Jolie00:01.042
All right, hey everyone, welcome to Revenue Mind Podcast, or revenue, I'm gonna do that again. Okay, welcome to Revenue Mind Podcast, where revenue leaders talk all about things, mental health. I'm Julie, your host, and a big welcome to our guest, Anthony Cannata, welcome Anthony. So I know you're lovingly called AK, where'd that come from?
Anthony Kennada00:15.758
Thank you so much for having me. Good question. Actually, no one in my life has ever called me AK. I think until I took a sales job at a tech company. Um, and then, so I was never AK till probably about 21 years old. Um, and then at box first job, first real job out of college, it, it kind of stuck. But what was weird is that it kind of followed me. I never referred, I never really referred myself as AK, but it followed me from job to job. And so it kind of became this persona, I guess more than anything else, but, um, Everyone in my personal life calls me Anthony, but we'll take AK too.
Jolie00:55.186
That's really funny. So before we dive into the questions, I know we have a lot to unpack today, could you tell Slip -Up about yourself?
Anthony Kennada01:05.07
Yeah, so I am on the personal side, husband, father, husband of 10 years, we just celebrate 10 year wedding anniversary. I've got two little kids at home. My daughter Sienna is five. My son, Wynn is three. I love being a dad and kind of watching them kind of grow up. Professionally, I sort of like fell into sass. I don't know if anyone dreamed like their whole lives dream of becoming SaaS marketers. But, um, I fell in through sort of a failed entrepreneurship journey after college. Um, and, uh, again, started my career at box, uh, moved to a few other companies, ultimately, uh, found marketing at gain site where I was the first kind of, um, uh, marketer in pre revenue, uh, you know, very small company grew that to about a hundred million of ARR before leaving, um, about seven years. Uh, really fell in love with the idea of like, you know, authentic human marketing. Um, so I'm really excited about our conversation today. Um, you know, in a, in a world where a lot of the marketing tactics were outbound and transactional, like I found that relational marketing actually helped drive revenue in a very sustainable and efficient way. Um, and so it brought that with me to, um, front and hop in before starting my own company, uh, all about. the this idea of building trusted relationships with your audience and turning that into into revenue at audience plus. So about two years in and really excited about kind of what we're building.
Jolie02:39.506
I love that. That's awesome. And as a founder and CEO, is it just, I'm going to skip that part. I'm going to go to my scripted questions. I'm like, let me go off the cuff and I can't do it. Okay. Oh, thank you. Okay. So now onto the, thank you, Anthony. So now onto the questions. So you mentioned experiencing significant health scares and personal challenges that have deeply affected you. Could you share how these experiences have shaped your personal professional perspective?
Anthony Kennada02:48.174
Nothing is off the off is on off limits. So Yeah. Uh, the last four years in particular, definitely the last one year have been the hardest, uh, in my personal life ever. Uh, it started about four years ago where I had my own health scare, um, where, you know, I could spend 60 minutes talking about this very topic, but basically my heart went out of rhythm, um, into a arrhythmia called, uh, a fib atrial fibrillation. Uh, which is not common for people in their early, early thirties at the time. Um, which really was, um, you know, for someone that's been generally healthy their whole lives, uh, having here, you have like a heart issue is, is pretty, uh, uh, pretty traumatic. So very long story there. Um, in the last year, um, my daughter, who's like first child, like, you know, daddy's girl, I'm a girl dad, like self -identify as a girl that, um, unfortunately suffered like three, I think three seizures, um, which went, um, which we couldn't really find the, the source of, um, and we think we have now we think, and you know, knock on wood, it's been about a year now since she's had one. Um, so we're hoping she's outgrown it, but for any parents who have had children that are either epileptic or have ever really had seizures, there's probably, probably nothing more like visually traumatic than to see your child. See, I'm sure that obviously there's much scarier diseases and everything, but seeing your child sees is a very like visually traumatic experience. Um, and then within this last year, um, my daughter, my wife was pregnant with our, our second daughter. So our third child, uh, it was a kind of a difficult pregnancy and, um, sort of climaxed in a moment where we actually lost my daughter two weeks before she was supposed to be born. And so not. early pregnancy, fully formed human, like ready to be born. Um, and we almost lost my wife in the process. Uh, and this was back in November. So all this was sort of the background for also starting a company, um, you know, venture scale business, uh, doing exceptionally hard things of trying to, you know, um, lead a company through building a. new software category, a new movement, generating pipeline, like all of the things we have to do going from zero to one in a product process, which in a world of just like everything being fine is hard enough. And so having to battle my own insecurity for my own anxiety or on my heart, fear of what was happening with my daughter, uncertainty on the future of my second daughter and. trauma and uncertainty with my wife's health. It's a lot. It's a lot to really kind of be, be carrying that, that emotional and mental load and then coming to work in a way, almost as a distraction, which is not healthy. Um, but you know, having to get, you know, you got investors that are betting on you. You have customers that need you to deliver on what you said you were going to do and to kind of carry that weight. You have a team that's looking to you for inspiration and for guidance. having to carry that weight has been like extremely, uh, difficult and challenging. And so I'd say like in the former, in the heart kind of incident, the mental health component, or there's some learnings from that. I'm probably still processing a little bit of the grief and how do you really kind of move forward? Um, you know, through grief and be a leader. Um, but maybe the learnings are one in the same in the sense that like, you know, There is so much that we don't control. And you know, you think about just how much in our bodies, how, how much is happening to keep us alive that we don't have a sort of cognitive, like man, it like hands on way to, um, to control. So your heart rhythms, you know, your breathing, like all of these types of things. And so when you, when you're in marketing or any sort of revenue role, entrepreneur, like your focus on controlling as much as you possibly can. And then these moments happen and you're like, wow, we really don't control anything, do we? Um, and so if anything, what I've learned, which has not been an overnight process by any stretch of the imagination is, um, the beauty and surrender and surrendering our need to control everything. Um, and having some trust and faith that, you know, you're going to, you're going to be okay. And there's things that, um, you know, on the other end of this pain and the suffering that is going to build that perseverance within you. And so you have to hang onto that hope to kind of get through some of those dark moments. Um, but that's been, I think certainly the learning from the personal health struggle, uh, and likely where we're all land, uh, after processing everything that we just went through only a few months ago.
Jolie08:24.85
Wow, thank you so much. I remember when I prep, I almost teared up just in hearing that. I am so sorry for everything you went through, but it's really, really brave of you to, oh, sorry, I mean, cut you off. It's really brave of you to share your story. And it's rare and refreshing to see men just in general openly discuss mental health. What inspired you to talk today and break the silence and share your story?
Anthony Kennada08:29.998
Thanks. I appreciate that. Um, a couple of things. Uh, one is, you know, we're, we're big believers in media and podcasting and everything. And I've, I've, I do several of these and, you know, as I do these conversations, almost every talk track is kind of the same, which is like, honestly, part of the gig, right? We're trying to evangelize a new movement, a new way of marketing. And so quote unquote, sticking to the script and like getting that story told in front of as many audiences is like a part of the, part of the strategy. Um, but, uh, you know, underneath it all is this reality that I'm living in and, uh, I don't have an avenue to tell that story. I also, um, I think all of us maybe have, have been on the other end of like toxic vulnerability where people are like, Hey, I'm going to use this hurt and this pain as like a marketing moment. And I was really encouraged by just what you were building in the sense of, you know, that's not what this is. This is me like, trying to build followers and engage engagement on LinkedIn post around my suffering. Um, but maybe to the, to your point in the question, maybe I know I'm not alone. I know there's other people that are going through worse things than what I'm going through. There's people in my, you know, community and extended network that are going through much worse things than what we went through. Um, I understand that and you know, I don't think grief or pain or suffering is like weighted. Um, You know, so, um, I think it's important for people to hear that, like, you know, behind every like vanity post on LinkedIn, everything's okay. Uh, we're crushing it, blah, blah, blah. Our real human beings that are, as my friend Mike Mannheimer says, doing the best they can with the information they have and trying to, um, you know, to, to make an impact in whatever they're trying to do at work while also holding it together and trying to invest in what matters. more than work, which is ourselves or families and all of that. So anyway, that was sort of for me, it's like, like, yes, I want own media to be the future of marketing and for everyone to talk about it. But I'd much rather as part of that, be honest and authentic and hopefully help people wherever they are in their journey with grief, with suffering, with medical kind of, you know, challenges to know that. that they're not alone.
Jolie11:18.61
That's amazing. That's actually, that's why I started this podcast. You hit the nail on the head. I wanted to give our community an avenue to know that everyone wasn't alone because we all, we all like actually I deleted LinkedIn and LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook because I was doom scrolling and I was just, it's everyone's perfect moment.
Anthony Kennada11:38.35
Yeah, totally.
Jolie11:42.834
And it's ridiculous. And LinkedIn is just, it can be the app of professionals. So that's, thank you for sharing that.
Anthony Kennada11:49.294
Yeah, it's funny. You one observation I have you look on LinkedIn. And, you know, I think there's a lot of like, insecurity being a founder, especially a first time founder, where you're like, you see all these other companies, and there's posting like things, and it looks like they're everyone's killing it right now. And then like, I have conversations with companies more successful than those companies. And their CMOs or whoever are like, nothing is working, everything is hard, and I'm worried about my job. And you're like, what is, is LinkedIn having its Instagram moment in that way where we're all pretending that pipeline is just flowing, like deals are coming in, like it's all good. Um, the reality is it's, I don't think it is right now. I think things, you know, there's a lot of ideas on how we can get better. Um, but that whole like, um, how'd you phrase that? But just like the, the veneer.
Jolie12:23.122
Yeah.
Anthony Kennada12:44.75
built on creating this perception that everything's great on our Instagram lives. I think that's making its way into the workplace a little bit.
Jolie12:52.69
Yeah, I definitely think so. And just want to pivot a little bit. So journey of an executive and founder comes with very unique pressures and that kind of ties into LinkedIn with everyone's perfect moment. How have your experiences with health and your family crises influenced your leadership and decision making in high stress environments?
Anthony Kennada13:06.83
Yeah. Um... think it's still in sort of under construction. It's, you know, we're still still working on it. We all say a couple of things one, and I don't mean this to sound patronizing to any amazing revenue operators, marketers, sales professionals listening to this. But before I started the company, I was like, I worked my butt off as a CMO, like it can't be harder than this. Like, there's no way. And then, You know, you hear all the tropes around the CEO saying, oh, it's the loneliest job in the world. And you're like, okay, how lonely can it be? Like it's pretty lonely as a CMO. I don't get invited to the happy hours that my teams are hosting. Like they don't want me there. Turns out it's actually quite hard and quite lonely. Again, even in a season where everything was fine. Because again, it's not a great market out there. And so in it, you've got to like, you know, you're, you're burning cash every, every month. So every dollar you're investing, you know, is a dollar closer to the death of the company, right? Um, your building products that as a non -technical founder, I don't know how to build. Like I need a partner in an engineering kind of leader to actually help me kind of deliver the value. Customers are taking a chance on you when you're that early, which means a lot of disappointment, a lot of conversations you have to like navigate through to say, Hey, We can get you the thing you want. You give it to them. It's broken and they're mad. You got to fix it. And so it's like really a lot of, um, heightened pressure that you end up tying a bit to your, I don't think it's healthy, but you end up in your worst moments, tying your success to your identity. And so where with the CMO, it's like, Oh, this is Nick's company, or this is like point to the founders company here. You're like, if this fails, like this is on, on me, on my reputation, you know, Anthony is a great CMO, but not. not a CEO, not a founder. And so you're chasing that ghost a little bit. So I think that in and of itself is pretty tough. Add in some of this complexity. And again, you ask yourself some of these existential questions. Like, what am I doing? Like in addition to this being very hard and our family going through a lot, I took like 60, 70 % pay cut to start the company. So there's financial pressure on the family. Um, and you know, you're working weekends, like this weekend, uh, we're doing like an early birthday for my, my son and daughter. And I'm like, great. I also have to finish my keynote deck for a conference that we're hosting in 10 days. So I'm like, all right, well wake up at five and I'll work on it and I'll be present with the kids. And then when they go to bed, I'll keep working on it. And you're like, okay, how present can I be as a human being? Like, when I'm sandwiching in this amazing, beautiful life moment in between this like short -term deliverable that I and only I can actually build and do. That's the hard part. How does that influence leadership? That's a long way to get to your question. I just don't know yet, I think. I think I am balancing the stress of like having a healthy relationship with work as a founder versus setting boundaries as an operator. because anyone that tells you if you're an early stage company, you know, your first couple of years and, um, in operation and you can shut off your brain and just go have a, have a weekend. It's like a, it's like a disease. It's like a drug and being a founder, you can't, you can't do that. You want to, it's good that you can and you try and you work for it, but you can't, I can't ask that of all my employees. Um, like they're just not as, you know, incentivized, um, as I am. as the person, you know, as the guy who started the company. So, so I think I'm balancing that sort of relationship between work and personal, um, no, having heightened appreciation for how important my family is and, and seeing my children growing up, investing in them, being a father, being a husband. Um, And also setting a high bar for excellence in delivery and meeting our obligations to our shareholders and our customers and ourselves. So maybe the takeaway is there's no perfect answer here. And if we did this interview maybe in six months, I'll have an enlightened kind of application of it. But. But you need to sort of, I think, explore this interaction of the type of leader you want to be, the type of company you want to build, the type of culture you want to sort of operationalize at your company that creates space for those who are grieving, those who are suffering, those who are struggling, knowing that it will happen. It happened to me in this first two years or whatever. But I think the hard part of life is that's going to happen to all of us. And so we need to be mindful of that as we're crafting culture. And I think maybe the takeaway is this experience has sort of softened my heart around that and will help us figure out ways to scale it going forward.
Jolie18:47.41
That's amazing. Actually, when I got like for my job a couple months ago, I realized that my entire identity was wrapped up in... what I was doing and then I realized, wait a second, I also have a killer shot, a basketball shot, not gunshot, but I can't shoot for, never shot a gun, but basketball shot, I also sing, I also have a friend, daughter, sister, and you just realize like I'm more than this, I, yeah, it's like, it's a wake up call.
Anthony Kennada18:57.838
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. I think there's this, there's this, I really hope that what we're experiencing as part of this, maybe awakening around mental health and all of this in the workplace, more vulnerability, more transparency. I really hope we attack this like work identity problem that exists because our, our culture, our media, we have really. created this moment where this understanding that we are our job title, right? Or we are, if I don't reach a certain career milestone by a certain age or have a certain amount of money in the bank or a certain amount of status that I have failed in my sort of self -actualization path. I really hope we attack that. And my, one of the things that the way we do that is not to sort of demonize work and say, oh, work is bad. that is not who I am. So I'm not going to, to, um, uh, invest in finding a great job or like, you know, building my career or whatever. That's not the answer either. Um, I think there where I hope we land is sort of being able to put our, our identity in some type of higher calling, whatever that is for, for you, whether it's your relationships, whether there's a faith tradition that you ascribe to, whether it's a community that you're a part of. putting your faith in something that is a bit more fulfilling and then seeing work as sort of a responsibility in kind of playing your part in that higher calling, a way to contribute to it. And there's many things that are part of that, right? It's not just your day job. Work is important, it plays a role. in the sort of actualization of our purpose, but it can't be our purpose. I think that's where the danger is. So I know there's a lot of like, you know, gray area in that terminology, but, but my sense is like thinking about sort of putting work in its rightful place in the hierarchy of my life. That's ultimately, I think the, the healthy boundaries that we need to create or I hope we end up.
Jolie21:29.938
Definitely. I hope we're on our way, and I think you sharing your story is just one step toward that, which is amazing. So, reflecting on the profound impact that challenges that you opened up about on your mental health, what were some of the coping mechanisms or support systems that have helped you to rebuild and move forward?
Anthony Kennada21:40.43
Hope so. Yeah, um, probably different for the different chapters of chapter one was my own health struggle and chapter two, um, you know, um, was our loss of our, in our family. I think one commonality, you know, we, we have a faith tradition that, that we believe in. And so connecting to, you know, our higher power prayer, um, you know, these types of things help in my belief, add to sort of this. um, surrender thing that says I am not in control. And what we believe in, you know, is that there is someone who is in control of this and this, this pain has a purpose. Um, that has been helpful, especially literally tying like the giving up of control. Like anxiety is effectively like the shadow side of control in a way, right? You're like, I need to control the outcome of the future and I'm afraid if I don't do it, then this like, intrusive thought, you know, something else will happen. And even if it's not rooted in truth or reality. And so I think anchoring in something, um, something greater has been the, um, the one of the biggest contributors. Second is really the community. I mean, I, I'm, I'm sort of, I'm an only child. I'm, you know, divorced home I grew up in. So I was a kid that played by himself and like imagined, you know, dream, dream dreams, you know, that sort of thing. Um, I'm like totally okay being like a lone ranger type of a thing. Um, which is, uh, thankfully I met my wife who is also somewhat in that way. And so we're kind of like totally cool being hermits and like not going out or like anything, probably a bad thing. Um, and, and one thing we found is that in our greatest moment of need, our community really stepped up. So we saw both folks that we, that are a close kind of circle of friends. really show up for us in ways that we did not expect. And that shone a light, shined a light on this idea that like, I think we're, we're a communal species where, you know, we're meant to live, not isolated, but we're meant to live in community. And so seeing, having people check in on you, having people like, and you know, we would feel so awkward about this if, if, if we're any other circumstance, like drop off food or, or be on a tech start a text chain, like those types of things, like kind of overwhelmed us in a good way and made it feel like we weren't alone in going through what we were going through. Um, so I would say in my life, it was sort of faith and community that really, um, helped, uh, and continues to help us kind of process and get through, um, you know, whatever get through means, I don't know what that means, but, um, but. but to kind of go forward every day.
Jolie24:56.21
That's amazing. Yeah, what resonated with me there, so I have friends in program and what you're talking about relinquishing to the higher power. So one of my friends was in program and or she's still in recovery, but did the 12 steps and and her higher power was connection. And the power of connection really drove it home for her and the power of community. Then she she was in.
Anthony Kennada25:10.702
Yeah. Hmm. Wow.
Jolie25:26.066
to the 1990s or virtually because it was over COVID and and just it really saved her. She probably would be dead. Not, I mean it's not funny but she probably she she probably would would have done something to the point where she would have she would have either not wanted to live or done something that put her in that kind of position. So that's I think we're linguist in control.
Anthony Kennada25:29.742
Oh wow. Yeah. Wow. No. Wow.
Jolie25:53.426
Either if it's addiction or if it's life, it's really hard. But if you do it, things sometimes fall into place, depending on the day.
Anthony Kennada26:06.19
Yeah. And it's probably worth the listener knowing like it's very hard and I fail at it every day. Um, I am someone who identifies as being a highly anxious person. And so this is my like cross to bear in this life is being my default mode is anxious and needing to be intentional about giving up control. And a lot of that warfare happens in your brain. It's all like this intrusive thought. Like I was driving yesterday, had a really good like, you know, day felt pretty good. My wife sent me this like Instagram about this like 34 year old that like was totally healthy. And then they discovered something and they died like a month later. And I'm and I'm like, my day is ruined. My whole day is ruined, literally, because now I'm like, something's wrong with me. What's I feel healthy, like what I haven't been the doctor in a little bit like, and my start spinning down down that path.
Jolie26:52.978
No.
Anthony Kennada27:04.014
Um, and I can't tell you that I had a smooth recovery from it. It was maybe one of my weaker moments yesterday. Um, but I was on my way to a speaking event. So I'm like, I had to pull it together and be like, okay, like not thinking about that, compartmentalizing that anxiety. I'll process and deal with that later. Right now I'm going to focus on, on what I have now. And these are some tools I've learned in therapy and in other places. Um, but giving up control is for those that are anxious.
Jolie27:13.618
How?
Anthony Kennada27:32.302
probably the hardest thing you'll have to do in your life.
Jolie27:35.186
Yes, I completely agree. And the unknown for people with anxiety is, what do I call it? Like the unknown is the bane for anxious people. Like the bane of existence for anxious people. It's just, it's horrible. Cause you want to control literally everything in your life and you don't know what's coming next. It's like, it's a funny, a silly example is like when someone doesn't know if they're getting proposed to.
Anthony Kennada27:48.174
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, agreed. Yeah. Yeah.
Jolie28:04.786
and that anxiety of not knowing if it's happening. Well, yeah, that whole thing is just, ooh, agita. But no good.
Anthony Kennada28:08.526
Will I get married? Is this the right person? Yeah. Yeah, it's hard. It is so hard. And I'm, you know, obviously I, I, again, in my sort of therapy journey, what I'm learning, what I have learned, I guess, is a lot of that being formed by our lived experience from, um, of course, if you, you know, how deep you subscribe to it, to it, but a lot of it is, um, our experiences in our childhood that we had very little control over in and of itself that have formed us in our adulthood now. And these things sometimes being pretty dormant, um, for years. And then all of a sudden you're met with an experience and everything is sort of unpacked from, from, from that lived experience. Um, the, uh, other thing I've, I've realized too, is anxiety being fairly symptomatic. That's something I never had an experience with in the sense that like, now I wear this Apple watch mainly because I'm terrified about my heart and a little hypervigilant with my heart rate. But there were a couple of years after my experience with, with the medical trauma, my resting heart rate was 10 to 15 beats higher than it is today. And I'm not saying I'm like the model, like health and wellness expert right now, by any means, it just naturally over time, as I've processed a lot of the, the, the trauma specifically from that experience, my body reacted and is sort of like levels, you know, getting back to sort of a, a better place. So this idea of like the body keeps the score and a very symptomatic type of anxiety, that's very real too. Um, so don't feel like it's your fault either that you're, you know, got these intrusive thoughts that you're sort of obsessing over the future or these outcomes. Like this is, this is stuff that very much happened in most cases without your, um, direct input stuff that happened to you. Um, likely that have contributed to that. At least that's my understanding of, of, of the psychology here and very true of my experience for sure.
Jolie30:16.626
Yeah, I really resonate with that. And you mentioned something about putting a game face on.
Anthony Kennada30:23.566
Yeah.
Jolie30:25.202
really interested in diving into that. So how did you put on a game face, showing up to work with everything, like your medical experience and then your family, how did you do it? Because I don't know if I could.
Anthony Kennada30:36.27
Yeah. Yeah. On the medical trauma, a lot of that was, again, I was an operator was during the pandemic for the most part. It was like December, 2019 when, when that happened and it's happened again twice since. Um, and so in that world, it was easier to kind of hide a little bit, hide the, the real you, you know, and hide behind the zoom screen and the Slack commute channels and find a way to kind of get through. Plus we just had as an industry at so much. of our own professional trauma during those two years that like, you know, it was, it was one thing on a longer list of things that we were all kind of wrestling with layoffs and, uh, figuring out how to work remotely, all these sorts of things. Um, the recent experience here with, with the loss that we experienced while I was an entrepreneur was, um, pretty, pretty difficult. So part of it, I think was, you know, this, this wasn't. This was something we kind of were living every day. Like we like every day, the quote to my wife was every day you're still pregnant is a miracle. Uh, and we lived in that unknown for about two to three months, um, towards the tail end of the pregnancy. And so, you know, my wife was in the hospital for about over a month, a month and a half probably. And I would be the primary parent at home, you know, taking the, waking the kids up, getting them dressed, feeding breakfast, feeding lunch, take her to school. Thankfully we had some grandparents help after I gave up. Basically I'm like, I can't do this alone. I think mom's so hard. I cannot do it alone. Um, so eventually got some more support, but work in that season was a bit more of a escapism a little bit where I can, um, you know, be dealing with stuff at, at, at home, but then like go to work and try my best to put the game face on and just almost like pretended to it's not really happening. And then you go back home and of course it is, um, It hit sort of an acute moment where in November, there was literally a stretch of like three or four days where we made a very hard decision about parting ways with my co -founder, announcing it to the company on like a Wednesday, announcing on that same day that we were going to re -architect the entire platform. So rewrite every line of code of what we've built so far with the product, announcing that this new kind of person that I was trusting to take over, was going to take the reins of engineering product and design kind of going forward. Uh, meanwhile I was fundraising, uh, during this time that was on a Wednesday on a Thursday, my daughter, you know, passed away. My wife was saved. Basically we go home on Saturday on Sunday, that person who I invested in to, um, to take over the reins quit without any, like not two weeks notice, not anything like immediately. walked out the front door. And so I'm like now personally and professionally broken on Sunday. And that's a good work on Monday morning. There was no grief, grieving period. There's no bereavement. There was no like I've got to, you know, I'm going to take two weeks and process and come back because at this point we hadn't raised any additional capital. So we were on a path to running out of money. And I had no engineering leader and frustrated engineers and a product that to be rebuilt. Um, and so I, I literally thought I was pulling it together by my own strength. I, Monday morning, 8am, I opened up zoom and I just lost it. I just start balling once the boxes started getting populated because they knew, I knew they knew what I was going through and had gone through. But once I saw their faces, I just like broke any sort of, um, mask or, or game face that I could possibly put forward as a human, a human being. So that was, I think the moment that I was like, well, there's no way to lead with a game face from at this point. There's no hiding. All I can do is go forward. And thankfully, a few weeks later, we had Christmas and New Year's. And so I did take a little bit of time off to grieve or whatever that means. But the game face, I think, can work when... as an operator, I think, and if you want to, you don't have to, but if you wanted to, especially in a remote remote work setting, I think when when this when you're literally the person that your team is looking to, and there's no one else, and it's all on the line. I guess I guess my breaking on that zoom call was evidence that there was no way it was going to work this time around.
Jolie35:29.906
And that's really brave of you. That actually reminds me, a good friend of mine loves remote work because their coworkers can only see 1 % of their anxiety versus another 99%. But sometimes it's about being human. So that's really brave that you were able to be so forthcoming with your coworkers.
Anthony Kennada35:43.406
Yeah. I mean, what, what, what they tell you about grief, which I never understood or expected. It's like, I wasn't, I didn't get on that call planning to cry. Like I just literally, it came, it hit you out of nowhere. Uh, and I still experienced that today where there are days that I'm like, totally okay. Grateful that my wife's alive and here and all of that, but still really sad about what happened. But then there's other times where I can be like totally happy in a normal situation. I'll hear.
Jolie36:06.482
Yeah, of course not.
Anthony Kennada36:25.838
you know, her name, Mike, my daughter's name or whatever the case is. And you're just like, like crushed. And that's, that was my experience. What happened on that call? Like I didn't go in being like, I'm going to set the tone. I'm going to show them vulnerability. I'm going to whatever, this is a teaching moment for leadership. No, I just like, it came out, it came out. Um, so yeah, I think so. I hope so. I hope so.
Jolie36:45.778
But you ended up teaching them something, even though you didn't need to. Yeah, and given your openness, since a lot of people know about what you're going through, what changes or initiatives would you like to see in the workplace to support mental health and make it easier for everyone like you did to show up and be their authentic selves?
Anthony Kennada37:14.606
Yeah. I mean, I'm encouraged. I mean, since I've started in this SAS game about 15 years ago to see like a lot of, you know, resources pouring in to companies, um, I think about like the modern healths of the world or the gym passes. And, you know, I think a lot of employers are taking, you know, the idea of creating pathways and resources for folks to seek help when they need it. Um, you know, they're taking that seriously and that that's being invested in and it's almost, you know, it feels like almost like a, like the bar at this point for, for how employers can help support their team. So I won't tackle that problem because I think that problem is being tackled. Um, I, I, I, I, I'm just thinking about people that are coming to my mind right now who are household names in our industry, who I've just happened to build an industry, a relationship with over the years who are just fundamentally broken right now. And, I don't know what to do with that. I don't know. What do you, what, what change can we instrument to like protect our teammates from the human experience and you know, all of that, all of kind of what happens there. So I, I don't have, um, a silver bullet, but you know, one of the things that I would hope is that we can create cultures that are aware of this. uh, the idea that, you know, there's, there's seasons of life that are really great and awesome. And there's seasons of life that are difficult and that especially if you're scaling a team with multiple people, there's the probabilities are someone at some point is going through something really hard at your company. And so there's probably something around awareness. There's probably something around culture in the sense that like, so are we creating a space where. someone, you know, and maybe for this audience that that's carrying a pipeline target or carrying kind of a number on their back can like raise their hand and say, I, I cannot go to work right now. And that might be okay. And again, how do you balance that as you got a number to hit, you got a quota to meet and that person's really important. I don't know. Like these aren't questions that are really easy necessarily, but creating a space where we can have dialogue around those questions. Um, You know, and then maybe a part of it is sharing your story. Like I'm really encouraged by this podcast because I think we need to hear more stories that are very real that break through the LinkedIn veneer and creates the sense of like, you know, the cheesy thing is like, it's okay not to be okay. Like that's like a meme at this point, but like it's very real to not be okay. Like it's, it's real. It's real. And
Jolie40:02.642
Yes, but it's so true. Yeah, it's so true.
Anthony Kennada40:09.262
you know, we've got to we got to put a paycheck on the table and we've got to, you know, provide like, like if we could all go and retire and not worry about money, then great, maybe we'll do maybe maybe we'll all do just like passion projects and 501 c three work and all of that. But, you know, we've got to contribute. And so this is a balance that is a is a tension point for every human being that that is of the working age and working. And so how do we as employers just create awareness and, you know, some empathy and grace around the human kind of struggle? I think that that's really where the dialogue or the brainstorm should probably begin.
Jolie40:54.034
Yeah, I completely agree and thank you so much for sharing. Actually, something happened to me at a former company, so my uncle, my mom's brother passed away and my dad was also getting a surgery for a medical condition and I was just, my stress was like, you know, to be there for my family and everything. So.
Anthony Kennada41:17.806
Yeah.
Jolie41:24.722
I didn't ask for help. I didn't ask for help from my teammates. And I think a lot of us don't want to admit that we need support. And that was to my detriment. I completely agree. That needs to be a space where it's okay to be like, hey, I'm not okay. I need you to step in because I can't do this right now.
Anthony Kennada41:26.926
Mmm. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny or not funny, but I wonder if there's this tie into the control thing, right? Where it's like, I can, I can figure this out, which is probably my downfall is like, I don't need help. I can figure this out. Only child self -starter, like I'll get through this too. Um, but then you reach the end of the rope at some point where you're like, I've got my, I am so like, you know, out of any emotional bandwidth to.
Jolie41:59.154
Oh, totally. Yeah.
Anthony Kennada42:20.974
figure out the basic things, let alone carrying this target or running that sales call effectively or hosting that QBR or running the pipeline meeting, whatever. And you gotta ask for help. You gotta like, maybe that's one of the first steps to surrender is saying, I can't do this on my own, I need help. I wonder.
Jolie42:45.266
Definitely one program it's admitting that you're powerless over XYZ substance and that you lean on like I had before, you lean on the people that are going through the, that maybe not going through the exact same thing as you, but they understand, they can at least understand on an emotional level your struggle. Yeah, this has been great. Anything else you'd like to leave our listeners with?
Anthony Kennada43:15.79
Oh, I mean, again, you're not alone. I think that's sort of the, the thesis, the subtitle of the, you know, of my story at least, but, um, you know, I appreciate the opportunity to share and to have a platform to share it, um, to share my journey and maybe, you know, if anyone else is struggling, you know, to feel empowered to, to reach out again, I don't have all the answers for sure, but happy to point you into, you know, what I'm learning. Uh, along my journey as well. So thank you so much for giving me a platform to tell my story.
Jolie43:49.842
Of course, thank you so much, Anthony.