John Costigan: From cold calling on stage to fighting throat cancer

Hey everyone, welcome back to Make It Happen Mondays, where we talk about sales, business, entrepreneurship, personal growth, mental health, and everything in between with guests who I truly respect and I think make a positive impact on the world around us. And this was just an awesome conversation that I just had with my now new friend, John Costigan. Now, John, for those of you who don't know him, John is one of the original gangsters when it comes to sales and sales training. You know, people call me and joke around about me being the godfather sometimes and I say always, all right, well, as long as it's Mitch from old school and not the actual godfather, I'll accept it. But John is one of the true godfathers of sales.

He's been doing this for much longer than I have and seen a lot more. It has a really interesting perspective. So we covered the gamut on this. We went from tactics about the top-down approach and what's changed in sales. And then we got into more of the mentality of like the whole fake it till you make it mentality and how you can really be your authentic self. And then dove into the why, the values, the vision, and his purpose because he's been through some real tough shit over the past couple of years, got diagnosed with cancer, throat cancer, which for a trainer is pretty much the end of your career and how he fought through it and the new perspective that he has on life and what are some of the lessons he learned going through that process.

So like I said, I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. I hope you do too. I hope it helps you get another perspective on things, a little bit of a different perspective than you might have had before this conversation. So hope you enjoy it. 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. All right, Mr. Costigan, man, I have been looking forward to this conversation for a long time. A lot of people call me the OG in the sales community, man, but I do not hold a candle to you. And I am excited to have this conversation.

How are you doing, John? Good. You said a lot of people call you. I'm like, well, at least they call you. Yeah, well, it's funny. Like, they're like, oh, yeah, you know, OG in sales or like the godfather. I've gotten that a couple of times, like the godfather. I'm like, well, as long as you're talking about like Mitchapalooza with like old school godfather, I'm cool with that label. Right. But if you're talking about like Coleone over there, no, I refuse that that label right there. But I was about to say that second label is more of a, hey, buy it or else. Exactly. Make it off. You can't refuse. That's right. So for those of my audience that don't know you, and I'd be shocked if the majority of them don't.

But, John, talk to me. Let's give the background of where you're coming from because you've been in this game longer than I have. You've been grinding longer than I have. And then we're going to talk a little bit about your journey and mine along the way and what we've learned. But give us a little background of where you're coming from these days. Yeah. You know, I've been a salesman my whole life, Johnny. My first job, actually, I lost my dad when I was young, like nine years old. And I remember my older brother and sisters, I'm one of six. I'm number five in the food chain. So I remember my first job ever after dad passed, I saw my brother and sisters kind of doing stuff to help the family financially.

And I was like nine. And the first job I ever had was selling dirt out of a red wagon on the streets of Chicago. I usually don't tell the story. Then people in the audience, they kind of look at me like, really? That's how you started selling? And I was like, yeah, you know, I had this idea where, you know, all the houses in the neighborhood in Chicago and every house is right next to each other. And I just started walking around and I had this little red wagon with some black dirt and some grass seed. And I would just go find houses that you knew they had a dog. And I just go, hey, you got some yellow spots. And, you know, five bucks, I'll put some dirt, some grass seed down. And, you know, and I joke because I say, you know, back then, you know, who's going to say no to this face?

You know, by the way, the cuteness went away a long time ago. Yeah, right there you go. So that was my first sales job, which to this day, I still remember the feelings of just rejection. Like knocking on doors and even like a little old lady coming up and like turns around and walks away. And I'd be like, oh, my God, how threatened can I be? I'm this nine-year-old like Opie-looking kid on your doorstep. Like I could be lost. So but, yeah, so the journey kind of started there. And obviously we went to, you know, me, you know, in college playing pro basketball in Europe for a couple of years. I came back and I said, well, let's do whatever the other ex-jack does. Let's go be a sales guy after I graduated college.

And so, you know, hopped around from job to job. And, you know, and actually I went to work for a great company called Comdisco, which was a big financing disaster recovery firm. We would compete against like GE Credit, IBM Credit Corp. And we would finance, you know, mostly mainframe, raised floor technology, IBM, stuff like that. And I said, and actually I played golf with a guy who was making a million dollars a year. And I'll never forget, I was playing golf with him, Tom Huber. And I'm like, how do you make a million dollars a year being a salesperson? And so, you know, long story short, I got into the company, worked with them for a while. They moved me down to Atlanta. And then next thing I know, I got moved here through work and I went to a training class.

And I just remember calling my oldest brother, Mike, and just said, he's like, how did class go? I go, you know, Mike, I just, I didn't think it was that great. I don't think it was a trainer. It'd be like taking golf lessons from somebody who never played golf. I said, so I didn't think it was that great. And if he's so great, why is this guy not out there just crushing it? Because those who can do and those who can't teach. So he said, well, if you think you're so damn good, why don't you do it? And I said, Mike, I bet a hundred bucks I can do this. And he's like, all right, good, the bet's on. Click. And he hung up the phone. And I called him back and he didn't pick up. I'm like, well, now I got to do it.

And so I kind of had this hokey idea, which actually I read in David Sandler's original book. David Sandler had written in there that he used to actually make live calls. And he would show the company he was training. He'd have like a little recorder in a classroom. But David would call on his behalf. So David would make phone calls for training, not for the client. And I thought, well, how cool would this be to actually just one facet of training, just prospecting and co-calling? Because, of course, throughout time I've allowed to do a lot more than that. But just that little part, I said, how cool would it be to call on your behalf? Like, OK, you give me your toughest prospect and I'll show you how this works.

And that's what really kind of hit, John. You know, that's what, boom, within six months I was traveling all over the world and companies were paying me. I was in Vegas. It got nuts really fast because people want to see the show. I want to see this guy do it live in front of an audience. And that's how I got to work today. That risk factor, and we'll keep on going, but that risk factor, like that's always been something I've admired because I never had the cojones to do that. Like, I remember Steve Richard from ExecVision. We were both doing a conference and I got up and I did my show or whatever. And, you know, I had tactical stuff, whatever. And look, I'm a practitioner. I'm right there with you.

Like, those who teach, I have a philosophy here at JV Sales where trainers, I don't hire trainers. I hire sales reps who then can train. Because if you are not day-to-day, hand-to-hand combat in this world right now, you're a dinosaur, right? So don't tell me something that you did 20 years ago that worked because it's probably not working right now. But so, you know, my stuff was decent. I thought it was, you know, good reviews. And then Steve gets up and he does that. Like, he's like, all right, cool. So who's going to prospect? And I'm like, what are you doing right now? And he's like, all right, I'll, you know, what's your, and of course, right? Like, so I'm sure you probably have a similar experience.

Like, some people are kind of sheepish. And then all of a sudden somebody raises his hand. And inevitably in this one, somebody was like, I got one. He's like, all right, great. Who is it? And it was like a branch of a bank in like middle of Minnesota type of thing. And he was, and I'm like, dude, worst case scenario right now, by the way. And so he goes and he's like going through the phone tree. And it took like 10, 15, 20 minutes for him to even get to somebody live. And the whole time I'm like, dude, this is brutal. So I got to ask with that approach, like how often, how often did it like percentage wise, just gut check on this? How often did that like work where you at least got to talk to somebody and show a little bit of it versus like, it was a nightmare, even like going through a phone tree to not get anything.

So really, really good question. I learned, so I learned really quickly that you mentioned that 10 to 15 minutes when you have an audience in front of you, they can get, they can get a little antsy and bored quick and you have to keep it moving. So I remember when I first did it, my first few programs, I, if there's one thing, I think honestly, there's a lot of things I don't do well. The one thing I think that I'm okay at is reading my audience where I go, okay, you got, you got to call an audible and move on because this isn't this, you're, you're losing them. So when I would make my calls that I would have a list, you know, I just yelled to people and I put the names up really quick and I'd start calling and I always started just, just give me the main, so I can usually talk to somebody pretty quick.

Cause I, I wasn't like, you know, you look at the, you look at the org chart, you know, everybody would give me, you know, they'd give me this guy or this lady, like, okay, call this person. There's your president, your C level might be a manager underneath. Okay. Here's ABC. And so they all, they're all calling this person and never returned their calls. I always just went to the front desk and I went all the way to the CEO. So they would always pick up the phone and say an ABC company. Yeah. And so that was like an 80 to 90% hit rate. Cause they had someone at the front desk picking up the phone and just that though, they're like, Oh my God, he's actually doing this. And then I would always just say, Hey, Hey, send me up to, and I always found out what the president's name was on the internet.

Cause when I'm doing this, I got the screens behind me. I'm like, okay, who's the company that'll type it in president and just ask for the president. Hey, send me to Michelle's office, Michelle Smith, your president. Thanks. And about 80% of the time I'd go just cause I, I sounded like I probably belong there. And I didn't, I didn't do the pitch. I didn't go, Hey, I'm with so-and-so company, blah, blah, blah, blah. I just go, Hey, send me up. And I kind of said it like, you know, she left her wallet or her person. My golf cart yesterday. I was just very, just trying to be very calm about it. Just talk like a regular person. Not this like, you know, oh, send me like, you know, this wasn't this pitching guy, which I know you've talked about a lot in your podcast.

So you mentioned the percentage though. You know, I go up here and then especially, you know, that time the assistant would pick up. I'd say, I just need some help. And which I've always said, it's like my number one sales line of all time. Just say you need some help and sound like you do need some help, which you do. Chances are, you probably are talking to the wrong person. So need some help. Who's the best person to speak to? I said, I didn't want to call everybody and their brother. And they would just say, oh, well, let me send you to so-and-so. And this was a unique thing, especially back then. John's a little bit less now because of technology and COVID, even though we're getting through that.

But when I would get transferred down, probably 35 to 40% of the time, they'd pick up because you saw the caller ID coming from up here. So, but I will tell you, you mentioned, you know, to how often it works. Then how often I get these people, I probably had about a hit rate of where I'd be talking to somebody, probably three out of 10. 30% of the time, I'd get somebody where I'd talk to them. But everybody asked me, did you ever have one that went south? And there was, I called the C, I called Exxon and I was in front of a really large audience in Vegas. I called Exxon and I got, I got, I got up to this office and this craziest thing. I said, Hey, just send me up to so-and-so's office. Thanks.

And I guess forwarded up and he picks up the phone, which by the way, I don't care how much I do this. When the CEO or the president picks up, you know, I feel like telling people in training that, Hey, step one, soil yourself. Cause that's what you're doing. You're going, okay. So, uh, so he picked up and I just went, Oh, I said, Hey, you caught me off guard. I said, I didn't expect you to pick up the phone. He goes, yeah, we got phones there. How can I help you? And I go, uh, and I got about, I'm like, God, we had five, four, 500 people in the audience. And I go, Oh yeah, I know. I said, uh, listen, I just needed some help. I was just trying to find the best person to speak. And he goes, you know, what's your name?

I said my name and he goes, you know, I need some help. I said, Oh, great. I go, how can I help you? He goes, hang up your phone. Oh, and I just went click. Now me, I just, I, I'm on stage with a lavalier in my cell phone like this. So I can, I can hear it. And as soon as I hung it up, the kid who had me call us as a kid at the rep who's younger than me, he's one who said, Oh, call X, I'm trying to get in. So he says that as soon as he goes, hang up your phone, I go, okay, bang. It's not, it's dead silent. And then he's, he yells out from way in the back. He's like, see, that's my old territory. It sucks. And everyone started laughing. So they usually don't go, they usually don't go bad. The reason why they don't go bad usually, and I, you, you've done this.

One of the reasons why I'm such a big fan of yours, Johnny, is a lot of the, a lot of the content you talk about is really about being yourself and being personable and being prepared and not winging it and not sounding like you're that, hi, I'm Bob Smith here to sell you something today. Like, just don't be that guy or that lady. And that's one of the connections I originally made with you is like, you know, John brings a lot of credibility to this space, especially when you probably had that adage where I did where, Hey, those who can do those who can't teach. I usually introduce myself, go, if I'm you, you're, you and I talked about that before work, what you do to start off a class, just to kind of go, Hey, hopefully by the end of the day I'm going to earn my stripes and here's what we're going to do, I kind of do the same thing, but I try to make sure that I let them know that I know what you're thinking.

You're probably going, who is this guy and why should I believe him? If he's that great, why is he not killing it somewhere? So I try to be vulnerable to make a connection to what they're thinking, but it usually, you know, it works pretty good when I do this. Things have changed now with COVID, but it's still, we still get there eventually. And I think we're going to get to a lot on this conversation unpack, but you mentioned one thing that I used to do the exact same thing on the email side of the house. So I would do live application where we would do the exercise in class and everybody would pick an account and they would fire it off to the CEO and I would coach them on the email and then they would send it inevitably back about 10 years ago in class, we would get a response from like the likes of, I mean, I got emails back from Mark Hurd, from Mark Benioff, like real big baller.

And it would immediately drive credibility, right? Because as soon as that would happen, everybody would, somebody's hand would go up and be like, I just got a response back from the CEO. And then it almost didn't matter what I said throughout the rest of the training. Yeah. You were, yeah. You're now the Messiah. I mean, it's like, I mean, you should see John Barrow's walk on water because it's an instant street cred. Yeah. The challenge though, and this is, this is like nuanced here. You know, we used to be able to do that. We used to be able to go to the C-level executive or the executive assistant and say, Hey, I need your help. Who's the best person to speak with about this? Right. But fast forward a few years, and I want to talk to you about what you've seen change and COVID has changed a lot in the virtual world, but fundamentally, you know, I want to understand from your perspective what's changed because what I was realizing was that the, the response rates to that started to dip pretty significantly for a couple of reasons.

One was it was being bastardized by the automation tools. And I don't want to mention any of the players in our space, but there's a few players that took specifically the, the email, the why you, I, you know, email that we used to do genericized it. What they would do with, they would blast the C-suite and they would say, Hey, what, who's the best person to speak with? And then that's where they would focus their effort. Again, it worked for a period of time, but I remember doing a training and I'm similar to like, I'm up in front of like three, 400 people. Right. And I'm talking about this top down approach, go to the C-suite, get referred down. You get the 86% response rate when somebody gets a referral, blah, blah, blah.

It's an obligation. Right. And the CEO, no shit sits in front, front row. He's standing, he raises his, he's like, I'm calling bullshit on the top down approach. I'm like, Oh boy. I'm like, all right, come on up here. Let's have this conversation. Right. I'm like, he's like, I get like in 20 emails a day from sales reps being like, blah, blah, blah. This is what we do. Who can I talk to? And he's like, and so the point he was making was in this day and age, you should kind of know who the best person is to speak with about your shit. Right. So you're actually showing your ignorance. Um, and, and cause that's what he was like. He's like, it, what bothers me the most is like when somebody reaches out to me and says, Oh, we get this great HR solution.

It's the best HR solution in the world. HR, HR, HR, HR. Who's the best person to speak with about this? And he's like, dipshit. Obviously my VP of HR or my CHRO, like reaching out to me. So, so be with that small nuances as, as kind of a preface to the evolution here, where have you seen the most fundamental changes in sales over the past 20 years? Uh, well, I think that you, I think you nailed it in terms of just the abundance of information that we all have as reps that they get bombarded with. I think the biggest change I've seen is the bombardment of information and probably the aggressive approaches that people now take either through social media platforms, business platforms that you've talked about, uh, that I think they just get inundated so much by it.

Number one, um, number two is that even with that change that's happened, like you mentioned like, Oh, I call BS on that. You know, if you've got an HR product and why don't you just call HR and, and if I, if I was in that conversation, I go, you're right. H I HR is the place, but the reason why I'm calling the top down approach and I get that I'm calling up there cause I really do need help. But one of the things I figure out is that, yeah, you can buy lists and there's all these different applications out there of everybody in organization, you know, hoovers, whatever it may be, but at the, at the end of the day, to me, you know, if a lot of times these people right here, like I, this is like my target, like BC, like the head of HR, a lot of times these people, I don't know which one specifically might be the best one to talk to.

When I take this approach, I still get the, even when I go to this assistant here, I go even today, I go, Hey, I need some help. I know that she's really busy. I know she's slam hard to probably get on her calendar. Is there someone I can do a little legwork with? And I'll say, I originally even spoke to Michelle's office or president. Who's the best person? I know it's, I know it's Barb or Bob, but who would be a great second Lieutenant? I, I, what I've learned, John, a lot of my deals or opportunities, they do start at like the T minus one. It's the one level below where you'll do the legwork with them. If you can get by them, they'll bring you up. And I know everybody talks about, you know, just go to this level every time C level, C level to me, man, if you're going to base your career and your success on just talking about that level, you're going to have a hard time selling stuff because they're hard to get to.

So I, and that I think is the number one thing you said, what's the biggest change? I think it's, it's hard to get to because they have technology to keep you out. Okay. And even though we have more technology to try to get in and then, you know, we're in a world right now where, you know, every year, you know, not too many companies I know where quota goes down. So there's a lot of pressure on these people to perform people on expectations quicker. And, you know, if you do something wrong, man, it's going to go, it's going to travel fast. You know, we're in a world where bad news travels around the world before good news puts its boots on. So to me, that's the biggest change I've seen. And the, but the other thing, John, is that when I do train, like right now, if I were to put a hundred people in a room right now, I still believe that no matter how hard this got, I still believe that picking up a phone and just calling in and saying, I need some help.

No, nobody even, it's amazing. I'll say, raise your hand if you do this. And you'll maybe have half the audience say, I do it. I'll go, raise your hand if you do it to this level. Nobody does. I, very rarely do I see a rep who says, I call the CEO's office. It's very rare. And I tell people, I go, you know, the assistant to this level right here called the, you know, CRO, CHO, whoever it is, this person right here, that admin assistant, or especially IT, they're getting crushed every day by calls. Right here, to me, that assistant, he or she's getting crushed by phone calls. This assistant here rarely gets as many calls, John, on the president or the CEO of the company. They don't get as many calls.

So actually, they're a lot nicer. So to me, even though things have progressed over time, John, this is still relatively unique that most people don't do. And they're really, really nice up here. Usually, like to me, they can't afford to be idiots. It's the president of the company. These people might be a little bit more, hey, we don't take sales calls, we're fine, buy. These ones are usually nicer up there. I agree. And I think there's small nuances, what you talked about, which is the shifts I've made, right? So instead of going all the way up to the C, like the generic approach at the C level and saying who I need to talk to, I now go to department head. So if I'm going on the marketing, I go CMO.

If I'm going on sales, I go VP of sales. And to your point, I asked, hey, who's the best person on your team to have this conversation, to learn a little bit more? And I think you tapped into what I think is a shift happening, which is the shift from top down to bottom up and design thinking and how design thinking is impacting sales as far as really, truly learning about the client and almost being a customer of them first, right? And learning the nuances of how they run their business and then creating this hypothesis or this, this, you know, solution based on that knowledge to bring it to the C suite, because when you bring it to the C suite, you got to be bringing value in some way, shape or form.

You got to tell them something that they either don't know or they think they know, but they're probably misinformed of because they're five steps removed. But at this stage right now, even though I do pre-work, usually, John, this step is when I get to the C suite, usually, John, I've done a great job here where they, if it has to go there, they end up bringing me there after I've done my work. I rarely, it's just maybe for me, I rarely just call on the CEO to have a conversation. I'm usually all, like somebody told me, you know, like, John, your prospecting class should just be called, like in my fictitious company, this is Michelle and this is Mary on like my online training, somebody said, your class should just be called, get your ass to Mary.

I go, yeah, that said, like, get to Mary, because Mary is going to give you the names of people if you do it the right way. I don't, I really don't want to talk here yet. I mean, if they pick up, I got to be ready for it, but that's really, rarely they'll pick up. But, you know, you talk about going this high level. I know when I work with clients who have, and you have too, John, you know, federal government. And I had one guy in the audience, they said after I was doing this like three or four years, he's like, well, I have federal government. What are you going to do? Call the White House, the president. I went, okay. And I know the White House is a 202-456-1414. That's the White House. So I would call the White House and they don't give a name.

They just go operator 42. And I'm like, hey, I need some help. And all of this obviously is public now, which when you're federal government, but I would still do the whole, hey, you need some help. Who's the best person? You know, and they're like, well, that's the deputy director of defense in the Pentagon. That's so-and-so, whatever, you know, Robert Gates or whoever, right? And you go, okay. And they're not allowed to transfer. But the cool thing about especially calling in government, when you then hang up and you call into the Pentagon, they pick it up like Chief Petty Officer Johnson. And then I'll go, hey, I was just talking to the White House and they need some help. I'm trying to track down, you know, whatever.

Usually they go, hang on. And they'll find a subordinate pretty fast. I always tell people federal government, this actually works even better because I think they still respect the hierarchy sometimes of the titles, maybe more than the business world. But anyway, yeah, it's fun. You know, you and I both being speakers, they always say there's three things we don't talk about, right? You never talk about, you know, sex, religion, or politics. And the only political statement I make is that when I was calling, I called the White House a couple of times when President Trump was there. And my only fear was I thought he might pick up. Yeah, right. So I don't know what that guy was up to. So that's my only political joke.

What is, you brought up something here. And I'm interested in your perspective on this because you talked about authenticity up front and cutting through the bullshit and being yourself, right? What's the line for you of the trick versus the tactic? And I say that because you had said, for instance, hey, I was just talking to the White House, okay? Now, that is a factual statement. That is a factual statement, right? You did not lie in any way, shape, or form. But there is a little bit of not telling the full truth on that one, right? Of whatever, because you're trying to get that, ooh, right? And I fight it a lot of, because, you know, people ask a lot of, you know, tips that you hear all this time, hey, tips and tricks, right?

And I say, no, no, no. Give me tips. Don't give me tricks. Like, don't give me some bullshit thing. Like, even small things for me, like putting RE in the subject line in your first email to pretend like it's a response to your first one. Right, right, right. Don't fucking do that. Or when you're calling a secretary and you get the cell phone number and then you call the cell phone number of the person and you blame it on the cell phone number. Oh, I didn't realize this was your cell phone number. That's a lie. That's a lie. It's a lie. So what's your kind of definition of that fine line between saying maybe not the entire truth because you want to get their attention and kind of get to the main reason versus using a trick to get to that part?

You know, John, when I did my original CDs, you know, like 15, 17 years, whenever it was, I remember that I had, I used to do that where I did. I was guilty of kind of being tricky. I would, hey, I just talked to Bob's office. He said, we should spoke. And I was really doing it, especially at that time, because when I was on stage for a couple hours, I'm like, I got to get this phone to call me back. I mean, I got to get the phone to ring. Kind of like your email example, right, John, where you go, oh my God, there was playing back and now you walk on water, right? Yeah. So I remember doing that as part of me. I wish I could kind of take that one track off because I've massaged that because I realized at the end of the day, I would tell the audience, I go, listen, they're going to call back and go, okay, who the hell are you?

You didn't give me your company name. You just said you talked to my boss's boss. And, but when they call back though, I told people, I go, when they call back, okay. And I'll get to the trick part because when they call back though, if you now sound like a salesman going, hey, Bob, thanks for the call. Yeah. I actually work for so-and-so year now it's over. You're an idiot. You get thrown out. You got to go, when they call back, you have to go, hey, listen, I know I left you an abbreviated message with nothing on it because to be candid with you, if I leave the usual message, no one calls me back. And if I were you, I wouldn't call me back either, but I really did call Bob's office. I really did.

If you want to talk to him, I did. I needed some help. I just left you a quick message. So I made sure when they call back, I explained myself really quick. Like, hey, I did this for a reason. I knew you wouldn't call back. I wouldn't call me back either. So I tried to be vulnerable. I don't do that really harsh technique anymore. So when you said that fine line, when I, and I'm probably giving you the brevity of it, today, when I call the president's office and, you know, let's pretend it's Michelle and Michelle's assistant, Mary says, yes, this is who you should talk to. When I go there now, I explain why I go, hey, you know, if it's Bob, I go, hey, Bob, I just spoke with Michelle's office.

Michelle Smith, your president. I go, I'm completely lost. I know I probably should be talking to marketing. It may not be you at this stage, but I said, I need some help. I was also going to send up an email, just introducing our two organizations. I said, but I want to reach out to you first. So I'm more of, I'm more vulnerable right out of the gate, but I do more of an explanation of how I got to him and what I did not. Hey, this is me and how great I am and how much I can help you. That's what I don't do. I just try to validate. Listen, dude, I'm not an idiot. I don't want to trick you. I'm telling you, this is exactly why I did what I did. I need some help because they might say, you know, Bob's retiring in 30 days.

Who knows? And so I'm just more vulnerable now, John, than I ever was before. I heard Michael Dell say that in the interview. Michael Dell said that in the podcast. They asked him what was the biggest change in him in the last 10 or 20 years. And he just said vulnerability. He's so much more vulnerable now than he was before. And I think that's exactly where I am, especially even more so after, you know, me being sick. I'm way more just honest and vulnerable now after getting past cancer and stuff. I'm like, I just come from a place of just focusing on, I kind of try to come, this sounds corny. I just try to come from a place of love all the time. I try to come from a place of just, just focus on helping people, man.

If you just focus on helping people, you'll crush it. If you just focus on hitting your number, you'll probably still hit your number. You're just going to sound like everybody else doing it. What's up, everybody? I know you're enjoying this conversation. John does a great job with genuine curiosity on these episodes and our guests consistently bring the heat. We want to take a moment here and let you know that you've got an opportunity. An opportunity to become better than you were yesterday. And you can do so by gaining access to all of JB Sales' content, all of their training, tips, techniques, tactics, and takeaways can be yours for $1 a day. $365 for the year gets you annual access to everything, including our private Slack channel for members only, which you get access to all of us directly 100% of the time, 24 hours a day.

And then at the same time, you're going to get access to our bi-weekly Ask Me Anything sessions, where you can bring real deals to the table and get the help that you need where you need it. This is very, very important. Sales reps that invest in themselves are often found at the tops of their leaderboards. Join us today and get the help you need to become the seller that you deserve to be. That URL, one more time, is joinjbsales.com. Let's get back to the show with JB and our guest for this week. We'll get to that transformation for you because I'm in a similar start. What's your take? Because this is kind of, you just explained mine, on fake it till you make it, right? Early in my career, for instance, I did fundamentally believe in fake it till you make it because you're so young, you don't know what you're talking about.

But there's that level of confidence that you can come across and people will gravitate towards it. And as I've evolved and as I've grown, I realized, no, don't fake it till you make it. Be more vulnerable. Be more open. But it's kind of like rich people who weren't rich and then became rich and then say money doesn't matter. You know what I mean? Like I love those fucking Instagram posts where somebody's like, oh, you know, money as they cry in their fucking Lamborghini. It's like, all right, asshole, let me rip all that money away from you and tell me if money is not important. So stop telling me that money is not important when you're a multimillionaire. So I feel like I'm wondering from like me, am I that guy?

Like, is that is that philosophy based on my experience and where I am at 46 years old and all the stuff that I've done? And and but should I still have a line of fake it till I make it if I was the 22, 23, 24 year old kid? Because the whole I don't know is a frustrating. It's a valid answer for sales reps to give to a prospect, but it's also a frustrating answer in this world of instant gratification. It's like, OK, well, I called you because I want to know if your product does this one thing or can you answer that? Well, I don't know. I'm going to have you know what? I'll find the answer for you. Like the tolerance for that is less. So so where are you on you and I? I think we've both thrown fake it till you make it because we just know, you know, humility.

We're not as good as we think we are. Like, let's we're just fucking humans here. But for that 22, 23, 24 year old kid, what do you think their mentality should be around fake it till you make it? I think their mentality, if they I know it sounds corny, if they really do have a passion to help people, I think that's one thing. It kind of gives you this piece of going, I just want to help people. But I don't want to say the I don't know, because that's their biggest fear. When you and I have done this, John, when you ask that those 20 somethings, usually their biggest fear is, oh, my gosh, if they ask me a question, if they ask me a question, I don't know the answer to. And one of the things I try to tell people, I said, listen, I'm hell, I'm in my late 50s.

I do the same thing now as I try to do the same thing now as I do when I was younger. When you were younger, especially when you start with a company, you didn't know a lot and you were scared that they would ask you that. So if they did, you got nervous. So so what you did, since you didn't have the answer, you know, you said is I don't know. Or you go, well, why do you ask that question? What's the driver behind it? What are you looking to accomplish? And I know it sounds like a diversion a little bit, but if you really don't know something, I usually tell people, even if you know something like this, this thing I draw, John, like this, this, this, this snowman. When you're brand new, like the small part of the head is that when you don't know, know anything, they'll ask you a question.

You go, you know, good question. Why did you ask? And you're saying this because you're going, oh, that is a good question. I really don't know either. Right. Well, then you become now you're a little bit seasoned. You've been with the company a couple of years, you know, everything. So now when they ask you a question, you know what happens? You now answer it and you probably don't know why they're asking. You just answer it. Well, then if you're this part, like you're now down here, kind of fat, have a lot of information, you know the answer, but you act like this person on purpose. So to answer your question, I tell refs, act like the admitting nurse to a hospital. If you could just put yourself to where, you know, you don't do the brain surgery, you're not in the cancer center, you're not in the emergency room.

You know, your job is to try to understand what they're, where they're at, where they're trying to go. And that doesn't, that doesn't require brilliance and a ton of knowledge. It requires great questions. It requires you to be a good listener. Well, anybody could do that. You can come up with great questions about where you're at, where you want to go, somebody, your people, your process, your program, your technology. There's not that many things to talk about when you want to go from here to there. You know, here, I'll give you a great example, John. I asked, I remember that the head of training to, you know, obviously that incredibly large company, the business unit wanted to train me, but the budget was coming out of training and enablement, which I know you've dealt with that before, where the sales people want you, but they're the ones paying.

And sometimes in our space, John, sometimes we can be perceived as a little as a competition or a threat to the training department. They've always tried to be forward, and that's why the business unit is going, let's go get somebody else, right? So, he asked me one time, so this gentleman said, hey, do you do online training? Now, in this case, with our example, John, I could go on for a half an hour. I go, well, yeah, my name's on the door. It's called Costigan Academy, but I could just keep going and going and going. And that kind of that snowman I drew where that first part, like, you don't know what you're doing yet. The middle part, you have the answer. The bottom part, act like you don't have the answer.

And I said to him, I go, well, yeah, we have it. Why did you ask? And he goes, because we don't believe in online training. And my brain just went, thank God I didn't go off on the five-minute answer about, well, yeah, we have this Costigan Academy. We have testing and all this stuff like what you have with yours. Thank God I didn't do that. And then, of course, I started going, why? Well, it must have gone on for, I don't know, seven, eight minutes where I kept going, like, why, why, why, without saying why, why, why, because I didn't want him to go, like, why, you're an idiot. But I'd be like, okay, well, then what? And then what? And after about seven or eight minutes, it came to the point where he was telling me that no one was going on it.

They weren't using it. So they just didn't see he was bringing value to the raps. And after a lot of exploration, I finally got to the point where I said this line. I said, so it sounds like, because I said, who is the person doing it? And he said, me. And I said, so do you think at all that there might be a challenge where they may not be going on because the person doing it? And he was just like, yeah, I guess that could be the reason. And I said, how do you feel about that? He goes, well, is this something you could do? And that's how we got to that. And I said, well, I could do it. But do you want me to do my stuff or your stuff? I don't know if I can jump in and start doing Amazon stuff.

Because he's like, well, no, no, no. And then boom. But that, to me, was a great way of where even when I had the answer, John, and you talk about that figure till you make it, to me, it's not that hard to say, good question, why did you ask when someone asks you? But if you could drill down on that and be really good at keeping it back on their court, that sometimes by the end of the seven or eight minutes after they asked a question, you never even gave the damn answer yet, but you let them talk. And, yeah, now if it comes to a point where you go, all right, let me do this. Let me get all this information together. Let's schedule another call. See, to me, what I don't like is when someone asks me a question and then they go, hey, well, I'm really not sure.

Let me schedule a call. Like, no, no, I love when they go, tell me why you're asking. And it goes on for a while. Now they're really motivated to have the next call versus the, I don't know, let me schedule a meeting for you. So this is, this is a great point because this is, I always, I talk about how the world I personally live in, and I think it sounds like you do too, is between the give a shit factor and the unconscious competence factor, right? You know, that whole quadrant where you start something and you're unconsciously competent, right? So, so I can't do anything unless you give a shit, right? But once you give a shit, I will give you all these techniques so that you can eventually get to the point where you're unconsciously competent.

I think you and I probably, for the lot of what we do from a sales standpoint, we don't follow it, the script, like how we actually train it because it is so ingrained in us and how we do it. So for instance, I had to go through these, you know, learning about questioning skills, open-ended, closed-ended and all that other stuff, but then layering questions and layering questions or tell me more, give me an example of, could you clarify it for me, right? That type of thing. And at the time I used them as a technique, as a tactic, because being from Boston, you know, I, I talk really fast and my gut is to answer you immediately. Like whenever you ask me a question, my gut is to absolutely answer you immediately because I think I got the answer to it, right?

Especially when I was younger, but I, I actually forced those into my vocabulary because what I was experiencing was when I answered the question and this is always, this is, you can always tell when you fucked up because I've done this before where somebody's asked me the question. I'm like, Oh, I've heard that a million times before. Let me give them this perfect, like to your point of like the online stuff, right? It's like, Oh, I got this perfect answer to this. And then at the end of your beautiful two minutes soliloquy, if you will, of, of explaining all the nuances of why you're in, you know, what you're talking about. At the end they go, well, what I meant to say was right. And then you're like, son of a bitch.

Right. So, so I actually, I even had it on my whiteboard, like layering questions to force myself to slow down. But the, the benefit of it, the primary goal for, was for me to shut the hell up and slow down. But the long-term benefit was exactly what you explained, which is people would start telling me more information, giving me more insights into what really the problem was. And then I'd be able to, my answer to whatever that was of their question was, what was vastly different after I got that information. Cause I was like, Oh, there's the context around that question. It's the same thing with objection handling. When you give me an objection, it's usually a surface objection and we dig a little bit deeper.

Let me tell the context around it. Now I can handle that objection. So is that like, do you feel like you've, I mean, I can't imagine you haven't reached a level of unconscious competence with much of what you actually train. And you, and you're challenged these days of boiling it down into the specific tactics that people can use who aren't at your level. Well, personally, I always get challenged like you. Exactly. I get challenged. I have to continue to remember, shut up and seek to understand versus seek to just talk and explain. So that, that is a very conscious thing for me. Even, even in personal relationships, you know, I don't care if my ex-wife or somebody asked me a question, you know, Hey, are you at the house?

I'm in carry. I'll be like, yeah. Why do you ask? I mean, and I don't say like a jerk. I'm like, hi, yeah, you need something. It doesn't matter. I'm always trying to seek to understand. And I think that came from, I saw this, this came up and obviously, I don't know if you do this, John, I don't think if you do, please steal it. Cause I really, it's like one of the things that happened live in class. I went, Oh my God, this is really cool. I bet this happens to you or something happens to you class, class and you go, that was really good. Like put that in the book. That was pretty cool shit that just happened. A lot of our stuff gets created cause we're live in front of people. You go, Oh, that's cool.

And that, um, and so there's, um, I read this article that, um, I think it's very common. I think it came out of, um, the Keenan Flagler school of business here in the Carolinas. They were talking about why customers do or don't do business with you. And they said, what's the number one thing that customers don't like about salespeople or, and, um, pretty much the number one answer was, is that, um, they, you don't understand their business. That's one of the biggest fears that you, they want you to know that you understand their business. Like a doctor, you want to make sure they have empathy and they understand what you're going through. Same thing in business. Well, one day in class, I was just doing this on a board and I said, you know, don't understand your business.

And I wrote this and I said, Oh, you know, don't be dumb. And people looked at me and go, the number one thing that people don't, you know, that they don't want is don't understand my business. So if a client ever says, you know, the biggest thing I don't like about you is you don't understand my business. And so, you know, don't understand my business. You are being dumb and stupid too. I just don't have an acronym for stupid. So, um, so to me, I don't know if that answers your question, but to me, it's, it's that, yeah, it's a very conscious approach, but I'm always really driven by usually 80 to 90% of the reason why somebody asks you a question. There's usually meaning behind it. And if someone says, I was just wondering, I've kind of learned my life.

I'm just wondering is bullshit. There's usually something underneath it. It doesn't mean it's good or bad. There's just, there's always intention on, you know, like I mentioned the example, my ex-wife goes, Hey, are you at the house? Like, you know, I go, why? There's gotta be intention. She's just not calling to check if I'm home or not. There's something going on. She wants to pick something up or maybe the kids left something here or something. But I'm just, I always try to live by that of just understand where they're coming from before you open your mouth and say something. Well, let's transition to, because you talk a lot about why, right? So why are we calling? Why, you know, why are we selling?

Have a passion for what you do, those types of things. And all that stuff matters to me now more than ever. And I want to talk about your why, because obviously, and the audience doesn't know it, we've alluded to it briefly, but you've gone through some shit recently, relatively recently. And I'm wondering if that's changed your perspective. So you want to give the audience a little glimpse into kind of the journey you've been on in the past year and a half or two years? Thank you, John. Yeah, it is completely, well, having cancer, cancer does change you. It has to. I even did some videos I was going to post on YouTube. It was just going to be, you know, the stuff they don't tell you about cancer.

And I really believe if they really told you everything, you may not go through it. Because it's, and no matter what they tell you, it's like, it's like having kids. You just don't know until you have kids. I don't care how much you talk about it. You don't know until you have it. Well, same thing with cancer. You just don't know until you really go through it. And all the little things they don't tell you. But that, I said, I spoke a couple weeks ago in Atlanta. And I didn't, you know, you and I are the same where sometimes we'll just say something. You're like, well, that's pretty good. And I said to the audience, somebody asked me a question about it. I said, you know, I don't wish cancer on anybody, but I wish you could maybe learn the lessons I've just learned from cancer.

And the lesson I learned, probably the biggest thing I've learned is, is I can't believe how much time I spent worrying about shit that was just shit. That was probably the biggest one, number one. Number two, I don't think, that was probably number one. Number two was, and it probably should be flip-flop, but number two was, I just can't, I had no clue how important family and friends were. Um, uh, during that process, they really, really, there's some really tough, dark days there. And you, you can't, when they'd say don't go it alone, it's, it's really hard to go it alone. You just, you need that support system. And so for me, I just had, I just, I had such a more appreciation for my friends and my, my brothers and my sisters.

Um, and here's the other thing was really weird, John. I, I was probably selfish when this started. I didn't know how much it impacted them when I kept saying, no, no, I'm good. I'm good. Like you give them the Heisman, you go, no, no. Cause they all wanted to help. I was like, no, no, no. And I'm good. Cause I thought I was a burden to them. And what I realized was I wasn't allowing them to love me. And that's an emotional thing to talk about. I just, I forgot. I'm like, oh, this, they're now happier that I'm saying yes. Yeah. Cause now they feel better that they get to help Johnny. Cause that's how I'm known to my brothers and sisters as Johnny. And, uh, I saw such a big difference in, uh, that connection between us.

Cause I allowed them to help me as opposed to, I thought I was doing the right thing by going, no, I'm good. You have a life. And it was the complete opposite, John. And I'm, I know with you and your father, I'm sure that you've had some of these exciting experiences as well. That it was such a realization for me. Um, but it wasn't, it was actually my aunt. So my aunt passed away, uh, not soon after my, my dad. And yeah, she was 60, she rip roaring cancer. Like one day she was fine. And less than two weeks later she was fucked. Right. Um, and her son who is, you know, turning 40 now, um, 46. He's my second cousin, if you will. He literally said that exact thing. Like my aunt who, so sorry, my cousin is the one who passed away.

My aunt, my favorite person on the planet. Right. She's been through more shit than you could possibly imagine. And I'm desperately like, she lives an hour and a half away from me. The rest of the family isn't that close. I'm like, I, I just want to help in some way, shape or form. And she would just put up this wall. Like I'm fine. You know, and, and I was having conversation with her nephew, Justin. And, and he said that he said, you know what, John, he's like, it's actually selfish to not accept the help from other people because what you're doing is you're robbing yourself of that help, which you absolutely fucking need. But you're also robbing them from their happiness because if they do something for you, it makes them feel, them feel useful.

And right now if you don't let them, they feel you, they, they feel like they're, they're helpless to help you. And that is a horrible feeling when you're, when you, when you so want to help, but the person that you're trying to doesn't allow you or, and this is also what I learned about gratitude. Same thing with gratitude in the sense that I used to, like if I ever did something for somebody or whatever, they, you know, and they would come and say, thank you. Right. Oh, don't worry about it. You know, it's no big deal. And actually what I realized was that diminishes the value of what I did for them because now by me saying, oh, it's no big deal. Now they're like, no, it actually was a big deal for me, which is why I'm coming to you and thanking you for that.

And you to demean that now takes away the part of the value that you brought to me for doing that. What, what event in your life triggered that, um, that lesson to you, John, was it with your aunt or did you feel that before way before that you just were grateful that you were able to apply it again? Yeah, I think it was, um, I think it was something I always understood. I I've always been, especially on the gratitude side of all, don't worry about it. You know, we're, we're good, you know, that type of thing. That's the part I, I've always been challenged with. And I think my trip to Sedona after, you know, getting my shit together and really reflecting on gratitude as a huge part of what kept me through the, you know, the hard times that I was going through, I realized that gratitude is a two-way street and it's not just like, oh, you give gratitude and other people give it back.

No, no, no, no. You actually have to give and receive gratitude. It's just like being a sore loser or a sore winner, right? You want to be a good winner. You want to be a good loser. You want to be a good steward of gratitude in a lot of ways. And so now even on, on apologies, here's another one where somebody comes in a pile, John, I'm so sorry for whatever. Oh, don't worry about it. No big deal. The amount of effort and mental anguish that that person probably had to go through to get to the point where they came to you and apologized is not insignificant. And so for you to be like, ah, don't worry about it. It's no big deal. You know, like as long as it doesn't happen again, like you're literally diminishing that, that angst that they had to come to you and be as vulnerable as they could.

And so now what I do is when somebody says, thank you, or I'm like specifically, Hey, I apologize. Hey, I accept your apology. Yeah. And I just let it sit. I don't say it's no big deal anymore. I don't say, you know, just make sure it doesn't happen again. I stop and I say, I accept your apology. Really? That happens. You're right. Most people do the latter. Yeah. No, we're good. It's all good. All good. Yeah. No, I love that attitude. When somebody says, thank you, I stop and I say, you're welcome. Yeah. Like literally like before, cause I, again, demeaning it. Oh, it's now I, I just like in sales, right? Pause for a second or two, make sure that they understand the importance of your response and then say your response and let it sit and then see what happens with them.

You'll see them go there. It's almost, it's weird now from a psychology standpoint, because now they almost, because that almost never happens. You see people try to figure out what's going on. Like, is this a game or something? Like you don't want to keep arguing with me about this. And no, no, you said, you're sorry. I accept your apology. Right. So, or you said, thank you. You're welcome. So you do have to find some bridges to get to the comfortable part, to give them the, you know, that silence. But I do, I am very conscious now. And somebody says, thank you for anything, buying dinner, you know, whatever. You're welcome. And it makes a difference. Even, um, I know it's funny, the connection here, which you know me, I'll probably screw it up.

I go, no, Hey, I know this is really hard for you to say, I'm sorry. And they'll probably be like, no, dude, it wasn't that hard. I'm just sorry. Move on. I'll be the therapist on it. Totally. Like when we get done, when I get done golf with my buddies, especially now, cause a lot of them were so supportive when I, you know, had my throat cancer that, uh, cause I mean, I couldn't talk for four months. I was eating out of a feeding tube. I lost 55 pounds. I had to learn how to just swallow again. That's why even today you see, you know, I'm drinking water all the time and you be with you for four and a half hours, uh, as opposed to guys just going, yeah, good round, good round, good round, you head off.

So I think there's a lot of little moments in our lives that we really can show gratitude and appreciation, uh, for just the little things in life, like golfing, man, or even an apology. So all big, all really good stuff. And, and let's finish on this one, going back to your why, because you'd mentioned something on family, right? And values and friends and those types of things. And I, and I'm a bigger believer now than ever about values and your why and knowing those and being true. But what was interesting to me was I used a business coach, right? To reset on my why and my values and values don't usually change. They shouldn't, you know, your core fundamental values, they shouldn't really change, but they should be reprioritized every once in a while.

And I realized that because what I asked the, when, when I went through the exercise of the values, you know, there's all these words, they put like, you know, 50, a hundred words on a plate and you pair them down to the 20 that you like, and then you pair them down to the five and then you prioritize them. And family was on the list. And so I was like, I asked my business coach, I said, well, isn't family just kind of the default number one priority, right? Like, isn't that just an assumed, like, yeah, that's your priority type of thing. And he goes, absolutely not. He goes, you have to really put it down on the list and make it the number one priority so you can consciously commit to it versus thinking that it's your priority.

And you can always come excuses around why, oh, you can justify it. And it hit me like a ton of bricks. Cause I was like, son of a bitch, because, you know, for a solid 10 years, my daughter's 11. So for probably eight of her, you know, right before COVID, um, I was a weekend dad and the way I was justifying it was I'm doing this for my family. I'm doing this for my family. So my daughter never doesn't have to worry about stuff. My wife can do what she wants to do, that type of thing. And if I reflect on it, I wasn't, the reason I was doing what I do, what I did was because I was really fucking good at what I did. You know what I mean? And, and you know, there's, I mean, there's just something about joy, you're a competitive guy.

There's a lot of things that was feeding kind of, for lack of a better word, ego, but it does feed you because it's all right to tell somebody, you know, there's to tell somebody I went to Singapore for a day, I went to Japan for a couple of days and back here and people like, Oh my God, I can't believe you went that far. I mean, there's just something about like, yeah, you know what I mean? I'm the man. And so I was, I was pretending like family was my priority when it really wasn't. And when I wrote it down through this exercise and made it my number one, it really changed my perspective. So what you went through, you know, how did, how did that reshape or did it reshape your why and your values?

And what do you look at now as a priority over what maybe you thought was a priority and you put as a priority, but you really, you weren't living it that way. Well, the latter is, um, the, the one thing it did for me is, um, I really started to, I wanted to like, I wanted to like myself a lot more that that's what I wanted to do. I, um, like you, I was, you know, I was like you, Johnny, I was traveling all over the world and I thought I was supporting my family and I, and I was and still do. Um, but I, um, to me, I just felt that I had more to offer than what I was offering before. It's just as a person, as a family member, as a friend, even as, um, as, as a father, as an ex-husband, all of it, it just made me rethink that, you know, I saw something that said like, Oh, I think the average human being lives 29, 29,850 days.

Well, right now I'm at like 21,000. I got like 7,000 something left, man. And I'm like, you know, like 7,000 days left, uh, how can you make the best of them? And the first thing is, and I, it's so funny, I don't talk to friends about it and I don't tell everybody and I'll say like, you know, I've talked about therapy and like Howard Stern asked everybody, you go to therapy. And it's almost the point where I don't know who hasn't gone to therapy, but, um, when I go, you know, they kind of, the first thing is you just, you got to hopefully really, really like yourself and you feel like you have something good to give somebody. And that's, that's been the biggest turn for me is just to try to really be the best friend, person, all of it that I can be.

And that doesn't even, business is now down like second or third level. And you, and we started off our conversation and talked about, you know, making millions and then getting to be successful. And Tim Ferriss, I love listening to Tim, his podcasts are, you know, hundreds of millions of people listen to him for our work week and all that. And he just said, the thing that he learned as well is that when you finally get to that destination of money, it wasn't what you expected. And, um, it, you know, it, uh, it's almost like you're waiting for the Macy's day parade and it never happens. And it wasn't, it was this illusion that you probably almost became delusional about. And, um, and that's, I think it happened to me a little bit where I finally felt that I was at a point financially successful and it didn't give me the happiness I thought.

And that's why cancer was a really big blessing for me because it just really made me realize what's really important and I want to be the best version of myself. So depending on what I ended up doing, I mean, I've been single now, but I just, now I feel like I finally have something really good to give somebody and a really good version of myself that I don't think I really knew. I don't think I was aware of it before that. So that was the second part of your question. Um, but that, that's, that's how it's, that, that's how I look at it now. And, and so between that and then John, since I, since I really like me a lot now, it sounds crazy, but since I really liked this guy, um, then when I talk on the phone and I do business, I like, I re I really liked that guy too.

I think he's selling from a different place now. Yeah. I always focus on helping people, but now I just feel like the intent is so much higher to when I'm talking to business people, I am truly trying to figure out where they're at, where they want to go. And if this isn't a fit, I'm out because I want you happy and go take somebody else. Cause I think we both have done deals. I remember earlier I've done deals and I know I signed it and I did it. I'm like, what did you do? You knew this was going to be a pain in the ass. You knew this was going to be, and you shouldn't have done it. And, um, so, and obviously I think that happens with wisdom, the older you get. Um, but, um, that's been the biggest life-changing thing for me is just really liking myself now a lot more than I ever did.

And it sounds so, I don't want that to sound narcissistic, but it was a revelation. No, that's well, I've known this for a long time, right? Like you can't love anybody else unless you love yourself and loving yourself is one thing, but liking yourself is another thing, right? Like you can love yourself. It's like your kids, right? I tell them all the time, tell my daughter all the time. I love you unconditionally, no matter what you do. But there's days I do not like you, you know what I mean? Like, I just fundamentally don't like you because you're being a little shit, you know what I mean? So like, but I'll always love you. Right. So, and, and you mentioned something just to finish up on, on the value of time.

And I think there is a bell curve to this where all of a sudden you start thinking and for you, obviously, you know, there was a forcing function for you to really start to respect time and however many hours you have left. You know, one thing that somebody said to me recently was the time you have for others is also finite in so many ways. And once you come to this conclusion, you start to look at it differently. And the example that they, I heard, I forget who it was on this podcast I was listening to, but it might've been Tim Ferriss actually. And they said, look, um, like how old is your mom? Right. And the person was like, oh, I don't know. She's probably 60 years old. Right. And he's like, so, so how, and you know, the average age span here in the United States is 80, call it 85.

Right. So you think you got 25 years left with your mom, right? Yeah. I've got 25 years left. No, no, no. Well, let me ask you this. How often do you see your mom? Like how many times a year do you see your mom? And they're like, you know, like I usually do one, one of the holidays and, you know, we usually kind of make it a point to at least meet up at least one other time. So probably two times a year. He goes, so you do realize you only have 50 more times with your mom. Right. And all of a sudden I was like, holy shit. Like my dad passed away. Right. Last year, my mom's eight, turning 80 this year. And I only see her two, three times a year. So I'm sitting there going, I got fucking 10 meetings left with my mom.

And I'm, and so now every moment that I get a chance or every chance I get to be with her, I will go out of my way to be with her because after that I'll have nine more times with my mom after that, I'll have six. You know what I mean? And when you start looking at it that way, you start to appreciate things so much more of what's real. That's great. It's, yeah, it's almost like when you finally put a pencil to it, it's almost like running a financial plan. And when you find, you run it out and you look at it, you guys, what's that called? When you, you know, power legitimacy, when you finally see something you're writing, you put it, you put a pencil to it. It can, yeah. Cause if not, I think we're, you know, can't see the forest through the trees and just time goes by and another day goes by and another day goes by.

And yeah, no, I love that. That's good. Yeah. It's, it's, I think I wish, like I still struggle with what you and I think are at right now. And what we try to do is, is I always say, I want to help reps skip a few steps, not make as many mistakes, but you got to make the mistakes. You got to get punched in the face. So that, but I think the perspective is such an interesting thing for me from an age standpoint, right? Like around 40, I just started getting a vastly different perspective on life than I had. You know, I thought, I thought time was limitless in my 20 and my teens and my twenties and how fucking, you know, if you're 50, you're an ancient, right? And now I look at it and I'm like, holy shit, you know, if I'm lucky, I have another 30 years left in doing what I'm doing here.

You know what I mean? On this planet, trying to make a difference if I'm lucky and, you know, you start putting that finite pin on it and you start to reprioritize a lot of shit. So, you know, for reps out there listening, I think it's really important that, that, that you identify your why and your core values, but I think it's also extremely important that you keep revisiting those on a consistent basis. Yeah, they change. I mean, can you imagine finding the notes, John, of what you wrote 30 years ago, 20 years ago, what was important to you and then looking at them now. And I think, yeah, I think it's real important to revisit those often. It is huge. They've changed so much. And again, back to that, you know, just in our podcast today and talking, I, I don't wish cancer on anybody, but if there's something I wish that you could, I wish that people can get some of the lessons that I've learned through cancer.

One of them is just gratitude and being grateful. And, and I think, you know, John, you and I talked about social media and we, you put stuff out there and it could really, you know, we're in a world where people can blow stuff up, take, blow stuff up, take it the wrong way. But, um, I, I just, I just look at, you know, if you come from gratitude and just focus on helping people and you really believe in your heart and soul, the things usually are going to work out for you, man. And, uh, and, uh, I don't know how you can bastardize that message because I think people might go, well, yeah, I look at John barrels, John Kosky, you know, they've already kind of, whatever that term made it means or success, whatever that means to you.

But, um, you know, like coach K in his book, he just, you know, it's the, you know, it's truly, it really, I think the only way we get, John, it really is the destination, not the, I'm sorry. It's the journey. It's the journey, not the destination. Cause when you get there, it's almost like, it's almost a letdown. It's almost a little bit of a letdown. Like when that always is, it almost always is that my experience is because it's like, Oh, do you know what I mean? Like you get to their point, you get to the top, you get to the dollar figure, whatever it is. And you realize nothing's really changed. You know what I mean? And I've also, you know, this is, you can look at the studies on this as far as lottery winners, like people who don't earn what they get tend to be worse.

off later on than they were before. Absolutely. Yeah. It's almost like their own core beliefs doesn't match up to the volume of money. And it's, and exactly. I think, I think, I don't know if Anthony Robbins or somebody talked about that, where I think the, one of the best ways to retain that money, other than being somewhat, you know, competent with a financial planner or what have you, but, uh, is the more time you give towards helping others like charity work and stuff that kind of raises your self esteem. And in that way you feel better that you almost now deserve this pile of money. Right. Um, so yeah, he was kind of saying that, you know, we all have heard the why me, Sarah, to our syndrome, like why me, why me, when some bad happens to me, well, I think one of the things that lottery winners go through when, when they win the lottery, they say it could be a year, two years, three years into it.

They actually might have a little bit of the, why me, how did I win this thing? Right. It's almost sometimes the same thing. So yeah. The opposite of the negative, right? The opposite. Why was I blessed with this cash? And yeah, exactly. But I think for, obviously for a lot of your audience and the reps and stuff, I know that this is stuff that these two old guys are talking about, but I, I hope in your twenties, I know we referenced some things of hopefully what we can do to help them in their business careers, but at the end of the day, uh, it's going to be a journey and they're going to fail. And it's, I think it's in the second page of my book. I just said, Hey, the most successful people I met in my life, uh, they hit a wall and they figure out a way around it.

And, um, if you were to ask me what I would have done different as maybe, and you just said this from a business perspective, John, I probably wish I would have done a little bit more as a parent, uh, cause I was on the road. I'd come home. I probably rescued too quick. And what I learned is that the more I let my kids fail, the more I figured, I knew, the more I did that, the better tools they got to, to survive and succeed older in life. And if you're there to always pick them up, they don't know how to get up anymore. And I, in business, the same thing, um, when I was managing people, I think I would try to rescue quicker and then I'm like, no, they just got to go figure it out. They got to fail.

Cause that's how you learn. Well, and also to bring it full circle on the values thing, I think it's also critically important to instill values in your kids to, to be able to weather the storm. Right. I think it's more important than anything because I told my daughter that she's 11. And, you know, and she's at that age where she, you know, her best friends when she was growing up or not, are kind of diverting, you know what I mean? Like you're starting to see this and it's like, oh man. Right. And, and she's, um, you know, they're reacting in certain ways that she doesn't appreciate and, and she's getting in trouble because she says certain things and it gets taken a different way. I go, sweetheart, I know this is almost impossible for you to comprehend at this point, but if you have strong values, right.

Cause I brought almost, I brought my value exercise to her and I said, Hey, let's just go through this. Let's, let's understand what your values are. Right. And, and when we would nail that down, I said, look, now you can feel a lot better about what you're doing and how people are reacting to you because you know, you're coming from a good place. The only time you're going to, you should feel bad is if you do something that, that goes against these values. Because if it goes against those values, you're going to feel something in your gut that's just not right. And you know why it's not right. But if you don't have them written down again, you can, you can fake it till you make it in the sense.

Oh yeah, yeah, no, that's like, I'm going to do this. I know it's okay, but you know, I know it's not great, but I'm going to do it because you know, that type of thing. But when you look at down on a piece of paper and say, family is my number one priority here for me personally. And then all of a sudden it's like, okay, should I go out and play golf for five hours and get drunk with my buddies when I've been on the road for five days straight and haven't seen my wife and kids for that long? Like, no, I'm not going to go play golf. You know what I mean? Or, or when I'm selling, if I, if I fundamentally don't agree with where you're coming from, or you say something that demeans somebody else and it goes against my values, I got no problem telling you to fuck off.

You know what I mean? And I might get, I'm, you might go blast out about it and be like, oh, this guy told me to fuck off and that type of thing. It's like, well, yeah, well, this is why I told you to fuck off. So, you know, if you understand that you can, you can be a lot more at peace with yourself and, um, and what you're doing in this world to make a difference. So, well, with your daughter, I obviously, I love that story of the values with her. And I know we've heard the term and that's another thing I think we think about a lot, John, is there's a big difference between support and enable. Yeah. Oh yeah. And, uh, that's the wonderful thing. Your daughter always knows you're there for support.

And I think we also, as parents, as well as, as bosses, we don't want to enable though. Yeah. You got it. You got to figure it out. You got to let people fail and figure it out themselves. Exactly. Awesome. John, I think we could, uh, we could talk about shit for, for hours here, whether it's sales business or life. I think we, we crossed a lot of chasms here, but, um, uh, in the interest of time and probably we'll do another one of these coming up here soon. Um, where do you want people to go? Where do you, I mean, I know you got the, you got books, you got, you got your site, you got the all sorts of things. It's all on johncostigan.com, you know, that, or, um, that's probably the best place, you know, or you can connect with me on LinkedIn and that's easy to find me there too.

But, um, no, that's it. I just, you know, yeah, whatever the, you know, the online training, the stuff is there, but me, um, uh, that's the only, I only got one place to go. That's three for me. I know you, we talk about all your different brands. I don't know how you keep them straight, but I'm just one. Yeah. Cause you're smarter than I am, dude. You're still young. I'm 59. I'm like, I just go, no, I just want one thing. That's it. Just either train or speak. That's it. Done. Uh, I used to do the consulting thing and all that. It just, uh, I'm at a point in my life now, man, I just simplify stuff. Um, yeah. So why? Because golf is now, now my kids are old and they're not young like yours. So they are gone.

You know, Jackson, Nashville, Grace is in LA. Uh, so, uh, golf is actually taking over a lot of my life now. So, uh, thanks man. And by the way you, I know you and I are in the same space and this has just been something I'm so great. You're doing, and, uh, I'm jealous. I think it's great that you do it. I'm honored just to even be with you, Max. I, you know, I know you think like, well, don't they kind of both, you know, compete for the same thing. And we, I know we, there's been opportunities you and I've competed on and probably a great way to close this out is that there was a great line that, um, Tony Bennett said that Frank Sinatra told him and Tony was just coming on the scene. He was getting a little worried that he would actually be able to find enough work.

And, uh, Frank heard him saying one time and Frank said, Tony Bennett said, you know, when you're good, there's enough to go around for everybody. And I think that I'll never forget that. I think I heard it 20 years ago. And when I look at you, my brain just goes, he he's good. And I hope I'm halfway good. And if you're, if you're halfway good or halfway decent, there's enough to go around for everybody. It doesn't matter if you win deer, you lose there. As long as you sell with integrity and just believe what you're doing and you do the right things, there's enough for everybody. If you're good at what you do. So, and that's how I look at you. I go, this guy's really good at what he does and why he's successful.

So it's an honor to be here, man. Always been a fan too. And I think that falls in line with, I think a quote I heard about like, life isn't a zero sum game. You know what I mean? Like, I don't, if I win, that doesn't mean somebody else has to lose, right? Yeah, you're right. I'm a, I'm a Simon Sinek fan and his whole, uh, game, you know, his whole infinite game versus the finite game. Like the finite game would be having me look at you as a competitor and being like, oh, I got to make sure I beat John in the next deal or whatever it is. Cause whatever the infinite game is, I'm just trying to stay in the game, man. Like I'm just trying to stay in the game. And so competition, I tell my team, I go, don't ever blame the competition for you losing loot.

You lost because you either weren't the right fit and you thought you were, or you didn't sell good enough and you didn't ask the right questions. So either you need to get the fuck better or you need to figure out that that wasn't a client of yours. That's your, that's on you. That's not on the competition. So stop thinking about it that way. And, you know, it's funny in the priest, do you do, do you do pre-surveys at all before you do your training? Do you ever do any of those? Sometimes, yeah, not anymore, but I used to, yeah. There are, there's a great, this is probably a funny thing to end it on. So you mentioned about, Hey, here's why you lost, why you didn't. On a pre-survey I do, uh, it says, you know, about halfway through, it's only like 10 questions, but like question number four just says, Hey, what's the number of reason why you win business?

And then I just put a dropdown and it says, pick one. And then it says, you know, and I always put like, it says you slash relationship or this is company, prize, product, service, delivery, ready. It was all these things. And then the next question, I don't even hide it. It says, what's the number one reason why you lose? So I said, why'd you win? Why'd you lose? Why'd you win 85 to 90% of the reps? I just hit reps slash relationship. Why'd you lose? Bullshit price. Wasn't my fault. I love that. They'll take the good, not the bad. So I'm a big believer of that too, that you are too, that there's a reason why your number one reps are pretty much, unless there's a blip on the radar, there's a reason why they're good every year.

Um, because they're, they're good at what they do. And, uh, even when they go against the competition, they figure out how to quote outsell them. So anyway, um, you and I are so aligned on our thinking on that. So I like that. Well, look, I, I genuinely appreciate it. I've always, I've been a fan since I got into this space, uh, and I'm still a fan now and probably even more so, um, uh, because of the perspective I think I have and you do. And so I really appreciate you coming on this and having this conversation and let's have it again, but let's, uh, let's not have to always do it over a podcast. Let's, uh, let's catch up every once in a while. I love you, man. I'd love to, yeah, I'd love to come up near your neck of the woods.

I love that town. Yeah. Boston's a fun one. So if you're a great town, let me know. Absolutely. Awesome. Thanks, Johnny. I appreciate it, man. Love it. All right, everybody. Look, I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did and got something out of it that hopefully maybe changes your perspective and maybe helps just skip a few steps, but not all of them. Cause, uh, like John said, we all got to fail to really feel, figure out what success is like. And like I say, at the end of all my podcasts here, go out there and make somebody smile today. Cause no matter how bad your day is going or you think it is, if you make somebody smile today, you know, you had a good day and the world needs a lot more of that right now.

So thank you all very much. 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.

I'll be delivering live training the first and second week of every single month. With our two marquee courses, filling the funnel and driving a close to anybody who wants to join. And it includes membership in our on-demand platform with weekly AMAs. So you can go to jbarrows.com slash open to check out the details. Thanks again and have a great day.