Speaker 0 | 00:08.080
All right, welcome to another Dissecting Popular IT Nerds, where we’re allowed to geek out with a fellow nerd. Today, I’m excited to introduce John Burke, who wants to help us find our purpose and our dream. So, John, tell us a little about yourself and why today’s topic is so important to you.
Speaker 1 | 00:26.213
Yeah, man, I’m excited to geek out over… right as well um yeah oh you’re good so um i’m a solution consultant and i work with uh several businesses uh different sizes and some educational institutions and help them determine you know it strategy their security posture and then with some solution architecture as well for large projects
Speaker 0 | 01:00.492
Tell me a little more about that security posture and what do you mean by that?
Speaker 1 | 01:04.694
Yeah. So cybersecurity as a whole, a lot of organizations are still kind of in that mindset like, hey, we haven’t been hit before. It’s not that big a risk. And a lot of times they’ve got their insurance provider kind of screaming down their throat like, hey, we’ve got to. shore up some of these cybersecurity things within the organization. And a lot of organizations just haven’t put that much focus on it yet.
Speaker 0 | 01:38.575
You know, I ran into a lot of that in my tenure as a CIO. The CFO did not want to open up the budget towards security until, you know, until an incident happened. If we’re not suffering from it, why pay for it? And we did. Yeah, I can’t even go into some of the details on that because I don’t want to expose things that I shouldn’t.
Speaker 1 | 02:01.495
Right.
Speaker 0 | 02:02.576
But yeah, it’s way too many, I think, way too many organizations have that mindset of, you know, if it’s not happening, then I’m good. We must be doing everything we need to so that we’re not a target. Or either that or, you know, we only make $500 million a year. We’re a tiny company. Why would they admit us?
Speaker 1 | 02:25.096
Yeah, absolutely. And the reality is they don’t discriminate like that. I mean, they’re going to attack any opening they can find because at the end of the day, it’s a volume business for the criminals. And that’s really what it’s evolved into is organized crime. They’re very intelligent. They have very powerful tools. They spend a lot of money on development and training, just like organizations that want to defend against them do.
Speaker 0 | 03:03.051
I’ve been seeing advertisements for a new show coming out. I think it’s called Cubicle, where it’s a sitcom about working for the cyber criminals and being the one attacking. It’s kind of like what you were just talking about. Yeah, it’s definitely a… numbers came just like spam used to be if i can get one in a thousand people to click on the link for the ed medicine then if i send out 10 million of them then i’m making some money off of this so yeah
Speaker 1 | 03:35.444
and i wouldn’t say it’s necessarily new you know even back in the day when uh if you think about when we sold a lot of mcafee or cymantec antivirus um even then you had organizations that said ah we’ve We’ve never had a virus. We’ve never really been faced with that. It’s not a risk that we are concerned about. And so it’s not necessarily a new mindset. It’s just it is challenging to balance having a business conversation without trying to introduce a lot of a lot of fear.
Speaker 0 | 04:14.165
So and I know it’s I’m already deviating from what. Kind of plan on talking about but how did you find? what’s the way that you found to have that conversation to start that conversation and and what’s been your most successful strategy in doing that in in Helping convince somebody not certainly through fear like you just said but convincing them that that they need to really Think about this and take it serious.
Speaker 1 | 04:44.383
Yeah. Yeah, that’s That’s a really good question because it leads to you really need to have a you have to have a trust relationship with your with your client or customer. I don’t feel like that’s a conversation you can go in. and have with a brand new prospect because there’s a lot of realities to it.
Speaker 0 | 05:10.829
Yeah. And in all honesty, from that CIO point of view, I would just take it as you want to sell me something versus you’re honestly trying to help me protect the business and avoid something. I would just have that sarcastic. viewpoint of, oh, you just want to sell.
Speaker 1 | 05:36.099
Got widgets. Yeah, and so you see it because you’ve been on that side of the table. It’s hard to have that conversation about all of the risks because they’re more or less perceived risks. I mean, they are real, but if you haven’t been exposed to those, they’re not necessarily real to you. And so… That’s one thing I just encourage a lot of organizations. It’s kind of like the old, what was that commercial for the mental health? If you don’t get help at charter, please get help somewhere. And so that’s kind of what I encourage them to do is get some guidance on your cybersecurity posture.
Speaker 0 | 06:27.448
Yeah, most definitely. I mean, it’s… Again, well, you know, there’s so many scams out there. There’s people preying on individuals just trying to get a couple of thousand dollars sent to their country. And and that’s like I I don’t know how many weeks of wage, but whatever amount of time that they invest into it, it’s way worth it to the people on the far side. And they’re willing to attack elder individuals just trying to get a couple of thousand dollars. versus the companies that have millions of dollars. So, yeah, pay attention to that. Let’s take a different tack. Let me step back. Tell me a little more about your history. Dive deeper. Like, how did you get started into tech? And was that the plan from the jump? Or was this, how did you get led into technology?
Speaker 1 | 07:20.533
Yeah, for sure. So, it’s so funny because my parents had bought. My dad brought home a computer in the late 80s, and they had done a Honeywell mainframe conversion at his company. And they had these individual computers called TRS-80 made by RadioShack. I remember you had to have a moving company for this thing to move that thing. It had three five-and-a-quarter-inch disk drives. And it had a cassette player for backups. And all these accessories, you know, the modem was this big box that connected with a serial cable. Anyway, I got really into the application side of it. There was a spreadsheet program called Busy Cal. And I got some experience with spreadsheets. And then I got some experience writing programs in BASIC. And… Just started enjoying computers. And we bought our first personal computer probably around maybe 1990, 1991. Got connected to AOL. You know, they send you the CDs with the free. Actually, back then it was probably floppy disks. But you get free, you know, 25 minutes or whatever.
Speaker 0 | 08:46.995
1991? No, they were sending the CDs. No, wait. Wait. You’re talking about on the TRS-80. So it still was floppy.
Speaker 1 | 08:54.341
Yeah. No, this would have been on our first. We bought one at Sam’s. They were like $2,500 in 1991 money. I remember it was a 486 DX266.
Speaker 0 | 09:06.992
Ooh, top of the line, brother.
Speaker 1 | 09:10.294
And over the years, we added the CD-ROM drive and the sound card and all the things. So my parents decided for me, hey, you’re going to go into computers. Which is how I wound up as a certified mechanic out of high school.
Speaker 0 | 09:30.029
They said computers and you’re a mechanic. Wait.
Speaker 1 | 09:33.051
Yeah, I don’t know if you’ve ever been 16 before, but when they say this is what you’re going to do, you’re like, that is exactly not what I’m going to do. So what other interests do I have? And it was, you know, hot rods and sport cars and suiting things up. So, yeah.
Speaker 0 | 09:51.101
And. Auto fumes.
Speaker 1 | 09:54.609
So you have been 16 before.
Speaker 0 | 09:56.632
I have. And you ask my wife and I still am. Actually, she doesn’t even give me 16. 13.
Speaker 1 | 10:05.021
Okay, well, that’s progress. So I went into auto mechanics. And just by happenstance, a guy from the phone company and I were having a conversation, you know, mechanical conversation. He said something I said about playing modem strings at home in my free time as a hobby. caught his attention and he said you need to come and uh install dsl for us because there’s a there’s a shortage of people that understand that language and so that’s how i wound up back in it uh did that for the phone company for quite a while and then moved on to the cable company and cable broadband was becoming a thing and they’re rolling that out and then just move more and more into networking okay
Speaker 0 | 11:02.061
And then from networking, where’d you go to?
Speaker 1 | 11:05.002
So I spent a lot of years as an engineer for hire. So I started kind of at the tier one supporting Cisco Networks and Telephony and then moved up into the project team and later into pre-sales and solution architecture. But I kind of had… I’ve gotten to fill a lot of those different roles. And so later in my career, I took a virtual CIO role as a VP for a technology company and to build a team, build an MSP from the ground up. And that was a lot of fun.
Speaker 0 | 11:47.705
So what year was it that you were doing virtual CIO? Because that seems to be more of a common term today, post-pandemic. And I’m inferring that you were doing that.
Speaker 1 | 11:58.293
pre-pandemic yeah we we started we founded that company in 2013 so 2013 2014 uh were the years we spent building that company before my exit so that was uh what a time to be a managed service provider because the industry had just started the shift from uh we’ve got a guy like a you know an it guy we call when our systems are having trouble to you yeah, this is a functional piece of the business. This is a utility. We’re dependent on this as much as we are electricity and telephone service. And so that was a great time to enter the industry. In fact, I’d probably say we were a couple of years too late as founders, but still a great time to jump in and start offering those services.
Speaker 0 | 12:51.483
Okay. And so. Let me tie this into the introduction, finding our dreams and our purpose. Oh, because, I mean, you started off, you showed an aptitude for computers, and then your parents say, hey, you should do this. And you go, well, no, whatever, Dad. And then go learn about cars. And then they ask for some help. You end up back in that direction. Tell me a little more about how and why this is the topic. Get me there.
Speaker 1 | 13:32.277
Yeah, so finding your dream, that’s over the years I’ve allowed people of influence to tell me, this is what success looks like. This is what you should strive for. And so one of my mentors, Love him to death. He’s my rich dad in the rich dad, poor dad scenario. If you’ve read that book, mentor me for Robert Kiyosaki. Yeah, I recommend that book for or pretty much everybody. And so but in the book, Kiyosaki has two dads. He has what he calls his rich dad, which was actually the father of a friend. but a huge mentor and influence in his life. And he talks about how that dad led him down the path of investing and entrepreneurship. And then poor dad was his biological father that kind of encouraged him to, you know, take the safe route, you know, get the education, get the good job. And, um… you know get the good retirement and and those those things and and not to say either one of those is right or wrong but you the the uh gist of the book is you choose your own path and find a mentor for whichever. And so I had a mentor for a lot of years that kept telling me, you know, you ought to be in sales. And really the driving reason behind that was it created the lifestyle that he wanted. And so the thought was, you’ll make enough money to have the lifestyle that you want. But maybe that’s not the lifestyle that I want. you know i don’t need the mercedes with the big hood ornament so um but you have work man exactly exactly you know i’ve got um i mean my my exotic car is a duramax pickle so that’s uh that’s when people know you’ve made it we uh i worked and worked to build the skills that i thought I needed to be successful in that role. And I got into that role and I was successful and I was miserable.
Speaker 0 | 16:10.552
Well, unfortunately, I understand a little about that. You know, I followed some of that same path, you know, people saying, you should try this or you should try this or, you know, I’m doing things. And that next kind of opportunity. And it was I followed more of the path of least. resistant than looking for that dream.
Speaker 1 | 16:35.806
Yeah. Yeah. That’s, I had become so influenced by kind of other people saying, this is, this is what success is. This is what success looks like. And part of that was the industry I was in. In that industry, you know, account executives are by far the highest compensated. But also the least they bring the least amount of perceived value. So to be highly compensated, obviously, they bring a lot of business value. But, you know, both the customers and the engineers will say it’s really the engineers that that are the secret sauce. They put everything together. They do this. And so the account executives really are. relationship managers and negotiators. And so there’s not a lot of necessarily perceived value, but a lot of business value and it’s highly compensated. But I get all the way to winning a president’s club award and go, I’ve climbed to the top of a mountain I didn’t even want to climb.
Speaker 0 | 17:48.908
And what, so when you found, when you recognize that quandary, When you recognize that in your life, what happened? How did things manifest at that point? I mean, because typically in my life, when I come to a realization like that, there’s more ripples in the pond. It goes out beyond just, you know, being at that top of that mountain, so to speak, and going, I don’t like this view. It’s, you know, that lack of enthusiasm has… spread amongst other aspects of my life. It’s now affecting the family. It’s now affecting, for me, work, family. That’s basically life. Talk to me.
Speaker 1 | 18:37.684
Yeah, so.
Speaker 0 | 18:38.384
What was it like for you?
Speaker 1 | 18:39.985
It was a very interesting time because I was under some pressure. Of course, new year, new quota. So the year started off under a little bit of pressure anyway. And so I didn’t realize probably till about a week into the year that I’d won a president’s club, but also had this new higher goal set. And so I’d come off the treadmill running hard over the holidays thinking, man, we did it. Now we’ve got to do it again. Only to be told, hey, not only do you have to do it again, but you got to do it. another plus 25 yep and so uh the middle of january i actually had my first uh panic attack ever and didn’t even realize it was really induced by just all the all the stress i was on and so i kind of i don’t want to say i took my foot off the gas but i took a different approach i said i’m gonna be more consultative and I’m not going to be as focused on the numbers because it’s really easy to get wrapped up in just focusing on numbers. you kind of forget why it is that you do what you do.
Speaker 0 | 20:08.819
Right.
Speaker 1 | 20:10.260
So I called a couple of clients that I’ve been really close to, some of these folks I’ve worked with for close to 20 years, whether it was as a support moving into their project guy, moving into the guy helping steer their strategy. And I said, you know, what value do I bring to your organization and the role that I’m in? And it was. it was funny i brought a lot of different you know they said uh no longer are you the one that brings the the technical solution you now bring um forecasting like help us plan 12 18 24 months out you now bring negotiation with the manufacturer so in some cases we’re seeing better pricing than we’ve ever seen uh but i you know The more of these conversations that we had, I thought, man, I like solving technical problems, and that’s not what I’m doing.
Speaker 0 | 21:11.224
I love solving those technical problems, too. And I started off doing that and then started getting away from it because I ended up managing the people who were solving the technical problem.
Speaker 1 | 21:23.894
Yeah, and you’re sitting there from up high looking down going, man, I wish I could go down and play with those guys, right?
Speaker 0 | 21:31.468
At times, yeah, definitely. And or,
Speaker 1 | 21:34.670
I see it, I see it.
Speaker 0 | 21:36.511
And like the last couple of years has been doing my best to just keep my mouth shut and allowing them to grow through that experience, allowing them to have the experience and to learn and figure these things out instead of just handing it to them.
Speaker 1 | 21:52.860
Yeah.
Speaker 0 | 21:53.780
Which, you know, there’s a balance to that one too because it’s a balance between… achieving the goal for the business and helping somebody to grow yeah for sure and you know i i can make it where the well i can help make sure the business still achieves the goal i can do it a little bit faster if i don’t give them the chance to grow but then you know if when if and when i’m gone then they didn’t grow and they’re still steps back and now now the organization gets hurt in a different way that’s the dichotomy
Speaker 1 | 22:29.892
There were a lot of times that the architecture didn’t match exactly what I had in my head. But I’ve got to let everybody own their role in the organization. And so, you know, you kind of got your ego is not your ego. And I had to shut that guy up and say, we’re going to move forward with what my team has put together, even if I don’t always agree with it. And so. That was definitely a personal growth experience in that role because I had to learn a lot of new ways to be me. But in the end, I realized I’m not being me. I’m not doing what I want to do. I’m finding opportunities, but I’m not the one that gets to solve these problems. I’m bringing my team to solve them.
Speaker 0 | 23:27.328
So as you recognize that you’re not being you, that you’re not being true to what you want to do, how do you find what you want to do? How did you find what you wanted to do? Or did you already know and it was just allowing yourself the permission to go do?
Speaker 1 | 23:48.979
So I think you really have to take some time and reflect on individual experiences. So think about projects that you’ve done. Think about companies and teams that you’ve been a part of. And then ask yourself how you feel about that. And you’ve really got to have some quiet. You’ve really got to have time to just let your mind kind of wander. And it might sound mystical or something like that. But you really have to be able to focus on just that and allow yourself to feel. And so… Think about times that you’ve laughed harder than you’ve ever laughed. And think about times that you’ve been more stressed than you’ve ever been. And as you go through those experiences, you start realizing these things bring me joy. These things bring me pain. And I want more of the joy things. I want less of the pain things.
Speaker 0 | 24:45.376
Okay. Any other thoughts? Did you find yourself going out on a camping trip, a hunting trip? Did you? you know or we do that just trying to find a place and a time to get loan alone because you’ve got kids man
Speaker 1 | 25:03.108
Sure. Yeah. And that’s one of the things my kids actually teach me a lot about me, because I’ll look at things. I’ll look at things that either, you know, make me bust out with pride or make me kind of cringe or go, oh, man. And then I get to ask myself, like, is is that me? Did they learn that from me? Did they pick up that behavior? from me and a lot of times it’s yes and i go i’ve got some some work to do um because we you know my wife and i were talking uh yesterday in fact and uh we were talking about a situation we were in but i said if my kids ever told me hey you let me down i wouldn’t immediately turn around and go well you this is your part in it right I would be internally devastated and I would go, man, what do I have to do to make it right? Like and and so in that there’s a lot of there’s a lot of accountability in looking at their behaviors and going, are they just mirroring what they’ve learned for me? And what do I need to do to change it? And then what do I need to do to to teach them the things I never knew? And so.
Speaker 0 | 26:28.152
I want to jump in for a second there because I don’t know that many people who are able to stop and really evaluate internally or evaluate themselves. And where was I at fault versus that immediate defense? Because it seems to be, and I’m an American, I’ve lived in America my whole life. So I think that it’s. everybody. And not just like an American thing, but I don’t know because I haven’t, I have not run into that many people. I think it’s a small subset of the population who can stop and ask that question the way you put it. You know, my kid comes up to me and says, you disappointed me. And, and I want to go into defensive mode. I want to defend myself. I know other people in my household who don’t. have the ability to pause and they immediately go into, well, you’re, and it’s like, I watch my children with each other and, and they’re immediately at each other. Neither of them are going well. Okay. And I don’t know whether it’s an age thing, an experience thing. Um, what are your thoughts?
Speaker 1 | 27:50.598
Maybe a little both, but I don’t know that it’s an age thing because, uh, I struggled with it for years, being the one who couldn’t accept fault. And so if you really start researching it, you’ll realize there’s some psychological things from childhood. You know, if you’re praised for doing good, but chastised for making mistakes and things like that, those can develop into these ego issues where you can’t you can’t be wrong. But one of the most powerful things, I read a book called Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink. And there’s some exercises you can do in that book. And you just start owning your part of situations. So if something happens that’s completely out of control, you can still recognize your involvement in that situation. And what could I have done differently to maybe make this outcome different? And so as you go through those exercises early on, it’s hard because you’re like, no, this this person is totally in the wrong. This guy screwed this up. You know, this this happened between these two people. I wasn’t even involved. But as you as you start reflecting on what could I have done different? And then another great piece is having an accountability partner where you go, this happened. And I don’t think I could have. controlled it but if i had engaged or if i had um intervened and done x i think the outcome would have been a lot different for these other two individuals and so you just start realizing a lot of things that happen around you can be influenced by your behaviors or your inaction and then um you In situations you’re involved in, the outcomes can radically change if you just change one or two ways you interact with people.
Speaker 0 | 30:02.554
a struggle I’ve run into with this and in the beginning yeah it’s like like what you’re talking about um but I find later on too that that even when I’m willing to be accountable and to take ownership and to um to face the failures or the um the opportunities for growth and um even when I’m willing to do that, I, I watch others around me and, and I know I can’t, or I shouldn’t be trying to hold them accountable for their parts of it. Cause that’s not me holding myself accountable. That’s me trying to transfer that blame again, but I I’ll take ownership of the things that they point out at me. And, and then they just get to go, see, I was right. And then they walk off and I’m like, and, um, and, and of course, It was a visual thing. I’m sitting there grinding my teeth and making fists and frustrated and very upset. And they could walk away free. And I know I’m growing and I’m getting better. But, you know, in the office politics, I think that’s one of the areas. It was a source of unhappiness for me.
Speaker 1 | 31:24.989
Yeah. And there’s, I mean, truthfully, there’s positions I wouldn’t even consider because. Those kinds of dynamics, those kinds of politics are there in that organization. I want to do something that I’m happy doing. And if I know that the situation is going to bring me misery, I’m going to think twice about taking a position. But yes, going back to what you said, the finger pointing, that’s going to be a big part of taking responsibility. A lot of people are going to just directly attack you. I had one manager that would tell me all the time, like, I don’t want you to accept responsibility. I want you to be different. And, you know, I was on this path of self-recognition, you know, identifying the faults and addressing them. And you’re not going to change overnight. One of my coaches says. He says, one of the most powerful things you can do is get to a place where you don’t care what other people think about you. And so you’re like, oh, yeah, that would be great. But if you ever figure out how to do that, tell me, because I’ve been I’ve been after that for years. And so it’s it’s really hard to let that go. So that’s that’s not to say all your relationships will magically heal. Um, and people won’t still point the finger at you. And if you’re willing to take blame, a lot of people will just let you, right? Then he’ll, uh, he’ll say, yeah, I could have done something different and then we can wash our hands of it. And, and that’s fine. Um, but, uh, you know, you can get to a place where you’re more concerned about what people think of you, uh, that you’ll actually start changing your behaviors. You know, I had. I had a leader one time that I reported to that it just felt like every conversation we had was adversarial and combative. And it’s really hard as a subordinate because you don’t look forward to those conversations. And I found myself operating outside of integrity, saying I was doing one thing and doing another or not. being completely forthcoming about what I was doing strictly because I was avoiding that negative reaction. And so had I been at a place where I could say, I’m just going to be authentic and honest and let the chips fall, that relationship, I don’t think, would have been so adversarial. But I was so focused on what’s the response going to be if I’m honest that at times I wasn’t. And I regret it, but all I can do is learn from that experience.
Speaker 0 | 34:31.812
Right. Yeah. It’s amazing how much that can affect you. And I know it affected me. And, you know, I too had a relationship where it was a work relationship of always feeling like I always had to come in begging for asking for and never really any. any feedback. It was always so I felt like I don’t know. I just struggled with that one and was, I question myself now today, how much whether I was operating in integrity. I like how you said that. With integrity, in integrity, I know I avoided conversations. I know I hurt my co-workers because I wouldn’t go in and fight for their raise that they deserved. Because I didn’t want to have that conversation because it was always such an adversarial, uncomfortable, unfun. And there was no, it was always a fight. It was always a fight. It was always a negative to the person that I was asking for. I could go in there and I could take care of my people and I could tell them all of these things and build them up. But when I went to try to validate that through financial means, yeah, I struggled.
Speaker 1 | 35:55.683
Yeah, for sure. So. I think a lot of people probably listening to the podcast have dealt with a similar situation. And I don’t know that there’s a right or wrong answer other than to remain in integrity and be honest. And if you get removed from the position or there’s negative outcomes, maybe it wasn’t the right role for you, the right place. It wasn’t where you belong. I think that probably would have come to light a lot sooner had I been willing to get uncomfortable and have those conversations. Yeah.
Speaker 0 | 36:37.875
Yeah. And, you know, that’s really kind of some of the stuff that I was hoping that we talk about. And thank you for helping bring this topic up and having this conversation. Because so often, you know, you’re somewhere around interview number 30 for me. And so I’ve been talking to people and we’re talking, OK, you got to talk the business talk. You got to be able to talk. You understand the business. You got to understand why. You got to understand these things. And these are the personal, true conversations and growth that we need to see and experience. And it’s almost that that discussion that nobody wants to have.
Speaker 1 | 37:19.190
Sure. Yeah. The tactical is easy.
Speaker 0 | 37:21.851
Yeah. Yeah, we’re problem solvers. We like solving problems. Give me that Rubik’s Cube. I’ll figure that thing out.
Speaker 1 | 37:31.558
If we live in the tactical, I don’t have to say, man, I’ve been dishonest. I don’t have to say, man, I’ve been a crappy employee. I’ve been somebody I wouldn’t want to hire. I don’t have to admit that if I remain over here in the tactical. But it’s real and it impacts. Being dishonest and operating outside of integrity with a leader has ramifications far beyond just how it impacted my position at the time. This is somebody that has relationships with other leaders in our industry, certainly with other partners and manufacturers in our industry. and other employees in that organization. And so now there are a lot of people that can hear about incidents that happen where I wasn’t completely honest. And those can now be, you know, misconstrued in any kind of radical ways. And so, I mean, that’s an impact far beyond just, you know, a reprimand or a write-up in one position. So… That could, I mean, that could ultimately, had I chosen to remain in that role, remain working with that leader for a long time, certainly this could have impacted the way I interact with clients and, you know, other people that have known me 20 years and trust me. And it definitely could have had far, far reaching negative impact.
Speaker 0 | 39:15.307
So I’m curious. Hearing you say this makes me wonder, have you climbed multiple mountains that you didn’t want to climb? Or was this kind of, was some of what you’re talking about with that leader involved with the initial mountain that you climbed and said, I didn’t want to get up here?
Speaker 1 | 39:37.021
Yeah. So, yes and no.
Speaker 0 | 39:40.622
Of course, it can’t be that easy.
Speaker 1 | 39:42.822
So, there are roles. I’ll give you a good example. I moved into a role called director of network integration. And really that meant build me an MSP. But as a director, you kind of think, OK, I’m going to have direct reports. That’s not going to be fun. There are certain people that enjoy being in management and having people report to them. I was kind of on the opposite end. I was like, I have no interest in people reporting directly to me because I don’t have the patience to hear about you can’t come into work because your cat’s throwing up. And so I immediately, my mind goes to, this is a temporary thing. I don’t want to do this forever. because of what I perceived the role to be. And actually, I had a lot of fun in my three years in that role because I didn’t just manage people. I get to build a team. I got to meet with my team weekly and talk about what are we doing that’s working? What are we doing that’s not working? So really, a lot of times I was solving problems and making things better. And the day-to-day management kind of takes care of itself because you’ve built a relationship with these folks on your team. And you can have real conversation when their cat’s throwing up and sick. So that was one that I would have said, man, I don’t ever see myself being a director. I don’t see myself managing people. those kind of things. But that was one that was actually a lot of fun. And conversely, as a full-time sales, as an account executive, I thought this is going to be the pinnacle of my career, the apex. And I guess the only thing I could have done differently is look at the job description and just dissect each piece of that. Because if I lived in the, you got to update your pipeline and you got to be able to accurately forecast and you got to do, I think if I lived in that, dissected it into bullet points, like what does this look like on a day-to-day basis? I’d have gone, you’re going to hate that. Because it’s all numbers. It’s all subject to change. You know, there’s no science to it. it’s going to take away from what you consider to be productive work. Even though this is valuable information and valuable work to the business, you’re not going to enjoy it. So it’s hard to look at that mountain and go, I do or don’t want to do that without really understanding who am I, what brings me joy, what brings me pain, and what roles contribute to that.
Speaker 0 | 42:52.818
So as you’ve hit the peak, you’ve decided that this isn’t what you want to do and you’re on this new discovery of really trying to figure that out um what were some of the barriers you ran into what were the things that you had to overcome so
Speaker 1 | 43:11.632
most of the barriers if i’m 100 honest were were self-imposed i put them on my my self so i’m not or i had i have not historically been very detail oriented now it from a scientific level like a a network deployment a data center deployment i’ll be very detail oriented because every device has got to have a name right an ip address or a cable yeah or join some kind of uri yeah there’s got to have some kind of ur some kind of identification But that trickled into in sales, managing multiple different priorities at once and not not being very detailed on each one probably limited my ability to execute. And so it definitely limited my ability to communicate to management the things that they were looking for. And so that’s one that that I would address is is attention to detail. But also mindset. Anytime I looked at something and thought, I can’t do that or I won’t be able to do that, that immediately constructed a barrier that really wasn’t even there. So, I mean, if you go, I don’t have a college degree, but I’ve been a VP. I’ve acted as virtual CIO for a lot of companies. And so. Even today, I advise people with high levels of education, but I advise them on. you know what i know and i’m quick to admit when i don’t know something yeah but uh about the experiences that you had versus the experiences that you want for sure yeah i mean i was i was invited to leave my parents home at the age of 17 and so that uh there were a lot of people that didn’t believe i would i would ever amount to much i i think i was pushing I was pushing baskets or I just left a job pushing baskets at Sam’s Club. And this was back before they had the little motorized. You see them now? They got motorized, things that push more. No, we’d line up 70 carts and you’d have a guy up front steering and a guy pushing and alternate that. But just for the record, I didn’t ever use one of those little motorized carts. But, you know, I wasn’t. focused on education. I was just focused on that next paycheck. A lot of people, I think, thought you’re not going to amount. If I’d believed that and allowed that into my head, I think I’d be a lot farther behind where I am now.
Speaker 0 | 46:19.329
This brings up an interesting topic because I’m struggling with some of my kids. Kind of around the same thing. So so you find yourself you are invited to leave the house at 17 year you have a job your pushparts your live in paycheck to paycheck and So and I’ve seen this on social media too of that You know don’t take any job that doesn’t bring you that joy. So Even to get out of the door to survive those first couple of years, a couple of my kids are like, no, I’m not going to flip burgers. I’m not going to go push carts. I’m not going to go do this kind of stuff because it doesn’t bring me joy. And when I was growing up, it was I need some money. So, oh, you need dishes washed? Sure. Sign me up. I’m there. And I just kept moving from job to job to job. And. Because I needed that. I needed to keep the income coming in. So, you know, by the time I started working in computers, I had two kids. One was on the way. And I know I needed to make more money. When the second one was on the way, that’s when I was like, oh, bartending is not going to cut this. I need more money. So I go and get that education that we’re talking about now. But, you know, it was just job to without stopping and having that, that soul searching moment and saying, I’m not going to do that job because it’s not going to feed my soul. It’s I’m going to do that job because it’s going to put food in the fridge. And now they won’t leave the house because they’re not going to do that job because it doesn’t feed their soul.
Speaker 1 | 48:14.652
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 0 | 48:15.573
My fault for not kicking them out.
Speaker 1 | 48:19.096
Yeah. So listening to this, that’s, uh, you know, I mean, it’s kind of almost come full circle. You know, I’ve got a son that’s 17. And I remember a few years ago, my wife said, you know, your dad’s going to start a technology company one day. You guys can work with him in the business and then take over the business. And he goes, you know, technology is not really my thing. It’s that dad’s thing. And he said, yeah, I’m going to go build performance cars. And so, I mean, it was almost like, you know, a replay of my teenage years. It’s this is how things are going to play out. You’re like, no, I’m going to go do something else. And so he’s working for a he’s working for a tractor and implement company around his school schedule. He’s a part timer, but he he’s not making much money. And so it’s funny. We were out to eat the other day. When he comes to work for me, I pay him really, really well because I can. You know, he’s my kid. I’m going to pay him well. But we were at lunch the other day, and he sees a sign in the window at the restaurant that says, Cooks $13, dishwashers $15, or bifursa, dishwashers $13, cooks $15 an hour. And he goes, man. He’s like, I’m only making $14. I can come over here and cook and make more. And I said, what are you going to do for a career? He’s like, you know this. I’m going to go build performance vehicles. I said, okay. I said, your buddy’s a dishwasher. I named him. I said, what is – both of you go apply at the hot rod shop down the street. You’ve been doing what you’ve been doing. He’s been washing dishes. I said, who do you think they’re going to take a second look at? A guy with the tractor and implement company on his resume, or the guy that’s been washing dishes. So everything you do up until that point needs to be done with your ultimate goal. You can’t get wrapped up in the, I’ll make a dollar more an hour to flip burgers. You need to focus on what skills do I need to develop? Because they’re going to ask you if you’ve ever taken transmission out. You’re going to go, yeah, I took one out of a… a case ih90 and split the case and inside there’s all these components and i’ve replaced these components inside that transmission put the case back together and bolted it back in a tractor because you don’t get to say that if you’ve been washing dishes and they go okay we don’t have to teach this guy how to turn a wrench where if you’ve been washing dishes maybe maybe we do and so That’s a long-winded way of saying I try to keep him focused on, like, what’s your end goal? And what activities can you do today to support getting you there?
Speaker 0 | 51:42.348
Yeah, that’s what I was hearing in that was that, okay, it may not align directly towards where I’m headed or where I want to get to. But as long as it’s headed that same quadrant or that same direction. It’s much better than something that’s completely 90 degrees, 180 degrees from an inexperience towards where I want to get. For sure. Just like if I want to be an IT, if I want to learn computer engineering, the music major is probably not the best class choice.
Speaker 1 | 52:20.995
Yep. Yeah, I remember meeting a guy when I was working on his F-150. And I said, what do you do? He’s like a database engineer for IBM at the time. It was probably 2000, 2001. And I said, man, that’s kind of a dream job. He’s like, oh, yeah. You know, he had StarTAC, the Motorola
Speaker 0 | 52:47.764
StarTAC. I remember those. They were cool.
Speaker 1 | 52:51.745
I was just glad.
Speaker 0 | 52:53.306
Flip phone.
Speaker 1 | 52:53.786
This guy’s got it made. He’s got the lifted F-150 with the pipes and StarTech. And, you know, he’s maybe a year or two older than me. And so I go, man, how’d you get that job? And he said, well, they recruited me. Really? He said, yeah, I was in my last year of MIS at Texas Tech and management of information systems degree. And he said, yeah, they came and said, we got a job for you as soon as you get that paper. And so I was like, well, that’s what I need to do. So I applied at junior college and I quickly realized this isn’t going to work. Like I’m working full time, supporting myself. So I actually enrolled two different times in junior college and just never could make it work with the work schedule. So. It’d be a lot easier now with online school and everything else. Back then, it wasn’t happening. So that was – I kind of wish I’d had a mentor or somebody in my life that could have said, you know, you could take some of these risks. And if you fail, that’s okay. But you need to stay focused on that goal.
Speaker 0 | 54:19.408
So that really And it’s been mentioned a few times in a couple of the different interviews I’ve done, but a mentor, finding a mentor or somebody that that can talk to and get some get some advice from and isn’t going to tell you you have to do this, but can help you discover which path you go down. But can also provide some experience in things that they did. as they journey through life. I didn’t really have much of a mentor. Actually, you know, I think you mentioned it earlier, the rich dad and the poor dad. When you were talking about that, I was thinking. myself of who I had as mentors in my life and and nobody really appears which is you know where I am in life it’s it’s a little late for a mentor um so now that I’ve talked about that happy point um you know what’s something surprising John tell us tell something about John that we don’t know oh man that’s uh what’s what’s one of your non you
Speaker 1 | 55:31.476
um electrified passions non-electrified you know i um i own 10 barbecue pits smokers uh slash grills 10 of them
Speaker 0 | 55:46.460
10 of them all different types of models all different types of makes or um all different all different i used to compete a little bit um as a as a
Speaker 1 | 55:59.804
as a barbecue pit master. And so now really I’ll just, uh, I cook for a lot of friends and family every once in a while we’ll do what’s called a pop-up or, um, but it’s, it’s getting, you know, there’s so many hoops to get a jump through with food safety and, and to get permits and things like that. It’s getting, getting kind of challenging. Uh, I still do some charity events, but I just, I really enjoy, uh, there’s something therapeutic about making a fire. and using it to cook food.
Speaker 0 | 56:33.566
Something primeval.
Speaker 1 | 56:34.526
There’s something primal about it, and whether you’re at the deer lease and you got a $25 little kettle grill or even just throwing a rack on the fire kit sometimes, there’s just something about it. It’s satisfying.
Speaker 0 | 56:55.558
What? Which is your favorite grill?
Speaker 1 | 56:59.064
I’ve tried to narrow that down. I have to say probably the Weber kettle.
Speaker 0 | 57:06.129
Weber kettle, okay. Is that the one that looks like an egg, or is that a different one?
Speaker 1 | 57:11.494
Yes, it does look similar to an egg. It’s been around since probably the 50s. And I feel like the original one that he built was made out of a buoy. He just cut a buoy in half. And, uh… It turned it into a grill, but it’s simple. It’s kind of an oval, deep bowl with a round egg-shaped top. So yeah, it looks like an upside-down egg. It’s not insulated like you’d think of with a Big Green Egg or a Kamado Smoker or whatever. Okay. But I’ve literally cooked. I can run that thing at 650 degrees to cook chicken wings, and I can run it at 225 degrees to cook.
Speaker 0 | 57:57.748
pulled pork or brisket and it’s it’s versatile it’s just not very roomy okay how many of how many out of the ten how many have you had going all at the same time probably three or four there’s been uh yeah there’s there’s one big event i do around christmas uh and and they they asked for yeah it’s coming up uh
Speaker 1 | 58:21.254
they asked for brisket they asked for ribs uh pulled pork and uh sausage. And so I cook those all kind of differently. And so I typically do ribs in what’s called a pit barrel cooker or ugly drum smoker. I have both, but they hang from hooks directly over the fire. And as the fat drips off into that fire, it creates this phenomenal smoke. And so I cook ribs usually that way. And I’ll cook brisket usually on like an offset smoker because it’s such a big cut that if you cook it direct heat, it’ll take on so much flavor. And some people find it overpowering. So I’ll cook it on just the traditional Texas offset.
Speaker 0 | 59:13.668
Okay. Kind of like the traditional chip smokers.
Speaker 1 | 59:18.890
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you throw logs in. It’s got the firebox on the side. Right. There’s a big tube. That one, they take a lot of work because you kind of got to keep them fed.
Speaker 0 | 59:31.814
That’s the one that you got to run overnight, too.
Speaker 1 | 59:36.375
That’s the one. It’s the most traditional. Texas barbecue, I guess.
Speaker 0 | 59:42.677
So I got to ask for a favor, and that is send me, if you’re willing to, send me your favorite spicy rub. Okay. From New Mexico, everything’s got to be spicy. My wife was giving me crap about that recently. Does everything have chili in it? I’m like. Not everything, not my ice cream.
Speaker 1 | 60:04.531
So there’s one that comes to the top of my head called the Salt Lick, and they’re down, the main location’s in Driftwood, Texas. They’ve got one up in Round Rock. They have one more somewhere. Anyway, Salt Lick, their rub has, I want to say cayenne in it.
Speaker 0 | 60:24.759
Okay.
Speaker 1 | 60:25.600
So that’s one of those that makes a really good rub, but I’ve had… complaints from certain family members that, oh, that’s way too spicy. So it’s one of my favorites. Yeah.
Speaker 0 | 60:38.747
Well, keep eating it. Then it won’t be so bad. Get used to the burn.
Speaker 1 | 60:43.811
Yep. Absolutely.
Speaker 0 | 60:46.793
Oh, man. Well, you know, John, I truly appreciate the topic and the time. It’s been a great conversation. Any parting thoughts you want to leave us with? Any other wisdom you want to throw down?
Speaker 1 | 60:59.774
Man, the wisdom I want to leave, if anyone takes anything away from listening to this podcast, don’t let anyone else tell you what success looks like. Define for yourself what’s going to make you the happiest and what’s going to be the most fulfilling and pursue that. The dollars always seem to make sense of themselves. But one thing you can’t get back is your time. And when you’re spending time. time, whether it’s in a job role or an organization and you’re not happy and fulfilled, you’re just on a treadmill. So get off the treadmill and do something that you enjoy.
Speaker 0 | 61:44.200
Go for a real run.
Speaker 1 | 61:46.681
That’s it. Go for a real run. I’m going to use that one on the next one. Get off the treadmill and go for a real run. Leave the scene.
Speaker 0 | 61:55.064
That’s it. Alright. Thank you very much, John. And as we come to another close of a great Dissect Popular IT Nerd, I invite all of our listeners to comment, rate the podcast on the iTunes store or wherever you’re grabbing your copy of the podcast. Please, we really appreciate it. Let us know how we’re doing. Give us a comment. Tell John what you thought about today’s topic because this is something that we don’t talk about in IT. And it’s definitely something I think we should. Are you in the right place? Are you doing the right thing? And do you enjoy solving those puzzles? Because if you don’t, then I don’t know. I definitely enjoy the puzzles, but, you know, for politics.
