The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 249: Colin Nanka - Success Starts With A Choice: Salesforce.com Leader, Adventure Racer

Episode Date: March 18, 2018

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk. Episode 248: Colin Nanka Colin Nanka is the Senior Director, Enablement for North American Sales and Leadership Development at the world's leading Customer Relationship Management Company, Salesforce.com. He is a proven sales leader with over 20 years of sales experience including time at Salesforce and Xerox Corporation.  In his spare time, he competes in multi-day, self sustained, adventure races in the world's most treacherous terrains, including the Sahara Desert, Gobi Desert, Iceland, Grand Canyon, Atacama Desert and, most recently, in Antarctica. The Learning Leader Show "Success starts with a choice.  Find someone above you, below you, and at your level.  That's mentor-ship." Show Notes: Commonalities of leaders who sustain excellence? Understanding of their strengths - self awareness "Do what you say you will do" "DWYSYWDO" - integrity The combination of vision --> execution How have you sustained excellence? Know how to prioritize Tiered accounts Invested 4-6 hours on Saturday and Sunday while others were not working "Going in on the weekend" - The sheer amount of hard work AND extra work differentiated from the rest Going door to door in Canada - "It takes 20 knocks to get 1 opportunity" "Good pipeline solves all ills" "Flood the market with good will" Marc Benioff's management process, V2MOM, an acronym that stands for vision, values, methods, obstacles, and measures Why do crazy races all over the world? "I hit a crisis.  I was very successful and then had a couple bad years. It hurt my confidence." "I realize there is more to life than just working.  The elements of nature... A give back -- be of service to others." The 2011 Sahara Desert race - Trained for a full year. 6 days a week, 160 miles/week. "Success starts with a choice.  Find who's the best, learn from them." Mentor-ship = "Above you, below you, and at your level." Have all three. The practice of "playing up." Play against someone who is better than you in order to stretch and grow. Constantly put yourself in positions to be stretched Using Gallup to find your strengths -- "A very wise investment" Colin's #1 strength - Learning. Curiosity The compound effect of learning, growing, approaching each conversation with a curious mind What have you learned from the adventure races? Dealing with failure.  How to learn from others. "We all get better from sharing ideas." Biggest mistake new managers make? "They are constantly surprised about the "people" side" How to have tough conversations They try to do it all -- You need to be a multiplier -- Trust, Coach, Empower "If you don't lengthen the leash, you aren't allowing them to grow" First 30 days - "Focus on winning hearts and minds" Do a full day off site meeting with no focus on the business.  Get to know them. Utilize my "Get To Know You" document Understand your team value system: Vision Values Methods - Critical success factors Obstacles Measure -- The Marc Benioff model The #1 value is TRUST -- Ensure this is established early on.  Empower the team to make decisions.  As the leader, be a facilitator Roger Federer -- Finding joy in what you do.  Loving the practice, the process. Do things daily that bring you joy in life "Before I do anything for the company, I do something for myself. To bring me joy." Hiring a coach? Why? Colin has had a coach for 10 years "Just put 1 foot in front of the other" -- 19 hour race in Iceland Be: 1) Strong 2) Relaxed 3) Grateful ("It's hard to be angry when you're grateful") "Learn the rules like a pro, so that you can break them like an artist." - Pablo Picasso Social Media: Follow Colin on Twitter: @ColinNanka1 Read:  Colin's story Connect with me on LinkedIn Join our Facebook Group: The Learning Leader Community To Follow Me on Twitter: @RyanHawk12

And he said, you know, what would it take to get 150% of your passion and your drive if I was to bring you over to my team? And you know, I said to him, I said, you know what? No one's ever asked me that in the company. No one's asked me really about my, you know, my personal goals, what really gets me fired up. And he said, you know, that's a problem. This episode is brought to you by Gusto. Gusto is making payroll benefits in HR easy for small businesses. Modern technology does the heavy lifting, so it's easy to get things right.

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Text learners to 4422 in order to join thousands of other fellow learning leaders from all over the world. Text learners to 44222. Now, on tonight's featured leader, it's my friend Colin Nankha, senior director for enablement at Salesforce.com, one of the most successful companies in the world. In his spare time, Colin competes in multi-day self-sustained adventure races in the world's most treacherous terrains, including the Sahara Desert, Gobie Desert, Grand Canyon, Iceland, and most recently in Antarctica. His stories are fascinating. A few of the topics we got into. The number one key difference between the world's top performers and everyone else.

Then the biggest mistake first time managers make. Followed up by why he puts himself through these grueling races all over the world. Colin's stories are entertaining, enlightening, inspiring. I love this talk with Colin Nanka. All right, Colin, man. Thank you so much for being here on The Learning Leader Show. Welcome. Thank you.

Thanks for having me. Excited to be here. And thanks to our mutual buddy, Mike. Wolf for introducing us Mike big time leader within salesforce.com reached out to me a few years ago as a as a fan of the show which meant a lot to me this senior VP of sales has hundreds of people that report to him and he's a big time leader said he loves the show and he said you got to speak to Colin Collins the best so I'm appreciative to him for introducing us absolutely I'm grateful as well you know we may get it we may get a story in there about

Mike he's been an inspiration to me you know a friend a class collaborator, someone who has taught me a lot in my business. So that's awesome that he connected us. Yeah. So I know you've listened some to the show, but I'm curious from your perspective column. We're going to get into some of your background here and the incredible accomplishments of your young life still to this point. But I'm curious from your perspective, you've traveled the world. You've spent time with some of the greatest companies in the world. You work at one of the most successful companies in the world, Salesforce.com. You're leading leaders there. And from your perspective, when you think of those people who have sustained excellence, what are some of the

common themes or characteristics those people all seem to share? Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, as you asked me that question, I've got, you know, a number of folks that kind of come into my mind and, you know, ones that I've been really fortunate that have mentored me or that I've got to spend time with or be in their sphere. You know, something I'm really big on is strengths and really understanding your own strengths. And so I think each leader, you know, has their own unique set of strengths. I can think of one of my, you know, running mentors, Stefan Deney, who's in Toronto, and he is the most competitive person that you've ever met. He will compete in absolutely anything. And that drives him forward and makes him uber successful. You know, I've got another

running mentor who is, you know, competitive at heart, but he's just the, most authentic person that you've ever meant. And so I think, you know, authentic leaders in this world are something that we need more of right now. And then I think of some of the leaders that I've worked with in Salesforce and the decade that I was at Xerox as well. And, you know, a tagline that a couple of our leaders talk about is a de wizzy wig. You know, you can spell that out, but it's a do what you say you will do. Do what you say you will do. And it's all about accountability. And the accountability piece is, you know, showing up and leading by actions and doing the small things that maybe you think a senior leader, you know, doesn't need to do. But by them modeling the way in doing

that, it's showing, you know, from down to a second line level leader, a first line manager, or just a individual contributor or sales rep. They're like, wow, if they've got to do that stuff, I've got to do it too. It's all about sweating the details. So those are a couple things that come to mind. Do whizzy do? Did I pronounce that right? Do whizzy wig. Do what you say you will do. Do wizzy wig? I've never heard that, man. I like it. Yeah, something I always remember from a couple leaders that have specifically, you know, pointed that out. If everyone, and if you think about salespeople specifically and territory plans, I've rarely seen a bad territory plan. And if the people that put those territory plans in front of us would just do 90% of what they said.

they were going to do, they'd be all successful. But it's the vision, but then it goes into the execution. Do you have the grit and the courage to do what you set out that you were going to do? And the sales reps in my experience, because I spent a lot of time in sales, that, you know, can't find the way to do that. Those are the ones that are looking back on the end of the end of the year with regrets. So that's the what. How about the how? Because I think that makes a lot of sense, right?

having the vision and then being able to execute on doing what you say. And when it comes to territory planning and achieving and exceeding goals, what's some of the how behind that? Because you certainly are a guy, as I said, we'll get into some of it. But you're a guy who has figured this out, I believe. What is the how behind that? Yeah. You know, if I think back to my, my earlier days as an individual contributor, I would spend a lot of extra time, you know, into the evenings or on to the weekends, just doing a lot of the hard work when maybe I didn't have, you know,

all the strategy filled out, but I knew that I needed to work harder than others in order to make my number. An example I give often to younger sales reps is, you know, when you do tiering of your accounts at the start of the year, and for us at Salesforce, this is actually, you know, the first day of the year that we're talking. And we've got to tier our accounts. And you've got to go deep. You've got to do research. You've got to find those accounts that you're going to spend a lot of time with. And then you've got to find those accounts that, you know, kind of don't match up to what, you know, a profile of a good long-term customer, you know, is for us. And I would spend, you know, four to six hours on a Saturday and four to six hours on a Sunday just digging and digging and

doing research and reprioritizing the people that I was going to spend time with. And I would do that for the first two or three weeks in the start of the month of the start of the year. And I was also, you know, prioritizing who I was not going to spend time with. I've learned that over time, be very clear on what you're going to be committed to, but be equally as clear on what you're not going to be committed to. And that allows you to spend that time, you know, in the right area. So those are a couple things for me. And that extra time, what I assumed that a lot of the best reps were spending that extra

time doing the same exercises as us or as myself. And what I found over time was that I talked to other people, they weren't. But the peers of mine who overachieve their quotas in their own way, they were spending that extra time because they were passionate and they figured out what they needed to do. And then they put that plan into action. And we can talk about, you know, more around managing time and prioritization of what that looks like in your first three months or six months. I'm happy to spend some time there too. Well, it just brought up some memory. here as we'll go back because we've had we've had a somewhat similar path at least when it comes to careers I remember my first sales role and it was an inside sales job and on the first day I had no idea what I was doing column

but I thought if I bring some of my work ethic from from playing sports and put that into this world maybe it could help so I immediately went to the head of the office I was in the VP of sales and said okay who is the number one rep number one. And he graciously walked me to the guy and made an introduction and said, hey, this guy asked who the best was and you are and the numbers prove it. And so I said, do you mind if I just kind of shadow you and mirror you for a while? And he had ambitions of wanting to be a manager someday as a lot of people do. And so he took it as while the VP kind of made this introduction. And so he did. He kind of took me under his wing. And one of the one of the things I asked him was, would you mind coming in on Saturday and Sunday so I could practice,

but not take up time or they? And he was, again, I think had some ambition to be a manager. And so he did. We would come in on Saturday and into the office, actually, and go in on Saturday and Sunday, we would write scripts and we would practice. And in addition to that, this was in 2000, between 2005 and 2008. This was before people kind of sent a lot of mass emails. And so one of the things that we had kind of come up with together was creating these email lists to send mass notes. and nobody in our office was doing yet. And so the combination of practicing the scripts of getting the right list of wordsmithing the emails and then sending them out helped me immensely become ultimately pretty successful in that role,

which I eventually got promoted and he did as well. And so I think when you mention sometimes when you hear the phrase hard work, people just they don't roll their eyes, but they say, well, yeah, that's obvious. But it is obvious, but you actually have to do it. as you just said, most people don't do it. They might even know it, but then the actual execution portion of it doesn't happen. And yeah, did I want to do other things on Saturday and Sunday? Did he want to?

I'm sure he did. But we were in there doing it pretty much every single weekend for more than a year in order to practice and to get better and then to get really tactical on how to find the prospects I was looking at. And I think that was the foundation that everything got built on for my career. moving forward. Man, there's a lot we can unpack there. You know, I was visualizing you in the, you know, in the boardroom, you know, with one of your mentors. And so let me dig into a couple things there because it brought me back to my, you know, my past as well is when you talk about

hard work, absolutely, you know, before we had automated emails going out, I mean, when I first started my first sales job, you know, we had a book of accounts and meaning like physically in a binder, you know, on pages. And, you know, I was selling copiers on 100% commission in industrial park, you know, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in my first job and trudging through the snow. We didn't make phone calls. We went door to door. And God, it was pride swallowing work. But I learned to, you know, harden my shell and understand, you know, what rejection meant and how to take it in sales. And one of our sales leaders at the time had said, on average, you know, know, as I look at our metrics, it takes each of us about 20 walkthroughs in order to get,

you know, one kernel of interest. So every time you go through a door and they say, no, just check that off as a no because you're getting closer and closer to yes. And so it's a mindset shift, right? And I'm sure you went, you know, through similar things as, you know, you were out and prospecting. And then that would fast forward me to my time being at Salesforce. And when you talk about the hard work and really reaching out to your customers, I mean, pipeline is the number one challenge at all companies. And pipeline, good pipeline, solves all ills. And in the morning, again, before we had automated emails, you know, I would so passionate and so fired up about being at Salesforce that I would be up at 5.30, 6 o'clock in the morning. and the night before, I would write templates just like you for 20 emails of, you know,

the type of the value that we were providing in the market and trying to get to, you know, those decision makers in our accounts. And then I would get up early in the morning and I would have them queued up and I would hit send and send and send. And I did that, you know, a lot of mornings in the start of the year to just to flood into my market kind of that goodwill and try and find. people that were, you know, interested in engaging with me. But I had personalized each one of those emails, you know, put the feet up, watching some

football on Sunday. But that's probably different than a lot of people what they were doing on the weekend. And similar to you, there was a passion and a drive in order to want to be really successful and get the job done. I love it. This is good stuff. I knew because we talked in the phone a number of times, we've been texting a lot that I was excited for this, but this is cool.

So anyway, you let's progress a little bit. And you go to colonenka.com and look at whether it's your videos or some of the things that you've done. And I mentioned it briefly at the beginning of it. You literally traveled the world, but not only have you traveled the world, but you've put yourself in positions that quite frankly, I remember when I first watched your video, I called my wife and said, this dude is crazy because you have, whether it's a race in the Sahara, desert, climbing Mount Kilmenjaro, going to Antarctica for a race, the Gobi Desert in China,

Iceland, the Grand Canyon, on and on and on. First of all, there's a lot there. But why do you do this? This adventuring, this racing, this going to the crazy parts of the world to put yourselves in situations that I'm not going to say our life and death, but they're nuts in a way, some people would say. And I really admire that. So what is it about you that wants to go and do the, crazy races all over the world. Yeah, I appreciate that. And a lot of my, you know, my peers and friends definitely say I'm a little bit out there, a little bit on the edge, you know, but it wasn't always that way.

And, you know, let me dig into this. The reason that I kind of started down this path was due to crisis. And often, you know, some of the biggest opportunities in life come out of crisis. I'd come off a couple very successful years at Salesforce. I was in the top 1% of sellers two years in a row. And that was due to some of the things that we were talking about, just incredibly hard work, drive, you know, accountability. But when 2008 came around and the market crashed, it was a very difficult year for all sellers, you know, as you probably remember. And I remember getting

advice from our president at the time saying, you know, if you don't double down, if you don't do twice the amount of work that you did last year, you know, not only are you not going to be a top performer, you know, you're not going to make your number. And I was like, ah, man, like I got this. You know, I've got my formula. I got my system. You know, it works. You know what? I had one of my worst years of sales in history for me. And so coming from the top and falling all the way down the mountainside, that was a big confidence crusher for me. And as I came out of that going into the next year, you know, at the same time, I was working for a manager that I just did not see eye to eye with. And so I was really struggling to kind of regain my confidence. And one of the

of things that pulled me of knowing that I needed some more life balance was pulling me back towards nature. You know, I grew up in Western Canada near the mountains, you know, spent a lot of times outdoors when I was younger. And at this time, I was living in Toronto, an amazing city, you know, but not a lot of outdoor stuff. It's, you know, it's a big, you know, concrete city. And I just felt this need to go and do something for myself and really get out in the elements. And so I went on a trip on myself to Africa and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. And I almost didn't make it. There's three times during that trip that I was ready to quit.

You know, one day I got sick. One day we were on the last eight-hour charge up from 15,000 feet to 19,000 feet, you know, getting the sweats and having headaches. And it was the toughest thing that I ever did in my life. But what I learned in that anxiety and the ability to grind through that, you know, stuck with me. And as I came out of that and was able to celebrate going on a safari, which was amazing, and just being in the plains of Africa, and then also supporting a foundation and a school to help rebuild school with the money I made or the money I brought in, it was a trifecta

for me. It was, you know, getting out in the elements, you know, experiencing nature and then also being able to give back and be of service. And I just, I marinated on that as I came home. And I just thought, wow, there is more to life out there, you know, than just working. And it took, you know, a number of months for me to think, like, everything I've learned, I'm now putting back into the job and being very passionate about, you know, my new approach, you know, to work. And so I figured out there's got to be a balance on both sides. I can drive hard at work, but I've got to have this kind of this adventuring spirit on the outside. And that fast forward to, you know, the Sahara Desert. when it was a year later, and I trained for this race for 12 months.

I had a friend of mine who was taking a band of 10 Canadians to raise $100,000 for a foundation and also take on this huge, you know, ultra-marathon adventure in the Sahara Deserts, six days, 160 miles, 240 kilometers through the Sahara Desert. And it was so much bigger and so much larger of a challenge. than I even thought when I took on, that that was my true kind of, you know, projection, you know, into adventuring. And we'll get into this a little bit more, but it was a giant failure. I was not mentally prepared for the physical and mental toll that that kind of adventure was going to take on me. And I quit halfway through. And that was one of the toughest decisions that I ever made.

but it's also a turning point in my career. It's a turning point in my life. And that's seven years ago. And I've gone on to complete seven successful adventures. And there's more to unpack in there. But that was an absolute turning point in my life. In some of my research, you talk about the fact that success starts with choice. And some of the, I assume this is a sequential order because I found it on, you know,

when I was watching your videos and on your site, you list this. this order, which is failure, acceptance, belief, capacity, commitment, and presence. And I'm sure there's a lot there, but it sounds like that failure started with that first race where you, as you said, you quit, which to the average person listening, I can't even imagine starting. But, and I like to think myself as a pretty familiar workout every day, but I still can't imagine even attempting a race like that. But when you talk about success starting with a choice, what do you mean by that?

Yeah, for me, I've had a lot of great mentors in my life. And it's something I'm writing about right now. I write about mentorship a lot, but I'm writing a more personal story about mentorship right now. You know, when I grew up, my dad wasn't always around. He, you know, he was there, you know, every second weekend, kind of taught me things like, you know, how to change oil in a car, you know, how to frame a basement. But I, you know, the time I spent with my dad, it was a lot of times

working and not a lot of times around fun. And so I was always searching for different types of people that could, you know, teach me different things, maybe teach me competitiveness, you know, teach me how to be better at the, you know, the sports I was in. And I would say I was above average, you know, at best in any of the sports that I was in, you know, when I was younger. So I've always been out there, like trying to find, to your point earlier, you know, who is the best. I'm really curious in trying to find out who is the best in any of the disciplines that I was in. And then, you know, I'd pick their brain and talk to them. And in this case, you know, I signed up for this adventure for my friends, with my friend Stefan, who was, you know, he's been the best at a couple things. You know,

he's the CEO of a company. He's hyper-competitive, an amazing athlete. And he welcomed me on this journey and I just knew there was learning there. I kind of jumped across the chasm and thought, you know, with his support, maybe I could do that. And that ties back to a lot of my beliefs around mentorship, right? You really need someone above you who is guiding that way for you. You need peer mentors that are beside you who really drive that competitiveness and that camaraderie. And then as I've grown in my career, I was always one to want to give back. And I teach back and I master my own craft by teaching back to the people behind me. And that's kind of the way that I think about mentorship.

It's above you. It's beside you. And it's those that are behind you. And in that way, I'm growing at each stage. And so the mentorship to get into these race and have someone who's going to hold my growth and be there to guide me is the way that I've been able to progress through these races. Would you say mentorship above you, beside you? Can you say that again?

Above you, beside you and below you. I actually kind of learned, you know, if you want to think about a metaphor, I actually kind of really this crystallized for me when I was taking squash lessons earlier in my career. And my squash instructor at the time, you know, for those of you who have hit that small ball around the court or those of you who have played racquetball or even tennis, it's like play someone who's better than you because they'll stretch your abilities. Play someone who's equal to you because it'll drive your competitiveness and then play someone who's not as good as you because that'll allow you to practice your strokes and get better.

And that's an analogy and a metaphor that I've always remembered. When we were younger, my parents had some foresight, notice we, especially my younger brother, but I was probably a little bit above average athlete. He was a remarkable athlete. And so they would have us play up a level, meaning the grade above us for all sports. and that was that play someone better than you to stretch you. So then eventually when you didn't have the choice to play up and you had to play with people your own age, which was like middle school age for us,

that's when the game kind of slowed down and we became better. And my brother's case became world class at it, you know, and got to do it for a living. And I think that I really tried to take the learnings from that into everything else. That's partially why this podcast exists.

is to speak to people who have more wisdom than me, who have more experienced than me, who are smarter than me, who are more creative than me, because if I'm constantly stretching and talking to those types of people, just through time and repetition and conversation and building community

and relationships with those people, it's almost impossible, at least, I mean, as dedicated as I am to this, it's almost impossible not to grow, not to improve on a regular basis. And then it creates these cool moments where a big time leader at Salesforce.com, Mike Wolf says you,

first, I love your show, which is super flattering. And then he says, you need to talk to Colin. Then that chain reaction is pretty cool. So I think putting yourself in those situations to where you're stretched is so healthy,

not always comfortable, but so healthy for your growth as a, person and as a leader. Yeah, you know, there's a couple things that you mentioned that it just makes me think about. One is, you know, probably about a decade ago, I took on a business coach. And at the time, it was very expensive. And I didn't know if I could afford it. But I knew some, I knew a couple of my senior peers that had talked to me about the ability to have someone guiding you, help you be objective, you know, help hold you accountable. And so I've been working with this coach. She's an amazing woman for 10 years now. And one of the early exercises that we did that I recommend to

everyone is finding out what your five natural strengths are. It's a Gallup survey. It's been around for 20 years. It costs $15. It's the best $15 that I've ever spent. And it's so appropriate for this podcast because my number one strength is learning, right? I absolutely love learning. I take in podcasts. I take in books. I see moments, you know, every day of learning. And that's what's helped me drive, you know, writing my daily blog. You know, people always ask me like, well, how do you come up with all these ideas? And I'm just curious. And I talk to people and I, you know, share connections with people and they share them back with me. And I just have, you know, two or three ideas that pop up every day. And they're not earthshattering.

They're small, but there are things that help people and that they help me. And in that way, I am learning every single day. And if you think of the compound interest of just learning one or two, you know, small new ideas or small wins every single day, that growth curve goes up into the right immensely. And that's the way I look at learning and growth. When I've worked at a big corporation, and I know Salesforce is different, it's quite unique because of, I know open-mindedness is probably much bigger there than other places. But when I worked at a big corporation, there were definitely.

people who supported my efforts to do the learning leader show for the last three, four years. And they loved it and they, they followed it. And we had conversations about it, both at high levels and mid and low levels of the organization. But there were definitely some who were not fans of me doing it because of that they thought maybe I was trying to create too much of a personal brand or shine a light away from the company, which was not my intent. And I didn't do that at all. I found it to be quite odd. But I think anytime you decide to do anything, you're going to always create, I guess, a fraction of the people that might not like it.

How is all this crazy running and adventuring, blog writing, video speaking? How did the people at Salesforce.com feel about everything that you do? Yeah, it's a good question. And we talked about this a little bit. I think there's a couple good examples. For me, this was a big turning point. point in personal growth and awareness for myself, you know, at the time, you know, what I talked about when I went on that big adventure, you know, I was working for a manager. I just didn't see eye to eye

with and was just not getting, you know, the best out of me. And I'd been there for a while. I'd been successful. And so I started to have some conversations with a leader, you know, who was a leader of one of my friends and someone just, you know, revered around the company. And we just talked about the fact that, I wasn't in a place where I was passionate. I wasn't giving it my best. And in fact, he called me out and he said, you know, hey, if I can be honest, from what I see from the outside, it kind of seems like you're coasting a little bit. It was like, is that fair? You know, he called me out and, you know, it was accurate. And he said, you know, what would it take to get 150% of your passion and your drive if I was to bring you over to my team? And I said to him, I said, you know what, no one's ever asked me that in the company.

No one's asked me really about my personal goals, what really gets me fired up. And he said, you know, that's a problem. And so, you know, over the next a few months, we, you know, made a plan that there would be a promotion path that, you know, I would go over and join his team. And at the time, when I looked inwards to myself, I said, you know, although I'm not, you know, really jiving with my current manager, I'm giving, you know, 90 plus percent. You know, I'm doing my duty to the company. But what I realized within 30 days of moving over under this leader is that you just the heart opened up. And I was giving, I was back to, you know, those long weekends of

doing the work that I needed to do to be at the top of my game. And I was giving 150 percent, right? And so it was directly tied to his question. What's it going to take to, to give 150%. And my answer to him was, you know, I want a leader, I want a mentor, someone who believes in me. And as I came over, I also asked permission. I said, hey, something that's really important to me since we know we're being open and honest here

is that I've started into this adventuring. And I've got an adventure coming up in the middle of the year. It's going to require to me to be away from the job for two weeks. I know being away in a sales role for two weeks is, you know, tough for our territory. But I'd like to get your permission in order to take that on. And he said, you know what, Colin? He goes, I think that's an amazing adventure, something amazing that you're chasing after.

I'm guessing that all the lessons that you learn there, you know, you're going to bring back and share with your peers and our managers. And I was going into a manager job at the time. And he goes, all I would ask is that, you know, you share with your peers what you learn and you inspire them like you've been inspired to go and do that. And that was just an easy deal to make. And ever since then, you know, I had taken on a new adventure every year. And part of the professional growth for me was asking permission and negotiating at the start of

the year to say, hey, this is what's important for me. You know, if you're going to get the best out of me, here's something that I need to do and not be afraid to request something that I know is best for me and know that it's actually going to be really good for the company. Wow. So I would think, though, that doing these crazy races, both the combination of the preparation needed in order to just finish the races, to travel to the locations and do it. How do you, or what do you take from what you learn through fighting through that adversity and building grit, what do you take to the company as an additive through your racing? Yeah, I think there's a few things. You know, so I was in a, you know, a peer group of, let's say, 30 managers across, you know, that specific segment, a small business segment at that time.

And, you know, we collaborate quite a bit. So when I came back, you know, the lessons I learned, especially in that first or that second race around failure, acceptance, and I'll dive into that one a little bit and just sharing those lessons with the managers, you know, they found that really interesting. They were earlier in their career as well, you know, they were really focused on self-awareness, but specifically in the hub I was in, and I was in Toronto at the time, you know, I came back and shared for an audience of 30 to 40, you know, sales reps and aspiring managers, like what it took in order to complete these races and how I balanced getting the job done, but also, you know, how I managed all my training time.

But in order for me to manage both, I was up at 5am every morning. I was hitting a trainer, you know, two to three times a week. So I'd be in the gym at six. I'd finish at seven. You know, I'd be into work before eight. And, you know, you know from playing sports and working out, when you get your workout done first thing in the morning, you just open up that, you know, that creative intelligence, you know, with inside yourself and that passion, and that passion spreads. And so it's spread to my team, the ones directly under me. It's spread to my peers and the people around me. And, you know, they were inspired is what they shared back with me. with what I was taking on, but they all in their own right were doing very cool and unique things

too. And so they would share those ideas back with me. So we had this kind of upward momentum of passion and, you know, inspiration and sharing of ideas. And we all got better because of that. And that was, that was something that, you know, to this day was something that made me a better leader to inspire to get more out of my people by also me focusing on making sure they had the best professional year of their career, also achieving all the personal goals that they were chasing after, just like me. I'm thinking about the leap from individual contributor to manager, okay? And that can be significant.

There's a lot of listeners who have, are either in the process of that or they've made that and they didn't feel like they necessarily got the proper amount of training. So when you and you talked about this a little bit already, as far as that's a leap that you've made successfully. What are the biggest, though, mistakes you found that first time or newer managers make because they haven't been trained properly? Yeah, there's two things that come to mind. When I first started as a manager, I've been working with my coach for a few years, and we've been working on, you know, some of the, just the growth fundamentals of being a leader, just really opening up, you know, my emotional intelligence, being able to hand.

handle and have tough conversations. All new managers when I talk to them and I talk to them a lot, you know, every week, they're constantly surprised on the people side. And, you know, you know this, how hard it is to manage those types of conversations. So really having a, you know, a system in place and practice of how to have those tough conversations is one. And then where individual contributors really struggle when their managers is they try and do it all, right? They try and be the super A.E. They try and control all the deal cycles and depending on what kind of segment you're in and how big your deals are. You just can't be everywhere.

And you need to be a multiplier. You need to trust people. You need to empower people. And you need to be able to coach them, understand their strengths and help them grow so that your team can scale. And, you know, I've had some peers over the years that just try and they dig too deep into the deals. they don't trust their sales reps. And we do surveys at Salesforce every year. And we ask a few pretty pointed questions.

And one of them, two points of feedback that we always get is my manager does not understand my strengths and weaknesses or has not helped me develop my strengths. And the second is they're not letting me kind of skin my knee and let me go and kind of run sales cycles on my own. They don't trust me to go and kind of figure it out. And if you don't, you know, lengthen the leash enough and let people have little many failures and then come back and discuss, you know, how they can be better next time. You're not allowing people to grow. And if you're micromanaging too heavy that way, the amount of time that you're going to spend as a leader just goes up astronomically.

You know, you're not going to have your life balance. Your team is not going to be able to, you know, growth through your interactions. And it's just a downward spiral that way. That sounds very obvious. What are some of the practical ways to implement and execute on empowering your team, on trusting? Because the tough thing as a manager, I remember being new is that I so badly wanted my team to have success. And so when you want that, because I mean, you're measured on that and you are successful rep and then you go to be a manager. And so one of the ways that you do it, like you said, is to kind of be the super rep.

But you know that can't scale and it's not the long play. That's not having success long term. So how can people, is that just something people have to figure out through making the mistake? Or are there better ways to be prepared for that? Yeah, you know, one of one of my mentors, you know, a top leader at Salesforce, Tony Rodoney, he always talks about winning hearts and minds. And that's something that was, you know, we saw eye to eye on, you know, when I first started as a manager. But, you know, he prioritizes, you know, leadership skills and what you should focus on.

And in the first 30 days, he's like, focus on nothing else other than winning hearts and minds before you go on to the next most important thing for us, which is operational excellence, you know, about running your deals and forecasting. But I really took that to heart. And for me, you know, a unique exercise that I did with my team every year, I would pull them into a, you know, a full day offsite. But we just didn't really focus around the business hardly at all. I created, you know, an agenda and kind of co-built it, you know, with the people on my team. And we spent the first, you know, two, three hours in the morning, you know, talking about what the value system of our team was going to be. And a lot of people

thought it was maybe a little bit weird and, you know, very different. And I had workshoped this with my coach. And of course, you know, anyone can workshop this with their mentor. And I've had people that have workshopped it with me, but really designing exercises to really get people to open up and talk about, if we're going to be together all year, what are the top three or four values that we're going to live by as a team? And so I was inspired both by the work that I'd done with my coach, but also our CEO and founder Mark Beniof, who through his V2MOM approach, vision, values, methods, obstacles, and metrics. That's the business plan we use internally here at Salesforce. Say that again? V2MMM, vision values.

methods, which is really your critical success factors for growth, obstacles, you know, calling out ahead of time, what are those obstacles you're going to need to overcome to be successful, and then measures. You know, what are you going to do? When are you going to do it? And, you know, he has three main values for our company every year. They don't change often. You know, every year he may iterate on the third one, but the number one value for our company is always trust. And it's trust in that our products are going to work that we're always on at Salesforce, which is really important. But really where he's focused is the trust between all the people in the company. And so I really focused on establishing that trust early on by really designing

a value system. And by me not to making the decisions, right? I empowered the people within my team, and you mentioned kind of before success is a choice, I allowed the people on my team to make the choices of what our values were going to be and that I guided them. I was a facilitator in that exercise, and we decided how we were going to be together and how we were going to show up, you know, every day, every week, every month. And that was our guiding principle, whether things were going well or we were having challenges. And I always said to, you know, when I go around and, you do talks, whether it's to sales reps or leaders, I felt like I was always better at getting about 30 to 40 percent more out of the people on my team than maybe some of my peers. And they,

you know, they, quite frankly, were better at running deal cycles than I was. But that, you know, that was their strength. My strength was around motivating and inspiring people. And what I could help them grow professionally. And my goal was to help them grow professionally more in that 12 months ahead when we were together, than they had grown in the previous 12 months, or 24 months, or 36 months. And that was the measure of my success. The number for us is always a measure at Salesforce,

but the measure of my success was, did I help that person grow professionally more than they ever had in the past? And when you can do that, when you win the hearts and minds, a lot of other things come easier. Really good practical tips, I think, for new managers,

or it doesn't really matter if you're new. Anybody who's leading a team is the off-site workshop and showing that you care. And I've shown, I don't know if I've sent it to you, but I've written a post about this getting to know you document that I have always used when leading a new team or even doing it every year just to update it. But basically it's a document, not about really, it doesn't talk about the business.

It talks about getting to know them. And then following it up with a great, long one-on-one conversation because, again, this is an old kind of saying, but it's true is they don't really care how much I know until I know how much that I care. And I think that is the way to establish that trust early on, regardless if you pick the people on the team or not. And I think that has been a key for my success as far as building trust quickly is to truly investing the time with each of them one-on-one to getting to know them and what they're about. And then sometimes that has practical uses too. for example, some of the questions I asked them are the names of their kids and I asked them

of their home address. And so one of the, one of the reasons that I do this is because, let's say you're leading a salesperson and six months later, this guy or girl is having, they're really doing a great job, meaning they're performing, they're helping other people. They're being a great leader for their teammates that I might then send, well, you know, a video game or cookies or something nice to their spouse or to their kids and say, hey, Billy and Jane, your dad, John is absolutely crushing it at work and here's what he does. He helps his teammates and he performs and this and that. You should tell him that you're proud of him.

And because, I mean, if you think about this, Colin, like I love the thought of impressing my kids and my wife. I don't know why, but that's just the thing for me. So I think a lot of people feel like that. I remember when I did that for one of the guys who worked on my team and he's still, we're still in touch and we haven't worked together for more than five years. But he says, I still remember those cookies in the video game. You sent my kids because they still talk about it. And they actually play the video game. And I think that those little things happen in that you set the foundation for that in a getting to know you exercise.

You set the foundation for these great moments of trust in and one day offsite where they help build the value system of your team of what you want to be. Those are the types of actions that anybody can implement. But you do have to care. You have to care. And you have to see value in it yourself. as a leader that those some people call them soft skills and I hate that phrase. I don't think it should be called soft skills. I think it should be called, I don't know, like really necessary skills to develop.

I guess. It's being authentic. It's being an authentic leader. Right. And caring. So I'm glad you brought that up because those are big deals. But we have a ton to get to. And I know you do have to get to a thing.

But I wanted to point out in one other article you wrote because I'm a big fan of Roger Federer because I love his sustained excellence over. many years. I love his approach to his craft. I love the manner in which he plays and how he wins. You wrote an article about finding joy and meaning and everything you do. And one of the things that Roger Federer talked about is that I enjoy practice. And he enjoys making his parents proud and making them happy. And that makes him play better. And it reminded me a little bit of the talk I had with JJ Reddick, where you have to trust your process and trust your work and you have to enjoy going to the gym by yourself and making a thousand three

pointers or free throws or whatever it may be. In Roger's case, it's for tennis. So I'm curious, when you talk about finding joy in meeting and everything you do and Roger Federer enjoying practice, it's a quote from him, how does that relate to us, to those of us who aren't necessarily professional athletes, but we're professional leaders in our own right? What does that mean to us from a practical standpoint is finding joy, enjoying practice, Those types of things. I've got a story that kind of just came up to me about my trip to Antarctica that, you know,

really, I think, highlights the joy for me. And I'll just parking lot that, you know, for a second. I want to answer your question. First, just run the leadership side is, you know, I went through an exercise when I was kind of struggling to find some mojo in my career that my coach and I did. And it was really about just doing things daily, things that don't. cost a lot that really bring you joy in your life. And so the exercise was simple. And it was just jotting down 10 things, you know, that absolutely bring you joy. And they don't really cost

money. So I put that list together, you know, of 10 things. And then my homework in between the times that we had the conversation was to start to just filter, you know, those things in throughout the week, make sure I was doing, you know, at least one of them a day. And, you know, a couple examples for me. I'm a big foodie. I love pizza. You know, you have like a, you know, a tough day and, you know, you look forward to the end of the day and just, you know, taking in something that you enjoy. So maybe it was one day at the end of the day, I'm going to have pizza. Something that I hadn't done in a lot of years was kick a soccer ball. I played soccer for, you know, I think 12, 15 years. And it was something that I love to do. I just love to go to the field and kick the soccer ball. Kind of like Roger Federer,

who spends a lot of time on court, you know, drilling the foundations of certain things in his sport. And of course, there's things around, you know, being a leader that are important. And a lot of it goes back to the way that you lead this podcast and is around learning. I like to take in TED Talks. I like to take in podcasts. And so maybe it's taking in, you know, one TED Talk every morning, right? Just when you get up, you know, 10, 15 minutes of something, you know, that inspires. you and that's something for me that kind of just goes into my, you know, morning routine. It's not always a TED talk, but there's something for me. Before I do anything for the company or for other people,

you know, I'm always doing something for me first. And so I've taken that lesson on and I've shared it with many people. So I'm always looking for places in the week when I'm prioritizing what I'm going to do, especially if it's a very heavy week and a stressful week and we've got big projects are going on, you know, what is something at the end of each day or in the middle of the day that I can do that's very small, but that brings me joy and whether it's personal or something related to the job that I do, often it's, you know, I have a couple mentor conversations, you know, every week. And that brings me joy by helping other people. And that, but that also helps me master my craft in to be a better leader. So those are some things that come up for me as you think about, you know,

being a leader, but also having that balance of time that recharges you and makes you the most authentic leader possible. You've now mentioned it a few times, and I don't think we talked about this on the phone, that you have hired a professional coach that has been married. So you still work with her? It's been more than 10 years. Yeah, it's been 10 years. I talked to her yesterday, which is amazing. So how often do you guys talk? Every two weeks. Wow. Yeah. It's interesting. You think you look at your story and everything you have accomplished, you'd say, oh, that guy just got to figure out. He doesn't really need a coach.

But what I found to be a commonality amongst the people who sustain excellence, Colin, is the fact that they realize they do need a coach. Sometimes they need multiple coaches in an area. This is a big reason why I personally have hired a writing coach. And she is much smarter than me and asks me great questions and really pulls the information out of me. And we meet once a week. And we talked for two hours.

we just met yesterday. That's why it's fresh top of mind. And it is exhausting mentally. Mentally, I get done and I'm very tired on the days. My wife knows when I meet with her, my writing coach, because I'm so tired mentally. And I like I think I have a lot of energy most of the time. And so I find that interesting, too, that you have hired a coach that you've had for a long time. What advice do you give to others when it comes to coaching and potentially them hiring one for themselves? I mean, let me share a quick story with you. And then I can, you know, give some recommendations. a couple of things bubbled up for me and a couple locations bubbled up for me as as you were mentioning that. So in 2013, I took on what would have been my third race. It was in Iceland,

of all places. I had had a failure in the Sahara in 2011. I finished my first race in the Gobe Desert in China in 2012. And as I went into that third race in Iceland, in 2013, I was confident because I'd finish the race in the Gobi Desert, but I was still, I would think, a little bit fragile. I was like, you know, was that a flash in the pan? Like, I literally barely finished that race by the skin of my teeth. And so I felt, you know, I didn't feel as confident going into that race as I wanted to. And so my coach and I, like, really drilled things around mindset

and the way that I was going to show up and just honing through exercise. You know, the deep belief in myself that I could finish that race. And it's so happened in that race that I got injured about halfway through. And I literally, on the last day, starting into a 45 mile, like 70 kilometer run, I could barely put weight on one of my legs. I had to get helped into my sleeping bag. And I just went to bed that night and I thought, you know, if I can just get up in the morning and I can just put one of my legs, I had to get helped into my sleeping bag. And I just went to bed that night. And I thought, you know, if I can just put one foot in front of the other. I can just have the courage to start and put one foot in front of the other. I'm just going to do the best I can. And I'm just going to start that day with no regrets. And I trudged through pouring rain and harsh elements in Iceland for 19 hours. And I finished in the middle of the night, like literally operating on like, you know, what I felt was, you know, like three gigahertz left in the in the body. And I get to, I finished that race by the skin of my teeth.

But I was so mentally prepared. I had a mantra that, you know, I had developed with my coach of being strong, relaxed, and grateful. And I must have said that like 10,000 times, strong, relaxed, and grateful. You know, strong for having the strong will, relaxed for knowing that when you're relaxed, you know, have the best possible of performance. But just being grateful because when you're grateful, because when you're grateful. It's hard to be angry and there's a lot of angry moments out there. But that, that deep

belief in myself that I developed in that race transformed the way that I approached these races and would help me in 2016 when I went to do a run in Antarctica. Maybe that's a story for a different conversation. But what happened in that race is four weeks before I was leaving to Antarctica, I sprained my ankle, bad sprain. And I had a decision point to make within that four weeks before leaving on the trip of a lifetime, you know, was I going to let that, you know, was I going to let that dream and that trip go? Or could I be courageous again? And could I double down on rehab and training and all the, just the micro focus and prioritization in order. In order to, order to get to the starting line. And if I could at least get to the starting line, that was a

win for me. I got to the starting line. I finished the race. But that all ties back to the focus that I had on mentality with my coach and the ability to reset and reframe obstacles that come in front of you, the ability to just be really focused on what is important to you and really committed to the end of that task. And that all goes back to coaching. And I really think, You need someone outside of your friends and family that can be really objective with you and hold you accountable to achieving the things that even you think maybe aren't possible sometimes. I love it, man. I've actually had the request to coach a few people based on this show.

And initially, I didn't really want to do that. I didn't think it would scale, so to speak. And that's kind of a stupid thing to say. But I did take on a few of them. And I'm doing them currently now. And I'll tell you, Colin, they are some of the most rewarding conversations I have, both being coached as well as then sharing what I've learned with others. It's a rewarding profession, so to speak.

I think it's great to see the impact you could have on somebody and then to be impacted by others. It's kind of a cool circle that we get to plan because you're obviously doing the same thing for so many people, both inside Salesforce and outside. It's really neat, man. So I appreciate you joining me. I know we're going to continue our dialogue because we already have been for a while and we'll keep it rolling. And I think there's a lot more even for us to talk about more on this show that we'll probably record for the people listening. As you shared a ton of high level and then getting into the actionable insights that, you know, things we could implement and execute on.

I think that's what we want, man. And I am very appreciative of the fact that you've invested your time to do that with me today. man. Awesome. I really enjoyed it. I love supporting you and your community. I know we're definitely going to have more to talk about. So I really look forward to, you know, how we can help, you know, one another this year. And of course, you know, all the people that we come across in our communities. Definitely. Where would you send my listeners to learn more online? Yeah, you bet. Cullenenica.com is the best place to find me. That's where I post all the blogs that I write. I write daily. And if you're interested in the material that you see, the blog goes out early, every morning.

morning and a lot of the feedback I get from my readers that it just gives them that little shot in the morning to get going. You'll see some videos on there from some of the past races I've done, including a minute teaser from Patagonia. Me and my friend who's a cinematographer are working on putting all the amazing footage from Patagonia into a seven to eight minute mini doc that really documents the story of our team from this past year. So stay tuned for that. I'm on Instagram, all the other social channels under Colin Nanka. Reach out, connect. If you have any questions,

I love connecting with people in the community. Awesome. Well, thanks again, man. I know we'll be talking. I appreciate it. And I look forward to it. Awesome. I enjoy talking to you this morning, Ryan.

Thank you. Wow. What a great storyteller with actionable insights. Things we can put into our life. We can implement and execute on what Colin talked about. And I found it interesting that he had. has a coach and has had one for 10 years. That was incredible to learn about.

I'm excited to talk to him more about that. But if you enjoyed it, I love it if you would rate, subscribe, and write a review in iTunes Apple Podcasts. That's rate, hopefully five stars, write a review and subscribe in iTunes Apple Podcasts. It helps spread the message to others. Thanks again for being here. See you all next week. This episode is brought to you by Gusto.

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