Mental health and finding fulfillment in sales with Alex Kremer

0:0070 % of sales professionals report struggling with their mental health. This is a stat from the Sales Health Alliance. They study mental health in sales. And the most alarming thing is that this is up from 43 % in 2019. So we have some of the highest burnout rates. So roughly two thirds of sales reps feel that they are teetering on the edge of burnout. 73 % of sales professionals experience high levels of daily work stress, making it one of the most stressful professions globally. I don't need to tell you that. I experienced that on a regular basis as well, running a business and doing sales. And the reason why I bring this up is there is not a lot of focus internally, especially at companies around the mental health of their sales professionals.

0:54I mean, in software, if you think about SaaS, what kind of sucks is, you know, it feels kind of weird saying this, but it almost feels like there's no incentive to really do that. You know, the average tenure of a sales exec is like 18 months. The average tenure in the SDR and AE roles is typically less than two years at a company. And with all of the, you know, especially if it's a PE or VC backed company, there's a lot of pressure on hitting the target this quarter. So long-term thinking is not really a part of the plan. And that's what this episode today is all about is really finding true fulfillment in sales and like taking care of your mental health, which is a topic that I'm very passionate about.

1:41But before we get to that, my name is Jason Bay. I'm CEO of Outbound Squad. You're in the right place if you are a sales leader and you have a team of folks that are really in charge of or focused on pipe gen. So think about SDRs that we want to ramp quicker. We want them to be more strategic in how they think, land meetings with more senior folks, land meetings that are higher quality that will progress through the pipeline at a much higher clip. Or if you're managing account executives and self-sourcing is a really big thing that you want them to do. Or you have new product lines or anything like that, that you want them to open up and create conversations within the customer base.

2:25That's what we do. That's the only thing that we do at Outbound Squad. And we've helped 250 plus sales teams with just that. Companies like Shopify, Zoom, Rippling, Gong, et cetera. And then your startups that are building out your first SDR teams and everywhere in between. So today we're going to not talk about pipe gen and outbound. And we're actually going to talk about mental health and sales with Alex Kramer. So Alex is the CEO and founder at alluvians. And we're going to talk about I got a chance to meet up with him in in Austin. So we were able to do this one in studio, which is really cool.

3:00We talked about the two wells analogy that talks about a lot in sales. And I feel like just in corporate life in general, we kind of are told to operate in a certain way. I mean, that's where kind of corporate, a lot of corporate speak comes from like the person that we are at work and how we show up in the corporate environment is typically very different for most people than how they show up in their personal life or how they would show up if they were running a business. You don't really feel satiated with that work that you're doing. And that second bucket is, you know, doing them work for more intrinsic reasons, because you love the work, you feel a connection to it.

3:43You're not seeking outside validation. And I think the really hard part in sales is that you kind of need outside validation, right? That's our job is dependent on getting validation from people to get their money. Right. So we talk about that. We talk about your source of motivation. um we talk about goals and you know really asking yourself you know why am i trying to achieve so much we talk about rewiring your motivation connecting a little bit more with yourself and like your work we talk about rejection sensitivity all kinds of fun stuff so uh looking forward to you checking out the interview i have one favor to ask you if you like this podcast and this interview what would really mean a lot to me is if you could leave an honest reading on either Spotify, Apple podcasts, or I heart media.

4:28This just puts the podcast in front of more folks exactly like you so that we can continue growing the show. The other thing that I will offer as well, if you are a sales leader or enablement leader, and you've listened to this show and you're like, I would love Jason and team to help us implement some more of this stuff with our team. Send me an email, Jason at outbonesquad.com. Our average client increases qualified pipeline by 20 % or more within a 90 day period. So if that's something that is top of mind for you and pipe gen with the AEs, the AMs, the SDR teams, whatever it might be, and you're looking to create more systems and repeatability and scalability around that, get hands-on training for your managers for that, for your reps, et cetera, just shoot me an email, jason at outbound squad.com.

5:15All right, let's get to the episode.

5:22so dude good to catch up as always last time i was in austin we had terry blacks well that was two times ago actually last time i saw you we had terry blacks and i had like the worst stomachache dude like the entire day the next day like i was here for an sko and i feet for two days and i was fucking dying dude the next day that's usually what happens when you go to terry black's man i feel like i remember we crushed some brisket i think we had way too much of the mac and cheese and i remember we talked about our parents i was like sharing trauma with my dad and stuff you kind of have a way you know with people people probably tend to open up to People just tell me all their trauma.

6:11I'm just eating meat. And I'm just like, mm-hmm, tell me more. I have that make you feel. Well, it's good to catch up, dude. I'm really excited with like where your business is at. And, you know, we caught up on that a few days ago. And I was like, dude, your business is like, I think you're being a little hard on yourself, man. Your business has been doing pretty well. You're like three or four years in business or something like that. I was like, it's taken, it takes a bit. Sometimes it took me a lot longer than that. So I'm really excited with her business at. I love, you know, Clara Johnson on our team.

6:44She's obviously does some work with you. And it's just had so many good things to say about the work that you guys do together. And you really talk about stuff that doesn't get talked about a lot in sales. Like if I'm thinking about what we do at Outbound Squad, it is so highly tactical in nature and framework oriented around the execution. Very little of it talks about the mindset when really like what's going on upstairs here is really the driver of a lot of the behavior and how sustainable your job is and how good you are at it and how great of a leader, obviously, all of that stuff. So I'm excited to dig in, man.

7:25One thing before we start, though, is I'm just curious for you and your own journey as you've been teaching more of this stuff. And you were doing a lot of that as a sales leader, too. Like. How have you gotten better at like showing up for yourself with a lot of these stuff through like all of the teaching and immersions and like retreats and all of that stuff that you do now? Yeah. You know, it's funny. So I've been doing work on myself since probably 2015. I think my first retreat I ever went to was 2016. It was actually a really funny, fun fact. My dad was a motivational speaker. So since the age of five, I was going to conferences and seminars and watching.

8:05You're just watching your dad speak on stage? Watching my dad speak. So I was in a weird way indoctrinated into like personal development. Like even I remember my dad gave me like a tape of like leaders to listen to. like when I was 16. It's like Jim Rohn or something like that. Yeah, something like that, like waiting in my truck outside to go into high school. I remember listening to this tape and just be like, man, I love this stuff. And so I always really enjoyed it. And then, you know, started really getting serious with it in 2015, 2016, started going to quarterly retreats. I studied under a teacher, had, you know, mentors, coaches, therapists.

8:39I went to my first silent meditation retreat, breath work, all the different stuff. And I loved it, man. and at that same time I was also in tech sales I moved in tech sales leadership at outreach and I always loved this like combination of the two worlds of the how do you achieve an extremely high level how do you crush your quota how do you be the top leaderboard make sure that w2 is just looking sexy as hell right I care a lot about that yeah but I also knew that even when I was achieving that and even I'd see some other people who I was leading we'd hit that number and we'd be like awesome thank god I hit this and it actually wasn't like an expansion it was more like a relief like oh thank god I hit this and then you know the next day you have a zero next to your name in sales force you're like damn I have to do this all over again okay and it's even like hey I'd finally hit my number higher quota I finally get the promotion cool what's the next promotion, right?

9:41It's just that never ending cycle. And so I was always like, okay, there's, there's gotta be another way, or at least there's something that I'm missing. Like we were indoctrinated from the world to get all this achievement status and validation. And it was weirdly empty. And so that's where I started doing, you know, what I call the inner game, which is like, how do you actually find that thing that's within you that wants to come out, that meaning, that purpose, that fulfillment? And when you inevitably have the anxiety and the stress and the burnout, which is just a part of the job, like, let's just name that.

10:21That is corporate America. That is, we're both founders. That is also starting your own company. The question is not how do you overcome it? It's really about how do you choose to relate to it differently because actually those things actually can be used as a tool to support you in going deeper and so to tie back to your question it's funny it's like I've just always been interested in this myself and when I started alluvians and started hosting retreats and writing a community and coaching people on this bringing this to companies I've actually found it's like held me to a much higher standard myself okay and I'm I'm not a guru like straight up like I still battle with my shit hard.

11:03Yeah. And I think that that actually makes me feel better about teaching it because if someone says, hey, Alex, I struggle with depression. I'm like, dog, me too. Yeah. What's different is how I relate to it is a lot different. And the best way that I teach is by sharing my experience, not look, I moved path this, but like, actually when this still comes up for me. Here's how I experience it. Here's what I do. Here's how this actually opens me up. And it just brings in this different level of like, I'm not here to be your teacher. I'm in it with you, man. And like, let's be in this together. But I bring just a little bit more of like, ooh, I'm struggling.

11:45Ooh, that probably means I'm onto something. Probably means I'm being asked to be with something at a deeper level. Yeah. So let's backtrack a bit. you shared that, hey, as a rep or a leader, whatever, like I hit this accomplishment and it was like a relief. I was relieved versus like this being the next level of growth for me or whatever it might be. And what was your motivation in getting into sales? Like what motivated you to get into sales and to be like a high performer? It's a beautiful question. And I think if you ask most salespeople why they got into sales, what do you think that they would say?

12:29Most people, it's like I got into it by accident. And it's usually something related to time, freedom, or money. Yeah. Yeah. Time, freedom, or money. And I'd say that last piece, money, is like, hey, I knew you could make a lot of money in sales. Yeah. And I'm not here to tell you money is bad. I also want to make a lot of money. Yeah, me too. I also want to create a certain lifestyle for myself, for my family. Were you coin-operated, though, when you got into sales? It was what money was a representation of. What was that for you? And for me, it was like, I remember right out of college, I got a job at Microsoft.

13:10Yeah. My very first, my OTE at Microsoft, this was back in 2014, was 92K. Okay. That's a first job out of college. Like, one of the other job offers I got was, like, 45K. And I actually ended up making, like, 150K that very first year. I had a very good first year. Nice. And it was less about, like, oh, man, look, I get to spend money on this and buy the cool car or whatever it might be. It almost was, like, look how good I am. It's a status thing. It's a status. It was a status. it was a validation. It was an ability for me to show to the world, look, mom and dad, look how good I'm doing. Look social media.

13:50I got a job at Microsoft. Have you seen my LinkedIn? Yeah. Look at this post that I did. It's the classic, look how many likes I got or how many followers I have. And again, I'm not trying to say that those things are bad. It's just, it's in a way it's like a false god it's like this mask it's this costume because really underneath so much of my work and and for i know many people's work is like there's a part of us that doesn't feel good enough oh 100 you know there's a part of us that feels fear and so it's like we're using our quota attainment our title how we look our followers as a strategy to meet the need of the part that doesn't feel good enough.

14:35As long as I had this, then I can try to show it to the world. I actually am good enough. But underneath that is actually, at least to me, Percy is a scared little boy of like, oh, God, I hope they don't find out what's actually going on. So correct me if I'm wrong. So a big source of your motivation was this achievement to have status. and that status was to fill a void for you of some sort that felt like if I don't have this external approval from my peers, my boss, or through the money that I'm making or the things that I can post on social media, then in some way I'm not good enough. What did you feel like you weren't good enough for?

15:21there's this aspect of a lack of intelligence a lack of natural ability I'm not necessarily the guy who can you know swoon his way into getting the sale I'm not a smooth talker I'm not always the guy like oh man let me just go up to that woman and be able to just like make her like me Like, I'm like, hi, I'm Alex. Let's talk about my heart. You know, I'm just like this weird dude who likes talking about stuff. And so this part of me that didn't feel enough in whatever form it is, I compensated with that by work ethic. It was like, so, okay, cool. So I don't feel good at sales. I don't actually feel like I know the product.

16:07Like, I remember when I was at Microsoft, dude, I was a 22-year-old kid selling to IT directors and CIOs who had 20 to 30 years of experience. And I was trying to talk to them about on-prem to cloud migration. And I'm just like, I just discovered what the cloud was, like, six months ago. Like, what am I doing? So what I would do is I would grind my ass off. I was working 60 to 80 hours a week. And back in the day, I was taking a shit ton of Adderall when I was not prescribed Adderall because I trusted, like, if I just take this pill, it's going to make me talk and feel confident in myself. So I actually trusted.

16:45I outsourced my confidence to something external. Yeah. And then, of course, when you're working your ass off and taking drugs, when you're not working, you're like, I need to, like, chill the F out. Yeah. So what do you do? you go and distract and with whether it be drinking or partying or social media or video games whatever it might be and then this just causes you to never actually be like resting is the word i'm going to use like in your body in yourself or just like i'm good just because i am here and i am in presence and yeah yeah long story short eventually it caught up to me yeah i somewhat relate to what you're saying i think it's a different form of validation that i was seeking and that it was really from my dad they're like growing up i felt like what was really obvious to me as the oldest kid and i have three younger siblings and with my my dad kind of my mom but especially my dad is that he really responded to

17:53achievement in particular areas that he cared about. So that was like school and sports. So I remember like in sixth grade, maybe seventh grade, I was watching, I played basketball. So there was the seniors that year that were graduating that I had watched play basketball. And those are like my idols, right? When you're in sixth grade, you're like, I'm playing basketball. There's like these seniors, they're so old and stuff. And I remember one of them, a guy, Sam, he was giving a valedictorian speech. And I was like, I want to be valedictorian. And it was like my goal. Right. And that was the thing that motivated me was like, how can I become better at basketball and sports?

18:32Because it feels really good to get my dad's approval. And he also likes that. So I feel like I'm doing the right thing. And how can I do really well in school and be a valedictorian? And that was like, I ended up being a valedictorian for a small school. But, and I had this like pursuit of excellence because it felt good to me one, like solely to just get like the approval from him and for him to say, I love you or that I'm proud of you. And the thing that really kind of was tough for me is that starting this business in my later 20s, we talked about this a little bit. I was like, okay, as soon as I leave a job and I don't have a boss or someone that I feel like I'm trying to do this thing for and I really have to do it for myself, I really struggled with like the motivation to actually do that.

19:32So for like three or four years, I was like, I haven't had a W-2 since 2012. So from like 2012 to 2016, I was doing four years of random odds and ends like consulting before we started Outbound Squad. My wife Sarah and I did that. Yeah. And her telling me that she was like confident in my abilities to be able to do that and to leave because my old employer was like three quarters of my income. So it's like, yeah, I'm not a W-2 for them, but I really am not running a business because three quarters of my income is coming from one place. And hearing her say, I believe in you and like you can do this was like, oh, I felt like I can do this for myself, you know.

20:14So I wanted to kind of talk about that with you because I think the source of your motivation, I have found, and I think a lot of people experience this when it is to get the validation of other people, especially people that have like power over you. Where there is literally a power dynamic between you and your parents. There's a power dynamic between you and your boss. That can be a really unhealthy source of motivation. Let me ask you this. Yeah. When you hit valedictorian, did your father come up to you and say, so proud of you, Jason. I love you, man. Of course. Cool. Yeah. So he did that.

20:52And you probably felt like, awesome. I've been like looking for this. But what did that then teach you in order to receive, to continue to receive his love and him to be proud of you? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there was a from as long as I can possibly remember, there is a feedback loop of I do something, I get positive validation from my dad for something achievement oriented, not like effort oriented, like achievement oriented. I get positive validation. I see the pattern. I just want to do more and more and more of those things. And that's the thing. so essentially what at least your psyche thought was that oh my god in order for my dad to love me i need to achieve and be successful yeah and if i don't achieve and be successful my dad won't love me whether or not that's actually true yeah right but that then is starts to be the driver yeah so it's actually coming like your need to be successful and achieve is coming from this lower vibrational fear.

22:01The fear, the anxiety, the insecurity is what's driving you. And I'm not saying that it's bad. Like, let's honor that because, hell, from a conventional way of being, it worked. You have this incredible company now, right? You have this incredible wife. You've achieved in an incredible way. So it technically has worked. Yeah. The question just becomes, is there another way? And I'll actually, I'll frame it up like this. Like there's this concept that we teach us, it's the two wells concept. And the first well is, you know, you think like a well where people go to drink from and wells are, you know, places through the history of time, cities have been built around it.

22:44It was a place where you socialized, you know, it was just a very important part. And there's the first well that it's a very crowded well. Right. And this is the well that you were told by everybody, including your parents, to go to drink from, to satiate. And essentially this well is achieve, dog. Yeah. Succeed. Like, get after it. and usually, like, people do that because, like, well, everybody else is doing it. It's a crowd of well. I guess I'm supposed to be here. Yeah. And, again, this well is about I need to receive, be seen as successful. I need to achieve. I need validation. It's like the external world needs to see me, and, again, it works to a point.

23:37the only problem with it is it even though it quenches your thirst to a point it never fully satiates you no and there's this this term in buddhism called the hungry ghost have you ever heard that before no essentially the hungry ghost is like no matter how much it drinks or how much it eats it will always be hungry and thirsty still you can never actually give it enough this is the the uh maio miyazaki have you seen those movies uh no i have not dude we got to talk about this later stop the podcast let's go watch that movie there is one that is just there's a whole movie built around that concept and it's like this like uh ghost monster kind of it's like these animated movies that are really good and they have like christian bale will be like the voice in like one of them you know um but it's like this monster that just never stops eating and it's never satiated.

24:29So I wonder if there's probably some inspiration there. It's probably, so it's the hungry ghost. Yeah. So after you've been at this first well for a period of time, you start to say, this can't be all there is to it. There's gotta be another well to be able to drink from that will hopefully satiate what I'm looking for. Yeah. And at that point, you leave the first well. Yeah. Seeking the second well. And the thing is, in order for you to find the second well, 99 % of the time you first have to go to the first well and realize that there's that's not fully it yeah and when you leave again fewer people are seeking that second well and in my opinion that second well it's not necessarily a destination to get to it's more of like how do I actually fall in love with the process of learning and becoming.

25:25It's like, okay, there is something in me that is wanting to come out, right? If you were put on this earth for a reason and God or the universe said, hey, Jason, hey, Alex, here's this thing and I want you to have this thing start to move through you. Yeah. What is that thing? And the thing is, you're never going to fully say, got it, here it is, because it's always evolving. Yeah. It's like, I remember when I was an account executive and I was like, I really want to become a sales leader. Once I became a sales leader, I was like, yes, now I want to become a VP of sales. Got there. Awesome. Yes.

26:04Now I was like, now I want to start my own thing. Cool. Started my own thing. Now I'm like, now eventually I want to help other people make the jump from W2 to being a founder. That's like my next thing that I want to move. And it's always going to be evolving. And are you okay with actually bringing the joy of learning and discovering? Yeah. Like, like feeling satiated by like, oh my God, there's so much for me to learn. Yeah. In this process and actually to enjoy that process, It's like to feel the joy of becoming more who you really are. Not what the world told you to be. Yeah. Not what the coolest influencer told you.

26:49Not what your parents told you to do. But that thing inside you that's like, man, this is what I'm meant to be when I grow up. And you're always growing up. Yeah. And can you feel the inquiry of like, oh, I love that I just get to discover this more. And it's like, it's kind of like, so I have a teacher and one of the things my teacher Rob always talks about is like peeling the layers of the onion. Yeah. As you peel the layers of the onion to discover more of your patterns or your conditioning or your insecurities and you bring more of a relationship and inquiry to it, there's always another layer.

27:28There's always a deeper thing to go into. too. And, and it's like, you know, not to make this too spiritual, but like, there's always greater alignment with oneness. Yeah. There's always a deeper layer to drop into. There's, you know, it's like one thing that even, even Rob taught me is that your presence, your presence is the greatest gift that you can both give to other people and that you can give to yourself. Yeah. Because when you're giving your presence, it, there's an opportunity cost to it. right? When I'm here present with you, I can't be doing anything else. I can't be on social media.

28:05I can't be talking. It's like, I am fully here with you. But even though I'm fully here with you, I could be having thoughts. I'd be thinking, I wonder what question Jason's going to ask me. I wonder if my hair looks stupid right now. Should I be sitting with my - Tacos popped into my head a couple of times. Yeah. Should my legs be crossed right now? Like all this sort of stuff. But how can you move from being this beautiful dome of yours into like the somatic intelligence and presence of my heart and my gut. See, one thing you talked about earlier is like, how do you improve the sales mindset?

28:40And you point into your head. I'm like, it's not just the dome, dude. It's your heart. Because when you feel somebody is truly present with you, like their heart is here and they're listening to you and they're connected with you. And they're like, wow, this person is like listening to me. There is no greater feeling when you're like, whoa, we're here right now. And I don't know what dimension we're going into, but this feels... It's nourishing. It's like this, I don't need any coffee, man. I could just be in this deep presence. It's a regenerating battery. And that's the second well. It's like inquiry into that and to feel the presence of that inquiry and that never ends.

29:29It could drop deeper into it. So presence is an interesting word because what exactly what you just said is what my therapist shared with me maybe a year or two ago.

29:43and the connecting part of all of this for me has been like okay so if I get validation through achievement what the behavior that that creates for me is feeling like I need to tell people when I meet them for the first time my achievements and I wouldn't do it like hey you know Alex what's up man yeah I run a successful company and I make x amount of money it wasn't like that it was more like hey I want to find a way to work in that I run a business and that the business is successful and I'm going to name drop a couple logos like Shopify and Zoom and like make sure that people know that and I was doing that because I felt like I needed to do that to get the validation because it felt very naked for me to interact with people if I just had to be myself.

30:38If I was subjecting myself to them, like myself as a person, and for you to decide, do I vibe with this guy or not? Versus do I vibe with his accomplishments and like all of this other kind of stuff, right? So So my therapist was like, you know, the biggest gift that you can give someone is your presence, like being present with them, you know, and you know what that made me do. And this is prior to, you know, we have Clara and Amanda and Aaron helping with like a lot of the client delivery. So I'm not like doing one hour Zoom calls with teams of salespeople all day anymore. But when I was doing that, I would feel really like after five hours of calls like that in a day, I would feel like mentally really tapped.

31:22and after this i was like you know what i'm gonna do in these calls is i'm gonna really try to be super present and connect with one or two like really connect with one or two people like as much as i think you can in a virtual setting at least yeah where like you raise your hand and you're like hey this objection's giving me some trouble and i'm like hey alex first off thank you for asking for help that's like a big thing to do you're in front of 50 of your peers like you got this dude like let's work through it together you know and like i would feel energized by doing that. And I would do a bunch of these calls and not feel super tapped, even though I'm exerting maybe not the same amount of effort, it felt like, but the same amount of time.

32:05That presence is kind of interesting. I think that might be helpful for a lot of people listening to this. Like if you can like really, if we were to make this really practical for cold calling or running a sales process or calls like if you're like you know what I'm gonna really try to connect with a human on this call because all of the fucking med pic stuff and like the sales techniques and the multi-threading none of that means shit if you don't really understand like what's going on in this person's like life right now like how are they showing up today like in this moment and am I meeting them where they're at and like really seeing them?

32:44Because multi-threatening, for example, and trying to get introductions and get them to elute people, dude, none of the fucking techniques will work if the person doesn't feel like you really care about them. That's it. You know what I mean? None of that works. That's it. So notice what you just did right there because in your first, when you gave the example of like, I'm a successful founder, I work with Shopify, all these different things. what was the need of yours that you were trying to get met? Essentially, it's validate me. Validation. See me. I'm good. You could talk about the exact same thing.

33:21You could say, I'm a founder. I work with Shopify. What if the need that you are trying to get met is impact? I actually want to serve this person. Yeah. So the reason why I'm trying to share this stuff is because I actually think if I share my credibility with this person, that they might actually see, oh man, Jason can help me. And that's going to allow me to be able to serve deeper with this. So it's like the exact same words or script, just the transmission, the tonality, the energy that's actually coming through it is going to be received as a completely different way. because the first way is energy is going to me.

34:03See me, look at me. It's all about me. The second way is I want to help you, dog. Yeah. I'm here for you and I want to be present for you. It's like I was at a Vipassana silent meditation retreat. It was a 10-day meditation retreat. It was actually where I met my wife, which is very funny. We actually didn't speak to each other because it was a silent meditation, but we were meditating. For 10 days you didn't talk? Yeah, I didn't talk. It was amazing. Were you tripping? It was hard, but it was amazing. I mean, I've been to a few meditation retreats, and this was absolutely my hardest one that I went to.

34:33And the teacher, it's prerecorded things. It's a guy named Goenka, and he's no longer alive, but he would give these Dharma talks at night. And one thing he talked about is that he said there's two metrics, or he said two yardsticks, of someone who is enlightened. This is how you determine whether someone is enlightened. And he's like, the first one is they just feel love and joy and gratitude all the time. It's just they're imbibed. It's pouring out of them. And the second metric, he said, because they're feeling so much of this love, joy, meaning they want to serve people. Yeah. Because like, man, dude, I feel so much love.

35:18I want you to experience this too. Yeah. And that's why I want to sell you into my program. We've all been sold by someone who's like, you're just trying to sell me because you got a quota to hit and you're using me as a strategy for you to be able to pay your mortgage or do whatever. Yeah. And we've also hopefully been sold by people who said, man, I am so curious about you and I want to see you and your company succeed, man. I want to see you feel purpose and meaning. And oh, by the way, the byproduct of that, I'll probably win too because of that. Yeah. But it's you first. And it's just a completely different like, oh, wow, this person actually cares about me.

36:00And then that goes into if somebody gives an objection, you're not, okay, what's that script on how I overcome the budget objection or whatever it might be? It's let me bring curiosity. Oh, man, like what's coming up for you? Like I can feel like there's fear there. Like share more with it. Like I'm just genuinely present and curious and know and trust. Like if my number one thing is to serve you, I need to see if this objection is real or if they're getting in their own way, because if I'm trying to serve them, I need to help them get out of their own way. Yeah. It's completely different. Yeah.

36:33I love that. That's the part that it's kind of hard to put your finger on. When you feel it and experience it, when you receive it, it's really obvious. And when it's not there, it's really freaking obvious too. And I think that like, as you were sharing that, the word that comes to mind for me is alignment. And I think a lot of sales is, can I align our mutual interests with each other? And like, if I can, I mean, it's kind of sales 101, I guess, if you think about it, it's like, hey, align the buyer's goal with the thing that your solution sells. I don't mean it like that. I mean like you as an individual, what you want to help the individuals that you're selling your solution accomplish.

37:24And like getting a little bit deeper than we sell a sales engagement tool and this is going to create more pipeline for you. You know, what's Alex care about in his org? And it requires you to really pay attention. And if I'm being honest, I could challenge myself more on that. because sometimes it's, you know, as a founder, you know, it's like you do a lot of multitasking throughout the week. There's just a lot of different types. You're doing sales stuff. You're doing marketing stuff. There's some like delivery stuff. There's like the business-y stuff that you have to do that's like, I don't personally find very fun.

37:58And sometimes like just a reminder to be really present as you're talking with someone. It's, yeah, your presence is a gift. Absolutely. And I think on the flip side of that, it's also like, it's really like your duty to be present. You know what I mean? And I think about that a lot more with like our, because we have like some employees now. You know what I mean? Like right before this, the reason I was talking to Clara, Clara, I didn't tell you this. She'll probably hear this now. Was like, hey, this week I'm in Texas all week. I did a one-on-one with her on Monday. we usually check in later in the week.

38:36Like, I kind of don't really need to check in with her. Like, she's on top of her shit. I just want her to know that, like, I'm thinking about the work that she is doing, like, with our team. That's, like, me showing that I'm being present in, like, the work that she's doing. You know what I mean? I don't know. What are your thoughts on, like, that whole alignment, you know, kind of thing and, like, finding a way to do this where it feels like if you were using snowboarding as an analogy, we're snowboarding downhill instead of having to do the shitty thing that sucks in snowboarding. We have to hop, you know, on the board, you know, uphill.

39:09What are your thoughts? You know, I remember one time I was attending a retreat and it was under my teacher, Rob, and my business partner and I were both at a retreat, a guy named Chris. Chris Caldwell, he's our chief sales trainer. And Rob, he was like, hey, Alex and Chris, let me ask you, you guys are our business partners now. I was like, yeah. He's like, cool. So what's why are you guys business partners? Like, what's the purpose of that? I was like, did you say put that look on his face? Yeah. Well, he obviously had like a reason he was leading us to something as Rob does. I was like, all right, here we go.

39:48And I'm like, well, like, you know, we support each other. Like, we both help each other make more money. Like, I'm like, if I was doing this business all on my own, like, man, I'd be so overloaded. So like, he shares the load. He's like, cool. What's the higher need that you're using this relationship for? And I was like, you know, if I really think about it, I was like, I guess with us coming together, we can impact the world at a greater level. I can be in my purpose. We can go into multiple intelligences. Like he can get into his network. I can get in my network. We can meet more people. he's like cool so which one of those needs do you typically think about in regards to your relationship like i guess mostly i think of thank god i got chris because he's helping me with the financial need like financial support he's like think about how much of a lower vibrational value that is there's a certain vibration to it when chris and i show up to a prospect media and we're like, we're Chris and I, and we're like, we're here together because we can like help each other make more money.

41:03Versus if we show up, we're like, we're Chris and I, and when we're here together, we support you because we want to be able to make more impact on your company. We can talk about intergame, we can talk about sales, we can talk about culture with us together. Same conversation, it's just a completely different type of thing that's actually coming through it. And it's like, we as sales professionals and leaders and founders, we have a responsibility to remember the why, to remember the vision. Can you feel the essence of your vision and your mission and your purpose from moment to freaking moment?

41:44Yeah. And that's hard, especially when you're dealing with the business stuff, when you're dealing with the, let me update my Salesforce pipeline. Let me, you know, I have to pay these bills. can you feel that from moment to moment? I'll give an example of this. If you told me, Alex, I want to gain 20 pounds of muscle, man. I was like, that sounds awesome. I was like, cool. Why do you want to build 20 pounds worth of muscle? You're like, oh, man, like I just, I want to feel stronger. I want to feel more confident. I want to feel, you know, just I want to look in the mirror and be like, man, that guy's awesome.

42:19Like, cool. Let's say you had 20 pounds more of muscle. Let's say you had that six pack. How would your partner respond to you differently? Like, oh man, like if I'm stronger, like my wife, she might see me be like, damn, like Jason, you're looking hot. Like maybe she wants to like, you know, flirt with me a little more. Maybe she wants to jump on my bones a little bit more. It's like, ooh, okay. I'm like, cool, Jason, like, let's say you had kids. Like what would be the impact on your kids if you had 20 pounds worth of muscle and you felt more confident and your wife better be like, oh man, like if I feel more confident, I could probably make more money, right?

42:48Maybe I could provide for them more. They see like my, my wife and I like more in love. Like they'll see what true love is. I'm like, cool. I'm like, so do you, how, how much now do you want to gain that muscle? You're like, oh, now I really want it. Yeah. Like I thought I wanted it, but now like when I start to extrapolate on why that's important, the mission of it, now I'm enrolled. Yeah. So I'm like, cool. So what are you going to do? The execution of it. Cause the execution, it's literally the easiest part, man. Yeah. It's like, I don't know. You get a trainer. You take a course. You sign up for the gym.

43:23Let's say you'd say every single morning I'm going to set my alarm at 5 a.m. I'm going to go to the gym. If you are enrolled into that vision and that mission and the impact of gaining more muscle, what are you going to do when that 5 a.m. alarm goes off? I mean, so for me, it's like kind of interesting with this. Because I get where you're going. It's like when that 5 a.m. alarm goes off, you want to immediately be thinking about why. You're going to be like, boom, I'm doing this. I'm going to put my shoes on. I'm going to rip. How much of this, though, do you think is like not overthinking it too much?

44:01And like, are you aware of the, have you heard of the CBT triangle, the cognitive behavioral triangle? Share more. I've talked about this a couple of times today. out. I learned this from a therapist and it was essentially the connection between your thoughts, your emotions and feelings, and then your behavior. So it was like kind of, it shows this like back and forth relationship with like, yeah, how we feel. If we feel anxiety, that can alter and drive our behavior to maybe stress eat or for some people go work out or whatever it might be. If we feel anxiety, that might right before we go to do a public speaking thing, our thoughts, we might have some, oh God, I don't know if I can do this, like blah, blah, blah, blah.

44:47So there's like this relationship, but we can also think of them separately. And the reason where I'm kind of going with this is the reason I ask is that if I think about, cause I do get up early and work out and I'm still trying to get you to go to the workout tomorrow. And I was going to bring it up again. Part of it for me is like to just get into a state where the behavior is happening without me really thinking about it too much to kickstart the activity. Keep in mind. You know what I mean? What's the word you just do? Just think about it. Yeah. Where does think fall? Yeah. Back in the dome.

45:30Yeah. Your heart and your gut both have the intelligence of your brain, right? That's why it's like I have this gut feeling. I don't know. I just feel it in my heart. Gift of Fear is a great book on this topic. Yeah. So the question is not how do I like think about what I want to do? How do you feel it? Yeah. Like I can feel the essence of the mission without even saying I know what the mission is. I just feel it. Yeah. I feel it wanting to come through me. You know what sometimes I do? Like especially when I'm having a hard day, I have a whole vision playlist on my Spotify. and this is actually literally the reasons why I bought like the over the ears Bose headphones is I'll put on my Bose headphones and I'll play the music and I'll dance to it.

46:16I'll be the weird guy. I'm dancing in my room. What's in the playlist? Like what is the genre? I've got all different types. Okay. Like Hell's Bells, ACDCs on there. So it's stuff that really hits you in the feels. Yeah, stuff that like I know that like whenever I listen to it, like Good Old Days by Macklemore is one of my favorites. The song called Breathe by Alexi Murdoch. it's just like music that when I listen to it man I just feel something yeah and and what I'm just feeling and seeing I'm seeing maybe I'm speaking on stage maybe I'm uh holding my my baby maybe I'm I'm taking my my wife uh on an incredible vacation yeah right and it's not even necessarily what am I doing it's just what am I feeling I'm feeling love I'm feeling gratitude I'm feeling meaning I'm feeling aliveness.

47:02I'm feeling like, oh, and that's simply the vibe, the state, the frequency from which I'm trying to reach. And then I say, cool, if that's my emotions, just like you said, my actions and my behaviors and my words will follow. Yeah. So how do I just get myself into that state? Yeah. Have you seen there's a I think it's a fast company article. I can't remember, but there's this visual heat map where it has emotions, anger, sadness, happiness, whatever. And it shows a heat map of like literally how your body experiences. Have you seen that image? I feel like I've seen images like that for sure. Is that a bit of like what you're talking about?

47:51Because that was like one of the first things I had to learn in therapy when I started in like 2018. and I'd already been like, I'd always been really curious about therapy and like very open about going. But my wife was seeing this therapist and she's like, this guy's great. You should just see him. So it was really easy for me to do it. And the first thing that he talked to me about was like the emotion wheel. It was just like, oh, there's more emotions than like the five, anger, sadness, happiness. Yeah. There's a lot, it's a lot more nuanced than that. And then the next like kind a level of that, and this is stuff that I'm working on a lot right now, is like trying to be really in tune with like calibrating how I'm feeling up here with where I'm feeling it.

48:37Yeah. And I think that's a lot of like what it sounds like you're talking about is like, I think we all know, hopefully, I really hope everyone listening to this knows what joy feels like. That would be really sad if they didn't. But I think a lot of us know what joy feels like. and I think like paying really close attention to what that feels like in your body like the physical sensation of joy because there's a lot of things like you're saying whether it's the playlist and like all of this stuff where we're trying to connect a lot of these parts of our life like how can we connect the feelings of joy and the physical emotions with like the work that we do the people that we spend time with like how we show up and then I think a lot of what you're helping with is like, how can we tap into that a little bit more on purpose?

49:23Yeah. So it's not happening on accident. I mean, I'm assuming everybody does know what joy feels like. The question is, what's the depth of joy that you can go into? And again, it's just like the layers of the onion. There's so much depth to it. And the ability, the depth you can go down into your sadness also is mirrored the depth you can go to in your joy. Yeah. I would argue that the trailhead to doing, to becoming more yourself, to saying, what am I here for? What's this whole thing about? Is to feel your emotions. Yeah. That's it. And the way that I would do it is first say, can you bring like self-connection?

50:11It's synonymous with self-awareness. Yeah. Right. Can you essentially feel, okay, if I'm feeling anger, where do I feel it in my body? Okay, I'm feeling anger. I'm feeling it in my upper chest, my throat. Okay, what's the color of it? Oh, man, it's like red. Okay, what's the texture of it? Oh, man, it's like a blob or it's hard. Okay, what's the temperature of it? And just bring awareness to it. Yeah. And when you actually can do it, can you actually allow that emotion? Can you literally do discovery? Like if you're a salesperson doing discovery, can you do discovery on that? Anger. Yeah. What's going on, man?

50:56Why are you feeling that way? Yeah. Oh, man. I just, they didn't see me. Oh, man. That sounds hard. Yeah. Like, man. It's like, how long have you been angry for? Yeah. oh man, I've been angry for years, right? And can you actually learn? It's like, there's this type of therapy called internal family systems, IFS, parts work. Essentially, as opposed to saying I'm angry, you say there's a part of me that's angry. And can you start to say, cool, where's this part living my body? What's going on? And can I start to bring curiosity and compassion to it? Because what so often happens is like when we feel sad, sad or angry, usually what we do, we're like, God, I'm so tired of being angry.

51:44So tired of being sad. And we judge that part of ourselves. And what happens when, if you're sad and someone says, God, I'm so tired of you, Jason, being so sad, what do you feel? You're like, oh God, I shouldn't be sad. It makes it worse. But if I'm like, oh man, you're sad. What's going on, bro? bro, like, how you doing? Like, can I hug you? Like, right. That by just me attuning to you and having compassion for you, it's going to help that like emotion start to move through. And sometimes bro comes out in tears. Sometimes you've got to scream and sometimes you've got to laugh, but you got to feel it.

52:19And when you can feel it, when you can actually start to attune to yourself, as opposed to saying, like, let's say you gave the example of I'm, I'm feeling anxiety. So often we are unconscious that we are anxious. I just feel anxiety and therefore I'm going to be doing all this sort of stuff. I'm going to be talking really fast. I'm going to try to always be doing something versus me being like, oh shit, I am really anxious right now. I have a lot of anxiety. Okay. I need to slow down. I need to do a tune. Well, where am I feeling? I'm feeling anxiety in my stomach. Oh man, it is buzzing, dude.

52:54Okay. Let me put my hand on myself anxiety what's going on right and just like simply by learning how to build a relationship to it it just starts to move through you a little bit yeah it doesn't weigh you down so much we should talk about kind of ways to implement some of this stuff um it sounds like you are as well i'm a huge fan of just talk therapy you know um cbt especially cognitive behavioral therapy. I really like that style, but I would encourage anyone that's interested in this to... A lot of insurance now covers therapy. I think it's just one of the biggest privileges that we have here in America is how much more accessible, at least, therapy is getting for a lot of people.

53:45I've found therapy to be really helpful. I found that having more guy friends like this that you can actually talk to about this stuff that don't like minimize it or make fun of you or that aren't vulnerable themselves I think is really helpful.

54:04You're – dude, I keep calling them retreats. You call them immersions? Is that what it is? Retreats or immersions. Immersions, okay. I just want to make sure I'm using the right nomenclature there. I think immersions and things like that obviously are a great way to do this. But let's talk about some of the, like, what are some of the ways that people can actually work on this stuff? And, like, what's worked for you, man? Yeah. You know? For me, I mean, talk therapy is great. I've done that, you know, many times. I think for me, I've always felt a lot, like, somatically. Yeah. Like, when I actually feel my body.

54:36So, like, for me, my meditation practice is so key. and my meditation practice is literally me just like sitting and just be like what's going on my body yeah my shoulders are hunched gut feels tight chest is kind of blocked right whatever and just bringing awareness to it like all right well what's the sensation actually going on in my shoulders that are hunched okay is there an emotion that's in there right it's like i'm just literally attuning to myself and that's it like that that's one of the ways i do it earlier today I actually had a very big internal meeting with like our brand strategist, our head of sales and all this sort of stuff.

55:15And I was like going from back to back. And I was like, oh, God, I got this 90 minute meeting. I got to be really prepared for it. And I was like three minutes before the meeting, I'm like, oh, shit, I am like super not grounded right now. Like I was like, if I show up to the meeting like this, it is not going to be a good meeting. And I did two rounds of Wim Hof breath work because I felt this anxiety and this like stress in my stomach. and I was like, I got to be with this. I got to move it. So sometimes it's like I got to sit in stillness and be with it. And sometimes I was like, I want to breathe through this.

55:46And I was like, and I was like moving this and I was feeling it. And I was like, like pushing it through. Like there's different mechanisms that meditation, that breath work can be so helpful. Dude, breath work's huge, man. Even like box breathing. Totally. You know, I do that. Like I was, I remember I was doing, I was doing an SKO a couple of years ago. It's like 600 people there in person. and it's the largest group of in-person people that I've spoken to. And as they were introducing me, my heart was like pounding out of my chest, dude. And I was just the entire time, all for four? All for four.

56:22And then the thing that I was telling myself, it's a lot like, it sounds like you're really big on the self-talk of just like validating. Hey, yeah, you're a little nervous. Yeah. Totally normal, dude. You're about to speak in front of 600 people. A lot of them know who you are. You've met hardly any of these people before. Like, you're going to crush it, man. You're talking about something that you talk about every day. It's all good to feel nervous right now. You're good, bro. But I found the box breathing and that, like, internal dialogue, especially, to be really helpful. Yeah. There's a part in your body called your dantian.

56:56It's also called your yin. It's called many things. And essentially, this is a part that's, like, it's, like, in your hips. it's like right below your belly button like essentially where like if you're a woman where your womb is like if you think of like life literally comes through this area that's like the part that when you are feeling super open and super present and like my heart is just like I'm blossoming like that it's when I'm actually rooted down in my dantian I like to say when I'm selling, I'm selling from my seat. It's like the bottom of a bowling pin. Yeah. Because when I'm, when I'm not here, I'm like all up here and I'm like, okay, I'm trying to, what am I doing?

57:39How am I trying to control you and to get what I'm trying to do? Versus when I'm down here, I'm just like, yeah, like I'm, I'm, my energy's flowing downwards and I'm lifting you up versus I'm trying to go over here and like push you down. Yeah. And so when I can actually be in my seat, and one of the practices my teacher Rob teaches something called three steps to connection this is one of my practices I do like even I've been doing it for a lot of this podcast I'm like alright step number one am I feeling my body my shoulders my legs my chest my back alright I do that okay cool now step number two is going to 360 awareness so I expand to the front back sides up and below literally expand my field my presence, my aura out in 360 degrees around this entire room, even around this entire building.

58:31Expand it. Step number three is to invoke a feeling of love or gratitude. I almost bring a smile to my heart. And can I actually stabilize being in three steps to connection as I'm speaking with you? And that's going to allow me to attune to myself and to attune to you in a much better way. Yeah. You've used the word attune a lot, which I really like. Can you talk more about what that means if there's someone listening that might not be aware of that? Yeah. Attune is like, am I actually feeling and bringing awareness to what's going on with yourself? Honestly, with myself and with yourself. Like, am I hearing the words you're saying, but am I also noticing your body posture?

59:14Am I noticing when you're speaking? Am I noticing whether you're breathing quickly or breathing slowly? one of the best ways to attune like this is maybe a little woo woo here is like can i feel my heart and can i feel your heart my heart and your heart and can i just connect them yeah hey bro i'm here with you yeah super present with you i'm feeling what you're feeling if you're feeling like if i feel like an underlying sadness in you i can feel that i feel like uh like it's just like a joy in you man i can feel that joy in you yeah you can pick up on people's emotions without them saying anything 100 you can even pick up on where is like their center of gravity in their body i can pick up on when people are like really coming from like their solar plexus their heart or like oh this person feels good and i can pick them on i'm like bro you are thinking about the thoughts that you are thinking about in your head you are all there i can like feel that yeah and it's like can i just attune okay where are you coming from yeah there's a lot of brain science around attunement around they literally study the brain waves and how they sync up when people are really connecting with each other so that's a really interesting thing and if anyone has ever experienced i'm guilty of this i don't do it as much anymore but when someone is bringing up something that's really serious and then I try to make a joke and I'm like oh I'm not attuned to that person like I'm not I'm not meeting them where they're at right now I'm trying to basically skip over the hard part of like just sitting with them there for a second and trying to relieve my own anxiety or whatever you know it is totally feeling it's like when a prospect gives an objection and you're quick to overcome the objection when you're like, actually they gave the objection and you should have asked, tell me more.

1:01:12Yeah. I just need to attune to you. What's going on? Yeah. Tell me more about that. When that happened? Why is that going on? What's your bigot? What's your fear there? What's the impact of that? Yeah. Right. Once I actually start to understand them more and then I say, cool, do you feel understood? Yeah. Like, thanks for understanding. Cool. Can I now share a perspective on this? Have you thought about X, Y, or Z? Yeah. This is actually, you know, politics aside, Obama was such a great debater. Yeah. Because one of the things that he would do is when somebody would have an opposite perspective to him, he would say, I could understand why you would think that because of X, Y, and Z.

1:01:52And they'd be like, yeah. He's like, cool. Now let me share another way to think about that same situation. Yeah. Right. So I just attune to you. You're like, okay, well, thanks for actually understanding my perspective. Now, will you give me the service back and now listen to my perspective? So they're a lot more likely to just be like, okay, what's your thoughts on it? Versus like, here's why you're wrong, Jason. Yeah. Right? It's a completely different. I attune to you. Yeah. Attunement really is the ultimate. It is one of like the meta skills in sales, but specifically around like discovery, how you objection handle.

1:02:28the phone, especially when you're doing outbound calls, your ability to attune to their voice because you can't see the body language. It's hard. But it's like, that's really what you want to get to is a place where you don't have to really focus so much on what you're saying. And what I try to really, truly, very hard to do when I'm making cold calls is to really just attune to what that person's feeling on the other end. Most generally, people are slightly or very annoyed when you call them, but just picking up on like their cadence, their tone, like what they might've been doing prior to that, like what mood they're in.

1:03:08There's just so many little things that if you're listening for it, you will sort of instinctively respond, you know, to them. So the attunement, I really feel it's, it's the, it's the meta skill, man, for a lot of stuff in sales. You know, who's been my biggest teacher when it comes to attunement, my wife, oh yeah big time for me too yep learning how to attune i mean it goes for both men and women i'll just speak from my perspective learning how as a man to attune to your woman yeah and like sometimes like it's like the classic thing how many women have yours be like i don't want you to solve my problems i just want you to understand me yeah essentially there's just attune to me dog yeah it's all i want see me feel me yeah yeah see me feel me just understand me okay it sounds like you're scared yeah oh yeah tell me more yeah that's it that's all i need and then they're gonna just come up and give you a big old hug i love you yeah they're like in the case of me at least it's like she's like yeah i'm i'm smart in the which i acknowledge and she doesn't say that but it's like she doesn't need my help coming up with a solution dude that's not really what she needs um but yes i i feel you on that having a that's the other kind of i think hack in life too is having a partner that you can work with this stuff on or that pushes you you know and one of these areas.

1:04:24Dude, it's been good jamming with you. We went down a few rabbit holes in this. Yeah, we did. I want to ask you a couple sort of random rapid fire questions and then we'll give you a chance to kind of tell people where to connect with you. AI. I'm curious, what are you using AI for on a day to day basis? It doesn't have to be sales oriented necessarily, but what are you using AI for? Yeah. I use AI, I recently made the move from ChatGPT to Cloud, as many people did. And I use it a lot for like a second brain of like, here's all the things that I'm thinking about for content, for my talks, for the things that I'm teaching.

1:05:11And what I actually do is I store key documents on like, here's the key. we have 15 markers that we're taking people from. So, so one of our goals in Illusion's is to move people from being a conventional way of being to a conscious way of being. Conventional is the status, money, achievement. I care about through effort and control to conscious ways. Like what's my highest purpose? How do I bring more curiosity and self-awareness? And we have 15 markers we're taking people to. Yeah. And so whenever I'm creating different content or things, I'm always It's like, remember our metacurriculum that we're taking to make sure this aligns with that.

1:05:49But honestly, man, I use AI, but I try not to. And I mean, it's great for like automating tasks and different stuff like that. And of course, he's cloud. But like, man, you can tell when somebody, whether it be an email or a freaking LinkedIn message or whatever, Or maybe when somebody wrote it with AI. And you can tell when somebody did not. And whenever I get a message or see a LinkedIn post or, like, even my director of sales prepared a document for me the other day that was not created by AI. And I was like, I can, like, feel you more. Yeah. Like, I feel your heart in this more. And, you know, it's so easy to just be putting out more noise and more output there.

1:06:34But, like, the thing that's going to differentiate is, like, bro, can people feel your transmission? Yeah. People feel like the essence of your soul, whether or not they realize they feel it or they're just like, I don't know, I like this one because it's pure. Yeah. Yeah, there's an uncanny value that we're starting to approach with a lot of the AI created stuff where it just like it bothers you, actually. There's something so off about it, yet it's so close that it just freaking bothers you. My next question is, we've talked about a lot of ways to kind of get into the right mindset and to deal with stuff.

1:07:09And I'm just curious for you, like after you've had like a long day or particularly long week, what do you like to do to decompress? You know, you've probably heard of like the yin and the yang or yin and the yang. Yeah. Yang is when you're very much in your masculine. You're doing not just if you're a man or you can be in your yang if you're a woman, too, and you're masculine if you're a woman. But it's like doing, I'm creating, I'm getting after all this real stuff. And it needs to be balanced by your yin. And your yin is the feminine. Your yin is the nourishment. Your yin is like slow down.

1:07:41And so on Sunday, I had a yin day. Okay. Just get like your nails done and stuff. Which I did do one time with. I've gotten a pedicure before. You ever gotten a pedicure? It's nice. God. So this is my yin day. I woke up around like eight or so, you know, which is sleeping in for me. I went, I had a good long meditation. I took my dog for a walk in nature. I went and got a great workout. I went and got lunch with my wife. We went to the park. I took a nap at the park, which is just so not what I do typically. So that was so good. And I'm reading, I'm a big fantasy book reader. I've been reading this new series called Red Rising.

1:08:23I used to be all about like the self-help spiritual books. And I, of course, I still read that, but I'll tell you what. I learned more about who I want to be and leadership and opening up yourself to meaning and purpose through a freaking fantasy book. Yes. Than any. A hundred percent, dude. Sort of thing. So I read that book and I ate. My wife made a delicious dinner that night. And I was just like, I think I left my phone in my room the entire day. And I was like, ah, this feels good. So my yin days is how I replenish. Love that, dude. All right. Last question. Let's say you're you have an opportunity to give advice to your Alex is who is a first time account executive at Microsoft.

1:09:10Knowing what you know now, what advice are you going to give to that, Alex?

1:09:19you know bridge this um i'll tie it into what we teach at alubians because you know we work with a lot of tech sales professionals tech sales leaders on our three on three key pillars and i view the three pillars are are the secret formula sacred formula whatever you want to call it and the first one is like commit to your craft like you do have to be good at your skill set like you do need to learn how to have a great cold call opener drive a great process do great discovery give a great demo like there is a left brain tactical side that is really key and so if i was the ae at microsoft microsoft as big as they are they had terrible sales training yeah i'd say find an outside you know consulting or or coaching community sales like start learning what it means to sling, essentially.

1:10:15But number two, and this is our second pillar, it's all around the inner game, which is like, and the inner game is like the two different polarities. One of the polarities is the upward, is the who are you, why you're here, what's your vision? Bring curiosity to that, seek that, learn about it. And on the opposite side of the spectrum, the other polarity is when you have the anxiety and the stress and the burnout, not how to get rid of it, learn how to relate to it differently. And so I would tell that version of me of like, learn how to relate to your fear and your anxiety and your insecurity, befriend it.

1:10:57Stop trying to drink your way out of it or adder all your way out of it. Like it's there, beautiful. That's actually the thing that's gonna take you deeper into who you are. And the third thing is, And this is the thing that ties all together, like commit to your craft, commit to yourself. Number three, surround yourself with other people doing that same damn thing, dog. Yeah. Who are bringing a deep level of authenticity and vulnerability, but are also really freaking committed. Yeah. Because when other people are committed, that's the healthy accountability. Yeah. That's the healthy call forward for you to step into a higher way of being.

1:11:35You do those three things. Doug you're not only going to crush your quota you're going to open up doors that you did not even know was possibly quite yet that's going to open you up to relationships, entrepreneurship spirituality, you name it yeah find your way to commit to those three things your craft, your inner gaming community and the world opens up to you love that dude so where can people go to connect with you learn more about alluvians, all that good stuff yeah I'm on LinkedIn a lot if you message me there I will respond I'm on that a lot check out our website Alluvians A-L-L-U-V-I-A-N-C-E it's a weird word it's a word I came up with by the way it means to be in a state of flow as you are learning and growing and developing so you're like you're not yet at your peak but you're like ooh I'm starting to get it and if you go to alluvians.co backslash retreats we throw a quarterly retreat in person if you're like not ready to go to retreat we have online courses we do one-on-one coaching We also do a lot of corporate work as well, working with sales teams.

1:12:39And again, we're bridging sales training with that inner game and culture side of it. So it's about not just crush your quota and not just go to the Himalayan mountains and meditate on your cushion. It's like, what's the sacred third between those two things that you can do that? Awesome.

1:13:05Thank you.