Josh Boone: 0:00

So many people spend so much time living a life that doesn't fufill them. You know, they get stuck in these loops, like living their life like some sad version of The Sims. And these can be by all accounts, very successful people, you know, quote unquote, successful people. Uh, I've said it many times on the pod before, some of the richest business owners that I've worked with. I mean, just straight up Scrooge McDuck diving the gold coins level rich. They're fucking miserable. They're owned by the need to fill that void, that no amount of money or things they can buy or prestige that they can, you know, garner can never fill. So then you got the other side of the equation. And these are people that are caught in this loop of pain avoidance. You know, they'd rather stick to what they know in fear of uncertainty or for failure. So they stay in relationships or jobs you're not satisfied with because, hey, you know, at least it's consistent and secure, right? So they don't take a chance on, you know, starting that side hustle or learning the new language or taking a chance freelancing or starting their business or shifting the career or, whatever else, because it's just too much of a risk. But, what if what you really had was only the illusion of security? And the biggest risk is actually the in-action that you are finding any reason to justify. Both of these ends of the spectrum, just get further and further calcified as time goes on, unless you break that loop. So, how do you zoom out to see the bigger picture of what you really should be prioritizing your life? And how do you break yourself from these loops that are holding you back from living a life that will actually fulfill you? And that's some of what we're going to be diving into today with my guest Terry McDougall. Terry is an executive coach, speaker and bestselling author of "Winning the Game of Work", and after more than 30 years of corporate business experience, leading marketing efforts in senior management roles, Terry chose to become a coach, to concentrate on helping leaders step fully into their potential to lead satisfying careers. Some of the topics that we also touched on were the external trappings of success. The negative feedback loops of work stress and pain avoidance. Childhood trauma, high-achievers, and external validation. Unhealthy coping mechanisms, setting governors and detoxing from corporate life. The operating cost of poor leadership. Fear detachment and the illusion of job security. Self moderation and critical self-talk. The future of work and the corporate world. Courage, anxiety, and letting go, and so much more. Terry is a treasure trove of wisdom in life and just navigating the corporate world. I mean, I really had a hard time picking a sound clip for this one because they were just so many good lines to choose from. One of my favorites was, was really simple and it was "no progress has ever been made inside your comfort zone." And I think that sets the tone pretty nicely. So let's dive into this. I bring you, Terry McDougall.

Terry McDougall: 3:51

I get along with pretty much everybody and I can pretty much talk to anybody, but I have been on some podcasts where the host did most of the talking and that I don't like, because to your point, it's kind of like, well, why do you have me here? You know, Like you could have just done a solo podcast and then you could just talk the whole time. Instead of just having me here as sort of like a foil, every like five minutes, you asked me something for like 10 seconds.

Josh Boone: 4:16

Yeah, what are the kind of conversations you like to have the most? Your podcast right now, Marketing Mambo, that's about all about marketing. But in general, like outside of marketing, like what are the topics that you just keep going back to time and time again?

Terry McDougall: 4:27

Well, the ones that I tend to, the types of podcasts I tend to pitch myself for our personal development, career development. I mean, my mission is really to help people be professionally successful, but also personally happy. And as a executive and career coach, what I see is that a lot of people are paying a really high price for their quote unquote success. Like they've got the external trappings of success, but my question is always like, what's the purpose of working your tail off if you're not enjoying yourself? I mean, literally, sometimes people are just so stressed out that they go home and just go to bed all weekend. Or they're drinking a lot or they're overeating, or, they're doing something to cope with the stress of what they're experiencing at work. And then a lot of times they tell themselves really negative things, like I have no choice, but to keep torturing myself, and I'm like, no, you have choices. Like that's what I'm about. I mean, I've been on actually a number of sort of, you know, naturalistic health podcasts. Where somebody is like a yoga professional or they're like a natural path, or they help people to eat healthier stuff like that. Because I think that the whole mindset around work is an important part of being healthy overall. But I also, I've talked on marketing podcasts, some more business and entrepreneurial focused podcasts. So, just trying to help the human condition basically.

Josh Boone: 5:58

Yeah, yeah. I mean it's a very holistic approach. Like I see so much, like right now, one of the things that I'm diving into is like the link between diet, your gut biome, and mental health. And I actually just saw a study yesterday about a strong correlation between people with bipolar and having really bad micro gut biomes, and there being some sort of correlation there. So it's just like, there's just so much that we're almost unaware of that all these factors that are at play. So what are the downstream effects of you having an improper diet that enhances, anxiety and depression, everything else that then further compounds any work issues that you're having. And then you start feeling like you have to overcompensate for that. And then you start having all this, that stress compounds. And then next thing you know, you get yourself into this hole where it's just like this negative feedback loop. And all that could just stem from diet. I mean, it's, it's just, yeah, there's just

Terry McDougall: 6:53

Yeah. Well, and a lot of times that goes even deeper. Like maybe your diet comes from, maybe you started using food at an early age as a coping mechanism. I mean, I'm not a psychologist or therapist or anything like that, but I am a trained coach. Meaning I have a certification in coaching I've been trained. But a lot of people that I work with on work issues, when we start getting into things, there are issues that basically go back to childhood trauma. I've worked with people whose parents have committed suicide, who grew up in poverty, who have dealt with racial or gender based issues with their family or just in the world at large. And, you can't cut that part off when you go to work every day, and biases and issues around feeling defensive, get triggered at work everyday too, and so like, how do you, how do you cut through all that stuff? It is all interrelated. There's no, there's no doubt about it. And, in my own journey to heal from my own childhood trauma, not it's not like super dramatic or anything, but I, I'd been sort of a seeker myself just of going to therapy and going to like week-long retreats to try to like process a lot of the stuff that I experienced as a child. And then I've done Reiki. I've also gone to see natural paths and I've had acupuncture. I mean, I think, and it's funny because I, I certainly was somebody who years ago was really skeptical of that, cause I, I tend to my whole life and growing up and I suppose this is especially the way my dad was, this is what I learned from my dad. Just focus like totally on the rational, right? Like, just like, what am I thinking about? Let's let's like, judge this, on the merits and that kind of thing, and just totally ignore anything spiritual or emotional, or even with your body. And you have to look at all of those things. Like, it's a system, right? They all work together. And if we're ignoring our emotions or we're ignoring, nutrition or exercise, it's going to show up in probably depression,

Josh Boone: 8:55

yeah. I mean, I totally understand. I dealt with a childhood trauma that I've been sourcing back. My story is, it's like my dad wasn't super present in certain aspects. And the only real time I got a lot of attention was, like by being an overachiever, like, just being ungodly good at hockey, I grew up playing hockey and I was like one of the best kids in the league, because I just kept going. And then, same thing with school, I get good grades or whatever else, and I get that attention. And then you fast forward, I start my business and then I just completely, instead of it being like this validation from my parents, it's validation for myself and the world. And I just start overworking

Terry McDougall: 9:31

Yeah.

Josh Boone: 9:32

and, a hundred plus hour weeks. And, and then I developed an ulcer and I was at various times suicidal. And, and then you compound that. By this, this you were saying like, people feel like they can't get out of it. Like they feel like they, you have all this pressure and it's like, we had like a team of 12, my business and like my two business partners. So it's just like, now I'm thinking, okay, well now I really can't stand back because now I have all these people that I'm financially supporting, so then it just compounds and compounds until I kind of just broke. And I just decided to leave it all. And I've sold my share of the business, I bought an RV and just traveled the country for two years and just kind of reset. It took me like that two years just to like, feel normal. I'm curious what you see as someone who helps people with this. When I left the business and after I had a period where like, I've gotten the RV, I went down, I'm in Ohio and I went down to Florida just to like, visit some friends and get away. I did not feel any better for at least like four or five months. And like, that's something that a lot of people didn't understand. Cause they're like, how's the journey going? And I'm like I don't know, and it's, it's exactly how people that I know that are military vets when they come back, they're still in that fight or flight system. And that's one of the things that like, I, I was suicidal when I was on the RV trip, because I remember I had this moment where I'm sitting on the beach and it's like midnight and I'm just sitting there and I'm looking out at the ocean and I'm just like, I have arrived. Like, this is what I wanted. I don't have any of the stress. I don't have any of these things to worry about. I don't have to work for at least the next, like two, three years. I'm I still feel awful. And it's just like, that's something where I feel like a lot of times high functioning founders, they, they exit and they get off on their golden parachute and then they just they're miserable. I mean, what's been your experience with that?

Terry McDougall: 11:37

Oh my gosh. Like, well, you've touched on it, like about 10 things just in that few minutes that I deal with all the time. First of all, part of the reason why you were feeling bad for that four or five months is because you are coming off of the drug that you were addicted to.

Josh Boone: 11:51

Oh, for sure, yeah.

Terry McDougall: 11:52

I wrote this book, Winning the Game of Work, and when I was writing the book, I was doing some secondary research to support some of my ideas. And I came across this article that talked about a book written by a professor at Harvard Business School who studies high achievers. And his hypothesis is that high achievers are addicted to external validation. And if you think about it, I mean, everything that you were talking about with your hockey and with, with your overachieving at school. I mean, I was an overachiever too. I actually grew up in a family where my dad's job moved us around ridiculously frequently. Like I lived in 40 different places by the time I was 11 years old. And now once I started school, we slowed down to just moving once a year. So I went to a different school in a different

Josh Boone: 12:40

But still, I mean, all your friends, everything. Yeah.

Terry McDougall: 12:43

Yeah, yeah. But I mean, I think for me, school was an area where I had control, like right. I knew what the rules were. Things were going to stay pretty much the way, they would state the expectations. And if you met, met the expectations you got rewarded. Right? And I think that it goes back for many of us high achievers back to kindergarten, when you got that first gold star at the top of the paper, and you were like, whoa, that's cool. I got to check plus, I got a smiley face on my paper. I'm going to, I'm going to try to keep doing this. And then the more and more we get rewarded. And the more we start trying to, achieve bigger and bigger things. And we're putting off that gratification for the bigger reward. The addiction to that validation becomes stronger and stronger. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it because it's sort the way our society works. It's how we get socialized. It's how we do quote unquote what we're supposed to do. But I see it a lot of times with people even in their forties and fifties where the time to shift to making their own judgements and validating themselves has long past, right? Like, I'd say sometime in your twenties, you should say like, you know what, I know enough to just rely on my own judgment, but it becomes such a habit that we become blind to it. We don't even realize that we're doing it, but we do stop sometimes and say to ourselves, like, "why do I feel like crap? I have everything that I said that I wanted, but yet I feel bad." And it's because we're withdrawing off of that drug and we haven't realized that, okay, we've got this myth methadone of, us just saying to ourselves like, "Hey, this is fine. This is good." This is, this is absolutely what you want. And you don't need to be looking to others for the pat on the back or the gold star at the top of your paper or the next raise or whatever. Like so many people I work for, they're just always striving with this misperception that, Hey, when I get the next, promotion to VP or I get the next bonus or the max raise, or if I get the next job or if I sell my company, or if we go into another product line, that's when I'm going to feel good. And you can feel good right now, you just have to decide and also get in touch

with: 14:57

what are your personal values? What do you enjoy about work? Can you be present, and just feel it in the moment, don't keep putting it off. So one of the other things that you talked about, I could really relate to because I left my 30 year corporate career in 2017. And I had risen to a level where I was leading marketing at a national bank for one of their . Businesses. Actually I'd been at that company for 12 years, and I had had four different jobs that were leadership roles within the marketing arena. And, I had everything I ever wanted, I was making a really hefty or, healthy, let's not say healthy but healthy six-figure income. My family was able to do whatever we wanted to do. We had great tropical vacations and all kinds of great stuff. But I just was finding myself really not feeling happy. I always think that if you're spending 70% of your time doing things that are enjoyable and refill your tank, and then you can tolerate the 30% of things that you just kind of have to do as part of your job and what I was seeing over the course of probably the last two years that I was there is that that fulcrum was really like shifting too. It was like, I was probably spending more like 30 or 40% of my time doing things I enjoyed and 60 or 70% of the time doing stuff that I couldn't. I, I said that I had to work too hard just to do my job. I was just always dealing with a lot of red tape and, repeating myself again and again and again about issues within the organization that were never being addressed. And so I decided to leave. I actually left without another job. I was in a position that I could do that, and it felt uncomfortable not to be working, but I also recognize that I needed to detox. That's what I call it, cause it just, I felt like I was just sort of like soaking up a lot of negativity and poison in the last couple of years I was there and I also like kind of call it, regaining my natural shape. Because when you're in a role and there are certain expectations, you sort of try to like get yourself into the little cubby, like you're the square peg in a round hole and you're just like squishing yourself in there. And when you leave, it's like, that's not who I was. It was just a role I was playing. So like how do I, get everything back to normal, right? Like

Josh Boone: 17:28

Yeah. Create that elasticity..

Terry McDougall: 17:30

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I said to myself when I left, what are some things that I would like to do? Cause I kind of looked at it as a sabbatical. I didn't really think I was necessarily gonna jump into entrepreneurial-ism, but I said, now that I have this time, what are some things that I wouldn't normally have time to do? And one of the things that I did within a few months of leaving was I did two weeks of intensive improv training at Second City. And that was awesome, that was so fun, and it really got me back in touch. I literally felt like I was a little kid on the playground and like first grade just, play acting and just getting lost and really in play and playing with other people that were having fun and joyful and super talented.

Josh Boone: 18:19

I've done improv before and I wouldn't think of that, but that in that situation it makes perfect sense. I mean, that really is like a great thing to like cultivate that.

Terry McDougall: 18:27

Yeah, cause there's no right or wrong answer. And in fact, one of the things that I found, I was actually one of the older students in the class. There were two or three college students that were like theater majors. There were some people that were either professionals or trying to be professionals in acting or comedy. And then there were just kind of a hodgepodge of other people, but I was really inspired by how free so many of the people were like that they could just, they could really be present and go in any direction. There were a lot of people that were super talented in terms of like, their physical comedy, but being able to call it up in the moment. And one of the things that I recognize is I was a little bit hidebound because of my long time in corporate and being in marketing. Marketing is all about planning, right? It is about like, okay, if we want to have this campaign ready in three months, like we have to work all the way back and begin with the end in mind. And in improv, it's not that, it's like what's going on at this second? And what is striking me about how to respond to that in the second. And so in many ways, that was like, it was really good to like rip me out of that old way of being right. And just to try to be more present.

Josh Boone: 19:40

Yeah, there's another aspect of it. I mean, it's the "yes, and" where it's all, building collaboratively, there's no wrong answer. Whereas like dealing with clients or being in corporate, there's so much political bullshit. And so like, that was one of the things, like I did improv when I had my business and that was similar like jarring to me. I mean, we still were pretty casual even at my business, but still I was constantly thinking about what I was saying and how it was coming off, but then you just do this like, oh, it's freeform.

Terry McDougall: 20:09

It's so free. And I I just, I mean, I'm a very creative person and I really loved it wasn't always like this, but I definitely had a number of seasons in my career where it was just ideal. Where I was just working with similarly creative, open collaborative people. Everything was so synergistic where we were just creating awesome work. And I, I think that, when improv is done well, like sometimes I was just so proud and amazed at the scenes that could be created with other people. Like cause you throw something out and somebody would pick it up and run with it and you'd be like, oh my God, I never even imagined that somebody could go in that direction. But you know, just thinking back over, being like the Martian dogs, speaking, some foreign tongue.

Josh Boone: 20:59

Yeah.

Terry McDougall: 21:00

50 something year old woman, like crawling on the floor and, barking at a martian tounge, I just cracked up about some of the things that we ended up doing, but it's like, so freeing. I mean, if anybody ever said like, oh, this is what you're going to do and I'd be like, no way. But when you're in the moment, it's just so fun. And it, I think it taps into like power that we have within us too. And we all have that. We all have access to that, but unfortunately it's sort of been trained out of many of us.

Josh Boone: 21:29

It's so interesting like how we have these kind of containers that we put ourselves in and, and share out to the world. I remember one time, you were talking about how the people at the improv were so free in a way, and it was kind of inspiring for you. Like, oh shit, this is this something that I want more of that, you might not go to their level, but like you're like I need more of that. And I remember one time I was talking with a buddy of mine, he's a local musician and very, very talented. And he's known for just putting on like, just crazy, crazy emotional shows and whatever. And he gets really into it and he just has this total freedom of expression and he gets so emotive. And I remember he and I were just after one of the shows just catching drinks. And I'm just like, man, I envy the shit out of that in you. Now it's like, I don't fucking care. Like I'll just say anything and do whatever. But back then I was just really contained and insecure and it had bad and imposter syndrome. And I remember telling him like, man, I wish I could be more like you in that regard. He's just like, dude, I wish I could be more like you, he he's like, I'm struggling. I'm like barely paying the bills. He's like a lot of my peers are, really successful, and I'm just kind of still doing this stuff I was in my late teens and early twenties. And it was this moment where both of us are realizing, like both of us respected each other, but neither of us were happy with ourselves. I was just like, wow.

Terry McDougall: 22:48

Well, you brought up the whole idea of the imposter syndrome, and I was actually just talking to somebody on another podcast a couple of days ago about this whole idea. I actually use this imagery with my clients sometimes because imposter syndrome is so, so common. We always think like I can't step into this. Like, what are other people gonna think? I'm not worthy. I need somebody to give me permission, but I'll talk to people about like, imagine yourself going into a tailor shop or a dress shop. And, those, that kind of elevated platform that like brides stand on . When they're trying on dresses. I just imagine that there's a mannequin there that has just very extraordinary robe. It's just the most beautiful thing that you can ever imagine. And like, we all stand back and we're looking at that, like we're in the shop, it's our shop, right? We're standing there looking at that being like, oh, I wish I could put that on. Oh, it's so, so beautiful. I wish that somebody would allow me to wear that. And it's like, that's yours step up and put it on. Right? Like the example that you're using before that you're more business-minded and your friend is like more creative and emotive and, we can look at other people and say, oh, if only I had that. And the reality is like, we all have unique gifts and we really can't compare ourselves to other people because we weren't made to be other people we are made to be ourselves. And I really think that our mission here on earth is to live to our utmost, our utmost, like my utmost in Europe, most like for me and for you, right. Not compared to Oprah Winfrey or, Tom Brady or whatever, right? And we also tend to look at people on like one dimension. And we're like, multi-multi multi-dimensional right. And yeah, not everybody is a supermodel, not everybody is Einstein, right. But the whole, everything together for each individual is amazing and it's unique. And if we can just go and find what our thing is, just follow or our heart and our gut, that's where we find satisfaction. Try not to judge or compare ourselves. Because that old saying that comparison is the thief of joy, it's like

Josh Boone: 25:12

Yeah.

Terry McDougall: 25:13

It's pointless.

Josh Boone: 25:14

Yeah, for sure. It is. And I mean, it's a quagmire, it's like most of the people I've talked about this on a couple of podcasts episodes, but it's just like the people that I know that are the most successful monetarily, in status wise. They are some of the most miserable people that I know. And there's some exceptions, but this constant need for more and more, and it's that, the overachiever issue and they don't self-correct. So it's just like, everyone's looking at them as this benchmark of something to aspire to, but it's like, yeah, you don't see the other layers there. You don't see all the other layers. Let's say somebody is listening to this and they're like, okay I hear you, how do I even start doing that? Because I think one of the big things that held me back for a long time, I know Tim Ferriss talks about this a lot as well is the struggle and the pain is what got you here. And you think that that is your secret sauce and it, and it to a degree to a degree it may have been, but that doesn't mean that it needs to continue being that vehicle, that engine and, and at that fear is real man. Like, it's, it's so difficult because you fear that you're going to put yourself in a situation where everything's going to crumble. Obviously, in your experience that's not the case. How do you get people...

Terry McDougall: 26:36

To your point, what got you here, isn't going to get you to the next phase in your life, right? And one of the things that I see a lot in my coaching practice is that people hold onto coping mechanisms that work for them in the past and they don't see, they sort of have a blind spot and they keep doing the same thing that got them to where they are. But I'll just give an example. Like if you grew up in a household were you got yelled at or hit if you did something that your parents didn't like, maybe to be defensive or to avoid was a smart coping mechanism in your childhood. Right. It helped you to survive and get out of that. But then if you get into the workplace and it's not an abusive environment, nobody's yelling at you, nobody's hitting you, but you're still expecting that people. are going to look at you and be like, what what's up with her? Like she never speaks up or she's always so defensive. I just go to ask our question and she bites my head off. Because we haven't adapted our coping mechanisms to the current environment, and that's, that's very, very common, if we're like hanging out there in that fight or flight mode, because we lived for a lot of our life in fight or flight, cause we had to for survival. We need to step back, and I always say to people, a lot of times when they're not getting the results that they want in their career, or in their life for that matter, instead of zooming out, they'll zoom in. Like for high achievers, it's like I want that promotion, or I'm getting some negative feedback. Okay, I'm just going to take on more. I'm going to work faster. I'm gonna do more. I'm gonna take stuff home on the weekend. And I'm like, no, don't do that. Right? You've been doing that and it's not working, zoom out, understand the situation that you're in. See the bigger picture, see yourself in context of what's going on around you, because maybe the problem is not, it's not that you're not working hard enough, it's that you're doing the wrong things or that, there's a blind spot of something that you should be focusing on. I mean, this happens a lot where people get promoted from say an individual contributor to a manager, from a manager to a director, just having one team under them to having like a whole department under them where they have relied very heavily on their own expertise and competence, and then they move into a managerial role. And rather than learning how to delegate or learning how to build systems or to prioritize that when they're running up against crunch time, they just jump in, right. They just say, oh, it's faster for me to do it. Or they'll even complain about the people on their team like, "oh, they're just not, you're not good enough", but you know, that's because they haven't learned to identify the leverage points where they can get more impact out of the resources that have been entrusted to them. And it's nothing to be really ashamed of because unfortunately it's not commonly taught in the workplace. Sometimes people can be lucky enough to have had mentors or bosses that have modeled that behavior. But I would say that the majority of bosses are not very intentional or aware of the impact that they're having. And they're not necessarily trying to teach leadership. It doesn't mean it can't be learned, but I will tell you, it's very funny about when I'm first working with people, so often they like want to hold on to those old coping mechanisms. Like, " if I show up and I speak up or if I ask for a promotion, cause that's what I want. Like what if, what if they want to fire me? Or what if they think that I'm not worthy?" And I'm like, "listen, you're no worse place than you are now if you ask and in fact, you know, maybe they're ready to promote you, but they don't think you're interested cause you never said anything." Or, I worked with one person who got promoted from managing a team of eight and she was, she kind of acted like a player coach, where if somebody was behind, she just jumped in and take work off their plate. I mean, she did a good enough job that she got promoted to be the department head of 50, but she was trying to manage that team of 50 the same way that she managed her team of eight. And when we met, she'd been in her role for about six months and she was pulling her hair out. She was working like 70 hours a week. She was exhausted. She was considering asking her boss to demote her. And I said, one of the first things that I got her to agree to was to close her door to her office for a couple hours a day. And she was worried about doing that cause she said, "oh, what are people going to think?" And "I want to be an accessible manager. I want to have an open door policy." And I was like, look, you're taking your work home every weekend and you're never spending time with your family. Your folks will figure out how to do things without you being the path of least resistance. And that was true, right? Like when her door was closed if somebody needed an answer, they'd just go to somebody else. They didn't need to. I mean, she's highly paid to be sort of like the, customer service line for, " Hey, how do I, how do I fix this line on the spreadsheet?" Right. Somebody else can do that. Like she needed to free yourself up to be strategic. To build process, to, think about how to do the work better to develop the priorities. But she was so clogged up with low value work that she didn't have time to do that until she put some process in place to make sure that she had the time and especially the focus to be able to do that.

Josh Boone: 32:11

In your experience, is it more effective to start with trying to get somebody to zoom out and see that bigger picture, or instead try and just find small, actionable things that they can do to get them, let's say a little more under control, so that then you can do the, the larger work?

Terry McDougall: 32:33

Well, I mean, I think that what I try to get people to do is that if they're doing something, I mean, in some ways I feel like I'm not going to say my job is easy, but when people come in, they're complaining about their pain points. I try to get them to consider what the cost of operating the way they do is for them. Right. Because a lot of times when they're complaining about something, the seeds of the solution are right there. Right. Cause if you keep doing this and you keep getting the same result, it's like that whole, what's the definition of insanity, right? Like doing the same thing over and over and getting the same result. So, we don't necessarily have to zoom out and look at everything, but usually it starts with one thing and getting them to think about, okay, how could I show up differently here? And when, once they do that, most of the time they're worried, they're worried. Like, oh, if I do that, what if they say this? Or what if this happens? And nine times out of 10, the thing they worry about does not happen and they get a better result. And they're like, wow. I had a direct conversation with this person and they were really receptive to it. And we came up with a solution for this problem. And they're, they're wowed trying to do something different than what they've done, but, we all have blind spots. And, I always say too, that people's greatest weakness is their greatest strength overused. So I see it a lot with high achievers that they're competent at a lot of different things and they're they're good at it, and a lot of times they liked doing. And so their greatest weakness is them doing the thing that they're good at too much. Instead of, you know, if you're a leader you need to step back and start figuring out how do I break down the stuff that I know how to do so that I can teach it to other people and I can grow the people under me, because you can only rise as quickly as you can develop the people under you.

Josh Boone: 34:36

How many people you start working with and then, give it some time they ended up completely changing the trajectory of their lives? Because this has been something that in my experience I'll have conversations with people, and now it's more in a professional setting, but when I was doing that two years traveling, like I kind of became like a bar therapist and I would just have these conversations because it just came up naturally, they'd see the RV and I come in and they, you know, a lot of these small towns that would be in, they don't get a lot of visitors, if I'm in a more rural side. So we'll start talking and then the conversation of changing, making big changes and doing whatever. And they're like, "man, you're living the dream. I wish I could do that." I'm like,

Terry McDougall: 35:15

Yeah, you can,

Josh Boone: 35:16

you know, like you can, yeah, you can. And we started having that conversation and then you know, a lot of the time it would just come down to them feeling stuck or like they don't have options. And I'm like, dude, you have so many options. Like it might take you a while. Yes. And it might be a lot of work, but you have options. And it's just like, I struggle sometimes to give people more practical, actionable advice, because if I think that they just need to make a massive life change. Cause I'm just like, yeah, you can optimize your day to day for now, but you're also, it's like, w what are you optimizing for in your life? Like, do you even know? And a lot of these people, it's just, they get caught up with momentum and then they get some first job and then they get some first job and then they they're in this. And then next thing you know, they're like, man, I'm 40 and I've been in the HVAC business for 20 years. I don't even know how I ended up here, you

Terry McDougall: 36:10

Yes.

Josh Boone: 36:10

know?

Terry McDougall: 36:11

Yes. I hear that a lot, and a lot of times people will consider themselves to successful quote unquote successful. Cause I don't, I think that there's a lot of different aspects to success, right? Like money and title and status. That's all part of it. But man, I consider it to be very hollow success if you're not happy and satisfied with what you're doing. And I have run across a lot of people who, they're what I call successful, but not satisfied. They've got all the external trappings, but man, they are not very happy and they feel trapped. And I think that the, the first step is really to get clear on what it is that you want. Because a lot of times when I talk to people, they're talking about all the stuff they don't like, right? Like, "oh, I can't stand my boss. I can't work from home or, I've been doing this kind of work for so long and it's boring to me." All of the . Things that they don't like, right? And I'm like, that's fine. I mean, we can vent. That's fine. It feels good to get it out, right? But at some point we've got to flip the switch and be like, okay, we've talked a lot about what you don't want. What is it that you do want? And that sometimes can be a lot harder, I think for a couple of reasons. Well, I think actually the main reason is that people are fearful of stating the thing that they want because they're very afraid they're not going to get. They really don't want to feel disappointed. They feel they're risk averse. Naturally. We all are. But people would either tell me when I ask them that, like, I don't know what I want, which I think everybody knows what they want deep down inside, but a lot of us have like a very, very good defense mechanism that keeps us from getting connected to that from stating it, because then, what, if we don't get it, does that mean I'm a loser? Cause I don't get the thing I want. Or they'll say, this is what I want. This is my dream. And immediately they'll be like, but it's very unlikely that I'm going to get it. Here's all the reasons why I can't, they don't hire people that look like me or, or like me I'm too old. I'm too, whatever. Right. Or I make too much money doing what I'm doing right now. There's no way I could get a job making as much. Right. But I'm like, are two separate things. Like what do you want to do that you think is going to make you happy? And how are you going to get there? Right. It doesn't mean that if you admit the thing that you want to do, that you have to quit your job today and rush off and, sell all your belongings and do something super radical. You can just allow your dream to live. And then separately say, okay, if my dream is alive and if I really am serious about wanting to make that happen, what are the steps that I need to take to approach that? The interesting thing is that, I also, a lot of times people were like, well, I don't know if that's really what I want to do. It looks interesting. I'm like, you don't have to know, right. Like start looking at it like a treasure hunt. How would you find out if it was something that was interesting to you? Maybe find somebody who's doing it and have a conversation with them and be like, "Hey, what's it really like, it looks cool from the outside, what's it like on the day to day?" What do you, have to do to become a, whatever, have you ever seen anybody with my backgrounds be successful in making a transition to that?" I think we need to look a little deeper and say like, what do I need to feel satisfied? What do I like to do? And what am I good at? When I left the corporate world, I had been thinking for a couple of years, I'd sort of had this like, fantasy about like, man felt like I was in a skydiving plane and the door was open and I was like peering out. And I was like, man, I really want to jump. I really, but I was afraid. I mean, I made a lot of money and I was the primary breadwinner for my family. And I just kind of felt like if I jump, I'm just going to go splat on the tarmac. But you know, the, the less satisfying that my job got, the more that, that felt like it was worth the risk. And, you know, I really had to look at myself and say, okay, well, what am I good at? And what do I like to do? I mean, I'd done marketing for 30 years, and so that felt like that was part of my DNA. Where I'd be like, oh, my identity is that I'm a marketer. And I had to really reconsider that and say, is that really true? That's what I do for a living. And I enjoy it. Like at times I enjoy at times I don't. But what is it about what I do that I enjoy? And when I really broke it down, what I liked was I liked dealing with people. I liked helping people, I didn't necessarily feel like I loved like, oh, let's beat the campaign from last quarter. Right? Like that, wasn't what turned me on. What turned me on was like to be able to go and sit down with the head of a business and understand what are the problems that you're facing. And then to, use my creativity and that of my team and the resources that we had to come up with a plan to address that person's problem. And so when I really got down to the heart of it, I was like, what I like is helping people. I was doing it through marketing and I also, I like being creative too. And so, I liked the fact that our problem solving was creative. But once I was able to look at that, I was like, oh, okay, well, and what am I good at? Right. I think I thought it was good at that consulting aspect of what I did, but I also did a lot of coaching and mentoring of people on my staff. And I got feedback and not on a number of different fronts that I was good at it. People told me like, thank you. You've helped me. I've, you've helped me look at my career differently. I had had good employee engagement scores. The company measured that. So, I was getting feedback that I was good at it. And so that kind of led me to start thinking about, well, and actually I was just doing a lot of networking at the time, like right before and after I left my job and I met somebody who had gone through the coach training program that I ultimately went through and she had worked in PR for her career for a couple decades. And her, her story sounded a lot like mine, that she just sorta got burnt out with something that used to be really enjoyable. And she just sort of got burnt out, you outgrow things, right? And.

Josh Boone: 42:11

Yeah. Yeah.

Terry McDougall: 42:12

Once I kind of got the inside view of like, oh, what's it like, and who do you work with? What do you specialize in? And I was like, oh, wow. That was really cool. So I decided to set out on that path. I didn't at first think that I would do it full time, that was a little scary to think about, like, okay, can I really just rely on myself to replace that income that I was making in the corporate world?

Josh Boone: 42:36

Have you ever like been an entrepreneur before?

Terry McDougall: 42:38

Well, I did, when I was in business school, I went back to business school full-time when I was in my late twenties. And I quit my job and just went, but it's kind of funny because I just, I think that this happens with me where I like consider things like really deep down inside, but I don't like, it doesn't rise to my level of consciousness, but when it does, I'm like really decisive. And I just actually something happened at my job when I was like 29, my best friend at work got married and moved away. And so I'm sitting there at work and this had actually been one of these situations where it was like one of those idyllic team environments. Like where she and I worked for the art director and he was really a great guy, great mentor, this really creative environment. We do a lot of fun, good stuff. It was great, great job. But when she left, I sat there and I was like, if I don't grab hold of the steering wheel here of my own career, everything's going to change around me. And I might not be happy without changing it. It had already started changing, like the head of the department had left and the person that replaced him was kind of a pain in the neck. There were just like little things that were starting to change. And I just it's sorta like the frog in the boiling water, right? Like it was starting to get a little bit warm and I was like, I can just stay here and boil to death, or I can jump out of the pot. And I picked up the phone and called university of Maryland and said, when's your deadline for the MBA program admission? And they were like, oh, Friday, seriously. It was like Tuesday. And I was like, okay, I had already taken the GMAT like six years before. And so I didn't have to worry about that, but I applied and I got in and within a couple months I was there in the first year orientation doing trust falls in the woods with all of my classmates, the team building. Um, But anyway, that's a long, long preamble to my boss, Uh, the art director, and he said, if you buy a Mac, I will send you freelance work. And so I bought a Mac, I needed one for school anyway. And I did freelance graphic design work for him. And I had some other clients too. So it was my first time of like, the small, small business. I wasn't working tremendous amount of hours, but I was charging$35 an hour in the nineties. When, you know, if I got a job at the school, I'd probably get paid like, six bucks an hour or something.

Josh Boone: 45:04

Yeah, it's hard, man. I think that's one of the big things that keeps people from making the leap. It's like me. I was born into this, like literally my dad has a tree service and I grew up going out on estimates with them, you know? so the consulting aspect is just in my DNA. And then I was, had my own various web projects in my teens. And then I did a lot of freelancing, with small businesses around here. And then I had my agency and then I took those two years off and then I've been consulting. So it's just like, I've never had a normal job. So part of it when I talk with people I can understand. But also like part of me is just kind of like, I don't know. It it's, it's not as scary to me, like the feast and famine aspect, because it's so normalized.

Terry McDougall: 45:46

Once you do it, it gets, it gets easier. And, I, I think hustling, like always, for me, I'm like always hustling, right. I'm always looking for, okay, whatever I've got, I'm going to look for, what's the next best thing. And, and then as, as I get better things, and then I sort of like offshoot or I get rid of things that aren't as lucrative. And by the way, this is super funny because my dad has a tree service too. He worked for the telephone company until he was in his fifties and he got a buy out and retire early. And then, of course he was, he was a blue collar guy. So he was used to like climbing telephone poles and stuff like that. And I'm sure he probably like, sawing off limbs and stuff that were interfering with with the telephone lines. And so he started doing that when he retired. So it's, it's funny. And it's Nice to, I mean, I think he likes it cause it's like a cash business.

Josh Boone: 46:41

Yeah. Yeah. That's, that is one of the benefits. Yeah. My dad's in his his sixties and he's, he's still doing it every day. He loves it. He loves it. He's like I'm going to do it until I can't do it anymore. I'm like, fair enough. So, yeah, I don't know. It's, there's just so much fear I think that keeps people from making transitions, whether that be like, Hey, I'm a freelancer, I'm going to quit this job and do whatever and do there's so many people that I know are just like rock stars at what they do, web developers, people in marketing, whatever. And I love these people, but some of them really complain about their jobs a lot. And I'm just like, dude, I could hook you up with freelance work. I know a bunch of people

Terry McDougall: 47:21

Right, and they'd probably be making more money.

Josh Boone: 47:21

Looking, they would definitely be making more money. And I, and I'm like, dude, you could do this. Like literally I'm like, just, just start like do freelance work for three to six months and just see if you like it. You might have to work a lot on your off time, but that's a temporary thing. It's a temporary thing. And, and make that transition. And like a lot of them just, I was just so afraid. They just don't want to do it. It's, it's hard to see because from the outside, I mean, I'm sure you see the same thing from the outside, it's like it's so obvious how this would make your life so much better, and, and they just, they're afraid to take that leap.

Terry McDougall: 47:55

Well, the thing that I think is really interesting is. When I first, one of the first coaching jobs that I had, I mean, I have my own business, but I also serve as sort of a freelance coach for other companies. And, that helps with the cashflow because they just send me clients. I don't make as much doing that freelance as I do with my own business, but Hey, you know, it's all about cashflow, right. And I always think of it as like the airline or hotel room model. Like if that hour goes by and I haven't sold it, It's gone. Right. So I can sell it for, for less just to make sure I fill up my time. But the first freelance coaching job that I had was with an outplacement firm. And that's a company that when companies lay people off, they will hire an outplacement firm to coach the people that have been laid off on how to get a new job. So, I would help people with their resumes. I'd help them with interviewing skills. Probably the most important thing I helped them with was to like shift from, feeling horrible cause they got laid off. Like, a lot of people. I worked with so many people that I've worked with for this company for 15, 20, 25, 30 years, seriously. I mean, they were a lot of people that were like, I've never had to look for a job. I got my first job on campus at the campus recruiting and I've just had recruiters call me, that's how I've gotten all my jobs. So they don't even know how to look for a job. And, they feel so horrible when they get laid off. But my point with the story is that you're not safer because you have a job, you know, like, because it can happen at any time. I mean, literally I'm somebody that usually talks to somebody within a day to a week of them being laid off. And man, their emotions are raw. A lot of times they're really depressed. A lot of times they feel like there's something wrong with them. I had to deal with this a little bit when I left corporate too, is that I didn't really realize how much of my identity was tied up with my employer, right? Cause my um, my employer is a, pretty well-known bank and the Chicago land actually throughout the Midwest. And you know, if I said, oh, well I work for this bank. People will be like, oh, I see their commercials on TV and do you work on those? And you know, I was like, Ooh, look at me. You know, I like worked for this great, you know, they've got their logo on the floor at the United center and stuff like that. But when I left, I was like, oh, it's just me. You know it a little me out here. I have to, I have to step into my own power and present myself. Now is it any different than I was before? No. Right. I am doing the same things that I did in the corporate world. But actually I have more freedom to do them. You know Like I was saying before that I, I felt like a lot of times I would come up with these great ideas and then I'd have to, convince 80 people to, you know, like, this is a good idea let me talk to the next. Or like, okay, well, I'll agree if they'll agree. Right. It just, by the time I cut through all the red tape of getting agreement from everybody and their brother to start an initiative, I was exhausted, right? Now if I decide I want to do something, I just do it. You know, When I started my podcast, I just been on enough podcasts that I knew that I enjoyed it. And I just Googled, like, how do you start podcasts? Just did it. You know? And it's, there's something that's like super energizing about just the being like, I'm just going to try something. I'm just going to do something new and different and see how I like it.

Josh Boone: 51:22

I think there's like so much. I mean, one of the reoccurring themes is on the show. It's, it's interesting when you start a podcast and then you go through the editing process and you listen to yourself enough, you're just like, oh shit. I say the same shit over and over and over again, I recorded, I recorded a bunch of them and, and I was kind of doing beta versions of it. And then I had a bunch of just stuff going on. So like, I kind of didn't get around to editing them until maybe like around the same time I had like eight I needed to edit and it was a couple months ago. And so back to back, I'm re listening to all these and I'm just like, oh man, I repeat myself a lot. But like, you know, cause I hadn't really listened to them in a while, but one of the, the, the reoccurring themes is just split testing. Like, in marketing, it's obvious, you know, you, you do a bunch of split testing, concept a, B, C, and D, and then you run them until you have statistically significant data. And then you're like, can you make some decisions off of it? And then you iterate and you do it again and you do it again. That. One of the weird things is that seems to be a very foreign concept to the average person, which is really surprising to me. I think I've just because I've been in the entrepreneurial and marketing space for so long. And there's some that are adjacent, people in data science or something like that, obviously. But for the most part, that's something that's like really the average person doesn't think of very much. Um, And I think some people intuitively kind of do this in their own way, but they don't think about it more in a, in a systemized way. And that's, that's like all I do. I'm constantly split testing every single aspect of my life and being like, okay, does this work, does this work, does that work? Does this work? And then making decisions really fast based on that. And then iterating where I feel like a lot of people just um, I can't tell how much of it is due to the blinders of fear or just the not having a framework or like an operating system that, that entices it. But it's . Just like, yeah. For you, it's like the split test is just, I think I might want to start a podcast. I'm not sure I'm going to go on a bunch of other people's podcasts because that's very low commitment of time and resources. And also that's good for your business because the benefit is, even if you don't enjoy it, you got some free publicity and then you gather that data and then you're like, okay, well, I'm going to continue doing that. And then I'm also going to start my own. And like, it's just, it's the iteration. And it just seems that like a lot of people don't. It's not cultivated for them. I mean, go back to your point about the leadership thing is that

Terry McDougall: 53:49

Yeah.

Josh Boone: 53:49

not trained,

Terry McDougall: 53:51

Well, I, I also think it's like getting in touch with the things that you love to do and giving that credence. Because one of the reasons why I have continued to do some many podcasts is because I love it. I absolutely love it. And people seem to like, to have me as a guest, I'm talkative and I.

Josh Boone: 54:13

I'm enjoying myself.

Terry McDougall: 54:14

Yeah. good. I'm glad. Um, But uh, you know, I think that that's one of the things that we sort of train out of ourselves, like maybe with school and sometimes with certain jobs that we're like time to make the donuts, you know, you just get up and do the same old thing and we don't stop to say, do I like what I'm doing? Am I enjoying this? I think that's why a lot of people are really unhappy with work is because they don't enjoy what they're doing, but yet they're allowing their fear to keep them from finding something that's more aligned with what they like to do. And listen, like I said it before, you're here for a reason you're not here to be miserable. You are here to enjoy your life. You're here to step fully into your purpose and to share that with other people. You know, I think that sometimes we see people that are doing, you know, I mean, I actually say this to people. Like if you're envious of somebody else, take a close look at yourself, because that probably means that that person is doing something that you want to do. And guess what, instead of being angry or resentful or being jealous, just freaking go out and do the thing that you want to do, right. Stop, stop, like criticizing or judging other people for doing cool things and saying like, that's not practical. They're going to end up broke, what ever, right. That's their issue. Like if, if somebody is doing something that seems reckless or like, look at yourself and be like, what is it about that that is bothering me? Is it that they're doing something that I'd really like to do? And I feel too, hampered or held back, like, listen, I'm not saying like, quit your job and go, sell all your possessions and go move to India. Not saying that at all, right, or do like what you did. Like, you don't need to quit your job and jump in an RV, but like, what's, what's like one small thing that you could do that feels more authentic to you that it might not even be at work. It might be like, Hey, I'm going to take an improv class or I'm going to get out my water colors and do something creative at home. I'm going to turn on the music and dance when I make dinner, whatever it is. Right. Like if, if, if you like it, do it.

Josh Boone: 56:35

Yeah. I mean, the common thread here is for both of us, is that improv. It's like I remember that that person was talking about, the musician. Like, if my timeline is correct, uh, which my brain is not always the most reliable narrator when it comes to, to that. Uh, I'm pretty sure that like, after shortly after actually I had that conversation with them, I ended up doing the improv to, to cultivate that. I'm like, one of the things that I really liked about them was just, yeah. That freedom of expression in public and not overthinking. And I'm like, oh, I'm going to do that because we had an improv placement test. I'm like, I'm going to, I'm going to do a, I'm going to do that. And that helped a lot. And, and then uh, you know, when I went on the road I kind of took that template that I had kind of gained from improv. And I just decided, because all the out of these towns, it's like, I'm not ever gonna, I might not even be in that town ever. And a lot of these pounds I would be in for a day or like a week or whatever, some of them, a couple of hours I'm just stopping in, get food and then go. So I kind of thought about it from an improper perspective. I'm like, I'm going to play different characters. I don't mean that as like a um, yeah, I didn't mean like a manipulating people, but I, yeah, but I'm going to try acting like different versions of myself because we all have very authentic, different versions of ourselves, and I started doing that and very quickly I started seeing not only like what resonated with me, but also what resonated with people and it became this awesome positive feedback loop where like, I would start acting in this aspect and I'm like, oh, I it's creating this energy and this synergy. And all of that, I don't think I would have had that experience if I hadn't had the framework from taking the improv class, but I wouldn't have taken the improv class if I hadn't had that conversation with my friend and analyzed why, to your point, you know? So I think it is... have you heard of the concept of people hiring, like their job or their spouse or other things like video games or whatever to avoid pain?

Terry McDougall: 58:40

Yes. Listen, we all do that. Nobody, nobody wants to feel pain. And this is like, we, we do so many things in our lives to avoid pain, whether it is eating, drinking, staying in a job that we don't like. I mean, the irony of it is, maybe you've heard the saying like when you're going through hell, keep going, because sometimes people will be like, they need to go through a transition to get to the other side because where they are is painful. Right. But they'll like set one foot outside of their comfort zone and then there'll be like scared and they'll jump back and be like, oh, okay, it's just, It's okay here. And it's like, no, if you're unhappy where you are go through that transition, it's going to be uncomfortable. You're going to feel awkward. You're going to be outside your comfort zone, but no progress has ever made inside your comfort zone. I mean, think about little kids learning to walk or, or swim or ride a bike. It's fraught with falling down, with getting water up your nose, with getting scraped knees. Right. But we were little one year olds, we didn't just get up and try to walk once and fall on her face and then just crawl for the rest of our lives. We got up. Right. I mean, what, what happens I think with adults is that we get to like the first level of competence. And we're like, okay, I've got it made. I got here, I'm out, I got a job. But listen, we're meant to continue growing and learning in our lives. And I think what happens is that, you know, we're kids, we're just used to learning. We're used to falling down and scraping our knees, but we want to walk. We want to be able to ride the bike without the training wheels. We want to be able to swim in the deep end. Right. We want to jump off the diving board. And that means that we're going to have to get some water up her nose and, feel like we're drowning a little bit until we learn how to do it. But once we do, we can do that next cool thing. And I think that as we get to be adults, we forget that we get out of touch with, Hey, it's okay not to be perfect at everything. And in fact, it's kind of deadening if you just are like, okay, I've made it to this level. I'm just going to stay here until I die. I mean, listen, I like we'll work with people that are, you know, in their forties or fifties. And there'll be like I'm making a good living, but I don't really like what I'm doing, but I don't know, maybe I should just ride it out. And I'm like, what are you retiring? Right. Are you going to, are you going to ride it out for the next 20 years from 47 to 67? There are people will hire you for other jobs. You can figure out something that's going to be more seriously. Right. And is it, is it, like you just want to be safe for the next 20 years. I mean, you hear about a lot of entrepreneurs that they fail umpteen times before they became a billionaire. Right. They just didn't stop, there's, I honestly look at it like, there's no such thing as failure, as long as you keep going. And really, I mean, I I'm guilty of this, like holding onto money, right? Like feeling like, oh, my mood is going to be determined by what my bank account looks like. Then I'm going to feel more secure if there's more money there and less secure, if there's less money there. But you can't hold on to money, money comes and goes. We use money for things and experiences and stuff like that. Money in itself has no value, but yet we get so attached to it, and people can say to themselves, like I I've dealt with a lot of people like this too. Like, oh, well, I really want to do this, but I won't make as much money doing that. And I'm like, okay, well you know, you make $260,000 a year. How much money do you need? Right. Do you need to make $260,000 a year? Or could you get by on 200?

Josh Boone: 1:02:20

What's the cash value? Like what's literally the cash value of you having a life. Like, like I forget who it was, but somebody who is a thought experiment and they said like, okay, you make a hundred thousand dollars a year and you are very stressed and you have to spend all this money on all these things to give you more time. Like you have to hire a maid to come in because you don't have the time to clean. You have to do all this, you to eat

Terry McDougall: 1:02:45

And you have to go an expensive vacations to de-stress.

Josh Boone: 1:02:48

Exactly

Terry McDougall: 1:02:49

every two weeks. Yeah,

Josh Boone: 1:02:51

yeah, exactly. So what would be cash value be if you took a job for $80,000, that aligned more with what you want, you still make good money but you were way less stressed. You wouldn't need to do all that other stuff. And it, you would probably end up at the end of the day, net probably having about the same amount of money, but also your happiness would be significantly higher and your wellbeing and your health, your health as well.

Terry McDougall: 1:03:16

Yeah, I heard this story and I can't remember where I heard it from, but it's kind of like a little allegory of this businessman visiting this tropical island and he's like on the beach and he sees this fishermen coming in at like 10 o'clock in the morning with his net full of fish. And the guy's like, oh, You we're fishing and you, you caught some fish, like, why are you stopping so early? And he's like, cause I, I have enough fish and he's like, well, why, why are you fishing? And he's like, well, I'm, I'm doing this to support my family. And he's like, well, if you, if you like spent more time out there and then you could bring more fish in and then you could actually sell them. And the fishermen's like, well, now what, like, how would I do that? And he's like, oh, well, you could invest in a cannery here. And he's like, okay, well, why would I do that? And he's like, well, so you could sell more and more of your fish, you know? and you could sell it like further away, cause it wouldn't have to keep. And, and he's like, well, why would I do that? And he said, well, so you can make more money. And he's like, well, why would you, why would I do that? And he's like, so you could spend more time with your family. And he's like, well, I can already do that. Right. Like I, I get, I have enough by, you know, going out at 6:00 AM and coming

in at 10: 1:04:22

00 AM to support my family and spend plenty of time with them. So like what, what are those extra hours doing for me, right?

Josh Boone: 1:04:30

Yeah. I think it's like people confuse money as a KPI for security. They want to feel secure and to your point earlier about so many people having trauma and that manifesting in all of these kind of neuroticism's and all your choices. And that was something I had to consider as well, like in the last like year or so uh, changed my business again. I started like growing a consultancy, had a couple of people, I was looking to maybe hire another person. And then actually at the pandemic and everything, I took the long step back, I took like a month off and I'm like, I just kinda like, I don't, I don't want any of this. Like, I don't want all the pressure of having to make cashflow and payroll and all this other stuff. Like I just don't, I don't want all of that. It's not actually giving any value to my life. And I also had to have this conversation with myself of like, what is security? Is it just like having infinite zeros in your bank account? Because I actually, I did this thought experiment of just thinking, like, let's just say Elon Musk comes down from some crazy UFO craft he's working on and just delivers me like $2 billion and he's like, "knock yourself out." And I'm like, "thanks, Elon." And, and I have this $2 billion. How much would my life actually change? And frankly, it wouldn't actually change that much.

Terry McDougall: 1:05:50

The interesting thing is that, I actually worked doing marketing for wealth management in two of the banks that I originally worked for two banks, but at both banks, I did marketing for wealth managers. At, at times when I was out there, these organizations and, the more money you have, the more you need to work at managing your money, right? Like there are a lot of very extremely, ultra high net worth is what we call them in the banking industry. People who have hundreds of millions of dollars or billions of dollars, it becomes very complex. I mean, part of the reason why they hire wealth managers is because it becomes a business of managing your wealth. Like if you've got multiple homes, you've got to worry about the insuring of all the homes, hiring staff for all of the homes, maintaining all of the homes, like, a single person or family can't do that, so it becomes, it becomes more complex. And it doesn't, I mean, what are they saying? More money, more problems, right? Like that. I'm not saying like I like money. And I think that there's a certain amount. I mean, I had to kind of come to grips with cause I, I had a lot of fear when I first left my job. I knew that I needed to leave just because I, I wasn't happy. And when I was looking around, I didn't really see like a path to something at that organization that was going to make me happier. And I felt like I needed to spend some time figuring some things out for myself. But I also, I had to come to grips with my own sphere around when I first left, I felt like. Oh, my gosh, I have to hurry up and get another job because I'm going to end up on the street and listen, I worked for 30 years. I worked in financial services. I understand how to save money. Like I was doing, was I doing it as I was, I saving as much as I could know, but I was enjoying myself and saving money. So I finally realized like, Terry, you've worked hard, like for you to take a year off or whatever it, whatever the sabbatical ends up being, it is not going to bankrupt you, right? Like, look at your bank account. You're fine right now. Just like take a deep breath and figure out what you want to do. And I think that that's one of the things that, I mean, honestly, the financial service industry does sort of like beat it into people's head. Like, okay, you should be saving X amount of your salary. And this is how much money you have to have for retirement, et cetera. But you know, you can step back and decide what works for you. And if you've worked hard, it doesn't mean that you have to constantly, always be bringing in X amount of dollars, constantly every single day. Like you can decide what you want to do. And to the point that you were making earlier, that, when you get into business, you've got cycles, right? Like maybe there's, like my first year as a coach, summer was dead. Like I was not doing a lot of coaching. Cause it's people are on vacation and that kind of stuff. But just as time goes on and I've worked with more and more people, I'm getting more and more referrals, I'm doing more marketing and that kind of thing that, that, my cashflow is evened out a lot. But still it can still like spike and, be lower in certain months. Right. But it's, you don't look at it, it's not direct deposit every two weeks. Right. It's it requires different skills on how you manage your, your cashflow and your marketing and how you take payments and all of that kind of stuff. But I don't know. You can just, you can look at things differently. You don't have to

Josh Boone: 1:09:21

Yeah.

Terry McDougall: 1:09:22

be fearful and you, I think that it's important also to step back and look at what is don't don't like, listen to your fears too much, because a lot of times we attach meaning to things like, " I'm going to be poor if I don't get direct deposit every two weeks."

Josh Boone: 1:09:41

Tim Ferris has this line, he said that if he doesn't travel enough, like he goes long periods of time without traveling, he gets this calcification and his thinking and traveling creates this like elasticity of your thinking. And it allows you to be able to see from a larger perspective. And that's totally 120% my experience. And it's one of those things where every single time I have felt like I'm stuck or I need to make a larger change, like I will just take a trip. Sometimes it gave you just be a weekend trip, but one of the things that I have realized is that before doing that, your brain is going to tell you all the reasons why you shouldn't. And also it's going to feel like a waste of time and that there's all these things you need to be doing. And I think Sam Harris and in the context of meditation once said like, you should, you should meditate. I think it's gonna help you a lot. And some busy CEOs, like, I, I don't have time for that. And he's like, if you don't have 20 minutes to meditate in a day, you need like two hours of it, you know? Um, and, and that's one of the things that I've had to learn for myself is that the times when it feels like it's the least important thing is actually when it's the most important. And like, let's say you take a vacation, you like, I'm going to reset the first like four to six days are just like burner days. Like you're just chilling out and allowing your adrenal system to like reset. And then after that, you actually can like relax. So yeah. I mean, you take that year off. I'm sure. Like, what did that do for you?

Terry McDougall: 1:11:13

Well, it totally reset the way that I, that I look at the world. And I didn't take, you know, a year off. I mean, I've taken four and a half years away from corporate at this point, but I was doing some marketing consulting and then I started my coach training program, but I was you know, taking trips to visit people and I was doing improv. Like, what it allowed me to do is get back in touch with myself. And I think importantly also, I made the leap out of that skydiving plane, right? Like metaphorically. And I had to face my fear. My fear was that I was just going to go splat, even though part of me was like, Terry, you've already been intrepreneurial. Even though I worked in the corporate world, most of the time, I was figuring out what needed to be done without somebody telling me, you know, I mean, and especially when you get to a leadership level. I, I had a boss of course. I very rarely talk with him. Right. Like I was, I was running the marketing for these different businesses just by talking to the business leaders. And then every once in a while my boss would send something to me, but he wasn't like, here's the game plan. He'd be like, this is the destination. You figure out how to get there. Right. And so I do well with that. And so it wasn't like I didn't have the skills, right? And I was rewarded for doing that in the corporate world. You know, I talk a lot about the best scenarios for me were when they were like, okay, Terry, there's a jungle, here's a machete, go carve a path through the jungle and come back and tell us what's there. Right? Like, I love that that's fun. Right. But you know, it had like sort of the, the illusion of safety, right? Because I was in this big corporate organization that paid me, to go out and do the stuff, but I can do that without that, and it is valuable. And other people will pay for it, and often you can get paid more for doing it outside of the corporate environment than you can for doing it inside. And there are so many other benefits that come from that, I mean, it's funny because I've run into people since I left my job and there'll be like, "oh my gosh, like you look younger, you look, you seem happier." Right. That, so these are some advantages also of just living a more authentic life. I will say though, that it probably took me like, I don't know, two, two plus years for Monday morning to roll around, and for me not to feel like I was playing hooky, like, cause I, I mean, just even here in Chicago, I got up every morning and took the train into the city for 12 years. And so, when I stopped doing that, it felt weird. It felt really weird now I just, especially since COVID I walked down to my front row room at my house and this is my office. So

Josh Boone: 1:14:01

yeah.

Terry McDougall: 1:14:01

commute.

Josh Boone: 1:14:04

It's it's, it's weird though. Cause like when you, when you're doing your own thing there's always like, you know, the hooky thing. Another, I would say a little more insidious element of like, you could be doing more right now. So like when you're on your own time, you're on your own time. Like, you are the governor of how you're using that, so you are both the employee and the boss at the same time. So I always have this kind of like Jekyll and Hyde, kind of thing going on where I'm just like, I have these voices in my head, not literal voices, but like I just have these thoughts in my head just being like you know what, man, like you should probably take today off. You're not feeling that great. You might be approaching like burnout. I approached burnout all the fucking time because I am, I, I just, I, I know how to catch it a little easier now. So there's kind of like soft burnout and hard burnout in my opinion. Soft burnout, I hit that all the time. Hard burnout that might happen like once a year. It gets, it gets pretty bad where I just have to take a couple of weeks off and just reset. I'm getting better at it, but it's a work in progress.

Terry McDougall: 1:15:06

yeah,

Josh Boone: 1:15:07

You know, I have the voice. That's just like, "Hey, you know, you should probably just like take tomorrow off and just chill. You don't have any meetings or like, you don't have anything crazy. You got one meeting in the morning. Why don't you just do that? Take the rest of the day off chill" and the other one's like, but yeah, but you gotta, like, you gotta do this on the podcast. You gotta do that. You could do this thing. You could do that thing. Hey, you need to work on your new website. And like, it's just . It's. Yeah. That it's like a wrestler, constant wrestling match.

Terry McDougall: 1:15:29

I call that voice. The gremlin, the gremlin is the one that like stands outside and is like your little inner critic of like, Hey, what are you doing? You know, Judging yourself and that kind of thing. I mean, I do the same thing, like where. I'll have like open space on my calendar where I'm not coaching or doing a podcast or something like that. And I'll say, oh, well, maybe I should work on this project during that time. And, and I don't, and one of the things, you know, I'm doing something else, right. Or I'm reading the news or just doing something I want to do taking the dog for a walk. And I think that the thing that I'm learning is that like the wheels didn't fall off, the world didn't stop spinning because I didn't drive myself 24 7, I, I'm not like super efficient, but I'm doing what I need to do. And I find that there's a lot of very interesting rewards that I enjoy now that I suppose I didn't really understand when I was commuting into the city every day, you know, I'm commuting to this high-rise building, and a lot of times I had offices that, really had very little natural light. I mean, I had one office for years. That was, it was I think like on the sixth floor and it was over the loading dock, and so a lot of times there were delivery trucks that were down there idling and there's like fumes coming up to my office, I mean, I there's a nice office besides the fact it had no view. But my point is that I got very little natural sunlight. You know, I sometimes would go out at lunchtime to, maybe take a little walk or go get some coffee or get lunch or something like that. But in the winter, in the Chicago land, it's like dark in the morning and it's dark at night. You know, when I was commuting and now I really love, if I don't have a session, I can go out and do whatever I want to do. Go to the gym, go shopping, whatever, go for a walk around the neighborhood. And one of the really beautiful rewards that I'm getting now is being able to, I live in a really nice town and being able to be outside at two o'clock on a Wednesday during the week. I, I love it. And I appreciate it so much. I didn't know that that's what I was missing. I, I very rarely saw this beautiful town I live in because, I was just here on the weekends. Right. And a lot of times we were running around doing, taking the kids someplace, going grocery, shopping, whatever. And now I have a little more time to just enjoy my life. Just the basic everyday things.

Josh Boone: 1:17:58

Yeah. I remember last year um, with the pandemic, it's like, my fiance and I, we both work remote, so it's just like we would every Friday go somewhere, within an hour or two of here and just go to some small little coffee shop in a small town, and like, wouldn't usually go much past two hours away just because we have to get back and let the dog out, et cetera, et cetera. But like, we, you know, we'd do that and we just kind of toss it up and it was just really, really cool. We do that and we get lunch somewhere or if the coffee shop had good food, we do that. And it just change things up a little bit. And kind of sparked that need for adventure and whatever. And it was also, I I'd also plan certain kind of strategic work on those days because there's just something about being in that environment that just kind of enabled me to have a little bit more clarity than I am in my office, in my house where I'm here all the time. And I have a lot of emotional baggage here. Um, so that was really cool and then when everything just locked down um, you know, I'm a person that adapts and overcomes, but when things started opening back up around here, I started going to the coffee shops again. I'm like, oh shit, I forgot how much I missed this. And then it made me think at that moment, I'm lucky that I can do this whenever I want. What if I couldn't, you know, I just went to some office building every day. I mean, it's just, it just seems like hell. I mean, it's just nice to go out and be like, Hey, I don't, I don't have any calls. Um, I don't have anything I need to do right now. I'm just going to go take my dog for a walk around the neighborhood. Or if let's say I have a call with, you know, a client or a colleague um, you know, it's kind of casual. I'll just like, put my headphones in and just go walk the dog while I'm on the call, like, you can do that.

Terry McDougall: 1:19:40

That's why I think a lot of, it w there was like a saying, I think after world war one, which is like, how are you going to keep the boys on the farm once they've seen gay Perry, Perry? And I kind of think that that's the same thing with the pandemic law locked down is like, how are you going to get people back in the office after they've been able to work from home and start dinner in the middle of the day, or take the dog for a walk or meet their kids bus at the bus stop and still get all their work done and avoid, a two or two or three hour commute round trip.

Josh Boone: 1:20:12

yeah, yeah. Genie's out of the bottle. Yeah.

Terry McDougall: 1:20:15

Yeah. I just, I, it's interesting cause there's a lot of people that I'm coaching whose companies are like, we're a work from the office company and everybody's gotta be back in the office. And you know, there's a lot of places where people's kids still aren't vaccinated and school might not be a hundred percent back in the classroom and stuff like that. And I'm like, I think it's interesting. I think it's super interesting. I think that the future of work is, I think we're on the verge of what the new normal is going to look like. I'm not sure what that is yet, but I think that the pandemic has given us like a little bit of a sneak peek and it'll just be interesting to see like who the companies are that like step up. And I mean, a lot of them already have like, "yeah, we're remote." But I've seen other ones that are like, "no, we're a work from the office company." And I'm like, okay, well, the, the battle for talent is going to be an interesting one if that's, if you're being hard and fast, that way.

Josh Boone: 1:21:09

Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I don't see those companies doing very well. I mean, there's the whole, uh, "great resignation" happening right now where it's just like, I don't know. I, I several of my clients and friends that are founders, they're going through rapid growth right now and they're trying to hire people and they're like, dude, The second that we find somebody, within like a day or two, they're getting snatched up. Like there are people that are like, It's just so competitive right now. I just can't, you know, I think the only kind of people they can really prey on are people that, just have that same kind of scarcity mindset. And they're like, I need a job locally. It needs to pay me whatever else. And they're afraid to do work from home or something, but I don't know, like it just, some people do like the office. So there's some people I know

Terry McDougall: 1:21:52

Yeah. I mean, I've got some clients that are like, yeah, I'm the only one here, but I like it because otherwise I'm home with all the kids and I can't, it's hard. I can understand that. Right. If you've got young kids, especially that it's hard to concentrate. Now mostly I will say that mostly that's, that's like dads that I'm working with that are saying that, but I think there's some advantages to having that place to go where you're sort of like, this is the workplace, right. This is where I work.

Josh Boone: 1:22:17

Yeah. It's, I mean, it goes back to what we were talking about earlier, like optimizing every moment of your day. There's pros and cons to this, but like one of the things about working from home is that when you're there, you just see everything around you, both from a business perspective, but even just like a household perspective, like, oh, I need to do this around the house. I need to do that. I need to do this. Whereas when you're at your, if you go to an office or something, it's like, you have a pretty easy compartmentalization. Yeah. But when you're at your house, there's all these things you can do, should do, or whatever. And I mean, that's one of the things that I've really had to the last two years dial back on is just that, that gremlin or whatever, saying like, you should do this, you should do that. And it's like, I don't need to over-optimize every moment of my life.

Terry McDougall: 1:22:59

Yeah. Well, there's, there's that flexibility too. Cause you know, I'll have some days where I decide I'm asleep in today. But then, you know, a lot of times I'm sitting in front of the TV with my computer and working on things at, nine or 10 o'clock at night and that's, and I don't feel resentful of it. I mean, that's my choice, it's, it's, it's, nice. But I have also put some things in place in terms of like how, at first, when I first got my online calendar up, I just had it open like Monday through Friday for people to book any time. And I soon realized that I needed to like block out time for me to be able to focus on work. I still will sometimes book clients on Mondays and Fridays that I actually block out people can't book on those days. I will still sometimes schedule people, but it's my choice. Right. It's you know, I'm, I'm doing it. It's not somebody else like determining you're going to be working, from 8:00

AM till 6: 1:23:54

00 PM, five days a week. Like if I wanted to do that, I can just get a job.

Josh Boone: 1:24:01

yeah, no, I do something really similar. Um, Every single of my Fridays is blocked off and a good portion of my Mondays are as well, but I leave a little bit of flexibility on that, but yeah, I mean, it's the same thing. It's like, if there's really insane deadlines or something urgent, and don't I have any other plans, I don't mind doing a Friday or Monday. It's fine. But in general, it's like, just blocking that off is, is good. Do you all these things that we're talking about, it's like, there's so many societal factors that are insulating this culture and optimizing for it. And there's very little good corporate America has for people considering work-life balance, working less, not feeling like they need to be in the rat race and get a bigger car, get a bigger whatever. I mean, like every single component, like in finance for example, it's like, I've had several clients that are in, you know, wealth management as well and it's like some of the firms actively encourage them to drive nice cars and to get big houses and do all the other things. You know, and part of that at least in the car thing is image and perception. They go to a client's meeting and they're showing up in an Audi or something it looks good. But part of it is also this insidious thing. So a lot of people, I know that run law firms as well talk about that in the law, just being an attorney is like, Hey, we want to encourage all of our junior lawyers to get basically in a lot of debt because it keeps them in this thing. I'm sure sometimes that is a on the surface intentional thing, but probably not very often. It's probably more, just subconscious, but it seems like all these things are optimizing for status quo rather than it's the outliers people like you and me or people that are running companies that are

Terry McDougall: 1:25:45

Woke.

Josh Boone: 1:25:46

to do things yeah. Willing to make changes, even if it kind of hurts them in the short term. Do you foresee us optimizing societies and like our career path for wellbeing rather than economic value? Or do you think it's just always going to be this way?

Terry McDougall: 1:26:00

Have you ever heard about like the fact that elephants, the way that they train elephants is that when they're very small, they'll chain them to a stake. And, and when they're young, they're too weak to pull away from the stake but they get used to that. And as they grow and grow and grow, they're strong enough to pull away from the stake but they don't know that they are right, because they got used to it when they were young. And I think the same thing happens to people in the corporate world that they tell themselves things like I have no agency here that I have to do it this way. And I, I challenge my clients all the time to be like, you know, like a lot of times people say,"well, they won't let us do that." And I'm like, who's. Right challenge the status quo, like take a step outside of the comfort zone into the gray area and see what happens, right? Like maybe you can take every Friday off, maybe you work in a corporate world and you can take every Friday, afternoon off. Maybe, nobody's going to notice if you leave early for your kid's soccer game. But people will say, oh, I can't do that because I'll get in trouble. And I'm like, well, who says you will? Right? Because the reality is that you get paid to create value for organizations. And I think a lot of times people think, "I'm here to warm the seat for nine hours a day, or I'm here to make the widgets", right? That's not, that's not the case. I mean, I know I'm not saying that like some, some unenlightened managers aren't going to be like, I'm going to judge you by how many hours your bed is in the seat. I actually had a manager actually at that one job that I was at that I quit before I went back to business school. I really liked the original head of the department, but he got ill and he had to leave on medical disability and somebody else was promoted and she would have the administrative assistant in the department write down what time everybody came into the office and. Like I stayed late. I got my work done, and, and I also took public transportation to work and I was like, seriously, like, that's the best way that you can judge, whether somebody is doing a good job is whether they get in it, 8:53 or 9:02, you know, that's just kind of crazy. But I look at it like there's only three ways to add value to a for-profit company. You're either helping them make money, save money, or reduce risk. So it's all, it all goes towards profitability, right? Top line, bottom line, or, basically reducing risk is also saving money. Right. And if, if we can look at what we do and we can tie it back as closely as possible to one of those three leavers, it gives us more freedom to think about why we do what we do. I I've worked with people that have said, you know, I can't, I can't do this cause I have to do X, Y, and Z. And I'm like, well, let's take a look at that. Like, how does that help you in your role? Or how does that help help the company? There've been situations where, you know, somebody has taken a new role and say, their predecessor tells them like, oh, you have to hand this report in every week. And that report takes four hours a week to put together. I've actually had people that have like gone to their boss and said, do you still need this report? And they're like, no, I never wanted that report. And in fact, I think that that was just, a vestige from the old manager that wanted that. So like we just have to, re-examine everything we do and constantly be thinking like, is this adding value? And if we're not sure we should ask, right. Cause maybe there's a way that we can, like, re-engineer the process we can streamline. We can, develop people so that they can take on more and become more effective or more efficient. But we have to think that way. I mean, this is, I really think that that's, what's really important and it also gives us a lot of freedom. And whether companies say it or not, they want people to innovate. Now, some managers might feel threatened by it, but if you can make a good business case and you can show how it helps the company be more profitable, most organizations are going to welcome that, so if we understand why we're there and then we can, use our talents for good, not just come in and make the widgets all day.

Josh Boone: 1:30:32

It's interesting, cause it's just like, I, what I've been seeing time and time again, is like these clients, these companies that grow really fast, they go through rapid growth, they make a bunch of hires and then they essentially start, over optimizing in other areas. They, they ended up demoralizing a lot of their employees, then they have increased turnover. And then, there's a couple of things there it's like a there's risk because they're, completely just turn over, they're losing a lot of the gains there. And then it costs them money having to constantly get new employees, go through the whole thing. They often then continue to hire these new roles to optimize for the KPIs that probably are completely misaligned anyway. And then the biggest thing is, is with the turnover, you lose a large chunk of the internal knowledge, because most of these companies that I've seen are not recording the data in the learnings much because it's all most of the time in the head of the managers and whatever else. So they leave. So not only do you have this self-fulfilling negative feedback loop, it's like a negative growth engine almost. So it's costing them, it's a huge risk to their long-term brand because people are like, yeah, you don't want to work for that company. It costs them money and turnover, and then it massively reduces their ability for profit because they could have continued to compound and build off of the momentum that they had rather than constantly taking one step forward, two steps back because turnover is hemorrhaging everything. So it's just like, I don't know, from the outside, it seems clearly obvious, but at the same time it's still happening and it just keeps happening at scale

Terry McDougall: 1:32:13

I I think that there's some huge blind spots around this. And it, kind of goes back to something that I was saying before in that sometimes when people are very competent or they've done their own job for a long time, they don't see how big the chasm is between what they know how to do and how they train somebody else to do it. And there's, there's a a tool that I use a lot in coaching. It's called the support challenge matrix. And the trick from a leadership standpoint is to get the balance correct between how much you challenge your employees and how much you support your employees. You know, Typically what will happen, Uh, there's actually four different quadrants, right? There's one where there's no support and there's no challenge. This is like the boss that just sits in their office and play solitaire on the computer all day. Right. They're just picking up the paycheck. They don't really care. They're probably burnt out. They just don't care. Right. So people are just sort of like figuring stuff out for themselves. And they're typically not very happy, with their, their roles cause nobody's paying any attention to them. Right. There's no support and there's no challenge. Then there's the too much support and not enough challenge. And a lot of times I'll see this with highly competent people. The people that are like, you know, It's just faster for me to do it, or they feel bad about assigning too much work to people right there. They feel like, oh, they're not going to like me. If I assigned too much work, I, and so they baby their employees and it makes the employees feel like they're entitled like that. They don't have to earn their paycheck. Like these are the people that are complaining. Like, can you believe that they wanted me to do my job? You know? Like people that get all up in arms about that, usually the managers providing too much support, right? They're not making it clear, like, Hey, there's expectations here. I'm going to support you. But there's expectations. They're just doing too much for the employees. And then the, the lower right hand quadrant is the, the boss that's dominator. That is like not providing any support. There's never any like, Hey, good job. It's just constantly pushing, pushing, pushing people. And that makes people be burned out. Right? There's no light at the end of the tunnel. The ideal is in the upper right hand quadrant where there's the appropriate amount of challenge and appropriate amount of support. So like there, this is a leader who is like watching their people. You know, They're noticing if like, Hey, Josh seems like he's picking up on this. I'm going to look for new challenges for him so he can continue to grow. But also a manager who is delegating enough that they can pay attention to actually managing. Right that they can pay attention to. Oh, you, you have some questions about how to do this, or maybe I can spend more time sitting down to show you how to do this, or I can go out and I can negotiate with other departments if we're having issues with them. Like they can, they can stay at the 10,000 foot level to, keep their eyes on the horizon, but also understand what's going on in their department versus like either being at 30,000 feet and bullying everybody or being in the weeds and not even able to like literally lead. So I didn't even know how, I don't even remember how I got started on this, but it's a, it's a huge issue that not enough people are recognizing that they've got responsibility to develop people so that they can continue to grow. And most of the time, I think when people are growing and learning, they're satisfied, they're happy. They feel like they're valued and they, they are loyal to their organizations. And I think that too often, we either have the people that are mollycoddling or the people that are bullying. And like, if you can just come into that corner where there's an appropriate amount of support and challenge, that's where leaders are liberating, their staff to like run as fast as they can and to innovate and come up with great ideas. That's, an exciting place to work.

Josh Boone: 1:36:19

Yeah, for sure. Two, two last questions for ya. What keeps you up at night?

Terry McDougall: 1:36:24

What keeps me up at night.

Josh Boone: 1:36:26

Yeah.

Terry McDougall: 1:36:28

Oh my gosh. What does keep me up at night? Well, you know, there's a um, I think it's knowing that as much as I coach other people on removing their self-imposed limiting factors that I have my own, and I, I deal with the same things that I coach people on, so how do I continue to peel back back the blinders for myself and recognize that I can be doing more of what I enjoy doing and also to find the courage to do that. I've gotten to a point where I forgive myself for being afraid, and I recognize that, it's, it's not about being fearless. It's about having courage and the differences courage is that you move forward and you take action, even when you're scared versus, I used to think that being courageous meant that you weren't fearful and that's not the case. And I also think that that's something, I mean, that holds me back. But I'm aware of it and I'm constantly, you know, trying to figure out how do I keep moving forward without like freaking myself out and wanting to shut down. But feeling stimulated and having fun and making money, I mean, I have to make money to pay my bills. Um, and you know, sometimes it can be, I mean, my daughter is a senior in high school and uh, you know, she's going to be starting college next year. And, you know, I sometimes am fearful about, or we've got money saved up for her first couple years of college, but, I start getting fearful about like, oh, okay. Like what if I, what if I'm not like making enough money to help pay, but you know, that's actually, that's not helpful, that energy. I recognize I have to like kind of patch that, that leak of energy up and use rather than worrying, use that energy to focus on productive outcomes instead of, worrying about the worst case scenarios.

Josh Boone: 1:38:36

Yeah. Leak of energy is a really good way of putting it. And that's really what it is. It's like, I find that those thoughts are healthy indicators, but it's the severity of them that causes the leak because like, you know, I mean, even in the last week, like I've been not feeling very good physically, so I just haven't really been on my A-Game. And there's some things that I'm like, I know I'm just not getting to right now. And so I'm just thinking in my head, like all these worries, and then I'm just like, this is, this is weird. I wouldn't usually, worry about this stuff as much. And so I just literally went, they wrote it all on a piece of paper, all the stuff that I needed to do and I'm like "oh, that's it?" You know, It's like, I've been sitting here for the last, like couple hours worrying about things, but like once you write it on paper and it's like, not this floating kind of like nefarious thing, it's like, oh, that's,

Terry McDougall: 1:39:26

that's it's, it's, really important for us to see what is, and not, I think that a lot of times it's like we start worrying about things and it's sort of like often our periphery, it's kind of like the boogeyman under the bed. Like we're we were afraid to look because we're like, oh my gosh, it's going to be the, it's going to come out and get me. And then you look, and it's like a couple of dust bunnies under there and like old Sock or something, you know, it's nothing big.

Josh Boone: 1:39:50

Yeah,

Terry McDougall: 1:39:51

Um, But we're afraid to look, you know, cause we're just afraid it's going to be like the worst thing ever.

Josh Boone: 1:39:57

And most of the time it's not.

Terry McDougall: 1:39:58

And most of the time it's not. you know, One of the things I see a lot is, and I mean, I used to do this too, in the, in the corporate world, sometimes, you have these moments, like you got to do a big presentation or, you've got, gotta have like this really important discussion and I'd sit there and like, think about, every facet like, oh, I've got to do this, got to think about all the questions that I might get asked and worried about X, Y, and Z. And so then I'd go into the presentation, say almost being a little bit handicapped because so much of my energy was drained by me worrying. So it was like I was going in with like an arm and a leg tied behind my back because so much of the energy went into the worry and then I'd go in. I would do fine. And the presentation and some curve ball would be thrown at me that I never even anticipated and I would handle it, but I was handling it with less energy than I would have if I hadn't have worried so much. Right. So I kind of look at it, like do your best to prepare and then just be like, "okay, I'm giving it to the gods right now." I'm just going to show up and do the best that I can. And and preserve my energy in case there is something that shows up, right? Like, oh, the projector stopped working or, somebody has a really aggressive question for you or something like that. You'll figure it out. Right. And, and even if it's super uncomfortable, the time passes, right. It will be

Josh Boone: 1:41:23

yeah.

Terry McDougall: 1:41:23

before, you know, it, even if it's a painful memory, it'll be behind you before you know it.

Josh Boone: 1:41:28

Yeah. And that's an exercise that I do a lot. Like whenever I have something really makes me really nervous. I have like some speaking gig or something like that. Cause I do the same thing. It's like, it's weird if I, if I were to just have a group of people and like have to talk, it doesn't bother me. But the second that it's like, I'm giving up. That's the weird thing. I got to a point where it's like, I don't do presentations anymore. Cause the presentation freaks me out. But if I'm just talking. I'm fine. So it's just weird because it's like, I I'm worried about uh, you know, not sticking to the presentation. Um, Part of that might be because I have ADHD. So my um, I literally like my, my memory short-term memory is like really, really bad. So I'm like nervous, but if I'm just talking, like I could just it's, it's fine. But I remember, like I had this really big presentation at e-commerce conference a couple of years ago in Austin and I already was kind of burnt out just from, just work in general around that time. And then I go there and I'm like sitting there and practicing this thing endlessly, and I'm like a neurotic mess for all the same reasons, like, is somebody's gonna throw me a curve ball. Is it going to be this it's going to be that? And I'm thinking all of these things. First of all, there's two things a completely agree. Like I went into it way more compromised than I would have been. And the questions that I got answered were all pretty, actually really good questions, but there are questions that I didn't even think of. There were really like out of left field and it was awesome, but there's no way I could have prepared for it. And the other thing is, is that I remember afterwards being like, okay, that wasn't that bad. And now it's like, whenever I have something good stresses me out. I'm just like, remember that client meeting that you had like a decade ago and you bombed it and it seemed like the biggest deal. Do you think about that ever aside from moments like this? No. Did it actually impact your life in a super negative way? For like a day. And that was about it. And it's just like most of the shit, there's nothing really that's happened in my life that rebound back from.

Terry McDougall: 1:43:25

Well, I think that the interesting thing is that what you're talking about, I mean, I've had a couple of times where I've kind of, I don't know, I'm not going to say failed, but didn't show up and demonstrate what I was capable of doing. Like, I was very disappointed in my performance. And what I realized is that I was the one that was causing it. It was actually my own anxiety that stood in the way of me being able to share what I knew. Right. So it wasn't that I wasn't capable. And that was my biggest fear is that, oh, they're going to think I'm not capable. I'm totally capable. But I was so worried about it, that it actually prevented me from, performing. Right. And so like, my issue is really staying present and recognizing I know everything I need to know. I actually don't even need to prepare. I mean, I think that one of the beauties of being on so many podcasts like I have is that I'm not doing a presentation. I'm just showing up and talking about the things that I know and the experiences that I've had and things that I've seen. And, hopefully it's providing value for people. I know when I was writing my book, I, I did go through some very anxious times. I mean, you hear people talk about writer's block and I definitely think it's a real thing. And I, I was running up against it a number of times, and it was mainly me worrying about, are people gonna think this sucks? Like I'm putting a lot of effort into this, am I doing it for no reason? Am I going to get to the end? And people are going to be like, this sucks. The reality is that I had to rationalize it for myself because I've got a lot of books and I have a lot of books on leadership and business, and some of them are gold, it's like every word in it. I'm like, oh my gosh, this is the best. And some of them I'm like, this is crap, but I, I would say that I don't really have any books that I didn't get at least one idea from, and also there's a lot of books that I didn't care for that other people love. And so that just made me think, like for some people, my book is going to be good and it's been out for a year and a half now. And some people are like, oh my gosh, you were talking to me directly. I don't hear from the people that maybe don't think it's good. Right. But, you just sort of have to rationalize that, like just show up and be yourself. Right. And there are people out there that want to hear what you have to say. Maybe some people aren't ready to hear it. Maybe some people, you're not meant to be the person that is the messenger of whatever message you have to that person. And, we don't need to worry about it. We're not all things to all people, we just need to show up and be up and be ourselves.

Josh Boone: 1:46:00

That was kind of a big aha moment with me at the podcast is just me being like, okay, well, how do I want to approach this? And I'm just like, I just want to do whatever the fuck I want to do. And you're either going to like, you're either going to like it or not. And there's people that I'm sure that have listened to it and been like, yeah, I don't know. Josh is annoying and doesn't ask a questions and I'm like, that's fucking cool. You do you, but also the, I've had other people be like, holy shit. Like, those are the kinds of questions that I don't get heard at ask a lot. And I'm like, fuck yeah, that's cool. So it's just like, it's just, well, I think like making content, putting it out there, being your authentic self and building a tribe of people that resonate with you and what you're doing and your mission, you know?

Terry McDougall: 1:46:37

Yeah.

Josh Boone: 1:46:39

my last question is what gives you hope for the future?

Terry McDougall: 1:46:43

What gives me hope for the future? That's a wild question. Cause I'm a such a optimistic person,

Josh Boone: 1:46:52

See, I'm a very pessimistic person.

Terry McDougall: 1:46:54

like I, I'm a very optimistic

Josh Boone: 1:46:56

a I'm an optimistic pessimist. So like, because like. Yeah, I'm a pretty much a realist, like I would say ultimately, like long-term optimistic. Short-term a very pessimistic.

Terry McDougall: 1:47:10

Well, What gives me hope is that I truly believe that each of us was put here on earth for a reason. And that the more that we can get in touch with our true, authentic selves, the more power that we have. So it's not, I mean, we can walk around acting like we're poppers and that we don't, you know, poor little me, I'm the victim. I don't have what I need. And guess what you do. You've got like a treasure trove with inside of you. So all you need to do is tap into that. That's what gives me hope that like, nobody is left without. You have what you need, tap into yourself, tap into what you're connected to, which is the universe. And I've seen it again and again, that when people get clear on their goals, shift their mindset to believe that their goal is possible and they start taking action, miraculous stuff happens. I've seen crazy stuff happen. You know, People like have one conversation, like not even a job interview. And at the end of the coffee conversation, they get a job offer because they reached out to that person, you know? cause it was. You know, Aligned with their goal. They believed that there was something positive that was going to come out of it and they took action. All you gotta do. Like, it's an, it's a miracle, like so many of us. I mean, I do this too. Like we worry like, oh, I'm not enough. And I need to do a whole lot. I need to orchestrate everything. You don't, you cannot, you cannot orchestrate everything. Just show up as yourself. Let your light shine, be positive, connect with other people, get in touch with the freaking things that you want, and see what happens. Now, look back over my life and I think like the connections, there's a lot of things that have happened in my life that I look back and I can't even remember how it started, but it, it usually is me just being open to a person and somebody, having a conversation, making connection with somebody and then being like, Hey, you should meet this person. Or, Hey, I'm in this book pro program. And I'm like, oh, tell me more. Right? Like that's how I ended up writing my book. And then like the, you know, hundreds of people that I've met being on podcasts. I mean, it's probably close to 200 now between me being a guest. And then I probably had 60 people. I've interviewed 60 people for my podcast, like that's, that's a lot of good Juju out there in the universe,

Josh Boone: 1:49:44

Yeah. And you don't, you don't, you never know what's going to come back from that, I mean, fuck like some of the people that I've met going on podcasts and become friends of mine, like we've sent work to each other. Yeah. We sent work to each other and it's just like, you don't, you don't know. It's like, I always think of Wayne Gretzky, like you miss a hundred percent of the shots you don't take, you know, and you just don't know what's going to come out of it. So the more of those, the more of those kinds of opportunities you can create with low frictions, like you might you might as well do it.

Terry McDougall: 1:50:10

Right.

Josh Boone: 1:50:11

Yeah,

Terry McDougall: 1:50:11

Yeah, I I've got this one saying, I mean, it's, I didn't make it up, but I've attached myself to it, which is, uh,"even when you're falling on your face, at least you're moving forward." You know, need to take that stigma out of like making mistakes or screwing up because we're learning now we were talking about the, you know, split testing earlier. It's like, you're not going to hit a home run every time you step up to the plate, you know, but you're going to learn something and maybe next time you step up, it's going to give you an opportunity to do better than. then.

Josh Boone: 1:50:46

And I mean, that's just, I it's beautiful spots to to wrap up. Um, You got your book"Winning the Game of Work." uh People's checkout. And uh, how else can people reach you?

Terry McDougall: 1:50:59

Well, they can reach me at my website, which is TerryBMcDougall.com. I've got a blog out there, information about my coaching programs, a couple of chapters from my book. If you want to check that out before looking it up on Amazon. I also have my podcast Marketing Mambo, where I cha-cha-chat with marketing movers and shakers from around the world. Just people that are doing cool, things that I want to talk to who are in and around the world of marketing. And then I'm also very active on LinkedIn and my handle. There is Terry B McDougal. I'm happy to connect with anybody who's listening to the podcast. So if you're on LinkedIn, I welcome you to reach out to me.

Josh Boone: 1:51:41

Well, hell yeah. Thank you so much.