HVAC Full Blast

Welcome to HVAC Full Blast, where industry insight leads to real results.

Today, we're tackling a topic that hits home for professionals across the HVAC world, mental toughness. In this business, adversity is inevitable, whether it's market changes, supply chain headaches, or personal challenges.

Join Mary Carter with Trane and Stephen Ross with Sandler as they share real stories and strategies on building resilience, bouncing back, and thriving through tough times professionally and personally. Let's get started.

Alright. Welcome back to HVAC Full Blast. I'm Mary Carter.

I'm Steven Ross.

And we're excited to have another deep dive conversation with you about what's been on our mind, what we're seeing. And this year, more than others, I would say, and maybe not even this year, just in general, this industry, boy, the ups, the downs, the goods, the bads, seems like the the puts and takes, any other, you know, dual metaphor that you wanna put for it, they've been they've been coming fast, and it's been challenging to navigate how each of those different inputs, you know, can maybe net your year. And maybe specifically, I'm referring to refrigerant, but in the past, it's been different challenges with maybe the pandemic or global supply chain. And no matter what it is, it seems like there's always something, you know, ready to come wreck your plans or or, mess up your strategy, so to speak. Have you been seeing that, Steven?

Yeah. I I think it's you know, I I have I have a pretty good perspective. I really like what I do for a living, And so I get to see maybe our industry HVAC from a big picture.

But I also get some insight into some other industries and some other companies. And and so while to some extent, we might feel like, oh my gosh, our business is really unique. The seasonality of our industry, the supply chain issues, some of the issues we've had.

You know, if you step back and look, other industries maybe have slightly different problems or very different problems, but they have problems. And so True. You know, just a a very frequent topic of conversation is if I'm in sales, how do I handle adversity? How do I handle, tough times?

Sometimes those tough times are our own creation. Like, we've we've made life tough on ourselves. Sometimes, it has nothing to do with us. And I think sometimes those those are the harder ones to deal with because we sit around and we go, none of this is my fault.

And yet here I am, I'm having a tough time for whatever reason, and now I gotta deal with it. So lots of adversity out there. Our industry certainly has its unique brand of adversity, but, but for sure, it's a common theme in the sales world.

Yeah. And it's interesting because, you know, I think about the kind of person that I am and and how I go get and what makes me motivated. Right? And when I'm in control and I I have, you know, the the whole supply chain moving the way that I want it to, I feel really good.

And I know exactly when things go wrong, I know exactly where to look, and that's a very freeing feeling, especially someone sitting in maybe a sales seat. But when it's out of my control, it's very easy to just wanna throw your hands up and say, like, well, you know, tough sledding. Right? Like and that's that's really all I can say.

There's nothing more I can do. I am just myself, and here's a circumstance that's thrown at me. So often, the the buzzword around it would be mental toughness. Right?

What how do you create, you know, the mental toughness to withstand that storm or, face that challenge?

And that's what I wanna dive in with you today. You know, mental toughness, it's not just a buzzword. It's an actual concept.

What is it? How do you face it? And maybe just even some examples from, like, our own experience on what we're doing when we face mental toughness because we definitely experience it too. And it's not like we were just placed into our careers and just all of a sudden never had any problems ever again.

So Yeah. Yeah. For sure. You know, one of the one of the questions I hate in job interviews, at least when I was the being interviewed, You know, they would always there's always some sort of question along the lines of, you know, tell me about a time that you failed or you screwed up, and what, you know, what did you do next? Yeah. And that's not a fun one to answer in a job interview.

But here's the other side of that. And now I'm I'm a little bit more advanced in my career. I'm not having entry level job interviews anymore. Now my conversations are, I'm talking with CEOs. I'm talking with VPs of sales.

And one of the things that, we've seen over the last couple years is maybe a shift in hiring, meaning, like, what is it like, if you had to go hire somebody today, and I'm talking to a CEO, and I say top two or three traits of somebody that you're looking to hire today.

What are you looking for?

And the two things that really come back, which I think is a little bit of shift from maybe the past, but the ability to learn quickly is very near the top of list. And we would say that in our industry, which is, you know, we didn't have a whole lot of change for twenty, thirty, forty years. We had a little bit of change. Now, man, the last, you know, five years, lots of change.

Lots of everything's coming at you fast. And so your ability to, handle that inflow of information, learn quickly, move on. And then right hand in hand with that is resilience. I hear that a lot.

I'm looking for salespeople that can get knocked down and get back up. Yeah. And not to quote Chumbawamba, but that's a top three trait now that I think hiring managers, maybe not I don't know. It depends on the organization.

But when I talk to CEOs or VPs of sales, very frequently do they say resilience. Gotta be tough. It's a it's a tough world out there. It's getting harder.

And so the ability to get back up after you get knocked down, primary thing we're looking for in in hiring. So it's, the you know, there you go. I mean, it's it's something that corporate America recognizes. Failure is inevitable.

Can you get back up?

Full disclosure, I have a playlist on my phone. And whenever I'm going into meetings, I like to tap into that playlist without a doubt. It's got a few things on there that just kinda pump me up and give me that energy that I need to be customer facing, and Chembawamba is definitely on it.

So Nice. Nice. Alright.

But it's true. But it's true. You know, I get back down. I get back up again.

And, resilience, you know, again, the buzzword around it. But what does it really mean? And and how can you take something from it that that really means something new to you in your day? It's it's such a great point.

I could not relate anymore, especially as we've gone through the last five years for sure. Lots of change, rapid right at you. So, yeah, learning quickly, being able to learn and adapt and go into process really well and really fast and then, that that resilience piece. So how does resiliency show up?

What what does that mean?

Or do you have any examples where you have seen resiliency, you know, really pay off?

Yeah. You know, I I introduced myself a lot of times as a mediocre sales guy because I really feel like the first ten years of my career, I was maybe a little bit better than average, but I was pretty close to average.

And so my first kind of introduction to to Sandler training was I needed to get real good real quick because my wife was quitting her job and we were having another kid.

And, and so going in and sitting down with a sales coach and having him ask me some questions, you know, one of the lines of questioning that he asked is is, you know, how much money are you making now, and how much money do you need to make? And and so I this is two thousand six, two thousand seven. I said, you know, I'm making about seventy, seventy five thousand a year now. He's like, how much do you need to make? My wife was making thirty five grand a year as a school teacher. So I was like, well, I mean, just to make that up, I gotta get to about a hundred and ten. You know?

And he says to me, he says, so are you worth a hundred and ten?

And I said, yes.

And he goes, yeah. I don't think you'd think that.

And I I was like, what do you mean? And, he says, well, how long have you been making seventy five grand a year? And I said, well, for five straight years, I've been making about seventy five grand a year. He goes, well, if you really felt like you were worth one hundred and ten, at the end of the first year where you made seventy five grand, but you felt like you were making one hundred and ten, what would you have done?

Probably buckled down, worked harder, been a little frustrated.

At the end of year two, what would you have done? I'd have quit my job and gone somewhere else. Right? And so, like, but just by that questioning him questioning me, what he's pointing out is I was performing at the level that I believed I should perform at.

And the the biggest challenge is all of a sudden, I wanna make a hundred and ten, but and my mindset is I'm a seventy five thousand dollar a year sales guy, and I'm okay with that. And because if I wasn't okay with that, I would have made some big changes in the previous five years. And so now all of a sudden, I I need to make more money, but his point to me was you you don't believe it. Right?

Like, your belief system is what's holding you back. And so we had a pretty good conversation about that.

You know, what do you what do you believe you're worth? Do you do you ever get into those? I I don't know. I don't know. Married, like, growing up. Like, I know your dad was a sales guy. Did he pound some mental toughness into you growing up?

I think I definitely saw him display mental toughness, you know, working out of a home office. We got to really have a front row seat to his career, which, you know, is kind of fun that the the idea of working from home was not a new concept to me. So very interesting that you'd really see that. But, absolutely, the, you know, the battles that he would fight with marketing and sales and marketing are a synergy, and then he would have to take that to a two step distribution model very similar to how most manufacturers work in the HVAC world.

And, it was, you know, not always a yes. Right? And you get the no's, and what does that mean? And, you know, the highs are high, the lows are low, but what do you do in the lows?

You you just kinda keep getting better. And, I think that's a really interesting reflection that, you know, your owner was able to have with you in that sense, and I can see where that would feel harsh. Right? I mean, that feels like pretty vicious feedback to to kinda say, like, are you worth it?

And, personally, I think a young Mary would have been, like, probably not. I don't know. Maybe not. Maybe I should just get get online right now and start looking for another job, and, that would I could definitely see a scenario in which I would do that, just that.

What I've learned throughout my career is that sticking it out, fighting for your worth but sticking it out for the right reasons really does pay off in the long run. And what I mean by that is I have had managers say to me, you know, we're just not sure you're where you're ready for that level, or we're just not sure that you're ready for that next jump. And specifically, when I was in, a different industry, I was in a sales role, but I was so intrigued at what they were doing over in marketing. I wanted a taste of that, and I was just being told, no.

You're you're not a marketer. You're a salesperson, and we just don't think you're ready for that. And I said to the hiring manager after my second rejection, you know, what what's it gonna take? What do I need to do to prove to you that I have the skill set and that I'm so eager to learn that?

And they actually gave me an a project to work on. It was my project that I had to do in addition to my sales responsibilities.

And when I actually did complete that project and it it's not even like the project was a total success either. There were lots of issues with the product and the placement, what was going on. But when I completed that project, I earned that job, and I actually did get the offer. So Nice.

But yeah. I mean, it sometimes getting that feedback just feels like such a punch to the gut. Like, wow. I think I've got it.

They don't think I have it. What am I gonna do? And it does take the courage to go and ask for, you know, the, hey. What am I missing or what could I do to get better in your eyes?

And it was it was such a lesson in, you know, the right people who really do wanna work with you will give you that chance to prove yourself. Now on the flip side of that, you know, the wrong people who really are just, like, giving you that harsh feedback and not giving you any more tools to develop and grow, maybe then you do seek another opportunity. That's not always the wrong choice.

I've seen both happen definitely. But but it is interesting.

Getting harsh feedback when you're already feeling kinda down or when you're putting yourself out on a limb, it's that's that mental toughness. That's when that kicks in to say, like, what do you do next?

Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting that I when I was sitting down with my Sandler coach and he was giving me that feedback, I had just, like, six months prior gotten fired from a sales job. Oh.

Though it's, you know, you because I was mediocre. I wasn't good enough to kinda make it to the next level, and they needed somebody who was at the next level already, and so they let me go. And and it wasn't a bad move. I mean, to some extent, I, you know, I get a little bit of a chip on my shoulder, which is one of my main forms of motivation in life.

And, so it that that helps me actually to get a little chip on my shoulder. But it it would probably was, in hindsight, absolutely the right move for that business and for me. I would just was in over my head.

So but I but getting fired and then having a Sandler coach go, you just don't believe you're worth it. Like, it's it's not a matter of, like, do you have the talent? Do you have the work ethic? Do you have the skills? Like, your belief system is the issue. That that is that's tough. That's tough.

Yeah. What I like about your example is you reached out to a coach. And I think that that's something that, you know, real real leaders and really successful people do often when they're going through that downtime.

If you know that you're gonna suffer through a problem, lean on some help and find somebody else that can maybe it's a coach, maybe it's a mentor, maybe it's just a good friend that you can talk to, but not not, like, just vent to and just spew all the bad and then walk away and say, well, so it goes and move on. Like, for somebody that can really actually give you some actionable feedback, I I think that's great advice for anyone who's maybe building mental toughness or figuring out where what they're gonna do next. You know? How am I gonna overcome the challenge in front of me?

Yeah. In in in Sandler world, when we when we think about this, we talk about our success triangle a lot where you've got behavior and technique at the bottom of the triangle, and then you've got attitude at the top of the triangle, which is your belief system, your belief in yourself, the your belief in the marketplace, your belief in the company that you work for. But the you know, if you're having a belief system issue, right, either you don't believe in yourself, you don't believe in the company, you don't believe what's the cure for that? Well, the cure for that is in the behavior corner that, like, do something.

Right? So in the example you gave, you your your bosses were like, hey. You're not ready for this. You're like, well, how do I prove it?

They're like, here's a project. So you go and do it. Up until that point, it's unknown. Is Mary gonna be successful at this or not?

It's unknown to you. It's unknown to them. Your belief system was I'll be successful. Theirs was maybe not.

But how do you find it out? We go and do something. And that's and so for me, that was it too, was I could continue to go through life going from job to job to job and making about seventy five thousand a year. But if I want a different result, I've got to do something different.

And so what are you gonna do? In in my case, that was go get a coach, a say Sandler coach, right, to to learn sales. I had to do that one other time in life too.

I became a Sandler client in two thousand eight. And so from two thousand eight to two thousand seventeen, I made more money each successive year, as as a process of just getting better and working on behaviors and and trying to move forward. And then in twenty eighteen, my income tanked, and, it had nothing to do with external it wasn't the economy. It wasn't, the company I work for. I just was about to get separated and about to go through a divorce, and so my performance tanked.

And what was interesting about that process was, I, you know, I'm I was actually the one kind of initiating the divorce, but still, it it it weighs on you. Right? Like, it's it's an emotional challenge. It's a big it's one of the top three or four worst things in life according to psychologists.

And so I went and hired a sports psychologist whose clients are all pro golfers and football players. And, you know, he's a and so he doesn't coach golfers on how to golf better. He doesn't coach football players on football. He is just strictly mental toughness. And what was interesting about meeting with him was, I mean, I sat down and I'm like, man, you gotta treat me like an athlete.

You gotta get me back in the game. Like, I suck. And it's not that I suck from a knowledge standpoint.

I know how to prospect. I know how to close. I know how to overcome a price objection. I know all that. I've known all that for ten years. That's why my success has been in the past. Each year has been going up.

Excuse me. It just was, you know, all of this other stuff rattling around in your head. You feel like a failure at some aspect in life, and now you carry that into your work life. And if you start to fail at work, your negative self talk kicks in, and they're like, yeah.

You suck, Steven. And so how do you combat that? It was interesting to hear him say the same thing, which is, well, we're going to do something different. I mean, it's and start to put behaviors and processes into place.

And so, like, when you wake up in the morning, what are you gonna do? That was kinda his success process to get me back on track, and it worked. It was great. You know?

But took a while. Took took six, nine months, twelve months maybe to get really fully back to where I was just firing on all cylinders, but but that's the process. You know, you gotta do something.

Was that six to, you know, twelve months that you were figuring out that new process, was that hard for you to to do it? It was lengthy, but, like, were did you wake up some days and just were like, I'm challenged by this?

Oh, yeah. I the I don't think that this is the right thing for everybody. But but what he made me do was kinda list all the things I needed to get done in a day, all things I wanted to get done in a day, track what I was doing each day at work, and then start to fill those things in. Alright.

Are you gonna fit it all in? If you can't fit it all in, what are you gonna cut? Let's just go ahead and cut it. You know, let's not try to fit in more than you can actually get done and and so on.

The really, honestly, the biggest thing the biggest change was I would have told you back then I'm not a morning person. So I would sleep in till the absolute last minute. I'd wake up at seven fifteen, take a shower, drink some coffee, get out the door by seven thirty to get to work at eight. I mean, that was kinda my routine.

It's that sounds like, that sounds like high school, Mary. You know? Out before it to the last second.

Last second. Absolutely. And, and and he had me write out a schedule down to the minute for my morning routine for the first several hours. And I I can tell you I mean, I have it memorized at this point. I don't quite do it anymore, but I I'm close. But I had to wake up at five twenty AM.

I had to get dressed for the gym, pack my work clothes, eat a banana, make my coffee, get in the car by five fifty AM, get to the gym by six zero five, start working out by six fifteen, finish the workout at seven fifteen, you take a shower at the gym, leave the gym at seven thirty, get to work at eight. So, like, the getting work to work at eight thing was the same every time. But my morning routine, completely different before that. And then the first few hours at work, same thing.

What I used to do was walk in the door, go around, talk to everybody, see what's going on, kind of start putting out people would bring me problems. I start putting out fires. And so what he had me do is basically close my door till nine AM and go, what do I need to get done between eight and nine to set up the rest of the day for success? And a lot of times, that meant doing the hard things first, whatever that was.

So if somebody's pissed at me, I gotta pick up the phone call. If there's an email I gotta respond to, I'm gonna do that right away. But I'm getting those hard things out of the way from eight to nine, and, we just kinda called it nine before nine. What are the nine hardest things you gotta get done?

Nine phone calls, nine emails, nine whatever. Get those done first. And then at nine AM, open your door. Let everybody else bring you their problems.

That kind of stuff. So it was it was I am now a morning person. I mean, through the pandemic and everything else, I can't sleep in past, like, six AM anymore. And and previous old Steven for forty three years would have said, oh, I'm definitely not a morning person.

I'm just not. And now I am, apparently.

So Yeah.

So I I love this concept because I I heard this through actually through another podcast that was talking about this in the realm of health and fitness goals, but the the basics of it were, what if you approached every challenge like it was Mount Everest? Climbing Mount Everest is no easy feat. It's gonna take planning. It's gonna take work.

You might need some people to help you along the way, some guides. You're gonna hit a base camp every once in a while where you're gonna get a little reprieve, but then next day, you're back up on climbing that goal, and it's gonna be really hard. So you kinda know when you're setting that goal or or when you're gonna go through that transformation, this is gonna be tough. This is gonna be really challenging on my system, and I'm gonna have to embrace it.

But what if I embraced every goal that I set as hard as I embrace climbing Mount Everest? You know? What if what if I actually prepared as much as I needed to and enlisted the help that I need to and really took all of those little steps that it takes to make that summit worth it.

What what if I did that? What could that result be? And, you know, again, this podcast was going down a a real health and fitness line of that, but I think that you could totally bring this in the business too. Like, what if you really took the look in the mirror and said, you know, if I really cleaned up my schedule, if I did some good personal decisions for me, and then I really tackled what was on my plate and my objectives with my company, what could it look like?

Like, what if I treated it as if it were Mount Everest? And, I I don't know. It was it was something that I heard that really jazzed me up as, like, I wanna do that. I wanna have the intensity and the ferocity to meet the challenge as if it were in Everest, and it's gonna be hard.

It's not gonna nothing about climbing Mount Everest is easy. Like Yeah. But it it's gonna be, it's gonna be a challenge, but I think that that's that's back to the resiliency piece, you know, that's what makes it all worth it, and that's how people see it to the top. They really put in the work even when it's not feeling easy, and they see those results.

Yeah. Yeah.

I think, you know, there's two other wrinkles that I think are interesting to talk about. One is, you know, how you and and I'll I'll contrast one of my coworkers here with me, Jared Price.

You know, how do you deal with tough times? And not not that he deals with it well and I don't or vice versa, but we I think we have very different ways of approaching it. Let me give you an example.

If, let's say we both had the same, you know, quota for the month, and halfway through the month, we're having a great month. We've met our quota.

Well, Jared would go, man, I'm halfway through the month. I've met my quota. I get the next two weeks off. I'm gonna go have a great time. And he's just gonna enjoy life, get back, relax, and go, I earned this.

This is awesome. Right?

How am I gonna approach that? Well, I'm a little bit like a gambler. And if I'm winning, I'm gonna keep gambling. So if I'm two weeks into the month and I'm having a great month, I'm like, oh my gosh.

Let's get going. Let's see if I can't just blow this thing out of the water. Right? So so to that to some extent, like, if I'm going well, that motivates me to keep going, and I'm I'm gonna go get it.

Jared's like, I did great. I'm gonna take a little break. Right? Now, the flip side of that is, let's say we're two weeks into the month, and we're not having a good month.

Like, we're having a bad month. Our numbers are down. We're behind.

Jared gets mad. He's like, screw this. I'm gonna hit my numbers this month. And so he's gonna buckle down, and he's gonna work twice as hard.

He's gonna do whatever it's take gotta take to hit his numbers that month. Me, on the other hand, I get two weeks into the month, and I'm not gonna hit my numbers. I'm like, you know what? Screw this.

I'll see you next month. I'm gonna take the next two weeks off because I'm not gonna hit it anyway. Right? And so it's, you know, it's not that it's, you know, are you are you is it positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement?

Like, how are you wired?

You know, part of it is just recognizing we're wired differently. Nothing there's no good or bad there. It is just how are you wired.

And, and then understanding how you're wired. So, obviously, there's lots of months where I can't just go, you know what? This is a terrible month. I'm out of here. But I gotta understand that's my natural inclination.

And so maybe I do need to, you know, hang it up at noon one day and go for a walk or, you know, take a break and just you know, I don't I'm not the kind of guy that's gonna go, alright. Let me buckle that. Because once I get mad, then I'm very unproductive.

So I gotta calm down. Where Jared when Jared gets mad, he's very productive. So it's like you know, I think that's part of it too is how are you wired, and then how do you harness how you're wired? Not that being wired one way or the other is better or worse. It's just how do you harness that? How are you wired, Mary?

Well, I I do think the key though between you and Jared is that no matter what, someone's working.

Yeah. That's why we we've worked together now for for a few different jobs. Yeah. So it works out.

I think that's pretty great. How am I wired? Okay. I I do I do tend to like the pressure, so I'm a I could be I I could be like a mix of both of you in the sense that when I know numbers are low, that's when I'm like, alright.

Heat is on. We gotta we gotta perform. And when times are good, I can be a little bit more like, alright. This is feeling good.

But what I'd like about when times are good is that gives me the time to do the actual kind of strategy work that I wanna work on and get a bigger picture. So I like when times are good because I actually feel like I do better work in those times versus the firefighting that's required when times are bad. And I think maybe I could coach myself for a moment. You know, you almost have to reverse that, and when times are bad, we still have to deploy the strategy.

You can't just go into operator mode just because times are bad. And, I I think that I can definitely be the kind of salesperson that falls on the panic what are we gonna do button. And maybe that's some of my personal branding, you know, I I definitely love to be authentic and clear with my customers and, you know, being genuine is a huge part of my personal brand. So I wanna be as transparent as transparent as possible.

But you can't always be. Right? You you gotta look at the bigger picture and just say, hey. This this is bad today, but I'm gonna be here for a long run.

So, yeah. I I it's very reflective look inward to kinda understand, wow, I'm wired, but I do like the pressure, I will say. Like, I do I don't mind having to kinda turn it on when times are getting tough.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But that's usually, you know, that's usually when some of my best ideas come up.

You know? Like, again, like, being told we don't think you're ready for a position.

That's when I was like, okay. Well, what would make me ready? You know? That's not that was not a reason for me all of a sudden to not still pursue what I thought I wanted to do.

And I'm glad I did it. You know? And and you know what? In the long run, I actually came back to sales.

I decided that that was a really fun exercise, and I learned a lot about that channel and what's important to marketing and how they assess different activities. But, ultimately, you know, my peers at the time were like, really? You're going back to sales? Like, I thought that's what you wanted.

I was like, yeah. I thought that's what I wanted too, but I I actually really like this seat better.

So Nice.

Yeah. Nice.

I'll throw one little other wrinkle in there. I think, you know, looking at my family tree, one of the things that pops out is that we probably have a gene or something that that leans towards depression a little bit.

Like, I I I have a grandfather that I never met. He died of cirrhosis of the liver before I was born because he was an alcoholic. And, you know, in talking to, you know, my aunt's uncle's mom and whatnot, it sounds like he was just really depressed. Right?

But the way his coping mechanism, back then was alcohol because we didn't have a lot of good drugs for that or good therapy for that. And, so, you know, for me, one of the things I've found is that that exercise piece is really important because I I either need Prozac or I need to go to the gym. If I go to the gym, I'm probably good. If I don't go to the gym, I'm not good.

So, like, those two things I think I've learned about myself, you know, is is I've got to do if I start slacking off in the physical fitness side, it's gonna affect my mental health. So I know that's you know, that everybody's a little different there too. But that that's a component that I think is worth talking about. We don't talk about that a lot in this in this world.

It's something we don't really like to admit.

I so agree. And I was never really a big fitness person in high school. I I did a very niche sport of Irish step dancing. So, that was my competitive name to fame and loved it.

It was great. Honestly, I I wish I did it now because I'm way stronger now. But it was, you know, not a typical gym environment. We didn't, you know, really ever go to a weight room or anything like that.

So my first kind of exposure to that was actually in college when, you know, pretty much everyone would just, like, go to the gym, and I literally would look around like, what do you do in this facility? Like, no idea. And, you know, slowly over time, I I did other things other than just the elliptical, but it took a long time. And then when I graduated college, I found CrossFit.

And I I mean, it was like a drug that I couldn't get enough of. I just became so addicted to moving my body in that way. And I still do some of the functional fitness movements and have mixed that in with some different kind of weight training, but without a doubt, like, I can't find anything that matches that dopamine response that you get when you go move your body for an hour, and it is just so important to find whatever that is for you. Maybe it's working on your car or pursuing your hobby, but give yourself that time to be yourself and and move around.

And I I just think that everyone maybe it's cooking, you know? It doesn't have to necessarily be physical fitness, but I think that's a huge it's a huge way to just recalibrate, like, why you're doing what you do. Because otherwise, what is this grind, like, all about? You know?

There's there is more to it.

So let me can I put you on the spot for a minute? Let me let me give you a scenario. Alright. So let's say you're my boss. You're sales manager. I'm a sales guy. I worked for you.

And I've told you a lot about me. Right? Like, probably a little bit of family history, depression. I gotta be at the gym or I get cranky.

I'm a streaky sales guy. When I'm on a roll, I'm I'm on a roll. And but when I'm going bad, I gotta I gotta need, like, an intervention to get out of my my funk. Right?

And so let's say, you know, here we are end of q two, going into q three, and let's say year to date, I'm just getting my butt kicked. Now, hypothetically, in this scenario, I'm a decent sales guy. Like, hit my numbers last year, hit my numbers the year before. Like, I I've been doing well, but here we are twenty twenty five.

I'm getting my butt kicked. You're my boss. What would you what would you tell me to do? How would you manage me?

What would you what would be your strategies to kinda get me on track?

Oh, great people management question. I think knowing what I know about you and because now we have this relationship going, the first thing I have to do is just a personal check-in. Hey, Steven. How are you doing?

And really hear in your own words what's going on. Do you go to personal as, you know, a, hey. This is this is why I'm not doing as well as I'm doing. And and if you do, then we gotta give you some space to figure that out a little bit.

Maybe maybe me putting the heat on you from a work perspective is only gonna make you spiral down further into that depression. Right? So we're not gonna we're not gonna do that. But if your feedback is, you know, hey.

You know, my customers just aren't buying, and it's tough out here, and it's rough out here, and I I don't really know how to make them buy. Well, then we gotta zoom out and look at some of the objectives that we set in the beginning of the year and do some check ins on that and do some habit stacking. Well, you know, we don't only sell equipment here. We're business consultants.

So what are you doing to enable your customers to make better business decisions and look into some of the other ancillary benefits that you get with just being a partner with our company?

And that, in my opinion, is one of the areas where you can really find a lot of holes in people's game. Are you doing the other things that it takes to be a successful account manager that aren't just taking an order? And it's hard. That is hard work.

Those are not easy conversations to have when people wanna just, you know, scream at you about the fact that you don't have the the parts to satisfy their grumpy homeowner that day. But you gotta put those reps in to build that credibility with your customers long term. And I believe me, I understand that a ton. Even though I maybe do it from the distributor level where it's a level removed from a dealer customer.

We have good days. We have bad days. But at the end of the day, there's a strategy that we've mutually agreed on at the beginning of the year. We we gotta hold ourselves to those points. So hey. How's it going? Personal is going over here.

Honestly, my style has always been to just give people some grace in that department and offer a helping hand if I can. Or if I can't, you know, let people breathe a little bit. I actually went through this exercise with, a sales leader who I was working with and just wasn't really just wasn't getting it. Just we we weren't seeing eye to eye on a lot of issues.

Communication was dwindling from his side to my side, and it really took some digging to say, like, hey. Just talk to me. What's going on? Found out he had a lot going on in the home life, you know, a lot of transitions going on, a lot of events.

And, you know, ultimately, I said, look. I want you to figure that out, but I need you in this seat. You are the captain of this team, and you can't be as absent as you've been for as long as you've been. So what do you need to do in your personal seat to get right in your professional seat?

And just sort of saying that, I mean, it it took about a week or two. I'd say maybe two weeks before we saw change happen in the professional, but just kind of saying that was enough to really turn the tide and so excited. This person has now, you know, done an amazing job of hiring more people to stack out the bench. Some of that exercise was realizing that he just had way too much on his plate and he was doing way too much.

And then also, you know, really doing that inward reflection and saying, you know, Mary, you're right. I wasn't being my best. I I just needed I needed to go address a few things, but I wanna be the guy and I am the guy. And I was like, alright.

Let's go. Like, let's do that. So I think those would be my two big things. Check-in on the personal, give people room to be who they are, you know, give them a chance to course correct.

I think that's maybe something we don't always do. Right? It's like, oh, you you're you're so bad at your job, and now you're fired. It's like, give people a chance to hear that feedback.

But then also go back to those goals that you mutually agreed on. Everybody should be working towards those annual goal setting conversations and and what is it? And in sales, if your goal was a number and you're not hitting that number, you gotta talk about it.

Yeah. Yeah.

I think the other thing my one of my other lessons learned, and and this is kind of a little heavy, maybe. So fair warning to listeners. But, you know, owning a business, you just never know what your employees' issues are and how that's going to impact the workplace and so on. And so, you know, some of the toughest days I had as a business owner, you know, we had a day where, one of our installers didn't show up for work that day. And, you know, he had gotten hit head on on the way to work and died.

And so the the grief I mean, great guy. Great guy. Like, twenty five, twenty six years old, like, big smile, hard worker, the kinda guy that just everybody wanted to work with, work around, and then he's gone. He was engaged, supposed to get married.

And so, you know, the the, you know, bouncing back. How do you you're in a leadership role. You own the company. Like, there's not a class on that in college.

Right? There's not a, you know, yeah, it's not on the fall training schedule, that that the distributors handing you. I mean, it but it's what do you do? And so I think sometimes in a moment of crisis, you might need help.

Like, and and just go, okay. I've never been through a crisis like this. What do we need to do?

I had a we had another scenario a few years later where one of our service techs didn't come to work and had killed himself the night before because his wife said she was leading. And so, again, like, the ripple effect, I mean, you've got the guys that he's closest with.

Obviously, you've got guys that maybe know him pretty well, but they weren't they didn't hang out together outside of work. You've got people that barely knew him. But, like, there's a ripple effect across the whole organization when something like that happens.

And it's, alright, you know, what do you what do you do? How do you handle a crisis? So I think part of the mental toughness piece is understanding your own personal crisis. Like, how do you how do you manage that? And then part of that is just institutionally or when you're in a leadership role, how do you handle that?

And, and so those are those are experiences nobody wants to have. But if you live long enough and you're in this business, in this industry, like, you're gonna run into things like this. And so, you know, thinking through having a game plan, thinking through ahead of time, what do we do? I was very fortunate. My dad's a pastor.

And so, you know, having some good advice from the outside, we brought in some therapists. We had a big company meeting. We talked about things. But it was really interesting to see, like, out of seventy employees, bring in a therapist for a few days and have them just at the office and have people schedule time to sit down with the therapist and talk, probably a third of the employees took them took up took them up on that.

Right? And that was eye opening for me too to go, Man, I don't think that third was signing up to talk to a therapist just because of the event. That third is signing up to talk to the therapist because of things going on in their own life. And they're realizing, Wow, I really do need maybe some professional help before this gets bad.

And so I think it's it's a gray area when you're a manager or the company, you're you own the company, you're you're, you know, you work for a big corporation. But I think being sensitive to those things, one of the more unorthodox things that I did in my career was working for a company where I was the sales manager, so I wasn't the owner.

But I did have a marketing budget.

And I told my sales guys, if they would go get a therapist, I would reimburse them for their therapy costs out of my marketing budget. And and, honestly, I think it was probably the best bang for the buck on that those marketing dollars because their numbers went up. If, you know, getting a therapist, dealing with their problems, tackling it head on allows them to come to work and show up a little bit better, pay dividends. So, you know, I think it's just mental toughness. You never know when you're gonna need it. You don't know whether it's gonna be kind of self inflicted in the case of maybe my divorce or just external factors that aren't my fault at all, but still affect me.

Tough world out there sometimes.

Yeah. But you you don't get that mental toughness, you know, shell without maybe going through some of that vulnerability. Right? You know? It it's it's gonna be reflective to be able to say, hey. This is what I'm dealing with and then bring that forward in, you know, a more actionable, positive way.

Those are some pretty incredible stories, and I think one thing that really comes through for me with, you know, the leadership side of that is how important it is as leaders for us to take those events seriously.

And, you know, you lead with grace. Right? And you lead with the opportunity for people to feel some of those feelings and give people a place to do it. You don't have to necessarily hold public forum and everyone would say their feelings out loud.

That could be really uncomfortable, but, you know, giving people a place to go and address it, and it also then creates a moment in time where we have addressed it, and now we can all move forward together as a group. And I I love that. I think that that's a great leadership quality to be able to handle change in a fashion that doesn't say, this is the change and we're moving on. Like, this is the change.

We got some feelings about the change, giving people the opportunity to feel those feelings, but then also, you know, step forward together in in a positive way. So that's a that's a really, amazing testament to, you know, the kind of group that you're with and the kind of culture they promoted. And I hope, I hope somebody takes away a little bit of that advice from us today.

Yeah. I think I mean, a lot of my ideas have just stolen from other people. So if somebody steals an idea from this podcast, they're welcome to it because, it there's not a lot of original thought here. It's just kind of a compilation of of things. One last question for you, Barry. Alright. So you gave me kind of a rundown of how you might manage me as an individual if I was struggling.

But what about, you know, kind of the football coach mentality where, your team just they lose the big game. Right? You got talented players. You got a you had a great game plan coming into it.

Everybody was working hard. And for whatever reason, the calls didn't go your way. The ball didn't bounce your way. You lost the big game.

What kind of pep talk do you give your team about mental resiliency? And again, it could be, you know, sales team. Right? That, you know, you're the company that you work for or the people that you manage. Like, what does that look like?

Alright. This is where I get exposed as a New England Patriots fan who grew up on the school of thought of Bill Belichick.

Yeah.

And, and, you know, he's very famous for that one press conference where where they were on Indianapolis. Right? They were they were on Indianapolis.

And that was that.

Yeah. We're we're not gonna look backward at that game. We're not gonna talk about that game. Now we all know Bill Belichick's, you know, approach was to not discuss that publicly, and and he handled all those decisions and conversations behind closed doors. And, I was once asked to come up with an example of a really good leader that was a really bad communicator, and my answer for that was actually Bill Belichick because from what we saw, that was definitely the truth.

My response to the question though is, you know, how do you how do you really come back for the the big loss? And, personally, for me, I I I know I've kinda said it in some different ways, but you take up a little bit of space to say, yeah. That was a that was a loss. Maybe for me personally, I gotta feel those feelings.

Like, that that was a bummer. I'm upset about it. I I I wish this had gone better. I really thought I executed on that.

So, again, just really personally here, like, I gotta feel that pain a little bit. I gotta just sort of not wallow, but but give myself the opportunity to just sort of say, gosh, I'm really disappointed.

And and then it really is a reflection on what what did go well or what did I what did I glean from a part of the transaction that I could have done better. Sometimes sitting across the room from other negotiations and maybe it didn't go my way, you know, I really look back and think, well, could I have said that different? Did I deliver the message clearly enough? Did I get my point across?

Or did we just have a total miss in ideals? And it didn't matter if I said that the product was free. Like, we weren't gonna get there. You gotta you gotta kinda look through some of those things so that you know tactically how you would address them in the future.

But that's really it. You know? A little bit of little bit of sadness, realizing that when this happens, this is how I feel so I can identify that. And then the next time, sharpen those edges where maybe I could have been a little bit stronger or a little bit better.

Sometimes the client's just not gonna go with you, like and that is okay if maybe they have fundamentally made up their mind going in. Those ones take a little bit less time for me to get over because usually you know what's going on in that situation.

But sometimes when it is the big game and you just really feel like this is mine for the taking and then it isn't, You really it's just being honest with yourself, doing that self reflective work and saying, yeah. You know, next time we talk about financials, I wanna be really dialed in to these pieces. Or, you know, I was a little too cutesy in my preamble. Right? Next time where I'm in front of a client of that size, I'm gonna be really dialed in on my language.

That's I can definitely go humor really fast, And, getting that professional tone and speak is something that I've worked really hard on.

Yeah.

We have a we have a a couple Sandler rules that I think apply. One is either you win or you learn. I mean, that's kind of the the mindset. And so I think, you know, part of it is what you said Bill Belichick does behind closed doors, which is go, okay.

We gotta learn something. I mean, what we lost, we lost for a reason. So but, you know, we don't have to wallow in it, onto the next game. Right?

And I think the the Sandler version of that is some will, some won't, so what, who's next? And I've got a friend that wrote a book with that title.

But that's you know, I I think, like, the the I'm probably overusing sports analogies at this point. But, you know, you're you're a quarterback.

You throw a pick six. So the other team intercepts the ball, runs it back for a touchdown. What happens next? Well, they kick off.

You've got the ball again. And so if you're spending a lot of time wallowing in, oh my gosh. I just threw a pick six. It's the worst thing ever.

Like, your next possession is useless. You're useless at that point. So you've gotta have that mental toughness to go, hey. It happened.

On to the next drive. Right? Yeah. We gotta come back and, and and put a drive together and go score some points of ours on our own.

So, you know, that some will, some won't, so what, who's next? When I lose one, I I hear that in my head because I had a had a coach pound that into me for a while. So, you know, failure's universal. It's gonna happen.

Learning not to allow that to affect your view of yourself and just go, alright. Everybody fails. Here's a failure on my part. What am I gonna learn? Onto the next one. Yeah.

It's been You know, one tool that really works for me in this department is self affirmations.

And I know affirmations can get kinda into a department where people feel like that's a little silly, and I don't know if that's for me, and I'm not gonna do that. But I I like to listen to them.

I start my day with one, and, there's a there's a playlist that I found that has different different kinds of affirmations, and each track is about a minute long. But, depending on what I'm needing that day, I plug into that, and it you know, I say them back out loud to the track that's talking to me through the speaker, and it's, it helps. It just helps get my mind right to hear it out loud and hear that reminder, and and then I'm able to go accomplish what I need to do. But I didn't know that I that's actually kind of a new thing for me and within the last year. But Nice. There were so many projects on my plate, and some were going well, and some were going wrong, and some were winning, but I the burden of the work was just kind of starting to feel like a wave every single day, and I really needed something to just pull me out of that storm and just remind myself, like, I'm here for a reason. And and that was what it was for me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, a little bit longer episode today than so are other ones, but a tough topic. And, like, one that we just both felt was pretty relevant regardless of the season, the time of the year, you know, your role in this industry. Maybe you are a service tech. Maybe you own a company.

Maybe you're a territory manager. I mean, who knows? But failure is universal. It is going to hit all of us at some point.

And so just the ability to bounce back and keep rolling, you know, not not let it, impact your view of yourself. I thought I thought it was a pretty relevant topic for us today.

Yeah. Hopefully, you won't have to be too mentally tough to listen to our episodes going forward in the future.

Sounds good.

Well, with that, I'm Mary.

I'm Steven.

And we will be back at you next time talking about more HVAC full blast topics. Woo hoo.

Bye.