John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World's Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling.
A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 850 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine and has a podcast channel on iTunes with over 750 audio interviews. He is Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer at Pipeliner CRM and was formerly CEO of Huthwaite and Omega Performance. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.
[Podcast Transcript Using Artificial Intelligence]
Umar Hameed 0:01
Are you ready to become awesomer? Hello everyone! My name is Umar Hameed, I'm your host on the No Limits Selling Podcast where industry leaders share their tips, strategies and advice on how you can become better, stronger, faster. Just before we get started, I've got a question for you, do you have a negative voice inside your head? We all do, right? I'm gonna help you remove that voice and under 30 days guaranteed, not only remove it, but transform it. So instead of the voice that sabotages you, there's one that propels you to much higher levels of performance and success. There's a link in the show notes, click on it to find out more. All right! Let's get started.
Umar Hameed 0:41
Hey everyone. Today I've got the pleasure of having John Golden here with me today, which is like the best name for a sales guy. And John is the publisher of SalesPOP! Magazine. John, welcome to the program.
John Golden 0:51
Thank you, Umar. Glad to be here.
Umar Hameed 0:54
So before we get started, tell us about the magazine, SalesPOP! Is it like a physical magazine or a digital magazine?
John Golden 1:01
No, it's, it's a digital online multimedia magazine. And we we started or started about four or five years ago when our core business is Pipeliner CRM. And when we were, we were migrating our blog at the time and I was thinking, "Hmm, you know, the world doesn't need another product blog," so I thought, "How about a multimedia online magazine," because we have this commitment to education anyway, to educating salespeople, marketing people, entrepreneurs, leaders, and all of that. And so we started SalesPOP! and went out and found some of the most interesting thought leaders from across the globe. And then create own so we, we interviewed them, as you know yourself having been on, we do a video interview, we extract the audio of that, we push it out on all podcasting platforms. So the videos on YouTube, the videos on our, on SalesPOP! the audio was on about 10 different podcasting platforms. And so this is our kind of altruistic if you like, give back. And it fulfills our commitment, our two of our commitments, one is to high quality content and the other one is to education and actually empowering salespeople and business leaders and marketing people to learn and do better.
Umar Hameed 2:20
Nice. So back in the day, I used to be in the high tech industry. And it was really interesting. If it was a hardware company, you call for an issue, they blame the software. And if you call the software company, it's not us, it's the hardware, and you caught in the middle. And it's a lot like that for sales and marketing, they should be in sync together, supporting each other and I've got some thoughts around that but oftentimes, they're at odds. And that slows the company down, it lets competition win and it's a headache for everybody. Kind of your thoughts on that?
John Golden 2:52
Yeah, it's very true. And it still baffles me to this day, why we're in, what are we in there 2021. And we're still having a conversation about sales and marketing alignment. Because for me, it should be a no brainer. I mean, marketing, the thing about buyer behavior, and the thing about sales processes today and all of that is those clean lines of demarcation that everybody sees and seems to love you know, people who subscribe, subscribe to the you know, good fences make good neighbors that kind of point of view. Once upon a time, it was very neat, like marketing did their piece like, you know, for top of funnel and then threw it over the wall and then sales picked it up and ran with it and never the twain shall meet otherwise. However, now marketing people have got to go a little bit further down the process and help at different points. And salespeople have to become micro-marketers a little bit as well to be able to engage with customers. So for me, it's a no brainer that says arketing should be working together. However, in a mix, it's common sense, but as you know, think about common sense is not that common. So ah...
Umar Hameed 4:01
It's the least common sense of all, yes,
John Golden 4:03
It is the least common sense. And I'll just give you a, give you a good example from a number of years back when I was running a company called Hathaway, which was SPIN Selling reserve a global sales consultancy company, based on the work of Neil Rackham who wrote SPIN Selling.
Umar Hameed 4:20
I've met him a couple of times.
John Golden 4:21
Oh, good, Joe. Yeah. So do y'all enjoy this story? So one of the things that Neil used to say regularly is that, "If you do, if a sales call is really valuable and really value creating, then the prospect should be willing to write you a check for the sales call," not for...
Umar Hameed 4:43
Yes.
John Golden 4:43
...your product, right, but but for the value created in the sales call. And so I was thought this was a neat idea, but in the back of my mind, I was like, "Can I really ever see somebody actually agreeing to write a check for a sales call?" And so Neil, I brought in the to one of our large clients, which is a global multinational brand name. And they were, they were having problems with sales and marketing. And so I had asked them the CEO, the CEO of North America, "Can you get the marketing? And can you get the sales, leadership teams together in a room? And I'll bring in Neil and we'll do is we'll do a diagnostic session."
Umar Hameed 4:43
Nice.
John Golden 4:46
So cut a long story short, exactly what you outlined earlier happened, the meeting started, marketing started having a go at sales started having to go back of marketing, and there was just this back and forth across the table, both blaming each other. And, and so eventually, we said, "Okay, well, it's good to get everything out on the table,' and then we went through our whole session. And at the end of it, the CEO was saying, "That's fantastic. Now we have a framework and getting these people to work together and all that good stuff." And so I thought this is my perfect opportunity. So I said, "Can I just ask you a question?" And the CEO said, "Sure," I said, "Would you raise Neil a check? Would you like write Neil and I check for this sales call." And the CEO actually said, "You know, I actually would," and, and to the point that we're making a couple of points. Number one is, even in the largest companies like big brand name, multinational companies, this division between sales and marketing is so ridiculous. And when you get and when you get them around the table, it looks even more ridiculous than, than it is on the surface, because it gets very petty and stuff. And the second thing is, when you bring people together from sales and marketing, and you start to really take all the take the emotion out of it, and then you start to show them that there is a symbiotic relationship here. And if you resist that, particularly nowadays, you're going to end up, you're going to end up back at this having another meeting in a year's time still, by the the leads that come from marketing are still going to be terrible, and the salespeople ability to close them is still going to be terrible.
Umar Hameed 7:09
So kinda reminds me, that's a brilliant story. It reminds me I was doing this job for a company out in Silicon Valley, and their VP of international sales, said, "Look, we got a problem. And the problem is that we talk about ad nauseum selling on value. But everybody in this company sells on price, help fix that," and spending some time with the salespeople, I realized that it's not just a sales problem, it's a trust problem. So we got marketing, sales, finance, admin, customer support all together for a day of trying to figure out what's going on. And what had happened was, engineering was told by marketing, you know, "This is the chip that we need to manufacture two years from now, this is what the market wants." And of course, marketing can't get everything 100%, right so they're like, "Where are those marketing guys now?" Engineering has promise sales, you'll have a chip to sell to customers by January, now it's August, they still don't have a chip. So it's basically no trust in the company, because people let each other down. And what we ended up doing was getting people to get on the same page going the same direction. And a couple months after the intervention, I asked the salespeople, because there, it was selling on value and it was like, "What's been the change?" and the biggest change has been this whenever we came back from a customer, and we went to any departments, whether it's marketing, or customer support, or whatever, and we said, you know, the customer wants this. And they would say, "Well, I can't do that, oh, we can't do that," and the biggest change has been as soon as we come back with some kind of customization request, is they go, "Hmm, how can we make that happen?" And sometimes those issues are trust-based, and sometimes it's added to that is that human need to be right and special.
John Golden 8:50
Yeah, and I think and it's very simple to be honest to overcome. When I was recommend like, you know, I'm the Chief Marketing Strategy Officer with pipeline and so I look after the whole marketing side you know, but obviously I have a background in sales as well and so I I sit in on the sales meetings, it's really that simple. I sit in on the sales meeting so I can hear what's going on, I can talk to the salespeople, I can, and, and I can figure out how best to support them and to give them what they need. And but itself is not, it's not just a one way street that, you know, and I tell them what I need from them. And sometimes when they ask for something, I tell them why it's not a good idea. And, and because of once you establish that kind of communication and mutual respect or understanding...
Umar Hameed 9:39
Yes.
John Golden 9:39
...because I can say, "Yeah, I know you'd like to do that. But that's not a good idea here is a different way of approaching it." And and I think that makes that makes a big difference. So to me like the solution to all of this is not rocket science. It's unfortunately a lot of people who work in marketing, you know, have no clue what the, what the reality of a salesperson is. They have no clue how hard the job is, they have no, they have no experience of, of, of, let's say crazy, crazy prospects and customers let's face it when we're, when we're buyers via we ask for all sorts of crazy stuff and, and everything and they don't realize like what the salespeople go through. So I think the first thing is it's a real education process. So I would encourage your marketing leadership, get on those sales calls, go to, go to the sales leadership and say, "I want to be on your calls, I won't interrupt them, I want to disrupt them or anything, but I want to learn and then I want to see how I can and help and maybe even have some of your other folks from marketing involved in that too." And then I think on the flip side, is, I think you have to also educate sales about how difficult marketing is today, it's not a simple thing, it's not an easy thing. Technology and all of that has, has opened up so many opportunities and maybe democratize to some degree, the ability to market but there are so many different specialities and skill sets and things that you need today and initiatives that you can undertake, and it's fiercely competitive. So I think also i don't think sales sometimes realize the landscape, which will with it, within which marketing is operating. So again, I would I would encourage sales leaders to talk to the marketing leadership, to talk to the marketing people and understand what's going on. Because I think there's always Umar, I think there's a there's a misconception sometimes for sales, and that is marketing, just paint the pretty pictures and you know, they're drawing all day, they're doing the fun stuff like this is cool putting some graphics together. And, and I'm sure to explain to people, that is a small percentage of the marketing job, marketing is a grind mostly. If you're doing it properly, it's a grind. Because you have...
John Golden 11:57
Right.
John Golden 11:57
...to test everything you have to check, you have to be an all these multiple channels at the same time. And you have to, you know, be constantly figuring out if a new channel comes online or something or new initiative or new strategy, you have to look at that as well. And there's an awful lot of moving pieces and I think that's what sales need to understand as well.
Umar Hameed 12:16
And I agree with you, I think we need to have like, when we want to understand a city better, we get to do a ride along with the cops.
John Golden 12:23
Yeah.
Umar Hameed 12:23
It's easy to complain about those speed gun wielding jerks, but you do a ride along, you figure out what they actually have to do is a different thing. And from my point of view, I think sales is a subset of marketing and a very important one. That's the tip of the spear. And you really need to like marketing is all about feedback. They need to talk to the customers figure out what they want, so they can start figuring out what we need to create. But the customers are also the salespeople, so I agree with you. Having each other embedded figuring out not who's doing what right. It's like how can we out think and outpace our competition and connect with customers better. So now that we've solved that for everybody. So here's a. here's a question for you. In any sales team, generally, you tend to have three groups in the sales team, you've got people that walk on water, the A players that give phenomenal results, then you've got the B players that were so happy they're there, because they're doing a good job day in day out, then you got to C players that probably should be doing something else.
John Golden 13:22
Hmm.
Umar Hameed 13:22
What do you think separates the A players from the B players? Like what makes an A player a A player?
John Golden 13:29
Yeah, I think there's a I think there's a number of things that make an A player and a player but I think fundamentally, is A players are process-focused, right? So they they focus on the sales process, they follow the sales process, they focus on the fundamentals. So whether it's, for instance, you'll see A players will do proper call planning before they get on a call with the prospect. B players might do it sometimes or do a cursory one, but a player's will do. A players will focus on what are the most important activities and things that they should be doing. And they'll jettison the rest, right. So there'll be the first And A players will be the first one to come and say, I"'m not doing this because it's not going to it's not helping me sell," right? So I'm in their very, very conscious of of the time, of the time element. And I think today, and the A players are, have got high levels of business icon. And I can't stress that enough because I think once upon a time salespeople could skate by without really understanding how business works, r
Umar Hameed 14:32
Right.
John Golden 14:33
And now I think you have to understand the business of business, and the business of your buyer. Because if you're going to have an intelligent conversation with a prospect, you really do need to understand how business works. And you need to understand how their business works, so I think those are some of the things that really separate A players from B players but I would say, I would say process is a huge thing and following process because this is where the misconception comes in sometimes. Sometimes we've all seen it right, we've all seen the successful salesperson who breaks all the rules, runs around, does whatever brings in the big deals, and everybody goes, "Oh, yes, they've caused chaos again, but they brought in a lot of money." And, and a lot of people mistake that as the A player, that's somebody who is successful. But I've seen it in the past those people, eventually, eventually, they stumble because you, it's unsustainable. The A players are the ones who follow process.
Umar Hameed 15:32
So I would agree with you there. I do think there's Mavericks out there. And I'm thinking of a couple people that I've come across that came to mind when you said that. And this one guy, he basically the CEO, gave him several warnings. And the final warning was, you know, "You're not performing. And I'm going to fire your ass by the end of the month. That's it, you've had your last warning," and something in him just awoke and he became a beast. But he created so much chaos in the company and he was always successful for like seven or eight years. But the CEO was like, I love his revenue, but the cost of the chaos is just so much well badger everyone to death to get what he wants done. So A, I agree there, but sometimes it can have longevity, but the cost is high. But that other thing...
John Golden 16:17
To be honest, to Umar, just just the thing on cost is because most companies do not measure the actual cost of sales, right? They will they will calculate the commission, they calculated a bunch of things. unconstant says, but they won't, what did they never calculate is the time that somebody like that takes up other people. So when there's calling up saying, "Hey, I need this from you, I need that from you, I need this from you," if you calculated all of that time, not just, not just the the cost of that person, you know, actual time, but the opportunity cost of them working on other stuff, you might find out that that revenue isn't that profitable,
Umar Hameed 16:53
Agreed. And another thing that was kind of interesting was this particular person, I'm thinking of, just one day decided that, you know, "I need a better title." So we just got new business cards printed up with the Senior VP title that he gave himself. And it was like, (garbled) which they perhaps shouldn't have. And then he would give a smaller company, the same kind of reports and service as a 500-person company. And it was like we can afford it for a 500-person company, but not for 100-peson company. But going back to your other point, which is, you're so boring, John, talking about process. But process is absolutely the most important element of sales success as if, because once you got a process, you can make it better when you're just winging it, who knows what's wrong. And the people that follow the process with the right mindset and the right attitude become rock stars. And I'd much rather have, you know, five rock stars and one bull in a china shop, supernova is fine, but the fiber going out produce that like 10 times over.
John Golden 17:55
And I think I'm glad you raised that point. I'm glad you raised the boring point. Not that you know not about me, personally,
Umar Hameed 18:02
I was just teasing.
John Golden 18:02
I'm joking. No, no, no, but the boring point because I think that's a really important one because that is what a lot of, what the, what you get pushed back sometimes in sales is like, "Oh, well process is going to, you know, bog me down, it's, it's going to distract me, it's like, that's not I I need, I need wiggle room to be able to operate because I'm kind of an artist, you know." But the reality is that process, process, when done properly actually frees you up and liberate you and gives you the opportunity to focus on the high value things to do the things that you really want to do. It's when you're running kind of outside of the process, you actually make more work for yourself. And you end up creating as you sow chaos. And and you end up doing, you know, tidying up and trying to you know, corral things all the time. Whereas if you follow a process, it actually things should run smoothly, allowing you to then interact on a more valued, valuable level with prospects and more use give you spend your time. Now, the caveat on that is, as long as the process is a good process, so I'm not I don't advocate for process for the sake of process I advocate for process that makes things operate more smoothly, efficiently, faster. That so so I think you've got to put a lot of effort and work into defining your process, your sales process, and then constantly reviewing it and tweaking it.
Umar Hameed 19:35
Absolutely. And another part of sales process is qualifying opportunities. And a lot of companies either A, don't do it, or they do it like willy-nilly, and there isn't science between every single sales rep using the same metrics. And that's why the pipelines is a wish list rather than accurate predictors of the future.
John Golden 19:58
Yeah, absolutely. And that's one of the things that was very important to me when I joined pipeline or one of the reasons attracted me to the to the to Pipeliner CRM is the fact that not only can you build a process in pipeline, but you can build steps into so you have your stages. And then within each stage, you can have your steps and things that need to be done. And you can even make them mandatory, right? So I can't move to stage two unless I have completed certain actions in...
Umar Hameed 20:24
Right.
John Golden 20:24
...stage one. And I think that is exactly it because if you don't have some discipline around your sales processes, and if you don't have a shared understanding of what's a stage one, what's the stage two or whatever. And those are reinforced, what you get is, you get, John, John and Umar have opportunities that are almost identical in every in every aspect, John puts us in stage three Umar leaves is in stage two, right? So now we have two opportunities are basically this, almost the same in characteristic. But once further in the stage sales process and the other when it shouldn't be, they should be both in the same stage. So that's where your whole, that's where your whole pipeline and your forecasting and all gets messed up.
Umar Hameed 21:09
So what happens to this the other way around? Like instead of you being overestimating and putting yourself in stage three, let's say you're accurate, and I'm actually (garbled). Yeah,
John Golden 21:20
Yes.
Umar Hameed 21:21
(Garbled) too. I was just talking to a friend, he's buying a business, and he works for the business. And so he's holding his sales till April 5, when he actually counts as a business owner, as opposed to a sales rep, which makes perfect sense. But...
John Golden 21:34
Yeah, that's always I mean, I think I, think this is where sales management comes in because I, if I'm a sales manager, or sales leader, I should be saying, "Hey, I just reviewed Umar that should be in stage three, you know, that's been stage three," so here's, here's what I'm going to do, I'm going to move to stage three. So I think part of it is, you know, you have to have sales management, and they have to be doing their reviews using the tool. And making sure because that's the only way you'll you will end up driving consistency is if the sales manager is driving, because at the end of the day, if you move if you have it in stage two, and it should be in stage three, but your sales manager never says anything to you. You just got tacit approval.
Umar Hameed 22:15
Absolutely. So what do you think are the key skills of a sales manager?
John Golden 22:21
Oh, it's interesting, because a friend of, a friend of mine, Mike Darby, who runs a sales consultancy, and has published a couple of books, he posted something on LinkedIn actually last night. And it was around the finding your why, as a sales leader, sales manager finding your why because it is, it is the I would say probably the toughest job. And we know the statistics out there that most sales managers only last like 16 months in the job and all of that. So I think what's, what's critically important is number one, if you move into a sales management position, is first of all, learn management. So don't think that I've moved into sales management that somehow sales management is there are aspects of sales management that are very different from any other role. But the fundamentals of management are the fundamentals of management. So the first thing I would say is make sure that the person gets proper training on management to just you know, core management techniques, and then training on sales leadership. But I think, I think some of the core things are that you have to accept that you're in a different role, right? Particularly if you've come from sales, you're now in a sales management role. You got to resist the temptation, and I think this happens very often is you got to resist the temptation to be a super closer. So I'm now the sales manager and I'm looking at the pipe, I'm looking at the pipeline, I say, "Oh, Umar's got some stages," I'm going to help them push these over the line, "Hey, Umar, I'm going to get on with your customer now I'm going to help you drive this over the line. And what do I do I really just elbow you out of the way and do it for you, right? And therefore you're going great, thanks. I like the commission but you know, thanks for undermining everything I've done."
Umar Hameed 24:04
And also just for a second, it allows me to say if it didn't work out, "Hey, John, that you know, man, I had it on the finish line. And you fucked it up."
John Golden 24:13
Yeah. But as a sales manager, I'm going to say actually, even when I come in to try and rescue and the result too far gone. But anyway, my point is that there's a real temptation to be there but the...
Umar Hameed 24:25
Yes.
John Golden 24:25
...reality is, is if you're a good sales manager, you should be in the early stages, that's where you can add value. That's where I can go, "Okay, Umar, let's, let's look at your early stage opportunities and make sure they're qualified property. That's where I can ask you some questions. I can ask you some good searching questions about them," and then you can say, "Okay, yeah, I didn't think of that. I need to get more on that." Because at the end of the day, the more time you spend qualifying, it means probably less is going to progress, less is going to progress through your pipeline, but you're gonna have a higher probability of closing it. And I think that's where sales manager can add a lot of value, there is making sure that everything is qualified properly and being supportive and then, and coaching, being supportive and not trying to parachute in and elbow you out or, or the other part is, don't say, "Umar, you want to be a good salesperson, just do everything I do. And just do everything I did to be successful," and then you say, "Well, what did you do to be successful?" And then I go, "Well, I don't really know actually, because I'm unconsciously competent.
Umar Hameed 25:38
Yep. I met the guy who wrote this article, it was the number one article on Harvard Business Review for many, many years. It's, you know, get the monkey off your back. And this was the monkey, you're the CEO, and one of your salespeople is saying, you know, I've been trying to get a meeting with the head guy at ABC company and say, "Hey, I know that guy," and the sales rep goes, "Could you do an introduction?" is like, "Okay," and the next time you meet that salesperson, the salesperson goes, "Did you do that introduction yet?" And all of a sudden, you're the leader, and you're taking on all these tasks. And I guess the sales manager would have that ability to to kind of all of a sudden step out of their lane and start being the workhorse for everyone and I think I like your approach. And I'm actually thought of it that way before that, you know, most of your focus should be early stages to qualify so your salespeople are actually more effective. So they're not chasing deals that are not going to work out at all.
John Golden 26:31
Yeah, and plus them, let's be honest, what kind of value can you really add at the late stage? If it hasn't been, you know, at the late stage, if you're relying on the sales manager come in normally, that means there's just going to be discounting, there's going to be all this sort of stuff. And normally, when when opportunities fall out in the latter stages, it means that they weren't properly qualified in the first place. Obviously, there's always circumstances, I mean, we all everybody loses, everybody has something that happens occasionally. But generally speaking, you can find, you can find a lot of things fall out because they were improperly qualified. Because we live in this world, right?
Umar Hameed 27:12
Absolutely.
John Golden 27:13
I call it the field good funnel, when we're instinctively, we want to, we want to pack as much stuff into our pipeline, because it makes us feel good, right? If we have stage one of the early stage of (garbled) with opportunities. We may not be selling a lot right now, but at least we can go, I can go, "Yeah, Umar, I know I haven't, I haven't reached my quota for this month, but look at all the stuff I have in my pipeline, you just you wait a couple of months down the road." And what happens a couple of months down the road. You say, "John, you're still up and close that much," I got, "Oh, I know, Umar. Yeah, but but look back at my pipeline, look at my early stages, a couple more months, I'm going," and this just repeats and repeats and repeats. And whereas it takes in, it takes some fortitude to be honest and guts to actually reduce your pipeline, as opposed to
Umar Hameed 28:00
Oh, absolutely. So one of the I guess, the Achilles heel for a lot of sales people is, is getting that first conversation started. So what would, being a marketing guy, what would be your best strategy to get your ideal prospect on the phone or on a zoom call?
John Golden 28:19
Yeah, I think, I think it goes down to what I said about earlier, I think you have to understand the business of business, you got to understand the business of your, of your prospects so you got to do some research. And I think you got to figure out what's important to that company, what's important in their industry, and then try and do some research on the individual themselves and figure out, you know, maybe you can figure out what's important to them. But I think the more research you do, and then the more personalized the approaches. And I think we're really we're entering the era of hyper personalization, where people like, yo, let's face it, we know when we're getting generic messages, right? We know,
Umar Hameed 28:59
Yes.
John Golden 28:59
and as clever, and as clever as they may be, we know, right? So I think if I want to if I'm working on and I want to get to particular people, I need to do some, I need to do some research, because I need to be able to send you something compelling that you connect and resonates with you, right? if I send you an email, it has to resonate with you. If I just send a generic one while it's probably isn't gonna resonate with you, or you're just gonna delete, so it has to resonate. And then I think when, when if you can get them then onto that initial call again, that's where you have to really establish rapport quickly. But the only way you're going to be able to do that is if you have done your research. So I'm big believer in doing research.
Umar Hameed 29:43
Brilliant. So just before we part company, john, I've got a couple of questions for you. So number one, we all have a negative voice inside our heads that stops us from executing, what does your one say to you to kind of, it's all lies, but what does it say to get you to stop executing?
John Golden 30:00
That's a good thing. Yeah. I mean, it's a good point because I think statistically, I think psychology today had it at something like it's 69 to 70% of our thoughts on on a given day are negative. So yeah, and we all have negative voice. So it's a question what would get me to stop?
Umar Hameed 30:18
So you know, you're about to do something challenging, and then it starts creating doubt or let's do something else, though, don't worry about this, like, what does your voice say to you?
John Golden 30:29
Yeah, I mean, sometimes. And I feel like, at this stage of my career, I recognize that situation very quickly. And if my voice is going, "Oh, my God, this is this is too hard, or it's not going to work," or whatever, is I say, "Okay, I'm not in the right frame of mind to tackle this right this second." So what do I need to do? Do I need to get up? Do I need to go out? Do I need to
Umar Hameed 30:51
Nice.
John Golden 30:51
Do I need just to take a break for a second? Do I need to maybe, you know, put down writing on my to do list or put it on my calendar, here's the other thing you can do sometimes is, is like, "Okay, I'm going to do something else for the next like, 30 minutes or an hour, I'm going to put this on my calendar for straight after that, right? And then I'm going to come back to it with a franchise." but I think yeah, that's, that's it, you just got to, you got to acknowledge it, I mean, when you're resisting things you're resisting, you know, you're resisting things for there's a reason why you're resisting it...
Umar Hameed 30:52
Absolutely.
John Golden 30:56
...change, you got to change that. And you've got to remember that you're. And there's often physiological to write when you're resisting something like, you know, you're feeling tense, or you feel stressed, or whatever. So all that is, is your, is your body telling you that you're stressed about this situation or that you're, you know, you're not in the right frame of mind? So that's great information to go and get yourself in the right frame of mind.
Umar Hameed 31:44
Brilliant. My second question was going to be about, and so can be, what's a mind hack that you use to be more productive?
John Golden 31:54
Whoo. That's interesting. A mind hack to be more productive? Well, I think what I what I often use, to be honest, is when you're, when you're faced with the daunting task or something, is stop for a moment and just go, yeah. But I'll be able to complete it, and it'll be over, right? Simple as that. It's like when you're doing him, it's like when you're doing exercise, right? And, and you're, you know, you're exhausted, but you think to yourself, "Okay, I would like to give up right now, but I'm not going to, but I know if I just keep going in 10 minutes, this will be over." And I think sometimes you just got to just got to tell yourself that it will be over and you'll be on the other side of it. Yeah, might be a little painful in between, but you will be on the sun. And one of the things I would say Umar just to everybody out there is when you're challenged by something or faced by a daunting challenge, and you don't answer up to it, look back, look back on everything you've done in your life. And it doesn't even have to be professional, it can be in your personal life. Look back. And I guarantee you if you do it, honestly, you will find instances where you overcame much, much greater obstacles than the one that's in front of you right now. And sometimes I think we have to remind ourselves of our capabilities.
Umar Hameed 33:14
Absolutely. That's a brilliant note to end on. John, thank you so much for a great conversation, I took a bunch of notes, and read them. I should have been a doctor, thank you so much for being on the show.
John Golden 33:26
Yeah, listen, thanks Umar. It's a real pleasure. And thank you for having me.
Umar Hameed 33:34
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