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361. Breaking Free w/Mel Reyes: From Toxic Workplaces to Authentic Leadership · You've Been Heard

• 0:09
  Speaker A: So now, one question for you. I've got to ask you, gotta ask you. When people come to you, when you get to a certain age, people come to you and they start coming to you for certain things. And there's like a theme usually, that people come to you. What is the one thing that you do really, really well that makes people come to you and ask for advice on this thing?
• 0:32
  Speaker B: Oh, okay.
• 0:35
  Speaker A: I said you were ready to go. You said you were.
• 0:38
  Speaker B: Yeah, but then you dropped that one on me.
• 0:41
  Speaker A: It was like a new thing. It just came to me today, this question. And because there's people that come to me all the time, they keep asking me the same thing. I'm like, why am I not charging for this? Why am I letting people take up time in my real estate? And it's usually because they're close friends. There are people that trust me and they know that I have a certain skill set, and they come and they ask me on said topic, and I want to know what that topic is that these people come and ask you about.
• 1:08
  Speaker B: You know, it's great, great, great, great question. And what I'll say as you were talking, thank you for buying me some time there to think.
• 1:17
  Speaker A: I've got editors is.
• 1:19
  Speaker B: Yeah. And what, What I will say is I. I put it out there. I put out content and my expressions, my feelings, my emotions, my technical. I put it all out there. And, and I've gotten some from folks. I'm like, you know, Mel, your. Your posts are loaded with emotions. And I'm like, you're too vulnerable.
• 1:44
  Speaker A: You're too vulnerable.
• 1:45
  Speaker B: Right, right. You know, if you want me to start talking about all the technical and cybersecurity things, let's go for it. Let's have, let's do the tango. But at the end of the day, you can't succeed in that. You can't be resilient in that. You can't survive that if you're not real humble and kind of open. So most people will reach out to me with questions like, I don't know what to do next. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Why can't I, you know, you know, what's going on with the market? What's going, you know, what am I doing wrong in presenting myself or getting the right, you know, what should I focus on? I want to break into cyber. I want to do this. I want to. So, so it's one of these like, like nebulous clouds that we all live in. I live in it. I've been Living in it for the longest damn time, right? And I have to keep asking myself, where do I want to go? What do I appreciate? What my North Star. And I break things down for people pretty quickly, but it usually is like, what am I doing wrong? Or what should I be focusing on? Right? And then I just ask them a few questions, and then I read them and I see them, and I kind of listen to what they. Where their pitch goes up, and I' like, okay, why did you, you know.
• 2:53
  Speaker A: Kind of elaborate on that?
• 2:55
  Speaker B: And. And by the time they get off a call, they better be energized, pumped, have an action plan, and be ready to go, because that's what I bring to the table. I see people, I inspire people, and I motivate people.
• 3:10
  Speaker A: So you have a story that caught my attention. It's 0.3 in your turning point life lessons, which we all have. I have many of them. I can. I can share one as well, if you'd like. I can share a crying moment if. But it's being at the boardroom crying after a senior leader had recommended you of some sort. The story is something like that, and it's not the crying piece. And the. The fact that, like, I failed you and all that stuff and the meltdown. The thing that I'm. That I wanted to ask about that was, who were these toxic people and why were they so toxic? Okay, so let me frame the question. We should frame the question a little bit. Everybody go. We're talking with Mel Reyes. Am I pronouncing that correct? Nah, I screwed it up. I did.
• 4:00
  Speaker B: I got it right. Got it right.
• 4:04
  Speaker A: I am a white dude, after all. Even though I got. I love it. Screw it. I am in Morocco, though. I'm in Morocco right now. Coming live from the studio.
• 4:16
  Speaker B: Yeah, but you got a power beard going on, so let's just.
• 4:19
  Speaker A: I try to make up. I try to, like. Yeah, I'm trying to, like, hi, Compensate. Melory is all right. So you've. Everyone's got to go to his pro. He's some great stories. I mean, you really got a. He's got a better profile than me right now. I'm behind. I'm really behind. But, you know, it's. It's. It's spawn on. It's got a lot of stories. No regrets. All this stuff. Life stories, Bad things happen to everyone. This is how we learn. Fail forward, all that type of stuff that we should. Everyone should know by now. But what makes for a toxic work environment and how bad can it get?
• 4:56
  Speaker B: So my own Personal experiences. I'm going to generalize them so that there isn't a specific classification for this, this last one, the one that just broke me and I had to make immediate type of changes. I've been in environments where despite being having notified hr, their leaders and everything else, the raging screaming would persist on team calls because they were the senior EVP architect of XYZ technology or group and they had to educate everybody else on how to do something. But screaming the whole time screen and I mean screaming full on screaming.
• 5:55
  Speaker A: Yeah, I know. I've only met one person that's really that crazy. I mean really great. I can understand screaming like what the heck's going on?
• 6:06
  Speaker B: Right? No, no, no. This was full on screaming. You could not get in a word edgewise, you could not speak louder than them, right? But then to compound this, this is, this is a person in a group that I had to work with on a daily basis with multiple teams, multiple business units. They're one of their subordinates was in the same mindset, but they would, they had no filter. So they would call people idiots, they would call them morons on a daily basis. They would call the team, their team. This, you know, why are you being so stupid? Don't you know this? Like it was, it was just every day. So you had the screamer, then you had the demotivator and then I had billions of dollars worth of work that I needed to do to either save or make money right across five to 10 teams. And to me, when you get in a scenario where you're documenting elevating to all the leadership, including HR and nothing gets done because they're the golden children of the organization or they're the ones who deliver or their leadership accepts it. Then to me that's a scenario where I need to leave. I'll give you another perfect example of the slow, quiet toxicity. I was in a corporate environment and.
• 7:39
  Speaker A: I want to know which is worse, the slow quiet or the yelling screaming. The yelling scream is pretty cut and dry. I'm out, right?
• 7:44
  Speaker B: That is cut and dry and it's documentable and it's enforceable. This back channel type of scenario and this level of quiet communication I think is more, even more toxic. I was in a family owned large business. They brought in a new cio. I was basically handling everything technical for the most part. There were a lot of great other people there, but they came in and they brought one of their people in. First toxic move is you immediately start bringing in some of your own people. Okay. Guy seemed to be Pretty good. He had the experience and well spoken. But then I hear the new CIO talking to them. Now the CIO's outside of his office talking into the office. So I can see him in parallel from my office or at an angle from my office. I'm looking and I'm listening. And they're talking about bringing on new people onto the team to backfill some skills, gaps and blah, blah, blah. I'm like, oh, wow, we're going to hire. And then he says, and now, mind you, this is a manufacturing group. Then he says, we need some PhDs. Now he's saying this to the guy who just brought in, who's sitting in the office next to me from outside the office where my team is right behind him. And I go, PhDs for a manufacturing group. I'm like, what does that even mean? And then he goes to his colleague as remember, pathetic, hungry and desperate. Oh, this is what you think of all of us who are here right now. We're here because we're pathetic, hungry and desperate. So you can undervalue us, give us less money. And this was a very, very trying time in my life, and it was the most demoralizing thing I could have ever heard. But this was his mindset. Exactly.
• 9:56
  Speaker A: So if you.
• 9:57
  Speaker B: When I talk to people about these things, this is what lingers in my head over and over and over again, these kinds of experiences.
• 10:05
  Speaker A: So we've got, I don't know what we call this, like, the three Negatives. The Three negative. This is like an article you could write. I don't know if you've already written it, but we've got the Loud Screamer, the demo, the demotivator, the Quiet Killer. Yeah, forget this. Let's move on to something much more positive. I think I just.
• 10:23
  Speaker B: Heavy downer over here.
• 10:24
  Speaker A: I just like, what a hell of.
• 10:26
  Speaker B: A question to start off with.
• 10:27
  Speaker A: This just reminded me of like a Reddit post I read the other day about back pain and suicide. Oh, that's a real one too. If you just went from one to the other. Okay, fast forward.
• 10:42
  Speaker B: Wow.
• 10:43
  Speaker A: Let's clean this up.
• 10:44
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 10:45
  Speaker A: Delete, delete. Ladies and gentlemen, IT Leaders. Before we move ahead, this podcast is not just a stream, it's a stage. And if you are an IT leader with something to say, we want to hear it. Join us live, interact with the host and guest, and if you've got the insight and courage to step up, we promote you to the mic. Apply now@popularitnerds.com waitlist if you have what it takes Join our growing network of over 160 senior IT leaders, where real voices shape real conversations. Oh, man.
• 11:24
  Speaker B: So, okay, rainbows and ponies. Let's talk about rainbows and ponies.
• 11:28
  Speaker A: By the way, whatever happened, are they still around? Did everything deplo. Does is the truth that, like, you know, you know, what do they say? Like, in, you know, anyone can climb their way to the top and only character and integrity will keep you there? Is that a true statement? Are these people still around? Did the company.
• 11:49
  Speaker B: And nepotism will keep you there. So in the first two examples, they're still there. In the last example, they've moved along, right, to another role where I'm assuming they're doing the same type of passive aggressive, derogatory classifications of skills.
• 12:08
  Speaker A: So the sad thing is we've got, like you said, we've got this change in the marketplace. We've got people that are looking for jobs. We've got, I guess, what they would call PhDs. We've got people going for jobs. They shouldn't just take any job. Or we've got people that are in leadership positions, too. What can we do to be the, I don't know, the loud motivator and the, I don't know, the breather of life? I'm trying to think of the opposite of all these. What's your mantra? What are the three points? Let's teach. Let's teach something here. What can we do to just wake up and this is a day that's never been lived before in the history of the world and go make a difference?
• 12:52
  Speaker B: So There are about 64 things I can say right now. I'm going to try to try to pinpoint maybe two or three different categories which may have subsets underneath them. So the first thing that I.
• 13:03
  Speaker A: Again, number one superpower. A number one superpower. This is kind of how we started off the call. So number one. Number one first.
• 13:13
  Speaker B: My number one superpower is that I see people.
• 13:17
  Speaker A: Okay?
• 13:18
  Speaker B: And I see them for where they should be, what they should be doing, and how they should be promoting themselves, taking care of themselves.
• 13:27
  Speaker A: Okay?
• 13:28
  Speaker B: Right. So somebody will come to me and they'll say, so this is. We're still on the first one. Somebody will come to me and say, hey, here's my resume. Here's my LinkedIn. You know, I love this and I'm ready, but I don't know what to do. And I look at them like, can we just reframe some of the things that you just said? Because what I heard was, I've led Global initiatives. And they're like. And they just sit there. And then we have what I call OM moments. And basically it's open mouth moments where I drop what I see. The mirror that I see, not the mirror that you're looking into, the mirror that I see. And I show them that mirror. So I'm like, okay, so. And these are for people who have experience, and for people who don't think they have experience, I kind of level them up into where to go. But when you do have experience, I help you reclassify, reframe and relanguage what you do and how you say it. And then I just add on the encouragement. I'm like, you're already doing this. You already know this. Just own it.
• 14:32
  Speaker A: It's amazing how I. I know amazing people. Amazing people. And when I look at how they present themselves, like, this isn't you, right? Like, what are you doing? Like, why are you, like, undervaluing?
• 14:46
  Speaker B: She just hit. You just hit the next landmine in my. In my. My trajectory, which I wasn't even thinking about.
• 14:53
  Speaker A: I was just like.
• 14:54
  Speaker B: Which is code switching.
• 14:57
  Speaker A: Go.
• 14:58
  Speaker B: Right? So in person, per the person, each. This is so. I love getting into Ferengi speak with people, right? And if you're. You're a Star Wars, Star Trek fan, you'll know what I mean, right? You and I are talking here and we're rifting and we, we understand our language and we're. We're going to be at a point where we. Other people aren't going to understand some of our acronyms, some of our, you know, things that we're dropping. But that's okay because we also can bring people into the conversation, right? So. But I don't change my tone or my. Or my presence. If I go to an executive leadership board or a conference, guess what? I show up the same way and I bring the conversation to where we are, right? So if we speak Ferengi, we speak. That means technical or jargon. Then I'm there. If you want to talk about strategy, I'm still using the same characteristics as a person. Hand gestures. I curse a lot. I'm trying not to right now, so just be lucky that your editors won't have to take a lot out. But I curse. I go through and I energize, right? I use the same code, whether it's a kid from high school or senior leader. I don't show up differently.
• 16:16
  Speaker A: That's actually.
• 16:17
  Speaker B: I don't know why I don't do that. It's exhausting, Phil. It's exhausting.
• 16:20
  Speaker A: Yeah, man. How do you coach people to do that too? Like, come on, you're much more fun. It's just, you and I talk about.
• 16:26
  Speaker B: Having your voice, being vulnerable and making sure you show up how you want to show up. So when I show up to a conference with, with a peacock feather and this, that, the other on my, on my jacket or, you know, some crazy ass suit, that's how I felt that day. That's what I wanted to wear that day. You may not appreciate it, you may never wear it, but that's me, right? If I show up to a holiday party in red rhinestone shoes, that's me, right? You can judge me, you can hate me, you can love me, but I, I tell people there's going to be one of three things that's going to happen when you and I meet. You're either going to be inspired, you're going to be humored, or you're going to be scarred. If I can hit all three, then I've done my. I don't code switch, you know, and, and that's one of the most important things that I, outside of being respectful with cursing and elders and, you know, the, the core values of life, you know, I, I don't code switch anymore.
• 17:36
  Speaker A: Well, you don't code switch, but you might add to the code.
• 17:40
  Speaker B: Oh, it's, it's a different layer of code, right? It's a different conversation. But I, I'd, I was just on two or three calls today. I think it took me a hot 90 seconds before I was cursing. And I, and I just met these people, right?
• 17:54
  Speaker A: The, when you said you see people, how if you could you teach a little bit of how to see people. So we have people sometimes that are in positions. And I asked this on, I asked this earlier, I said, what do you do when, I don't know, things change, the position changes or something, or you find someone that's not in the right seat on the bus, so to speak. How do you find, how do you see them? How do you find what they're good at? Do you have any, like, questions?
• 18:29
  Speaker B: I have a few tricks.
• 18:30
  Speaker A: Do you do the old, like, first break all the rules list? And, you know, I mean, what do we do?
• 18:37
  Speaker B: No. So a great resource and an incredible leader wrote this in her book and it's the foundation of what I do. She wrote that she learned early on in her career one acronym and it was, wait, why am I talking now? Why would I start with. That is in order to see you, I need to Hear you. In order to see how you say certain things, I need to see you and hear you. So what I do. And I chiseled this down and learned this. I had a natural. Because of the. And I'll be very open. Dramas and traumas that I went through in my life, experiencing different people, experiencing different situations. I got to read people their microaggressions, their inflictions, their pronunciation when they go low and they kind of slow down on answering something when they go high and they. Right. So what I do is I just instinctively pull that together and I'm like. What I'm hearing is very different, though. What I'm feeling is very different. And the direction you should be in is this, because you're already doing this. So I use things like nlp, turns out naturally, Neuro linguistic programming. Right. You've got visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. So how you answer the questions, where you look, the posture you use, all of those things for me, became something natural that I then defined into something that I can use programmatically. I use eq. I use all the elements of understanding people very cleanly and easily.
• 20:27
  Speaker A: I. I can tell we've read a ton of the same books just based on the. Just based on the things you're saying. You probably took a Franklin Covey course back in the day. I would think you probably.
• 20:35
  Speaker B: I did not. I was never offered a single.
• 20:38
  Speaker A: He always talks about find your voice.
• 20:40
  Speaker B: In my whole career.
• 20:41
  Speaker A: He always talks about finding your voice. At least in the last piece, which I think is important to find your voice.
• 20:47
  Speaker B: Amen.
• 20:51
  Speaker A: The. I went blank. I went blank. I really had. I really had a deep overload.
• 21:00
  Speaker B: You're on overload. I. I'm only giving you the tip.
• 21:02
  Speaker A: Oh, I know what it was. I know what it was. I know what it was. Do you think having been through traumatic experiences, which I. I would. I know people that have been through really traumatic experiences. When you're reading someone and they're giving the different answer and they're giving you the different looks and you're like. You're saying everything's good and you're saying everything's great and you love doing this and everything, but what I'm seeing is misery and, you know, not energy and none of this. Do they even consciously know that they're doing that? Or are they just saying it because it's a defense mechanism because they've been through crazy crap.
• 21:47
  Speaker B: Again. How people show up in public versus who they really are is that barrier that I try to break down. So you're Absolutely right. I get on a call and. And if I don't know you, you're like, hey, Mel, how's it going? I'm like, and I will tell people I'm living my best life. Now, that is so ambiguous that I am very truthful about when I say that, right. I could be in the hole of all shitholes, but I'm forging through, trying to live my best life. I could be at Malibu beach right now sipping a. A drink, but. And I'm living my best life. So what I tell people is how you present yourself and what you say. And I just had this session with a group last night. I say to them, listen, if you show up to a call or to a meeting and you're feeling like the world is on your shoulders, yes, you're going to have to break out of that and show up for that call with a smile. Make sure you're present. Make sure you're not writing and texting and anything else and you're listening so that you can show up for that call. Enjoy that moment and be in the present. But in the background, what you're really doing is you're creating an energy that you're giving and that you're going to receive. That should help you bolster your resilience and help you kind of do a little bit more and say, you know what? That was a great effing call. You know what? I still have something of value to add or I learned a lot, and that should help you with everything that's pulling you back.
• 23:29
  Speaker A: I'm going to be a little vulnerable. I feel like sometimes I'm the yeller guy from the beginning of the call because I'm a father of eight, you.
• 23:39
  Speaker B: Know, and you're a mensch.
• 23:42
  Speaker A: I'm. I'm just being honest. Like, sometimes I'm the yellow. Sometimes with eight kids, it gets into a little crazy. And if the mom's not being respected and they're, you know, walking all over something, everyone's yelling and. And it's loud and it's crazy, and mom's doing all the work, and I'm like, what is going on? There's eight of you and your mother's.
• 24:03
  Speaker B: Doing the dishes, right?
• 24:06
  Speaker A: I don't. But I remember when I had two or three kids, it was, guys, eat that frog. It was like, let's. Let's get out. Let's get out the goal setting. Let's get out the goal setting. Papers. Let's, you know, what are we doing in the next 90 days? How are you breaking that up into two week sprints now? Yeah, and then I got overloaded and then somehow, and I look at my kids sometimes, I'm like, can you believe it? Like, I'm your father. Like the Lord above trusted me with you. Can you believe it?
• 24:37
  Speaker B: Trusted or tested? It's tested.
• 24:39
  Speaker A: I don't know. Somehow. One. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I'm living my best life, kind of.
• 24:48
  Speaker B: So I, I, I. That storyline resonates with me in a couple of ways. So, number one, I'm Puerto Rican. Number two, I was raised in New York by a single mother who was raising three boys by herself. I'm the youngest of the three that she raised by herself. To tell you that I will freely admit that many, many, many times I let the rage and the anger and the frustration and the lack of me being able to clearly communicate or articulate my emotions and feelings take the best of me. So, for example, in 2019, 2020, when we're planning on selling our house and renting it. Yeah. I had to get holes in the wall fixed, Right. Because that was the only way I could, you know, a couple times get my rage out. Right. Because I didn't know how to handle certain things. I didn't know how to actually communicate. I didn't know how to do, you know, how to bring myself to a level where it was, I was listening and I was trying to figure out the why, you know? You know, why. What can I do to help motivate or change or do something different? Not my children. Me.
• 26:14
  Speaker A: Yeah, because it's sometimes it's a, it's a lack of balance. And sometimes we take all of these work skills and we put them into place really, really well at work, but we, we fail to balance health, whatever life, you know, life outside of work. We might love going to work. We might. If you're like me, you're the guy that's like, man, oh, so happy it's Monday. You know, like there was a. That's the truth.
• 26:43
  Speaker B: Listen, brother, you know that's a whole nother podcast session, right?
• 26:48
  Speaker A: This sounds more like a psychological session. We're supposed to be talking about security and AI and hype section and why you're 13.
• 26:55
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's the thing. These are foundational things that are going to help people with their resiliency, how they cope with the different conversations at work. Right. So this is what, this is, that tie in, why I do get open, emotional, vulnerable, and kind of inspirational on LinkedIn, is because without that foundation, you're just in complete misery.
• 27:17
  Speaker A: If you hate your job, it's because you freed yourself. You freed yourself. You allowed yourself to be you. I mean, that's just it. That's what it is. How many people are walking around in a mental prison?
• 27:30
  Speaker B: Amen.
• 27:30
  Speaker A: There's so many things. There's so many things worrying everybody. It could be relationships, it could be the marriage at home, it could be in my. Am I. I don't know, am I good enough? Whatever, Right?
• 27:44
  Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. Limiting beliefs is the foundation of, of every. Like when I. When I talk to folks, and I. And I'm not going to throw my. My frameworks or anything, but when I talk to folks, literally last night, again, in one of the groups, limiting belief was the number one thing that showed up.
• 28:00
  Speaker A: Really? Is this an IT group?
• 28:02
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 28:03
  Speaker A: What's the limit?
• 28:03
  Speaker B: This is a cyber security group.
• 28:06
  Speaker A: Well, that's. That's because there's a billion of those guys out there and they're all trying to find the same job. It's the most.
• 28:13
  Speaker B: It's like there's 2.5 million open roles, aren't there? Or 6.5 million open roads.
• 28:18
  Speaker A: I don't know. Okay, so. Yes. Oh, I'm so glad you hit this one, because I saw the post on LinkedIn the other day, and it couldn't find it. It was just a bunch of cyber security guys whining like, I don't believe that it was the job thing. It's exactly what you just said. It's like, there's supposedly all these jobs on shop and why. It's not my fault. I'm serious. Like, take. I mean. And I didn't say anything. And I'm like, just shut down LinkedIn. Do not reply, do not comment. Do not like on this. Just walk away. And I had to do that. And the post disappeared. And then I came back, where's that post? I'm gonna get. You know, and I'm thinking about it because I wanted to be like, it is not their job to give you a job or you don't have this, like, thing that. Just because I'm now certified, whatever. And, and it's the system. It's the system, which is why there's thousands of open cybersecurity jobs. And it's HR's fault and because it's.
• 29:14
  Speaker B: Rage against the machine.
• 29:18
  Speaker A: And in my head I'm thinking, just go to the dark side. Just become. Just go, become. And I want to say hacker. I don't want to say hacker, because, no, the hackers are the good guys. The hackers are the Good guys just go to the dark side. Don't go to the dark side.
• 29:34
  Speaker B: See, the dark side for me is sales. But that's a whole nother conversation.
• 29:37
  Speaker A: Oh gosh. And here you are. And I'm going to read honors and awards 13 times Gartner executive leader award winner Infosec Community ambassador on the Gartner peer community. The Gartner peer experiences connects verified industry leaders for meaningful discussions without sales pitches, recruitment or other self promotion. The same place they came up with the hype scale or the whatever the. Are you kidding me? These guys invented.
• 30:05
  Speaker B: Used to be a different group that got bought by Gartner. Let's just be clear about.
• 30:12
  Speaker A: Can I, can I make one, Can I make a little point? We have a peer group, we have a community. It's called Digital Transformation Leaders. We'd love you to be a part of that and be. I think about it.
• 30:23
  Speaker B: I don't know, Phil. I don't know. Too much drama going on on this call.
• 30:29
  Speaker A: Read me.
• 30:32
  Speaker B: Oh, I did immediately the.
• 30:35
  Speaker A: No, no. We really would love to have you come speak about something.
• 30:40
  Speaker B: I don't know.
• 30:40
  Speaker A: I don't know. I don't know what you would want to speak about. Like I don't know how to overcome underwater basket weaving. I did like making a basket in sixth grade. What can we talk about that's real? I shouldn't make fun of Gartner because it's like we at the, at the top, you're all together. When you get to the top, you're all together. What about sales? You know, I'm a secret sales manager. You know, I was a C. I started out in sales. I left Starbucks. I joined a Cisco startup, entry level sales. The guy called me up and he was like, do you know who Cisco is? And yeah, they drop off my paper products. No, no, no, no, no, no. Cisco with a seat. And I was like, nope. Do you know what voiceover IP is? I was like, nope. Don't worry, we'll train you.
• 31:26
  Speaker B: Is that bathroom talk? Voice over ip?
• 31:29
  Speaker A: It should be voiceover. From what I heard from a few other people that sold a lot of stuff that was quite interesting sales presentation that you shouldn't be going with VoiceOver IP. You should be going with VoiceOver PI. Do you know what that stands for? No Voice over private Internet. Because if you're going over the public Internet and this is before, you know, voice voice, Qs could travel. And I sat through this whole explanation. So this whole.
• 31:58
  Speaker B: I tell you what, let's. Let's take the acronym hell and we'll. We'll figure it out another day.
• 32:07
  Speaker A: Do you have to go?
• 32:09
  Speaker B: I do not.
• 32:10
  Speaker A: Sweet. Okay, good. I'm just making sure.
• 32:11
  Speaker B: Looking. Somebody just rescheduled.
• 32:13
  Speaker A: I might have scared you off. I'm going to scared you off. But. No, but for. For real. I sat in on this presentation. I sat in on this presentation. And when you're technical enough. Have you ever. You said you see people, right? I see people, too. Because when I've talked with thousands and thousands of people and all with different problems and all different business owners, you just. You begin. You're like, oh. And then some people like, how do you do that? I'm like, I don't know. It's just like a thing. It's just like a thing that's natural. I don't know. And I don't see it as like some. I'm probably one of those people that you need to coach. That's. You know, Phil, you really do have this skill. And I don't know what it is, but you could probably tell me maybe that I'm worth something, so.
• 32:51
  Speaker B: Wow, that was deep, the way you just said that.
• 32:54
  Speaker A: People tell me I'm very. I'm very vulnerable as well. And, like, outgoing. They're like, wow, I'm sorry.
• 32:58
  Speaker B: Deprecating in tone. Brother, I gotta get you out of.
• 33:01
  Speaker A: Quit your stinking thinking. Yeah, it's just about making fun of yourself. But maybe you shouldn't do that. The.
• 33:08
  Speaker B: You should not do that because the words you say actually resonate and they. They get ingrained in you, in your. In your brain and that. And you believe them.
• 33:17
  Speaker A: I'm good enough. I'm smart enough.
• 33:19
  Speaker B: You've read all the books that I read. Shut up.
• 33:21
  Speaker A: Okay, wait, wait, wait. I have them here. Hold on. Where's my. You want to see some daily affirmations? We have some here. Where did they go? Okay. I'm an encouraging father, and I build my children's self esteem. It's right here. This is an old one. This came from a very long time ago. I found them in a book. Let's see. These are other things that are. Oh, I'm happy because I study one hour before work with strict discipline. These are some old ones because I wanted to make sure that I studied the things outside of work that I really wanted to learn. Where were we going with this? Oh, the sales thing and the voiceover PI. So my point was, is you can start. You start to see through things very, very well. And I'm sitting there, I'm like, are these guys Serious, right? Like isn't sales supposed to be filling a need, solving a problem, finding a solution? You know, the consultative approach sitting on the same side of the table is the person with these guys.
• 34:23
  Speaker B: It's about closing the deal, getting my commission and making sure that some you hand it off to somebody else to implement.
• 34:30
  Speaker A: So wrong. It's, that's just such the wrong process. It is. And it's so wrong. And I tell people every day, I said, you know, the average sales rep lasts three to eight months. That means. And your average contract length is two months to three years, even five years. Sometimes I run into that, I'm like, so what do you think the support structure is of your personalized sales rep that you have a good relationship with is to be. Their average lifespan is three to eight months and your contract's three years. Not to mention the guy leaves after the sale anyways.
• 35:00
  Speaker B: Why?
• 35:01
  Speaker A: Because the system is built that way. He's gotta go make hay to put food on the table and he starts at zero next month. He's a quota bearing salesman. It starts all over at zero again, that's just not the way. There's a better way. I'm sure you know it and I know it.
• 35:17
  Speaker B: Indeed there is.
• 35:18
  Speaker A: With that being said voice over private Internet, I sat on this call and I was like, the reason why you want to do this. And private Internet ended up actually being an extra mpls point to point circuit. They had to sell them from Equinox to their business because they wouldn't have quality of service if they didn't do that because it'd be running over whatever garbage. Right. And so anywho.
• 35:47
  Speaker B: Well, yeah, so, and so here's, here's, here's a, a nice interesting pool or chain or cycle, right? You talked about three to five year contracts. You talked about very specific engagements and kind of, you know, the customer component to this and the salesperson component of this. Right? So you've got VARs, you've got, you've got agents, sub agents, you've got people who are, who have a vested interest in making sure a relationship works. And you know, let's get a POC and let's, you know, and, and all of that is cute, right? But the problem that I'm seeing over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. And this is, and let me just segue here, the reason why you're able to see this is because you've put yourself in a position in the past to see these people be in the, in the Conversations be in whether it's networking, whether it's work, whether it's negotiations, you're in that element. A lot of people don't put themselves in that element, avoid that element, don't get into the conversation so they don't experience the tone, the language, the conversations, the contract negotiations. Right. They don't want to be in that.
• 36:55
  Speaker A: The tie downs, the seven step presentation, I can literally see clear as that you realize I should present. It's like how you know when you're being sold, right?
• 37:04
  Speaker B: And that's what I love about kind of what we, what we've done in our kind of experiences is we've seen it so now we can actually maybe teach it, maybe we can actually call people out for it. But there's, there's a current multi billion dollar enterprise that every company, if you're a Fortune 100 tech company, you're going to follow that flow because that's where the money is. And then you've got your, your minion of sales connections, right? You've got your VARs, your channel partners, you're this, you're that, you're that. So it's this trickle down money is going to fall into my lap and guess what? At the end of it you have some, some guy making 64 phone calls to try to maybe get one hooked, to try to met then and it's exhausting, it's fatiguing and the industry is, guess what, they're not selling a solution, they're just telling you an intro and then you try to figure out how to wedge that together. I started my consulting in 95 and it was Mr. Technical Solutions. And I didn't come in with systems, I came in with questions and then I created a solution and it's been my mantra for 30 plus years now. I don't want to come in with hey, we have, and you know, you said a couple of players names, you know, hey, we have ABC Tool. I think it's going to be great for you. No, what is the problem you're having right now? Where's the biggest pain point? How much is it costing you? Are you, you know, then we backtrack into that. But nobody wants to try to do, do that, right? There's some really great salespeople, some really great managers who will, you know, some great folks who will just say let me make a referral for you because we're not good, we're, I want you to go over here, hey, we're, you know, and they do build genuine relationships. So there's some beautiful, beautiful sales slash channel partners that'll do that. But at the end of the day, if you've got the biggest commission on xyz, why would I even bring up abc? There's what I'm seeing a lot.
• 39:11
  Speaker A: Yeah, there's a, there's another model, but it is similar. It's down the lines of what you're saying. Start with a really good needs assessment and find out what people's problems and needs are. And that's what that goes back to. How would. And I, I've. When, when people come to me and tell me like, hey, how should I go about getting a job? You know, I've applied for a hundred different locations, applied for this. I was like, how about this? Make a list of, of the top 25 companies you actually want to work for that you'd love to work for. Find out who's hiring. Find out. Or find out who the president is. Find out who the person is that you'd actually report to. Reach out to them and just say, hey, do you mind if I ask your advice? When it comes to.
• 39:49
  Speaker B: Amen.
• 39:50
  Speaker A: When it comes to technology in your company, what's your single biggest frustration, problem or concern? And then just listen, listen.
• 39:56
  Speaker B: I hope everybody that I know listens to what you just said. Just take that as a snippet and just call it the whole, the whole interview. That's literally what I tell people. But.
• 40:08
  Speaker A: And then when they speak, if you just, you know, ask some more questions and if you can help them do it and offer the help for free. And then maybe, just maybe, you'll find out if you would particularly like maybe working for that company. And then they may actually ask you to come work for them later on. That's like, like networking on steroids.
• 40:34
  Speaker B: But here's, here's what you're. So there's two beautiful things you said about that. One of the most powerful words in being able to build a relationship like that is I'd like your advice. Advice, because you're, you're reaching out to industry leaders who don't have time to waste, but you're asking them, can you just help me? Because I need your advice. That's a most powerful word ever. Number two, you're building a relationship. You're not trying. This isn't, and I say this a lot, this isn't Tinder or Grindr, right? You're not going to jump into bed with them immediately, get hired. Right? It's. You're building a relationship. How can I help you? You can't do that too often because then you're just going to be exhausted. But somebody should recognize your skills, your opinion, your abilities, and at one point get back to you and say, you might want to reach out to Phil. He does a great podcast. He does a great interview. Right. And I've got, I've got somebody already lined up for you. Right. So. But my, my, my piece is if you're not building relationships and you're not getting that exposure, you know, whether it's virtual or in person networking, then you're never going to break out to see something different, learn something different and make that connection. Because it. I, I could have 16 million people following me. That does nothing for me right now. You know what does something for me? The 16 people that know me that have worked with me and that may have an opportunity.
• 42:02
  Speaker A: It's so true. So true. I feel bad for many of the I serve IT leadership we find. And the goal is to change the face of it. So the old face is it is a cost center. And I've got to fight to get my seat at the executive roundtable. And I have to prove that I can speak the language of business. And then I know what EBITDA is. And then I've got to convince executive management. I've got to convince executive management that they don't have to go to Gartner.
• 42:43
  Speaker B: Right?
• 42:43
  Speaker A: They don't have to go to Gartner to second guess my decisions. I'm serious. Like, you know, I think this is the solution. After evaluating this and going through all of this, knowing our systems and living and breathing and working with all departments across all parts of the company, because I touch every single department. Sales, marketing, operations, whatever. Hr, it knows it all. I don't know if that's the right solution for. I think we need to check with.
• 43:07
  Speaker B: Gardner, Foreign, let's be fair, Gartner, Forester or Infotech. Let's just not, you know, I gotta.
• 43:13
  Speaker A: Check.
• 43:15
  Speaker B: Gartner on black. Not that I'm a representative, but if you're gonna blasting.
• 43:21
  Speaker A: I just. No, no, I, I make fun of Gartner a lot. I love Gardner. I love you guys. Thanks for the, thanks for the, the hype scale. Thanks for the AI where I'm at on the AI hype scale. And thank you for the. All the people that are not on the magic quadrant that didn't pay to be on the. The magic quadrant. Right.
• 43:36
  Speaker B: Thank you for all the wonderful new acronyms and categories create.
• 43:41
  Speaker A: They do a good job. They do a good job. Pretty sure they use AI Pretty sure. They use Claude the new version. The. They got a good. They got a good like guy that's really desperate writing. What do we call those things?
• 43:59
  Speaker B: Yes to generates.
• 44:04
  Speaker A: I love you. I just get. Can you re buy my show? Just kidding. We buy my show. Hey, I love Gartner. Will you sponsor me? No, no, no.
• 44:13
  Speaker B: The you know what happen. Be careful what you ask for, right? Because then you may up the Gardner representative. They may throw some zeros at you. And the question is, are you willing.
• 44:25
  Speaker A: Hired the most trustworthy guy. He's gonna run the magic quadrant. First thing we're gonna change is the word magic.
• 44:36
  Speaker B: I love it.
• 44:38
  Speaker A: Where are we? I don't know. Can we talk about something security wise? What should we. Let's see here. Oh, I know what it is. Oh, I know what I was gonna ask you. IT guys. The reason why maps is so many so busy. So all the time. Don't have time sometimes to even show up for a call like this that might change their life. So let's just change their life today. Someone. Some Gabe, whoever's editing this, cut it up. Put this one at the beginning. How can we change someone's life? Because they. A lot of times they don't show up because they are showing up. In other words, they. They don't show up to something that might be beneficial because they're too busy. Too many things. Too many things on my plate. We've got 15 projects going on. We got to save money. We got to cut costs. We gotta. The. The budget's here that we got to do this. I'm worried about this. We don't show up for this. What's the most important thing that they should show up for? How do we cut this time back? And it always sounds so you can. They have trust issues. It People have trust issues. Do you agree to people.
• 45:33
  Speaker B: Amen. So let me. Let me step through this one. And it's really simple, Phil. It's really, really simple in saying it. It's harder to believe it and it takes a massive effort to implement it. But here's the general classification where you put your energy is where you will go. So I love the fact that you spend 12 to 15 hours a day on those 15 projects that are going to advance the company. Not your role, not your title, not necessarily your pay, because the company's the company. They may not recognize you. You may have taken a $3 billion portfolio and grown it to $12 million in 18 months. And you got a paper certificate.
• 46:35
  Speaker A: Boom, $50 gift certificate to the Outback.
• 46:38
  Speaker B: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Right, so if you put your 15 hours of effort and brain power and everything else into that, that's where it's going to stay. Now hypothetically, let's say you were a 15 hour a day kind of person and you took one hour to do research on a specific topic, maybe one hour on LinkedIn, resume or otherwise. You're still doing 13 hours, but now you're going to be self fish and take back your time. Crazy talk and people don't like the word selfish. I'll tell you what, substitute it for self care, right? Everybody says it. Put on your mask first. But what do we do? We feel like we need to contribute and do that thing at work that is going to advance my career. Right. I need to hit these goals and there's a lot of pressure. Yeah, you do. But you also have to push back, right? Fifteen projects is a lot. You need to draw a line at capacity. You need to draw a line and saying, I can't do those other five, I can do 10, you need to figure out the other five or we're going to have to put them on hold. That level of understanding, of level of effort, what you want to do, you should be selfish at work, at home, in relationships or otherwise. Now why is it easy to say, hard to receive and even harder to implement? Because you have to make some really hard decisions and you have to tell people no and you have to actually draw a line and stand by it. Right. How did I have 400, I'm sorry, almost 500 calls between April and December of 2020 to help people? Why? Because I refused to have meetings before 9 o', clock, I refused to have meetings during lunch, and I refused to have meetings after 5:30. And I opened up my weekends. Well, it was before the pandemic that I announced that I was going to be helping people. And all of a sudden I got this influx of people reaching out to me. I kept my promise. I would decline meetings that didn't have agenda. I would decline meetings that took up my whole lunch. And guess what? I said, send me, send me a status update or tell me what you need me to do and I'll do it at another time. Right? But I took back my schedule and what I did was I helped people. I worked on my resume, I worked on four or five articles. I, I did what I needed to do. Because that story where I talk about crying in a conference room in the dark was the breaking point when I said I can't give back. Right? Denzel Washington, I just heard this yesterday, just posted it today. Denzel Washington summarized it very cleanly. I usually talk about the three stages of your career, and he summarized it perfectly. So I'm going to use his quote versus my normal one. First we learn, then we earn, and then we return. That last one was the stage where I was at in my life five, six, seven years ago. I wanted to give back. I didn't want anybody to take them 25, 30 years to figure out what I had just figured out. So I wanted to give back and I couldn't. And that's what broke me. I was all, I was insanely successful at work, family life. You know, that's a whole other conversation. Right. But I had to balance this out. So when I tell people, I don't care if you love coding till 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 in the morning, you have to find a balance of what you're doing. And if that's going to actually elevate you to where you want to be in your life with your experience, and if that's really adding value to the trajectory, if you want to add a 0 to your salary or you want to add 50k to your salary, is putting in all of your time into that going to actually get you where you want to be? So the first thing I tell people is that is the top V that I talk about is vision. What is that topic? One goal that you want to shoot for and then create that work back. Right. What organizations, what people? What can I be doing at work? What else could I be doing at work? Right. And then ask and be vulnerable to say, I need help with this, I want this. And this is how I'd like to approach it.
• 51:20
  Speaker A: That's great. Yeah, I just spot on. Made me think a lot the whole time because I. Yeah, I take my energy, I take my energetic time, my best time, and that's where I put like the time for myself. That time is when I wake up in the morning and it's like, the coffee better be brewed.
• 51:46
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I practice it all day long. Oh, yeah.
• 51:49
  Speaker A: No, no, it's that. That's the best time is like, right, the coffee in the morning, you gotta find it.
• 51:55
  Speaker B: Right.
• 51:55
  Speaker A: And there's no way I'm gonna let email or some crap like that crawl into that time.
• 52:02
  Speaker B: Thank you. Atomic habit. I know you read it. Yeah, right.
• 52:09
  Speaker A: I got a little notebook. I like the, like the six tasks. What was the. The Dale Carnegie method or some method. You know, there's like a way to use the different tasks at the end of the book and the bet. I actually use a trello. I use a trello board now for my six tasks. And but you know, to another thing, one thing that I, because I got sucked in by some like, thing making me think I have ADD or something that day. And what it would realize was it was like, you know, I was basically ended up being like a psychology course. And it was talking about anxiety and where it comes from and stems and ADD and why people have to be so organized from their add because it takes away from the add. So yeah, that's a good point because I operate really, really well when I'm organized. And you have things written down and you have goals and I try to tell my kids, you know, the bucket list activity is actually, it's unbelievable. It's an unbelievable activity. I wrote a bucket list down years ago when I was working at the Starbucks place, which we talked about at the beginning of the job. At the beginning, at the beginning of the job. See, it was because it was a job the beginning of this interview. And I was shocked when I looked at that list. Later on, I checked off everything. Crazy stuff I had never thought, stuff I would never thought, like, have a house. Like have a house in a foreign country, in a tropical place where I can go surfing. Like, I'm thinking about buying a house right now down in Agadir in southern Morocco. Like, right where the best, some of the best surfing is in the world. I'm just thinking about, like, no way would have never thought that back then. Making 20 bucks an hour or whatever the heck it was back then. I remember when I got a job for over $10 an hour, I was like, I'm rich.
• 53:47
  Speaker B: I love that. I, I, and you're absolutely right. I would have never, ever envisioned that. I live about 12 to 15 minutes away from Malibu beach, but here I am.
• 53:59
  Speaker A: That's like a crowded place for surfing. They've got a lot of funny videos for that.
• 54:04
  Speaker B: I, I just, I just have access to the sand, brother. That's all I needed.
• 54:08
  Speaker A: I get it.
• 54:12
  Speaker B: Here's what we're doing.
• 54:14
  Speaker A: We could talk forever. I know that. We could talk for hours. I really do want to invite you to give a talk I really do want to invite you to give a private talk to a unique community that's only senior IT directors, senior IT leaders in the mid market. Manufacturing to logistics, healthcare. We have to say Fortune 5000. Now some people get offended by mid market. I'm better than mid market. Mid market to Fortune 5000. Mid market growth the mid market growth group to Fortune 5000.
• 54:44
  Speaker B: The scalable groups. Yeah. Oh, yes, sure.
• 54:47
  Speaker A: I love these people. I love, I love what they have to I love what they have to do, which is everything for everyone in the company every day. And I think you would have something to offer. I don't know what it is, what you want to talk about, but I think it would be awesome.
• 55:01
  Speaker B: I have a couple, I have, I have about two or three different key topics that I talk about, everything from 5Es to resiliency and cyber and a few other that are targeted towards that audience.
• 55:14
  Speaker A: Can we do this again?
• 55:17
  Speaker B: Let's. Absolutely. Kidding me. Yes.
• 55:19
  Speaker A: All right.