Scott MacGregor: Gratitude Attracts ‘Amazing People’

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 there is no better person that I know that makes a positive impact on the world around us than my friend Scott McGregor. Scott McGregor is the CEO of Something New, which is a recruiting firm that we actually use here at JBSales and for all the right reasons, but Scott is one of the most, I don't even know how to describe him from a gratitude standpoint. He gives way more than he gets back and he's one of the best people I know. And we talk about him growing up and how he grew up poor and how gratitude actually helped him put things in a perspective growing up and also understanding his privilege in this world and what that means to him.

Talked about giving back and why he started his business and how being bootstrapped made it difficult for him to live his vision and purpose about giving back, but doing it in a way where it didn't have to be monetary. He actually leveraged his relationships he has built over time and what that meant with his book Standing O and the series that he's put out there, which I highly recommend everybody grab. Talked about playing the long game and looking at things not just for short-term gratification, but how important it is to play that infinite game that we keep talking about here and not looking for those short-term successes or at least how to balance that. And last but not least, just being open to receiving gratitude and how important that is and what I've learned recently that has made that something that I need to pay a lot more attention to.

So I hope you enjoy this as much as I did. And I encourage you to think about gratitude and the impact that it can have on your lives and the others around you. Let's make it happen. 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?

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First time caller, long time listener. I'm so psyched to have you on here, man. It's been too long. How are you doing, brother? JB, I am doing well and psyched to have this conversation. Yeah, man. I almost kicked myself for not having you on this sooner because we talk a decent amount and you've had a pretty significant impact on my business and, you know, from a relationship standpoint, becoming friends over the years. And we just talked briefly about how, you know, I just was spending a week in Sedona really trying to recenter stuff. And one of the things that came out of it was this whole, you know, gratitude and not just being grateful but receiving gratitude and why that's so important.

So I'd love to unpack that with you because you're one of the people that I look to in that world for so many reasons. But before we get to that, let's give the audience a little background here. Where are you coming from, Scott? What are you up to these days? And tell us kind of your brief journey on how you got to where you are right now. Yeah, so my professional journey, you know, I've been in sales, sales leadership, actually sales leadership since I was probably like 25. So very early into sales leadership. And I absolutely loved it. Left a Fortune 500 company to join a pure startup, literally five people. But I was the chief revenue officer. So, you know, you're 29. That sounded pretty cool.

But got the opportunity to literally build everything out from a sales, marketing, and client success standpoint. And through that journey, so we grew double digits every single year for 17 straight years, which I will say is super easy in the beginning and pretty damn difficult when you're at third. Yeah, compound interest kind of catches up to you after a while. It catches up to you after a while. But we were able to do that. But so I felt like I was drinking from a fire hose every day. So when you're drinking from a fire hose, what do you try to do? You try to outsource stuff that makes sense. So every recruiter, especially like 2008, the economy sucked. We were hiring like crazy. They're calling me.

And I always knew that my success was going to be predicated on the teams that I built. More so than our go-to-market strategy or anything else. So I was really disappointed in what I was getting from traditional agency recruiters. And I thought, I can build a totally different mousetrap. And that's what I did. So I was scared to death to actually start the business for many reasons, probably because I grew up poor. But my wife finally kicked me off the cliff. I started a company called Something New a little over seven years ago. It's been phenomenal. And then about a year ago, I started a private community called the Talent Champions Council. But the thread throughout both has been gratitude and giving back, which I'm excited to talk about because not everybody wants to talk about that.

No, and I can't tell you, and this is why I think it's so important, you know, I mean, as you know, the past, you know, year and a half, everybody's been, you know, had a tough, there's not one person I've talked to that hasn't had some sort of holy shit story over the past year and a half of stuff they've had to deal with. For me personally, one of the ways that I got through it was getting back to my gratitude journal, writing things down, being purposeful about looking for positives as opposed to being consumed by the negatives, which we can easily be consumed by with news and all that other stuff. Where for you, where did this come from, for you, from a gratitude standpoint? Like, was it a childhood thing?

Was it, you said you grew up poor? Like, when did you recognize how important gratitude was for your success? And for your peace of mind, if you will? Yeah, I think I, you know, early on in my life, so I grew up poor in a very affluent town, which was a really weird way to grow up, because everybody around me had tons of money, and we were pretty poor. And I, I just realized, like, very early on, and I don't know that I was thinking these thoughts, but like, I could either be a victim, or I could be grateful for what I had. And so, for me, sports was kind of what leveled the playing field for me. And so, I was, I just kind of always have had this gratitude inside me. And although throughout my life, I've had my fair share of insane things happen to me, I think I always keep the perspective that there are, you know, there's a line behind me that is miles long.

That would take my place in my worst moment, in a nanosecond. And so, I always kind of keep that in mind to check myself, is, you know, I have a choice. I can feel sorry for myself that this is happening, or, you know, I can look at it that, you know, lots of people would happily take my place. And I also kind of, my mindset is always, and this is including, you know, the pandemic. I'm kind of grateful for the hard shit, because I feel like it's going to the gym. It's like I'm building the muscle, because one thing I've noticed is, you know, I've had success, you know, whether it was in school, in sports, in business, or whatever. But it's been intermittently interrupted by absolute crazy shit and chaos.

So, what's cool about adversity is that it builds the callous, it builds the muscle that allows me, when a pandemic hits, to be like, okay, this isn't ideal. Obviously, I would not wish this on anybody, but I'm going to get through this. It just, it makes you stronger. So, I look at it almost from a positive perspective. Yeah, it's funny, you know, the three companies that I've started, if you will, all started 2000, 2007, and now, you know, now what's happening to us. So, it's like, in those downturns, you know, if you've never faced them before, it's a panic. It's like, holy shit, what do I do? But if you've seen it before, if you've gotten punched in the mouth, it's funny, and I actually do mean this.

I have a very similar opinion on pain and going through things, and how you can either be a victim, or you can make it, you know, you can be stronger. And I genuinely believe that almost, that everybody should literally get punched in the face once in their life. And I mean, literally, like somebody taking their fist and punching you dead in the eye. Because I remember when the first time I got punched in the face, and I've been, unfortunately, punched in the face a few times. But the first time, the character, it reveals the character of who you are in that, literally in that moment. And in the very soon following moments after that, because the first time, I literally fell on the floor, and I went back to being a child and started to cry of like, oh, woe is me.

But in the five seconds after that, it registered, I was like, what? You know what I mean? And I got up, and there was just something in me that wanted to fight, you know, like, no, that's not how I want to be defined. And it's the same thing with business, right? It's like, if you don't fail, if you don't go through that hardship, you don't, it's almost like you can't, you can't really understand what true joy is unless you experience true pain. Totally true, right? Yeah. And so, I mean, to me, it's just a life lesson of, you know, being grateful for, you know, to your point of, you know, it's all about perspective, right? I mean, to your point, you know, there's a thousand people that would love to take your or my spot on our worst day and having that perspective.

And so, you've really started to nail down this with the people that you work with and make this a center point for the whole business. I mean, you started The Standing Low Book because of this. Walk me through, first of all, tell the audience what Standing Low is all about and also help, like, where did it come from? Was it just a collection of thoughts that you'd wanted to eventually just put into writing here? But walk me through that. It was desperation. So, I started my company knowing that I was going to bootstrap it. I didn't want to be, you know, I didn't want to answer to anybody else. I didn't want to take VC money or anything like that. So, I'm like, listen, I'm going to bootstrap this.

But giving back to me was one of the main reasons why I wanted to start a business. Like, I wanted it to be just so intrinsic to the business. I wanted it to be in our DNA. So, the problem is you're bootstrapping a company. You're putting all of your money back into the company in order to, you know, get it to grow and survive and be sustainable long term. So, I'm like, shit, how am I going to give back? I can't write big checks. So, I thought, what are my assets? And I thought, my assets aren't like this giant bank account. My assets are my relationships that I've built over decades with amazing people like yourself, pro athletes, Olympians, best-selling authors, CEOs, just really super interesting people.

So, I'm just fascinated by interesting people. So, I have this gigantic, I don't really call it a network because it's really a group of friends that is super eclectic. So, I thought, why don't I ask these folks, including you, to write a chapter of gratitude for a life lesson that they learned. I'll put it in a book and I'll give all the money to charity. So, the first book was standing out. Dick Vermeule wrote the foreword. Tiki Barber wrote the cover quote. You wrote a beautiful chapter about your mom and dad. I remember it distinctly. And I think, you know, I'm like, okay, I'm on to something. It was a great vehicle to shine a big spotlight on organizations that I really cared about. It was also a way to give them some money along the way.

And we always choose kind of underserved and unknown charities. And it worked. So, we had 52 contributing authors because I'm not, you know, the smartest guy in the world. I'm like, okay, wash, rinse, repeat. I think I've got another 50-some-odd friends that are super interesting. So, did standing out on core. Heather Monaghan wrote the foreword. Jesse Itzer wrote the cover quote. Then I have a huge affinity for the military. So, I had a bunch of Navy SEAL, Green Beret, Ranger, General, Buddies, write chapters of gratitude in a book called Standing O Salute. And then did Standing O Tribute with Brandy Chastain and some other people. And then I have Standing O Honor coming out in October. But all of them focused on a different charity.

But the through line for all of them is they're all a book of gratitude for a life lesson learned. I mean, it's a fantastic book. But all of them are. And I feel blessed to be a part of it. And again, you know, it also forced me to think, you know, who is that person I am truly grateful for? And, you know, being able to reflect back on that and think about it. You know, I'm grateful for a lot of people in my life. You know, you included. But it's like, what's that one that was that life lesson that you learned from that you're grateful for? And to me, it's centered around my parents. There's no question about it. They put me in a position to be, you know, where I am. You know what I mean? As far as the, and we've talked about this before, the privilege factor, right?

And it's in that quote that I got on my arm now from dad, you know, understanding that privilege isn't just, you know, growing up with a silver spoon in your mouth. That privilege is kind of, you know, to be quite frank, growing up a white male. And, you know what I mean? So, for instance, as poor as you were, you know what I mean? Growing up in an affluent area, you were still a white dude. You know what I mean? No, no doubt about it. And this world is built for white males. You know what I mean? And everything that you and I get promoted for or get acclaimed for, other people get, you know, put down for in a lot of ways. And so, recognizing that privilege, I think, is something that is extremely important and has become more important for me over the years as I realize kind of what opportunities I've been given.

Yeah. Or allowed that others don't. You also play the long game quite a bit. Can you talk to me about your kind of philosophy on short-term versus long-term relationships? And I'm going to preface that with this as an example. And I use you as an example in my trainings and when I talk to people. Do you remember how we met each other? Like, when was the first time we met each other? Physically met? Like, no, just like knew each other. Yeah. So, I mean, you were on my radar screen just because, you know, I just really admired your business. I admired, you know, how candid you were on social. You know, I was always in sales, so kind of a sales geek. So, I was a fan early on and wanted to develop a relationship, you know, and knew what your passions were.

And I knew two things about you. Love the Patriots and love your daughter, Charlotte. So, I had an opportunity to run into a Patriots player, Malcolm Mitchell, who had written the showman's book. I still got the book. This is the part of the story, you might not even know this. So, he was coming to my town and in my town there's a bookstore, it's called R.J. Julia, it was rated the number one independent bookstore in America. So, they get, like, the best top people, like, authors from all over. So, he was coming. It was a snowstorm. I couldn't go. So, I sent Kathy Leckie to wait in this horrendous line in, like, a blizzard to get this book signed for Charlotte. And then, you know, just sent it to you and I said, hey, I thought, you know, maybe she might enjoy this.

There's never, I like to do that stuff just because I like to surprise people. I like to do thoughtful things that will put a smile on their face. I had zero, zero expectation or even thought that we would ever partner together and do any business. I kind of, to your point of, I mean, so, that was kind of the genesis of how we started communicating back and forth. And, you know, I don't think I ever talked to you about this. I think you called me one day out of the blue and said, hey, you know, we've got a need. Well, I think that, and that was what floored me, was I remember that I got that book from you. It was signed for Charlotte. And I remember being like, geez, I don't get this type of thoughtful gifts from my family for crying out loud.

And I sat there and I scratched my head about, like, why is, why did he send this to me? Because I'm a solopreneur at the time. I had no intention of hiring anybody. I knew what you did. And I'm like, why would somebody who I really barely know go out of their way to do this? And, you know, at first I'm like, what's the angle here? What's going on? But then I just realized it was genuinely to your point of you're just somebody who is thoughtful and is proactively thoughtful about certain things. And I remember being like, all right, you know, so first of all, yes, let's like, let's forget about from a business standpoint. I want to be connected with you. But I use you as an example of betting on the long, you know what I mean?

Like not being, not doing things for a reason in the sense that, oh, I'm going to do this so that I know that in two years when John blows up, I'm going to be the guy. But doing things just because it's to a certain degree the right thing to do and, you know, surrounding yourself with the right type of people. And what's funny about it is it's obviously blossomed into a good friendship here. But also, you know, we got what, you know, 12 people on staff here and you've hired at least three of the most critical people in my business. And the alignment is, I mean, I tell people all the time, by the time they get to me, it's not like after they go through your process, because, you know, me and my team so well that, you know, it's not an interview by the time you get to me, at least.

By the time you get to me, it's like, all right, let me just figure out, you know, let me just talk about your background. Let me learn where you're coming from so I know what type of person I'm going to be working with here. I mean, I remember Meg when she came on board, like I remember having the interview and she was still kind of in interview mode. Yeah. And we were just shooting the shit and half, and on the way out, she did what Meg does. She asked the closing question, which I love. She's like, so, you know, where, you know, what's the next steps or what do you think? And I'm like, oh, no, you're hired. There's no question about it. And she was like, what? I was like, yeah, yeah. I was like, this is a foregone conclusion by the time you hit with me, unless you fuck this up.

You know, unless you say something outlandish in this lunch meeting here, you're on board here. So, I mean, do you just have that lens with people you come across who, is it because you see something, like you said, you liked the authenticity, you liked the vibe, if you will, and you said, that's somebody that I want to at least be connected with? Or was there some other viewpoint on that? And how do you put that lens on for others? You know what I mean? I'm fascinated by people that are at the top of their game, whether that's military or sales training, or it doesn't matter what it is. It could be tiddlywinks. Like, if you're the greatest tiddlywinks player in the world, like, I'm kind of like, that's pretty interesting.

How did that happen? So, I think where people screw up is they think things are linear, and they also think in terms of monetizing every relationship. So, people will say, you know, well, am I going to do that for John because is John going to become a client? I never, ever think that way. All I know is that throughout my life, I've wound up in pretty good spots from a business perspective. And when I sit there and I go, how the hell did I get here? I kind of reverse engineer it, and it's not a straight line. It's a circuitous, crazy path that I'm like, man, if in the beginning I had tried to predict that, there's no way I would have ever predicted it. So, why try to figure out, like, oh, is this relationship going to monetize?

First of all, I could care less whether it does. I'm just interested in building relationships with amazing people. And historically, like, it turns into good stuff. Sometimes that's a business relationship. More often than not, it's not. It's just, you know, somebody that I can rely on, somebody that I really trust. You know, you're kind of going through a journey now that it's cool to be able to pick up the phone and say, hey, JB, like, tell me a little bit about your trip to Sedona and tell me about kind of what your thoughts are in terms of your business in the future because we're, you know, we're on somewhat similar paths. And, you know, the relationship part of this, of being around people, you know, who lift you up, being around people who challenge you and taking the infinite game approach here to, you know what, I'm not trying to get everything out of a relationship.

I'm not trying to score every relationship that I'm in right now, I think is so critical to long-term success. But I fear about the short-term world that we're in right now. So you and I are in a, I think, a pretty enviable position, ultimately, that we run our own businesses. We don't really have a boss. To your point, I didn't start this because I want to start a company. I started this because I didn't want a boss, period. That's exactly why I do what I do. I did not want somebody else. That's why I've never taken VC funding. So we're in a pretty good position where we can play the long-term. We can look at it and not have to monetize every single piece here. But how would you advise or is there a structure that you can think of of how to integrate that long-term view of relationships into your world when we're living in such a short-term satisfaction world?

And I mean that from both, we want short-term satisfaction, but also we're being forced to be driven to short-term satisfaction. And let's be very tactical with like, you know, I have to make my 50 dials today. I have to make my, you know what I mean? And yeah, I care about this relationship. So one more piece of context, it's that like SDR or AE, who knows they're only going to be in territory for a year, for instance. Okay. So I could do right by this client and, and know that they don't really need what I have now, but they probably will. So let me give them some free stuff here, but I know I'm probably going to get promoted in another year or two. So I'm never going to see the benefit of this.

So why the fuck do that? I need to hit my quota this month. How do you, how do you guide somebody in practicing the long-term play in such a short-term driven world? Yeah. I mean, everybody in almost every aspect of the lives needs to pump the brakes and do things right the first time and not try to score easy, quick wins that are going to necessitate that you have to do. Kind of like silly things that may not be in alignment with your values. And if you do pump the brakes, so from a company perspective, like one of the things oftentimes CEOs will call and I'll have a conversation with them and they're like, I need a chief revenue officer. And I'll actually talk them out of it and say, what you really need to do is figure out your process first, like get a really good process, figure out your onboarding, figure out all of this stuff, because that's going to pay off for you big time.

Everything that we do, you know, look at people that are trying to make tons of money overnight, look at people that are doing crazy diets and crazy stuff physically to lose weight or whatever. That shit's not sustainable. So, it's hard because we are in a world where if you're a public company, you know, you're beholden to Wall Street, that's going to beat the shit out of you if you have a bad quarter. If you're VC backed, you know, you've got people breathing down your neck, so it's hard to pump your brakes. But when I look at the companies, the hyper growth startups that we deal with that are really successful, they are a long-term focus. Like, they're not talking to me about their exit strategy right away.

They're talking about building great companies. And, you know, I see those companies that are playing the long game. Those are the ones for us that have become unicorns. The others that are looking, you know, to explode overnight and be a rocket ship, they typically, they're like early Elon Musk rockets. They crash and burn. And, look, I think also we're at similar points in our lives of experience. You know, like after 26 years of me doing, you know, being in business and looking back at maybe some times where I didn't really stay true to my values and I was looking for short-term success. And every time I knew it felt wrong and it inevitably did not come back in my favor. But I'm a big believer in what goes around, comes around.

And, you know, even without intention, right? The whole giver's gain and you can get scenario. It's like the more you give out, the more things come back to you. Are you in that regard? Are you kind of bigger picture wise? Do you believe in that type of stuff, like karma and those type of things? And this is just more kind of spiritual discussion, obviously. But are you bought into that? Or do you believe that, you know what, today is the day and it doesn't matter? Where's your head on that? No, I do. You know, I don't really put a name to it, whether it's, you know, I guess it is karma or whatever. But, I mean, if you just put out enough good vibes into the world and it's true to who you are, like you can smell people that are, they're doing it.

But I'm like, it's not genuine to who they are. If you do that, just good stuff happens. And whether that's, you know, karma, manifesting, whatever you want to call it, it happens. I've seen it happen in my life multiple times. You know, it's, yeah, it's definitely something there. 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 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. You know, I remember multiple times when I was in territory, going back to, you know, being in territory and just knowing that, man, if I just stayed on board for like another month here, I'd get that huge commission check because that client that I've been working on, but the opportunity to go do something else was also there.

And I could have stayed and missed out on that opportunity and gotten that huge paycheck or left and, you know, had the other kid who took over my territory come in with a, you know, walk in the door with a $20,000 commission check the first month doing almost no work. Yes, is that better to me as far as, geez, you know, I did all this work and that kid's going to get the credit, but then all of a sudden a deal that I had no idea was going to happen, you know, all of a sudden lands in my lap or the opportunity that I was, I did not expect comes knocking on my door for the promotion that I wasn't expecting type of thing. So it's just, to your point, there's been way too many points in my life where I've, I just can't ignore it.

You know what I mean? I can't ignore the fact that when you're focused on the positive and you're putting positive stuff out there, that that type of shit just ends up coming back to you. And if you're focused on the negative and you put negative shit out there, that type of stuff comes back at you. I mean, I'm sure, you know, as many people as I do, who are just those Debbie Downers and everything negative happens to them. And it just seems like they can't catch a break and you look at their mentality around it and it's like, yeah, they're, they're stuck in this woe is me. Oh, you know, life happens to me, not for me in mentality. And you're like, yeah, you just, you know, I, I know why. Yeah.

So, I mean, there's a lot of people that, uh, you know, they try things, uh, but they do it once and then they're, you know, they're all bummed out because they didn't get results. And I'm, you know, one thing I know is consistency and discipline, uh, will take you very, very far. So pounding that rock every day and just having the discipline to know that eventually it's going to crack. Um, I mean, that always works. Uh, I was, I had a conversation with a guy the other day and he said, yeah, you know, uh, this person who's pretty influential person. I sent him a note and they didn't get back to me and I said, okay, like, did you do this, this, this, this, and this? No. And I'm like, well, okay.

It's like going to the gym, working out once and going, geez, I'm still, uh, not in shape. Well, yeah, no shit. That's not the way it works. Well, and also understanding that other people have stuff that happens in their lives. I mean, look, at the end of the day, I want to say thank you to every single person that hits me up on LinkedIn and all that other stuff. There are days that I just miss some shit, you know what I mean? So it's like, I can't, uh, blame somebody else for not getting back to me on certain things. And, you know, I, I think I have a little bit of a regulator in there where I tried, I, I know this is probably not the right way to look at, but I have a kind of a three strikes and you're out rule type of thing.

Like I'll do like, if you screw up once, whatever, you screw up twice. Okay. If you screw up three times. Okay. Now I got to kind of start adjusting my approach here. That doesn't mean I'm not going to be cool with you, but like, for instance, friends, right. If they move out of town, I'll call them once. Hey man, let's get, let's catch up. Whatever. How you been? I'll call them a second time. Hey, what's up? I'll call them a third time. Hey, what's going on? And after that third time, if I'm not getting them, if they're not calling me, it's not that I won't call them. It's just my expectations of our relationship have now charged because I need some mental health too, because the other part of this is I have this theory that everybody keeps score, whether it's subconscious or consciously.

Because it's almost like, you don't, you know, you take out the trash, you do the dishes, you know, and all of a sudden, after a while, your wife or your significant others, like, says something about, oh, you know, you haven't done anything. And you know, for a fact that you've done all this stuff. And so immediately you're like, wait a minute. And now you. Here's the laundry list. Right. Well, I tell people like, I don't keep score until I'm forced to keep score, which means I know I subconsciously keep score. So where's your head at on that kind of equality of relationships, if you will, and does it even enter your mind when it comes to doing what you do? I mean, I always want to give way more than I receive.

So I'm always I mean, do I mentally kind of keep score, I guess, in a way, but I always want to make sure that the ledger like the balance is more like, wait a second, I hope that I've done way more for everybody that I have a relationship with than they've done for me. And I want to make sure that that always stays the same. So and for me, it's I mean, some of it is selfish, like people say, well, why do you do some of this stuff? It's fun. I mean, pure and simple, it is fun, which is kind of a selfish thing, like I enjoy it, because it's fun for me. So yeah, I do keep score, but in a little bit of a different way in terms of I'm always trying to make sure that, you know, what am I giving to this relationship, not kind of what am I getting back?

How open are you to getting back? So to being given back gratitude, for instance, do you have a hard time accepting gratitude? I used to probably a little bit more difficult for me to accept a compliment or a nice thing being done. I mean, when somebody does, I'm immediately like, okay, I got to kind of get that balance back and do something for them. But, you know, you've got to let people enjoy giving to you as much as you enjoy giving to them. So I guess that's kind of how I think about it is when I really think about why do I do it? I do it partially because it's fun for me. So I know it's fun for them to kind of give back and say thanks. I think that's something I'm coming to the realization of is like I have a very hard time in part of this, you know, little journey I was on, you know, the worthiness, the gratitude of being able to accept it is just as important as giving it.

Because by not being willing and open to receiving gratitude and appreciation, you're actually robbing the other person of that joy, right? Like my aunt's, or no, I'm sorry, my cousin who passed away and her kid, right? Going through the grieving process, my aunt not dealing with it well. And he had this very poignant, you know, very interesting point where he said, you know, whatever anybody wants to do for me, I'm willing to accept it. He goes, because what I realized is if, you know, when somebody passes away, you're always like, no, no, no, I, you know, don't, you know, I don't need anything, just whatever. And you're robbing those other people of the joy of providing something to you. And if you think about that, that's actually kind of selfish in a lot of ways.

If you are, and look, sometimes you have to be selfish to deal with whatever you're dealing with, but to not allow others around you who are hurting for you, to not give you that level of, you know, gratitude as actually robbing them of happiness in a lot of ways. And that really stuck with me. I was like, you know what? You're spot on on that one. It's a great point. It's something, I didn't think of it quite that way when you asked the question, but I do, I have a hard time asking for help. I always feel like I've got to figure it out myself and I don't want to burden other people with my problems, but, you know, you can take that to an unhealthy extreme. Yeah, it's a good thing to think about.

Yeah, and actually that I think that's one of the things that's potentially blocking, you know, me, for instance, from getting to that next, cracking through into that next level is just being open to saying thank you. My mentor, Jeff Hoffman, he has this really, again, very simple thing. I always dismiss somebody's, you know, oh, no, it wasn't anything. Don't worry about it. You know, or like if somebody screws up and they come to apologize, right? You know, it's no big deal, right? And what that's doing is that's diminishing their genuine, you know, act of apologizing, right? So what he does is whenever somebody screws up or whatever and they come and apologize to him, he just says, I accept your apology and lets it sit.

And it's just like that simple or when somebody says, hey, thank you so much, not saying, oh, no worries, don't worry about it. I'm just saying, you're welcome. Like, and just giving that. I never knew that. Me neither. I didn't until he brought it up. Yeah. And now I'm very conscious of when somebody says, I'm sorry, to literally stop and say, I accept your apology. It's okay. You know what I mean? We'll get through this. And when they say, thank you, I say, you're welcome. You know what I mean? I really try to stop myself from diminishing their appreciation or their, you know, sentiment by saying, oh, no, no, no, it's no big deal. Because that's me trying to be like, oh, no, no, you didn't need to say thank you.

It's like, I'm trying to be the giver versus the receiver. But again, what that's doing is that's robbing them of the courage it took them to come and say, I'm sorry. The courage it took them to say thank you. Yeah. So. I agree. That's powerful. I never really, and I never do that. But I'm going to practice. So if you, at the end of this, if you say, hey, thanks for coming on, I'm just going to say, listen, you're welcome, John. That's right. I mean, and that's, and it's weird. I think for somebody like you and me, it's weird to be intentional with that. Yeah. But I think the intention of letting, you know what I mean, of not brushing it off is actually, the more I practice it, the more real I understand it.

Nobody says, nobody says, nobody says you're welcome. You know what I mean? Like nobody says, I accept your apology. Nobody, you know what I mean? It's always dismissed. It's always, oh, it's no big deal. It's so, it's a real, it's awkward to do it at first. But when you start to get used to it, you could see the, okay, all right, cool. Now we can move on. You know what I mean? Like, so I just, I've realized how important those types of things are on both sides of the house these days. Cause I'm, I'm like you, I'm a giver. I want to give way more than I receive, but I think a limiting thing is, is not being open to receiving, um, and giving too much because then it drains you in a lot of ways that you don't even understand.

And I think that's what this break I needed was, uh, you know, I opened myself up to the last year and a half of, of, of receiving a lot more than I've been giving because I needed to. And it was what got me through this, you know what I mean? It's what got me through my dad. I will tell you right now that probably the best phone call I ever got was when I was in, um, and you probably saw me post this, but when I was in Aruba at right after my dad passed, you know, I get this phone call from this kid, Kevin, who I had hired back at thrive in my first company. And he's saying out of nowhere, he calls me up and says, Hey, I just want to say thank you. And I'm like, for what? And he goes, well, you put me in, you gave me the opportunity to work at thrive.

And he's, he's like, I stayed here after you left and now they've recapped and they have private equity and all this other stuff. And we just recapped again. And I'm a multimillionaire right now. And I, and, and I just want to say thank you for, uh, not, I didn't make that kid successful. There's no question. I, but I put him in a position to do what he did and gave him some guidance to be where he is. And that pure gratitude from me, I needed that so bad at that moment. And all I could say was, thank you. You know what I mean? Like, first of all, a, you're welcome. B thank you for this phone call, because I can't tell you how much I needed that right now in the moment that I was in. And it's going back to the kind of the universe and how things work out.

You know, you put enough good stuff out there and enough good things happen at the right times when you need them. Yeah. And it's amazing, you know, how many times, like I'll have a thought, uh, about somebody and I'll randomly send them a text or something, uh, or give them a call or, you know, whatever. And they say, man, that was timely. Um, so I do think there's something there. I mean, uh, whatever you call it to me, it doesn't matter. Uh, you know, I think when you have those thoughts, there's a reason why you're having them and act on them. Um, because, uh, you never know when somebody needs that phone call or that text. I mean, and I think we all need that. You know what I mean? Because we can all get stuck in the, that's why I go back to the gratitude journal of writing things down every day, because you can get stuck so easily in all the negativity that's happening these days that if you don't proactively remind yourself of what you are grateful for and also proactively go out there.

I mean, I, I started a hashtag a while back called just make someone smile today and I would just do, I would just send it to somebody. I would just say, Hey, hashtag, pass it along, make someone smile today. And just by getting that text of make someone smile today, made them smile and then pass it forward. Right. And I think the butterfly effect on that is pretty impact. It can be pretty impactful. Yeah. We talk about the ripple effect all the time. So we put out something called the ripple report every year for our business, which is just kind of, you know, talking about some of the things that we do to give back. And the hope is not to like pat ourselves on the back, but our hope is, Hey, if we inspire one other company or one other person that says, Hey, look at what these guys are doing.

I can do that too. You know, that ripple effect is really what changes the world. Uh, you know, these large grandiose things that sometimes we think of, um, you know, they're hard to execute on, but it's kind of those little things that cause those ripples that make a huge impact. Love it. Final piece here on, on this, uh, cause we, I think we could talk about this all day, but, you know, for, for something new with what you guys are doing, um, you're a very value oriented group. Um, how often do you revisit those values? How do you, how do you live those values in your organization? Cause they're you, right. And mine are, you know, based on building this business, but as you hire more people, as you grow, you need to make sure you stay true to those.

So I'm just more curious than anything, you know, kind of what's your approach to the values within your organization, how you live them and, and, and how everybody else understands them. Um, is there a process you go through for that on a, on a, on a regular basis or walk, walk me through that? It's very important. Um, I actually was asked on another podcast a couple of weeks ago about the values. Um, and you know, cause the, the guy was asking me, you know, insane attention to details, one of them. Um, and he said, how hard was it to come up with those? Uh, and I said, it was, it was really easy because it was all just, uh, true stuff to me. It's like, uh, you know, I remember in my former company, we literally would have these meetings about coming up with a mission statement or values.

And it was all just bullshit. It was more, what do people want to hear rather than like, what do we really believe in? So for me, you know, it was easy in the, in the beginning, it was just me, um, before I hired anybody. So I'm like, what do I believe in? And I just put those down and I said, you know, everybody that I'm going to hire has got to believe in kind of the same stuff. Um, and, and that's just super important for us because we're kind of maniacal about thinking about the candidate and client experience. And it all ties into those two things. Like I'm not a big metrics guy. I don't really keep track of stuff. Like I keep track of the big things, which are, you know, what's our candidate experience?

What's our client experience? If they're all saying like, it's fantastic. And our NPS score would back it up. It's 94.4%. Uh, that is what that I do. I do keep a track of, um, that's what I care about that end result. Yeah. Um, so is, so when you work with companies. For your approach, cause I mean, you're spot on. Like I, I, I say this till I'm blue in the face. If we have the same core values, then everything else ends up taking care of itself. If we don't, we end up fighting and arguing. So how, how many companies do you work with that it's clear to you what their values are, um, to help you? Like if maybe throw a percentage at it of like ones that you work with, you're like, yep, I am crystal clear on their values.

And therefore I know what type of candidates versus, uh, uh, uh, you know, I don't know where these people are coming from. So it's a little bit harder for me to go find them something. It's probably 50, 50, to be honest, like with you guys, one of the things that's, that makes it so, uh, enjoyable to work with you guys is I know exactly what you guys value. Um, so, you know, when we're doing kind of our two tiered vetting process, uh, we know right away, like, is this a JV sales person or not? I mean, obviously we have to figure out skills and all that other stuff, but value alignment is easy. Um, for a lot of companies, I think they're trying to figure it out. And, you know, we've made some mistakes, uh, throughout the last seven years of taking business, um, from companies that, you know, our values don't align.

And those are painful because I have to wind up firing those clients, uh, you know, which I've gotten better at doing. And you're always kind of ringing in my ear because I always think, you know, what's the solution? Um, a huge pipeline, uh, if you have a huge pipeline, you can choose to do business with, uh, companies that values align with yours. And I, and I think that's such an important takeaway for people to listen. Um, it's not just the employees, it's, it's the customers you choose to work with, the people you decide to sign, surround yourself with the partners, you know what I mean? Like it's, it's so much easier when you are so clear on what those values are, because then you can get really good.

You don't have to fire people because you won't bring them on in the first place. I mean, there's been plenty of customers where through the sales process, I've been like, nope. Do you know what I mean? Like you're a churn and burn or like, you just want to, you know, you want your reps to make a hundred dials a day and dah, dah, dah, dah. I'm like, no, I, I, I fundamentally do not think that that's the way sales should be done. I don't think that's the way we should treat our sales professionals as far as a conveyor belt here, as far as, you know, just getting them in and getting them out. So as much as money as you want to throw at me, I have zero interest in working with you. And it's, it's nice to be able to sit back on the core set of why I'm saying that, not just because I don't feel like doing business with you, it's because you don't allow them with our values.

So therefore it's going to be hard for me to stand up in front of your team and motivate them in a way or teach them in a way that is effective because it'll come, it'll be disingenuous. It'll, you know, it'll, it'll be something I don't believe in and that'll come through. No question about it. Yeah, it's, it's one of those things that we talk to candidates about when we're talking about your company in particular is, you know, your willingness to walk away from easy money because either it's values that don't align, or sometimes I know you walk away from business because they're, they're just not ready for you guys. Um, it's probably not a big deal to you because it's a, it's just your company.

It's who you are. Most companies are just so not wired. They're going to say yes all the time. They're going to take that business. Um, but I have massive respect for you that you walk away from that stuff and, and really help people to understand they're, they're not ready. Yeah. Well, I mean, you said it earlier that you, you know, the people come to you as I need a CRO and you're like, no, you really don't. I can hire you or CRO, but it's not going to be the right fit for where you are right now. And inevitably that's like a, wait a minute, you don't want my business. And the answer to that is, no, I do. It's just, I don't need it. And this isn't the right time. And when it is, I'm happy to help you.

But right now you need X, Y, and Z. And if you can get to that point, and I, I wish that everybody could get to that point. But again, I go back to the short term world, VC funding, push it down your throat. That's why they accept bad revenue. That's why they accept bad clients because they have money. You know what I mean? And they're, and they need to hit a certain growth metric because if they don't, then their valuation is going to be half as much as what it could. And the investors aren't going to get their payback and all that other stuff. And I just, I just wish that people would take their foot off the pedal for, you know, five fucking seconds and be able to breathe a little bit here because it would be a much more enjoyable ride.

If, uh, if that stress and that pressure wasn't there and we could all just do business with people that we wanted to do business with because their values align. Yeah. It's that, that's the word alignment. I talk to people about that all the time. Like if that's what we're seeking alignment between clients and candidates, if it's there, it's there. If it's not, it's not walk away. Yeah. Just, it makes it so much easier. Um, so Scott, we could finish this up. Um, but let's talk a little bit briefly here about who are the clients you work with and who are the ones you don't, you know what I mean? Cause we, you know, under the realm of like recruiting, we could go away all with churn and burn.

We're going to get you a 50 SDRs or we're super hyper-focused. So talk to me about what makes something new a little bit different and really who you like working with and who you are not a fit. Now I'm going to say don't like working with, but who are you not a fit for? Um, companies that just want a body, we're not the right solution for them. Um, we really want to help educate people on how to do things the right way. We only work with hyper-growth startups, uh, for the most part, because we want to have access to the CEO because we understand that our, everything we do, our methodology is very different. And, you know, they, everyone just wants to put you in the bucket of like what traditional recruiting is, is like.

So, you know, unless you're at that level, they're never going to get it. Um, you know, they've got to understand, uh, that this is something we think about eat, sleep, and drink like 24, seven, three 65. So, uh, we're very much not into the, you know, uh, if somebody says, I need somebody with seven years experience doing this and that, um, they don't think of how important intangibles like work ethic, discipline, resiliency, empathy, things like that. Those are the things I want to vet candidates for, because I know that at the end of the day, those are the employees that are going to really move the needle. It's not, you know, whether somebody has five years, six years, seven years, 10 years, it doesn't matter.

Um, educational background, like bullshit like that. Uh, those, those companies that are really rigid about things that I think are kind of surface level stuff, not, not a good fit. Well, I always say you can T I mean, one of my last story here, when I was, I remember when we were thrive networks, I was 50 people. It was like, and I, and Jack Welsh came to, uh, you know, Boston and did his thing. And this was before I was actually, I worked for him for a little bit, but, you know, I remember asking, you know, thousand people in this, in this arena and he's just doing his Q and a. And I stand up and I asked my question. I said, Jack, you know, you know, at 10 people, we were all super passionate and super driven 20 people.

We are pretty good. 30 people. Okay. Like we're 50 people now. And I just, the, the 51st person that we hired just doesn't seem to have the drive and the passion that, that we did. So, and I asked the dumb question, which is how can you instill your passion on somebody else to get them to believe in as strongly as you do? And he looked at me, he goes, you're looking at it all wrong. So in front of a thousand people, he basically told me I was an idiot. And he said, he's like, you can't instill your passion. You have to hire it. And that, in that moment that changed my hiring profile a hundred percent. Cause I stopped looking for experience. I stopped looking for pedigree. I started, and I started looking for the intangibles of work ethic, the give a shit factor, the, the, you know, the ethics, the morals and those types of things, because those are things I cannot teach.

I cannot teach, I cannot teach work ethic. I cannot teach drive. I cannot teach passion. I can teach product knowledge. I can get you experience. I can teach you tactics all day long. But if you don't have those core things in place, nothing, none of this is going to work out. Right. How good you are or experienced you are in that job. If those things aren't there, it doesn't matter. And so that's where I recruiters and companies are lazy because the reason why they like industry experience or seven years doing this or that is because it's so obvious. It's on their LinkedIn profile. It's on their resume. You can't look at a LinkedIn profile or resume and, and find hard work, discipline, resiliency, empathy that you, you've got to have the skill to uncover whether somebody has that into what degree they do.

So people are very lazy and they just rely on, you know, silly things that, that are not really that meaningful at the end of the day. I cringe when I hear, and thankfully I'm starting to hear the trend of moving in the other direction, but I cringe when I hear, oh, we only hire from the top colleges. It's like, fuck you. You know what I mean? Like literally, okay. Maybe just maybe if you are looking for, like if you're a, you know, a consultant agency, like, you know, McKenzie, I get it. McKenzie. Sure. Fine. Cause you need that pedigree to prove to the people that you're charging a ridiculous amount of money to run a stupid survey for you that it's worth it. But if you're in the world, if you're in the real world of like results and sales specifically, I don't want the brainiac kid from the collars that mommy and daddy paid for.

I want the state school kid that grinded their way through college, paid their way through, had three internships along the way and got a 2.5 because they didn't have fucking, you know, 50 hours a week to study and a tutor to help them through it. You know what I mean? Right. So totally agree, brother. Totally agree. Look, uh, any last, uh, any, where, where should people go find out more information about you, Scott? Yeah. I mean, you know, believe it or not, I'm, I'm not a big social media guy. I mean, I'm super, super active on LinkedIn, but, uh, you know, it's for business purposes. So LinkedIn is definitely the place to find me. Um, I love to connect with, uh, interesting people. Um, so that, yeah, that's, that's by far the best way.

Love it. And for those listening, it's Scott McGregor and it's M A C G R E G O R. I just look them up on LinkedIn and it's, is it, is it try something new dot org? What, what's the website? Try something new now. Dot com. Uh, try something new. Something new is like somebody wants 50 grand for it. And I said, nah, no, thanks. Uh, by the way, it's the same thing with make it happen. I tried to trademark, make it happen. And somebody had some clothing store in like some piece of shit, little clothing store in Australia has the trademark. And I'm like, try and they want like, you know, a fucking million dollars for it. I'm like, no, I think I'll just brand it myself. Yeah. So try something new now.com or talent champions, council.com.

Easy. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Follow that along too. That's fun. Cool. Uh, awesome. Scott. Well, again, thank you, my friend for coming on board here. Oh my God. Thank you. This is a long overdue. You're welcome. Um, uh, and I appreciate you, uh, more than you could imagine. Give my best to, uh, Kim and Charlotte for me. I will. Thank you. And likewise. Um, and look, everybody, uh, you know, if you're, if you're struggling right now and you're thinking that things are in the move in the wrong direction, I promise you that, that practicing gratitude will, will help in some way, shape or form, maybe not short term, but I promise you will happen longterm. So an easy thing to do, like I always say at the end of all my podcasts is go out there and make somebody smile today.

Cause no matter how shitty your day is, if you go out there and you make somebody smile, you know, you had a good day in the world needs a lot more of that. Thank you all for listening. And I will see you on the other side. Thank you so much for your time today and listening to the podcast. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did with your support and our incredible guests. We're one of the top sales podcasts in the industry with over a million downloads. And I can't thank you enough to keep the momentum going. If you could go to your favorite podcast platform and leave us a five-star review, I would greatly appreciate it in return. I will answer any question that you have on Instagram.

Hit me up there at John M as in Michael Barrows with a video question or a DM, and I will get right back to you. I promise. And last but not least, if you're looking for training, I'm adjusting my training approach this year, and I'm actually going to be delivering training to the masses. I'll be delivering live training the first and second week of every single month with our two marquee courses, filling the funnel and driving a close to anybody who wants to join. And it includes membership in our on-demand platform with weekly AMAs. So you can go to jbarrows.com slash open to check out the details. Thanks again and have a great day.