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Why This Multi-Million Dollar Sales Exec Walked Away. · Mork Unfiltered

• speaker-0: Welcome back to another episode of Morgun Filtered Folks. And this is the podcast where we go to the beyond the polished success stories and dig into the messy middle of the doubts, the pivots, the uncomfortable moments that shape who we become as leaders and as human beings. And my guest today is Billy Keels. Billy spent more than two decades working in enterprise sales, including 16 years at SAP, a number of years at Dell, and at Computer Associates, working across cultures, countries, complex organizations. Complex go global accounts. And on paper, it seemed like a career that had like no destination, but up, up and away, the upward trajectory that we all love. But as you'll hear today, success doesn't always move in a straight line. And some of the most important transitions aren't obvious from just looking at a person's resume. In this conversation, we'll explore Billy's early influences, the decisions that shaped his career, what happens when progression all of a sudden quietly starts to stall, and how we begin to redefine our identity. Our security and purpose on their own terms. This is Mork Unfiltered, and this is the story of Billy Keels. Welcome, Billy. speaker-1: the show. Man, that was amazing. I was like, my God, hang on a second. Are we getting ready to talk about me? That's you, man. I can't even believe it. I can't even believe I'm excited to hear this. speaker-0: ⁓ but me too, man. We too. And so is the audience. So it's good to have you here on the show. Man, you you have a a very long and distinguished career in big enterprise sales, something that is not easy. I always admire salespeople because I mean, people don't understand how hard sales is unless they have worked in sales. That is so difficult to kind of day in, day out have the discipline to do what you guys do and have, I think, the resilience to take so many no's and then, you know, progress through it, especially in large organizations. Is no easy feat. But I want to start at the beginning because it's oftentimes in our childhood and our adolescence that we start to see the experiences and and and the things that kind of shaped us. So take us way back, you know, to your younger self and tell us a little bit, you know, what were the things that kind of like naturally kind of like called your attention? What were the things that, you know, gave you energy and flow when you were kind of a kid in an adolescent? speaker-1: ⁓ man, so you're asking me to go way back, Patrick. Way, way. Man, you know, I got y I've earned my gray hairs and everything. So no, so listen, man, I as a you know, if we if we think about where kind of where I am today as someone who has been very, very fortunate, extremely blessed, you know, worked and traveled throughout ninety different countries, lived on ⁓ you know, two different continents, four different countries, learned much like yourself, ⁓ a number of additional languages, now speak five languages, like that was never, ever, ever, ever. speaker-0: No, not that far, man. Not that far. speaker-1: in the cards, right, for me early on, because like I'm a kid from Columbus, Ohio, very Midwest in the United States. And the the product of two parents who love me a lot so much, me, my brother, my sister. ⁓ and at the same time, most of my life I watched my parents work multiple jobs at the same time. But they always really wanted the best for me, my brother, my sister, and and a lot of that started with like less than a year of being born Patrick in Ohio. My mom and dad made a really tough decision, which was to leave the family, like n leave their families behind so that they could show me and soon to arrive my brother and sister a new life. And we left Ohio, moved to Colorado, ⁓ moved a number of different times there. My dad had a great ⁓ opportunity for ⁓ a a work opportunity, so that took us out there. And then eventually they decided that they liked Colorado. We stayed there for about seven years, but then we moved again to to Texas. We moved to Texas. Moved around a number of different times as well, different reasons to moving to Texas. My dad got into the to the oil and gas game. ⁓ my mom wanted to also was really ⁓ religious and wanted to go and have a new experience there. Mm-hmm. And I tell you that because at that point in time things were moving really well. We're moving to new places. My brother and sister come along. ⁓ this is now the third state. And my parents start having marital problems. It's so much to the point that mom and dad separated. We eventually, me, my brother, my sister, my mom, we went back to Ohio. Dad stayed there. They reconciled. And eventually he came to Ohio as well. And the reason I'm telling you this is because I started, you ask like, what are some of the things that I learned early on? And it's a big thing that happens for me just in general. I have life has helped me to understand that it's you don't always understand that things are happening for you. Right. Many times you feel like they're happening to you. Right. And for such a long time when I was moving to these different states and I was always the new kid in class. And even though my brother and si you my brother and sister were younger ages, but I was the new kid. Everybody else knew each other. And I had to figure out like, okay, how do I actually navigate and going from Ohio, being the new kid in this daycare, and then from daycare to Texas. And I didn't realize it, but I just knew growing up that it always felt really uncomfortable being that new kid. But eventually I started meeting people and new people and things like that. And it was no different. take us back to Ohio again. In Ohio, ⁓ finished high school, ended up going to university there, ⁓ Miami University in the southwest of Ohio. So Miami being a university before the Florida was even a state kind of thing is what we like to talk about. And and there I ⁓ I I experienced something that I really hadn't experienced yet in my life. And that was major rejection. And I say major rejection because I went to university. I was supposed to go get go to the right university, which I did, get good grades, which I did. And then get the right job. My dream job was to work for PG. I was going to be a brand manager and sit in a cubicle most of my life, but working for a really big company, right? And so since everything I'd done, I was ready, but and I got to a point where I was in the interview process, the selection process, and got rejected. Patrick, I didn't know what to do. I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hang on a second. I I I I, you know, I study hard, I do the right things, and I get the job, but it it wasn't meant to be. Right. Fortunately, ⁓ I had a Teacher that suggested that I pick up Spanish as a second language. And I was like, why would I do that? Like I I like Spanish. It's good, it's good enough. But I didn't really think about it as a second degree. Well, this university professor Melanie Ziggler shouts out to you. I just saw you not long ago after twenty-eight years because the university asked me to come back and speak. What I realized is that in that moment, I was not just getting over a heartache of being rejected, but I was actually setting up a future life. that I didn't realize things were happening for me, although I thought they were happening to me in the moment. Ended up moving to Europe for the very first time in 1995. Had an overseas experience. It was amazing. And then after that overseas experience, living in Valencia, Spain, or as probably I would say Valencia, and you would say Valencia. No, I had this great opportunity to to live there. Came back. Now I had overseas experience, had still good grades, had another degree, and I was going back for my dream job, right? Because I was tunnel vision. Like I had to get to PNG. Got rejected again. Really didn't know what to do. Yeah, I mean it was just like, hang on a second, now I've got this second degree. speaker-0: overcome that rejection? I mean, I guess it's a two-part question, right? Because you double you double majored marketing in Spanish. Right. So the so the first question I think, maybe for younger folks in the audience, is why marketing? Like Spanish, it's clear that came from your discussion with your teacher or your professor. They suggested marketing. You thought why you thought ⁓ they suggested Spanish. You thought why not? You went to Spanish. But why marketing? Like what what drew you to marketing? speaker-1: In initially marketing was because I just it was the thing that people said, yeah, hey, you can go and you can meet people and this is a way to help people help companies drive more revenue. And sales as a profession didn't have or still I don't think to this day has a ⁓ as a degree. So originally it was just to go and I wanted to do something in business. I knew I wanted to make money because my parents said work smarter, not harder like us. And so that's what took me to marketing. It was it was really that. And ⁓ and then the second degree was added. And then come back to your question on that, how did I get over the heartbreak of being rejected twice from my dream job? Relationships. And like most things in my life, you asked me in the very beginning, like it was such a hard thing, all of these being the new kid in class and not being, you know, not knowing all the jokes and all the things that people knew because they'd been together for a long time. Well, in college, one of my dearest friends to this day. I said his name recently on a podcast and he was like, please don't say my name because I don't want people I'm like, but you're my good buddy. Anyway, so a really good friend of mine who was from ⁓ Missouri suggested that I apply for a role. There were like 2,000 plus people that applied for a role where there were 22 people hired in 1996. And I had this amazing, just once again, really, really blessed, and started working for a company called Merits based in St. Louis, Missouri. Drop, I thought my dream job. was to work for Procter and Gamble. But this role actually opened my mind ⁓ to the entire world. In five years, Patrick, I had the opportunity to work and travel throughout some fifty-eight different countries. Had the opportunity to also meet Fortune five hundred CEOs, people that many people know nowadays, people like ⁓ Bill Gates, ⁓ Jack Nasser, who was the CEO of ⁓ Ford Motor Company, Ken Chenault, the CEO of of American Express at the time. And it just opened my opened my mind to a whole new way of of seeing the world. So much so that I didn't see myself doing a normal nine to five because I was twenty six and had seen fifty eight countries. And ⁓ I did the next logical thing, which was speaker-0: How did how did you find that role in Maritz? That's Moritz, right? speaker-1: Yeah, Meritz. Yeah. Yeah. Merits. Merits. Yeah. It's ⁓ pronounced merits. Yeah, yeah, no worse. ⁓ that was through the friend of mine at Miami University who was from St. Louis, Missouri. And he just happened to have his ear to the ground. He knew about because this was like these young people that were traveling all around the world with the CEOs and things like that. So it was a really well-known role in in an industry that I didn't know anything about, which was performance improvement. speaker-0: And you you had already had that experience obviously of going to Valencia, right? To to learn Spanish. A lot of people, like I I, you know, I have this all the time living in Miami. I you I I take a lot of Ubers because I just hate driving here. And I run into so many people who are struggling because Miami, like a lot of big US cities, is an expensive place to live. And so many people are like young people, they are struggling, they're working two or three jobs. They always complain to me about it's so expensive. I'm working so hard. I'm working multiple jobs. And I always ask them, I'm like, Well, how old are you? And they tell me, ⁓ twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-eight, whatever, thirty-two, blah, blah. Many of them not married, many of them don't own property because getting on the property ladder is getting harder and harder. ⁓ you can have a separate conversation whether you should do that. But but the point I always make to these people is, dude, if if it's so expensive to live here, why don't you move? Like, why are you staying in Miami? And so I think For a lot of people, leaving their city or moving is like scary as hell. Why? And and with reason. It's not easy. But you and I have done it for a zillion times. I've done 33 moves, 11 countries, like crazy, right? Wild. Yeah. That's probably an extreme. What would you say to people? Cause because you've been through it, right? You were moving around a lot as a kid. Yep. Then you go to Spain, you come up with this new experience, you've learned Spanish, and then all of a sudden this travel opportunity comes across. So I guess it's two part questions. It's first, what did you learn about yourself? with all these moves. And what did what did all these moves give you? And then kind of like what all of a sudden made you want to go into travel and was that somehow connected with all these moves and was there something that you learned in the process that made you want to see more parts of speaker-1: Yeah. So I'll work it backwards. So the the travel piece was something that was just the r that was the nature of the role. So I was working for the performance improvement company. And so I was working with these Fortune five hundred CEOs, their direct reports, and sometimes regional management or regional executive management. And so it was the role that I wanted to, you know, the one of the allures of the role was hey, people travel around the world and you know, people would go to, you know, all over the globe. And the one of the things is trip people try to go to all seven continents. Now, don't give me down the five continents or seven continents thing. You know how it goes. But so that fortunately the the travel came as part of the role. So it wasn't something that I like had this ⁓ amazing plan and this was the thing that was gonna happen. But what I realized was, and it and I go a lot back to nineteen ninety-five when growing up in the US, I thought. that everything happened and the ways that the right ways to do things were the things that I saw. And in 1995, when I was on a different continent with people that spoke a different language and had different norms than I did, they were able to come up with very similar ways of coming about a an an answer. Mm-hmm. And it was different than what I would have thought. And I was like, ⁓ my gosh, hang on a second. You can actually get to the same the same result by doing it in a different way or attacking it a different way or thinking about it from a different way. So the travel, what it did for me initially was it opened my mind to being able to see things differently and accept things in a different way. Later, live completely different perspectives. Yeah, completely different perspectives. And Patrick, you can appreciate this because one thing is and and this is something that I I didn't realize in the very beginning is travel opened my mind to being to accepting different perspectives and different ways of doing things. That travel abroad did that. And you ask about the moves. Now there's this was the major difference because then there was a major difference from Traveling abroad to actually living abroad. speaker-0: More about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's the biggest difference? 'Cause a lot of people are like, ⁓ yeah, I went to England. I know England now, right? What what what's the difference between actually living in a place versus actually visiting a place? Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, so th this is the thing that I would say and and even beyond visiting, I'd say it's it's really l living abroad, right? Because I I have and I have very you know, I know I'm a number of people who have traveled to thirty plus countries and they have seen every brand hotel you want to name. They've done all of them and they have had a very similar experience in every major city in Beach Town City in the same branded hotel because they have the points, they don't have all whatever. speaker-0: The whole trip advisor list. speaker-1: And so they, yes, they have traveled abroad, but if you ask them about the local experience and what it's like to have to struggle to get your lights turned on or have to get around on public transportation or actually go through the frustration of a day-to-day, very few of them can actually talk about that. You can see the world. Yeah, you definitely travel. And I was doing that. I was de I was traveling abroad, but 1995, when I actually lived in Spain and I went through this fear of not understanding Spanish. And when people started speaking to me, even though I had straight A's back in college. I realized I didn't understand. I had all the time in the world to memorize the sentence and conjugate the verbs. But when I had a Spanish host mother who was going, at least that's what it seemed like to me at that moment, there was like this fear that went through my body, like, ⁓ my gosh, how's this going to happen? But also, and you ask me about the moves, one of the things that it has also helped me to realize is that I am an extremely resilient person. And I didn't realize that. I thought all of these things were happening to me in the moment. And what I realized is that Life was happening for me, living abroad and actually going through the challenges, the frustrations. And Patrick, you've been there, man, of actually having to figure it out because there is not someone who's going to be there at the concierge desk to answer the question for you. You've got to figure it out. And when you work through those challenging moments, you realize on the other end of it, you're like, wow, man, I actually can do this. I've gone through the struggle. I had to sweat a little bit, but you know what? I've come out. better for it on the other side. And I've seen that happen over and over and over. You know, as I think about the travel, yes, definitely open my mind to different perspectives. But then when it came to the moves, the moves was about helping me to understand how resilient I am, also how important relationships are. Because when you're the new guy on country, the 10th country, you're kind of have it a little bit better figured out than you did the very first time. Yeah. But guess what? If you would have moved for another 20 countries, you would have it have had it perfected. And so speaker-0: Why do you think if you if you think of where we are today, right? Two thousand twenty-six, where how far we've come as a species, as a as a society, you think of all the technological changes that are coming now, you know, the AI wave that's hitting everybody. How important is because it sounds like what you're saying is that the travel was one thing, right, in terms of perspectives, but living in a different country really gave you resilience. Yeah. Right. It's the the ability to bounce back and to do hard things and realizing that you're gonna be able to do hard things, that's gonna make you more adaptable, that gives you more confidence. How important is learning the skill of resilience in the age of artificial intelligence? speaker-1: It's one of the most critical skills. ⁓ it is for me, as I think about it, and I go back to even what I was mentioning before, I thought that there was this pre ⁓ selected path, you know, study really hard, get good grades, and then all of a sudden you would end up in this particular spot. Well, life taught me early on, ⁓ not being comfortable wasn't the thing for me. And I'm not saying this is for everybody, right, Patrick, but it's it it's not for me. Like to sit in one place and be stagnant and not do something, at least some people may perceive it that way, but as long as things are happening for me on the inside, then that is something that is is completely different. And so moving and being in new places, new situations, going through as you said before, you know, and I and I give the example, I I started talking about it earlier, but when I arrived in Paris, France in 2001 and my electricity was shut off. Like I didn't have anybody to turn to. So guess I had to do? I had to get on the phone with Udf and I had to try to figure it out. But but guess what? My s my French level sucked. So I couldn't actually do it over the phone. So guess what I had to do? I had to get on a bus and go across Paris to the local and like to the to the Udaif. ⁓ the UDF is like the ⁓ the utility company, right? Yeah, the electricity company. So and and and going there and having to be frustrated and show the paperwork and not having documentation and you feel like the world is gonna collapse on you. speaker-0: Yeah, it's just a company. speaker-1: Yeah. And that was September of twelve two thousand one. But then when I got to June of 2002, Patrick, and I could actually make the phone call and I didn't have the issue, like it was you start to realize, ⁓ my gosh, all these frustrating moments, all these difficult, challenging times, it's helped me to build up that muscle and be be resilient in the face of what is quote unquote adversity. Right. And so, like as that specific example, when you when I look back On that moment, I'm like, ⁓ my gosh, it helps me to realize that yes, I'm a resilient person. And also from the relationship perspective, Patrick, I'm telling the story and I'm watching you kind of smile. I have a feeling you've probably been through something very similar. And it's a whole empathy thing that we are able to now have with someone beyond and that goes beyond sympathy, beyond saying that I know what it's like when you've actually been there, you've walked in someone else's shoes, it just helps to shrink the relationships and stuff. But I think speaker-0: It's also, I think you're absolutely right. And and I love how you describe kind of resilience as a muscle, right? Because I I I agree with you 100%, Billy. I mean, like, you know, I I do a lot of public speaking and and ⁓ my major topic is resilience. And one of the things I talk about on stage is if you want to build resilience, you have to think about it as a muscle, which it needs to be trained, right? And one of the ways that we train it is doing exactly what you did, which is you go to a country where you don't speak the fucking language and you deal with the consequences of that. And when you come out the other side. First of all, you learned French, which is awesome. Like you were the only person I've interviewed so far in Mark Unfiltered that speaks more languages than I do, right? Five languages is crazy. Kudos to you, man. That's awesome. And and and you know, every time that you go through something like that, you become more and more resilient, you become more and more adaptable, right? You can you build that self-confidence. So, you know, it it's it's fascinating, but there somebody once said, you know, easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life. And I think so many people choose to make easy choices and then they wonder why they freaking struggle because they have not built any resilience. They're like their definition is like I'm gonna stay in Iowa because that's all I know. And it's like, yeah, well guess what? If you do that, it may seem comfortable now. It's gonna get really fucking uncomfortable in about ten years. Yeah. Right? Yeah, yeah. But they don't they don't train the muscle. And so they're surprised. And then when they try something, well, they collapse because they can't deal with it. But so you go through this experience, you know, you're you're you're doing this travel stuff. You do it for a couple of years, you seem to enjoy it a lot, you're young, you're seeing the world, you're working with senior people. At what moment does all of a sudden you start to realize, okay, there needs to be something else? And and why all of a sudden then make a shift which is to enterprise sales at Dell? Where did that come from? Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah. Love it. Love ⁓ no one's ever asked me this question, man. So this is ⁓ this is this is amazing. ⁓ two things. So I am this guy once again from the Midwest of the United States and never thought that I I didn't even know if I'd ever get to California, right? 'Cause I mean, once I came back to Ohio, I was like California is like super far. It's like, ⁓ my gosh, I'll never get out there. And I went from that life to being able to like being very, very blessed, traveling twenty-five to twenty eight days a month and all over the world, you know, I'm young, full of energy. And ⁓ I got to a point though that the travel, ⁓ I had this phrase is you start to kind of get jaded. And what was happening was every like I never knew where I was gonna be more than thirty ⁓ actually sixty days out, right? I never knew where I was gonna be. Right. Because the ske because of the way the the schedules came out and stuff like that, which clients, blah, blah, blah. And so I remember, and this is more this is ⁓ two thousand and one. This is probably February two thousand and one, as the schedules always came out, like that was the big thing. And they we we would go to a hotel, just to like like time stamp this, Patrick. We would go to whatever these five star hotels that I was mentioning before, because that's usually where we stayed when we're with with the execs. And we got to a point where they c our schedules came in on a fax machine. Right. And so we went to get the fax machine and it would always say, you know, Billy's going to Las Vegas and then he's going to Buenos Aires and then he'll go from there to ⁓ Bordeaux or whatever. And so I remember the schedule coming out and I'm all excited and I'm waiting to see. And and it said that I was supposed to go to London and Amsterdam and I was in Orlando. And I was like, I could care less. speaker-0: Hm. That's that's that's a that's a big deal. speaker-1: It's huge because for so much it was like always the excitement of, ⁓ my gosh, where are we going next? Where are we going next? Where are we going next? And the only thing that I could think of is I don't want to get on another plane because I've already missed my friends' weddings. I've already missed friends who are having kids and everybody else is there to be around and Billy's once again away. And so it was a moment of well, what do I actually want to do next? Like 'cause I don't I like and and you know, I have friends who are still traveling. Right. 'Cause once you you can also just go down that rabbit hole as well. But I wanted to do something else. And in nineteen ninety five I failed myself, Patrick, because I told myself that I was going to learn Spanish nineteen ninety five. I was going to perfect Spanish. Now this was very unrealistic, at least for me, thinking that I was gonna go because I memorized Spanish really well and in three months I was gonna come back fluent. That's okay. I like to I like big but I saved a lot of money, but I chickened out. I'd mentioned to you before, I heard this the Spanish host mother. She talked to me about she was talking to me and I didn't understand anything. So I did the easy thing, Patrick. I did, let me just hang out with everybody who's from my culture that speaks my language, so I don't have to feel uncomfortable. And when I failed myself after three months, now I of course I met some people that were that were local and my Spanish did improve, but I was well below where I wanted to be. Right. But when I look back with that, you know, that introspection was. I didn't do hard stuff. Whenever I had to go out and talk to somebody in an intercambio, I just kind of wanted to speak to somebody whose English was so much better. And guess what we did most of the time? We spoke English. And then when it was time to go hanging out, we spoke English. And when we traveled on the weekends and I couldn't try I didn't have enough money to travel as much as most of my friends did. But but I tell you that because I failed myself. Yeah. I failed myself and said, listen, if I ever, ever, ever have the opportunity to live overseas again. I will never do this again. I will never fail myself again. I will do the hard stuff. I will figure it out. And I will make the progress that I want to make. And so very, very fortunately, so to bring us back to where I was in two thousand one, in two thousand one, when the schedule came out and it was Amsterdam and London. And I didn't care to go to ⁓ what was the name of that hotel in in Hyde Park or something like that. I can't anyway, it didn't didn't matter. But I didn't want to go. But I knew that I wanted to do something else. And it was the time that I wanted to learn French. I wanted to learn French language and culture. I wanted to learn how to salsa dance and I wanted to learn more about wine. And so in one September, I got accepted at a university of the Sorbonne in Paris. I didn't speak a word of French. I didn't know anybody in Paris. And I knew that this time I was going to prove myself right and that I could learn the French language and more about the culture. My expectations were adjusted based on what had happened to me from five years before. And and and basically that is the experience. Like I I finished that role because I was looking to not fail myself again. And that was in in two thousand and ⁓ in two thousand and one. Very fortunately, like how did I end up in har in enterprise software? Well, ⁓ in two thousand one, s you know, three months in, six months in, the Udie F story that I was telling you about before, but I've started recognizing like my French understanding of the language was improving. Right. And I was dancing more salsa in the evenings and I was meeting more people. I was tasting some wine. So that probably helped my salsa a little bit. I don't know. Not to mention your language. Yeah, exactly. Language, all the inhibitions went away. But the thing is, is I realized after like six months that something was happening inside of me, Patrick. It was like, Okay, this is cool, but something's happening. I'm understanding the language and I'm connecting with the culture because I started understanding Parisian culture. Right. And and being there and understanding, wow, this is amazing. And I started feeling that growth. And it was also a moment where I thought, I don't think I'm gonna be ready to go back to the States in six months. Mm. And so I kept going. And it and I got to a certain point at about seven months and I was like, hang on a second. Life, I gotta figure out how I can stay here. I'm on a student visa. I know I've got another five months and I'm American, so it's gonna be super easy. So I just started applying to roles. Guess what happened, Patrick? They didn't care that I was American. Yeah. I wasn't local. I wasn't European. I wasn't French. So all of these these ideas that I had, how easy it was gonna be, I was so uninformed, so ill informed. speaker-0: It's a lot harder once you actually start sending out the resume. speaker-1: Difficult. It's so difficult. And the first question was, well, do you have a a working visa? And do you you're on a student visa? Blah, blah, blah. So I won't take you down that rabbit hole. But what happened was how did I end up staying? Is it goes back to relationships. When I was rejected into in in nineteen ninety-five for the dream role, not once, not twice. It was a relationship that helped me get over missing my dream job, only to realize that it was a job of my dreams that got me to see the world. Right. And so this time I knew that I I didn't realize. I guess towards the end I realized how influential many of the people that I was working with were. And so what did I start doing? Well, many of these people when I was working with them, these executives, they were like, Well, if you ever want a job, give me a call, give me a call. Cause you I was see them with their spouses and traveling to board of directors meetings or top ⁓ achievers meetings. And I was young enough and ⁓ crazy enough to actually reach out to these people because I was like, I really want to stay in Europe. I really want to stay in Paris. This is an amazing experience. And so I started following up with people and the executive assistants and hey, I'm interested in working with your with your company. And most of them wanted me to go back to the US. Well, fortunately, and I'll I'll kind of wrap this up, but I started working for Dell, not in Paris, because I really wanted to stay in Paris, Patrick, but in Montpellier, down in the south. And I was telling all my speaker-0: How did you get to Dell? Like speaker-1: So be well, one of the people who worked directly with Michael Dell was one of the people that I knew. He was on all of the trips that I was on. And so he said, Hey, Billy, if you ever want to you ever want a job, give me a call. He was like many of the other execs that said the same things. And so I reached out to him. He got me in touch with the person who was running the Southern European headquarters. I went through seven, I think it was seven or nine interviews and finally was actually at a role. where I had to eat humble pie because when I had that role for five years in fifty eight countries, I was leading teams of up to three hundred people. And I and I did that around the world. And after seven or nine interviews, I can't remember because it's been twenty some odd years, I was doing order entry in French language all day long, taking Axum orders, Axum, which is like the PDA. ⁓ Yeah, yeah. And and I was speaker-0: ⁓ I remember that thing. ⁓ my god. Early palm pilot. speaker-1: The early poem public. Yeah, exactly. Well, ⁓ and here's one of the other things that you start to realize because what I really wanted to do, Patrick, I wanted to stay in Europe. And every single speaker-0: Rather than dwell on that though, so just just just just for the point of the clarification for the audience, then it sounds like the connection from Dell came from somebody that you had worked with or come across as a client when you were working as as in the travel business. Okay. Yes. And so you then you get this opportunity for Dell, but it sounds like you have to take a major career step backwards in order to take that job. That's key. speaker-1: That's correct. Massive. Massive. speaker-0: That's su that's very important for the audience because a lot of people think that careers are linear, right? It's like I go from this job to this job and more I'm getting more and more r responsibility. And you're not the first person I've talked to that has either made to make a sidestep or take a couple of steps backwards in order to pivot. So you so you it sounds like you you took a major step backwards to be able to take the opportunity with Dell. Okay. speaker-1: Massive. Yeah, yeah. So thanks for highlighting that as well, Patrick. So yes, so leading teams of, you know, ⁓ three hundred plus people, budgets that were eight figures in these different types of things to actually literally taking and doing fax orders that came in, right? People ordered online, it printed off in a off of a fax machine, and I would take that, put it into a system where I was actually uploading the information, something that AI would do on like do 50 of them in in no time nowadays. But what was important for me was to have the opportunity to stay. And you talk about resilience. What I realized through that was I was just thinking about I wanted to stay in France. I really wanted to stay in Paris, but I ended up moving to the south of France. And all of my friends, my Parisian friends were like, How can you possibly ever be upset about that? And I'm like, because I want to stay here with you guys. But the point is, I then tended to that doing those orders every single day became a game for me. It was how many times can I see the same word? How can I pronounce the same word over and over and over and over? And actually, when most people said, Well, how can you Billy, you you were leading all these people, now you're doing order entry? Really? And I was like, Yeah, but my French is getting better. And I'm actually sitting in these meetings, the team meetings, and they're speaking all in French. And so all of the like social French that I was learning while I was living in Paris was now beginning to convert into something that I wasn't really even aware of, is that there's a whole different level of business. speaker-0: Right, exactly. speaker-1: And way of communicating and I was doing it at an American company, but the whole like culture of working was very, very different. Yeah. But the language was the same, but the culture, the business culture was was different. So something once again wasn't just happening to me, it was happening for me. But I didn't recognize that in the moment. And before I knew it, I was back into leadership because I started learning the language. I understood the business. And they were looking for somebody to lead a team in Italy. And so, and this is one of my You know, I had a boss at at at Dell, Mauro Vizentin, I can Mao's name. ⁓ I tell this story because I d I don't even know how he how he saw this in me. But a couple of years into my role at Dell, there was this opportunity to move to Italy to start up a a sales team for their S and B market. And one of one of the teams I was leading. And I remember telling him, saying, Hey, you know, he's talked to me about this opportunity. I should go through the process. And I said, Yeah, but it it sounded like I understood the business because it was a business that I was managing locally. It just didn't do it in Italian. And I said that and I said, Yeah, but you know, there's one major problem. And he said, Well, what's the problem? I said, Well, I understand the business. I know some of the team. I said, I don't speak Italian. And he looked me straight in the eye, Patrick, and he said, That's okay, Billy. You'll learn. And I thought to myself, if he's saying this to me, okay, cool. And, you know, I was there for seven months and the only non Italian and doggone it, he was right. You know, and that a bit little bit of time and all day, every day and still going through the frustration of not understanding everything. But but you know, before I knew it I was leading meet meetings in in Italian and speaking to clients that had ⁓ that were upset with their order and doing that on the phone as well. So it was like speaker-0: How did you find the strength to start all over again though? Because you had just gone through this go doing French and now you're like you're starting all over again in Italian? Yeah. Like how did you find the strength to do that? Because a lot of people would be like, ⁓ my God, not again kind of thing. Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, so I ⁓ you know, I just I didn't I didn't know anybody before I moved to that place and it was ⁓ another opportunity, it was another way to l to continue to stay in Europe. And so, you know, it started in Paris and went to Montpellier and then it was I was on my way to Cayeri. And ⁓ yeah, it was just I don't I don't think I really gave it much thought once he'd said, It doesn't matter, like you will learn. When I saw that he had that confidence in me that I did not have in myself, Patrick, it was just how can you possibly say? speaker-0: But he had seen you do it in French, obviously. And obviously as a team leader, these are these these guys get used to spotting talent. They can quickly figure out who's gonna be able to make it and who's not gonna be able to make it. How did you go about I mean I I don't want to get too much into the details of the weeds on this, but in terms of learning Italian, did you did you have a tutor? Did you take a class? What did you do to actually learn the language? speaker-1: I guess so, yeah. So two things. ⁓ the the one thing that I did do is I started recognizing like the process. Cause remember when I moved to when I failed myself in nineteen ninety five with Spanish, there was a certain process that I was not applying. So then when I went back in two thousand and one, I wanted to apply the a process and and that process was, you know, learn the grammar, memorize as much vocabulary as possible and just do the thing that I didn't do in nineteen ninety five, which was just speak and speak and speak. Right. And it's a tough thing because I'm a recovering I'm I say now I'm a recovering perfectionist because I didn't want to look stupid. But unless you're native, and now I realize this, you're never gonna be you're never gonna speak as as well as a native speaks exactly their language. Yeah. You can do very, very well. You can yeah, you can come really, really close. So what that but what I what that did is it took the pressure off of me. speaker-0: You can come close. speaker-1: You know, I I was like, okay, well, I I'm gonna do as best as I can do as a non native speaker. And then the language is something that helped me to connect with people and then understanding about the culture is what really drove a lot of the relationships. And I say drove the relationships, but like enriched the relationships. So ⁓ you know, it was Learning the basic vocabulary, you know, I I went to whether I was in Paris, the same thing happened in Montpellier when I think about the place that I had in Cayari, even when I moved to Barcelona with ⁓ the Catalan language, I had little sticky notes all over my place. And I had the every single major, you know, whether it was the the simple the pr future perfect of the past, ⁓ all of these different conjugations, I just had them in front of me constantly and I was always speaking to myself in front of the mirror. So that was my process. Taking the pressure off myself, not being a native speaker, learn as much vocabulary as possible and speak as much as possible. Right. Like as much as possible. I mean, I've sat at so many dinner parties, whether it was in Paris, whether it was in Italy, whether it was here in Barcelona, in Spanish language, Catalan language, everybody else is laughing. And I'm just kind of looking at everybody going, ⁓ my God, I don't understand again. Starting there, everybody else is laughing. I'm laughing half a second later, you know, trying to stay to the point where You see you see what I mean? So like you can empathize when you've been there to the point where then you look years later or months later and you recognize everybody's laughing and I am too. I understand the language, I get the speaker-0: There's absolutely. Absolutely. And when like once you start to really get into the flow, everything changes. Right. And I think people also really appreciate it when you speak their language. I mean, I remember I was in Morocco for New Year's Eve and I was like, you know, making an effort to like, you know, speak a couple of words of Arabic to the waiters and stuff. They would just smile. Here's this gringo, you know, who who's like, and one guy would like and started speaking to me in Arabic. And I was like, Damn, I don't understand what you're saying. I don't understand what you're saying. And he's like, ⁓ I'm sorry. I speaker-1: Yeah, like I don't know speaker-0: He's like, your pronunciation's so good, I thought you spoke Arabic. And I was like, ⁓ shit. So maybe I shouldn't use those words because it sounds too good. And then I get sucked into this. But let's let's let's go back to let's go back to Dell and later CA, right? So, you know, you you get into Dell, you move to Italy, you're starting to do well, you're starting to get the the hang of this, you start to run your your first team. What aspects of working in enterprise sales played to your strengths? speaker-1: Right. Well, so the thing well, a coup a couple of things, because this was an international base for a multinational company. And as someone who was ⁓ in and I I think all of these things come into play, right? That you depending on where you were born, there is this idea of how you should behave or what you should know, right? And so I ha had a I guess unique profile in that I was from born in the US, I'd had a chance to travel ⁓ around the world at influential people. So I understood the the business. I'd managed large businesses, led large teams of people. And I at this point I was, you know, I my English is pretty good. ⁓ I was speaking Spanish ⁓ a bit better. ⁓ my French was actually on par. And that opened up the the chance to move to Italy. And so being able to work in this environment and having the the experiences of meeting people, understanding numbers, leading people and managing a business in an international environment, it just it it was one of those things that I was just leaning into and I continued to lean into it and even to this day ⁓ have have leaned into that. So that's so so so I guess the relationship, the b business understanding and and leadership are in an in in an international environment were the things that ⁓ I think they read leadership recognize and it's just something that I've continued to lean in ⁓ since then speaker-0: But there's also kind of like if I look at your story, I mean the and if I was kind of the your hiring manager, the other things that I would see in a person like you is I would see for sure like a certain degree of curiosity. Right. It it requires a certain level of curiosity to do what you did, right? Change industry, change culture, change language, change country. ⁓ I would say the other thing that I would see in you as well is a certain level of initiative. speaker-1: Huge. speaker-0: Which is a skill that is it it's it's an it's a trait that is in high demand in business today. Is people I talk to CEOs every day who complain about like, ⁓ my peop my team doesn't show initiative and you know, people don't innovate, people are just they're in their comfort zone. Once they get comfortable, I don't do shit. Right. So so I think, you know, that that's another trait trait that, you know, seems to have really favored you as well. And then of course your adaptability. Right, your adaptability and your resilience, your ba your your ability to kinda like move countries, move industries, start over, start a new language. Right I see a number of different things. One thing that I'm curious is, you know, as you started to get more and more success in enterprise sales, how did success start to shape how you thought about yourself and your future? speaker-1: Success. Well, so I think the first thing was just what I thought was successful. Before I even say success and how it influenced me, ⁓ in the beginning I thought, remember getting the good grades, moving in the right direction. And then when I got into corporate life, it was making money. 'Cause I thought success was about making money because I saw and I heard from my family that the biggest problems in the world come from money. Either they said it or I assumed it. And so I always thought success meant getting to a certain amount of money. When I realized that I was looking at an ordering from menus and I didn't care what the price was, I realized like, okay, well, I was successful. But then I started realizing that, okay, well, I'm not really successful because I can't do whatever I want whenever I want. I still have to ask someone. And so even before success and like getting to success, my definition of what success was started to change. I would say that that's the first thing. speaker-0: What point did you notice that? speaker-1: So there's a story that I tell and it has to do with probably one of the most painful moments of my life was when I missed my son, my oldest son's third birthday party. I was making more money than I knew what to do with. And like I said, I wasn't paying attention to what the how much anything costs. I had the nice German luxury car that was paid for by the company and I didn't have very many expenses at all. But the day of his third birthday party, like I woke him up. Like I made an excuse to not be at this like an executive function and Got up early in the morning, you know, woke my whole family up, you know, the boys, the boy's mom woke everybody up and, you know, who saying happy birthday. And I was on my way out the door to a flight to to Frankfurt. Inside of me, I was just like crushed. And I couldn't understand it, Patrick. But later I realized that it was because I was doing something that was out of of alignment with what I thought I wanted to be. Like so going back to a definition of success, to me, it went beyond money. It was being present. Physically present at all the events and doing all the things, especially when it came to deal with with my boys and with my family. And when I was at that meeting, I realized that there was something that was wrong. I didn't have control of my time. I was buying into somebody else's version of what success really was. And I was doing things that were outside of what my life priorities were now. Because at this point I'd gone through marriage, I had two kids, and all of the things that I thought were really important early on, like speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: I just started seeing them through a different lens. It wasn't as what what was important. So first of all, I I I had to recalibrate on what success was. And then afterwards I worked towards getting in in line with my version of success, which meant having more control over my time, being more present, and not having to worry about what someone else was saying about me or had much more control over my own calendar than I had for myself. So I I think that was the first thing. The first was the redefining what success was. It's not about money. And I have learned multiple times over that money only solves money problems. It does not solve all problems. And and then from there is being in alignment with what my values are, what especially when you can control it. And that was something that I could have control. speaker-0: Exactly. And that's that's fascinating, right? Because I think one of the reasons and I've talked about this on other podcasts and other podcast episodes ⁓ is that people burn out because they continuously work in a way that is misaligned with their values, right? And most of us don't realize this. It happens to anybody who's successful goes through this. People who are not successful go through it in some shape or form too, right? It's ⁓ when I work with clients, you know, as an executive advisor, one of the one of the one of the diagnostics that I always have people do is What I call a values assessment. And a values assessment, and for any of you guys listening today, you can actually do this on your own. If you go to thinktoperform.com slash values, there is a there is an exercise. It's free. Has nothing to do with me. I don't get a any kind of referral fee or anything. But basically what it does, it's a very interesting exercise where it it gives you a stack of 50 virtual cards, each with a value on it. And then you have to tear it down to 25. And then you have to tear it down to 15. And then you have to tear it down to five. And by the end of that process, which takes about 10 minutes. You come out with the five values that are the most important to you. And what I always tell people is if you want to know why you're freaking miserable right now, do the exercise, look at your values, and then ask yourself the tough question, Am I living in alignment with my values? Because most people are not. So if you're one of your values, for example, is family and all of a sudden you're going out the door to catch a flight, of course that would crush you. Yeah. And that's the realization. Right. Most people never take the time to actually do this and therefore they They're surprised when they wake up one day really, really burnt out. But but when I look at your career, right? So you go through this trajectory, right? You get into Dell, you go to Computer Associates, then you go to SAP. You, you know, you're you're you're climbing up the corporate ladder, as so many people do, right? You're you're you're finding more and more success until you know you have that wake up moment with your son's birthday. And then when I look at your career, something interesting happens. And we talked about this before the show is every two years on average, you're you're stepping up. You're stepping up another rung. Then you get to key account manager with your managing big accounts. I can imagine like tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. Right. You're making a lot of money. You're living the life. Yep. But things are starting to fall out of congruence. ⁓ and you are, you it seems that you kind of get stuck in that role for about seven years. And so I want I I was curious about like, Well, first of all, Ken like what influenced you to stay so long in that role? But more importantly, you know, at what point did you decide, okay, in terms of whatever the next logical step would be at SAP? Which a lot of people probably have a same situation, which is okay, I'm going from a key account manager, very successful, lots of money, the German car, whatever. Yeah. But now the next step is VP. Do I really want to do I really want to go there? So two part part part question is why did you stay so long in that role? And at what point did you realize that going for the next step up no longer made sense and you actually had to leave and do your own thing, which is eventually what you did? speaker-1: Yeah, so so I love this question. And Patrick, you're the guy who asks, as most people don't ask this question. And it's glaringly obvious that as you said, you know, I was at my last company for sixteen years. I had t twenty six years of corporate experience and I really, really, really enjoyed my corporate experience. Like so much to the fact that at a certain point, Patrick, on my ⁓ LinkedIn, the the moniker was happy corporate employee. People be like, What? I mean speaker-0: Like what if that's great. Some peop some people are I always tell people, if you're happy doing what you're doing, then great. speaker-1: Correct. And this is it. And so remember, I thought up until a certain point that money solved all problems. And when I was in corporate, I was doing all the thing. Like I followed someone else's path of, hey, this is how you are quote unquote successful until that happened. Well, there's a there's a story out and I'm gonna do this as quickly as I can, but it because how did I get into the ⁓ why did I stay in the role? Well, I never planned on staying in the role, Patrick, because I I just like you saw. I was supposed to keep moving every two years. Like I went from getting a brand new go to market channel, which was selling very complex multi six and sometimes seven to eight figures eventually ended up selling. But this was through an inside sales channel. Like how would you sell enterprise resource planning, ERPs, like business process through an inside sales channel? So this was pioneer kind of go to market strategy. Started out with 12 people of it. Now there's thousands of people that are doing this, right? But this is back in two thousand and six. And went from that to then going to doing something working on a a board level, SAP board level ⁓ project, ended up taking this into model into large enterprise, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Ended up leading a business, about a hundred million dollar business across Europe, Middle East, and Africa. ⁓ and at a certain point I realized like I wanted to become a managing director. That was the thing at the last company. And so one of my business mentors said, Well, y you know, it's it's really great, but The thing is, Billy, if you want to be a managing director of some geography, you really need to go to a field role. And so I thought, okay, well, I'm gonna do that. And so this was also happens right around the time I had just gotten married, ⁓ early, like almost 2010, like late 2008. ⁓ you know, kids start arriving, life is changing. And I have this conversation in 2008 about with my boss, who I knew I was earning really good money, and I was like, This dude's got to be earning even more money than me. And Scottish guy living in Barcelona, and we're supposed to have this business meeting. And he starts telling me about this thing called financial arbitrage. And as he tells me about financial arbitrage, he's telling me that he's living in Barcelona, that he and his family, he and his wife have rental properties, but they're back in Scotland. And I'm like, well, hang on a second. Why would you even do that, man? Because you're like, you've got this really big job and you're doing this and doing that. And he started telling me about having speaker-0: Right. speaker-1: being able to this financial arbitrage, buying in euros and pounds, et cetera, et cetera. Don't won't get too much into it. But the whole thing that I went away with in two thousand eight was he had more control and he was like a really high level executive. And I thought, okay, well, I would like to be able to do that. Well, I thought about it and thought about it and watched YouTube videos and what listened to podcasts and all these kinds of things, but I actually never really took action. But I was a theoretical like mastermind. And so this was going on in the back of my mind. And then my business so then when I take it back to now it's two thousand and twelve Well, when we go through this, this ⁓ this issue with missing my son's third birthday party. And I realized that hang on a second, I'm gonna take one more role. So I took this role a year and a half later, but the idea was to then move to the field sales role so that I could move up and become a managing director. Well, what happened then, Patrick, was something that I didn't anticipate. I started in 2013 investing in rental real estate. speaker-0: Yeah. Right. speaker-1: I started doing that on the side. I was doing that back in the United States. I was in this early fatherhood, heart was hurting from the the missing the third birthday party, and I was taking on a new role. All these different changes to be able to move up the org chart. Well, what I started realizing was as I was in the field and I was asking more of the executives in the field to be ⁓ executive sponsors on my deals or ask my b my boss to be at certain meetings, I realized like their calendars were absolutely smashed. Like to get a meeting with my boss, it took forever. I mean, you know, it's like in in big companies. And I realized, like, hang on a second. I actually don't want to do that. I don't want to be away from my family because my heart was still in my mind. Like that would get me out of alignment. I was starting to have some early success in investing on the side. And what I also then started realizing a couple of in years into my I see my individual contributor role as a cam, right, is guess what, Patrick? I was actually able to use all of the same leadership skills that I had been developing over the previous eighteen years. I could use it in a role where I actually didn't have the title, but I was still able to lead people. People were following based on the way that I was leading or carrying myself or presenting a case internally, the same executives who I would wanted to report to, I was actually able to engage in the same type of executive conversation with them. And so What I thought was going to be the role that was going to propel me into moving and becoming a managing director, I realized that this role was actually the role that was going to give me the most amount of time because I had a lot less, I had a lot less responsibility in terms of people managing my calendar. Sure. So I used my I used my energy. I'm and and the reason I'm telling this I noticed it may be a little bit more of a longer story, but it wasn't that the role I didn't like the role, but the role I realized I could still perform at a very high level. Like I was in the top talent program. It it has a different name, multiple years. I was going and traveling to Hawaii as a high achiever in my cam role. Right. And at the same time, I was building a business on the side. And that business that I was building on the side. was giving me even more confidence because I was taking the same leadership, the same skill set that I was using to perform really highly in corporate. I was now using that same skill set to build a business on the side, having much more control because that that that business that I was building on the side was generating income. I was building teams and I was still performing at a really high level in my corporate role. So I was actually able to be a high performer a leader, someone who was in top talent programs, someone who was absolutely able to do a lot of the things that were needed for the role, right? For that specific role and overachieving in that role in corporate, while at the same time, I was able to build ⁓ a business on the side. And so that that 26 year career, for eight years I was building a business on the side. And I will tell you, Patrick, the last four years that I was in that cam role, I didn't need the paycheck. I didn't care if I got a paycheck at SAP. Didn't matter. Because what I was doing outside of SAP was allowing me to have much more confidence, have much more control. And also I was overperforming in what the role was expecting me to do. And so the the promotion path, it wasn't the path for me anymore. It was still a really relevant path, but it's just one that I opted out of. I didn't want to do that because being in alignment and being able to be home with my kids and not have to worry about telling direct reports that no, I couldn't be here. I couldn't be there. Yeah. I was in alignment. And so when I was in alignment, it was much better for me, it was much better for my family, and it was also much better for my employer. speaker-0: All right. So it sounds like it was it sounds like it was a very intentional decision that you kind of you came to the realization that your boss is, you know, who's a managing director, I guess, in his own right, you know, ha the Scottish guy had his own kind of business on the side. He was making some money. You had come to the conclusion that you needed more kind of financial independence. You didn't want to miss any more birthdays. You started to develop this business on the side. It started to work. And so it sounds like you made a conscious choice that I'm gonna stay in this cam role because it's I'm doing I'm still doing well. I'm still enjoying it. You know, I I still make good money, even though the money, like you said, didn't become as important. Right. But you consciously stayed on that path and did not continue to aggressively pursue the path to promotion to ⁓ D because you found it more important to cultivate the business on the side to get financial autonomy. Is that is that a good speaker-1: summary yeah yeah yeah it's a amazing summary the one thing I would change is the ⁓ so the the the s the the the boss that I had in two thousand and eight he was in a different line of business and but it was just the idea that he was in this line of business. He was a high ranking executive in our company and he was actually able to have a have a life on the side and still perform really high in his role. And so I knew that I would be able to do something very similar but I it closed a a deal when I was in this in this cam role. It was a you know twenty five million euro deal I did in Spanish and Catalan language. And after that, like then the promotion path it really started coming. Like, hey, look, you've you've secured your, you know, your your place in the field. Now there there were other opportunities for promotions that started coming along. And it was at that point in time that I was like, you know what, I knew I took this role to move up the ladder, but now I don't want to move up the ladder anymore. Like I don't speaker-0: So so that obviously that obviously leads us to the next question, right? Which is at some point you decide to leave SAP. You've been there sixteen years. Yep. What prompted the decision to finally leave SAP and fully dedicate yourself to your own stuff? speaker-1: Yeah. So and this is one of the things like when I work with clients all the time, like I'm a big believer in giving people options, having optionality in your life. And so as I mentioned, the last four years of my corporate career of the twenty six years, the last four, I didn't need the paycheck. And these are really nice, big, fat paychecks, right? 'Cause you're in enterprise software space space. But the thing that happened, and it's just like when with my son's birthday in in December of twenty twenty one. Actually it happened before that, but ⁓ I'll and I won't go too much into it, but I I didn't leave SAP because I didn't like the company. I didn't ⁓ say that I don't want to go to a corporate ⁓ life because I don't like corporate. It's quite the opposite. ⁓ but in twenty twenty one I realized that my dad had some health issues. And what happened was, you know, I was traveling back and forth in the last quarter of 2021. And as a key account manager, like you need to be able to see your clients. And I was in a really good position. As I mentioned, I was in the top talent program. I was going to Hawaii every other year because it was overachieving against the targets. But I didn't feel like it was the right place to put my boss or the company that had been really good to me under the pressure of saying, Hey, look, I I need to go see my dad and I don't know when I'll come back. And so at that point in time, it was a matter of more of the hav being able to have more control over my time, over my calendar. And so at the end of twenty twenty one, not because I didn't like corporate. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: But I wanted to have more control over my time and I wanted to be able to fly back and forth without having to worry about when I was coming back or stressing my my my boss or my boss's boss. And that was a moment in time where I decided to pour my time and energy into my own business. And I continue to do that for years, many years since then. So it wasn't an anti-corporate thing. It was quite the opposite. I didn't want to put any extra stress or on my bosses. ⁓ and I had done the work before. to be in a position to say, Hey, look, don't need the job, don't need the paycheck and if we, you know, need to separate, we separate and kinda go from there. So speaker-0: Yeah. And how how was that shift? Because obviously when you leave corporate after such a long time in corporate, you know, a a lot of people struggle with the identity shift, right? There's like all of a sudden your LinkedIn changes, you're no longer at SAP, you're no longer the the big enchilada. How how did you deal with that? speaker-1: Yeah, in the beginning it was kind of tough. ⁓ and it's one of the biggest things that I walk my clients through, like if it is is to say what is it like to not have to depend on your one paycheck or you have more autonomy and what you believe and how you can express yourself and things like that. But yeah, I mean I went through it for sure because you get to this moment where you think your phone has to like from the moment you wake up in the morning, you if you don't have fifteen messages already to respond to, like you are nobody. And I went from that to Literally managing my own business and not having 5,000 things to react to. So there was a also a moment of realizing that this busyness, like if if you're just constantly in the busyness and you're not clear on what you're doing, like this is a whole bunch of just expensive exhaustion that's happening, right? Because at a certain point it's okay to have time to think and plan. And I went through that feeling awkward about not being busy all the time. And so it's yeah, I mean, similar to you, I'm sure I I help executives that speaker-0: Absolutely. speaker-1: That are also preparing for that or are going through that. speaker-0: Tell us a little bit more about that work because obviously you lived through this, you made the transition. And I think it seems like from your story that you made the transition fairly painlessly, right? Whereas for most people, the transition is very painful. Like oftentimes it's a layoff or they haven't planned it, or they leave, they have some money, but they're not quite sure what to do. They don't really have things on the side. So they're they go through this whole period of. trying to figure things out. When you work with people who are actively trying to do this, how do you help them figure this out? speaker-1: Well there's a the like Yeah, the the very first thing is there's there's there's ⁓ one premise that ⁓ and it it's probably sounds very harsh, Patrick, and at the same time it's a reality. Every relationship ends. Every relationship ends. And that can be, you know, we'll we'll keep it here in a corporate relationship. Every relationship ends. Either you will leave to go to do something else You're promoted into a new role. Maybe you move to a new company because someone else thinks your skill set is the right skill set. Or your company will decide for you that it must stay alive, it must be profitable, and it must have the right talent in the right seat. That could happen a day later. It could happen 40 years later. And so if you're not preparing for the end of that relationship, you are not doing yourself any justice. You are not doing your family justice. And so you have to be realistic that that is going to happen. Right. At a certain point. That's the that's the premise. Yeah. And then from there, it's how do you, and and as I like to work with our clients, is like how do you create this life of optionality so that if you choose, it's okay. If your company chooses, it's okay too. No big deal. Life will go on. And it's about helping clients to recognize that there are really three things. And this is for corporate executives. And this is where I help them. Number one is To get to an a state where you can have optionality, you really need to be absolutely clear on what it is that you want to do and why you want to do it. Right. If you want to make your life a corporate life and that's all that you want to do, then just okay, be clear with that and understand. Patrick, you said it earlier, accept that reality and the consequences and the advantages that go with that. Right. But you have to be crystal clear on what it is that you want to do and why you want to do it. Yeah. And that includes if you want to build a profitable business on the side, which is what I help executives to do. Then we walk through that process. You know, what are the three steps that you need to do to get quantifiably clear on that decision? Then after that, it is you're in a corporate role. I only knew how to achieve or overachieve in the role that the company asked me to do. So how are you now in terms of the role that you're performing in? Are you performing just average? That's not good enough. Are you performing where you need to get it done? Okay, great. Or are you overperforming? And we look at that because you you want to protect the career. Right. That you have invested so much time in. speaker-0: Or at least give yourself a give yourself a runway of X number of months or years until your side business is is is humming along. speaker-1: Correct. Correct. Right. And then and then lastly is is to be able to control. And that is to be able to control the amount of money that you are generating so that it becomes a predictable stream of income and also the time that you have. And so when you're crystal quantifiably clear on what it is you want to do, why you want to do it, when you are able to excel in your career and you are also have a a great grasp on the control. ⁓ and that basically can be one of two things. Typically where I'm where I work with executives, it's either are you investing? Are you taking money that is sitting like just a basic example, money that's just sitting and stagnant, not doing anything? Are you putting those in assets that are generating cash? Or are you taking your knowledge or expertise and you are attracting clients that you can serve at a very high level and help them achieve the things that they want to do? So as we talk about control, it's really one of two things. You're using your your money into asset putting them into assets that are generating cash or you are using your intellectual or or social capital or to be able to attract clients and opportunities to help others achieve what ⁓ they want to do. So those are the three steps that I I walk people through to get to optionality and with the underlying premise that every relationship ends. And so just accept that. speaker-0: Yeah, no, absolutely. And it it's it's fascinating because I think, you know, there's there's so many people that struggle with that, right? Which is, you know, they don't they don't know exactly what the right time is to get out. They know that something is off, they feel that something is off, they have a moment like you did with your three year old where all of a sudden like something just breaks. And it seems that in your own story you were able to identify that soon enough and plan soon enough to actually build this kind of like parallel path and eventually decide when you were gonna make your your own exit and continue on your own. Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, you one of the things that happens, Patrick, is like and I wish I there was a this ma like massive plan that I just knew all these things were gonna happen. It's it's the similar thing that I mentioned before. I didn't realize that those things were happening for me in the moment. Right. But w I but things were happening to me. I I was constantly busy. I was wanting to make more money, I was wanting to prove myself, I was because I was doing so many different things, many times I didn't recognize it. I was completely overwhelmed because I was trying to just brute force everything on my own. High achiever, didn't want to tell anybody that I was struggling, didn't want to tell anybody that I didn't know what to do. It wasn't until literally I had a money problem. I had more money coming in that I knew what to do than I actually had to stop and like I gotta find somebody that can help me out with this because money's coming in. I'm overachieving at the office, my relationships are strained, I'm doing this, I'm doing that, because I'm trying to say yes to everybody. And I'm the one who's actually going through all of the stress. So those things that happen to me now with perspective, I realized that they were happening for me so that I can actually help others to recognize when you have different things that are happening in your life. For instance, you are getting married, your parents are getting older, you're having kids, like these are moments in your life where you start to reflect on things. You're asking me the question about success. I didn't realize that at the time, but I was starting to redefine success because I was head of household. I was a father have you know a great relationship with my mother and my father and I wanna be a really great reference point. And so when you go through these things in retrospect you can begin to say, Okay, this happened for me so that I can actually help others today who are along the path who don't recognize what's happening. So they don't have to pay or go through the all the same pain or anguish that I went through and you know, that or that you went through. And and that's why we want to help other people. So they don't have to do it or go through the same suffering that we did. speaker-0: Yeah. Did you have somebody that you turned to for help during this period to get kind of some guidance and advice on on this transition? speaker-1: Yeah, so I did actually and I needed to find someone who actually was down was on the path that I wanted to go through. So there were there were two different groups. There was one there were like mentors. And so I had mentors that were in the business that we talked more about business stuff, like corporate stuff. I then met outside consultants that came into our business who be who were initially were helping me with leadership skills or sales skills, who then became friends who were building their own businesses selling to big corporates and They gave me their mentorship or their outside in perspective, recognized things in me, like kind of the struggle that I was going through, really good corporate ⁓ soldier and still wanting to do things on on my own. And I made a really, really tough decision to invest almost six figures in a one-on-one coach, like a paid coach who was already down the path that I wanted to go down and was giving me the one on one that I really, really needed. So there was a combination of mentors who had been down the path and it was just kind of based on their experience and then there was me actually putting my money behind things and guess where my attention went the most? Where I was actually paying my money 'cause I wanted to make sure I got a good return on my speaker-0: Makes sense. That makes sense. I mean, look, you know, when I went through the when I went through a similar period, you know, leaving leaving Google, then going through a couple of other startup ventures where, you know, I was I was CMO again, I was back in the in the same job. The difference for me is I was not happy with what I was doing. ⁓ I was making good money, but I wasn't happy. And then when unfortunately I got laid off because things, things changed. I was like so confused and lost that I like did not know where I was gonna go. And I also hired, like I hired a coach as well. And that that helped me enormously. Like that that's what got me into coaching is working with this guy. He really was the only person, including family, friends, you know, because this is what we do. He was the only one to ask me the right questions to finally get me to a place where I understood I could no longer continue on the path of CMO working for others, that that path no longer worked for me and that I needed to go down a different path, which was to become independent, either become an entrepreneur or be or become just a ⁓ you know, a a contractor, right? And the rest is history. But But oftentimes it takes kind of an independent voice who is neutral, who is not a friend, who is not a family member, who is not our parents, to help ask the tough questions that we don't want to ask. speaker-1: Yeah, because most of the time fr friends and family won't ask you the question. Exactly Yeah. They they they it their intention is to help keep you safe. Yeah, they don't want you in harm's way. And Exactly. And many times it was you know, it's the it's the family and friends that may probably your situation too. Like they come to you and ask you to help solve our your you know, your point of view so that they can solve their issue. speaker-0: They want to keep you safe, right? speaker-1: And so that role robotion's a little bit weird or you feel like you're moving into a new space and and they may not even feel comfortable being able to help guide you in a way that's going to make you realize where you want to go or what is the n is is the best next step to take. speaker-0: Absolutely. Billy, this has been a fascinating conversation. I I I really appreciate your openness and and ⁓ willingness to share your your story and also to to you know help enlighten a little bit our audience on how this is possible because I think so many people are in roles where they're topping out or they're misaligned or perhaps they they fear that you know they might be in a job loss situation at some point, which given AI is becoming more and more likely for a lot of a lot of knowledge workers. wind down now and go to our lightning round of questions, which are three quick questions, three quick answers. I always ask the same questions the same to to the audio to the the guests on the show and always get some fun answers from this. First question, if you could have any superpower, what would it be? speaker-1: ⁓ I think I'd wanna be I'm I'm s I'm between reading minds and ⁓ being invisible. I don't know what that says about speaker-0: Either yeah, I don't know what that says about you either. It says something for sure. Yeah. ⁓ you gotta choose one. speaker-1: All right. ⁓ I would say being able to yeah, it's I think it's probably being able to read to read mine. Read someone's mind. Yeah. speaker-0: Cool. ⁓ if you could have dinner with anyone in history, alive or dead, who would you choose? speaker-1: My great grandmother. Okay. My great grandmother. I was just talking about her the other day. I was asking my mom, like, do you what do you think ⁓ what do you think Granny Banks would be saying right now? Yeah, I I think it would be really, really, really cool. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. I mean people especially ⁓ who have seen history have seen it through a different lens can offer really interesting perspectives. Yeah yeah. And last but not least, if you could give anyone if you could give a young person a piece of advice on how to find a career of meaning and purpose, what would you tell them? speaker-1: say do the thing that you do the thing that you believe will make impact in the moment and also scares you to try. and I say try loosely 'cause you should actually do. That's what I would say. Okay. It's gotta give you it's gotta give you a little bit of fear factor to be able to find per speaker-0: Yeah. And and and I think that never I I don't think that ever goes away, regardless of age, to be honest. I think we we have to continue to challenge ourselves. Listen, this has been an awesome conversation. I really appreciate it. You know, I think ⁓ what really stands out about, you know, your your story isn't, you know, just walking away from from success, but it's it's redefining it on your own terms, right? It's ⁓ it's finding a place where you can be the kind of dad that you wanted to be, have more independence. have more control over your time, make you know, make make a viable living on the side, which certainly you seem to have done. Recognizing also that at some point, you know, the progression up the corporate ladder isn't for everybody. And you seem to have seen those. You seem to have seen that quite clearly and then, you know, made made a living now, made a a career out of helping people find their own space, which I think is even more important. Right. It's kind of like this act of giving back to help others figure out how you figured it out. So for those of you who feel, you know, accomplished but restless. successful but maybe quietly misaligned. I hope this conversation gives you permission to maybe pause and reflect not certainly on what you want to do next, but on what actually matters to you now ⁓ as you know ⁓ and where that takes you. If this episode resonated with you, ⁓ you know, obviously please subscribe to the podcast, like this episode, share with somebody who you think might benefit from listening to Billy's story, ⁓ and who maybe is going through a similar point in their career where they're trying to figure things out to get more independence, figure out, you know, what a what a parallel Track might look like in terms of financial independence. And ⁓ and leave a comment. You know, share your share your story with us. Tell us maybe what you're going up against right now, ⁓ what struggles you're having. ⁓ you know, podcasts are always conversations, not monologues. So ⁓ you know, subscribe to the channel. See you then in the next episode of Mork on Filter. We hope you enjoyed it. And Billy, thank you once again for your time, generosity, and insights. Wish you the best, man. All right. speaker-1: Thanks Patrick. Appreciate it.