Jolie Shapiro00:01.608
Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Revenue Mind, a podcast where revenue leaders talk about all things mental health. I'm Julie, your host, and with us is Sam. Welcome, Sam. wait, shit, sorry. I pause, I keep trying to mute myself and I keep pausing it. Can you redo that?
Sam Kuehnle00:11.214
Thank you. Am I, is this in advance? We've got a 21th. Yeah, yeah. Good. Hey, thank you for having me. Yes, I'm excited to have this conversation with you. I'm to preface this conversation too. We have a 21 month old who just woke up. So if you hear little shrieks, it's happiness, it's excitement, but her voice carries and I work from home. So it's a blessing to get to hear the excitement, but sometimes she makes little cameo appearances with her voice.
Jolie Shapiro00:45.148
That's awesome. This is what's happening right now.
Sam Kuehnle00:48.558
Aww, pup. Yeah, ours is downstairs, but I'm envious of that.
Jolie Shapiro00:53.332
she's like, I don't this is off the record, I'll be doing, I'll be doing like pretty tough therapy and I like, I'm like, Ellie, you're gonna be here. They know, my god, they know when you're sad, if you have some sort of, you know, if you're sick, like they're, they're just, they know, it's so interesting.
Sam Kuehnle01:04.746
Mm-hmm. Yeah. and they know too. they, yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Between their senses, what they smell, just feel my wife has, she had some neurological stuff and she had a golden doodle that could spot seizures or could tell when they were coming before they happened. Yeah. So they know. Yeah.
Jolie Shapiro01:23.89
Yeah. my god. That's amazing. I really do. Yeah, she won't leave my side if I'm not feeling well or sick.
Sam Kuehnle01:39.126
Mm-hmm. It's a sweet pup.
Jolie Shapiro01:42.208
What kind do you have? nice. We have a family dog that's, she's a black lab terror and she's 14.
Sam Kuehnle01:43.694
We've got a black lab. He's a potato now. Yeah. He's just like, I'll help you for food. Yeah. Yeah. But sweet girl, Yars. She's all got the salt with the pepper and everything and the coloring. Yeah.
Jolie Shapiro02:02.738
That's awesome. All right, let's continue. Okay, so before we dive in, what makes you, you?
Sam Kuehnle02:12.376
What makes me me? Not taking work too seriously, but also taking it very seriously. I know that makes no sense at all. man. All right. We're all human at the end of the day. I'm going to get very philosophical right here. You did not prepare yourself for this. but now it's like, especially working. So I work at Loxo. We help recruiters, go and find the best talent. It's like matchmaking. not just go make a hire, but like, who is the very best candidate for this company. So they're happy and they all work together. And so what makes me me is when you realize that there's 24 hours in the day, we work eight hours of it, give or take. So you're like, it's a third of the day while you sleep eight hours. So it's actually, it's like half of it. And when you, when you. kind of look at this not from a depressing point of view, but like that's half my day every day, my adult working life that I'm working. Like I've got to have fun. If I'm not having fun, if I'm not enjoying it, like I remember early in my career sitting in a big sterile conference room and I was like 45 minutes into this two hour meeting. I just was thinking to myself, like, I don't know if I can curse on you, but it's like, what the fuck am I doing spending time in this room? Like I'm not engaged. I'm just going through the motions in and out. Like, is this what you really want to be doing for the next? 40, 50, 60 years. so I think what makes me, me is just kind of figuring out like, okay, how do I mesh the, I'm very driven to achieve different goals, but also like, you know, let's have some fun along the way. Let's do it in our way. Let's not follow the cut and dry boring ass playbook that everyone runs, but melding like that's what I think makes companies unique also is having a point of view that stems from like the culture is your employees at the end of the day. It's going to evolve over time and everything else. So how do you embrace all of that? So yeah, I don't know if that's a good answer, bad answer, somewhere in between, but that's kind of what makes Mimi in this work world.
Jolie Shapiro03:55.484
I love it. It's a yeah. What was I going to say? Usually the what makes you, you know, probably should have prepped you for this is like what makes like, like more personal. We can keep that answer. We can keep that answer. I think it's good. I it works. I think you tied it to both. You tied it to both, which is good.
Sam Kuehnle04:09.452
Mm-hmm. More personal than that. Yeah. Okay. Okay, we'll go with it. Okay.
Jolie Shapiro04:19.956
That was my bad. I should have been like tell us your deepest darkest secrets. my god. No, no, no. was good answer. ignore me. Okay, now on to the questions. Number one, can you share a moment when you realized you were failing your own mental health but didn't know it at the time?
Sam Kuehnle04:25.006
I'm a chocolate whore.
Jolie Shapiro04:48.04
How did that realization hit you later?
Sam Kuehnle04:51.886
Probably similar to what kind of experience I saying earlier about early micro when I was just sitting in a room and I don't know if that was so much like mental health, but like looking back on it, that's definitely a signal of early on being engaged at work and what that means for you. So I think there is an element of people who are happy and fulfilled with their work, carry themselves very differently than those who view it as drudge work, who don't enjoy what they do. Whether you like it or not, you carry that baggage around with you everywhere else in your personal life, your energy levels, how you sleep. it, you very much internalize all that physically too. So that was early on something that I, that I started to notice as I look back, but more specifically, getting into when it was really starting to impact me was I, I very much have a growth mindset, which is a blessing and a curse. well, add. So like, always want something new, something different. Like once I solve something, I don't want to say math. I truly master something is another level, but once I have strong working knowledge of something, I'm like, okay, cool. What's next? How can I like apply something else to this and everything else? So monkey mind goes all over the place. But I also realized that a lot of tasks were piling up and our team was growing, our goals were getting higher. And so as that workload increases, as the goals increases, as stress increases, I started sacrificing the other things that keep me balanced in my life. um, you, you, talked about Friday health thoughts so far. That's like, I'm big into health wellness fitness. So I was working out less every night. I go for a walk with our little one just to wind down, check out separate. work from home. like separate work from personal time. And my stress was the rising to the point where you could see it physically showing on myself as I was developing eczema on my face. And so these were all signals to me where I was just like, Sam, we've got to sort this out. Like you're not in a good, good spot and looking back at it. If you asked me, Sam, what were you so stressed out about? Like, I probably couldn't tell you 95 % of that stuff that was stressing me at the time. And that's the other hard reality of it is like these things that were just like, have this deadline, you have to do this. What was it? And if you can't answer that, that's a signal that I use now is kind of like a front loading thing of, okay, I have to choose between going outside. had a snow day the other day and like in South Carolina that never happens. And our little one wanted to go play. I'm like, all right. I have this interview I have to prep for and everything else, but if I look back two weeks from now, am I going to regret not going outside and playing with our daughter the first time she ever sees snow or this interview that I'm probably not gonna remember to be completely honest or just like little blips. So it's balancing all of that and that's kind of, I don't know, just why I started to think long and hard about this whole concept.
Jolie Shapiro07:35.954
Yeah, that really resonates. One of my first episodes was Mason Cosby and he was talking about purpose-driven work and that is a lot what you're saying. The working eight hours a day and not being passionate about what you're doing and just going through the motions and mundane. It's tough, know. It's really...
Sam Kuehnle07:46.542
Mm-hmm.
Jolie Shapiro08:03.444
need to redo this. I think offer to script says every time to every person. My ADHD is raging. Let's see. If you can find that passion, it's amazing. If you can tie your passion to what you do and every day is a different day and you have that growth mindset. You know, I feel badly for those that can't and that's 95 % of people. I mean, I'm making up the number, but you know, it's a lot of people don't have that opportunity. So the fact that, you know, I get to do what I do, you're super passionate about what you do. We're really lucky.
Sam Kuehnle08:32.822
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And that's one thing I've noticed is part of it is you can control, know, control what you control. Don't stress about what you can't, but the things you can control or understanding what are your motivators at the end of the day? Is it compensation? Is it just getting paid a lot? Is it Being tied to the industry or the, like the problem that you're solving for, it where you work physically? Is it like you want to live in California? You want to go be able to travel remotely and having that flexibility? Is it the people that you work with? It's not very rarely we, we check all those boxes like that. We would all love to at the end of the day, but that's not exactly realistic. So if you really know your top one to two motivators, you would be surprised by the amount of fulfillment that just gives you a loan. So. A lot of people I think just kind of take whatever job they can get or just get into something because it's what I know. I'm comfortable with it. I like this predictable stable life. But if you do start to sense that feeling of like, want a little bit more, having that conversation with yourself, be like, okay, what is more? Like, what's this gap that I'm feeling? And having that conversation with yourself, like... Don't go just start applying to a bunch of different jobs thinking that's going to fix it because it might not be like the work or the people. You're just like, I want more money. I want to be able to flex, like have the flexibility to travel. Like once you sort that out, it makes everything else a little bit easier.
Jolie Shapiro10:08.756
Yeah, for sure. For me, and I think I've mentioned this in previous episodes, but it's definitely to make a difference in the world. Could be a really small difference, but just to help people. Thank God for her descript again to help people. I don't want to say this. my dog snoring in the background. hopefully I can check that out. might have to dub it. Okay, a little distracted. To help people help themselves. I think that's my biggest, my biggest mission.
Sam Kuehnle10:45.71
I don't hear. How are you doing that now? like it, teaser.
Jolie Shapiro11:03.892
Yeah, I'm keeping it pretty on the deal because it's yeah, but I will I will definitely let you know. Sweet. So awesome. So back to the questions. What's the hardest truth you've had to face about how leadership impacts your mental health and how did you confront it?
Sam Kuehnle11:08.696
Okay. Love it. comes at a cost. It's added responsibility. It's added ownership. It's, I forget which president said it was like the buck stops here, right? So even if you hire someone and that person hire someone, they may make mistake that's on you at the end of the day. And so I think there is a lot of weight that comes with that, but that cost doesn't have to be a bad thing either. One part of it's time trade off. And I think that's where structure really comes into play, especially as you're talking about like ADD, ADHD, everything else. Like once you figure out like, what are your good focus blocks? What do you need to do to get energy back in your day? Once you get to a certain level where you do have like multiple people who are asking you for things, you need to make decisions, like just winging it doesn't work anymore, or you're going to have a breakdown. Like you're, it's just going to come crashing down. spoken from a little bit experience there. Just learned from my skin needs experiment. So there's that element to it, but kind of back to like those motivations that we were talking about earlier where when you know what your motivations are, that cost may or may not be worth it. If you're driven by compensation, if you are like me where you get bored easily, like this is a good track for you. like, you'll either get paid a lot. You always have something new, a new challenge to confront, a new problem to solve. If you seek more stability, more predictable work where you can just, you can master something really well and enjoy that daily, like maybe leadership isn't for you. And that's not a bad thing. There's IC tracks that are phenomenal for that. So I think that's again, one of those internal conversations that you need to have with yourself to think about, you know, what, what kind of burden do you want to have? Like, how do you want to form your path and trajectory? And then you can go from there.
Jolie Shapiro13:19.316
I love that it's a it's either a book or a post or a or Mel Robbins but it was was thinking about what are my values or what are my core values what is my goal what do I actually want to do and then I think it's that what's that circle where it's like how you make your how you make your decision of how you're gonna
Sam Kuehnle13:34.072
Mm-hmm.
Jolie Shapiro13:47.72
how you're going to succeed or like starting your own business or where you should be. forget what this circle is. I'll figure it out, re-record it and put it in the show notes because I can't remember what it is. It's a really cool concept. Yeah, that's awesome. Cool, let's see. God, so many questions. We might not get to them all, but we'll try. Excuse me. So is this your first leadership role?
Sam Kuehnle13:51.214
Oh, I don't know. Okay. In-house, yes. Refined Labs, I had a team under me.
Jolie Shapiro14:20.596
Okay, cool. All right. So I'm gonna work that in. So for your first leadership role at Refine Labs, if you could talk to your younger self the night before, what's the one thing you'd warn yourself about mental health in this space?
Sam Kuehnle14:40.078
Yeah, this was a heavy one. your words carry a lot more weight now than they ever have before. And it doesn't just impact you and that person in that individual spot, but it could impact them. Their family is like the trickle down effect from all of that. So what does that actually mean? Um, our CEO currently it locks up. Matt always talks about, you know, like the hard thing about hard things, like that is part of leadership at end of the day. So. Words carrying weight is if you dance around things, have everyone be your best friend. Like, yeah, it feels good, but that might withhold their growth. That might withhold company growth. That might be masking something that needs to be said or done. so there's that element to it, but also when you're forced to think about what you say, you have to learn how to be clear and succinct with it because If you leave gray area, if you leave room for a lot of vague interpretation, like there could be second and third order effects of that, whether that conversation is, well, Sam said this or, I thought when you said, you know, I was going to get a raise that you met next month, not next year. Like there's all these different things that you just, you have to prepare for ahead of time. And that's part of it's like, until you have those conversations the first time you have to learn from that experience. You don't know. So that's the other hard part of it is like. Why I say learn to really think about what you say, but all those scenario based things, you almost do have to mess up the first time in order to get the lesson.
Jolie Shapiro16:16.436
Yeah, for sure. Excuse me. for sure. It reminds me of something I talked about. There is no playbook. We all think there's this playbook. There is no playbook. I think Evan, you said that. And I think it's about we all, to your point, I think we all need to be agile. And for people with
Sam Kuehnle16:30.626
Mm.
Jolie Shapiro16:45.68
mental you know mental health challenges anxiety is or the unknown is the bane of no hold on what is it what is the expression yeah the unknown is the bane of anxiety it's like the worst thing for anxiety and you don't have to have anxiety disorder but el why are you shaking
Sam Kuehnle17:09.602
You can let them run it.
Jolie Shapiro17:15.604
One second, I'm let her out. She wants to bark at the squirrels. She's like, she'll be at the window and she'll be looking and I'm like, I think you're just waiting to bark at something. Yes, I think we left off at, Ellie, seriously? my God, okay. I think we left off at, my.
Sam Kuehnle17:34.68
Can't blame her. Mm-hmm. I have to tell him. It's my job, Mom. Come on.
Jolie Shapiro18:10.804
I locked the door, poor dog. So I think we left off at the anxiety, no, it was the bit of anxiety, but I don't know, did you start talking and then everything got, everything went haywire?
Sam Kuehnle18:25.25
No, I didn't say anything yet, but yeah. think it's like, that's other part of leadership is knowing the inner mind and workings of those who are on your team and how to communicate with them, knowing what makes them tick, knowing you might have to deliver the same news to five different people on your team. But like you said, there's no playbook for everything. How you deliver that news, that's the goal, but the mechanism for doing it should be five different ways.
Jolie Shapiro18:26.908
Okay, I'll leave.
Sam Kuehnle18:53.366
if you want to have it land and be understood by each of them at the level that you need it to.
Jolie Shapiro19:00.692
Yeah, I love that that actually brings me to my I love this group. love this group. Sorry, doing these back to back is pretty hard. I don't know if I could do it. I can't do it. Yeah, no. And I have one at at 2323330. I Yeah, I'm not doing this again. This was a little much. Okay.
Sam Kuehnle19:06.51
It's the beatbox. Oh, I know. That's why I was surprised. I was just like, whoo.
Jolie Shapiro19:27.292
So that brings me actually to my next question. What's one habit or belief you've let go of that used to define your success but was quietly destroying your wellbeing?
Sam Kuehnle19:37.41
Yeah. Being busy is a sign of importance. Like if my calendar is filled with more meetings and I have time to do actual work, that means I become a bottleneck either to my company, to my team. I'm not prioritizing things well for myself. I'm not empowering my team to take on work or delegating the things that they do. Right. So I don't know. I remember early in my career, seeing my manager, my manager's manager's calendar. I'm just like, wow. They've got meetings for six hours today. They must be making so many decisions. They're so important. And then you get to that like five to 10 years into your career and you're just like, this sucks. I don't want to be in here after this time. it's, and that's your sales rep who likes to talk. Like it's not something that most people enjoy doing. Just like being on it that level for eight hours a day. Like I love deep work. I love focusing on one problem and solving that. So yeah, for me, that was a huge. huge thing that I realized a handful of years ago. It's just like, I set my calendar in a way that I have blocks for like work. have my little meeting blocks. Okay. If I'm going to, if I'm going to have conversations, I'm going to do it at the time where, you know, I've got the caffeine flowing through me. I'm good. I'm at a good energy state. I take lunch, I do a few more, and then I wind down. Cause I know after that, like I'm going to be wiped. I can't do it. Like that's another like heads down work time. So if something needs to be done before then, if I have to make an important decision. Someone's like, Hey, we need to meet on this. And I'm just like, cool. What's the priority level? Like, does this take importance over this? Or is it just like, we just want to do it right now. Like, does it really need to be though? So yeah, those busy calendars overrated.
Jolie Shapiro21:18.248
Yeah, it's like that priority matrix.
Sam Kuehnle21:21.39
Eisenhower. Yeah, I love that. Urgent, important. Impactful. Like any of those. Well worth it. Yeah. No, just like urgency is one side importance or impact on the other side. So many things that we do are high urgent, slow impact. It's like, what are we doing? Why is that taking up 80 % of our tasks when we know so many things that make our business grow and in significant ways are low urgency, but high impact. And so funny enough, that's something
Jolie Shapiro21:25.172
I haven't done it yet. sorry. Go ahead. We're going to say.
Sam Kuehnle21:49.812
Every quarter, my team, have it coming up next week. We have, call it marketing hack week. We stole it from engineers and developers where it's just like, pick two projects that you like something you either want to learn or something that you just need a lot of heads down time on because it's a meaty thing. It's not important or not urgent in the sense it has to be done right now. But if we do it well, like it can drive significant results for the company, for your growth, for your learning. And so carving that into our team system is something that like we'll forever keep out. Like I'll forever champion that concept.
Jolie Shapiro22:25.62
That's amazing. That actually aligns with the next question. What's the decision you've made as a leader that prioritized your team's mental health over business metrics, and how did that turn out?
Sam Kuehnle22:30.531
Perfect. I think this one's continuing to reiterate like, yes, this is our CEO's baby, founder, co-founder. They started this company, but even though they're, they will say this, like at the end of the day, we're selling software. It's very important. Like, especially the software that we build, like it does, it helps recruiters find candidates. leads to employment. Like that's economic impact and everything else. But in the same time, so much of what we're doing is not so important that it can't be pushed out an hour a day, a week to take those moments like the snow day with our little one to go visit grandma, to talk to that friend who's been calling for three weeks that you just, can't line up calendars for. So I'd say that's something that like I try to exhibit as much as I can with our team and also continue to tell them like off someone who was just like, Oh, I was sick over the weekend. I'm feeling a little better time. Like, cool. Like if two hours from now you're wiped out, take the rest of the day. Like. What we do isn't time sensitive to the point where you have to sacrifice your health, recovering better, anything else. So that I think has a ripple effect and just the team also understanding prioritization of work, of life, how I approach things and also what they can feel comfortable talking to me about and knowing what I value with everything, just being a little bit more grounded and not this like ruthless dictator business manager that's, know, work at all costs, you're cog in the machine. It's like, no, like. Enjoy your work. Again, you're spending half your day here. If I'm grinding you through this meat grinder, what good is that going to do for you at the end of the day?
Jolie Shapiro24:25.478
Yeah, I think a big theme that I've noticed throughout this podcast is the household culture and how we're all, we're backing away from it, which is really interesting. I mentioned, said there were, my God, again. I mentioned in one of my episodes that there is no silver lining of COVID. Millions of people died. But if there was a silver lining to COVID, it transformed the Wibbe work in our, and I think it set our priorities straight.
Sam Kuehnle25:04.024
Yeah. Yeah. Challenge the playbook, right? You're not working if you're not in the office. Finding talent globally, that honestly to me is one of the biggest things that it's unfortunate to see right now with the return to office. I'm gonna be like, our CEO has even said like, why would we ever go back to that one now? I can hire the very best people across the world, let alone in one 20 minute radius of a certain city. Why would you do that as a business? When you think about it from a truly logical perspective, that makes no sense. Like unless you're in this hub, San Francisco, but look how expensive that's getting. And that's turning so many people away from ever wanting to live there, being able to afford to live there. I don't know. It just doesn't make sense to me.
Jolie Shapiro25:50.536
Completely agree and speaking of playbooks that might be the title of our show Yeah, I like that that's a good one if you were to build a mental health Never booking through podcasts again. All right live and learn Okay, if you were to build a mental health manifesto for revenue leaders, what would the first line say?
Sam Kuehnle25:56.792
The anti-playbook playbook. You're talking about hustle culture a minute ago. Don't fall for that martyrdom trap. Um, you hear it all the time. The Elon Musk's the CEO from 50 years ago, a hundred years ago, like these executives, these business leaders who work a hundred hour weeks, they have phenomenal success stories. Like, look at how much our company grew. Look at this big challenge that we solve for. But behind that martyrdom, I also say like what's going on behind the scenes and I, this is where I love to read biographies. also love, there's a podcast called founders podcast. I don't know if you listen to it, definitely check it out. It's phenomenal, but he basically goes in and unpacks all these different founders, business leaders over time. And one thing that you see in so many backgrounds is like, yes, they have these incredible business results, but they also more often than not have bad health. have multiple marriages, they have poor relationships with their family and children. So what I say is, okay, there's a. There's a clear trade off there. And so in this hustle culture, like what are they giving up? You're giving up your health, you're giving up relationships, you're giving up all these other things that keep us balanced. So mental health manifesto I'd say is like, unless you would look at any of these leaders and say, I would be willing to trade not just for their business success, but for their entire life. Like, would you swap places with them and take on their shitty marriages, their lack of relationships with their children? their obesity, their struggling mental health to have that resume, would you? So I personally wouldn't, but that's something that I think about when I do see these people that are driving this crazy success is like, well, tell me more about it. You see these people talking about these crazy routines. I wake up at 4.30 at cold bath. do like all these things and I'm like, tell me you don't have a kid without telling me you don't have a kid. Like that's not real life for so many people. And I get like, yeah, you could have a kid and do all that. But again, like. Are you trading off the relationship with them? So, I don't know. Those are the things that I kind of think through when you bring up that question.
Jolie Shapiro28:23.058
I love that. Something that Evan, you said is at what cost? what's the cost of this? What is the cost of giving up my life? And something that I talk about with my fiance a lot is, what do we talk about? We have such bad ADHD, it's terrible. Yeah, Yeah, no, I'm like, yeah, I can be very like, and then he just completely ignored, he completely like.
Sam Kuehnle28:45.966
Trade memes. Give each other shit. Yeah, usual.
Jolie Shapiro28:59.668
brushes it off his shoulder. deals with my insanity, so it's great. Wait, what were you talking about? You had a line that I really liked and now I can't remember what it was.
Sam Kuehnle29:12.792
the line about what?
Jolie Shapiro29:14.059
You said something that I really liked. Let me see what the question was. Oh yeah. Thank you.
Sam Kuehnle29:20.494
that like would you trade places with them?
Jolie Shapiro29:28.488
Yeah, I think it's all about at what cost or is what I think it's all about. What is this going to cost me at the end of our tour was it
Sam Kuehnle29:36.782
Opportunity costs. Opportunity costs.
Jolie Shapiro29:41.597
Exactly. Something my fiance and I talk about is when all of it's over and one or deathbeds, are we really going to care that we were billionaires or millionaires or you know insert title here or insert accomplishment here? No, we're going to remember the people that we loved and the moments that we made. At least for me.
Sam Kuehnle30:09.976
Yeah. mean, the compensation comes, that's a reward at the end of the day for doing work. And few people get to, perhaps this is a few people ethically get to high compensation without, if they're not doing something that they truly love or are passionate about. Like that's why you see so many founders are scratching their own itch to solve a problem. Yes, you can get corrupt. Yes, you can embezzle things like, there are other ways of getting rich. But as I say, like, If you want to ethically go about this, very few people are just like, man, there's this problem that I know how to solve. I don't love it, but I'm just going to do it. Like they fizzle out. They sell the company early. You know, there's, there's that type of thing. So yeah, to your point is when you're on your deathbed, you're like, I made an impact. We started this thing. We solved this problem. Like, yeah, we made money, but that's what you said earlier at the beginning. It's like making an impact is what you're going to remember.
Jolie Shapiro31:03.632
Exactly. What legacy do I want to leave on this world? What do I want to propel to future generations? What lessons do I want to instill upon my kids or my puppies? One of them depending on, yeah, but both, of course. So just to preface, pausing for a sec, this is a pretty tough question. So if you don't want to answer just like.
Sam Kuehnle31:10.978
Mm-hmm.
Jolie Shapiro31:29.172
So is pretty... This is a pretty tough one, but I know you're gonna have a great answer. How do you handle moments when it feels like you're failing both as a leader and as a human?
Sam Kuehnle31:49.955
failing as a leader and as a human. Fix the human side first. Priorities are probably out of whack. Leadership, so thinking about business and personal. I mean, I don't, I don't want to quote that tacky airline thing. Like put on your mask before helping others. Like, yeah, thanks for the platitudes, Sam. I can turn off this podcast now. Something's out of whack, I think, if you're failing as a leader and a human. If you're failing as a leader, probably because you're failing as a human. I don't think if you fail as a leader. But doing well as a human, that's different, a different subset of a problem. So. Struggling is both. I think you just need to figure out what it is that's going on. And so could be going back to that conversation we had earlier about like, your priorities just not in line? Are the things that are important to you are out of whack? But there used to be, I mean, yeah, this comes from like the biographies and stuff that I read all the time, but leaders and. People who used to like, all revere and have made changes. You look at them, a lot of them are known for like going and taking a week out in the woods in a cabin, just like getting away. And some of them, yes, they're solving company problems, but more often than not, it's just like, it's time to just step back, reflect. Like, and we all do this now. Like we do it in our 20 minute walks and think that that's respite, but different conversation for another day there. But that's when you usually start to have those aha moments where it's like, when I know it's like my, my burnout was coming in and everything. was like, well, yeah. This is the first walk I've had in a week. Like usually used to have this every day. So understanding what, what's going on at the personal level and also like defining that failure. it failure to show up? Is it failure to communicate? Well, is it failure to manage your emotions? And so understanding all of that for yourself, I think it's a lot of self reflection. It's a lot of self awareness. Some people are good at journaling. Some people. talk to themselves. Some people need to do like video of themselves. I don't know. Like everyone's, everyone's different. Anti-playbook playbook. but I would fix that because if you fix the human side, that's probably going to trickle down into your leader because you're probably struggling as a leader because you're in a shitty spot. If you're still struggling as a leader, but you fix the human side, well, probably the same kind of subset of you failing to communicate with your team. Are you not understanding the company goals? Are you just not feeling the work? And I kind of go from there, but I think 10 out of 10 times I would prioritize the human side first versus. leader side first because if you prioritize the leader side first some of those opportunity costs we were talking about earlier, your family, your relationships, your health might struggle thinking that you're putting a bandaid on this leadership stuff. Our business is growing again, but that's because I'm working more hours than ever before. like, that's going to have a downfall. Let that play out for a month and see how things go then.
Jolie Shapiro35:03.22
pressure. I completely agree. think I've said this before, but so I wasn't good for a while. I wasn't good for a while due to a lot of things. And once I got good, I could be there for the people that really needed me. And that could be just across the board, personally, professionally. But you have to be good in your head and your heart. and just kind of physically, mentally, spiritually insert cliche here to be there, to be your best self.
Sam Kuehnle35:43.918
Yeah. Yeah. No, it's so true. Um, you don't have the energy to do it if you don't otherwise it's like, it's not even that they're talking to you, but you're just, you're checked out. You're not paying attention. You're eyeing to the conversation. So it's doing no one good and that's training you even more too.
Jolie Shapiro36:01.864
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So something I haven't talked about. So actually just found out that a couple months ago that my mom has cancer. So, thank you. Yeah, it's tough, but I'm laughing because it's not funny, but we had a conversation last night and because of all the self work that I did. She said you're the only one I trust to manage my schedule when I'm in chemo. And that was such, that warmed my heart so much because she trusts me with her life. And that, that was pretty damn cool.
Sam Kuehnle36:47.598
Yeah, well. testament to doing the work. that your loved ones see that and yeah, is there a higher regard than like trusting their life to you? So, well, separately, like I'm sorry to hear that about your mom. know that's tough. Cancer's ravaged through our family. I know the feeling of just like, just sitting there watching, trying to, so I feel for you.
Jolie Shapiro37:18.228
Yeah, I really appreciate that. Trying to, I might cut out the cancer part because I don't know if she's going to want on a podcast, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I might cut out my talking about cancer. I cut it out at Evans too. But we'll keep all the good golden nuggets. Of course. Great. I think you mentioned something that I really like this question.
Sam Kuehnle37:27.01
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's what I saying, separately, like, yeah.
Jolie Shapiro37:47.7
So this kind of brings me to the wrap up. And I think a lot of us are expected to be invincible. It's a lot of what we talked about today. How do you teach your team and yourself that it's okay to be human sometimes?
Sam Kuehnle38:07.438
You have to be invincible if you want to be if you want this role you have to be invincible kidding How do you your team and yourself it's okay to be human? We learned from failure. I don't know how to call my CEO today was just like, hey, we're gonna talk about this. There's multiple of us in the room. know it was the leadership team. So he was just like, but again, I do this to help us learn, to grow, to improve. so like one, that's being human to recognize failure. that's like, can take it as, well, there goes my ego. I'm just gonna shut up and not do anything for a couple months while I. Why take this blow to the face or it's like, yeah, let's learn from it. Like that's, that's fair. What just happened? And then press on like, okay, we had this meeting. I just learned, I took that and put like apply it. So separate from that semi related story, um, I do my best to be transparent with the team. So kind of like what, what brought us to this conversation. It's like, I talk openly about certain things, like talk openly about burnout. I. encourage them to check out. How were you saying earlier? Like if you need to go to a doctor, you're not feeling well, like go do it. If you want to go and take your kid to the park, cause it's a beautiful day and all I've been talking about is the elephants that they want to see at the zoo. Like go take them to see the elephants at the zoo. but so, so much of our stress is coming from deadlines that are self-imposed, especially in the software world. When we really think about it's like, unless you're an engineer shipping code that has to be done a certain day. Like I look at my Asana board and The due dates are all signed by myself. It's like, I know my, okay, how much can I get through in eight hours and 10 hours, whatever it is. And I have this list that I want to get through. And at the end of the day, I'll be stressed out if there's still like five things left on my list. And my wife will be like, Hey, you good? Like, I'm like, no, I have to work tonight. I have to catch back up. I go take my walk, their little one. I eat dinner. I open my computer back up at the end of the night. And I look at those five things and like, I can do these tomorrow. Like, what am I talking about? None of this has to be done today. I just wanted it to be done today so I can get down to the next thing. So. These are the types of things how you and I were talking before we started recording where it's like, feel on our own, like we're on an island where we don't have these people that understand this or anything else. But the more that we can talk about these problems that we feel these stressors that come up in our daily lives and just openly say like, yeah, it's work. Like can be done tomorrow. This is my doing. It's not life or death situation or anything else. It's I can just bring you more light to these conversations, especially for your team members to model that behavior. They understand like it's, it's different when they see you walking the walk, not just like saying things and passing, take your time off. And then they see you sending Slack messages to them at nine 30 at night. Like, no, once you schedule send on Slack for the love of God, like do not stress your team out with that. But two, it really is. just, it's emulating the behavior. So they're just like, like he really did just take an hour off to go be outside. Like, okay. Like he, means that he's not just saying that in passing. So. I don't know, maybe that kind of helps, but does that answer the question a little bit or is there some different layer of invincibility that you want me to get into?
Jolie Shapiro41:18.482
No, I love it. I think we don't realize, especially when we're young, how precious time is. Especially, you you with kids, sorry, was it son or daughter? Your daughter wants to go out and be in the snow. We can be so hyper-focused on wanting to succeed that we don't go playing in the snow. And then she remembers that.
Sam Kuehnle41:33.132
Mm-hmm daughter
Jolie Shapiro41:49.65
Your boss doesn't remember that you got it, not you, but like you know your boss doesn't remember that you got it at 4 p.m. But your daughter will remember that you didn't go out with her.
Sam Kuehnle41:59.628
Yeah, Sam you didn't get this done at 3pm? I told you it need to be done at 3pm but you got it to me at 4pm. Ugh, that's unacceptable. No, that doesn't exist. If it does, leave, run, fast.
Jolie Shapiro42:11.209
Exactly. So this was awesome. Thank you so much. Where can we find you?
Sam Kuehnle42:14.508
Yeah. LinkedIn, I'm on LinkedIn sharing thoughts a lot there. Substack just samkeenly.com. yeah, those are the main spots. Other than that, I tend to be a hermit and just stay in my house and do stuff with our family and hide out from social media. Otherwise.
Jolie Shapiro42:33.116
Love it. Well, thank you again. This was great.
Sam Kuehnle42:35.246
Yeah, thank you for having me on. is good one. I like this conversation, just different angle for a lot of things that I think people in our space, it's a breath of fresh air to not hear about lead gen versus demand gen or the typical ecosphere.
Jolie Shapiro42:51.294
That's why I'm here.
Sam Kuehnle42:52.736
Love it. All right. Well, thank you.