Speaker 0 | 00:09.626

it’s not that we don’t suck. It’s that we just, we suck less than everybody else. That’s why we’re better.

Speaker 1 | 00:18.212

I’m pretty sure, you know, anybody who’s ever dealt with me feels like I’m a hard ass, but, um, the gist of it is I hold people accountable. Uh, um, When people give me an expectation, I hold them to that expectation. It’s not that, you know, I’m tough on people. It’s that I allow people to set expectations and they get upset when I hold them to that expectation.

Speaker 0 | 00:47.395

On October 15th on our call at two o’clock, you said that you were going to deliver a 99.99% SLA uptime. Which means that if you don’t deliver that, that I would be held to this. And you also said that you were going to assign a project manager to me and that that person would have a 24-hour turnaround time. I’ve got two outages and five emails here that went for three days not being answered. How do you explain yourself?

Speaker 1 | 01:11.908

Yeah. I mean, it’s not personal. It’s not like I’m attacking people to say, hey, you know, you in particular, you’re terrible. There are some people who are bad at their jobs.

Speaker 0 | 01:23.214

That deserve to be attacked.

Speaker 1 | 01:26.276

I don’t know if that’s the right way to put it.

Speaker 0 | 01:28.736

No, no, no. We’re talking real. A lot of times, you see, I’m glad that we’re having this conversation already before even really talking about whether we’re going to do a show or not. Maybe this will just turn in. Maybe this will just turn into that show, you know? But that’s the point. We’re talking real, right? A lot of times on LinkedIn and these, I guess the business world platform is everyone’s talking in fake advertising. I don’t know. It’s like, I don’t know.

Speaker 1 | 01:57.826

Everybody’s playing politics in public. Yeah,

Speaker 0 | 02:00.227

let’s be real because then when we talk normal one-on-one, we say, come on, man. Like, you know, it’d be much more entertaining. My life would be a lot better. This social media platform would be a lot better if we just spoke real.

Speaker 1 | 02:13.877

Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 02:14.817

Anyways, so it’s tough on people. Expectations. Um, not that you’re terrible at your job, but maybe you are. Um, it might not be you. We’re leaving that up for, we’re leaving, leaving that up for, uh, so why don’t you just, uh, let’s just do an introduction. Let’s just do an introduction. Now tell me about, you know, who you are, what you do, who are we speaking with? I don’t want to mispronounce any of your names. So I’m just going to let you introduce yourself.

Speaker 1 | 02:44.427

Uh, so my name is Chai Hang. I’m currently the senior director of IT for Chapter Aesthetic Studio. which is a subsidiary of Aspen Dental. I just accepted this position in October. I left a position with a biomedical tech company in the Novi, Michigan area. And I think that this opportunity is just a better fit.

Speaker 0 | 03:13.806

Is that because you can fix teeth that have been kicked in?

Speaker 1 | 03:18.487

Well, so… Aspen Dental works with the dental side of things, but they’re kind of like a conglomerate. So they own multiple business units and those entities operate in different sectors. Like Aspen Dental is the primary service, but they also have a ton of urgent cares. And they also have like an Invisalign practice. And then they also have… this new practice for aesthetics or like in layman’s term, it’s a beauty clinic.

Speaker 0 | 03:58.932

Botox. I’ve been looking to get Botox, by the way. I’m being honest with everyone. Everyone wants to know. I am very truthful. There’s not much that Phil Howard doesn’t hide on dissecting popular IT nerds. For example, I do take steroids. I’m a proponent of that. I am over four. I do. I’m 44 years old. I’m on testosterone replacement therapy. So I can say that I take steroids. Okay. And everyone can have, okay. So totally legal by the way. Um, I’m down with Botox for a couple of reasons, even though I haven’t had it done yet. And I hear that there’s like some side effects, who cares? Um, there’s, I’ve seen the results and it’s actually quite amazing. I mean, it’s not permanent. I wish it was. Maybe I’m looking at your website right now. Maybe I can get skin tight. I should get skin tightening in Halo hybrid. Sounds good. I’m serious. I’m not joking around, but, um, you know,

Speaker 1 | 04:53.728

it’s interesting you say that, you know, the, so the, the aesthetics market is, uh, mostly driven by women. Uh, I was, uh, in a. business meeting not too long ago and they were indicating over 70% of the beauty industry is patronized by women. And they want to expand that market to include more men.

Speaker 0 | 05:15.922

Oh man, I would be perfect for them. You should forward my picture, my LinkedIn profile to them. You’d be like, this guy actually is a proponent for you guys. Look at him. He’s a mess.

Speaker 1 | 05:27.432

We’re always looking for new ways to market the products to men as well. and it’s an interesting topic.

Speaker 0 | 05:34.176

I will dye my beard. I will dye my beard. I will get Botox. I am, you know, you can make me look younger. I’m down.

Speaker 1 | 05:41.498

Sure, sure.

Speaker 0 | 05:43.419

And I’m probably like, you know, I would, I’m manly enough, okay, that I’m okay with everyone making fun of me for it as well. I can totally, I’m completely secure with this.

Speaker 1 | 05:53.782

It means you’re comfortable in your identity.

Speaker 0 | 05:56.382

Yes, that I want to change and make look different. This is supposed to be an IT show, but it’s turned into steroids and let’s see, Botox. This is great. This is awesome. You have a certification. C-I-S-S-P. ITIL. Okay, cool. You’ve already said something really awesome, which is you hold people accountable anyways, which tells me that you’re more than just a dude that hides in a theoretical… now metaphorical server closet that sits in Amazon, will people slide pizzas under the door to you, which they would now do with, I guess we’d have to like grubhub it to you. Okay. Anywho, tell me, certifications, do they matter?

Speaker 1 | 06:46.195

It depends on the industry and it depends on the management team. I like it.

Speaker 0 | 06:52.358

Perfect answer. Wow, you’re getting like an A plus on everything so far. Depends.

Speaker 1 | 06:58.181

so certain industries that are heavily regulated the certification does matter because the certification is your proof point to say this person has the credentials that allow them to be a subject matter expert he knows enough to not be stupid at least on paper right but your certifications don’t mean anything if you don’t have the expertise to back it up because You can get a certification by memorizing sentences and test answers and questions and filling out a form. But you could also ace an exam because you are very familiar with the infrastructure. So for me, I take all certifications with a grain of salt. On the one hand, individuals without the experience to back up their certifications, it’s harder to believe that the certifications have weight behind them. But at the same time. For individuals who end up working for me, I push them to get certifications on a specific knowledge track because that’s the only way they’re going to get experience on something that is not a standard knowledge lane that we work with. For example, if my company does a lot of VMware work and I want an individual to get some experience outside of VMware, like with… with Zen Server or Citrix or even Hyper-V. None of those have any significant impact to what we do, but in the grand scheme of things, it does because it helps us understand architecture better. It helps us understand where our products are weak. It understands what we can do to improve certain areas, right? It’s a lot like martial arts. If you only practice one style of martial arts, you would be very proficient at it. But if you measure that against another martial art, you would be terrible.

Speaker 0 | 08:57.537

Oh, you’re blowing my mind right now. I’m not kidding you. You’re blowing my mind. First of all, jujitsu is the best. Now you can talk about martial arts.

Speaker 1 | 09:10.400

Yeah, so.

Speaker 0 | 09:11.280

I’ll put jujitsu up against anything. I don’t care. And you can throw me in the ring with it too. And then I’ll get the Botox after.

Speaker 1 | 09:18.843

Jujitsu is a strong martial art. I will give it pops.

Speaker 0 | 09:22.896

You don’t want to take on this debate, do you? Okay, next subject. Keep going.

Speaker 1 | 09:29.780

I have my opinions.

Speaker 0 | 09:31.662

Keep going. So it’s like martial arts. It’s like martial arts. You do need to be well-rounded. If we go into the MMA and we can look at it and we could actually break it down that way and we could look at, well, jiu-jitsu used to be better, but now it’s a mix of jiu-jitsu and Muay Thai and conditioning and diet and numerous other things that come into play.

Speaker 1 | 09:50.194

So the long… The long and short of it is, if you’re supposed to be an expert, in a wide variety of topics, you will never get there if you are only an expert in one of those topics, right? So being an IT expert means you have to be a master of everything. So if you only know Citrix, well, Citrix is not everything. Citrix is a huge knowledge area, but that’s not everything. VMware is a huge knowledge area, but it’s not everything. You have to get well-rounded and not just like the… the various technologies that are related, like virtualization technologies, but storage and compute, all those tie in too, because you’re building, like if you’re working in a virtualized environment, you’re building systems for a particular purpose, right? And if that purpose is AI, well, you also have to know about GPUs. Well, if you’re working with AI and GPUs, you also need to understand storage because… you need high performance disks. And if you’re working with a lot of data, sometimes you have to work with large data tables. So you have to get used to like data lakes and data warehousing and all the magic that comes with databases, right?

Speaker 0 | 11:09.816

It’s beautiful. It’s beautiful.

Speaker 1 | 11:11.838

You can’t just say, I want to master this one little area or this cup of water in this ocean of knowledge.

Speaker 0 | 11:19.704

Let me ask you this though. Here’s a tough one. And because this is in, almost diametric like opposition if that’s a word sure um to the show that i recorded just prior to this um because there are let me put it this way if you had to pick one skill one area only only one but you could hire as many people as you want what would that one area be

Speaker 1 | 11:52.484

A technical skill or a general skill?

Speaker 0 | 11:56.126

I have now made you a CTO, CIO, whatever you want to call it. That’s another debate. But you’re the head technology whatever for a $25 billion company. What’s the one skill that you need the most?

Speaker 1 | 12:17.402

So assuming that…

Speaker 0 | 12:20.128

It’s kind of a trick question.

Speaker 1 | 12:21.329

Yeah. Assuming that the technology doesn’t matter, the most important skill that an individual can bring to the table is their critical thinking skills. Most problems are critical thinking challenges. And your critical thinking will lead you to weird solutions that are beautiful, unique, stupid. Quick, fast, expensive, whatever. But if you can’t digest the various pieces of information that’s given to you, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. It doesn’t matter how quick you are. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been with the company for 30 or 40 years. If you don’t know how to digest the information that’s given to you, you will never go anywhere.

Speaker 0 | 13:08.182

You may have just trumped everything that this show has ever been about.

Speaker 1 | 13:14.786

Here’s a great example of critical thinking. So in all of my interview processes with every potential candidate, I like to ask them a simple question.

Speaker 0 | 13:24.808

I would love this. Okay, great. Ask me it. I would love to do this. Can I be like a dummy on this one here? Hopefully not a dummy, but anyways, go.

Speaker 1 | 13:32.895

So I like to ask them a simple question. Well, I guess it’s technically three questions that are tied, but they’re based off the same concept. The question I would ask is, I want to buy a computer. What would you get me? And as soon as I ask that question, you can tell that people have assumptions, that people have these preferences, and they will tell you what their preferences and assumptions are. The people who are inexperienced will tell you right off the bat exactly what they want. Well, if you want a computer, oh, man, you should get this Ryzen Epic 5500 with 64 cores and two terabytes of RAM with an NVMe hard drive.

Speaker 0 | 14:17.282

That’s so wrong.

Speaker 1 | 14:19.283

Why? I mean, you don’t even know what I’m going to use this computer for.

Speaker 0 | 14:22.990

Exactly.

Speaker 1 | 14:23.670

You don’t even know what my budget is, right? So why did you just recommend all those things? Or the opposite is true. The individual is so focused on like processes that they don’t understand the question. Like, okay, well, did it get approval? Like, let’s assume that there is approval. Okay. What do you want? Okay. Well, no, I can answer some of your questions, but you have to tell me what you would get me. I got it. Okay, well, let’s play this through. What do you want to do with this computer? Those are the questions you want to ask.

Speaker 0 | 14:55.185

Yeah, I would be asking, what’s your job? What do you do every day?

Speaker 1 | 14:58.331

What’s your job title?

Speaker 0 | 14:59.213

Yeah, what do you do?

Speaker 1 | 15:02.321

If you have somebody that’s willing to answer unasked questions and make all these assumptions, it’s highly likely that that’s the same behavior you will see in a real world situation.

Speaker 0 | 15:15.848

I am absolutely. This is great.

Speaker 1 | 15:19.770

They’ll take assumptions into play and then. Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 15:22.752

You’d be a doctor. What if you went into the doctor’s office and he just made an assumption? He just started making assumptions. What if he didn’t ask questions? What if he didn’t do his needs assessment?

Speaker 1 | 15:36.072

Yeah, I mean, back in the 1800s, you would go to the doctor. The doctor would look at you and say, yeah, you got this disease. Well, how would you know? You didn’t do any tests. You didn’t check anything.

Speaker 0 | 15:46.240

Let me run blood work. Let me ask you, how do you feel? How do you feel this? What do you do this? Like you said, what do you do? What if it’s just a sales guy? All he does is check email. I really don’t need the computer to do email and throw out some quotes. I need to do a PowerPoint presentation.

Speaker 1 | 15:59.541

And then, you know, on top of the what kind of computer would you get me question, the question that pisses off most of my candidates is, okay, I’ve purchased this computer that you told me you were going to get me. Now I’m having this problem.

Speaker 0 | 16:12.750

What’s the problem? What’s the problem?

Speaker 1 | 16:18.034

So this is a trick question. It’s not about the problem itself. It’s about whether or not you understand the troubleshooting process. It’s whether or not you know how to collect information. And it’s whether or not you know how to communicate with an individual. And, you know, I’m not trying to be difficult on purpose when I’m having these conversations with candidates. But like, OK, well, I just told you I have a problem with this computer. And the first thing you told me to do is click my mouse. How do you even know that my mouse works? How do you even know I have a mouse? How do you even know that I have a monitor? Like you didn’t you don’t know anything about what we just talked about. You’re making all these extra assumptions.

Speaker 0 | 16:52.595

So you’re the guy that wrote all those scripts. That when I call into 1-800-GO-POUND-SAND, option two, option three, option five, option six, option seven, is the computer on? Do you see the guy with the penguin on his desk? Do you see the one with the penguin on his desk? Transfer me to them.

Speaker 1 | 17:17.858

Well, I totally understand that sentiment from a… from an end user standpoint, you know, you’re, you’re real frustrated. You’re calling a company like Comcast and trying to get technical support because your internet’s down for whatever reason.

Speaker 0 | 17:31.987

Yeah. I reset my router.

Speaker 1 | 17:33.448

For like the last 30 years has been notorious for terrible customer service. Right. So they have a script because not all of their engineers, or at least their engineers, triage, well, they’re triage people. Not all their triage people.

Speaker 0 | 17:48.538

We call them butts in the seat.

Speaker 1 | 17:49.719

Technical.

Speaker 0 | 17:50.419

We call them butts in the seat in my world.

Speaker 1 | 17:53.105

And they follow a script because A, they don’t understand what you have at home And B, we don’t pay them enough

Speaker 0 | 17:59.410

They pay 70 bucks an hour What do you expect? We need to pay the project managers more money too Because when they clock out at 5 o’clock And they’re dealing with a multi Possibly potentially billion dollar company You don’t pay that project manager enough or the project manager’s boss, or all of them anyways. We’re going to have this guy, Art Garrow, by the way, who you may want to connect with. We’re going to have him on the show. He used to be the director of operations for Windstream. I’m sure you’ve run into them before in life or whatever, but he talks about, I mean, we’re going to talk about this very thing. This is fascinating, critical thinking. Who would have thought, you know, like back when you’re in college and they tell you, you know. Tell them you’re good at critical thinking on your interview. Critical thinking on your resume. Critical thinker.

Speaker 1 | 18:49.457

The best thing about putting critical thinking on your resume is people can easily call you out on it. You don’t have to ask a sinister question to even root it out. I could ask a simple question like, what makes the color blue, blue?

Speaker 0 | 19:08.829

Here’s how I would answer all your questions. This is great because I would like fire it back here. Like, okay, well, first before I will answer your question, but before I ask that question, why are you asking me that question?

Speaker 1 | 19:22.598

The gist of it is I want to understand your thinking process. I want to know that if you and I have an exchange, that we are close enough into the thinking process that later down the line, you know exactly what I want. before I say it. Like, yes, there are a lot of situations where you will have an assumption, but the problem is making sure that your assumption is correct. Now, if we were working together for a period of time and you got to understanding my line of thinking and eventually you understood why I make certain assumptions and now you’re able to successfully make the same assumptions, we can work together very quickly and smoothly. But if you’re making assumptions and they’re way off base from what my assumptions are, it means we have different level of understanding of the topic at hand. And when there’s a disparity between that, it means there’s a lot more communication that has to happen to be able to get on the same page. If I’m reading from the Quran and you’re reading from the Bible, And like 30% of it is the same, but the 70% isn’t. We’re going to be arguing about that 70% until the end of our days, right? But if we’re reading the dictionary, the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the 1999 edition, if we’re reading from that same dictionary, everything we say is exactly the same to each other. So if you say, I want to do page 35, I understand what page 35 is. I have the same playbook.

Speaker 0 | 20:54.957

I… have a business that you and I can start. And I’m pretty sure we’re going to be like millionaires. If you ever want to do a side business, it’s called relationship coaching.

Speaker 1 | 21:06.192

Ah, yes.

Speaker 0 | 21:09.333

Maybe we can make an app for it, you know, and like the app will be the same. So they’re both working from the same app, right? And the app will be like a relationship coaching app. Someone’s going to rob this. I know this right now because this sounds amazing. We have a relationship app. because we’ve got two people that are different. They’re not communicating properly. This is why there’s issues. So we’re going to use each the same app, and the app is going to guide them together, if that’s possible. You never know. Or it’s going to guide them apart. At the end of it, it’s going to be like, you guys are totally incompatible. Just forget about it.

Speaker 1 | 21:44.593

It’s a nitpicker, but human relationships is a nightmare to navigate.

Speaker 0 | 21:51.178

Thank you.

Speaker 1 | 21:52.720

The metrics that one person may have are going to differ from individual to individual and from even the time of day sometimes. And they can vary very widely. So whatever you and I agree to as our performance metrics for our relationship right now may be agreed upon, but tomorrow it may be different because our needs have changed, right?

Speaker 0 | 22:17.178

Wow. We need to set the right expectations.

Speaker 1 | 22:20.741

Yeah. I took this course. in college, I forget what the title was, but it was basically, um, the, the importance of, uh, being on the same page in a relationship and the various stages of those relationships. Right. So like, uh, if, if you want to have a more intimate relationship with somebody, not just like physically intimate or emotionally intimate, like all levels of intimate, you want to get to know someone better. It’s a, it’s a. It is a formula that includes the number of times you guys communicate versus the depth of the conversation and the emotional bonding behind some of the experiences that you share.

Speaker 0 | 23:05.190

This is amazing.

Speaker 1 | 23:07.612

We’re effectively, when we go into a work environment, we’re trying to do that, but at high speed. And, you know, sometimes emotions get in the way and sometimes frustrations come out. So. interpersonal communication. That’s what I’m looking for. So I highly recommend anybody who’s interested in like improving relationships, study up on interpersonal communication and learn what it means to build a relationship because a lot of what we do in the workplace is navigating relationships and the politics behind them.

Speaker 0 | 23:43.431

And just so you know, that was the answer I was looking for. You failed my interview. I’m just letting you know. You said critical thinking. You said critical thinking, but I was thinking in my head, if you had to pick one thing, it would be leadership slash around that interpersonal communication. That to me is the important thing.

Speaker 1 | 24:03.250

See, there was a study done. I don’t want to misattribute this study to the wrong university. There was a study done about leadership, and they determined that. Over 30% of successful leaders don’t actually have any formal training in leadership training. So technically speaking, you can pick someone randomly from the street, give them a set of scenarios, and they would perform just as effectively as somebody who’s actually informally trained as a leader.

Speaker 0 | 24:34.884

Okay, so what do you mean? So what’s your point?

Speaker 1 | 24:38.266

My point is…

Speaker 0 | 24:39.307

Your point is critical thinking trumps it, Phil. Yeah,

Speaker 1 | 24:43.110

critical thinking trumps leadership skills. Because leadership is… Leadership is a funny term, right? A lot of people ascribe different personality traits to what a good leader is. But at the end of the day… A leader is effectively somebody who just takes responsibility. And if you have an individual who has a good sense of responsibility, that’s great. They can do an equivalent job to somebody who has like 30 years of training. But what will set them apart is the one leader who is better at critical thinking than the other. Because otherwise, you’re relying on luck or you’re relying on privilege of whatever time that’s available.

Speaker 0 | 25:24.847

Boom. Fried. roasted. Roasted. I mean, seriously. But what about interpersonal abilities? Not everyone has that. I’m just saying, what if leadership, we’ve crossed that out and we just put interpersonal relationship builder, the number one best relationship builder, bridging the gaps, bringing operations and sales and IT and the communication from the doctor. top-down, all-in-one. Does it matter?

Speaker 1 | 25:58.468

Well, I can argue that and there are plenty of people who can relate to this. You can have the nicest guy in the room be your leader, but that same person, the qualities that make them a nice guy, are also the same qualities that make them a terrible leader.

Speaker 0 | 26:15.233

That is so true.

Speaker 1 | 26:17.273

I have worked with plenty of VPs who were the nicest guy that you ever met. You would go home. You would go to the movies. You would… go to their beach houses with them. But you would never want to work with them face-to-face because they’re terrible at their job.

Speaker 0 | 26:30.900

Well, you wouldn’t want to invest your money in them. Let’s just put it that way. Sure. Roasted again.

Speaker 1 | 26:35.623

I work with VPs who have squandered millions of dollars on engineering projects and have delayed delivery on projects for years on end, right? And the reason why is because they don’t have the experience and they don’t have the critical thinking capabilities. So would I prefer a charismatic interpersonal communicator over a critical thinker? I don’t think so. I think that you would have to measure the person as a whole. And if I’m equating their capabilities down to one skill set, I would choose critical thinker over interpersonal.

Speaker 0 | 27:09.620

You’re making me feel so much better about myself. It’s amazing. I’m serious because I’m not the interpersonal relationship guy, although maybe some people say I am. I am. I do, I am able to know, I do believe I’m a good critical thinker because I’m, I am able to answer all the things that my wife wants to do. You know what I mean? You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 | 27:34.087

Say like, uh, there aren’t pitfalls to being, uh, absorbed in the whole, uh, one skill set, right?

Speaker 0 | 27:39.768

Cause like, here’s what happens. Here’s what happens. You get, you be, you grow a very successful company or like, well, what’s the video game company? Why can’t I think Warcraft guys? What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I think about top of my head? Yeah. Blizzard. Yeah. Is it any surprise that they’re successful and don’t have interpersonal skills and the company’s failing due to sexual harassment and everything? There’s your example. Great critical thinkers didn’t care too much about interpersonal. Yeah,

Speaker 1 | 28:07.360

but you’re extrapolating beyond the one skill set though because you’re saying, oh, yeah, well.

Speaker 0 | 28:15.424

I’m just like, it’s a simple example. I’m not like going on.

Speaker 1 | 28:18.946

But if we’re measuring against like. Like the male toxicity, sure. If you’re measuring that based off of their success based off male toxicity, sure, they fail on that aspect. But if you’re talking about Blizzard being a very successful company, yes, I argue that they are a pretty successful company.

Speaker 0 | 28:37.459

That’s what I’m saying. That’s exactly what I’m saying. I agree with you 100%. I agree with you 100%. All of them. I agree with you. I’m blown away. You’re breaking down. You’re deconstructing this show or the idea that, you know, IT leadership’s the most important thing, but really it’s no, a critical thinking as an IT leadership and how you apply that to a digital transformation and make the company successful. Yeah. Is that true? I mean, am I understanding that correctly? Because there’s a lot of companies out there that are doing very, very well, but they’re screwed up on, you know, from the standpoint of, like you just said, but they’re successful.

Speaker 1 | 29:20.332

Yeah, well, I have a lot of concerns about how some companies get successful, but that’s a different story.

Speaker 0 | 29:26.375

That sounds like another show.

Speaker 1 | 29:29.917

In general, if we distill everything down to just the one skill set, yes, the critical thinking aspect plays a significant role. There are very few companies out there that their sole reason for being successful is based off of their interpersonal communications. You would have to be a… Um… a sales-based company, and that’s all you did was generate sales. If your job was only to generate a sale, you don’t need critical thinking for that. You need charisma.

Speaker 0 | 30:01.607

Tony Robbins incorporated something like that. Right. He’s got charisma. He’s got the sales skills.

Speaker 1 | 30:08.452

If you’re a tech company, you need a combination of critical thinking plus charisma because, let’s be honest, most tech people… They sacrifice that interpersonal skill set for their technical skill sets. And that’s why all these stereotypes exist about the IT guys in a dark room, you know, pulling away at their goatee, right? I’ll be honest with you. I am not a traditional IT person. I came up through the ranks in IT by accident, and I only succeeded because I’m good at what I do. I started out, my traditional education was pre-med. And I jumped around.

Speaker 0 | 30:50.807

So was I.

Speaker 1 | 30:52.388

I tried business. I tried physics. I tried a lot of different areas in college before I settled on IT. And the only reason I settled on IT was because I could sleep through all my classes.

Speaker 0 | 31:08.702

We’re more alike than you can imagine.

Speaker 1 | 31:11.584

Do I think that IT requires a lot of skill? Yes, but that’s not the reason why. companies succeed alone.

Speaker 0 | 31:21.314

But that’s a common theme. That’s a common theme. I’ve interviewed tons of IT guys. It’s a very common theme. I wasn’t in IT, never had a computer. I was actually a dropout from here, but I got a job at the help desk and I don’t know, I was good at talking with people and solving problems or whatever. And there you go. Now I’m in the leadership position. I still don’t know how to program or do any of this.

Speaker 1 | 31:44.241

I mean, if you’re talking about like how to be successful, in IT leadership, yeah, the charisma plays a significant role in how far you go up in your career. But you can’t sacrifice the critical thinking component.

Speaker 0 | 31:58.084

No, no, they have it. That’s got to be the number one thing because they have it and they can form solutions to problems at the end of the day. Yeah.

Speaker 1 | 32:05.626

I mean, I can tell you over the last 20 years, I have discovered that people move up in their career for four reasons. Number one, They’re terrible at their job. Number two, they’re great at their job. Number three, they know somebody. And number four, somebody mistakes that person for being good at their job.

Speaker 0 | 32:31.752

What about they made the company money?

Speaker 1 | 32:34.413

That rarely ever works out for anybody.

Speaker 0 | 32:36.594

Why?

Speaker 1 | 32:38.274

So here’s a true story.

Speaker 0 | 32:39.595

Because they get jealous and they get fired or something like that?

Speaker 1 | 32:42.456

It’s not about jealousy. It’s about… Power? The… the executive’s value. So if, if you are not a, an individual who, um, professes what the company values, then you’re never going to move up in your career at that company. So if the company values like this bro style relationship, if you’re not a bro, you’re not going to go anywhere in that management team. If you are, if you are of like this, uh, this other, like, Let’s work hard. Let’s play hard. Let’s just, it doesn’t matter about the culture. Let’s just focus on the work. If you are that style of person and that’s the style of company that, you know, that enforces that behavior, you’ll probably go pretty far. But if, you know, if you’re like a laid back manager and you’re just like, no, things will get done when they get done. I’m not in any rush. You’re not going to move up that ladder. There has to be a match between your personality and the corporate culture. If there’s no match, you probably won’t be moving up that ladder.

Speaker 0 | 33:45.274

Boom, saying it how it is. Let’s tell the truth. We don’t care about, it’s just the truth. That’s the straight up truth.

Speaker 1 | 33:54.416

Let’s look at it this way. I am a minority individual. And I have had plenty of minority struggles climbing up my career ladder. I can honestly tell you that I’ve had it so many different ways as to discrimination. I’ve had… White people discriminate against me. I’ve had black people discriminate against me. I’ve even had other Asian people discriminate against me because I was Asian. It’s very weird because when it comes to business, people don’t measure you just on your skills alone. They measure you based off of how well they think you’ll get along with the team, not how much money you’re going to make them, not how reliable you are, not how good you are at your job. It’s all about whether or not they will like you.

Speaker 0 | 34:43.198

So true. So true, man. Tell them the truth.

Speaker 1 | 34:48.810

I, so…

Speaker 0 | 34:49.272

In other words, if you work for like an old… white, good old boys network company. You better be a young, soon-to-be, maybe someday, good old boy. I’ve seen that. That’s why I got out of the corporate world. I got out of the corporate world. I hated it. I hated bureaucracy and that stuff. That’s why, and I saw it firsthand. I’ve seen some of the worst. We all have. And I don’t know why people, it’s not like this. When you see it break out on the news, like breaking, like, you know, this company, like, really? Like, come on. Like, we’ve seen that for years. Like, you should have seen that. They should have done a reality show on telecom when I was in the telecom world. That was a joke. Just go to Vegas right now. Go to Las Vegas right now to the expo. Walk around, take a camera, hidden camera, go after hours, see everything that goes on, get all the whispering conversations, get everything. You’ll be blown away.

Speaker 1 | 35:49.335

Yeah. The key to success is not just about yourself, right? It’s about how you as an individual fit the team. And it doesn’t matter how much experience you have. It doesn’t matter how smart you are. It doesn’t matter how good your critical thinking skills are. Like, for example, I worked for this company and I saved them over a million dollars in operating costs. I didn’t get a bonus. I didn’t get a pay raise. I didn’t even get a job title bump. Like. I saved them a million dollars. I have evidence to prove that. And they did nothing for me, right?

Speaker 0 | 36:24.771

Good job.

Speaker 1 | 36:25.472

I worked for another company. Yeah, I worked for another company where I gave them a perpetual cost-saving solution. Like the longer the company ran, the more money they would save, right? Again, same thing. No promotion, no pay raise, no nothing. Because they put you into this little box and they say, this is all we expect out of you. And if they have no career aspirations for you, you get no career aspirations. As an IT individual, you have to drive your own career success. You have to build these into your job description. You have to go reaching for these opportunities yourself, which is why you see a lot of people jumping jobs all the time. It’s because no one cares about IT people.

Speaker 0 | 37:10.091

It’s because they’re human.

Speaker 1 | 37:12.353

They don’t believe IT people are human.

Speaker 0 | 37:14.895

Well, Let me ask you this. Do you know who John Danaher is? Yeah. Okay. So I was sitting down with a friend last night, and my jiu-jitsu coach basically was trained next to him for years, right? He’s always laughing because everything Danaher says is like, he can just say something. It can be the most simplest thing, but everyone just like their jaw drops because the words he uses are like, you know, if you put your hand here, it’s catastrophic, you know? And this is the way he describes it, but he basically, I was listening to his metaphor the other night. He’s like, humans are like really good survival beings. They’re really good at, you know. And I don’t know why I thought of that, but something along the lines of what you just said. I just had my brain just dumped. But, you know, I had something, you know, basically you say they jump from job to job, but yeah, they have a way of, I don’t know. morphing and surviving, I guess.

Speaker 1 | 38:16.789

Yeah, I mean, you kind of have to to keep with the changing times. I mean, one thing that IT people understand very well is change happens all the time. And if they want to succeed or if they want to make rent or if they want to make more money than the next guy, they have to change. There are some people who have this false belief that job safety or job security is the be-all end-all of the…

Speaker 0 | 38:51.133

No such thing.

Speaker 1 | 38:51.974

And there is no such thing as job security, which is why it perplexes me why so many IT people love to hold on to knowledge. In the long run, yeah, you screw the company over a little bit when you leave because you take that tribal knowledge with you. But in the long run, your blip of time with them doesn’t matter to them because they will move on from you and they will continue to…

Speaker 0 | 39:13.992

And you hear it, the common corporate phrase, everyone’s replaceable.

Speaker 1 | 39:18.275

Right. So instead of living this life where you’re constantly putting yourself into a pigeonhole, why not go the other way? Why not be the best at your job and have evidence with you wherever you go? Like, oh, well, you know, the company before I showed up didn’t do any documentation. I’m going to own that. I’m going to do all the documentation in the world. So that when I leave, the company won’t even know that I was there. And that gives me value because I can go to the next company and say, when I left, the company was still running because I left it in such a good condition. Don’t you want that in your company? that’s awesome man it should be like a recruiting show too how do you recruit guys um i love that go i would not say that i am a typical it person i have very nope desperate views from what a traditional it person would feel um about the whole it industry like a lot of people may feel like oh you know uh just Put your nose to the grind. It is what it is. Just accept things how they are and we’ll get through this. And then eventually we won’t even be here so we can move on to the next thing. No, I think that’s a miserable way to live. I think it is.

Speaker 0 | 40:36.645

It’s a horrible existence.

Speaker 1 | 40:39.246

I think that, yeah, you know, you were brought in to do a thing for a company. Why not strive to do it the best that the company has ever seen? The company may not appreciate you, but. The self-fulfillment, the idea that you’re growing and then you have these new skills you can take to the next company. I think that that’s worthwhile because like, yeah, sure. You know, they only let me play in their server environment. So I learned, you know, Windows Server 2008 for like six months and then nothing else. OK, well, in that time, you could have also learned some good ITLL practices. You could have learned how to set up web servers, file servers, Active Directory. You could have asked questions about how projects work to get an understanding of that. You could have learned about processes and procedures from all your neighboring cohorts. IT can’t do their job unless they understand how people do their job. So learn that and then take that with you to the next job.

Speaker 0 | 41:34.072

How do you not?

Speaker 1 | 41:35.093

This IT guy that we looked at, he doesn’t just know Word. He knows how to build macros. He knows how to do VBA.

Speaker 0 | 41:44.440

So that sounds like an answer to how to not hate life at work. No, I’m serious. But how to not hate life at work, but how about how to not hate life at work and still have free time to have fun outside of work? Like, how do you answer that second part?

Speaker 1 | 42:03.426

So I think that…

Speaker 0 | 42:06.328

AKA work-life balance.

Speaker 1 | 42:08.969

There used to be this idea that your job is your second life and the friends, the family that you make along the way at the job is what keeps you going. And that’s not true.

Speaker 0 | 42:21.908

Your job is your life.

Speaker 1 | 42:24.931

I think that way back in the day, like the 50s and 60s, that was true when companies cared about loyalty. But companies don’t care about loyalty now. They don’t try to retain staff. They try to beat other companies to getting the cheapest, best talent. But they’re not giving you training programs. educating you.

Speaker 0 | 42:48.864

What about Netflix? What about their strategy where they hired like, you know, let’s just multiply the salary by four and hire the best people.

Speaker 1 | 42:57.710

So that I have some insight on. So that was the whole Netflix situation is unique because that actually came about because of the infighting between the big four in the Silicon Valley area. So Facebook employees would leave and they would go to Microsoft and they would leave Microsoft and they would go to Google and they would leave Google and they would go to Apple. And every time they left, they made a significant pay bump, right? And Netflix just came in and said, you know what? We’re not going to play this game. We’re just going to give them a lot of money and they’re either going to stay or they’re not going to stay and we’re not going to fight for it. So you like it or you don’t.

Speaker 0 | 43:38.367

Well, they couldn’t like it. They all worked like. way more. I mean, like, how could you like it other than the money, I guess? Greed.

Speaker 1 | 43:46.193

So like, yeah, Netflix pays a lot, but they also, they have high expectations for their employees. And I think that that’s a good thing. The whole, like all the other companies, you know, I, I was at the Google facility. I saw four of their facilities when I worked for a previous company.

Speaker 0 | 44:04.729

Are you talking data centers or like?

Speaker 1 | 44:06.791

Yeah. they would invite me to their, their offices and they can give me tours because, you know, they wanted me to buy some of their solutions. And every time I went out there, I saw a different building. Yeah. You know, the culture looks nice, but it’s miserable.

Speaker 0 | 44:22.120

Yeah. It’s no,

Speaker 1 | 44:22.900

look at some of these people.

Speaker 0 | 44:23.881

Let me ask the question this way.

Speaker 1 | 44:25.562

What?

Speaker 0 | 44:27.083

Yeah. Yeah. Other than being like a, yeah, exactly. Like your drone. Yeah. Robot, whatever. What, what is your, your. End game. What’s your reason for living?

Speaker 1 | 44:41.245

So I work hard at what I do for a couple of reasons. Number one, it’s a self-fulfilling thing. I like knowing that I’m doing the best that I can and nobody can take that away from me. The second thing is… I make decent money. My friends tell me I make chai money. And when you make chai money, you can do things that most people can’t. So do I go on vacation regularly? Sure. Do

Speaker 0 | 45:09.733

I-What’s regularly?

Speaker 1 | 45:10.493

Enjoy extreme sports? Well, pre-pandemic, I used to go on a trip every three months.

Speaker 0 | 45:15.777

What’s extreme sports?

Speaker 1 | 45:18.339

Skydiving, scuba diving. Love it. Rock climbing. I mean, I’m way out of shape for a lot of those things now, but- In my heyday, I was constantly spending money. And that’s the joy of life. It’s enjoying these things, getting experience. Money, so everybody knows the old adage, money doesn’t buy happiness. Well, they’re wrong. Money definitely makes happiness an easier way.

Speaker 0 | 45:44.172

Anyone that’s watched Boiler Room knows that’s not true, okay? Look at the smile on my face.

Speaker 1 | 45:53.152

You can’t say the guy that’s making a billion dollars a year isn’t happy. The guy that’s making a billion dollars is definitely very happy. He gets to travel.

Speaker 0 | 46:03.040

There’s plenty of billionaires, though, that kill themselves. There’s plenty of guys that kill themselves. There’s plenty of millionaires that kill themselves every day. The highest suicide rate is middle-aged white men in their 40s, and they blow their brains out every day.

Speaker 1 | 46:17.833

But most of those people are like, they’re, they…

Speaker 0 | 46:22.504

They put themselves in those situations because they feel like they’re jailed by their wife or something like that. And they feel stuck and like they never, whatever. You know, there’s a lot. You’d have to go read the rational mail and really like kind of deconstruct that.

Speaker 1 | 46:36.928

I’m not saying I’m a psychology expert and I’m not saying I know the ins and outs of why people convince me.

Speaker 0 | 46:43.290

Money matters.

Speaker 1 | 46:44.710

But I can tell you money matters to the people who don’t have money. Money. matters.

Speaker 0 | 46:49.972

I think someday though.

Speaker 1 | 46:51.552

Money matters.

Speaker 0 | 46:53.013

But to a certain degree also it doesn’t. There will be a day where you know like if everyone had a million dollars in the world and everyone had billions in the world no one had to worry about money you know what I mean? We’d look at this thing and be like we killed for this. We’ll kill for it.

Speaker 1 | 47:07.797

There was a film in the 80s and it was in theaters for like three years. It was called The Gods Must Be Crazy. It was a South African film.

Speaker 0 | 47:17.159

Yeah with the coke bottle.

Speaker 1 | 47:19.100

Yeah. So in this movie, and this mirrors real life to some degree. In this movie, this tribe had no money, so they had no crime, right? So they were living life blissfully unaware of what money was. So they hunted for their food. They lived close to their family. Their currency was social interaction. And as soon as this concept of wealth or… the concept of having something that other people don’t dropped in their lap, you know, violence ensued. Sure. It’s a movie, but it, it mirrors real world. Like that’s exactly what happened when the Westerners invaded, uh, the, the Americas. I mean, the, the natives, they were happy.

Speaker 0 | 48:08.021

Just read Trail of Tears, read Trail of Tears. No, it’s a great book. You read Trail of Tears and I mean, it really. From a good historical standpoint, yeah, as you start trading things and stuff and people get, yeah, it’s crazy.

Speaker 1 | 48:20.662

And I understand that I’m a hypocrite when I say things like this because, yes, capitalism is terrible to some degree. I’m not saying I’m a communist and I’m not saying I’m a pure capitalist, but capitalism has a lot to be desired, particularly when it comes to the overall index of people health and people happiness, right? Capitalism survives by taking advantage of other people’s belongings or people’s capabilities. And communism survives by distributing ownership of wealth. So to some degree, at every extreme, no one’s going to be happy. But somewhere in the middle, you have people who can make significantly more than they need, who are willing to share with people who can’t. And people are happy with it. And I think that way back in the good old days where money was not as a critical forefront feature in people’s daily lives, I think that it was a simpler time. Yeah, they didn’t have running water or bathrooms and stuff like that. But they also didn’t have people bankrupting the entire world market because a billionaire wanted to make a penny more per stock share.

Speaker 0 | 49:46.172

I definitely have my personal beliefs on this and I’m not making any political comments on the

Speaker 1 | 49:55.472

This is why I’m a hypocrite when it comes to this. I want people to have more, but I also want me to have just a little bit more.

Speaker 0 | 50:08.697

As they say, you give the son of Adam a valley of gold, he will ask for another.

Speaker 1 | 50:13.519

Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 50:15.000

You are up to nine sticky notes right now. I just want to let you know, you’re up to nine yellow sticky notes of me taking bullet points on here. I loved that you said… did you say 30% of leaders have no leadership? You know, they’re just some guy off the street. We’re fine, you know, just a responsible person.

Speaker 1 | 50:32.067

Yeah, I’d have to find a study, but like 30% of random people do a better job than people who are former traders.

Speaker 0 | 50:39.732

You have an about section on LinkedIn that’s just, I mean, I don’t even need to read the skills, information security, maybe. We’ll see. I know. Um… All you need to have is master of multiple hats, captor of orphaned responsibilities, AKA the hand dryer in the bathroom. You got a ticket into IT to fix that. Let’s see, data-driven decision maker. That’s probably like one of the most important things. The question is, is where do we get the data and how did they enter it? Mitigator of risks. Yes, until something doesn’t get mitigated. And enforcer of compliance. That I like, enforcer of compliance. don’t you know the Dewey decimal system remember what was that Conan the librarian remember that okay most people I don’t know if you have to have like enough kind of like whatever that pop culture to like from the you know 90s to understand this stuff how old are you by the way am I allowed to answer that I already talked about Botox so I’ve been pretty open here okay so I think I’m

Speaker 1 | 51:55.284

I’m approaching 40.

Speaker 0 | 51:57.085

Okay, so you didn’t live through the age. So you grew up at least close to the internet. Yeah,

Speaker 1 | 52:04.788

I experienced a time before the internet was large. I was around when dial-up was the primary mode of internet access. And I bought my first computer when I was 14 with cash that I made washing dishes for my uncle. Boom.

Speaker 0 | 52:22.964

In a restaurant, I’m assuming.

Speaker 1 | 52:24.904

Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 52:25.965

My dishwasher, my first job was dishwasher. My first job was dishwasher.

Speaker 1 | 52:30.986

I mean, I made my way up, right? I went from dishwasher to busboy and eventually busboy to waiter. Yeah. But we’re talking about like through my teenage years working at a variety of things. I mean, I was a part of the whole… pyramid scheme way back in the day for direct marketing by accident. I didn’t realize it was pyramid scheme, but I got in and out. I learned my lesson.

Speaker 0 | 52:56.586

What company of this, what pyramid scheme?

Speaker 1 | 53:01.187

So in the early 2000s and still today, like very similar to vector marketing.

Speaker 0 | 53:07.929

That’s not a pyramid scheme. That’s, I love my knives. Anyways, go ahead.

Speaker 1 | 53:14.011

You know, so if, if, my life was a little bit different. I would be a salesperson right now and I would be making so much money. Uh,

Speaker 0 | 53:23.015

but I can make that happen for you. I, so the,

Speaker 1 | 53:27.658

the reason why I’m not a salesperson is because, uh, when I worked for this, uh, pyramid scheme, uh, selling, uh, uh, commissioned items and random commissioned items.

Speaker 0 | 53:38.824

Are they still around? Are they, you’re, you’re being very shady on this one. So they must still be in business.

Speaker 1 | 53:44.247

I have no idea. Yeah. They were a huge company. It was a Canadian-based company.

Speaker 0 | 53:49.590

Do you know why pyramid schemes are terrible? Pyramid schemes are terrible because they sell the opportunity, not the product. They sell the opportunity, which is a total scam. But anyways, go ahead.

Speaker 1 | 54:02.257

So I was a salesperson for this company and we did direct sales. We were basically solicitors. We would go to businesses. And we would sell our products to the people at the counters or whoever.

Speaker 0 | 54:16.747

How dare you say solicitor? How dare you? Solicitor? Me? Soliciting? You look around like, I’m sorry, sir, there’s no soliciting. Me? No, I’m just trying to find the most professional way to talk with whoever the business owner is.

Speaker 1 | 54:29.380

And I remember we had these broken toys in the warehouse that they wanted to get rid of. Because… If the owner of the company couldn’t sell it, they had to eat the cost. So they made us sell these broken toys.

Speaker 0 | 54:43.600

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 | 54:44.281

And I remember, this is my low point.

Speaker 0 | 54:47.864

That’s terrible.

Speaker 1 | 54:49.165

I remember taking these broken toys and going out to the street and selling them to kids.

Speaker 0 | 54:55.370

You scumbag. No.

Speaker 1 | 54:59.220

I made my money. And when I got back to the warehouse, I turned in my duffel bag and I said, I’m done. This is ridiculous. This is not the life for me. If being a good salesman is being able to sell to people who don’t need it, I don’t want to be that.

Speaker 0 | 55:14.352

No, you’re not. That is absolutely not what a salesperson is. And shame on them. And like, seriously, I hope they, whoever that guy is, wherever he is, I hope he experiences the most miserable life. I hope he experiences the most miserable existence ever. You are a salesperson. Zig Ziglar read this thing a long time ago, like, I’m proud to be a salesman because I, more than anybody else, built this country. Because the airplane, like, you know, wouldn’t get to the market. The farmer’s beans wouldn’t get to the market. Like, salespeople built America, right? Nothing happens until someone makes a sale. That doesn’t mean you have to be a scam artist. Those aren’t salespeople. They’re not sales professionals, right? Real sales professionals help you solve a problem. problem. And that is exactly what you do. You’re just an IT salesperson. You just don’t know it. You’re a critical thinker. That’s what a salesperson is. A doctor’s a salesperson. All these people are. They have to ask the right questions. They have to discover what the issue is, the real issue is. And then they have to critical think and come up with a solution to that problem. And then they have to sell that problem for the betterment of all of society in order to save the world and keep the wheels of economy turning.

Speaker 1 | 56:21.387

Oh, that’s a very… That’s a very kind way to put it. But we also know that there are salespeople.

Speaker 0 | 56:29.648

There are con artists.

Speaker 1 | 56:31.449

Yeah. Like the whole opioid epidemic, for example. I mean, you had tons of salespeople there who weren’t living by that mantra. I mean, some people knew better. I mean,

Speaker 0 | 56:41.417

again, that’s human.

Speaker 1 | 56:42.818

That’s based off a true story with the whole.

Speaker 0 | 56:47.001

It’s going back to the human condition, though. That’s like. 80% of mankind is driven by their desires, right? Sure. So, yeah, 80% of the salespeople out there are going to be like scheming, cheating, whatever it is to try and fulfill their desires. But the top 5%, the top 20, top 5% of the people, the cream rises to the top. It’s the same with good IT directors. It’s the same with doctors. It’s the same with every, you know, I mean, it’s like just he’s a good person. He’s not a good person. It’s the same thing.

Speaker 1 | 57:18.956

I would like to hope that the right people who deserve the jobs are getting promoted.

Speaker 0 | 57:26.199

Well, you have a very good way of interviewing people, right? You have a good way of interviewing people and you should do the same thing when you interview a vendor.

Speaker 1 | 57:39.064

Yeah, well, I mean, my vendor validation process is much more complex.

Speaker 0 | 57:44.526

Let’s see if they pick up the phone.

Speaker 1 | 57:46.167

I can hold them. Yeah,

Speaker 0 | 57:46.987

one second. Well, they don’t answer the phone,

Speaker 1 | 57:49.249

so. I mean, so of all the vendors that I’ve used over the last even 15 years, I would say that every time I moved companies, I always went back to this one vendor. And my current position is the only exception to the rule because the vendor was based out of Michigan. And the reason why I kept going back to them was because anytime I needed to get a hold of the sales guy, I could call him on the phone. And. This guy was great. Anytime I had a problem with a product, if I wasn’t getting support on the product, I would call this guy. He would get someone on the horn and we would talk it out. And even if he didn’t own the product, he would go out of his way to make sure that I had somebody technical that I could talk to to resolve my problems. Even when I couldn’t even get the salespeople of the product itself. Like if I had a problem with a Cisco product and I couldn’t get a Cisco sales guy on the phone, I would talk to this other guy. And he would get the right people on the phone call.

Speaker 0 | 58:47.610

Absolutely.

Speaker 1 | 58:47.930

He wasn’t a CDW sales guy. He wasn’t one of those micro age sales guy. He wasn’t even one of those Ingram micro sales guy.

Speaker 0 | 58:54.377

He’s just a good guy. The smart guy that had new people that could get people on the back end. He, he knew all the people on the back end. He knew the secret story. He knew that every company sucks. He knew that how to navigate the system of crap. he knew that you were calling into a bunch of butts in the seat to get paid an hourly wage and he got paid more than that so he helped you get around it to the vp and he cared about you as a person and he wanted to make sure that he was giving you the best possible support at the best possible price in the fastest way possible because he knows that if he can do that he’s better than everyone else yeah

Speaker 1 | 59:27.382

and all that drills down to is good customer service right making sure that we are open and honest how often that’s such a that’s how often do people say that

Speaker 0 | 59:37.568

We’re about customer service. That’s all we’re about. I know a company that if anyone just searches a little bit and like says, like they’ve literally copyrighted the term, I believe, amazing service. I’ll let you guys, I’ll let you guys decide whether they provide amazing service or not. But. They’ve literally, they went and like trademarked the term amazing service. And we’re all about customer service.

Speaker 1 | 60:05.479

How did they get away with that? They did. When Kim Kardashian tried to trademark kimono.

Speaker 0 | 60:10.301

Hey, it’s done. So anyways, if you had one final message to deliver to people out there listening, what would it be?

Speaker 1 | 60:21.745

Oh,

Speaker 0 | 60:22.486

no, let me ask you this. I’m going to change that. I’m sorry. Scratch that. We already have amazing things that you’ve said. I want one. Here’s my final question. What is your end game?

Speaker 1 | 60:32.851

So my end game is really to make sure that by the time I’m ready to stop working, I have enough security to be able to do whatever I want. And that could be continuing IT. That could be one of the side projects I have going on. Doesn’t really matter to me. I could… Honestly, I could quit tomorrow and start teaching scuba diving courses, and I would be fine with that if it wasn’t for the fact that I love money.

Speaker 0 | 61:08.881

Scuba diving is fun, man. I love scuba diving. I’m certified. I was certified in sixth grade. I know some kids from college. No, I had college kids. We were going to college. I had four friends in college. It was two guys and two girls. The two guys were dating the girls or something, whatever it was. This is college, right? And they were getting a major, going to college like everybody else to go work in the world. And our seniors are like, nah, screw this. They’re all master divers. What’s the highest you can get? It’s like master diver or something. You’ve just so many hours of diving. They did this a ton. They just quit and went to the Bahamas and made a scuba diving club. That’s it. They’re like, nah, screw it. We don’t need a college education. This is what we’re doing. Bye.

Speaker 1 | 62:01.135

There’s some allure to that, the whole being aloof style of living that if the industry pissed me off enough, yes, I might consider dropping everything and just doing something mundane for the rest of my life. At the end of it, I want to be happy on my way out the door. I don’t want to be miserable on my way out.

Speaker 0 | 62:20.991

Yeah, The truth to my COVID, to my season three of dissecting popular IT news starting up and why there was a big gap was my mom. My mom passed away in January and I was helping take care of her while she had like, you know, like towards the end of her life. But I moved to the ocean and basically surfed for like eight months, eight to ten months, like every day at three o’clock. It was like, what do you want to do? Let’s take the kids to the beach. Let’s go surfing, surfing with my son every day. Not every day, but a lot. a lot and like it got old. Like I don’t see how people do it. Like the four hour work week is a thing. It’s totally doable. I’ve seen tons of people do it. But if there’s not something really meaningful and you don’t have a reason, like a goal in place for what you’re doing, I don’t think it would really work. Like if you were just doing it for like pleasure and fun pastime, like I think it would get old real quick and your life would like deteriorate. Kind of like when people retire and then they just die and their health goes downhill real quick. Any who, um, it has been, it’s been an absolute pleasure having you in the show. This is, this is one of the best shows I’ve ever done. Um, and I love that it started out with, um, you know, holding people accountable. That’s, uh, it’s outstanding. I worked for in retail for years and that’s all it was, was about accountability and being miserable. So, uh, thank you very much, sir.

Speaker 1 | 63:42.509

Yeah, Phil, thank you very much for the invite. I appreciate the time.