Stephanie Chung: From Air Force Bases to Boardrooms

All right, I never thought I'd say this, but I don't take notes on my sales calls anymore. And it's not because I'm getting lazy, it's because I'm using Otter.ai to take them for me. Otter.ai lets me invite an AI note-taker into all my sales calls, which not only transcribes them for me, but summarizes them, pulls out sales-specific insights, and syncs everything to my CRM. Oh, and it has an incredible AI chat feature that allows me to ask it any question I have about any meeting. Even if my note-taker wasn't in the meeting, I can simply upload any recorded conversation to Otter. The amount of time it personally saves me is absolutely ridiculous. And that's not even scratching the surface of what it can do for teams.

So I'm super excited to be partnering with them to give you an exclusive offer to get Otter.ai for sales today for free. Go to otter.ai, that's O-T-T-E-R dot A-I forward slash JBSales to get your free offer and start saving time and selling more effectively today. Here's a question I want you to go ask your people. What business are we in? How does the business make money? And how does what you do contribute to help the business win? 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. Now, today's conversation is with Stephanie Chung.

She is a number one international bestselling author, transformational leader, and the first African-American to lead a major private aviation company. With over 30 years in business growth and human capital leadership, she's built a reputation for turning challenges into opportunities and brands into market leaders. Her latest book, Ally Leadership, How to Lead People Who Are Not Like You, gives leaders practical tools to embrace difference, bridge divides, and lead with curiosity over certainty. And ooh, this was a fun conversation. We didn't actually even figure out that we had some connections here until later on because she grew up in Cape Cod, which is here in Massachusetts. And she's got a little bit of Cape Erdian in her and I am half Portuguese.

So we made that connection and she grew up on an Air Force base. And guess what? Hanscom Air Force Base was right in my town. So that's what we got to later. So you can have some fun with that. But this was just a fascinating conversation. Talk about a force of nature here. She has been through a lot and succeeded at every level. She started as a military brat and her dad was a master sergeant. So, you know, if you know anything about master sergeants, that's about as high as you, that is as high as you can get in the Air Force without a degree. And so her life was very structured. And guess what? Her dad told her, do not go into the forces because she had too much of a, I don't want to say big mouth, but didn't like following directions all that much.

So somebody in her, early in her career gave her a tip to go into sales and that's what she did. But she started checking bags and customer service and airlines and then got into sales and then took over a company. But in the meantime, she's joined Mary Kay, which I think is hysterical and was the first woman to take over and be a president of aviation company and private jets and took it from kind of a low cost provider, even though it was private jets to a really high end and switch the entire sales culture around. And we talked through that. And then we talked to her, talked through about all the different challenges of brand and sales and what sales is really all about and how it's not about convincing anybody.

I mean, the analogies and the alignment here were all over the place. So I don't even need to get into the details. I just think you should listen to this entire one. And especially some of the stuff that she talks about later on with her ally leadership and curiosity over certainty and privilege as a lever. These are all really important topics to me. And I think they're super important to focus on as we move forward. And actually, I forgot this one, business acumen. I keep telling reps, it's the number one thing. Out of all the sales skills, tips, and all that stuff that you should learn, just learn how to speak business. Learn how to be a normal human being and be curious. And that's what she is all about.

And we ended with a fantastic story that she shares with her Make-A-Wish Foundation, how she's on the board of directors there. And they just make such an awesome, they just make a difference for some really special people. And the story that she tells in the end is just heartwarming and heartbreaking all at the same time. But it should give you some perspective. So anyways, I thoroughly love this conversation. I hope you do too. Let's make it happen. Stephanie Chung, welcome to the Make It Happen Monday podcast. How are you? I am living my best life, my friend. It's so nice to see you. Love it. Love it. Yeah. I mean, that best life, I think it's what we define it as these days, right? So I'm trying to do my best.

It's always a choice, right? It is. So today, now tomorrow you may ask me the same question. I have a different name, but today I'm living my best life. Love it. I was really interested when you came across my plate here for this conversation because you got a real cool background. And I think you're talking about some stuff right now that needs to be talked about out loud as it relates to leadership and change and how we, you know, lead from the front and the back in a lot of ways, right? So we're going to get into that book. But before, just like my audience always knows, I always love the origin story because I was looking into your background a little bit and you got some cool stuff like military brat, all that fun stuff.

First of all, was your dad an actual master sergeant? Yeah. Yeah. Master sergeant in the U.S. Air Force. So basically for those of your listeners who don't know anything about perhaps the military, that's as high up as he could have gone without a college degree. So yeah, so I grew up a military brat. My dad was in the Air Force my entire life. So that's all I know. But you know what's really funny, John, and we'll talk about this a little bit. It helped shape the type of salesperson that I became, the sales leader that I became, and then when I started running companies, like that military background shaped who I am and how I see the world from a professional perspective. Because when you're brought up around excellence, I mean, think about that.

We've got the best men and women serving our country, arguably the best armed forces in the world. And so you grow up seeing excellence and cause and effect. And, you know, if I did something stupid on the base, it was my father who got called into account for it, not me, right? So you become very mindful of how you see the world, but especially in business or especially in sales. You know, I grew up, the mission has to be completed, right? And so in sales, the deal's got to close, right? You know, the number needs to be hit. You know, there's some basic things that are not that complicated. Hey, I hope you're enjoying the conversation so far. I want to take a quick minute to share with you what I'm working on these days with my new JB sales membership.

It includes live monthly training delivered by me on my two signature courses, which are filling the funnel and driving a close that cover all aspects of the sales process. It also includes monthly workshops that I'll be running on specific sales skills and different tech skills like ChatGVT and how to leverage AI throughout the entire sales process. Finally, the membership gives you access to my entire online catalog with every course and every tip I've ever done. And as an exclusive offer to my podcast listeners, if you go to JBarrows.com, click on the individual membership link and use coupon code podcast at checkout, you'll get 25% off. Now let's get back to the conversation. I got a question because I'm curious on this.

I don't think I would have ever done great in the military because my problem is like I'm all about excellence and drive, but like I have a real hard problem with people telling me what to do, right? So and sales is interesting. I've always said that military are, I think, the best suited for sales because of the structure and the process and that, you know, bullets whizzing by your head versus getting hung up on a cold call. Who gives a shit, right? So there's that toughness to it. But there's also from an entrepreneur standpoint, like you got to crack that process. You got to crack that, that, that structure. And that's not like in the military, like you, there is a ranking and you shut the hell up and you do your thing like your boss told you, right?

I've never been. So what's, how have you evolved from that? That's such a structure, such a rigid format to more of an entrepreneur of a business leader that has so many more dynamics and ability, like your book, we're going to talk about. It's like leading in business isn't like the military because if, especially now with these kids, right, you can't be that dictator, like you got to do this because they'll just revolt against you. So how have you taken that foundation and evolved it to, to apply to where we are today? I love that question for, for a whole lot of reasons, John, but I'll start with the first thing, which is you and I are very similar. So I'm the type of person who pushes back against authority as well.

So I actually wanted to be in the military and my father, Mr. Air Force Master Sergeant said, absolutely not. And you know, and he said his exact words to me, John, where you have way too much mouth, you'd be spending your whole life doing pushups. So, and I was like, well, I want to do that, right? That's not the career for me. So, so I chose not to go into the military. But what I will say back to your, your, your point is there's a lot of things that I learned observing, if you will, right? So, and then even as a sales leader, as I, you know, started to hire and bring on and create teams, I will tell you when I think about the military, you're right. These, there's a saying that basically says, if in fact somebody in the military doesn't do what, uh, doesn't do what you thought they were supposed to do, it's because you didn't communicate it right, because they do what they're told, right?

So if they didn't do it right, then you got to check your own communication, not necessarily that. What I will say also is let's take, you know, sales, since you and I both have a sales background in sales, you know, you, you do need the structure from a daily discipline perspective, right, but you also need the agility because you should be so in tune with what the customer needs that you're ebbing and flowing based on the direction they're taking you. And so what I have found is the times that I have hired military folks, and I come from aviation, so there's a lot of aviation and military overlap. I love, uh, military folks who, who came from special forces of some type because they work best in chaos, right?

So these guys and gals, when you talk about completing the mission, it may be messy and clunky, but they'll get it done, right? And it may not be in the normal order that you may, you know, had preferred it, but it gets done. The mission gets completed. And so I would just say that there's a lot of benefits, pros and cons, right? To the whole, uh, military side. But for me, I would tell you this, uh, going back to that, oh, excellence. You know, when I was a little girl, uh, I would be standing at the bus stop, getting ready to, you know, get the bus. And all of a sudden you're seeing, it could be six o'clock in the morning or seven o'clock in the morning and you're seeing, you know, usually, uh, especially back in the day, a lot of men, but let's say men and women, you know, they're doing all this stuff they've got to do by 6 a.m.

They've done more than what most of us have done all day. Right. And I always say, you never see a sloppy soldier, right? Hair's in place, pants are creased, shirts, you know, iron, shoes are shined. Like there's a level of excellence that is just expected. And so now fast forward, this is how I grow up and this is what I see. So now anyone that's ever worked on my team, they will tell you, Stephanie demands excellence, right? And I'm not, I'm not demanding perfection, but I am demanding excellence. We do what we say. We, you know, we finish what we start. We hit the quota, regardless of all the excuses, like the stuff just has to get done. And that's where I really credit my military background as a military brat.

But I'm like you, John, to give you hope, I would have never survived in the military. No, I, I would be jacked though. Cause I would be doing about 7,000 pushups a day for going on. Yes. Exactly. So, all right. So now you get into business, right? So you go to school for business and you went to university of Phoenix. What was that decision like? So did you know business? Like you knew that military wasn't your dad told you. And then did you catch the business bug or was that just like, Hey, like, like I got to do something different. Well, I gotta, I gotta give you my, my backstory. Cause I actually don't have a degree. A lot of people will be surprised to hear that. I would say I came from the school of hard knocks, but, uh, so I was one of those kids because I grew up in air force, Brad, I grew up around planes my whole life, taking, you hear them take off land.

So I knew early on John that I wanted to be in aviation, but you know, I'm, I'm, I'm an old hag. So way back when, whenever you would see aviators depicted in TV or film or magazines or anything like that, I, you would always see if you were a man, you were a pilot. If you were a woman, you were a flight attendant, but none of those pictures ever looked like me. Right? So I had never seen a person of color depicted in TV, film magazines, nothing as a person in aviation. So though I knew I wanted to be in aviation, I didn't know what I could do in aviation cause I'd never seen it. So fast forward, very first job I ever had was parking planes and loading luggage at the Boston Logan airport. And I worked on the ramp.

I, you know, loaded luggage. I did all that stuff. And I, and because back then women weren't working on the ramp, but I grew up around soldiers. So I'm probably most comfortable around men, like just having a bunch of men everywhere, you know, uh, because of my upbringing. So I'm on the ramp being like probably the only chicken in all of Boston airport and like loving it, you know, having a really great time. And then I would go upstairs to make extra money and work customer service. And so when I was up there, one of the executives, uh, happened to fly in town and he's like, you know, Steph, every time I come to this airport, I see you smiling, serving customers. I think we have you in the wrong position.

I think you should be in sales. Right? So at that point, I didn't know anything about sales, but I ended up selling for the airlines, did that, uh, for many years and then got recruited into private aviation. And there I, you know, sold in private jets, then oversaw a team in private jets. That's became the first black person in us history to run a private jet company. And then was a chief growth officer for goals up was part of the team that helped take the first private jet company public. So, and now I'm, I serve on a private aviation board. Right? So, uh, so yes, my story is, you know, uh, an interesting one, but I've been in aviation since the beginning. And I say all that to say that, um, you know, it was somebody else who saw that I should be in sales.

I wasn't going the sales route. I didn't know anything about it, but he saw based on my personality and so on and so forth. He's the one that made that one comment and that one sentence that literally changed the trajectory of which I was going. And now that one sentence, you know, many years later, I can stand there and say, I was the first, right? One guy, one sentence. And that, that goes to the power of leaders because he didn't realize with that one sentence, it was going to change my entire life. So, so, so then did you go back? Cause I was looking, you, you did get, you did get a degree at university of Phoenix, right? No, I went to university of Phoenix to, to, to just pick up some business courses here and there because I could feel I was missing some things because I, you know, I grew up in aviation, but I didn't have a business background.

So I went into business courses there. I also, I actually have a certification from Harvard as well on finance and accounting. So I'm like you, whenever I can kind of grab what I need is what I've done. But yeah, but I didn't go, I didn't, I put it this way. I was that kid that knew John that I wanted to be in aviation. So I was like, I need to go to school for four years when I already know what I want to do. You know, let me save the money. And my parents didn't have, you know, we're a military family, so they didn't have a ton of money. And so that's the route that I went, but it seems like it served me well. It seems like it has. Before I dive into the aviation piece, Mary Kay. Oh, yeah.

I saw that. Like, so when was that a, was that a, like a parallel thing or was that a stop and a go back? Like, where was Mary Kay? How, like, where did Mary Kay come from? It's such a funny story. So I was, and it was a stop for a little bit, but here's why. So I was, one of the airlines that I sold for, I was gone 270 days a year. So I was traveling a lot. And that was fine when I was young and single, but then, you know, as life progressed, I now was married. We had our baby, you know, my first baby. And, and so to be gone 270 days a year with a three-year-old is no longer feasible. So one day I went in to talk to my boss about it and I ended up just quitting because I was like this, I can't work this schedule.

This is crazy. And so when I quit, I was sitting around and I was a stay-at-home mom. I lasted three weeks, John. I was like, well, this is not for me. Like, I don't want to work this hard. You know, I'm like, this is crazy. So I thought like, what can I do? I got to do something. I can't do something. I don't want to go back to the airlines because then that's, you know, when I know how that was going to end 270 days a year. But what could I do while my baby was little? So my friend was like, you should go sell Mary Kay. And I didn't, by the way, I didn't wear makeup. I came from the ramp. Okay. So I'm not a makeup girl. So my best friend was like, you should come and join Mary Kay. And I was like, well, what's Mary Kay?

Oh, we sell makeup. And she, you know how Mary Kay ladies are, right? So she went through the whole thing. And I, and in my mind, John, even though I didn't wear makeup, I knew how to sell. And so my head was like, I could, how hard could this be is lipstick, right? I can do this. So I joined Mary Kay. Love it. And I can tell you, John, these women looked crazy. Okay. Because I didn't know what I was doing. And so I would just sell all kinds of stuff. And I remember sitting down with the Mary Kay lady. And she was telling me about, you know, building inventory and all these foundation shades. And because I didn't know makeup, I was like, why would I buy all these shades? I'll just buy one shade and make this one shade work for everybody.

Okay. Which is a big mistake. So I bought this one shade called Buffed Ivory. I now know who, now I'm a little bit more experienced in the makeup world. That Buffed Ivory was great if you were like, like little orphan Annie. Like if you were super fair skin with bright red hair, that was the color for you. If you were a brown girl or black girl, or even just like a natural white girl, that was not the color for you. So I was selling, now I knew how to sell. So I sold everybody in my town, Buffed Ivory. And these women, my black and brown girls were like, you know stuff, do you, I don't know that this is my shade. They're trying to put it in. And I was like, girl, you look awesome, right? So my husband was like, I don't think this is your gift.

Because these women look like the Joker from Batman. The whole town looks ridiculous. Because I was selling, I want a car and everything. I did not know what I was doing. But I had one of my Mary Kay free cars, not wearing makeup and making everybody look ridiculous. But anyway, so, but I could sell. So what are you going to do? You know? That's fantastic. So yes, Mary Kay was a little stunt in the role while I figured out how I was going to, you know, bring some money in and yet not be gone 270 days a year. I love it. I love it. All right. So now back to the aviation. I heard that you, you effectively took one of these groups from kind of a, almost like a low budget, but like you, you flipped it to a premium service, right?

Could you, what role was that? And, and what did you walk into? And why did you decide to, to shift the entire vibe of this business to, to high, high quality? Yeah, no, it's a great question. So the, that was my very first president job, right? And this particular company, they were a kind of a more, had a mentality of a low cost, you know, not a carrier because it was private aviation, but they were just all about the, the commodities. They were very price focused. When they asked me to come over and become the president, I was looking at the numbers and I was thinking, okay, and, and I had been talking to the board and talking to the CEO as well. And we had decided that, you know, maybe we, let's elevate this product here's an, and you as a salesperson can totally appreciate this when you're the cheapest, that's just a mad dash to the bottom, right?

Nothing good's going to come out of that. And so my particular philosophy was let's not try to be the lowest. I mean, at the end of the day, it's still private aviation. So how cheap are we going? Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So it's like, this doesn't make any sense. Let's instead create a value add and let's raise up that, you know, our, our, our yield, if you will, and, uh, and give, you know, just give a different experience. And so, yes, when I went over as the president, it was, you know, we're the cheapest one on the block. And then I had to transition the entire company and the mindset. And, and I know most of your folks are salespeople. The salespeople is where I needed to start, right?

To get that mindset shifted. It's no longer we're the cheapest. It's now, here's the value proposition. Here's, you know, the features and benefits and everything. So you've got to get them to stop thinking cheap and start thinking elevated and luxury. And so we did that and we added bells and whistles into the product and the product and the features and whatnot. And so we got there, but, uh, yes, that was the, that was the mission. And, you know, because I just didn't see the ending to be a good ending when you're just trying to always compete on price. And especially in a case where the product is expensive anyway, you know, so I'm, and I think I, I see this all the time with sales reps where they, they get so beat up on price that, that they just lead with discounts.

They lead because they're just scared to say the price. And with this culture shift of going from, Hey, that's how I've sold. And to me, quite frankly, and I don't mean to offend anybody out there, but that ain't selling. Like if you're the cheapest, that ain't selling. That's order taken. That's, Hey, we're the, we're the cheapest. Call us in last, you know, we'll beat everybody's price. It's like that there's no sales skills to that in any way, shape or form. So, but it's really hard to change that to, and, and get them to believe, right. That their prices. And I've always wondered, you know, like as a CFO, for instance, in an organization, I'd love your perspective on this. Do you think it's important for a sales rep to know kind of the foundation of the price?

So for instance, like what goes into the price so that they can justify it if a client asks, or is it better to have them relatively ignorant of the details of the price and how it got to and what they do with investments so that they can just stay confident with this. And it's more about a belief system in general that we are, we are valuable enough. Who cares about how we came up with our price? This is what the value says. So where are you on like having a sales rep understand where the price comes from versus just trying to shift their belief to this value oriented and then secondary, how do you get them to shift that belief? Yeah, that's a good question. So I'll start with your last one first, cause it's easy.

Cause at the beginning I had to, um, I had to keep saying no, right. So part of the way I had to shift it is, you know, the deals you give, I would always give my salespeople, you know, here's how much yield you have to play around with. Right. And, um, and so what I ended up having to do was just tell them no at the beginning all the time. And because, and it was making them uncomfortable cause you know, I'm still expecting the number to be hit and so on and so forth, but because I'm trying to change your behavior, right. They come in and say, can you be, you know, give it at this discounted price. I'm going to drill you with like 30 questions to just absolutely exhaust you. Right. So that you don't want to come back and ask me again.

Right. Cause you're like, Oh, you know what? I'm not coming back in the, I was just brutal. And I, and then the second piece of it, it also allowed me to double check your thought process. Right. And so then from there I could help coach you through how I needed this mentality shifted. And so I'd already also prepared my, my board and stuff as well, because when you're trying to change that mentality, you may not necessarily hit the numbers cause you're trying to get the salespeople to think differently. And that may take me a minute. Right. Uh, so that was the first piece. The second piece though, to, to answer your other question is I've always believed it's I'm, I, I will say this till the cows come home.

My philosophy, John, was actually really simple. I will not have an ignorant sales force. Right. And what I mean by that is the sales team, everybody needs to know how the business is run, but let's just say for the sake of this conversation, the sales team needs to know about how the business is run as well. So one of the things that I would do is do, especially when I became the president of the company, um, or this particular company is I would do walk-a-miles. So every department had to walk a mile in somebody else's shoes. And the reason why that was important is because one, a, I wanted the teamwork to function, right? It's easy to get mad at X, Y, Z department when you don't really know what X, Y, Z department does.

Right. So that's the first thing. Second thing is going back to, I will not have an ignorant sales team. I need you when you're out there to have the confidence of you're repping the company. So I do want you to know about finance. So I would always ask the sales team a couple of questions. And it's funny, I just told you, I just spoke, uh, and I had, I had the conference. I was like, here's the questions I want you to go ask your people. What business are we in? How does the business make money? And how does what you do contribute to help the business win? Now, if everybody in the company can answer that question based on their expertise or their role, you're already batting, you know, much further than most companies.

Now, bringing this back to the sales team, I want the sales team, I like, and I, I stumbled upon this many, many years ago when I asked the sales team, hey, how can we make money? And of course, you know, typical sales team, we make money when we sell some of the stuff, right? And they're high-fiving themselves. I was like, yeah, but how else do we make money? And it was crickets. They couldn't answer that question. So in their mind, we made money when they hit their quota. That's one aspect of it, sure. But we also made money selling the, you know, it's great. You sell the plane, we make some money, sure. We make money on fuel. We make money on pilot insurance. We make money on, you know. So now I'm rattling off all these other ways that the business makes money.

And that has nothing to do with your quota, right? So by them understanding the holistic part of how does the business make money, now all of a sudden, because they may think, well, we make 20% on this particular, you know, 20% margin, so why can't I take it down and discount? Well, because that 20% margin is not really 20% margin. I got to pay for you. I got to pay for you. I got to pay for this, right? And so by them understanding how does the business actually make money, and the best people to answer that question is finance people, right? Because finance can tell you to the penny how the business makes money. Salespeople usually don't know all that. They just know their quota, and that's it, right?

Well, I expect you to know your quota. You don't get any rewards for that. But you should know how this business function. And I'm not expecting you just to plop in and go figure it out yourself. That's my job as the leader is to make sure that, you know, everybody knows how this business runs, and everybody can get on board. They have a certain expertise, but everybody has a dog in this fight, right? The business either all wins or the business all loses. And so sales plays a really important part of that. Here's what I found, John. The minute, and I've done this on several different companies that I've run, what I find is the minute salespeople know how the business makes money, and by the way, I would restructure their entire bonus to get it to line up to what I needed them to do.

And then I would also share. So, you know, yes, I may give you a certain amount of yield, but, you know, use it all. Let's split it. And that's another way you can make money, right? So if I get the bonus piece right, and they understand how the business makes money, what's great about that is now they're repping the company in such a, you know, because I always said, I don't want you to just be a salesperson. I want you to be a business executive, and I want you to have business acumen. And so that's a very different thing than just being a salesperson who knows how to get a quota, right? And so once I have people out there who now are business executives understanding business acumen, well, now when the customer says, can I get a discount, they're going to protect the bottom line?

They're like, absolutely not. You know, or they may say, well, absolutely, we can figure out how we can get your pricing down. But then that means we need to take some things off the plate. So tell us what it is that you really don't necessarily need here that we can remove, right? So now it's a different conversation. And that's how I choose to raise up salespeople. They are business executives, regardless of what their title is. And I expect when they're out there representing the company, that they're protecting our pocket. Because if I'm sharing, you know, the money that you're saving with you, right? Then you've got a dog in this fight beyond just you hitting your quota. And I've always found that to be the most, most successful way to get the team to hit.

But more importantly, John, you know, I'm a leader of leaders. I develop people, right? I don't want you just to hit your quota. I want to develop you to be, you know, the top executive. I want you to be so good that my competitions constantly come in to steal you. But you're so happy with where you are because we're training you, we're developing you, we're challenging you, that you choose not to go nowhere, right? Now, if you have that set up and in place, what's really cool about that, John, is now you can just watch how salespeople carry themselves because they know their stuff, right? And they know how this business works. And so it's just a very different attitude and swagger that goes with it.

When you know what you know what you know, you don't come in there and go jerk around with all discounts and all that stuff. You're like, no, they'd rather walk away and go find another type of client because not every client's a good client anyway. So that's the type of people that I raise up in sales. I love it. I've been, I've been screaming for the past, you know, shit, I can't even remember how long about business acumen and how it's sorely lacking in today's sales reps. And I think if I tell reps of like, if there's one skill that you try to like, forget about techniques, whatever, like just go learn about business, go learn to have that conversation, learn how to read a P&L, learn what profit looks like, learn what different channels, because once you understand business, you're not selling, you're collaborating, you're figuring stuff out together.

And you realize, no, this is not a good client for us. Because from a business standpoint, if we bring them on, it's going to suck away our resources. It's not allow us to do this, whatever. And you can have that confidence, but man, so few. I mean, one of the, one of the favorite things that I did early in my career, I don't know how I did this was when I was a young manager, I wouldn't let, I didn't give the reps, like when I hired you, your first three weeks had nothing to do with product knowledge, anything about us. I gave you a blank org chart. Yeah. With the titles on it. And we were small. We were only like 25, 30 people at the time. And I, and I said, Hey, you need to now go interview.

You need to go find whoever these people are in our, in our organization. You need to treat them like a sales rep. Like you have to schedule a meeting with them, have an agenda for it. And I want you to interview each one. I need you to prep. So you ask good questions. And the goal here is to understand, first of all, why did they join this company? Right? So a belief system. So understand why they, why they joined and why they stayed. Second of all, how, what their role is all about and how it relates to what you do. And then I want you to come back with like a book report. Basically, I want you to sum all that up and a two page thing about why and all this other stuff. And that was your first week.

Your second week was meeting with customers and talking to customers and talking to bad customer, like customers who we lost as well and why they didn't do business with us. And it was the whole, the thing about it was my belief was you have to have a belief in the business. You have to believe in what you're selling, that it, that it makes a difference for the right client. And once you have that belief, now I can teach a tactics and tick, you know, and all that other stuff. But if I teach you the tactics first and not the belief system or the acumen, you know, after you're just going to keep chasing tactics. That's not going to be understanding why you're doing what you're doing. Yeah. And one other thing too, I would add to that.

Cause I a hundred percent agree with you. I'm like in your amen corner. Like, yes, yes. Preach. Um, is that you can also, it also makes you go back to being a sales executive. It also makes you a better salesperson for the client. Right. So for an example, if you understand a P and L or you understand how the business makes money, then, you know, one of the things I always tell salespeople is, especially if you're calling on a publicly held company, go grab their, uh, you know, shareholders, uh, annual report, go read what the letter from the CEO says, cause that's going to tell you the direction the company is focused and where everybody else should be focused based on what the CEO said. Somewhere along the line, the CEO is going to talk about people, labor and talent.

It's going to talk about the environment. Like there's certain things you just know he or she is going to talk about, but, um, but if you understand, okay, so now I'm a salesperson, I go and I have read X, Y, Z's, you know, uh, annual report. I know where they're focused as a company. Now, when I'm meeting with that company, because I understand business, I understand how we make money. I understand a financial app, you know, statement, et cetera. Now I can have a much more sophisticated conversation with the client because the client, the conversation is really all about me trying to figure out what is your biggest problem and how can my product or service help you solve that? That's it. Right.

And, and so by me, by me doing the extra steps of, let me understand what your CEO says is the problem based on the annual report. Then I'm going to do the research and figure out what the latest information is, but that's going to change the conversation. And what will, what will happen is the client will feel the change because I'm not trying to sell you anything. I don't know if I can actually help you. I got no idea, right? That's why we're having this conversation. But the conversation isn't about, you know, how my product and service can be so great for you and better than everybody else's. My, my conversation is going to be, Hey, listen, I see that you guys are doing this. I noticed that you're hitting this market.

I noticed that you're, you know, your shares, your stocks are kind of hitting it. You know, I know you guys have had executive turnover, blah, blah, blah. And so now based on what you're calling me for, I can have a much better, wider, deeper and wider discussion about whether or not my product truly can help you or not based on me knowing more than just the one piece, you know? And that's really, honestly, John, that's where salespeople, that's one way that you, A, differentiate yourself. Two, you become incredibly marketable because people want to steal you, you know, and you can start to, you know, ask for certain amounts of money and you can just make a ton of money. But equally important, especially nowadays, you know, I don't know about you, but I'm always asked like, who do you think AI is, you know, is going to take over?

AI is going to help us be much more efficient. Salespeople, we are not the most efficient people, right? So thank God for AI because we can start to get a lot more efficient, but it will not replace the human connection part. And what you have to do as a salesperson, figure out how you're not going to be a walk-and-talking website or a walk-and-talking brochure. They can find all the information before they talk to you. They don't need to talk to you. So you need to be able to bring something of value. And what you and I are talking about is the stuff that comes of value. I understand. I have a solid business acumen. I understand my business and I've done the due diligence to understand yours as much as I can beyond just you wanting my product and whether or not my product's better or worse than somebody else's.

Yeah. And that's, so I wasn't going to go on AI, but let's dig it for a second. My concern is this with AI. Like, I think it's fantastic. I mean, we can talk about the Terminator scenarios and all that stuff if you want to, but what I'm worried about, right, is the development of business acumen in, because a lot of what you went through early stages, a lot of what I went through early stages was just, you said it, it was a school of hard knocks, right? And it's like, you grinded and you did this shit work and it was like, ah, fuck. And as shitty as all that shit work was, it made us who we are. It made us able to have this conversation. It made, it made this podcast so I don't have to ask you my 10 questions in a row and not pay attention to your answer.

Cause I'm worried about the next question. Right. But now AI can do all that early stuff. Any entry level, pick a sales reps, lawyers, you name it, that learning part of the early days of anybody's career is now done so much better and faster and easier with AI. So I'm curious from your perspective, where do you see the business acumen coming from? Where do you see the fundamentals coming from that will eventually lead to whatever the future kit is? And, and quite frankly, what are the fundamentals anymore? Right. Oh, that's so good. That's such a good question. The way that I see it is you're right. AI is going to be fast and, and sometimes better, right? Like, you know, I use AI and I'm like, well, that's really right.

So, so you're right. When we grew up, you know, like if somebody made fun of me the other day, cause I have a calculator on my desk and I'm like, who uses a calculator? So when you have a phone and blah, blah, blah, all those old school things is you have to at least understand the fundamentals. So you know what to punch in the calculator. Right. And so that's what you're talking about is we had to at least understand the fundamentals. So we knew how to, you know, even with AI, I know how to ask for certain things because I understand, I understand, I have critical thinking to know where I'm trying to get to. Right. And you're right. There is, you know, AI will probably eliminate some of that.

And so you may not necessarily have it. But to answer your question where I believe that, um, that people will stand out, especially in the arena of sales is now you have to start to understand different things. So where I see AI being a value is yes, it may be able to give me efficiency things quicker that would save me a ton of time, but that means it frees me up time wise. So now where should I spend my time? Right. So that I still have that competitive advantage. And I believe where you should spend your time is really understanding human connection because at the end of the day, that's going to be the biggest differentiator. And we all know in sales, right? Whether they like us, don't like us, trust us, don't trust us.

You know, we may have the best product, but nobody cares at the end of the day. Cause you know, how is this going to make my life, my job easier? That's what I care about. And, and you, the salesperson are a big part of that. Are you easy to do business? Are you responsive? Do you show up? You know what I mean? Do you know what you're talking about? So, so that's where I believe that the extra time that AI is going to save us, that you should shift your attention to how do you become a more effective communicator and understanding like I have a course called neuroscience selling and neuroscience selling is powered by conversational intelligence. It's a course we put together a long time ago.

And so really the whole focus of it is how does the brain show up in a sales conversation? Now I talk on that for leadership as well, right? But, but people aren't really thinking about that. And so that would be the next level of where I see things going for, for anybody, but also salespeople is if I'll give you an example. If trust, we all know, you know, if they don't trust us, like we don't need the other five stages of sales. It doesn't matter. Yeah. People say they buy from people they like. I'm like, bullshit. They buy from people they trust. Exactly. That's what they buy from. That's who they buy from. And so now, like when I go and speak at sales conferences, the whole conversation is about and my whole keynote is about how to, and I just, I, I just hit the number one, um, uh, sex is step, which of course is trust because I agree with you, right?

It's all about, if they don't trust me, then I don't need to know about how to close this hill because it ain't closing anyway. Right. So, so when I think about, uh, you know, the neuroscience of trust, one of the things that I talk about is, you know, during the conversation, you know, what is, there's chemicals that get produced during a conversation and I can either have a good conversation based on the chemicals that I, you know, drive in your brain, or I can have a conversation that's going to be hard and clunky because of the chemicals that I've got activated in your brain. So when I think about what AI can do, yes, it's going to save us a lot of time, but that time I need to redirect it to get better, in my opinion, on human connection, because that's going to be the thing that AI can't replace, at least not in the near future, maybe down the line, I might play, you know, right now it can't.

And so that's going to be your competitive advantage as a salesperson or as a leader as well, is how do you connect with people? Because that's, because people, yes, they want to do business that they, that, you know, people they trust and enjoy and like, and that is, so much of it is not your product. They may come back and make, they may think it's your product, but you know, I always use the example of this. If I meet someone and I'm just asking you a lot of questions about yourself, by default, I'm going to raise up your oxytocin because we all love talking about ourselves. It's going to make you feel really good. You're going to trust me. And you're like, you know, I don't know what it is about that, Stephanie, but she was awesome.

You know what it was about Stephanie? Stephanie kept asking you about you, right? I said it all the time. I'll be the coolest kid at the party just by saying, Hey, tell me more about you. Tell me more about you. Exactly. So it doesn't have anything to do with the product or the service, right? Because if I can get your oxytocin flowing and you're feeling good about interacting with me, now we can roll the product in when we need you. But that, if I can just do that, you know, versus my competitors who are just trying to tell you the product and how the product's better and blah, blah, blah. You're going to take my call. You're going to have coffee with me. You're going to do why? Because you feel good.

You don't, you may not be able to explain why you feel good about being around me, but you feel it. And that's because I knew how to have a conversation with you to activate certain chemicals in the brain that are going to be activated regardless. So I can now have influence on which chemicals I'm activating, the ones that build trust or the ones that build distrust. And what I forget what the saying is, but then you're never going to, they're never going to remember what you tell them, but they'll always remember how you made them feel. A hundred percent. Exactly. And that's something that I go, you know, to answer your question, that's what AI can't necessarily do. AI can give us all the information so we can be really, you know, dogmatic about, you know, understanding more about the person, but how they feel, that's going to be all us.

And that's where the human connection part plays in. Yeah. So the human connection leads us to the book. There you go. See what I did there? No. No, it was a good transition, right? Because I think one of the highlights in the ally leadership is specifically is curiosity, right? Yeah. So first of all, why'd you write the book? Well, thank you for the question. So I wrote the book. It's funny. So as a speaker, my speakers bureau was like, hey, you walk off stage and people like to ship it. Like, that was great. Ship the book. And I didn't have a book. And at the time I was, you know, running companies and I was just like, who's got time to write a book, right? But then my schedule started to free up and I, you know, left corporate and I had time to write a book.

And then I really wanted to make sure that I wrote a book of value. I didn't want to just write a book because I was being told I should write a book. But what could I actually add to society that would be unique and different from my perspective? And that's how ally leadership came up. So ally is an acronym. It stands for ask, listen, learn, you take action. So that's the framework. The book itself is called Ally Leadership, How to Lead People Who Are Not Like You. When we think about it from a leadership perspective, we've got six generations working under one roof right now, which is pretty much unheard of. And we all know, you know, a boomer thinks very different than a zoomer, right? And they have different perspectives and expectations and different work ethics, right?

How they see work is very different. So six generations at work. We have women as the majority of the population. That changes the dynamics at work because women see things differently. We communicate differently. Then you've got every one of the ethnic races growing, white race shrinking, right? So that changes the dynamics. And then on top of it, you know, now you've got people who have disabilities or maybe they're neurodiverse or you've got the LGBTQ plus community. We do have a lot of dynamics happening in today's modern workforce. And most leaders aren't equipped. They know how to lead people who look and work and think like them. But that's not the world we live in anymore. And so I wrote the book, not as to chastise leaders, but to actually help leaders to say, listen, my entire career, I am the first black person in U.S.

history to run a private jet company. It's 20 something, y'all. You know what I mean? Like I did that in 2020 and, you know, we're still talking about it. I'm still the first, right? You know, I'm one and only at that stage. So it's like, okay, the world has changed. And what we as leaders have to do is to change with it. And so the playbook that we were handed was built for a different time. And it was built for a time that we literally just kind of threw out directions to people, managed some tasks here and there, and hired people who worked and thought and looked exactly like us. But because that's not the world today, what I wanted leaders to realize is I've spent my entire career, I come from an all males, primarily white male dominated space.

And that's just me working with folks. But my clients are high net worth, white male, you know, and so I'm a unicorn. For your readers and listeners out there, I'm an African-American female. And so I've spent my entire career leading people who were not like me. And so therefore, I wrote the book to tell other leaders, hey, here's how I did it. Here's how the times I hit it out the park. Here's the times I made mistakes. And so this is no shame, no game. We're all going to be leading people who are not like us. That's the world we live in. And so the book was created as a love letter to say, here's how I did it in hopes that this might help you as well. Love it. So one of the pieces that stuck out to me was privilege as a lover.

Yeah. I've been fighting for a while now to actually change the word privilege. Because when you tell white boy like me that I'm privileged, I immediately get defensive. It's like, how dare you? I worked my ass off to get to where I am. Right. But that's not privilege. Right. Privilege is in silver spoon. Privilege is I'm a white male in America. And when I get pulled over by a cop, I don't have to. I can look at that cop and be like, what the fuck you pulled me over for? And I don't have to worry about getting shot. I don't have to worry. Say that again louder for the people in the back, John. I'm crying. I got a tattoo. Oh, really? Oh, nice. Well, my dad passed away. I was cleaning up his desk and on this little like pin board.

And it said in his writing, which towards the end, it was a little sketchy. But it says, when you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression. Yes. Oh, I love it. I didn't meet your dad, but I love him. He gets it. He gets it. And to me, that's why I want to change it to advantage, right? Because you can't argue that being a white male in America is an advantage. You just can't. I'm sorry. I won't have that argument with you. I could argue all day long that I ain't privileged. Right. At least the perception of the word. So talk to me a little bit about leveraging. First of all, what does privilege mean to you? And how do you define it? And then how do you talk in the book about leveraging that privilege to help lift up, elevate others?

Yeah. So thank you. Well, it's funny. It's so funny that you brought it up about the word advantage because I spend a lot of time with that in the book because there's a lot. When you've read the book, the book is not a DEI book at all. It's a leadership book. But I knew with the title, people may think it's a DEI book. So I had to be really mindful of how do I, because I don't want to trigger people. And I don't want people to tune out, right, without actually reading it. And so privilege was one of those conversations that I remember kind of really spending time with. And I changed it from, I say, I think the chapter is called privilege is not a dirty word, right? So let me just hit this head on.

But then I started to use the word advantage because you're right. Privilege can trigger people and advantage does not, right? And I'm still trying to say the same message. And one of the things that you may have seen this in the book, I use the example of, you know, to answer your question about privilege. If, in fact, we think of just a pie, right? So on the pie, everybody, let's say there was, this pie was cut into different pieces and one group got literally 80% of the pie, right? And then the rest of the groups had to split the other 20%. Well, if we're trying to get things now in balance where everybody is, you know, equal, right? Then what will happen is the group that had the 80% of the pie is going to start feeling like we're taking pieces of their pie.

Like equality is oppression. A hundred percent, right? It's like you had 80% and now we're just trying to get this pie equaled out. And so at the beginning, you may feel like they're taking from my 80%. Well, we are, right? We're just trying to get it to equal out so everybody has an equal piece of the pie. But at the beginning, we do have to kind of slice into your 80% as we spread out the 20%. So that's how I see advantage, right? You had 80% and now, you know, we're just trying to get this where everybody has an equal amount. I also talk about in the book privilege because it is a trigger. So the way that I see privilege just means that you are not being measured by, you know, circumstances that have things that you can't control, right?

Like if I'm a black person, I can't control that. I was born black. It is what it is. And so there's none that I can't – so I don't have to deal with that. But privilege is – there's so many pieces of privilege. There could be, yes, financial privilege and that kind of stuff. But something as simple as, you know, this actually happened to me the other day. I was in the grocery store and I was like, why do I have to go? Why do I have to go to the – find the international food section to just find, you know what I mean, a seasoning? Can't it just be in the seasoning section? You know, why – and so those are little things that it's just like, why do we have an ethnic hair section off in the corner somewhere?

Just put it in the hair section, you know? So those are little things that you don't have to think about until you have to think about them, right? And so the way that I would love to see the world one day, if I had detail about it as a complete control, John, is let's get rid of the stupid stuff, right? And to me, those are examples of dumb stuff. So in the book, when I talk about privilege, I talk about proximity privilege, for an example. I talk about, yes, there's, you know, privileged male-female, right? You know, and as a guy, you don't have to walk down the street and double-check like, oh, I'm getting ready to walk across the construction thing. You don't have to think about it. Women have to always think about it.

Women have to always be alert. Like, what is around me? You were always on a high alert that men don't necessarily have to think about those kind of things. That's a privilege for you, right? Nothing, you didn't earn that privilege. It's just something that, you know, it is what it is. And so nobody can fault you for it. It's not your fault, right? But those are examples of how privilege needs to not be a word that gets people all wigged out. I always say privilege itself is actually a great word, and we've made it a bad word, right? If you have privilege, that's actually a positive, right? But we've made it such a trigger that it's really unfortunate. So, yes, same like you, I tend to switch my words around and use advantage so I can get people to hear what's being said versus being triggered on other things.

So privilege is, we all, we all, the other part of that, John, is all of us have privilege. Of course. And I think that's the biggest thing. In some way, right? In some way, everybody has privilege, right? If you woke up this morning and you had something to eat, you got a privilege, you know? So I just want to, I want to loosen up the intensity of the word. And, you know, it should be tense in certain times because privilege is a good thing. But if you use it the right way, you know? Let me ask, though, I'm going to go, I'm going to push back a little bit on something you said earlier about this pie analogy. Because before we got on here, you know, we talked about how it's like, I wish everybody didn't think that life was a zero-sum game, right?

And that pie analogy tells me there's a zero-sum game. There's 80%, 20%, and that 20% has to eat into that 80%. So I do have to take it. I don't know if I believe that. I don't know. I mean, yes, in certain circumstances, right? That I do have to take a little bit of this so we can all survive, right? But I don't believe that it's a zero-sum game. I believe it feels like a zero-sum game. It feels like you're taking things away from me when you're getting more. And I'm not getting more. You know what I mean? So that's where I think it's like, hey, I've hit my 80%, and I want more. Now you're getting more. And I kind of equal this out like, hey, you're kind of getting more, and I'm not. So I think that's the aggravation.

So help me understand that a little bit more with that analogy, because I want to make sure I'm clear on that. Yeah. Well, I think that's really – you're bringing up a really good point, because then you've got to go further back, which was should you have had the 80% in the first place. Right, yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and that's where people get ruffled, right? Because it's like, well, okay, you had 80%, but if we're really being honest, how did you get 80%? Do you know what I mean? And so that's a whole different conversation. Totally. Right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we've got to go deep on that one. Yeah, we've got to go too deep and too far on that one, yeah. But my whole thing, though, is for everyone to feel like – let's think about little kids.

There's a great experiment. You've probably seen it on social, where, you know, kids will be with other kids, and then there are certain kids that get, like, a lot of candy, and other kids may get none. And instinctively, the little kids who have a lot and they're seeing their friend that gets none, instinctively, they're like, well, like, you can tell it's bothering them. And then they want to, like, well, she can ask for my candy. That's our normal human instinct. Like, that's how we were literally born, right? Because, you know, we feel each other's pain. So in the book I talk about – I think I talk about this in the book. There's a study that – yeah, I'm positive I do, actually. There's a study that was done for a little – because it's about trust, when do babies start really feeling trust.

And it turns out that there was a study done that when a baby who can't speak, can't talk, you know, it's an infant. If the mother would act like she hit her foot or whatever, and now she's got a reaction, the baby starts to have the same reaction, and the baby's feeling it. Now, the baby can't put two words together. It doesn't understand it. But the whole experiment is basically showing we instinctively trust and care for each other, even coming out the womb, right? Now, life beats us up, and somewhere along the line, things change, right? But if we could just get back to the basics of just being your brother's keeper, you know, any sales team I've ever run, in any company I've ever run, the very first meeting I have with the team, whenever I take it over, very first meeting and the very first conversation I have is how on this team you will be your brother and sister's keeper.

And we're going to either all win together or we're going to all lose together. But this is completely our choice. There's your military background. There's my military background. Exactly. And then taking it one step further, every salesperson who's ever worked for me will be like, oh, man, you want to send Stephanie over the moon? Go in there and complain about one of your colleagues without the colleague being right next to you. She will absolutely, like, you know, not – and you will not be having a good day after that because my philosophy was always very simple, right? If I start the conversation and you know that's where I stand, then if you have a problem, like, you know, hey, people are messy, right?

You're going to have a problem with somebody, but you're – the focus, the thing I always made sure is that you go to – if you've got a problem with your brother, you go and have that conversation with them. You two can't figure it out. Then the two of you can come to me and the three of us can have the discussion. But we're not going to have this discussion if you haven't had it over there first, right? And you start building a team like that. And then – and again, we're all in this together. We're going to all win or we're going to all lose. Now everybody's got a dog in the fight and I want to see you win, right? It's not I got to win and you got to lose. It's not a zero-sum game, but you have to practice that and train that at the very beginning.

So that's why for me it's always day one so I can kind of put my foot down as to this is how – I don't know what you were used to before, but this is how this is going to run, you know? That's how, like, I always knew – you know, so I'm from Boston. I grew up here. Oh, no. I was born in the Cape. Oh, nice. All right. Cool. Yeah, from Hyannis. Uh-oh. We might be related. I should have known that last name by Barrows. Are you kidding me? I'm a Portuguese. Me too. Cape Verdean. Oh, John. What? Yeah, we went down to Hyannis every single summer. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Cape Verde. There we go. Yeah, for all those Portuguese in North Dartmouth and New Bedford, right? Yeah, exactly. And you know we're all related, right?

Yeah, exactly. Somehow, right? But I always remember, like, I remember going down to Maryland for school. I went to University of Maryland and I would, like, I'd walk. You know, I'd have a good conversation with somebody and I thought it was genuine, right? And then I'd hear them talk shit about me behind my back. And I'd be like, what? Wait, like, if you don't like me, why don't you just tell me you don't like me? That's right. That's right. And then when I came back to Boston, I realized, okay, this is why I like here. Because, like, Boston, I don't like all you. Fuck you. I don't like you. It's like, oh, cool. Thank you. Like, I actually like that. Like, I appreciate that. That's right. Exactly.

Boston is so unique in its own kind. I mean, and I love it. I love it. I love it. Same thing. It's funny. One time, because now I don't live in Boston, so I go back to visit family. And I remember we were in the car and this, you know, it was a nice day out. This bike guy was riding across. Like, he was, you know, it was like, the lights are stopped. So the car is awaited. The guy's riding this bike. He falls off his bike, right? And everyone's like, oh, my God. You know, is he okay? Light turns green. He's like, hon, hon, get out the way, right? Get out the way. And I was like, yep, welcome back to Boston. Broke him home. Like, that's actually my, so very similar story. When I came back, I was there to work for DeWalt, right?

And I'm driving around the city, my big old Dodge Ram pickup truck. And I'm looking around for a place to live, right? And obviously, I was distracted. And I cut somebody off. And I hear out the window, get off the road, you fucking dickbag. And I was like, what? It sounds so good to be back home, yeah? I'm like, that felt right. I'm like, it was my fault. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm going to roll down my window, go fuck yourself, blah, blah, blah, right? But, like, that was my fault. I deserve that. Yeah, yeah. So, love it. Oh, and by the way, even more of a connection. My dad worked at Hanscom Air Force Base for MITRE. No. And he was a contractor for the FAA. Nice. So, I wasn't an Army brat.

Yep, yep. I wasn't a military or aviation brat. But, like, a lot of my friends were because that was where all – actually, it was great because that's, unfortunately or fortunately, where all our color came from. That's right. That's right. Bedford was pretty damn white. Uh-huh. And we had the base kids who would come to our school. And that's where I got exposed to, like, all the different cultures and different people and everything else. It was just awesome. Well, you know what's really funny? I lived on Hanscom Air Force Base as well. Yeah. So, we lived there. I was born on Otis Air Force Base. Okay. I would say me and John F.K. Jr. Yeah, there you go. But then I lived on Hanscom Air Force Base.

And then my grandmother, Hyannis, and all my cousins and stuff. And so, that's where – yeah. So, we definitely have that connection for sure. I will tell you right now, those air shows were my favorite. Yes. When the Blue Angels came through. Yes. And, like, whoo. Yes, yes. I had a blast going down to that. It's, like, the best, right? And now it's so funny because there's – now in aviation, I'm on this association that they – it's, like, an invite-only type of thing and based on all of our expertise. And so, we're available for the Department of Defense, senior leaders, if they need help or direction as from a business perspective because, like, they're so deep in the government stuff. So, anyways, when they called me to be on this – in this group, I was like, are you sure you got the right person?

Like, this is very – what? You know what I mean? And I remember saying, well, why – and they said, well, you know aviation. And my response to them was, I do, but I don't know anything about fighter jets. Like, I know private jets. I don't know fighter jets. And they're like, no, we know that. But if you think of every single group in Department of Defense, they all have a fleet of aircraft. And they're not all fighter jets, right? They're all private jets to move, you know, whether you're DEA, you may be moving, you know, prisoners or whatever, right? So, I was like, oh, well, then I can help you with, you know? But the air shows, I grew up as a little kid listening to those and watching those.

Until this day, I still love it. Still love everything about anything that has to do with – that's how I got into aviation, right? Is, you know, that was the thing, so. All right. Last question. Yes, my dear. This is more curiosity for me than anything else. Make-A-Wish. Yes. Yes. Talk to me about your favorite Make-A-Wish. Ooh. You know what? There's one that just happened, or I just heard this story recently, and I got to meet a product of, like, the after effect of this whole thing. And so, Make-A-Wish, first of all, is an amazing organization. And I am – it's just, you know, it's so much – you get to see so much. And one of the things that we do, even though I'm on the board, one of the things that the board is really good about doing is before we have a board meeting, they bring in either a wish child or a wish parent or something, so that you stay focused on – because you could just jump into a meeting, right?

But you stay focused on the reason why we're having this meeting, and, you know, you keep the kids front and center. But one of my favorite stories is there was a young gentleman, and I forgot his name, so I'm just – I'm going to make the name up for the sake of the conversation. Let's say his name was Chris. And Chris was a little boy. He was, like, 10 years old, and he was – he had a terminal illness, and so there wasn't – he wasn't going to make it. So his parents decided – actually, the wish was we allowed him to go to Hawaii with the family and whatnot. And so the little boy loved water. And so him and his mom went to the ocean while everybody else was sleeping, and the little boy was just kind of, you know, staring off into the ocean, wandering around.

Nobody was really at the ocean because it was early morning. But there was one gentleman there who – a gentleman who had a drug problem, and he was in Hawaii for a friend's wedding. And so he ended up passing out on the beach, you know, and there he was. So the only people on this entire beach was the mother, the little boy, and this gentleman who passed out. And so the gentleman who passed out, you know, kind of woke up and came to his senses and ended up – and he sees the little boy on the beach, and he ends up talking to him. And the little boy was one of these boys that just had an amazing, positive attitude. He knew he was going to die, and he'd come to grips with it already. You know, like he just wasn't – he just – it was what it was for him.

And so – At 10? At 10. Yeah. Yeah. These wish kids are incredible. They're incredible. And so what was interesting is the gentleman starts having a conversation with the young boy, and the young boy is encouraging him and talking about life and how, you know, life is so special. And really, at the end of the day, this young little 10-year-old ends up ministering to this gentleman who had a drug and alcohol problem. And so then that was it. And so it changed the young man's life, okay? He goes back home, gets off alcohol, gets off drugs, gets all cleaned up because his philosophy was that this 10-year-old boy had such wisdom and insight. What am I doing, right? Now, he goes back home, and I got to meet him.

I met him last year. He has a great – he's a CPA, runs a great practice in Seattle. But when he goes back home and he's telling people this story, there was a little boy on the beach. You know what I mean? I woke up from, you know, being high all night, and so I'm having this conversation with this little boy on the beach. And, you know, and so he now starts doing due diligence to figure out who was the little boy – he nicknamed him the little boy on the beach, right? So he comes back. He calls Make-A-Wish. Now, Make-A-Wish, you know, we kind of run like franchises almost, right? So, you know, now we're trying to figure out who's the little boy on the beach, who was in the – you know, we're trying to track it down.

So he ends up – we find out, and the little boy happens to be, you know, here in Texas, which is where I'm located. So we share with the gentleman that the little boy passed away, you know. But we could see if his mom would want to meet you because she was also on the beach, right? So he was like, oh, my gosh. So we had a gala last year where the mom and the man met together, and there wasn't a dry eye in the place. And the gentleman was just talking about how – what his life was up until that point and kind of all the rough things that had gone on in life that kind of got him addicted to drugs and alcohol. And then how this little boy, he is the whole – you know, this little boy, he's like, just so you know, your son, I'm sorry that he's no longer, you know, here, but I want you to know the impact he had on my life.

And now this gentleman has his own family, kids, he gives back, he's got, you know, he's running a successful business in Seattle and just, you know, all the stories that come with it. So the little boy on the beach was one that – I love that story because you just never know. You know, he's a 10-year-old boy just kind of sharing from his heart. Oh, that's beautiful. Yeah. It's heartbreaking, but it's beautiful. Yeah. So, unfortunately, we still have enough – unfortunately, there's a lot of sick kids. And so, you know, we raise money as much as – fast and hard as much as we can, but there's always kids that you still can't, you know, meet the need. So, anyways, Make-A-Wish is super special. Well, let's end on that and tell people, first of all, before the book and everything about you, like, the Make-A-Wish Foundation is a special, special, special organization.

If you have a few extra dollars, please go – it's just Make-A-Wish.com, right? Or is it .org? Yep. Yep. And I can – you know what? I'll give you my link and they can – so that when you put it in the thing, they can just go directly to that and to donate. That would be great. Yeah. Thank you for that. I appreciate that. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. That's the important stuff, right? Sales. Yeah. Who cares? That's right. At the end of the day, like, we're trying to do some fun stuff. But when you can make a difference like that, it's real. So, Stephanie, thank you so much. Where can people find out more information about you, the book, and everything else? Yeah. Thank you for that. They can go to StephanieChung.com.

It's probably the easiest way. You'll get to see everything about what I've got out there. And – or I'm on any of the socials and my call sign is at TheStephanieChung. TheStephanieChung. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. I love this conversation. I know. Thank you for having me. And I got a new cousin. Right? And hey, when you come back to Boston, just let me know. We'll go down. Go have some linguiça, some jag. Yeah. Yeah. Reminiers. Go down to the Cape. Hit the BP. That's right. Exactly. I love it. I love it. Awesome. Thank you for having me. Of course. And thank you. And everybody hopefully enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. And like I said at the end of all these podcast episodes, go out there and make somebody smile today because no matter how bad your day is going or how bad you think it went, if you make somebody smile, you know you had a good day and the world needs a lot more of that right now.

So thank you all very much and I will see you on the other side. Hey, everyone. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. With your support and our incredible guests, we're one of the top sales podcasts out there right now and I can't thank you enough. Now, to keep the momentum going, it would mean the world to me if you could go and leave a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform and share some of your favorite episodes with your network. Also, I am super excited to be launching my new newsletter where I'll be sharing everything I know and everything I'm learning along the way while I'm out there selling every day just like you. Go to jbarrows.com slash newsletter to sign up today.

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