hour drive up the Amazon where you didn't see a single sole or building that was even within view. And then we got to this drop-off place and we got in a non-motorized canoe for another two-hour trip up this windy river, literally to the middle of the Amazon. And we saw some shit that, I mean, you just see in movies, anacondas. I mean, we walked by, you could literally touch it. It was about a 20-foot anaconda and probably about 150 to 200 pounds just sitting there, obviously just eating something huge. So thankfully it wasn't very active. But we saw that, we saw monkeys, we saw river otters that are huge, apparently. It was bananas.

But one of the things that really struck me and my family was when we were taking some hikes. And this one hike specifically, we were walking down. And you know when a tree falls and in the middle of a trail or something like that, and they use the chainsaw to cut it in half to clear the path, right? Well, there was a bunch of that. And if you looked at the trunks, they looked weird. And my wife, my daughter, and I all picked up on this. And so finally, I asked our guide, I was like, hey, Remy, I can't ask you here, like these tree trunks, what's going on with them? And he's like, well, what do you mean? I go, there's no rings in these tree trunks. So they had no rings in them, right? And it just looked weird.

It was just this matte, flat thing on a tree that I'd never really seen. And he's like, well, you know, and his answer was, well, we're on the equator. I was like, so? He goes, well, we don't have seasons here on the equator. So the trees continuously grow, which is why they don't have rings. And it was like one of those light bulbs that went off. And it was like, almost like a dull light bulb, right? Like, holy shit. I never even thought about why trees had rings. But if you think about it, they grow for a season, they stop. They grow for another season, they stop. And that's why they have rings. And on the equator, because there's no season, they never stop growing. So for the rest of the walk, I had that sitting in my head trying to figure that thing out.

Because it was, again, it was like a huge light bulb went off. And then we ended up going to the top of this tree that is one of the tallest trees in the Amazon. It has a nice little perch on top. And you can look out over the entire Amazon jungle. And again, there is not a human structure in sight when you're up there. And so I'm up on this thing and I got that rattling around in my head, plus all the other stuff that I was going through. And it struck me like a ton of bricks that I had stopped growing. I had spent a year in neutral. And so as that dawned on me, it actually gave me a lot of hope. Because I mean, I have 12 personal guidelines to success. And one of them is, you know, 1% better every day.

You got to be growing, right? You got to be doing 1% better every day. You don't have to, you know, go crazy about self-improvement. But you got to be able to look at yourself at the end of the day and say, hey, am I better today than I was yesterday? And that is something that was core to me, but apparently I had forgotten. So after I got back from that trip, I became obsessed with trying to figure out how to get moving again here. And so I started re-listening to a lot of the podcast episodes with executives from companies who are really succeeding through COVID and interviewing new ones with a new focus. And also talking to a ton of my clients who I could tell were doing really, really well and seeing what was working for them.

I even looked at my own company and figured out, okay, how did we get through this? And how did we do so well through that transition? So after all those interviews and collecting my notes, I looked at them and there was three main characteristics that really stood out to me. And like I said earlier, they were alignment, execution, and gratitude. And I want to unpack each one of those with you right now, just to give you some perspective and maybe some examples as well. So from a business standpoint, right, I looked at these companies who are really doing well through this transition and through all these challenging times. And it was pretty clear to me that they were crystal clear and they lived their why.

Like for instance, companies like Salesforce.com or Patagonia, you know, Salesforce has this one, one, one philosophy and Patagonia is obviously, you know, all about the environment. And they stopped for a while trying to sell stuff and they really leaned into helping their community and elevating other people. And so I looked at that and from our standpoint, from a business I had mentioned, you know, at, at JV sales, you know, our why is to elevate the people and profession of sales. So it was accessible to anybody willing to put in the work. And when we realized that we knew that when COVID hit that, you know, the sales community was in a lot of trouble. I mean, there was a lot of reps who just went home and they were working out of their houses and freaking out quite frankly.

And they needed to hear something other than their manager keep continuing to tell them to work hard. So I told the team, take off your training hats and put your motivational hats on and go out there and do what we could to help other people, you know, really get through this. And look, if they could pay us, fantastic. If they couldn't just give away that time to give them some type of hope. And so that why really drove us as an organization. Then we looked at values too. I mean, again, core values, you look at companies that really lived their core values and not only did their employees stay aligned with them, but their customers did too. And for us, you know, our, our values were family first.

I had mentioned that earlier. And so instead of going for, you know, revenue targets or profitability at the time, we changed everything from a priority standpoint and look to see, okay, how can we make sure that everybody can feed their families, right? How can we make sure that, that we can retain all of our employees and, and make it so that they can pay their bills. And so we worked as an organization, we flattened everything out and we worked together to get through this. So the values are huge for us. And then the other piece was, you know, priorities, obviously, you know, I kind of mentioned not going for revenue now, but making a family. Like we had to reset on our priorities and realign what our goals were because we were built for growth the year before.

And now it was totally different. So we need more specific with what we were doing on a daily and weekly and monthly basis as an organization. So as I looked at all these why and values and, and goals, I decided, you know what, it's been a while since I personally went through that exercise for myself. I mean, I have these 12 guidelines to success that I did, you know, I think it was back probably my Thrive Networks, that first company we started, I had read Napoleon Hill's Thinking Grow Rich. And I think somewhere in there it talked about writing down your values or your principles. And so I did it. And it wasn't, it was something that I lived by, but I didn't really focus on it. I just kind of knew they were internal to me.

So I ended up going back and getting a business coach and working through my why and work and resetting my values. I don't think my values have ever changed, but they definitely reprioritized. So for instance, my why ended up, and this is after some work and I can, by the way, if you want to email me, I can send you the workshop worksheets that I use to do this. But ultimately my why ended up being to share my privilege, influence, and earned experience with family, friends, and employees, and anyone who genuinely gives a shit so they can achieve a level of freedom and happiness that allows them to live the life that they want. Look, I understand I am a very privileged person. And privilege, I mean, for those of you who know me, I have it actually tattooed on my arm when my dad passed away.

He had this little note on his desk and it said when you're, and it was in his handwriting, it said when you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression. And I thought that was so powerful that I had it tattooed on my arm as a matter of fact. Because look, privilege is not, you know, waking up with a silver spoon in your mouth or getting handed anything. Privilege is the fact that when I wake up in the morning as a white male here, I don't have to worry about what I'm wearing so I don't get sexually harassed. Or when I get pulled over by the police, I don't even think about it. You know, hey officer, what's up? And I don't have to worry about, you know, being killed or any of that stuff.

That's what privilege is. The stuff that you don't even know that you have an advantage over other people. And so I wanted to share that privilege and how to help elevate as many other people as I could with it. And so that why was core to me. And then I looked at the values and went through the value exercise. And man, if you have not been through this value exercise recently, I highly recommend you go through it. Yeah, it couldn't have helped me more from a clarity standpoint. And I'll give you an example. You know, the way the value thing works is there's usually about 50 or 60 values on a piece of paper, right? And if you go through the exercise, you got to choose the ones that most resonate with you.

And you get it down to probably 20 that you like. And then you go from 20 to five, like the five core ones, and then you force rank them what's most important, what's least important. And so when we got to that list with my business coach, you know, family was on the list and made the top five. And when we were prioritizing him, I said, well, you know, this family kind of the default number one. And he's like, no, absolutely not. He goes, if you want family to be the top priority for you, then you have to make, you have to write it down and you have to live it. And you have to ask yourself every single day, you know, how is it, or every single decision you make, how is this going to impact my family?

And when he said that to me, it, again, hit me like a ton of bricks here. I had realized that, you know, when I was a weekend dad earlier, right, flying all around this world, I was saying that I was doing it for family, right? So, so we could live the life that we wanted to, and my daughter could have all the opportunities and my wife could be whatever. Right. And that's why I was doing this. But if I really sat down and thought about it for more than a few minutes, I was real, I would realize that I was not doing that for my family. I mean, my family was benefiting in some ways from that, but the reason I was doing that is flying all over the world, being the guy doing the trainings and stuff like that.

It's because I was really good at it. And that's why, I mean, there's just something about, you know, flying all over the world and, you know, telling people I went to Singapore for a day and, you know, Australia for a day. And as ridiculous as that sounds, it's like, ooh, right. And, or standing up in front of three, four, 500 people and giving a presentation and having people come back saying, oh, that was awesome. I mean, there's just, there's just something about that, obviously. Right. And so I wasn't doing it for my family. I was doing it for me. And so now with this reset on values, putting family as number one, literally every single decision I make now, I have to ask myself, how is this going to impact my family?

And it's getting me, given me far more clarity than I've ever had before with the decisions I make. And then the other thing about alignment that I started personally exploring, I mean, we talked about priorities, right? So I had to reset my priorities and my goals, which I think you should be doing constantly. But the one thing I started learning more about was actually energy management. Now, energy management for the most part is when people talk about it is when you do things throughout the day, right? So in the mornings, you have energy to do certain things and, you know, whatever. I thought about it a little bit more as what gives me energy and what takes energy away from me. And so I created this little matrix where on the x-axis is a priority, right?

Priority. So on the, on the upper end is helps you achieve your goals and priorities. And on the lower end does not help you achieve your goals and priorities. And on the y-axis was gives me energy and takes energy away. And so with those four quadrants, what I started to do was put everything that I do, all the tasks, all the people, all the, everything that I do in one of those boxes. And I mean everything, right? So people, friends, family, you name it. It was pretty evident to me that all the stuff that I put in the box that of, that helped me achieve my goals and gave me energy. Those were the things that I just loved to do. And so with this matrix, what you do is you put everything in those boxes and the stuff that's in the helps me achieve my goals and gives me energy.

You literally do that as much as you possibly can. Okay. Now the stuff that does, uh, helps you achieve your goals, but does not give you energy in that quadrant right there, that's stuff you have to do, but, um, you might not like doing it. So for me, it's stuff like finance and administrative things, those types of things. I know they're important, but I just don't like doing it. So you either eat the frog, some will say, which is you kind of do it, you know, section it off, do it the first thing in the day, get it out of the way, or, you know, be hyper-focused on doing that thing. So you can be efficient with doing it once a week or once a day, or you outsource it to somebody else. Okay. Now the stuff that gives you energy, but does not help you achieve your goals.

That's important. Those are stuff like, you know, hobbies and, you know, for me it'd be like travel and, you know, a few other things. Now I could argue some of these helped me achieve my goals, but fundamentally they were things that I like to do, but don't necessarily have a direct tie. And those are important. Like I said, you got to keep those in there for sanity's sake. But if you want time back, mental time and physical time back, everything that you put in the box that is, takes energy away from me and does not help me achieve my goals, literally put it in that box, cut it off and throw it away. And I mean this and do it as soon as possible. And it sucks because it has to do with friends, family, you know, all the different things that we do.

You know, for me it'd be like gambling and drugs or whatever it else, those things that, that I might've been doing because I felt like, oh, these were cool. I looked at them and said, no, they're not in any way, shape or form. And I need to stop doing them. And so that for me now being fully aligned on my why, my values, my priorities, and my energy, let me get to that next level of execution. So the next pillar and characteristic that I found of people and companies who were surviving and thriving and continuously growing was that they were executing. They didn't, they didn't stand still. Remember when, you know, COVID first hit, you had some people say, well, I can't wait till this goes back to normal, right?

And I would look at them and be like, first of all, what is normal? And second of all, if you were waiting for anything to get back to anything, I think you're already lost. Like it was the companies who kept executing and didn't hesitate to move forward that were succeeding. I mean, again, there's plenty of examples like this. Remember the distilleries who would, you know, vodka or whatever it was that they had distilleries in and they immediately flipped and started, uh, putting, uh, creating hand sanitizer so they could fill, first of all, you know, drive revenue for themselves, but also help out the communities. I, it was, I mean, it was amazing to see how much innovation happened in such a short period of time.

I have a, a boxing gym right behind my house, this guy, Brandon and Brandon, if you're listening, man, keep fighting brother. Um, I mean, obviously nobody was going into gyms. So you know what he did? He took his, uh, he took his Jeep and he retrofitted his Jeep with a big boxing punching bag and he drove it around to all of his members' houses, personal houses, and would do workouts in the, in the driveway with us. And so my wife and my daughter and I are out there doing pushups and sit-ups and burpees and everything else. And he, he made it happen. It was unbelievable. And, you know, looking at us at JV sales, we didn't stop either. Like again, well, we didn't have the, really the choice to stop because we couldn't deliver onsite.

So we pivoted immediately to remote training. Now we had been delivering remote training for a while, but nobody wanted it, right? Kind of everybody was like, well, you know, the onsite stuff's better or whatever. So thankfully we were structured to do it. And so we restructured the way that we delivered our training and how we delivered it and made it much more digestible for people and fun because we were able to do exercises and team oriented type of things and spread it out over the course of a couple of weeks. You know, we also started, we had just re, uh, gone into studio, uh, the, in December before COVID hit and recut all of our content, right? For our online catalog that we were producing.

And we came out with our version of Netflix for sales in April when everybody had gone home and with a lot of our content being focused on prospecting when pipe, when everybody's pipeline was empty, obviously there was something there for people that, that could use to, to help execute. And so we just started executing. We, we, we treated everything as an experiment. And this is one of the things I'm going to really recommend you all think about right now. You know, strategy is hard to come by right now with, with how much things are changing and how fast they are changing. So here at JV sales, we look at everything as an experiment and I encourage you to do the same, right? Come up with a hypothesis.

Obviously you got to know your goals and priorities and stuff, but come up with a hypothesis of how you can get something, right? Get results based on some goal that you're trying to achieve and putting beginning into an end to it, maybe a little budget and then go. And who cares if you fail, as long as you're learning from it and you fail fast, you have to keep executing. And so you'll hear me talk a lot in my trainings and everything about AB split testing, right? So that you can figure out what's working and what's not. And that's a huge theme moving forward because the companies who are agile, those are the ones that are going to succeed. The companies who are stuck in their ways and the people who are stuck in their ways, they're going to be the ones that get smoked.

All right, we're going to take a quick break here to highlight the HubSpot podcast network, the audio destination for business professionals. And I love listening to the podcast on this network and specifically Another Byte hosted by John Dick, Jory Monroe, and Ariel Bosworth. And the reason I love this one is because they focus on one of my favorite shows on television, which is Shark Tank. And what's cool about it is they take the episodes and they break them down and talk about how they can apply to our own businesses and real world application of it. You know, a lot of us, you can look at it for entertainment for that show, but what they do with Another Byte, they talk about how it applies to us, which I absolutely love.

And one of the episodes that they had recently was called When Community is More Valuable Than Unit Economics. And this was with the Magic 5, Spike Ball, and Eurekayak. And they talk about Magic 5's value in human data and problems to scale, Spike Ball's community building tactics and targeting issues, and also Eurekayak's social proof problem and missing customer acquisition costs. So again, all super applicable to all of us in the startup world. And I absolutely love listening to their analysis and dissection of these shows. So listen to Another Byte wherever you get your podcasts and keep supporting the HubSpot Podcast Network. Now let's get back to the conversation. And so again, I looked at myself with that knowledge of execution, seeing these companies execute and survive and thrive because of it.

Again, I had been stuck in neutral for a year because I really wasn't doing anything. And so I started experimenting, going back to that quadrant of what I love to do and what gives me energy and also what helps me achieve my goals. I started formulating different ways that I could deliver content that aligned with that. I started working on special projects to move the needle and to drive revenue and to enjoy myself again when it came to this profession. And I started to enjoy it again. And so I started executing. I started moving. And did all that stuff work? No, absolutely. I mean, I did this executive workshop idea that I thought was fantastic where, you know, 10 people in Napa Valley had it all set up and, you know, at the end of the day decided it was more of a distraction than anything else and dumped it even after putting some money into it.

But I learned a lot. And then I tried something new. So I kept moving and I felt better the fact that I was doing something and not just sitting in neutral. And then the last piece that really stuck out for me as a characteristics of companies and people that were getting through and continuously growing was gratitude. You know, again, let's go back to Salesforce. They have the 1-1-1, right? They went back out into the community. And for those of you who don't know the 1-1-1 philosophy for Salesforce, it was, you know, 1% of, they give 1% of time, 1% of product and 1% of profits. And so they went back and they really, you know, gave back to the community and started helping out and giving to charities.

There was other people, again, I'll use Brandon from my gym behind my house. You know, he's really good at making things. And so he was giving away goggles and eyewear and mask wear as, you know, to help everybody. And everybody, you know, the gratitude that he gave and received was overwhelming for what he was doing. And for us at JB Sales, there was a very tangible example of how gratitude saved me personally and also a part of our business. And it was, I mean, I told you all the trainings were canceled, right? So APAC, EMEA and U.S. And there was the last training that I was scheduled to go deliver. I was on a plane from Boston to Chicago. I remember I had just gotten on this plane and this was, this was 30 grand.

So this was $30,000. And at that time, $30,000 meant everything to me and to the business because I didn't know where we were going to get money. And so as I'm sitting down on the plane, I get this text message and I didn't have the number in my, in my phone. So I didn't know who it was, but it said, Hey John, are you still in Boston? And I, and I knew it immediately. I was like, VK, is this you? I was like, are you canceling the session tomorrow? He's like, yeah, man, I'm super sorry. Like I thought we were going to be able to do it, but it's just not going to happen. And so I was like, shit. Right. So I remember just running off the plane. I barely made it off. They were closing the door and I called him and he said, dude, I am so sorry.

Um, I go to, I get it, man. Look, everybody's canceling. It just sucks. You know, I mean, who knows what the hell is going to happen here? He goes, Hey, but do me a favor and, um, and send me the, uh, send me the invoice. And I was like, VK, I'm like, what do you mean send you the invoice, man? Like, I don't, I don't know when I'm going to be able to deliver for it. I'm like, do you want remote training? He's like, no, no, I want on site. Um, but, but send me the invoice anyways. And I was like, I don't feel comfortable sending you an invoice for something. I don't even know if I'm going to be delivered, be able to deliver for you. And he goes, John, look, we're a VC backed company here. We're in okay shape.

I know you're a self-funded, uh, business and I know cash is everything to you right now. So send me the invoice. Now at a time when other companies were slow rolling and slow paying vendors who had already delivered, you know, whatever the product or service was, and they were screwing people so that they could make, you know, in that world. And I, by the way, there was plenty of clients that did that. Um, and I remember them and vendors who did it as well, but for somebody like VK to sign a check for 30 grand when there was, there was nothing I could deliver for him. Gratitude. I mean, I I've realized, you know, in the past I've been really good at giving gratitude, you know, saying thank you.

I think my mom raised me right. And, you know, saying thank you all the time, but I've been pretty terrible if I really reflect on it about receiving gratitude. You know, usually when somebody thanks me for something, I, I, I'm like, oh, don't worry about it. It's no big deal. Right. And I've realized that that actually is not a good thing for anybody. Right. Because it deprives you of the joy of that person coming to you and saying, thank you. But it also deprives them of the joy of giving you that thanks. Because for them to go out of their way and say, thank you, that took, that took something. And for you to say, oh, you know, for me to be like, oh, don't worry about it. That either tells them a, what, what I did for them really wasn't that important.

So they could probably just, who cares in the future or that it didn't matter that much. And so now, you know, I couldn't tell you how grateful I am for, for VK. And again, VK, if you are listening to this brother, thank you. You will always, always be somebody that I will hold at the highest level and do anything for, no matter what. And, um, thank you. And so that gratitude, and I remembered that vividly. Now, again, let's, let's apply it to myself and the challenges that I was going there because I was stuck in neutral. Well, guess what? When I had, when my dad had passed and, uh, and I had gone back to Aruba and I was, like I said, you know, taking long walks on beaches, sitting on piers and staring at sunsets and stuff, I vividly remember sitting at the Airbnb and, um, I was looking over the sunset, just contemplating life.

And I get this phone call and it's from this kid, Kevin, who I used to work with. So back at my first company Thrive that we sold to Staples, you know, it was me and probably 20 or 30 engineers at a time. And then we finally decided to hire some, some new reps and we were only supposed to hire one, right? So we were only supposed to hire one rep that was going to back me up and do some calling for us and whatever. But there was two candidates that, that we really liked. Now, one of them was Jonathan and one of them was Kevin. And my CEO and my, and my director biz dev really loved this kid, Jonathan, because he was, you know, top of his class. He had all the accolades and everything else. But I liked this kid, Kevin.

He was a little rough around the edges, but there was just something about him that I, I was like, I like this kid. So I ended up fighting for him and told, you know, CEO and, and my director biz dev, Hey, look, why don't we hire both of them? And I'll treat them exactly the same. And look, if they both work out, fantastic. But if they don't, we'll, we'll keep one of them. And, you know, within a month, we'll probably let one of the other ones go. And so they agreed. And, you know, I treated them both exactly the same. And Kevin did everything I asked him to do, right? Put his head down, like, you know, made the dials, did the activities, you name it. Right. Whereas Jonathan, you know, he did some of it, but not as much.

And so unfortunately for Jonathan, we ended up letting him go and I kept Kevin. Now, fast forward, I ended up, you know, we get acquired by Staples and, uh, and I got fired again, offered another position and guess who took over as VP of sales? Well, Kevin did. Well, Kevin had stayed at Thrive for quite a while and I hadn't talked to him in, could have, must've been at least a year. I hadn't talked to him. And all of a sudden I get this phone call in probably one of my darkest hours. This is where, you know, the universe is, is really messed up and, and, and good in a lot of ways, because I get this phone call and every bone in my body said, don't answer it. I don't want to talk to anybody right now, but for some reason I, I just picked it up and I said, Hey, what's going on, man?

He goes, John, uh, Hey button. He's like, Hey, I just want to say thank you. And I was like, Oh, for what? And he goes, um, well, you know how you fought for me, uh, to come on board at Thrive. I was like, yeah, well, he's like, well, and you know how I took over VP of sales after you left. He goes, well, you know, Thrive is, you know, stables sold into a private equity and then private equity is kind of, uh, consolidated a few other businesses. And we recapitalized a few times and I've stayed on board and we just did again. And I just want to let you know that I'm a, I'm a multimillionaire now and my family never has to worry about money ever again in their lives. And I just wanted to say thank you.

He had no idea how much I needed that at that moment. I mean, just a wave of gratitude flowed over me at that moment. And I don't know how to describe it. I really don't. It saved me though. It saved me from a very dark place. And so now, and Kevin, by the way, if you're listening, brother, again, thank you. Thank you for that message. So anyways, now gratitude. I mean, I got my gratitude journal every day and it saved me. I keep a folder in my inbox of every email, every message that I get on Instagram of people saying thank you for any reason whatsoever. And when I'm going through bad times or tough times, I just open up that folder and I read them and realize that this is why you do it. This is why you move forward.

And I've gotten a lot better at receiving gratitude, not just giving it, but receiving it. So now when somebody says thank you, I stop and I just say, you're welcome. Which is what leads me to finish this up and wrap this whole thing up with all of you. I want to say thank you. I want to say thank you for all your support. I can't tell you how much it means to me, the feedback that I get and you know, the emails that I get from you and, and also just looking at the growth of this podcast alone. I could not do this without people who give a shit. And so if you're going through tough times right now and you're stuck in neutral or even going backwards, unfortunately, I highly recommend you take some of the learnings that I, that I've learned over these past few years and apply them and go, go get a coach or, or just Google how to do your why or listen to Simon Sinek's audio book or read his book on, on why and create your own.

And then go through that value exercise and make sure that you are crystal clear on what your core values are. Cause once you know what those core values are, you can start to look for opportunities and people that align with them. And I will tell you right now, life is a lot better when you surround yourself with people who share your core values and work at companies who share your core values and then focus on your energy, right? Think about what gives you energy and what takes energy away from you and just, and align the stuff that gives you energy and helps you achieve your goals and just avoid everything that doesn't. And then just execute and treat everything like an experiment test and try different things out, learn along the way.

Don't be scared of the new technology, learn how to leverage it because you will get replaced if you're just going through the motions. But if you learn how to leverage it, you could be indispensable and you could think about a whole different version of you and your career and where you can take things. If you just decide to try things out and don't be scared. And last but not least, please practice gratitude. I mean, even at the end of this, just go say thank you to somebody that you haven't said, said thank you to in a long time for any reason. And make sure that when you receive gratitude, you let it sit and you let that person know how much you appreciate it there, them coming to you and saying thank you.

So with that, moving forward here, I'm going to be trying to share my journey even more and leveling up here because things are not getting less crazy. Okay. And I really do believe that we can get through this together if we are aligned, if we execute, and if we have gratitude and just treat each other with some type of humanity here and also work our asses off. So do me a favor and give me the feedback. Let me know what you thought of this conversation. Again, my email is john at jbarrows.com and I would love to hear what you got from this or any ways that I could potentially improve this to get the message out to the people that need to hear it. And like I've been saying in the intro here, I'm coming out strong again.

I've always been selling, but now I'm back to hardcore sales because it is a challenging environment right now more than I've ever seen. And anybody who, you know, has sold in the past 10 years and is not selling right now, it's a different world. And so I'm going to be sharing my journey and what I'm doing to sell through this and hopefully getting you some of the tips, tools, and techniques that are working for me so that you can execute as well. So check out my new website. It's johnmbarrows.com. And let me know what you think. There's tons of free content on there and there's other ways to get engaged. I've never done one-on-one coaching before, but I'm putting it out there now. I will be doing one-on-one coaching and individual members can get access to all of our content live and recorded as well as companies, obviously working directly with companies who are looking to level up.

So take a look, give me some feedback and let me know what y'all think. All right. And thanks again for listening. And like I always say at the end of all my episodes here, go out there and make somebody smile today because no matter how bad you think your day's going or how bad you think it went, if you can make somebody smile, 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. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did with your support and our incredible guests. We're one of the top sales podcasts out there right now. And I can't thank you enough. Now to keep the momentum going, it would mean the world to me.

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