361. Breaking Free w/Mel Reyes: From Toxic Workplaces to Authentic Leadership

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