​​Kasey Jones: When One Trauma Just Isn’t Enough

Did you know that every month more people use LinkedIn than live in the United States together? To say that there's opportunity out there for salespeople might be the understatement of 2022. The question really is, how are you tapping into it? If you wanna learn how to leverage the largest professional social network in the world to drive your next opportunity, then this is for you. One of the most rewarding and most popular things we do here at Sell Better are the challenges. The next installment is finally here and this one is all about LinkedIn. The five-day LinkedIn challenge kicks off June 6th and we want you to join us. Come hang out with me, Morgan J. Ingram, Devin Reed, Jed Marley, and hundreds of other fellow sales pros on this five straight days of tips, challenges, friendly competition, and a whole lot of fun.

Each day, you're gonna receive a tip and an assignment all geared towards turning into a LinkedIn powerhouse. Plus, this challenge is designed to fit your busy day-to-day schedule and enhance the activities that you're already doing. Prospecting for new business, making connections, and creating opportunities. If you wanna learn how to use the largest professional network in the world to find your ideal buyers, forge meaningful conversations, build your personal brand, and drive real opportunities, then go on and head over to jbarrows.com slash LinkedIn challenge and sign up today for free. It kicks off Monday, June 6th. Challenge yourself, sell better, and we will see you there. Let's go, y'all.

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Make It Happen Mondays, where we talk about sales, business, entrepreneurship, personal growth, mental health, and everything in between. We've guests who I truly respect and who I think make a positive impact on the world around us. And if there is anybody I know who makes a positive impact on the world around us, it's my good friend, Casey Jones. Casey is the CEO of A Better Jones. She helps entrepreneurs break through from a revenue standpoint, but also from a mental health standpoint, and really works on the whole entrepreneur to help them succeed. And I've known Casey now for about 12 years. I actually trained her and her team back in the day when she worked at a tech company.

And we talk about her journey to where she is today and all the ups and downs along the way. And man, did we get deep on this one. Casey's been through a lot of trauma. For instance, a couple of years back, she actually got attacked by a dog, literally, and almost died. And what she learned from that experience and how she uses trauma and the post-traumatic growth of it versus letting it destroy you. And what she's learned about the big T of trauma and how things, you know, what she went through is the big T. But those little T's of trauma that we all go through on a day-to-day basis and the impact they have on it is the same exact stuff as the big T's. And so she talked about how mentality and attitude are all the difference in the world.

And then we dive into things like her superpower. And oddly enough, her superpower, in her opinion, is not knowing what the hell she's talking about and making it up as she goes along, which falls right in line with what I think one of my superpowers is because I don't really believe I know what I'm talking about all the time either. And then we talk about the infinite game and competing with yourself, not anybody else, and energy, energy, energy, and how to use energy and push things in a positive direction. So I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. I hope you get as much out of it and it gets you to think a little bit differently. Enjoy. What's happening, Make It Happen family?

Big shout out to our partners today, Gong, Proposify, 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. Proposify is one of my favorite teams of all time. What they do is they make the proposal and contract processes easy for the sender and the recipient. And who can't benefit from that being a great experience, right? 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. Casey Jones, it has been far too long since we caught up. Far too long. How have you been for the past, I don't know, two years since all this crazy? I don't think we've actually talked talk since before COVID, did we? I think we have, but I think it was a short call.

But like I was trying to remember, it's been way too long. I know that. I've been good. You know what? The last two years have been absolutely bananas in a bunch of different ways. There's been, I think, and everybody's had this. I don't know anyone that hasn't had a really traumatic experience in the last two years. And I don't know if that's like a COVID thing. I don't know if that's just a life thing and we realize it more during this. But truly, I mean, everyone I know has had family members die or severe health crises or just like major, major issues. And I'm certainly not the exception. And so it's been a really interesting process of some really difficult stuff, but some stuff that I wouldn't wish on anyone, but I am also really grateful for because those are the experiences that teach us a lot about who we are and what we care about and what we want out of life.

And so it's, I think, like it's been for a lot of folks in the last two years, it's been a big, it's been a period of personal discovery in a very, very powerful and rewarding way. I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, obviously, you know, shit happens to all of us and it's all about perspective, but your perspective of the growth component to it is I've always admired your ability to talk, first of all, talk through all the shit that you go through, but then, you know, grow from it and not let it take, you know, take you down the rabbit hole that so many other people unfortunately go down. And so what do you think that, how have you been able to deal with adversity in a way that is, that has been a learning experience for you as opposed to a devastation for you?

Because I think there are people that when a mass amount of stuff negative happens to them and pressures or whatever, they tend to crumble and regress versus, you know, grow and progress from it. So where does that come from in you? It's interesting because I've done a lot of thinking and let's be real, a lot of talking with my therapist about this in the last couple years. And I've learned something kind of interesting. I actually think that where it started was actually not a healthy thing. I think my sort of default setting, yay, thank you mom and dad, is that I'm not good enough. And so I think some of my early kind of passion for personal growth, personal development, really started from this idea of like, okay, I'm a mess and I'm not good enough, but as long as I'm working on it, like that's okay.

Like it's easier for me to deal with. And so I actually think it started there. But over time, I started to realize that as long as I had the right attitude, and I'm going to share something that I've learned through this in just a second, as long as I have the right attitude, I can grow from difficult experiences. And I started, it helped me get to this point where even when I was in the thick of it and it was awful and it didn't feel like I could grow afterwards, I just knew, I just knew that something good was going to come out of whatever awful experience I was going through and it made it a million times easier to get through it. And I went through a very traumatic experience almost two years ago now and I became pretty, I learned a lot about trauma.

Is this with your dog? This is with my dog. So I was attacked by a dog. It was a, I want to be clear, I'm a dog lover. I advocate for rescuing dogs. There just was a weird situation where I didn't adopt this dog. Someone kind of left this dog with us and he had a really, really, really, really screwed up history. And so I won't go into all the details, but he attacked me. And I don't just mean like, oh, he bit me. It was like he was absolutely trying to kill me and he was an enormous dog. He was 110 pound American bulldog. And I truly 100% thought I was going to die and wound up getting the side door to my house open, started screaming for help. My neighbors came and saved me, whatever. I spent almost, what, like four days in the hospital.

I had pretty extensive surgery. It was a really long recovery and it was rough. I remember. But I learned some really incredible things through this. So I didn't know this. There's two, there's two different forms of trauma. So they, categories of trauma, I guess. They, they big, what they call capital T trauma is what we think of. It's going to war. It's being attacked by a dog. It's like life or death stuff. Right. But there's lowercase T trauma. And that's all the shit that all of us have gone through. It's the like, being in a toxic work environment, being in a screwed up marriage, being neglected by parents, being bullied, having chronic health issues, having severe health issues, like guaranteed, absolutely everybody has been through that.

And what we don't realize is that those experiences have the same effect like neurologically on our brain and on the changes in our behavior as these really severe experiences. And what I learned from going through this is that it gave me the time and the space and the, and the, and I gave myself the permission to actually heal from this trauma. And in the mix of it, it wound up kicking up tons of things from my past that I thought I had dealt with, but I really hadn't. I really hadn't. And so, I mean, I'll, I'll be real, like, you know, for six months, I cried like every freaking day. Like I, you know, it was really hard. I was in therapy twice a week for probably four months. But it led to me healing from things that I didn't even know I needed to.

And it led to a, um, a clarity and a sense of purpose and a confidence and a, like, comfort in my own skin that I didn't even know was possible. And, and one of the things that I want to be really clear about, because I think this is one of the coolest things that I learned. So there's a concept of post-traumatic growth. And this is a phenomenon where somebody goes through a really horrible experience and they experience this, like, huge, you know, progression in their lives afterwards. And the, the most, if you want to research at all, why do some people experience post-traumatic growth and some people don't? There's really only, like, one differentiating factor. And it's that they believe they can.

It's that while they are going through this experience, they have some hope, some belief that something good can come out of it. Yeah. And like, if we can just remember that, man. Well, and it's funny because I always, I mean, mentality and attitude always, to me, are so important about almost anything we do, right? I mean, you hear cancer, you hear people who have cancer and have, like, a 2% chance of living, but they say, no, fuck it. I ain't letting cancer do this. I'm going to, I'm going to beat it. And they do when it's like, versus the person that's, oh, I have cancer. I'm fucked. I'm dead. You know what I mean? It's just like, your, your brain is such an amazing thing when you turn it on and focus it in the right areas for the right reasons.

And so there, there's without question the, the attitude, the mentality, of, of how you look at things, I think. And that, and that's, was that a shift for you? I mean, did, did you, do you always look at yourself? Cause I, I, I look at myself as pragmatic, you know, I, I try to be as optimistic as possible, but, you know, I, there's, there's pessimism in me a lot, especially at the macro level, right? I, I kind of, when I zoom out and I look at where we are in the world today, I, I start to really freak out for my daughter and, and, and that's what I, and I have to stop because I'm like, I can't control all this shit, but what I can control is what I can do here. And, you know, I'm working on my why and, and ultimately it's, I'm coming down to this, like the purpose, you said, you know, you get to that purpose in life and the clarity there and I've realized that it's almost as good versus evil in me of, I, I'm, I feel like if I don't do my part that evil's gonna win.

You know what I mean? Because there's so much negative influence out there that if we, if we don't fight it, if we don't elevate other people, if we don't have positive impacts on people, even at a micro level, that eventually I will leave this planet worse off than I was, when I was here. And that's my, I think that's my fear. And, and we're getting, I'm getting to that with my therapist slash business coach is, is like, why, you know, why am I doing this? And, and I'm curious for you, you know, was there a point, was this the point for you where, where it changed your mentality or have you always been like, no, I do believe ultimately that things will work out? I think I've always had that.

I think in some ways I didn't embrace sort of, I have a friend who refers to this as full spectrum living. I think I did in moments. But what I really, I would lean into the positive in a way that I actually don't think was always healthy. Explain. So I, I, so, and you'll appreciate this. Like, I, I was raised very much in this like, you know, Northeastern stiff upper lip. Like, you don't complain and you don't brag. Like, you put your head down, you work hard. Like, I just, we did not talk about emotions. I mean, I remember my brother and I joking with like, I think it was his girlfriend. And we were, we were trying to explain to her that in our family everything is subtext. And so you can't understand what anybody thinks or what is going on by listening to what people say.

You have to read between the lines and it's really, and like, that's just how I was raised. And, and so you don't, and everything is about appearances. And so you don't talk about real things. And you, and I used to think that I was like gritty and resilient by when something really horrible would happen to me and I'd be like, no, it's okay. I see the silver lining and no, it was bullshit. It was total bullshit. And so now it's, I actually, I lean in to the hard stuff. And I remember something really powerful. I had this amazing conversation with my therapist and, and I was saying something it was like probably a year after the, the dog attack and we were talking about like my parents or something.

And I was like, Jesus, like I'm almost 40. When am I, is there ever going to be a time when I'm not talking about shit from my childhood? And he was like, he was like, here's the deal, Casey. He was like, you're always going to talk about it, but you're not going to get over the pain of it until you fall in love with the grief because that grief is a gift that your heart is trying to give yourself because it's, it's, it's the, it's, it's allowing you to process it and to like let it out. And when you try to move on from it, it just sticks around. And he was like, so you need to like make love to your grief and embrace it and love it and only then are you going to move beyond it. And what it reminded me of is I remember having this conversation, it was probably four or five months after the, the attack and I was talking to him and I remember saying that I, that I actually loved the sadness that would come up about it and I was like, honestly, it feels like a warm hug.

I feel like I'm wrapping myself in a blanket and like, and I was like, I don't know if that's screwed up that like, I kind of love it and he was like, no, that means you're giving yourself what you really need and like, it's okay. What was that movie, the cartoon movie where all the cartoons were in the head of that and there was like anger, sadness, happy, inside out. And it was such a beautiful thing at the end there when sadness, when, when happy finally let sadness like be involved, right? Because happy kept being like, no, no, no, sadness, stay in your corner. Like, no, no, no, no, no, don't touch anything. And, and then all of a sudden she let sadness in and it amplified happiness, right?

Because you can't have one without the other. We don't know what pure joy is if we don't know sadness. And it's interesting, I, I'm just going to say I haven't read the book yet, but I just bought this book Bittersweet that is apparently all about that, about this idea of we have to experience this full spectrum because that's life. That is life. And, and you think about our, our, our purpose. It's like, no, I'm still, I'm still trying to figure it out. But I know that a big part of it is I have been able to learn how to turn pain into beauty and, and pain into good things. And I know that that is like a gift that I have because of what I've gone through and because I've not just gone through it, but I've done the fucking work and I continue to do the work to, to embrace it and learn from it and all the rest.

And I, if I could, if, if I could help one other person learn how to do that, it would feel like the, the greatest reward I could possibly earn in this life. So is that why now? Because you've been on a journey for your career too, right? I mean, you've been a little all over the place doing a little bit of this, a little of that. I mean, we've met, we met you when you were at Good Data, right? Way back then. Oh yeah. I was like, what, 10 years ago? I was leading a team of SDRs. Yeah. Like a million freaking years ago. And, and since then, you know, you've, you've been on an interesting journey. And so right now, like talk, talk me through that journey since, and, and help educate the audience here on, on since you were that SDR, kind of the, the standard SDR manager, doing the grind, you know, managing teams, you know, going through dipshit training like me, you know, and then, and then where'd you go?

So it was while I was at, it was while I was at Good Data, I remember I applied for an account manager job. And, and I had been a full, full cycle salesperson before, but I, I wasn't working in tech. And so when I took the job at Good Data, that was my first job in tech. And I remember when they offered it to me, I was like, no, I'm not going to go be an SDR. Like, come on. Like I close, like I'm going to, like I close deals. No, no, no. And then I realized, okay, I I'm going to need to take a small step back to take a big leap forward. And so I helped build out this team. I let it. And then I applied for an account manager job and I didn't get it. And literally everyone was like, you're a shoe and you're going to get it.

And I didn't get it. And I think, I think the fricking heavens that I did not get that job. Cause I think about being an account manager now. And I'm like, I would have sucked at it. It requires all the skills that I just am not terribly good at. And, but they knew that, um, I was going to leave if they didn't do something. And I had an amazing boss who really looked out for me. I also appreciate, here's some advice for any of the SDRs that are listening. He really advocated for me and I thought it was cause he was just an amazing boss. And like years later we were talking about it and he was like, Casey, I didn't do that for everyone. He was like, but you were the one that was constantly in my office being like, I want to do more of this and less of this.

And how do I do it? Like just constantly talking in his ear so that when he heard about, they had a new, um, new job opening for, um, a field marketing manager. And basically they, at that point, the sales, they had like 24 sales reps. I think the ones who covered New York, Boston and the Bay area all got inbound leads and like all the other ones, they'd get like one and it would be shit. And so they really said, we need to find someone who can help us figure out how to get inbound needs for all these other sales reps. And I had no guidance. There was no plan. I had no clue what I was doing. And I freaking killed it. I was like, I killed it within three quarters of the five marketing campaigns with the highest ROI.

I owned three of them. And the only one that beat me out was the contact us form on the website. There you go. Um, and I, and I loved it and I loved it. And so since then it's been, um, I've, I've been a marketer and I've done absolutely everything in marketing from events, um, um, like community stuff, partnerships, demand gen, like you name it. And, um, how old am I? I don't know, five and a half, five years ago, I started my own business, um, only because the startup where I was head of marketing ran out of money. And I was like, sure. Okay. Why not? Like, I didn't really think it through. Um, and so I've been spending the last kind of five years, um, working with primarily early stage startups on, on how do you accelerate revenue?

And one of the things, and I, I want to point this out as well, because this took me a long time to learn what makes me different. So is that I'm not trained? I'm not a train marker. I have never taken a class in it. I don't, I really don't know what I'm doing. Do any of it. That has all, that has always been my, my, like my superpower. I understand sales way better. I understand revenue way better. And I work with the sales team like 10 times better than like most marketers. And that makes me so much better at what I do. And I used to be really like embarrassed about it. And I used to kind of hide it. And now I really embrace like, no, I I'm not a traditional marketer. And that's actually what makes me really good at what I do.

It's funny you bring that up. It's the, you know, to a certain degree, the imposter syndrome and the, you know, I, I've always felt that a little bit myself too. Like, I honestly have no fucking idea what I'm doing. I just do it. And, you know, and I'm reading all these, you know, I'm listening to all these podcasts and listening to all these CEOs and how they look at metrics and this and all this other stuff. And I'm like, I don't know. Like, this just feels right. Like, we should be going in this direction. And look, I know I have to grow and learn. And I think it's important, but I think there is something about willful ignorance of, of being like, you know what? Fuck it. I'm going to figure this out versus I'm going to rely on a historical structure of how it's supposed to be done.

Yeah. Well, and, and what winds up happening is that opens you up for way more innovative solutions because every problem that I approached, I had no idea what other people did. And so I would just figure out some totally kind of scrappy solution to doing it. And, and PS one of my specialties honestly was the fact that I would use sales development style messaging to invite people to marketing things. And it, when I would suggest that it was like, I mean, seriously, like people's minds were blown and I'd be like, what do you, why is this a big deal? Like this seems so obvious to me. And, but it was, and, and so it was, it's always been like, coming from this non-traditional background has always really been an advantage.

And yeah, sometimes it does mean that I'm, you know, I'll never get a job at like a, a big company to do their marketing because they need things to be way fancier, but like, but I don't want exactly. And so it's just anybody listening truly. I know that there are things that you're thinking like, Ooh, I'm not like everyone else and I need to hide this or I need to hedge this in some way. Guaranteed. There's something about that that makes you more powerful. You just have to, you just have to spot it and figure it, figure it out and like embrace it, like lean into it because it is, it's, it's your differentiator. I think I, I've realized that my superpower is an opportunistic lens in the sense that I, I look at things and, and I, and I think I, I hope this isn't laziness.

I hope it's, I hope it's actual because it's proved out more often than not where I can look at something. And with two or three data points, I'm like, yep, that makes a, that's, that's a good idea without having to overanalyze it without having to do a huge ROI on it, you know, and do I swing and miss? Absolutely. But for the most part I'll swing. And, and it's funny because even going through negotiations, most people think, you know, I train negotiations, right? So I must be a great negotiator. I'm a fact, I'm actually a fucking terrible negotiator. I honestly, especially when, when people are buying things from me. And, but the funny thing is, is it almost always works out in the end, which is why I believe in karma, which is why I believe in what goes around, comes around.

Like I'll weigh over pay a quick example. Like, you know, Jeff Hoffman, right? My mentor. Well, we did a resell agreement when we went from Basho to Kensei. Okay. And you'll, you'll love this story. Um, when we went from Basho to, then when they went belly up and then my business partner and I, Eric, we started Kensei partners. Basho forced Jeff to, uh, allow us to continue to resell his IP because he wanted it back. And they forced him to sign a contract for $20,000 to get his IP back with us. So all we had to do was pay him 20 grand to resell this IP. And we did like 1.4 or 5 million the first year out. Okay. On 20 grand on his content for your contract with that. And I knew, and he's a master negotiator.

And I knew that he, that just stuck in his craw. Like he hated it. And so I kept talking to Eric. I'm like, dude, we have to address this because the closer we get to that end, the higher that price is going to go. And he might just yank it from us all together. And then we're out of business. And my, my business partner was like, no, no, no, we're going to milk this for everything we got. And I'm like, dude, I'm out. So I bailed after four years. I went directly to Jeff and I said, look, I'll give you 50 grand twice as much, more than twice as much as this. And people were like, what are you doing? Spending that in Eric's like, you an idiot. And everybody else was like, dude, you know, sales IP is not like you can basically just take the slide deck and change a few words.

And there's nothing anybody can do about it. Right. I'm like, out of house, not is right. And then fast forward, I wanted more freedom. So I went back and I renegotiated. And this time it was going to be a hundred thousand to, to give me carte blanche to do whatever the hell I wanted to do with his IP. Um, but then it worked out where I was maybe going to buy his IP. So we did 150,000 with 50 going towards an acquisition, potential. And everybody I talked to was like, are you're going to spend $150,000 a year to resell IP that is already out there in the atmosphere and, and you could do whatever you want with, what are you doing? And a, I was like, first of all, it's not my IP. And I don't want to take credit for something that's, that I didn't do now.

Don't get me wrong. I've developed a lot of my own and all that other stuff, but, and B so that therefore it's not the right thing. It's not the right thing. And B I don't want to have to look over my shoulder all the time at somebody who's, who could come after me and shut me down. And guess what? It was another four year contract with the fourth year being free. So that it was supposed to be a hundred for four years, but it was 150, 150, 150. The fourth year was going to be free. And then we were going to potentially, you know, go into another one. He came to me. And, and I mean, my wife was like, you're fucking crazy. Everybody to me is, you're fucking crazy. And I'm like, it's just, I don't know, by the way, I was doing like $2.53 million off of this stuff.

So to me, 150,000 was like, what the fuck ever. It's worth your fricking ethics. Exactly. And so we sat down and he comes over probably once a quarter and we sit in my backyard and we get stoned and just shoot the shit and talk fun stuff. And, and we negotiate. He's the only person I'll ever negotiate stoned with. Like I don't, obviously it's a bad idea to negotiate stone, but I trust him. I trust him and he's way better than me. So I'm not going to pretend to negotiate with literally the master of negotiations. And he sat down and I was like, yeah, Jeff. So I just, I did want to talk to you about the contract. I think. And he goes, stop. And I go, what? He goes, um, before you even say anything, John, he goes, I want to let you know that what you've done with this content and how you've treated me because everybody else was fucking him.

Like people, like there's people who stole it. He had to get in a lawsuit with somebody else. He's like, you have been overly generous with your approach. You have been a steward of this content. Like, I can't believe what you've done with this and what you've created as part of it. He's like, I couldn't be more proud. You don't owe me a dime. Moving. And I was like, what? He goes, nope. He's like, we are not renegotiating our contract. He's like, you can do whatever you want. You don't owe me a penny. And I was like, fuck yeah, universe. Like, you know what I mean? Like when that arc comes back. 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 JBSales 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, 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. Don't get me wrong. Like I'm pretty freaking woo-woo, especially these days. And so like, yeah, the universe, but no, thank yourself. Like, because that's the thing when we put that, when we put that energy out there and we do what we know deep in our heart is like what is right and what is good, even when it doesn't work out, like it still feels okay. You know, I'd rather. And too many people sacrifice that side for a couple bucks. And it's that infinite game. I've been doing a lot of thinking about Simon Sinek's infinite game and how, you know, there's the finite game and the infinite game.

And the infinite game is just, you're, you're, you're playing to stay in the game. You're not playing to win. Yeah. And I think for oddly enough, I've always been very competitive. I hate to lose, but it, but it's not about, it's not about competing with somebody else. It's, it's more competing with me and, and being, you know, pissed that I, I, I lost because I could have done better. It's not because I lost against somebody else or I'm trying to beat somebody else. Because to me, that's, that it's kind of like, you know, tactically here, I talk about competition. I remember there was a distinct point in my career where I was so fixated against, about selling against my competition. Right. When I, cause I was trying to sell against, I was trying to beat my competition that I lost focus on selling to my customer.

And I, I, that realization, I lost one time to a competitor and I was so pissed. And I'm like, wait, I didn't lose to my competitor. I lost because the client didn't see value because I wasn't focused on them. You weren't paying attention about the right things. And I'm like, fuck competition. So now I'm like, I don't care the competition. People are like, who are your competition? I'm like, I don't know. I don't, I don't care. I don't know. Like if I lose. And truly. Yeah. I don't care what industry you're in. If you are focused, if you are focused on the competition, you are missing the point and you are leaving money on the table because, there's, there's room for all of us. There's, there's room for all of us.

I don't care. I don't care what you do. I don't care what your product is. I don't care what your services. There is room for you to be incredibly successful by, by being you. And if you focus on the competition, you lose. What makes you great? That's why I don't understand. Like people that look at life as a zero sum game, right? I have to win. You have to lose for me to win. Like I, there are very few instances outside of like sports and, and the finite game, right? That you win, I lose type of thing. But in life, there's very few areas that I look at and I say, you know, somebody else has to lose for me to win. And, and I don't know if that comes with maturity. I don't know that comes with perspective.

Um, but I, I, I kind of wish a lot more people had that mentality of like, Hey, as long as you're a good person, you're trying to do your thing, man, like, fuck it. Let's, let's try to help each other out. And that goes to your circle too, right? Like if you're around a circle of people that aren't cheering for you to win. And that's why, I don't know about you, but there's been times where, you know, make a decent amount of money. I've been pretty successful. Uh, over my career, I'm not a multimillionaire by any stretch of the imagination, but you know, that sometimes it's like you feel guilty when you have that success that you can't talk because you have the people around you that are going to be jealous of that, that are going to be like, not give you not be like, Oh my God.

Like, you know, one of my good friends who I hired at my first company, well, he's a kid that I hired. He called me up another beautiful story. This is, I mean, again, universe. Thank you. Um, hired him. I gave him a chance at thrive and nobody wanted this kid. And I was like, no, I like this kid. And, and he came in long story short, I got fired. He took over his VP of sales and he stayed at thrive networks and whatever. My dad passes away. I'm in, um, I'm in Aruba. Right. And my head's all fucked up. Like we were there for two months. Right. And I had gone home for four weeks, came back and I'm just walking the beaches, trying to deal with this shit. Right. And I get this phone call and he goes, Hey John, he goes, uh, I want to say thanks.

I'm like, why for what he goes, um, because of the chance you gave me, um, thrive, just recapped, uh, private equity and rolled back, you know, for another. And, uh, I'm now a multimillionaire and, um, my family will never ever have to worry about anything ever again in their lives. And now that kid now is far more quote unquote rich and quote unquote successful than I am. Okay. And it did nothing but fill my heart with joy. Yes. Nothing. There was not a, there was not a jealous bone in my, in my body. And it, and it, and to me, the purity of that and seeing him win. Was, was the best phone call I got that entire year in that moment too, when I'm in the worst part of my head of, of what I'm trying to figure out and what this whole thing about my dad, you know, passing away means and everything else.

And it was just, it's that, it's that everybody else, everybody can win. Everybody can win. And, and, and, and one of the things that I've, I think a lot about, and, and, and honestly, this whole like attack was a big, like eye opener for me. So, so that happened on June 10th. So when I was in the hospital, and first of all, I don't want, I don't, I don't have like TV, TV at home. Like we like stream everything. And so I don't, I'm not like exposed to like normal TV very often, but I'm in the hospital and I'm trying to watch TV and it's all George Floyd protests and cop shows. And like, that's literally it. And I couldn't handle it. It was like, I could not handle it. And for months afterwards, I couldn't, I couldn't watch anything that was like remotely negative.

So I became obsessed with the great British baking show. Oh my God. It's the best thing ever. It's like, you know, we're used to American cooking competition shows where everyone's an asshole and is like being mean to each other. They're so kind. And by the way, like the only thing they win is a freaking glass cake stand. That's it. That's it. That's all like, you know, they're in it for the experience. It's adorable. And Ted Lasso. Oh my God. Ted Lasso. I got to watch that. I watched a couple of them. Kim watched the entire series. You have to. I watched a few episodes. I thought it was absolutely beautiful. It's beautiful. And I've watched the first season seriously like eight times. And and and I was like a really early like adopter.

Like I watched it like right when it came out because I really was like there's no television I can watch because everything is so negative. And what it's done for me since then is I really think a lot about what we consume. Oh God. And and and not just the content we consume, but also the energy, the people. And so I'm so much more kind of militant, honestly, about like if someone has like a bad energy or like I leave a call with them and I'm just like I don't feel great about life for myself, like, nope, I'm not. I'm just like not talking to them again. And like I've totally ghosted people where I'm just like, nope, nope. Like and I don't think we do that enough. Like we're often just so we're trying to be like nice.

And so we allow ourselves to be affected by the energy of people that don't freaking deserve it. I said that I have been actually if you listen because I took a break on the podcast by, you know, towards the end of last year, just because, again, I'm a little burnt out, little confused, little, you know, not clear, all this other stuff. And then when we kicked it back into gear, I committed to there's I'm not talking to anyone that doesn't bring positive energy to the conversation that I don't want to talk to for the right reasons. And for the past four or five years, I have been militant just like you with removing drama, removing people who I'm friends with, I've grown up with who are just drama queens or kings.

And it's just like, dude, you live in drama. Like, I'm sorry. You seek it out. Yeah. Like, I'm sorry. No. I can't be around you because it's just it's it's draining. And it's one of the things I'm really working on right now because I'm part of this Sedona trip that I'm taking for the kind of vision quest and stuff next week, which I again, I'm really excited about is after that, I'm going to go for two days in Arizona with a colleague to help kind of think through a keynote that I want to put together. And I'm starting to circle the wagons around this whole the whole concept of energy management and versus time management and and the impact of of where to focus your energy. And there's something to it.

And the more I dive into it, there is there is really something. And it's not just energy of like positive or negative, it's like your times of day, like what what gets you what, you know, what gets you excited, what what fills you with energy versus what takes energy away from you, what energizes you or what drains you and yes, time of day. And by the way, you know, this won't be relevant for you. But a huge aha for me is when I learned about the concept of cycle syncing, which didn't know that was a thing, where it's women really talking about how you can actually kind of plan some of your work around your menstrual cycle, because guess what, like hormones and the different ways that those affect you, you actually when you are a little bit more intentional about it, and men, they have circadian rhythms.

Hello, our entire culture is based around men's clocks, men's hormonal cycles. And so just being able and it was a huge aha for me when I would be like, and I get like really frustrated that I wasn't like super psyched to work out. And then I'd look at my, my calendar, and I'd be like, Oh, yeah, because my hormonal fluctuations, like no, I actually, why don't I do some like, yoga or some long walks that feels way more restorative, it feels much more supportive of kind of where I am mentally and physically. And once I just started being a little bit more intentional, it was like, it was liberating in this amazing way. And so I think what you're talking about, I think this is a message a lot of people need to hear is that it's okay for you to not grind it out 24 hours a day, like and instead be intentional about what you do and when you do it.

It's like a gift you can give to yourself. And it does have a very positive impact in, you know, the other shit we care about, like productivity and blah, blah, blah. Well, I mean, that's why I wish people would stop like, Oh, join the 5am club. It's like, yeah, for people that like to wake up in the morning, sure, join the 5am club. But like my wife, she is miserable in the morning, no matter how hard she's tried to get up early and you know, whatever, but she'll stay up until three o'clock in the morning and hammer out a whole bunch of shit. And by the way, that changes over the years too. I was like that too. For a while, I was the most productive by far at like 11, 12, one o'clock in the morning.

Like my, my first hire, Megan, my COO, she literally had to adjust her schedule to just do all, like she basically would work, wouldn't work in during the day. She would just take care of her kids. She would do whatever she needed to do because she knew after I got done traveling or whatever, that all of a sudden nine o'clock her email inbox would start lighten up because that's when I would start doing work. And so she's like, okay, well, fuck it. I, that's when, that's when John has his energy. So I'm going to be there. So I'm going to shift it there. And now I'm different. Now I'm actually going to bed at nine, 10 o'clock at night these days, because I just, I don't know if it's age, I don't know if it's energy, but I get up at five o'clock now, five 30 now.

And it's, and it's not because I have an alarm. It's because that's when I wake up at this point. And so it's, it's interesting to pay attention to that. And I, and I hope I can kind of understand it a little bit more so I can, I can, I can be intentional with it as opposed to just kind of this, this whole concept of the energy audit, right. Of like, what do you do throughout the day? What gives you energy? What takes away? And so I'm trying to figure out what's a, what a good play on that is so I can understand it. I'm pretty clear on what it is, what gives me energy and what doesn't, but it's a powerful tool because I've realized, for instance, I love training. Training gives me energy, but what doesn't give me energy is the prep is the sale of the training, the prep for the training, the reviewing exercises for reps and doing the follow-up, like all that stuff, like, Oh, that sucks so much energy away.

But you put me in front of a camera and you let me go with the content that we have. And I like, I light up like a Christmas tree because it's just, I, cause I love doing it. And so I'm trying to figure out that balance of how do I, how can I do that while not doing all the other shit? Right. So, yeah. Well, and I think that's, that is one of those, oftentimes we, we think that there's something wrong with us when we struggle with the other parts about our work that we don't love doing. And when you can just be okay with the fact that like, no, I just don't love doing that. And I'm not really that great at it. And honestly, it's like, yeah, I used to run an agency and you and I, I don't think we've talked about this.

The reason why I stopped running an agency, first of all, I developed severe vertigo. I think you, I remember this, I think I remember a while back. Oh yeah. And it was like, um, I'm not exaggerating. Like imagine the worst drunk spins you've ever had, but like while completely sober. And, um, I, I was talking to my, oh my God, it's the benefit of getting drunk. No, it was awful. It was awful. And, um, I was talking to my doctor cause I went to like urgent care and they're the ones that diagnosed it. And like a week later, maybe 10 days later, I went and saw my doctor and she was like, Casey, why now? And I was like, what do you mean? Why now? Like, I don't freaking know. It's a viral ear infection.

Like she goes, no, no, no. She's like, this is stress. Why now? And I immediately burst into tears and I really was like, and I remember going home that night and I was like, Oh, I hate running an agency because what you do when you run an agency is you need to be a damn good project manager or you need to have hired a project manager. And guess what? I'm a shit project manager and I hate it, hate it. And so it was this big aha where I was like, yeah, I'm really good at the strategy, but I've set up a business where it's not about strategy. It's about tons of minute execution. And I hate that. It's like the worst part of being an in-house marketer with none of the upside. And like, it was such a huge aha for me.

And I think there's so many of us that go through this where you realize like you've created a business or you've created a career because you're good at one thing, but that one thing requires you to do all these other things. And you just don't even really give yourself the time in this and the freedom to think about the fact that like, Oh, I hate doing that. Like that, that part sucks. How could I not do that? Well, and I think that's, so you, this is where that energy management thing for me is like, I got this matrix of like, what are your goals? What are your priorities? And then, so the concept is it helps you achieve. So this, whatever the activity or thing is, it either helps you achieve your goals or it doesn't, and it gives you energy or it doesn't.

So the quadrant and the idea is everything that gives you energy and, and helps you achieve your goals go all in, but everything that doesn't give you energy or sucks energy away and does not help you achieve your goals, literally fuck all take that chunk. And that's people that's processes, that's companies, that's clients, that's added, whatever it is, cut that box and fucking ship it out to sea. And you will immediately have more time back. You will immediately have more happiness. And it's, it's a really kind of liberating part just to, just to recognize that this is all the bag of shit stuff that I'm doing that I don't like doing and doesn't help in any way, shape or form of what I'm trying to accomplish.

And the moment you give yourself the like permission to say, no, I'm just not going to do it. That immediately feels like, I mean, it feels like freedom, but it also feels like, I don't know, like love because you're actually doing something for yourself. You're actually saying like, Hey, I see you. I hear you like big hug. Let's, let's, let's avoid doing these things that wear us down. And I think way too often we're just, we don't do that for ourselves and it, it starts to eat away at us. That's, that's where burnout comes from. Yeah. The, the, I'll bring it back to Hoffman. He said something a while back that was really interesting to me as a, as an entrepreneur and as a business owner. Um, a lot of us get stuck in the bad situation where we are working for our business, which is an insane thing to think about.

You started a business that is yours, but yet you're working for it. Whereas what it should be, it should be an asset. It should be your assets. That's why you started it. So you have an asset that eventually can grow towards something that'll, you know, provide value for you and your family and everything else. And so when he said that to me, I was like, damn it, you're right. Like, I need to start looking at this as less of a job and more of an asset and looking at that asset and saying, what does this asset need from me to grow? Yeah. And that shift of tactically, let me go work and do the things and I need money and all this other stuff. It's like, whoa, that that's me working for this business.

I, this business should work for me because I'm the owner of it for crying out loud. And so I need to figure out how I can grow it without working for it. And it kind of, it, it, in a weird, it, it almost like depersonalizes it in a way that I think is really helpful and healthy because we don't, I don't know. We don't always think about it that way, right? Exactly what you're saying. This isn't, this is an asset. No, no. And, and so you get, it's so easy to kind of get caught up in everything that you're doing and not, not take that step back of looking at it from kind of a broader scope. Um, and it's interesting. I've been having this conversation with someone about, you know, okay, it's an asset, right?

It's an asset that we invest in. Okay. What do we all know is like the basic rule of investing? It's diversification. But as a founder, as an entrepreneur, it's really freaking hard to diversify because all your time is being spent on this one thing. And so if we can start to think about our business, the way an investor would, I don't mean like a VC investor, but like an investor where you can start to be a little bit more objective about where there is opportunity and where there isn't. And I will say it's a fine line because I've also noticed sometimes a decision or a choice or a, uh, uh, a new direction in the business makes really, really smart business sense, but you also know it's not right for you and that's hard, right?

And so it is this balance of, of it being incredibly personal and you having to, having to make decisions that are truly best for you, but also being detached enough where you can recognize exactly what you're talking about. Like, what can I do for this asset so that I can do what I need to do or what I want to do? Cause if you're not, if you're not healthy, the business won't be healthy period. And I, and that's just not for business owners, you know, that's for, that's for sales reps. That's, you know what I mean? Like it, your numbers will directly correlate to how you personally feel ultimately, you know, maybe not in the short term, I could crush this quarter and feel like shit. Right. But ultimately it's going to come back and bite me in the ass and I'm going to go down a negative, like it'll eat away at me eventually in, in, in either manifest itself in stress and vertigo or, or, or bad results or whatever it might be, or getting fired because your attitude is, is shit.

Or being an asshole to your partner or your kids or whatever, like it's going, the cost of that is going to eat away at you. And I think one of the other things to always remember is that no one gives as much of a shit about you as you do or you need to. And so sometimes you should, and you, you, you, we sometimes are like, Oh no, I got to give it all for this business. And it's like, they're not going to give it all for you. So you have to put yourself first. It is the whole, like, you know, we all know the airplane oxygen mask analogy. You've got to put the mask on yourself first. Um, cause truly like if it were like, if it were your boss, I'm sure your boss is wonderful and everything, but like he or she is just most likely to like, not even notice that you need oxygen and just like kind of let you with it.

That's what hit me about corporate, by the way, when I was, when I was living in corporate for my early career, it dawned on me that no matter how good I was, no matter how much that, that person said, they cared about me when it came down to it, it was me. It was them before me. They were going to fire me no matter what, no matter how cool I thought I was, no matter how much friends now, how much, when it came down to a decision of them versus me, it's always going to be them. And so I was like, I can't, I don't, I can't, I can't live in this environment for me personally. Now, other people figure out that game and know how to play it really, really well. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but for me, it was, uh, this, this doesn't feel right.

Like knowing that I am replaceable, um, for any reason that is outside of my control is not something I'm cool with. Yeah. And look, it's, it's, they're doing, they're doing the same thing we're talking about how you need to do for yourself, right? A business is not really going to survive if they care more about the people than the success of the business. Um, and it's a really hard. And that's one of the things that let's be real. Like that is a really hard thing as an entrepreneur is, and, and it, and it's, I wasn't great at being a boss because I didn't, I often did not do what was best for the business. Cause I felt this like, you know, kind of misguided loyalty to the people that worked for me and it wasn't smart, especially during COVID.

Um, but you ha you kind of have to, you, you have to balance those things as a boss and as a, as a business. Well, and also sometimes it's not like, you know, what I found is a lot of times your guilt, our guilt of like, oh, that poor employee, right? They're not very good. So I, I should fire him, but right. No, this is where like, I go back to Jack Welsh, right? Jack Welsh had, everybody thought he was so draconian with his distribution of talent and always cut off the 10%. And he goes, first of all, can we back up for a second? I'm not that draconian with it. I don't just, no matter what I just shave off the 10%. He goes, but let me ask you something. Say you have an employee who isn't very good.

They're average at best. And you're not really comfortable telling them the bad news. So every performance review they get, you tell them, oh, you're doing okay. And so they have this false sense of, Hey, I'm okay at my job then. So year over year, you get this performance review that you're slightly okay at what you do, even though, you know, you're not, everybody knows you're not very good. And you probably should have been fired a long time ago. Now the downturn in the economy hits and layoffs come. Well, who gets laid off first? The bottom, like the people who saw them, like the bottom broke. And then they, they move up and they just try to really hold onto their top tier reps or whoever it is.

So now all of a sudden that person who's been told for a while that they've been pretty decent because you haven't been willing to have the hard conversation or let them go. Now you fire them and they have this horrible sense of self-worth because they thought they were good. And now they're getting fired. His point is no, as bad as it sounds, I'm going to come to you and say, Casey, you don't suck in general. You just suck at this. I'm going to let you go right now. So you can go find out what you're great at. Cause you're just not great at this. You're, you're great at something. You're just not at great at this. And it, and that sounds horrible. Cause you know, especially nobody likes getting fired.

But for me, for instance, when I got fired from Staples, holy shit, it was the greatest thing. I thought it was the worst thing that ever happened to me. It was the greatest thing that had ever happened to me in my career. So, well, and, and yeah, that story that I told about not getting the account manager job, I had been there longer. Everyone loved me. Like I had this amazing kind of reputation at, at good data. It would have been very easy for the guy that who led account management to be like, you know what? Casey deserves it. She's been here longer. She puts great numbers in. Didn't love like our interview, but I, you know what? Everyone says I should give it to her. I'll give it to her.

And I could have easily been that account manager and I would have totally sucked at it. And I would have been kind of miserable. And, but, and it sucked when I didn't get it and it was totally embarrassing, but it is what led to me realizing that like, no, there's lots of things about being in sales or account management that I'm not good at. And I, and I've always said it, right? I have the brain of a marketer, but I have the heart of a sales person. That's why I love freaking sales people. But I needed to be in a job where I got to, you know, solve really, really complex problems and do these kind of weird things that I do. And easily they could have done exactly what you're talking about of like, Oh, well, we'll just give it to whatever.

And I would, I, my career would have been completely different. And so I agree with you, like you letting someone kind of flounder. It's, you're not doing them any favors. You're just preventing them from, from finding something that lights them up. Or this is like the theme of energy, right? You are, you are blocking them from finding something that energizes. And by the way, that's the same thing with relationships too. I mean, how many people do you know are sitting in relationships that are, you know, are wrong and, and, but they don't want to admit it because they're comfortable because it's right. And then they wake up and they're 50 and they're like, fuck, you know what I mean? And they get divorced.

And now you're sitting there as a single 50 year old, like, you know, and it's like, Oh, good Lord. So I just, Oh yeah. When we all know those, we all know those people, too many of them, unfortunately. Well, look, um, we didn't even get to the topic I wanted to chat about today, by the way. So I, I'm going to, we'll put a teaser for the next one. Um, I have one question and I'm going to ask, I'm going to tell everybody right now on this podcast, Google right now, Jay Barrow's blog. We need to talk, read that pod, that blog post, watch that webinar and look through that spreadsheet. And the whole concept was we got to get rid of the bro culture in sales. And how long ago was that? Uh, Casey was like three years ago for that was, it was probably three and a half years ago.

Cause I think that that was fall of 2018 on a scale of one to 10. I'm going to tease this out because we want to get dive into this later of one or zero being absolutely no change or negative. You can go negative on this and 10 being like, Oh my God, women are completely accepted and there's no bro culture in sales in any way, shape or form. Give me the news about how we've progressed since then. What do you think? Have we made little improvements? No improvements? I think we've made little improvements. I think in the biggest thing that I see is, is a much greater sense of community among women in sales and among some really strong allies. And so I think there, there has been change. Um, there are also in lots of ways that really hasn't been changed.

Um, and we can, we can kind of dive into all of this. Um, but there has been, there has been change and there has been some positive movement, just not nearly as much as, as I would like. There's never, it's never as much as we'd like, right. Black lives matter, LGBT women, like, I mean, baby subs, but I go back to one of the comments I was saying earlier about that, this, that constant struggle of good versus evil. And, you know, that's why it's so important to, to do the little positive things, no matter how small you think they might be to try to build momentum, to fight the negative momentum that is out there right now, that we all, to your point that we all see on TV, that we all watch on the news.

And I, for some reason I still can't completely unplug myself from the news and it pisses me off. Cause I know it makes me a miserable person. Um, I have gotten off Facebook that that's a big plus for me. Um, uh, I'm still on Instagram, but, uh, Instagram I find is a funner, like a nicer place. Oh yeah. Yeah. Cause it doesn't, you don't get bombarded by things that you don't like you can curate it much, much better. And it's, it's a way more like videos of puppies and kittens and stuff than like, you know, like horrible news stories and stuff like that. Awesome. Well, Casey, it was awesome catching up with you as always, uh, always, always a pleasure. I'm so sorry. It's been so long. I want to, I, let's, let's make sure that, uh, it doesn't go so, so long.

And, and again, just, um, thank you, you know, for, for sharing what you do. Um, you know, I think you're, you're one of the more vulnerable people I see out there and put yourself out there on social, which I think is hard, uh, for, for, for anybody, um, especially to talk through some of the things that you've been through. And I, and I, and I do believe you say that, you know, if there's one person that you can help, uh, based on what you've gone through, there's no question. There's, there's a lot more than that. So keep doing what you're doing and thanks for everything you do and who you are. Thank you. Any, uh, any place you want to point people, uh, just out of curiosity? Um, uh, I don't know, always, um, come find me on social.

Um, I, I do a lot on LinkedIn. I also do a lot on Tik TOK. I saw that in the notes too. I want to, I definitely need to talk to you about Tik TOK. Come find me on Tik TOK. Because I'm struggling with that. I'm like, I don't know. It's a totally different, it's a totally different thing. And I'll be honest. I don't really talk about, I don't talk about business. I don't talk, I talk about life. Um, and I talk about a lot of really, really personal shit on there. Um, but it's a, it's, it's a fascinating world that it's not just teenagers dancing. It turns out it's also geriatric millennials. Yes. That's what they call us now. Good times. Um, talking about trauma, whatever. So weird. Awesome. Well, yes, it's, and for people listening to the podcast and not watching here, it's Casey K A S E Y Jones.

And is what's, is that the name of your, I don't even know these days. What's the name of your company? Is it? Uh, a better Jones. It's still a better Jones and a better Jones is my handle on all social media. Awesome. Thank you so much, Casey and everybody. Thank you for listening. As always, if you enjoy this as much as I do, would love it. If you go on whatever streaming service and give us a little review, five stars would be appreciated. We're trying to get the word out there to spread positivity. And as I always say, at the end of all my podcasts, no matter how bad your day is going, go out there and make somebody smile today. Cause if you make somebody smile today, you know, you had a good day and the world needs a lot more of that.

So thank you so 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.