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Explore your curiosity - Interesting people with fascinating stories.
Life consists of three things:
-The stories we tell others
-The stories others tell us
-The stories we tell ourselves.
Jeremy, welcome aboard to the show. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Ari. I appreciate the opportunity to be here with you.
Speaker 1:So let's start with something that at least I thought was a little crazy, but you'll probably convince us that it's not. You are the president of the US Free Diving Federation.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's start with something simple because I had no idea what this was, but it's really cool. What is free diving?
Speaker 2:Well, diving is unlike scuba diving where you have a tank in your back. Free diving is completely free of a scuba tank, so it's solely reliant on you and your ability to hold breath and dive either into the depth or long lengthwise in the pool.
Speaker 1:And you can't go very deep free diving, right?
Speaker 2:It depends on how you define deep, right?
Speaker 1:So very shallow, just a few meters.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course. If you want to consider 140 meters fairly shallow, yeah, sure, you can't go dive.
Speaker 1:This shocked me, right? 140 meters, that is pretty badass. So for those of you who know what atmosphere is, that's about fourteen, fifteen atmospheres. 140 meters is, for our American audience, what is that in feet? You know, whole A
Speaker 2:140 times three, so that's four twenty feet down. So it's eight forty feet round trip.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, so that is, that is crazy. That is crazy. So it's about four fifty just going down, 59 actually. So that is crazy.
Speaker 1:How do you even dive so deep with just your lungs, basically nothing else?
Speaker 2:Well, for complete transparency, I do not dive 140 meters. That's a number I threw out because a good friend of mine named Alexei Molchanov, he is the deepest male free diver in the world right now, and he's diving around 140 meters. But your question is how can you dive that deep? You know, there's a physiological process that happens within the body and it's a chain reaction of things, which I can't get into very scientifically, But the short answer I will give you is that it's mind over matter. Anybody can effectively do it.
Speaker 2:You're physically capable of doing it, but allowing ourselves to train over time. Then where the training starts really is in the mind. And that's the first place.
Speaker 1:So this is, this is incredibly interesting. What's the, let's say the psychological barrier that you need to overcome. What's that moment where you're like, oh, I can't do it. What does that feel like? When does it happen?
Speaker 2:Well, at any moment really. And, and really what happens What you experience in the water is what you experience on land. You have the same fears. Nothing changes from land to water, but it only gets more, you know, amplified in the water. So imagine, you know, you're trying free diving for the first or second time and, yeah, you go down five feet and then all of a sudden you think oh my god I gotta go back up I gotta go back up and you go back up.
Speaker 2:It's that fear of death of not having enough breath. I can't do it. Know these self limiting beliefs of I can't do this I can't do that that's really the first thing that you're going to encounter is like, I can't do that. And it's the same thing you encounter on land when you're doing things, I can't do that. So that's the first barrier that you really have to break through.
Speaker 2:And this is why when you start free diving, you go little by little, you go five feet, oh, I can do that. You go back up. I did five. Oh, I can go to seven. Oh, I can do seven feet.
Speaker 2:I go back up 10 feet. So it's a very, very slow incremental process of reinforcing in oneself that you can actually do it.
Speaker 1:And this is great advice I will state as a side note for anything you do right, you kind of edge yourself closer and closer to the edges of your ability to kind of figure out that you can do a lot more than what you think. There's something brilliant I think in that as a general experience. Did you feel that this experience has changed you in any way?
Speaker 2:Oh man, that's a really good, really, really good question. I started, I've been a competitive swimmer earlier in my life, so I was always comfortable with water and I always liked to be in the ocean environment. But when I started free diving in 2017, off the island of Amargos in Greece, it was just a new and different experience. Of course, I've always snorkeled down a little bit, you know, to ten, thirteen, 14 feet, you know, the depth of a deep well in the swimming pool. But once I actually was able to achieve much greater depths than that, you know, I started to realize like we are so much more capable than we believe that we are or that we want to believe.
Speaker 2:And it's opportunities like free diving and other sports. When you do push your limits, you start to understand that. And that's what really changed for me was that I realized I'm more powerful than I realized that I am in controlling the mind and allowing myself opportunity to extend those edges. So it really put me in that position of giving me agency or helping me understand that I have agency over my mind and what really happens there.
Speaker 1:Is there a lesson in here that has kind of even broader perspective in your opinion?
Speaker 2:You know, it's hard for me to really comment on the school system. I don't have children. My only experience with school is from when I was in school, many moons ago, but what I've come to understand and what I've experienced and seen through others-
Speaker 1:And I'll rephrase the question also to, let's say, the corporate environment as well. So any kind of, let's say, environments that we have in America today.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I appreciate that, Ari. And the one thing I was going to say is that really, really short story, real short. I was at a store, I was at a GameStop years ago and this one child was, I want this game, I want this game, and want this game, to the mom. And the mom said to the person behind the counter, Oh, should I get this from my child?
Speaker 2:Then the person behind the counter said, look, I'm a lot older than he is and I can't do it, so he's not gonna be able to do it. And so the mom reflected to the child, I'm not gonna buy that for you because he can't do it so you won't be able to do it. So kinda to your point, what I experienced in that moment was that we are capable of doing so much more than we are even aware of, but so many times our capability is prevented or inhibited by the projections that others have of themselves. You know, just because they, they say they can't do it and they project that onto a child or another person, then another person picks up and adopts that same mindset. So really it is the, the constructs of society and how we have interoperated in the things that we have brought through lineage and generations and how we were all raised.
Speaker 2:Right. So we're all mere projections of the experiences that we had as we were growing up, albeit from the parents or from the school or from a work environment. You know, this is exactly what happens, unfortunately. Yeah, was my experience. Yes.
Speaker 1:I resonate with that deeply. And, you know, the reason I hooked onto that is because you mentioned limiting beliefs. I feel that this is true in the work environment. I met the most amazing graphics designer, right? And I'm kind of listening to him and he's, he's saying like he's trying to solve basically an entity relationship diagram data modeling problem.
Speaker 1:And I listened to him and I'm like this guy is brilliant. He doesn't he's a graphics, you know, a UX engineer. He's not a software engineer. He kind of figured out that there's a problem that he's never studied. He's never learned.
Speaker 1:And he was trying to wrap his head around this, but he never learned how to do ER modeling. And I was like, this is brilliant. Like he's trying to solve something incredibly difficult. And I was like, you know what? I'm just going to teach you what an ER diagram is.
Speaker 1:Fifteen minutes I showed him what ER diagrams were, right, a little bit of computer science there for him. He caught it so quickly and he just ran with it and you know the weeks go by and I see what he's doing and I was just blown away. And what really upset me is that kind of nobody else saw his brilliance and nobody else kind of recognized that, no, you're not just a graphics designer. You are a human being and you have capabilities. I don't know what your capabilities are.
Speaker 1:You don't know what your capabilities are, unfortunately, in many cases. You know, people, you have your own limiting beliefs. And until somebody kind of, I don't know if there's a better way to say this, kind of gives you permission to fail and to try to do more, then people just don't because you have this tag, this label, oh, I'm just a UX guy or whatever. That was incredibly both frustrating and amazing at the same time to see that paradigm. Do you see the same thing happening with entrepreneurs?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do. You you and I met at Techstars. And the thing I love about the Techstars program actually is the mentorship model that they have attached to the accelerator, because that is such a hugely important aspect of Techstars because these startup founders, these first likely in most cases, first time founders, they've latched onto a problem that they want to solve in a particular industry. And they're only able to push things as far as their understanding or their capabilities that they have developed to this point in their life. So having that mentor there or mentors, whatever, you know, surrounds them in that time period, giving them the guidance, kind of like what you did with that designer of giving them guidance and opportunity to expand, to push those edges, to learn another perspective or hear another point of view around something.
Speaker 2:It's giving them, you know, it's helping them to expand and flower really. So, you know, so I do see that in the corporate environment in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1:Is there any kind of memorable story about a founder that you kind of saw him or her unlock capabilities that they didn't even believe that they had, that they didn't want to do something because they didn't think they were capable. You're like, I think you can do this. Does any story come to mind?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had joined a startup as the chief revenue officer. Oh gosh, in twenty seventeen, eighteen. And, you know, in working with the founder, you know, he was always so fearful of walking in front of a room, to make a presentation to a potential customer or even the board of directors. And he had left Stanford early, didn't graduate, so he had this belief about himself that he wasn't good enough and he doesn't know how to speak to people or connect with people. He hadn't made presentations in college because he left early, but he was this brilliant mind that had this concept that had all the wherewithal necessary to kinda bring this concept to market, but was just limiting himself and holding himself back to really shine in the moments that he needed to as a founder.
Speaker 2:He and I had worked together and had done a lot of one on one together back and forth and and mirroring to really support him in feeling comfortable of being a human, making mistakes, you know, and just learning how to just speak to others in a genuine and authentic way, as opposed to standing there to perform. Once he took that performance aspect out of his mindset, then he started to feel more comfortable and his presentations were more conversational as opposed to these contrived, scripted things that he felt like he needed to say to elicit or achieve this from them or get some reaction from them. It's like, no, it is what it is. Present it the way that it is and communicate to them as you would want to be communicated yourself. So was really a beautiful moment, quite frankly, in watching him blossom in the next presentations as we went down around to the university campuses and met with some of the groups, the CIO groups and others.
Speaker 1:Such a weird thing, right? We kind of think that the easy right path is to put on this show and to be super rehearsed and to know all the answers to the questions and to kind of not have ambiguity. But the surprising answer is it's the other way around. Like, sure, you got to know your stuff. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Like you can't come in unprepared, always, always come prepared. But once you're prepared, actually, I would argue taking the path of starting a really good conversation is incredibly smart strategy from a sales perspective. Now, would you agree and what's your perspective? Like you come into a meeting, what are you trying to do with the clients? And you've got a really nice sales background and capability.
Speaker 1:What's the approach from your kind of sales, let's say philosophy?
Speaker 2:My approach has always been consultative in a way that I'm there to help them, I'm there to support them, I'm there to help them solve a problem, right? Because at the end of the day, you're building a relationship with somebody else and they have a problem that they're looking to solve, whatever their role is, and as long as you can connect with them on a human level and relate to them and understand what that problem is and come back to them genuinely with something that works for them, there you solved the problem. That's that's the sale right there. It's not forcing or trying to push them on something and not learning about them. There's so many times, so many times I've seen folks in a sales role where they're just trying to achieve a number and they're forgetting about the human connection.
Speaker 2:They're forgetting about why they're in that role and they're there to serve that customer. That's why a lot of businesses exist and if they didn't have that customer, they don't have a business. So take the time to understand who you're connecting with and what they're, what are they looking to achieve and help them solve that.
Speaker 1:There's two incredibly powerful things that you're talking about. One is a real human connection. The other one is, are you actually solving a problem? And I see so many salespeople come into a sales environment, do the discovery questions, completely ignore the answers, then start the demo. And I'm like, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I'm I'm kind of speechless when I when I see this happen. What do you do when you see that?
Speaker 2:Well, I've seen that a number of times and and and what's happening, there's a disconnect. That person doesn't know how to connect with another person. They believe that their role is just there to be transactional. So that's why I use the word consultative and not transactional. Transactional is just to turn a number, turn a dollar, and you're not being relational in that experience.
Speaker 2:So I've not really ever been on the side of a customer, so sitting on the side of leading sales or head of sales, when I see that, I just let that person kind of go through that experience, the way they're presenting it, and then there's time afterwards to reflect with them. Then they'll usually say, How do you think that went? I said, Well, how do you think that went? I I don't know. I don't feel like I really connected with them.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure they really got it. I'm like, well, I agree with you. Let's talk about why. Right. Right?
Speaker 2:So, you know, during the sales presentation itself, you know, I don't I don't really ever step in because then when you're stepping in, it's causing that salesperson to then be reliant or codependent on you to really pick up where they're missing or where they have gaps. There's time for reflection afterwards.
Speaker 1:I would argue that it's better to make a mistake and learn from it than to be basically diminished by, you know, shoved aside. Because I've seen situations that I thought were going poorly and they were but then you know, I'll just use his name, Eldon, he just turned it around like he kind of like took a moment to reflect and was like this is going poorly and you could kind of see his brain like stopping and thinking and then I saw the pivot I'm like holy shit that was brilliant and and if I would have stepped in he would not have pivoted, would not have gone in that other direction, he would have not have been like what should I do now? He would have not had that lesson learned, and even if he made that mistake, I think it would have been much more powerful for him to make the mistake and talk with me about it later than for me to swoop in and kind of diminish him as a person by taking over. I love that feedback. That's brilliant.
Speaker 1:Alvin, by the way, a software developer and he became a sales guy and he was my top sales guy that year.
Speaker 2:Which is not common because you're using different sides of your brain being an engineer versus sales, right?
Speaker 1:Alden's perception was that sales was easy. It was car salesman, snake oil, know, all that, that basically salespeople lied. And I was like, okay, let's learn what sales actually means. And it's really about building relationships, like you said. And from a complete anti, I don't want to do this to, well, do you give me permission to do an experiment together with you to like best sales guy.
Speaker 1:This is beautiful. Just beautiful. He didn't believe he can do it. He didn't want to do it. And he was just awesome.
Speaker 1:I think it's beautiful.
Speaker 2:That's the thing. It's about the belief, right? In life and anything, if you don't believe something, will not achieve it, right? So everything is mental. You have that thought and you create that belief and then things just start to unfold as a result.
Speaker 1:So we're going to go down a weird bunny hole rabbit hole now. Weird to some people, wonderful to others. What if you just can't change your mental model? What if you're just stuck?
Speaker 2:What if you can't change it? Well, then there lies the exploration, right? Why am I stuck? What beliefs or what patterns am I working from in the past? What are the origin points of these patterns that are causing me to feel like I am stuck?
Speaker 2:That's where you've got to go into some deep exploration around that. That could be, you know, one on one with a business coach. It could be a therapist. It could be somebody like that, because if that is such a strong block and you're not understanding that origin and you then are not able to change it, know, could impact you in your work and life environment to varying degrees.
Speaker 1:And this is, this is, I'll put a warning here that taking a reflective self awareness journey can be dangerous because you don't always love what you find out and change is hard, so anybody listening to us at this point I would say you know careful what you ask for. But what does this journey look like? So you're coaching an entrepreneur, they figure out that they're stuck. What do you advise them to do?
Speaker 2:You know, that's an interesting question because you know, as a coach, you're not necessarily there to advise them or tell them what to do. You're there to reflect back to them and operate as a mirror. Why are you stuck? Right. And so as you're reflecting back, what you keep doing is you're asking questions.
Speaker 2:You're leading with curiosity in the conversation and you're hoping that the conversation is such that it helps them to kind of navigate themselves to arrive at an moment of, I know why I'm stuck. It's because of this moment, I was told this, and I created this transparent belief at that moment in time, which I've still been living through. And, you know, so, so you're part of the coach or a guide is your responsibility is to, you know, to help reflect in mirrors, to give them an opportunity to have their own self exploration, you know, you know, not a therapist, not a PhD or anything of that sort where they have a whole different level of skill set on helping to navigate those because maybe that's associated with some deeply rooted trauma that they had packed away. Right? So if they discover something attached to that, well then it's like, you know, it's time to go see a therapist to work through that process.
Speaker 2:So, but really it's, it's leading with curiosity and mirroring to them to help them kind of, you know, find that thread and pull the thread themselves into self discover around that, you know? And then obviously if there's some moments where you can provide advice, well, maybe you might want to consider this or it's and there's always an invitation. It's not a directive or you should or you know, it's always with an invitation of something to consider, right? Yeah,
Speaker 1:Jeremy and I were at a lecture, think it was Brad Feld and was like,
Speaker 2:You should with the fingers, I remember that.
Speaker 1:Next time I talk to Brad Feld, I'm going to be like, This is a win win win win win situation. There's only two of us here, but all five of us are getting bad here. A little inside joke there. Okay. So there is another side to your business, business coaching and psychedelic facilitator.
Speaker 1:What's about that second half?
Speaker 2:Well, that second half, it's a, that's an interesting one. Three years ago working three years ago, I was working with a tech company and I had noticed, I've been starting to notice patterns of of my exhaustion in a sales role over multiple companies. You know, but as I'm getting older, I'm getting wiser. And I started to see these patterns and I got to a point where, I felt like I needed some additional support outside of this work environment to really explore what was going on. I sat with a therapist of mine at that time and we were having a conversation and I had expressed to her that I'm feeling exhausted.
Speaker 2:I feel like I'm in a chaotic environment. I feel like I'm just not sure. It's like I'm experiencing burnout. And so she said, look, I'd like to invite you to consider experiencing psilocybin or magic mushroom. Oh, at first I was like, Oh God, you gotta be crazy.
Speaker 2:There's no way I'm doing this. And this is coming from a mindset of I always needed to be in control. So I was like, I'm going to go into this experience and I have no idea what's going to happen and I can't control it. She's like, yeah, you're not going to be able to control anything. I said, I'm not so sure about that.
Speaker 2:And she looked at me and she said, honey, if this is so important to you and you want to work through these patterns, you're going to do this. And I know you'll do this. And I kind of just sat back for a minute and I was like, yeah, I think it's time. I'm tired of this exogenous. I'm tired of all these things that I was experiencing.
Speaker 2:And I've been experiencing multiple times. And so, you know, a few months later, I sat in my first psilocybin ceremony and, wow, it, my mind just went, it went open to the point of like, what I experienced in that first moment was the default mode network or the prefrontal cortex of your mind. This is where all the chatter is going on. And it's me, you know, it's the patterns, it's all of these things that quiets down. And once I got into the medicine that quieted down, I was able to see through what they call the veil.
Speaker 2:Really, I was starting to see and understand why I was doing and feeling the way that I was feeling. It's like, wow, like, okay. I grew up in a chaotic home environment. I felt like I was always walking on eggshells as a child. And so I was always in this protective mode to protect my emotions because others around me weren't able to able to regulate their own emotions.
Speaker 2:So I always held mine back. So what that did, that moved me into a pattern state of always, always working in companies that were chaotic environments, and I was brought in to optimize, grow, or evolve the operations because they were in this chaotic moment, so I was coming in and creating a safe boundary around me, thereby evolving the way the company was operating, because I would go in and change the processes, evolve the operations and a number of things, leading by way of sales. And that's why I was always getting exhausted because I was burning myself out all the time. So I saw this in medicine and then I started doing multiple psilocybin ceremonies thereafter, and I've made so many shifts in my life as a result that I decided to go to school in Portland, Oregon, a school called Intertrack, and Intertrack is the first state licensed governmental licensed facilitation school for psychedelics, specifically psilocybin. So I went there and became certified so I could bring this into my practice support others on their journey for personal transformation or self development and growth.
Speaker 2:So my practice is kind of split in two. So I do executive coaching on one hand, and then on the other hand, I'll facilitate one on one and group ceremonies. And then when it's relevant and invited in, I can and will facilitate executive leadership on psilocybin journeys. Not all of them, ones that are willing to be curious and explore how that supports them in their day to day experience. Really my goal with combining the two is to support leaders and becoming more heart conscious, more aware of their patterns and become more compassionate in the work environment, because what they don't understand sometimes is that what they're feeling and what they're experiencing, they're projecting outwardly, and it is impacting everybody else in and around and under Right.
Speaker 1:So there is a lot to unpack. I'll usually stop my guests. I'm like, hold on, let's talk about that. But I wanted to let you finish there, but I have to go back. So there's a few things I really want to touch about.
Speaker 1:One, you used the word compassion. Is compassion the same as being nice?
Speaker 2:No, I think they're very different. Nice is being, I feel like nice in some way is a mask. It's a mask of interacting with an individual to elicit something from them. So I'm gonna be nice to you so you can give me a ride home. I'm using a very simple kind of example.
Speaker 2:Whereas I see compassionate to be really relational, connective, understanding them, holding space for them, with them, connecting with them as a real human, and understanding that we're all going through stuff. We're all going through similar stuff to varying degrees every single second of the day. So that to me is the difference between being just nice or being compassionate.
Speaker 1:I use the word kind, but I love the word compassionate too, but I feel strongly that neither one of those words, compassionate or kind, is the same as nice. And I think we see a lot of niceties without kind of true compassion. So I appreciate your comment very much.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I feel like there's expectations attached to niceties is really what I feel in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And then you talk about this almost contradiction between the order and the chaos and then the shift between the two, which can be quite stressful for everyone. What's the philosophy here? Is it, are startups just chaotic in their nature and that at some stage they need to become less chaotic? Is there, is chaos all bad?
Speaker 1:Is there a necessary evil in chaos? What should we aspire to here? Does it matter which stage of the startup we're in? Jeremy is not getting easy questions today.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no. There may be some rarities out there, but I'd like to say, and I will say that most startups are chaotic by nature, right? Because you're coming into an environment. I have an idea. Okay.
Speaker 2:How do I move this idea forward? How do I find money? Okay. Do how like you're, what you're doing in this startup environment is that you are figuring out as you go, you are patterning things as you move forward and then you're realizing, ah, that's the wrong pattern, pull it back, go a different direction. So you're iterating real time all the time, you know, from ideation through up to series AB.
Speaker 2:All right. And it's a much more chaotic because you're not really sure what is that next right step. You know, is it A or is it D or is it G? I'm not really sure. And so you're iterating, testing, moving.
Speaker 2:So it by nature, it is chaotic and it's not chaos in a negative way. It's, you're just trying to figure it out every single step of the way, every single day. And at one point it'll shift, you'll find that product market fit. You'll find that there is interest. You'll find the right ICP or customer, you know, targeted customer.
Speaker 2:You'll find those. And then when you find those, then that pattern starts to expand and evolve. And then it just starts shifting and moving that direction. So yeah, it just takes time. It just takes time as you're working through that process.
Speaker 1:Have you noticed that there's kind of different people that are better associated with the chaotic phase, you know, pre kind of things settle down, And then there are better people that are better associated with that latter stage. You need to change your team when this shift happens? Like how do you kind of think through this as a, as a life cycle?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. You know, really from, you know, from early stage to a or even B somewhere in there, you know, if you in an early, early stage as a founder who's inexperienced and is thinking I need this person to be in sales and look at a salesperson and say, oh, they were top seller at Cisco for this SaaS platform, or they were here, or they, and they went to Harvard and they have an MBA there. You're enamored with what you see on a resume, and you bring that person in and they fail miserably in the next six months. Well, that person didn't fail. It was a misalignment on the hiring because that person is more likely better aligned for a more corporate role, say series B plus, where everything is kind of settled down, there's patterns, there's structure, there's processes, That person can go in and probably do a hell of a bang up job, amazing job.
Speaker 2:So there really is a different difference in personality type, you know, where you need somebody that's much more scrappy, who's willing to get in, roll up their sleeves, that can operate fast, think fast, can do 10 different things at once. You know, so you really, as a founder, that's something that really needs to be considered is the DNA type of the person you're bringing in, not just what their resume says. Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's interesting. I had a, I had a coaching call this week, or excuse me, last week on Thursday with a person and he's very scrappy by nature. And he was telling me, look, I'm applying at BCG and PwC and others, big consulting firms, and I said, Are you getting interviews? He said, Well, I'm getting interviewed, but I'm not really going past the first thirty minutes with them. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I said to him, I said, You know why? And he said, No. I said, Look, you don't have the DNA that they're looking for. You're scrappy. They're looking for somebody that's much more polished and buttoned up, and not that you can't do that job.
Speaker 2:I'm sure you could do that job well, but they're not ever gonna give you the opportunity to even step into that. So I feel like you should be focusing on this direction to this type of environment where they're looking for somebody that is scrappy like you that moves and gets things done immediately. So refocus yourself in that. So yes.
Speaker 1:In many ways, would argue not getting a job because there's a cultural misalignment is dodging a bullet, right? Because if he or she gets a job where there's just this fundamental misalignment, right? You're scrappy, want to get shit done, but the corporation isn't like, no, don't step on my toes and everybody has clear responsibilities and you know, you can't say the truth, God forbid, because we have to be very, you know, structured and show respect and all the big things that happen in big corporations. You'll be miserable there if you're scrappy. Because if you're scrappy, you just want to fix stuff.
Speaker 1:Like that's what you want to do. And if you're like, you know, don't step on my toes kind of person, then people ask you to do like A and then tomorrow B, is the diametric opposite. You're gonna be like, that's not my job. Your manager won't be happy with you and you won't be happy with the So I think there's something here. Have you figured out this holy grail of how to know, because we always like, we hire people based, as you said, it's Stanford, it's accomplishments, it's you know, all these things, But have you figured out how to interview to figure out if there is cultural alignment?
Speaker 1:Because we kind of like all brag that we have great cultures and as if like the culture is either good or bad, but really I think that's not true. There's different cultures. And if you're not a cultural alignment, it could be that we're not the cultural alignment to you. Like it's not, it's right. There's a symmetry to it.
Speaker 1:So how do you figure that out? Like how do you make cultural issues when you think about hiring sales people, how do you prevent those?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you have to look, the interview process is a challenging process and one that becomes very, what's the word I'm looking for? Subjective. It's very subjective because it's like, do I like that person? Oh, we're having a good conversation. Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think he would do. Yeah. Like, so it's very, this is what begins to happen in a lot of places that you do interviews at. So, you know, what I've done in some places is that, you know, I've done two specific things is of course, yeah, we'll have that conversation to feel energy and what that is like.
Speaker 2:But the other thing too, is that I had, in two instances, I had put in place a psychological profile test. I worked with a consultant to help map out not just their psychological profile, but of the organization and mine as the sales leader. And then they would take that test and then we would look at the mapping and see how things align. That's one piece that we put in place. But the other thing too is that I also give them a take home test and I'm like, okay, this is the product, this is the service, this is our target, this blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 2:Put a plan together. What is your next thirty, sixty, ninety days? I wanna see what that is, and I'm not gonna give you input. I wanna see how resourceful you are on your own and what experience that you have that you can bring to bear to help us solve these problems. Right.
Speaker 2:And, you know, because if, if, I didn't do that, then they're coming in, then we feel like we have to tell them what do they should be doing this. As in an earlier stage company, we want them to bring their experience and we want them to contribute, assuming they have operated at a very similar level and they'll usually come in as a big contributor in that fashion, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah. You know, ask this question a lot, I don't have a great answer. What I do is I share the good, the bad and the ugly. And I say, here's what's terrible about this company. And if, if they understand kind of the, the roughness of the culture and they're okay with it, then either that's the first step in building trust because like, look, we're not perfect.
Speaker 1:This aspect of the culture we might need to change, but this aspect of the culture is not like ideal for everyone and it might not change anytime soon. So I need to know that you're okay with it. And the responses that I get from candidates are, crazy good because they're not used to getting that level of transparency and honesty. And then they're coming with a mindset of like, okay, I understand this. Can I be successful in an environment that has these glitches or not?
Speaker 1:And what I tell people a little bit as a kind of a soft landing, I'm like, look, I'm telling you the truth. What's going happen in, you know, your other nine interviews or whatever, they're just not going tell you and you're not going to know, so it's going to be a surprise. But I'm telling you, this is how we're struggling and we need to make sure that you can be successful in this environment and nobody's perfect.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I'm really glad you brought that up Ari and you reminded me that that's part of the process as well, is that when I do interview, I interview to make them run away.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love that. Thank you. Tell us more. I do that too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's about being real, It's the same thing when we date somebody. So many times when you date, you're putting on this mask and you're pretending to be this, and within six months, they're gonna figure out that that's not exactly what you sold them in the beginning. Let's just get to the chase. Yeah. Right?
Speaker 2:This is the way it is. This is what's happening, and you're gonna come in. You're gonna experience it anyway. So this is where integrity and authenticity and transparency come into play. That's a huge part of that process.
Speaker 2:And if you're not practicing that, well then shame on you, right? Because you're trying to convince them to work with you and you know that there's shit going on. But just be open about it. And whoever the right person is, they will align and things will come together.
Speaker 1:I don't know. This is incredibly frustrating that, you know, we're basically lying to the candidates, you know. If you're not, if don't you believe in this philosophy that you and I are talking about, you're basically lying to the candidates. And that is so detrimental to you, to the candidates, right. They're taking a job that maybe they'll fail at.
Speaker 1:So, you know, this is going to affect their mortgage, their family, It's going to affect your company as the hiring manager because you're going to you know, you're going to waste three, four months of salary. You're not going to grow. You're not going to sell. Like, it's just it's just a bad idea is what it is. Like, just put it on the table.
Speaker 2:You gotta wonder, why is the hiring manager, whoever it is, why are they holding things back? Because they're likely gonna have to redo the whole process. They're wasting time and resources, it's like, so why are they doing that? Is it because they're just trying to show that they've got their pipeline moving, that they're meeting numbers, that they themselves have to do some self exploration around the process?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So let's go to the dark side. Let's talk about toxic managers. This is something that just blows my mind every time I see it. I see, I've seen this happen multiple times where a manager just fires people one after the other.
Speaker 1:So you have this kind of, this, this rolling, you know, hot chair of people that come in and go away and they get fired pretty quickly. But statistically, it's a lot of people. So we see these managers that are losing people a lot, but then their managers, right? The managers' managers doesn't seem to ever ask themselves the question, why are we losing so many people on this team? And then there's a few other things that show up.
Speaker 1:We notice that these type of toxic managers, they don't want their team to ever talk to their managers or anybody senior, so they're kind of trying to control the communication. We see patterns where basically the same kind of patterns that we see in dating, right? We see gaslighting where you're trying to convince the managers, trying to convince their employees that one thing is actually another. If they do a good job, they'll tell them no, this is actually you messed up, so they completely focus only on the negative. These toxic behaviors are so dangerous, especially for managers because they are going to impact almost the whole organization, right?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. In many cases. How do you kind of think about this? Have you seen these toxic behaviors? What do you do when you kind of figure out like, holy cow, we have a toxic manager?
Speaker 2:These are challenging situations, right? Like if there's a toxic manager, they themselves are dealing with so much shit personally that they're just trying to hold it all together, right? So this could be an imposter syndrome experience. They know that they're not capable of doing that job, so they're gonna just start churning through to find who's gonna help me do my job so I look good and you're not good enough, so you get out, go to another one. So there's so much stuff that's going on that needs to be unpacked in that experience, but if their manager is not questioning it, well shame on them for not being a good manager, right?
Speaker 2:Because if they're not questioning it, that means that they're really not sure. So see what happens is it just trickles down. So that manager is hiring somebody in their image, and then you get that next one who is hiring in their image. So it just becomes a process of just complete disarray and breakdown. Right.
Speaker 2:And then this is why the wheel just the door keeps revolving and people are just going out because it's because they're trying it's there's so much they're trying to they're trying to cover up. They're not being honest. I'm agreeing to things with upper management that they really shouldn't be agreed with that they're not having the right conversation with upper manager to talk about the challenges they're had. So there's a lot of like, there are a lot of holding and hiding and covering up a lot of stuff in that process. This is becoming very toxic.
Speaker 1:I see a lot of like differences in communication. So one of the best ways to find out if your manager is toxic is if the way they communicate downwards is completely different than the way they communicate upwards. So these toxic managers will basically completely suck up to their managers, but then they'll be very critical of their team and employees. You see these toxic managers taking credit from their employees and then blaming them for things that go wrong. You said something really interesting at the beginning.
Speaker 1:I want to latch onto that for a second and explore a little bit more. You said that sometimes or many times, 'll let you elaborate, these toxic managers are actually incompetent. Did I read that correctly? They're weak in some way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're weak in some way and I use the phrase impostor syndrome, you know, where some people look at, we all have imposter syndrome to varying degrees, of course. I'm sure you had it when you first started this podcast, like, oh my God, they're listen to me. What am I gonna do? Like, but you work through this over time because you have the capacity and the ability to move through that. Some don't, some get bound up by that.
Speaker 2:And then, you know, as a result, they're just starting to make stuff up around them to support the pain that they're feeling internally of, I am not good enough. I don't know if I can do this. And, you know, so if they believe that they can't do it and they're creating things that aren't right, well, then they're just, it's just kind of, it spreads. They're incompetent, right? And whatever they're communicating up, they've said it in a way to make themselves look good, so they're buying time.
Speaker 2:All they're doing is buying time in the process. That's what's happening. If they're not able to work through their own stuff or if they're not able to have a vulnerable open conversation to their manager and say, look, I'm having it. I'm having a challenge. It's because people don't want to ask for help because they will believe that they'll get fired or pushed out.
Speaker 2:And yeah, you know, maybe you will, maybe you're not right for the environment or whatnot, or maybe you've been over hired in that role. So there's a lot of stuff that goes on in that process.
Speaker 1:I don't know how to solve this. I mean, I just see the senior executives just let these toxic managers be. Many times they're VPs, so they're underneath the C suite, but they have a whole bunch of people they're managing. I just, I just don't know how to solve it. I don't have good advice.
Speaker 1:The only advice I think I have is to employees to kind of just detect these toxic managers up early and not take the job. If you're lucky enough to be able to avoid a toxic manager, not everybody can. Yeah
Speaker 2:and the unfortunate thing is that it won't be until after you take the job mostly that you will discover this, right? Because what I find is that in the interview process, a lot of people don't ever understand that the interview process is a two way experience. Yeah. It's not them just interviewing you. It's you interviewing Wonderful.
Speaker 2:And if you don't have that mindset going into it, you're just sitting there responding to whatever they asked you. Yes. And if you take the role, then you find out in a month or two, holy shit, what did I do? And then what'll end up happening is that person will stay in the role because they're getting money, and then maybe they have a title, whatever it is, and they just complain every single day for days and days and months and months until they're completely fed up a year later if they make it that long and then they're completely miserable.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I had this one toxic manager. In the interview process, he confirmed with the candidate, you understand you work for me and you know, you are, you know, you need to do what I say. It was slightly differently, you know, verbalized, but that, that need to exert control Control discipline. Right.
Speaker 1:And dominance at the very beginning, that was a, that was a red flag. And then, you know, so I would argue that these toxic people have red flags that you can kind of notice early on because the price for you know interacting with them and actually working for them is very high. So, so yeah, I love your advice, like you are interviewing the manager as much as they are, so there are things that you can ask to kind of unmask them a little bit and figure out what they feel comfortable with. And maybe another piece of advice that I would give is look at people who have worked for that manager before and like it's very common to do a reference check on an employee but you can do a reference check on a manager. So here's what I do, I will look for the people who worked for that manager again before and here's this specific manager, very very toxic.
Speaker 1:I see a person, a lady who worked for him before, she had to take an eight month like break after work.
Speaker 2:Mental health break.
Speaker 1:Mental health break, yeah. So he basically messed her up so badly that she was like, I don't know what's happening here. That's how damaging these toxic people are. So yeah, I would caution everybody to have this top of mind. You don't want to work for terrible managers.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And you know, and I feel horrible for that gal that had that experience, but also ask yourself why you're staying there as long as you are. Right. At some point, if you don't make the change, you're just enabling that relationship. It's a codependent relationship because of money, because of fear, because of, you know, so.
Speaker 1:It's really tough. I have a good friend who's in a situation like this right now and she is basically like, she's making good money and her boss basically is horrid, like all the things that talked about before, but yeah, there's the money and then there's the fear of change and then there's a fear of like how hard will it be to find a new job and then there's like all the relationships I've built, there's so many, the barriers to entrance, to exit, we call it exit, right? They kind of mount up, so it becomes really difficult.
Speaker 2:And the one thing that takes a while for us to understand, fear does not exist. Fear is a construct of our own mind. We're creating that fear. We're telling ourselves, it's going to be hard. Oh, I can't do this.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to find that. Well, what if, what if you do find that? What if you meet somebody tomorrow that like, we have to reframe things, right? And work through that. Otherwise we get consumed by our own fear that we create within ourselves and then that prevents us from doing what we know is right.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So what Jeremy shared with you right now reframing is, I would say like it's hard to write social psychology but I would say that if I had to rate social psychology that tactic reframing is probably one of the most powerful and also dangerous tactics. I'll put a small little caveat here. The reason why the, you know, the challenger, I think it was, exploded, sure it was the O ring, but what happened in the background there is that one manager basically used framing on their engineers and Lightning said, don't think like an engineer, think like a manager. They cleared the o ring, the shuttle exploded.
Speaker 1:Really, really horrific story. Framing was at the heart of the problem there. But if you use framing positively, it can be as incredibly powerful to change and remove limiting beliefs. So, you know, we won't go into that today because we're totally out of time, but I really appreciated that comment that you made. Jeremy, this has been so delightful.
Speaker 1:We are so over time because this has been so much fun. We have only one question that we ask every single guest on the show, and it's a hard one. If you had to go back to the most difficult moment in your life, be it a month ago or twenty years ago, whatever it might be, what advice would you have given to yourself?
Speaker 2:Ask for help. Ask for help from somebody else and not feel like I have to do it on my own and have to figure it out alone. That symbol that's caused me to go through life for a period of time and work environments, doing everything myself and feel like there was nobody else good enough. So I feel like if I were to go back, would be to ask for help in a challenging moment.
Speaker 1:Jeremy, thank you so much for joining the show today.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, I appreciate it. I had a wonderful time.
Speaker 1:Okay. Wonderful.