Latest / Scrappy but Successful [Consultant's Personalities When No One's Watching] / 50. The NFL, Wall Street, Hollywood, and The Standard with Cris D'Annunzio

Transcript

50. The NFL, Wall Street, Hollywood, and The Standard with Cris D'Annunzio · Scrappy but Successful [Consultant's Personalities When No One's Watching]

• 0:00
  What's happening, everybody? Welcome to Scrappy What's Successful. It's a show where I sit down
• 0:04
  with your favorite consultants and we find out if they're successful today because they're sophisticated
• 0:09
  or because they're a little bit scrappy. I'm your host, Jack Tompkins, CEO of Pineapple
• 0:14
  Consulting Firm and Pineapple Analysts AI, always helping small businesses become more data-driven. Fun fact
• 0:18
  of the day for our guest: the Netherlands, where he spends part of his time,
• 0:23
  has more bicycles than people. Over 22 million bicycles for a population of only 17
• 0:28
  and a half million. But that's neither here nor there. Today I'm joined by my
• 0:32
  friend, Chris D'Annunzio He's the founder of Metal and Method. I love this. This is
• 0:37
  one of your main taglines, Chris. He believes the greatest enemy of performance isn't failure,
• 0:42
  it's drift. So Chris is a former football player. He's done Wall Street, he's done
• 0:46
  Hollywood, he's done entrepreneurship, he's done high performance sales, he's done all this stuff, and
• 0:51
  he helps the leaders build systems that actually replace motivation with measurable happiness. So Chris,
• 0:56
  I'm pumped to have you on, man. We've got some high performing individuals listening to
• 1:00
  this, hopefully. We know that you're successful today, but the question we have for you,
• 1:05
  do you think you fall more on the sophisticated side, more on the scrappy side?
• 1:10
  Jack, I'm looking in the mirror and I see what you see. So what would
• 1:16
  be the natural answer to that question? I am a scrappy guy. I'd have to
• 1:23
  say scrappy. Yeah. I I like to think I'm sophisticated. I speak in a sophisticated
• 1:30
  manner. I like to think I'm very articulate and all that. But yeah, gotten by
• 1:37
  by scrappiness.
• 1:38
  There you go. I mean, it could be a foot in both worlds. We'll see
• 1:41
  what we'll see what the data says at the end of this. tell us about
• 1:45
  the beginning. Where did you grow up? Did you have any entrepreneurs in the family?
• 1:49
  no, I laugh because I have a you know somewhat auspicious beginning. my I I
• 1:54
  come from, you know, largely an immigrant family. you know, born in New York, but
• 2:00
  moved to western central western Pennsylvania at a very young age. you know, what used
• 2:06
  to be called a nuclear family. both my grandparents lived in the house with us,
• 2:12
  neither spoke English. And you know, I was the first one to go to college
• 2:18
  in my family. So, and that was a very, very big, you know, thing, particularly
• 2:24
  for my mother who was literally like genius level in intelligence and all she really
• 2:30
  wanted to ever do was like be a professor, but could not couldn't go to
• 2:36
  college because the you know, the family just couldn't afford it. So you know, I
• 2:42
  had one of those kind of, you know, beginnings.
• 2:46
  Okay, so you got and where were your grandparents from? Okay. Okay,
• 2:50
  Italy. actually Naples monopoly. Yeah.
• 2:54
  very nice. And so they come over and then are you any brothers or sisters?
• 3:00
  had one sister, yeah, younger who yeah, unfortunately she passed away, yeah early in
• 3:05
  I'm sorry. Okay. so you go to college, and
• 3:09
  Yeah.
• 3:10
  what do you actually what do you do in college? What do you major in?
• 3:13
  Huh. Well, I majored in playing football. so you know, I I I went to
• 3:18
  Princeton and and you think, wow, you know, this is I I I was completely
• 3:24
  lost. I you know, I was a very good student in high school. and you
• 3:30
  know, again it was very important that I do well academically, but I was ill
• 3:36
  fit to be a you know, Ivy League person. you know, I I didn't r
• 3:41
  even realize that, you know, you had to get a syllabus and, you know, there
• 3:47
  were books to read and all of that stuff. I had no idea. you know,
• 3:53
  I went there with the idea that, yeah, I'm gonna play football and, you know,
• 3:59
  then I'll do some, you know, study and it'll be okay. and midterms freshman year,
• 4:04
  four D's. yeah,
• 4:06
  Oof.
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  and it was yeah, painful. not as painful as listening to my mother after she
• 4:13
  saw that great report. but
• 4:15
  Yeah.
• 4:20
  yeah so I I I started actually as an architect major.
• 4:25
  Okay.
• 4:27
  I had I I've I have a I I'm a self-professed urban dweller. I'm I'm
• 4:34
  I'm just fascinated with urban, you know, dwellings and you know urban renewal And being
• 4:41
  an urban person. So I I had like these ideas about, you know, designing urban
• 4:49
  areas. but yeah, it it was a difficult start because architect studio was every Monday,
• 4:56
  Wednesday, Friday from one to four in the afternoon. And football practice started at two
• 5:04
  Oof.
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  every day. so and and Fridays we usually would travel or something. So so the
• 5:10
  culmination of that is that I was rarely ever in the studio. And so and
• 5:15
  and the studio head, by the way, was a very famous architect, Michael Graves, who
• 5:21
  who then he and I sort of butted heads and came to the mutual conclusion
• 5:26
  that architecture wasn't necessarily, you know, the route for me to go. so I ended
• 5:31
  up being a history major. but I won out in the end because Michael Graves,
• 5:37
  you may not know him for his architecture, but he went down in history as
• 5:42
  the designer of Target furniture. So touche to him.
• 5:46
  Okay. Fair enough. Okay. All right. So you're growing up, you got a bunch of
• 5:50
  pressure to make it to college. You make it into Princeton, which is not easy
• 5:54
  to get into. Football kind of takes over. You end up with a history major.
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  Give us the thirty seconds on kind of what you do today and who you
• 6:03
  work with today, and we'll we'll build the bridge from then to today.
• 6:07
  Yeah, sure. So today I work primarily with high performers and I do it on
• 6:12
  an enterprise level and also on a you know performer track level as well. So
• 6:18
  mostly what I do is I go into companies that are have had some early
• 6:23
  success in terms of their revenue. They they have a milestone coming up either in
• 6:29
  the form of a capital raise or an exit. And they need to increase revenue,
• 6:35
  prove revenue, and diversify their revenue sources. And so I step in, I build a
• 6:40
  blueprint for them as to how they can get from where they are to where
• 6:46
  where they want to be, all in a very provable way. And then you know,
• 6:52
  I either turn it over to them and let them go at it themselves, or
• 6:57
  a lot of times I will, you know, come in and take over. And see
• 7:03
  that out as well.
• 7:05
  Okay, interesting. All right. So let's go. Where does this start? So taping back like
• 7:10
  immigrant parent and what did what did the grandparents do? What did your parents do?
• 7:15
  Let's start there.
• 7:16
  Okay. Well, my grandfather, who came from Naples, he and his brother, I'll try to
• 7:22
  tell this story with I know this is supposed to be a, you know, funny,
• 7:29
  fun kind of and I'm gonna end up crying probably. So that
• 7:35
  Okay.
• 7:36
  won't be very funny. but they they came he and his brother came over on
• 7:41
  the boat, as they say, and they were garbage men. and the neighborhood that we
• 7:47
  lived in in Brooklyn was literally spotless from those two guys. he then later went
• 7:53
  back to Italy. His mother was a Italian Jew during World War II. he And
• 7:59
  the small village that he came from outside of Naples was historically a place where
• 8:05
  they had sort of harbored hidden, you know, they they hid Jews during the war.
• 8:11
  and they got caught. he ended up in a concentration camp, he was hung by
• 8:17
  his toes. he survived, his mother didn't. He came back to the US, and because
• 8:23
  of course he had worked for the city, but that experience had left him with
• 8:29
  having several strokes, so he couldn't be a garbage man anymore. so the city hired
• 8:35
  him as a well what I think today we call parks and wrecks, but basically
• 8:41
  he was a gardener. so he went you know he he kept the parks looking
• 8:47
  nice. He planted the flowers and mowed the lawns and you know all that stuff.
• 8:53
  so Yeah, so that's kind of where that came from. I know there was a
• 8:59
  question here that I didn't get to, and now I've actually sort of forgotten it
• 9:05
  because I got into that whole story and into that mind. but but I guess
• 9:11
  what did my parents do, and how in the hell did I ever get to
• 9:17
  Princeton?
• 9:18
  No, you're good. The the premise of the Yeah. Right.
• 9:25
  okay, well, my mother worked for the Department of Housing and Urban Development for HUD.
• 9:31
  and she she actually became a she eventually we moved from New York, she moved
• 9:38
  we moved to Western Pennsylvania. She became you know a very high level executive within
• 9:44
  the state of Pennsylvania in in housing and urban development. and I'm not sure that
• 9:51
  you wanna I don't I don't even know if I want to say this in
• 9:57
  this in this podcast. but my father was a reported we this could be a
• 10:04
  whole other
• 10:05
  Yeah, I think we got a couple of topics here.
• 10:09
  Cast But but but it's but listen, it's you know, it's out there. You could
• 10:09
  look it up, you know, so I can't be that crazy about it. My my
• 10:14
  father was maybe, maybe was involved in this thing that, you know, Italians are supposedly,
• 10:19
  you know, known for.
• 10:21
  Allegedly.
• 10:22
  I'll leave it allegedly, I'll leave it at that. but you know, which may have
• 10:27
  also been the reason why my mother left him when I was twelve. but I
• 10:33
  did have that, you know, sort of experience from a distance and anyway so yeah
• 10:39
  that was that was my father. so yeah so that
• 10:43
  Okay. So we've got
• 10:45
  makes it even more like curious as to how I ever, you know, got to
• 10:49
  Princeton. But but that was largely my mother's doing, I gotta say. You know, she
• 10:54
  really like, you know, she was intent on making sure that I, you know, was
• 10:58
  raised a certain way and that I turned out and you know you don't end
• 11:03
  up like your father. so
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  Right.
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  so that, you know, she really sort of pushed me along. And and you know,
• 11:09
  actually thankfully so to me. So yeah, that's how I wind up there.
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  Okay. Nice.
• 11:15
  but I as as that relates to what I do, look, I was always a
• 11:20
  underdog. I was always you know, kind of behind the eight ball. but I had,
• 11:26
  you know. a lot of confidence in myself and I had strong belief in myself.
• 11:32
  but I also knew that well, and I learned that You can actually outperform people
• 11:38
  that are more talented than you if you, you know, have a system. and that
• 11:44
  system, you know, requires that you take measure of where you are and and you
• 11:50
  know where you want to be. And do that, you know, honestly. because that's actually
• 11:56
  a really hard thing to do. It's hard to be honest with yourself about where
• 12:02
  you are. And and and listen, there's there's a good case for being delusional. as
• 12:08
  well. It's it's useful. but you know when when you wanna play professional football and
• 12:14
  you you know you run a four eight forty and you know that you need
• 12:19
  to run a four five or a four six, there's there's no benefit to being
• 12:25
  delusional about, you know, how fast you are. You it it's best for you just
• 12:31
  to go, okay, I run a four eight now. What's it gonna take for me
• 12:37
  to get to, you know, a four five or four six?
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  Right.
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  Right. And so then you answer that and you go, okay, well, this is what
• 12:48
  you need to do. Okay, well, then you set up, you know, a system to
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  do that. Well, that system is not easy. that system is really, really, really hard
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  and it's uncomfortable. so what you gotta do is you gotta have the discipline to
• 13:06
  do it, you gotta measure yourself as you're doing it, you gotta make adjustments as
• 13:12
  you're going along. but you have to You have to create the habit. The habit
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  leads to the behavior, and the behavior leads to the result. you know, you don't
• 13:23
  always get there, but that's the path that it takes. And so I learned that
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  in pretty much everything that I was doing and everything that I was trying to
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  achieve. School, you know, sports, you know, just life in general. and, you know, and
• 13:41
  and then I took that into really like. four completely different arenas, what you would
• 13:47
  think are completely different arenas, right? first I tried to be an NFL player, which
• 13:52
  you know I was able to do for a short period of time. then I
• 13:58
  worked on Wall Street and and didn't know the difference between a stock and a
• 14:04
  bond when I started. Then I became a Hollywood actor and then I went into,
• 14:10
  you know, like high ticket sales. so all these I I pivoted a lot, right?
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  but all of these things that I did and all these pivots, they had one
• 14:22
  thing in common, and that was, you know, performance. All of those things involved getting
• 14:27
  the best out of yourself. So so I've learned how to do that in a
• 14:33
  variety of of verticals, as they say. And so that's what I help people do
• 14:39
  today. businesses and people I help help them do.
• 14:43
  This is one of the coolest stories. A lot of like grit and stick tuativeness,
• 14:47
  if you will, growing up, it sounds like. And then applying something that is applicable
• 14:52
  across a bunch of different things to where you I think you're absolutely right. You
• 14:56
  gotta be honest with yourself to start and probably really honest with yourself. Build the
• 15:01
  system to where you wanna be, and then you figure it out. Okay, so it
• 15:06
  was the bills that you played professionally with, right?
• 15:09
  Yes.
• 15:10
  Okay, so you're on the bills and then you're like, Let me go be a
• 15:13
  Holly like w why why the transition?
• 15:15
  Yeah.
• 15:16
  What how how do you how do you make that jump?
• 15:18
  Yeah, well it wasn't it wasn't by choice so much. you know, unfortunately, you know,
• 15:23
  my career was fairly short lived. you know, I I can give you every excuse
• 15:29
  in the book, but the bottom line is that, you know, the rosters every year
• 15:34
  keep forty five guys and you know, they bring in close to a hundred to
• 15:40
  training camp. So, you know After after a year with the Bills, I was put
• 15:46
  on waivers, picked up by the San Diego Chargers, didn't make the team, bounced around
• 15:51
  to a couple different you know, teams camps, the LA Raiders. I actually played one
• 15:57
  game in Canada for the Calgary Stampeders. so I bounced around a bit. and you
• 16:03
  know, of course, and I don't want to blame my mother, but every, you know,
• 16:08
  battalion boy. likes to blame mother
• 16:11
  Yeah.
• 16:12
  for everything. you know, I every time I would go try out with another team,
• 16:17
  my mother would be up in arms. you know, when are you gonna get a
• 16:22
  when are you gonna, you know, get a just get a real job, stop, you
• 16:27
  know, this craziness. so so yeah. So anyway, that's you know, I trudged around for
• 16:32
  a bit and then, you know, I said, listen, it it doesn't You know, it
• 16:37
  doesn't look like it's happening. And listen, I I learned a lot of lessons from
• 16:42
  that experience as well. you know, I I learned that you actually, you know, all
• 16:47
  this stuff we just talked about, and and this is what the value is that
• 16:52
  I think I I think I bring to the table when I when I work
• 16:57
  with people, is actually me. because what you just said, being honest with yourself, it's
• 17:02
  impossible.
• 17:03
  Yeah.
• 17:04
  and monitoring yourself is impossible. and and holding yourself to a certain level of discipline
• 17:10
  is is pr nearly impossible. I mean, I've I thought I was a pretty disciplined
• 17:16
  person and then, you know, I've seen people like, you know, Tom Brady and Kobe
• 17:22
  Bryant, you know, s th these guys are just like unbelievably disciplined. And even guys
• 17:29
  like that, you know, they need trainers. They need support because it it's just brutal
• 17:35
  to try to, you know, do this kind of thing on your own. And and,
• 17:41
  you know, I look back on that and I go, Yeah, I I I really
• 17:48
  needed to, I I needed some help there. because I I I probably sh could
• 17:54
  have and should have stuck it out longer. you know, so you know, I I
• 18:00
  have some regrets about that, I have to say. but you know, I I did
• 18:07
  learn a lot from it and it's and it's been useful in my life. So
• 18:13
  look, I I was I was back in San Diego after you know my last
• 18:19
  I I I remember that I played one game for the Calgary Stampeders. I got
• 18:26
  a can I show this online? I got this permanently dislocated finger from it.
• 18:32
  Holy crap.
• 18:34
  and and I messed up my knee in this one game. and then they said,
• 18:38
  Yeah, we're cutting you, we're releasing you. And they gave me a couple drink tickets
• 18:43
  and a plane ticket, and back to San Diego I went.
• 18:47
  Wow.
• 18:49
  and and on that plane ride, I sort of said, Yeah. It's probably, you know,
• 18:53
  I gotta look for something else. So the next morning I got out the Princeton
• 18:58
  Alumni Directory and I started, you know, looking through it. And I saw this guy
• 19:02
  who was in San Diego. He was vice president of investments for Prudential Baych. And
• 19:07
  I thought, well, he must be some big wig at the company. maybe I maybe
• 19:11
  I'll become a research, you know, a a stock research guy or something like that.
• 19:16
  That's what I thought. and then he I called him up and he invited me
• 19:21
  to lunch and and he picked me up. He had a convertible jaguar and he
• 19:25
  took me to this nice country club for lunch. And I said, Okay, well, whatever
• 19:30
  that guy does, that's what I want to do.
• 19:33
  Yeah.
• 19:36
  so that's kind of how I got to the Wall Street thing. and and that
• 19:41
  was really my first that was my first indoctrination to being an entrepreneur, although I
• 19:47
  didn't, you know, realize it. But you know, they basically give you and and Listen,
• 19:53
  this is back in the day. so we're talking about you know, the the early
• 19:58
  nineties, okay? So, you know, if you've ever seen the movie Wall Street, the original
• 20:04
  movie Wall Street, it's that was so long ago that they now have a, you
• 20:10
  know, a newer version of it. But the one with Charlie Sheen and Michael Douglas,
• 20:15
  this was what it was like. You were basically handed a, you know, a phone
• 20:21
  book and a phone. and told, you know, to cold call. and I did this.
• 20:27
  somebody, you know, I didn't know, like I said, I didn't know the difference between
• 20:32
  a stock and a bond. but I went to one of the big guys in
• 20:38
  the office who was, you know, doing really well and and he said, listen, the
• 20:44
  only way I can guarantee you to be successful is you got to talk to
• 20:49
  50 people every day. And in order to talk to 50 people every day, you
• 20:55
  got to dial the phone 250 times a day. So I was in a what
• 21:01
  we called a boiler room, which was basically just one big room, you know, with
• 21:06
  these semi-partitions separating the desks. And I think there were 18 of us in this
• 21:12
  original like class that started. Smith Barney, I believe was the company at the time.
• 21:18
  and so it was like an 18-month training program. And I got this, I typed
• 21:23
  out a sheet of paper with numbers one through sixty going across and several columns
• 21:29
  of those. and I would pick up the phone and I'd dial. And when I
• 21:35
  would dial, I would make and I would make an mark through one of the
• 21:41
  numbers. And if I talked to somebody, I would make it an X. And if
• 21:46
  it was somebody that actually responded positively, I would put a circle. and I did
• 21:52
  this literally every single day for 18 straight months, 250 dials without missing a day.
• 21:58
  and at the end of those 18 months, I was the only one left in
• 22:03
  that boardroom. And it sometimes it was literally excruciating. I would call somebody and my
• 22:09
  spiel was just, you know, hi, I'm calling from Smith Barney. I'm Calling to see
• 22:15
  if I can help you with your investment portfolio. And a lot of times people
• 22:20
  would just light me up and then hang up on me. And I mine was
• 22:26
  the only voice you could hear in that in that room. And it was it
• 22:32
  was frightening sometimes. So I would keep talking often like somebody was actually on the
• 22:37
  other line when they really when they really weren't, just to
• 22:42
  Well.
• 22:43
  like save myself the embarrassment. but people could tell when I had been, you know,
• 22:47
  hung up on
• 22:48
  Okay.
• 22:49
  and you could hear some chuckles in the background. But but yeah, but anyway, that's
• 22:53
  how I ended up you know, over the years I built a fairly, you know,
• 22:58
  decent business. I'm at at one point I had half a billion dollars under management.
• 23:03
  so it was you know, and that's how it started. you know, just picking up
• 23:08
  the phone and cold calling. But you know, I I I learned another lesson there
• 23:14
  that I I utilize today, which is you know the the critical importance of measurement,
• 23:19
  of just you know measuring everything that you do. And and just that fact alone
• 23:24
  has such an unbelievable impact on the end result. I I mean you can't you
• 23:29
  you can't imagine. It seems kind of like even if you don't honestly, even if
• 23:35
  you don't do anything with the data, just the mere fact of measuring it, that
• 23:40
  Act alone is critical. When I see somebody at the gym that shows up with
• 23:45
  a notebook and a pen or a pencil, I know that person's dangerous. I I
• 23:50
  know that that person is that that person is gonna be fit. That person is
• 23:56
  there, you know, to do something because you know they're they're marking it down. and
• 24:01
  I learned the importance of that doing this. because I went through periods over those
• 24:06
  years where I stopped, because it's not. you know, it sucks. It just sucks. You
• 24:11
  know, it does.
• 24:13
  Disheartening. Yeah.
• 24:14
  It it sucks. It it's it's tough to, you know, do that every day. and
• 24:19
  and then you have this other thing that I have to, you know, coach people
• 24:24
  on safeguarding against is once you actually have achieved something, like you get somewhere and
• 24:30
  then you go, okay, now I can, you know, now I've made it. Now I
• 24:35
  don't have no that's not that's not the case. Cause then you start, you know,
• 24:41
  you you you start going backwards. So So this is also why I try to
• 24:46
  not be, you know, I love I love motivational things, but I try to not
• 24:51
  make it about motivation. I try to make it about you know, I try to
• 24:57
  make it about what I call the standard. you know, you measure where you are,
• 25:02
  you determine where you wanna be, and you you set a standard, and then you
• 25:08
  have to defend the standard every day. You gotta defend the standard. And that's as
• 25:13
  motivational as I think you know you should get. you just gotta do it. Good,
• 25:18
  bad, or indifferent, you gotta get up the next day and do it again. and
• 25:24
  and that enacts the 24 hour rule that I have. No matter how good or
• 25:29
  how bad any particular day is, you you're allowed to live in that emotional state,
• 25:35
  whatever it might be, for 24 hours and then it's gone. You gotta let it
• 25:40
  go and you gotta do it again. So you know, that's that's as motivational as
• 25:45
  I think it really should get. And and I think that when you when you
• 25:51
  build systems like that, you know, great things can happen.
• 25:55
  Have you heard of I forget if this is a book or an article, but
• 25:58
  I've it's setting standards, not goals. So everybody in business says, we're gonna make a
• 26:02
  million dollars this year, and that's our goal, and here's how we're gonna do it,
• 26:06
  blah, blah, blah. Whereas most people see that goal, they write it on a piece
• 26:10
  of paper, and then 12 months later they go, crap, we didn't do that. Whereas
• 26:14
  standards are more along the lines of what you're saying: of every day I'm gonna
• 26:18
  call 250 people. Every day I'm gonna hit the gym first, every day I'm gonna
• 26:22
  do X, Y, or Z. Is that kind of the basis behind the standard?
• 26:26
  So, you know, that's a good question and it's a really interesting concept. And and
• 26:33
  I wanna sound like the clever guy and say that the answer is actually both.
• 26:40
  but you know, I'm also reasonable and realistic. So here's the thing what you say
• 26:47
  is ac absolutely true. you know, people put this goal out there and they pick
• 26:54
  this number. And you know, then they don't get there and it has all kinds
• 27:02
  of ramifications, right? here's where the problem comes in. I think you I think goals
• 27:09
  are essential, they're crucial, they're necessary. but I also think that You have to establish
• 27:16
  a realistic path to get there. And that's where the standard comes in. Okay, so
• 27:23
  you want to do X in 12 months. Okay, what is that going to take?
• 27:31
  First question. Bottom line: is it realistic? Is it possible? Can it actually happen? Okay,
• 27:38
  not the hallucinatory, you know, answer of. Well, yeah, of course it can happen. This
• 27:45
  company did this. This company. No, can it happen for you? What's your reality today?
• 27:52
  Where are you starting from right now? Okay. Can you get there? If so, what
• 28:00
  does that path look like? Is that a realistic path? Or what else is going
• 28:07
  to be needed to be injected into the path in order to get there? So
• 28:14
  that's where I think the real and and here's the other part of it. Okay.
• 28:21
  Now I gotta say this, and this is the this is this is my kryptonite,
• 28:28
  okay? This this is not something that I deal with really well. it's something I
• 28:36
  preach a lot. it is letting go of the result and focusing
• 28:42
  Interesting.
• 28:43
  on that standard and on that process. So this is also the the the danger
• 28:49
  I feel when you set goals is is that it's result oriented and so it
• 28:55
  gets your mind Whether it be consciously or subconsciously, it gets your mind in a
• 29:01
  place where that end is what's triggering everything that you do. And it and it
• 29:07
  can't be. Because You know, the reality is as as hard as it is to
• 29:14
  swallow, and believe me, it is really hard for me to swallow this. we don't
• 29:20
  have control over the outcome. You you any company in the world, you you name
• 29:26
  them, and they ultimately don't have control over their numbers. Now they'd like to make
• 29:32
  you think they do, and you know, investors in Wall Street and private equity. And
• 29:38
  everybody depends on, you know, those numbers being something that they can actually that they're
• 29:45
  salient. Those numbers have to be real. We have to know that GM is gonna,
• 29:51
  you know, be able to sell this many cars and we should be able to
• 29:57
  figure this out so and and on a you know quarterly basis. And this is
• 30:03
  what drives, you know, commerce and at what It's what drives capitalism. But the reality
• 30:09
  is, is that and you know, you've see examples of this over and over and
• 30:16
  over again. This is why, you know, sometimes you wake up and this stock went
• 30:22
  down, you know, 50% today. Because they didn't, because their numbers didn't, you know, work
• 30:28
  out. and this is because, you know, something happened. and whatever it is that happened,
• 30:34
  so yeah, sometimes the companies, you know, something has occurred within the company or within
• 30:40
  their you know system that you know broke down that you know caused it but
• 30:47
  when it comes down to people buying things you don't control whether you don't control
• 30:53
  that decision you don't control the buying decision you do everything you possibly can companies
• 30:59
  this is why they exist And what they're doing every day. They're doing everything they
• 31:05
  possibly can to influence the buyer. But even still, they don't have. You can measure
• 31:11
  it and you can predict that they've got, you know, a good amount of control
• 31:18
  over it. But at the end of the day, ultimately you don't have control over
• 31:24
  it. So now I said all that, it it's still it's still hard to it's
• 31:30
  still hard to not. Want the result and not. you know not be upset if
• 31:36
  you don't get the result and and disappoint it and and also not to have
• 31:42
  that be predominant in your mind when you're doing things. And it and it's even
• 31:49
  it's you know everything is relative, but you know I I I work with people
• 31:55
  that, you know, literally they have to like you know, they're commissioned salespeople. They have
• 32:01
  to hit a number in order to, you know, feed their families. and if they
• 32:07
  don't hit that number You know, how does that feel? It feels really, really bad.
• 32:13
  It feels really bad. and so, you know, try to tell that person, hey, you
• 32:20
  know, don't worry about that. Don't don't focus on the number because you can't control
• 32:26
  it. It it's a tough sell. you know, but but it's you know, it's necessary
• 32:32
  and I and I have to keep trying and I have to keep putting that
• 32:38
  out there because longevity wise, you know. that's that's not what's going to get you
• 32:44
  the results that you actually want at the end of the day. if I could
• 32:51
  be so bold as to say, you know, the focusing on the result, that's a
• 32:57
  vicious cycle because typically what happens is that it gets you to the goal that
• 33:03
  you've set. And and here's another thing I should have thrown in that I'm going
• 33:09
  to now. About goals that is not great. You almost invariably set goals that are
• 33:15
  too low. Even when they're goals that you don't reach.
• 33:20
  Too low.
• 33:21
  Yes, too low. Yes. Because you don't actually know what you're capable of. Most people
• 33:28
  have no idea what they're capable of.
• 33:32
  How do you measure success with clients?
• 33:37
  That's it should
• 33:38
  Do we have two hours for that? I mean that I feel like it's a
• 33:40
  loaded question.
• 33:41
  it should well, it's an it's an ironic it's an ironic answer given what I
• 33:46
  just said. The only way that you can measure results by what they produced. That's
• 33:52
  it. The end result. Okay? That's crazy given what I just said, right? But it's
• 33:58
  reality. and you know, if you want to feel that pain, talk to any you
• 34:03
  know, head coach of any pro sport team. That's it. They're they're judged on wins
• 34:09
  and losses. And sometimes it's you know worse than that. You could win every game
• 34:15
  or every match. And if you don't win like the match, you're gone. It. and
• 34:20
  you know what th those coaches can't survive, won't survive, don't survive. If that's all
• 34:26
  that they're focused on at the end of the day. They they can't. They can't.
• 34:32
  As a as a as a coach, you have liter the this is that's the
• 34:37
  best analogy that I can give you. you're not the one out there performing. So
• 34:43
  you don't actually have control over that win or that loss, but you're judged by
• 34:49
  it. and and that's the price of admission, you know, to to to be that.
• 34:54
  So so that's how I you know, that's how I'm judged. Now, you know, I
• 35:00
  I I hopefully, you know, before I engage, you know, I set appropriate expectations, and
• 35:06
  timelines. And and sometimes, you know what? Sometimes it doesn't happen. So if it doesn't,
• 35:11
  I keep working with people until it does. You know, that's that's that's how I
• 35:17
  do it. you know, if they're so inclined to continue. But Yeah, I mean those
• 35:23
  times are few and far between because because the the reality is is that you
• 35:28
  know unlike a you know professional football or you know sports coach, I'm typically walking
• 35:34
  into situations where I'm not you know, and this is by no means to diminish
• 35:40
  the, you know, the skill level or anything of that nature of of people that
• 35:45
  I work with, but but You just don't have really the same kind of idea
• 35:51
  about all of the components that are that are involved in being a high performer
• 35:57
  as a as as a salesperson, for instance. Okay. you think that it's just getting
• 36:02
  on the phone and saying certain things to people, or getting on a Zoom call
• 36:08
  and saying certain things to people, and learning how to, you know, handle objections and
• 36:14
  ask for things in a certain way. But and and this is this is what
• 36:19
  everybody does. there's so much more to it than that. and and I get really
• 36:25
  granular with people. It all starts with themselves. And nobody, I mean, literally, and I
• 36:31
  I'm I'm saying this here. I hope some salespeople are listening to this. I hope
• 36:36
  they go, geez, I wonder what he was talking about. Hey Maybe I can figure
• 36:42
  out what he was talking about and start doing that. They still you still won't
• 36:48
  do it. It starts with yourself. You have to, you know, an athlete prepares. You
• 36:53
  don't just show up at you know, on the court and then walk out and
• 36:59
  start playing in a you know, you just don't do that. That's what salespeople do.
• 37:05
  They, you know, they rush the, you know, they they're they're in the if they're
• 37:11
  working in a building, you know, they're They're hoping that the elevator's gonna door's gonna
• 37:16
  open. They're getting, you know, to their desk just before they have a meeting. They
• 37:22
  pick up the phone and they make the call or they get on the Zoom
• 37:28
  and they're making the call right then. Okay. Their preparation was nothing. and and they
• 37:33
  don't think about it. and we don't, you know, we don't think that way. But
• 37:39
  and and that's just a small part of a lot of the stuff that is
• 37:45
  missed and overlooked. So so The the point that I'm making is that, you know,
• 37:50
  when I'm working with businesses, there's a significant there's always a significant gap. Always a
• 37:56
  very significant gap. And if it's not a gap that is already, you know, there,
• 38:02
  that's being measured, it's all it it's it's often a gap in awareness, like what
• 38:07
  I just said to you. mean, most people that I introduced this idea to think
• 38:13
  that I'm off my rocker. Like, what are you talking about? What should how should
• 38:19
  why should I prep prepare? I'm stu I'm a salesperson. I don't need to prepare.
• 38:24
  Yeah. If you want to perform at, you know, your best level, yeah, you need
• 38:30
  to. and when you and when you, you know, you introduce a holistic approach to,
• 38:36
  you know, a high performance salesperson, you'd be amazed at the results they can produce.
• 38:41
  I I'm telling you. So 'cause I've seen it. So so yeah, I I don't
• 38:47
  I don't have a lot of situations where you know the the end result is
• 38:53
  not met because because there's almost always a gap and I and I can almost
• 38:58
  always fill it.
• 39:00
  Okay. So if I'm I'm sort of surrendering to the result by doing the day-to-day
• 39:06
  standards, and that's why the thing that I'm surrendering to is what I'm eventually gonna
• 39:12
  be graded on. But if I do everything that I'm supposed to do day in,
• 39:18
  day out, that result will happen. for for somebody everybody wants I shouldn't say everybody
• 39:25
  wants to be a high performer, plenty of people do. But if you're a medium
• 39:31
  performer and you wanna be a high performer, do you have one standard one piece
• 39:37
  of advice to get people into high performance.
• 39:41
  Yeah, I mean it it's hard for me to say what would be the the
• 39:46
  you know, the absolute like gun to your head answer for the one thing that
• 39:52
  you'd have to do. But I would it, you know, if pressed, I would say
• 39:57
  I would probably give you the answer that I just gave you. and it is,
• 40:03
  and is actually like again, that it is the most common missing part of what
• 40:09
  I see when I when I go in and you know that and that's the
• 40:14
  first thing that I do when I go when I work with somebody as an
• 40:20
  individual or when I go into a company, I look at, you know, what are
• 40:25
  you doing now? And I mean literally, I I I I monitor like every minute
• 40:31
  of their day so that I know exactly what they're doing to start with. And
• 40:37
  Mm.
• 40:38
  and the behavior of preparation is never there. It's never there. And it's not even,
• 40:42
  you know, it's not even thought about. It's not even considered. and and this is
• 40:47
  something that is extraordinarily important. The the And and listen, I see it with athletes
• 40:52
  too, to be honest with you, because I do work with athletes also. you know,
• 40:57
  people go, Well, yeah, but I show up at I show up at you know,
• 41:02
  I show up at at the facility, you know, an hour and a half, two
• 41:08
  hours before we're supposed to start, you know, training or practice and and you know,
• 41:13
  I'm I'm in the gym and I'm doing this and I'm doing this and I'm
• 41:18
  doing this. Your preparation starts at home. That's what I
• 41:22
  Wow.
• 41:23
  always Yeah, your preparation starts at home. and and I'd say the same thing to
• 41:26
  to a s to a salesperson. So if you wanna the one thing, okay, so
• 41:31
  we so you nailed me down on it. So I'm gonna say it. So now
• 41:36
  Ha
• 41:37
  the now I've talked myself into it. if you wanna if you're mediocre and you
• 41:42
  wanna be a high performer as a salesperson, the one thing you need to focus
• 41:48
  on is your own internal preparation. That's it. That will that will be That would
• 41:53
  be the one thing that if you could change would make you a high
• 41:59
  Does I and I'm we're gonna land the plane here in a second. We might
• 42:04
  not even get to the the lightning round of scrappy versus sophisticated, but that's okay.
• 42:09
  This is such an interesting and and your story is incredible and this is so
• 42:14
  interesting. Do you find that scatteredness or call it multiple goals or multiple different things
• 42:19
  they're trying to do per day? entrepreneur ADHD, the like I like to call it
• 42:24
  for myself. Do you find that that gets in the way of becoming a high
• 42:29
  performer if you're not kind of singularly focused?
• 42:32
  I think it can, which is why again, you know, I I have a counter
• 42:37
  for all of these. I have an antidote for all of these symptoms that you
• 42:42
  Yeah.
• 42:43
  bring up. And and it's funny that you bring them up because I see them
• 42:46
  all the time, right? So
• 42:48
  Right.
• 42:49
  I've had to come up with like the antidote to it. so I have power
• 42:53
  hours, you know, this is what I c this is what I train all my
• 42:59
  people to do. You've got to create a power hour. Yeah. Look, I got that
• 43:04
  too. I I've got, you know, I don't think I've ever called it that. My
• 43:10
  wife likes to say that I'm OCD. you know, but but my daughter, you know,
• 43:15
  she tells she uses other acronyms. and and she would say I have adult, you
• 43:21
  know, ADHD. And so, you know, I'm I'm like this, you know, too. That can
• 43:27
  be advantageous. It can be really advantageous. And you, you know, just said a lot
• 43:32
  of entrepreneurs are like that. And it you know, it's it's a driver. but in
• 43:38
  order to be effective, you know, as a high performer and and really get to
• 43:43
  the highest point, you do have to create highly concentrated segments of time. so I
• 43:49
  build this into the standard, if you will. that I install when I work with
• 43:54
  people. and I monitor these things. and they literally have to, you know, sometimes they
• 44:00
  literally have to like you know, like force themselves. They have to like, you know,
• 44:06
  if they take they have to take their cell their own cell phone away from
• 44:11
  themselves and, you know, put it in the refrigerator or something. and and tur and
• 44:17
  like turn off their, you know, computer because they're, you know, checking other sites while
• 44:22
  they're, you know, but But we we build that into it. So yeah, you've gotta
• 44:28
  have you've gotta have moments of you know concentrated effort, you know, in one specific
• 44:34
  thing, you know, to really be, you know, the best at at being a high
• 44:39
  performer.
• 44:40
  Okay. Okay. That makes sense. And I I like the digestible. It's not a hundred
• 44:45
  percent of every single day, but some power hours. That's pretty digestible. That's a that's
• 44:51
  a solid takeaway. I like that. all right, let's do super, super fast. lightning round
• 44:57
  scrappy versus sophisticated. We'll round out here. tell us about the office that you work
• 45:02
  in. How many monitors are on the desk?
• 45:06
  Two.
• 45:07
  Two, okay. docking station or a bunch of wires going all over the place into
• 45:13
  the laptop?
• 45:14
  wires.
• 45:15
  Okay. Does your phone currently have any cracks on it?
• 45:20
  Yes.
• 45:24
  what is the most unique thing in your office?
• 45:33
  A power tower.
• 45:37
  Power tower. What is a power tower?
• 45:39
  Power Tower is one of those things that is a you can do chin up,
• 45:45
  you can do pull ups, you can, you know,
• 45:49
  Yeah.
• 45:50
  put your elbows on it and do, you know, like ab work. yeah, yeah. You
• 45:54
  can do dips. it has like a bar on the bars on the bottom that
• 46:00
  you can hold on to to do push ups and stuff. So, Yeah, that's I
• 46:06
  I keep that in there so that you know, I can when I'm sedentary for,
• 46:11
  you know, a certain amount of time I can get you know, I do go
• 46:17
  to the gym every day, but I but I you know, when you're sitting around
• 46:23
  also all day long, it gets particularly as you're aging as I am, you know,
• 46:29
  you gotta keep moving and you gotta you know, you gotta get the blood pumping.
• 46:34
  So yeah, I keep that in.
• 46:37
  Okay, that's pretty good. I gotta look into a power tower. I'm a big fan
• 46:39
  of all those.
• 46:40
  Power.
• 46:42
  did you collect anything as a kid? Baseball
• 46:44
  Baseball cards.
• 46:46
  cards. Did you ever think that they would make you rich or is it more
• 46:49
  just for fun?
• 46:50
  Never thought they would make me rich. Always for fun. yeah, and still and I
• 46:55
  still have them.
• 46:56
  Ever okay. I mean it could be worth a couple bucks now.
• 47:00
  I still have them. They yeah.
• 47:03
  if you ever use two previously used dryer sheets instead of using one new dryer
• 47:07
  sheet.
• 47:08
  No way. No. That's that just goes beyond all things that I consider to be
• 47:15
  right.
• 47:16
  Yeah.
• 47:17
  could never reuse the drive.
• 47:19
  All right. I look, we started off pretty scrappy. There's a lot of grit, a
• 47:23
  lot of scrappiness, but there's a lot of sophistication here too. I think successfully a
• 47:27
  foot in both worlds, Chris. I love it, man.
• 47:30
  thanks, Jack. I'm try I'm trying. I I l I love to be that you
• 47:35
  know, dual person. That's that's complimentary to me, so thanks.
• 47:39
  And and you succeed at it, man. I'm a big fan. This is you have
• 47:42
  one of the most cool, unique, intense, powerful stories, man. I appreciate you sharing it.
• 47:46
  what do you want the folks out there to know? Anything you want to promote?
• 47:50
  we'll have like links to your website and all that stuff, but anything you want
• 47:54
  the folks out there to know.
• 47:56
  yeah, I mean since we didn't actually mention it, one of my, you know, I
• 48:02
  have I have some pet projects in my life, things that I'm involved with, and
• 48:08
  and two of them are are really actually very near and dear to my heart.
• 48:15
  And one I, you know, continue to work with and promote and the other I've
• 48:21
  sort of do so peripherally. But one is Replayer, which is a AI camera. for
• 48:27
  sports, for youth, particularly for youth sports. and the big thing that they're driving to
• 48:34
  do right now is end pay-to-play in the US soccer market, you know, through offering
• 48:40
  sponsorship revenue to clubs through their through the live streaming of of their matches with
• 48:47
  the camera. so I love replayer. and and always happy to talk about them. but
• 48:53
  also I'm involved with the CFO project, which was I think sort of where you
• 48:59
  and I kind of initially met. and and this is a company that is yeah
• 49:06
  they're they're it's special. the mission of this company is to eradicate small business failure
• 49:12
  one trained CFO advisor at a time. And and this is what they do. They
• 49:19
  they have for six years trained around twelve hundred people on a system that saves,
• 49:25
  literally saves small businesses. Because as you probably know, statistically speaking, over fifty percent of
• 49:31
  small businesses in the US fail. They don't make it to five years, and eighty
• 49:38
  percent don't make it to ten years. and and listen, if you're an accountant or
• 49:44
  you're a CPA or you're tax person and you work with businesses there is not
• 49:51
  a better way to really make an impact and a difference in the lives and
• 49:57
  the businesses of the people that you work with than to be able to provide
• 50:03
  you know this kind of service and and the CFO project trains those kind of
• 50:10
  people on exactly how to do that so it's a it's a great mission it's
• 50:16
  a great company they're great great great people you know, to work with. So happy
• 50:23
  to be able to talk about them as well.
• 50:27
  Awesome. we'll have well links to all that stuff too. Chris, unbelievable story. Very much
• 50:33
  appreciate you coming on here. Thank you so much for joining, man.
• 50:38
  you're welcome. Thanks, Jack. I appreciate you having me. It's been fun. And I love
• 50:39
  pineapples too, man. So that's keep at them.
• 50:41
  Awesome. Take care, really. There we go. We got it in the end. I love
• 50:46
  it. Stay data driven, everybody.
• 50:48
  All right. Take care.