Founders Series: Christi Loucks on Embracing Challenges and Entrepreneurial Growth — The Identity Jedi Show: Where Identity Meets Strategy

I always have these bars and I've always had an internal competition a little bit to see how, like, what can I test myself on? How, how much can I achieve? How far can I go? And it's, it's not out of like, I don't think any, um, like I need to compensate for anything, right? It's just, I enjoy that endeavor. I enjoy trying to be better. And, and like testing my limits and seeing, pushing those boundaries really is what it comes down to.

Welcome everybody back to the Identity Jedi Show podcast. I don't even remember what episode this is. Listen, by the time you guys hear this, we've been recording for like a week straight. So just, just get over it. I don't know, whatever it is in the stream, you got it. Doesn't matter. The thing that matters is we are back. We got a special guest. And real quick life update. So Samir couldn't make it. And listen, life happens, folks. I'm not going to tell you what happened to him and let him come tell that story. But let's just say he's having himself a day. So as a good partner, I said, dude, take the day off, relax, we'll get back to it. But the train just keeps on rolling. So we've got a superstar guest on the episode this week. Listen, she's not going to like this. It's going to make her uncomfortable, but it's okay. I'm going to do it anyway.

Probably.

Like, let me, let me tell you about the badassness of this next guest. All right. So there's, there's very few people in life, like when you meet them for the first time that you're just like, yeah, she's badass. Like, just that's like, just absolutely. You're just like, yeah, this is like, she knows exactly what the fuck she's talking about. Like, and we should just all listen to her. This, this is this next guest. I'm telling you, like, I, I had the privilege of working with her at the company that shall not be named, cuz we don't name the company. But, and it was like the first kind of meeting that we had and like all the execs were there, stuff like that or whatever. And we're just talking about different things and she comes up and does her part and was talking about like our sales ops pipeline and what was going on and what we needed to do and what we were tracking. And I was just like, this is— now granted, you know, I'm a data nerd, so maybe that was it. But the fact that like the way she said it, like she knew she was, was talking about and like delivering results and what we needed to do, I was like, everybody just shut the fuck up. Just let her. I don't understand why we're even debating this. Let's let her run it. And so without further ado, I am pleased to introduce this guest this week, Miss Kristi Lopes.

Thank you, David. I appreciate that. I do have to ask, was that the presentation that I gave while wearing an inflatable dinosaur costume, or was that a different presentation? Because that might impact my credibility.

It was not that one. But now I'm like, wait, is there one that I missed?

Yes, yes, you did miss one in which I wore those inflatable, like, T-Rex costumes. And, you know, it had like the fan inside of it because it like, you know, blew up and I could not hear myself speak for the entire presentation because I just had like the fan in my ear. Like, hopefully I'm saying all the right things. I can't hear anything.

Oh man. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm so sorry I missed that one. That would've been fantastic. No, I missed that one.

Well, thank you for the kind introduction. That was, yes. That's very nice.

Oh, I'll get my check later. So this episode, listen, so normally it's the Identity Jedi Podcast. Obviously we talk about identity, little things in cybersecurity, but, and we'll, we'll talk a little bit of that, but from the aspect of the sales perspective. But the reason why I was number one, super excited to get you on, there's a couple of reasons. Number one, like everything that I said, right? I just think that you're your, your take and how you approach things is phenomenal. I love it. So I wanted to kind of talk to, you know, get your opinion on, you know, just sales in general and like your experience coming up in the identity field and kind of what you saw and how you applied that. And then, you know, one of the kind of like underlying themes this season, and it's just because it's where life is right now, but myself being a founder, Samir, my co-host also being a founder, we end up kind of just naturally talking about a lot of that because, you know, when you are the head of a young company or trying to grow something, it just consumes your life and you realize how crazy you were to take this on. And so you want to talk about the pain with other people because you're not like— you just walk around and look at every window like, I mean, will I break bones or will I not break bones? You're constantly considering these things, right? So we want to talk a little bit about that too, because to speak to your badassness, there's a badass move that we're going to get to that you made that And when I saw it, I was like, I'm telling you, this chick was badass. Like, you know, when I was like, but we'll, we'll drop that here in a little bit in the episode. But for those, for those people that are, that either watching this or tuning in, listening on Spotify as they're in their commute from the bathroom to downstairs, because nobody actually drives to work anymore. Let our listeners know just a little bit about yourself, a little bit background. And you know why they, they will know by the end of this episode, you are The queen of badassness.

No, gosh. All right. High expectations. All right. So I won't start with like where I was born and all that, but we'll, so we'll start with like the meat of the career stuff. So I spent almost 7 years at Ping Identity. I actually started at the company in 2013 as an HR assistant, and I know that I was one of the lowest paid employees in the company because I was running compensation reports and, you know, managing all the the backend kind of grunt work for the HR team. But look, it was an amazing company at that point in time and such a fun moment to walk into Ping. It was just on the cusp of huge growth, not without its challenges, of course, but it was, it was an amazing kind of point that I walked into at Ping. So I, I stayed in my HR role at the company for about 2 years, you know, obviously stepped up a little bit in terms of the career ladder on the HR front. And in 20, I think it was 2014. I always get these dates a little bit confused, but 2014, we had a new SVP of sales come on board by the name of Mr. Dave Packer. And he wanted to do a sales kickoff event. The following, like January, February, early the next year. And because he was new, he didn't really have a team put together. So somehow that like fall I got tapped on the shoulder, I think because I ran the company's onboarding program, they were like, oh, you can like pay attention to details and, you know, make shit happen. So tag you're it. I got nominated, voluntold, whatever, to help with the sales kickoff event. And now mind you, I have, I don't even know, like, I don't know what a forecast call is. I am so out of the sales world being in HR, but I agreed to do it because I'm like, well, I'll learn a lot. You know, the company needs it. Sure. I'll step up. So I started working closely with Dave. We did the sales kickoff. It was the worst kickoff we ever did, but you gotta start somewhere. And we checked the box. Following that kickoff, he kind of kept like looping me into sort of sales enablement related conversations that, you know, how to grow the sales team, how to train the sales team, how to onboard new sellers, et cetera. And I finally said, you know, okay, Dave, like this is really interesting, but I have a full-time job and it's in HR. I'm interested in doing this, but it needs to be, you know, 40 hours a week and a formal change. So long story short, he did end up carving out that role for me. So I came over from HR. To start the sales enablement function at Ping. I was a one-woman show. I, again, my learning curve was very steep because I truly knew nothing about sales, but you know, the great part is when you get thrown into the deep end, you learn to swim really fast. So I ended up starting, yeah, starting sales enablement function, grew it over the next, yeah, 4 or 5 years-ish. To include technical enablement, partner enablement, kind of, I mean, it was really revenue enablement, right? So anyone that was involved in the revenue organization, we, we helped in some way, shape, or form. And then we also ended up combining the customer training function with my team. So we did kind of both internal and external, like enablement of all kinds. And the rest is history. I don't know that, like that, that's kind of the meat of it. And then I basically, I went over to a couple other companies. To restart sales enablement functions and kind of do that play a couple times over. One within, well, both within cybersecurity, one again within the identity and access space. So yeah, been a long time. I am, I don't know, employee, spent a lot of time in this space. Like I know it, I learned it, lived and breathed it for a while.

Yeah. Listen, it's everybody gets into right now, right? I am the same way, which is none of us actually planned to get into this field and it's what's up. And it was like, it's been 10 years already. I'm still here.

All right.

Well, I guess I'll keep going with that. You know, we talk about a lot on this podcast and we've, you know, interviewed different people, talk about security. I talk a lot about a lot of the technical stuff around it, but you know, one of the things that we've always talked about identity, the struggle is just, really understanding the business value, right? And linking that to the business and how important that is because at the end of the day, that, that's what drives, you know, the sales, right? For those engineers out there, which I used to be one, I know this hurts, right? It really doesn't matter how good the software is. It just doesn't, like nobody cares, right?

Yeah.

At the end of the day, it's gotta immediately solve a problem. The business has to understand like the problem that it's solving. From what you saw, like in growing these sales enablement teams, what would you say specifically around I mean identity, right? What were some of the patterns that you saw like that made, you know, successful sales or, you know, successful sales enablement programs? Like what were, what were some of those key things that, that you picked up on? It was like, hmm, when we do this, it tends to work.

Yeah. So when I was, you know, I'll use Ping as kind of the main example since I saw so much change over the course of those years. When I first was at Ping and when I first even started sales enablement, we were very much doing, I'll call it a product-led sale, leading with product names, you know, selling Ping Access, selling Ping Federate, like really just going forward with more of the features and functions of the product and solution itself. When I stepped in shortly after, I should say, I stepped into sales enablement, we wanted to shift that mentality because we knew that, that it wouldn't last in the ever-changing sales environment and what the market was demanding at that moment in time. So we did a huge shift over to that value selling motion, which, you know, everybody's really kind of doing today or trying to do today. That's kind of the, I guess norm, but with it came a massive change. It is really hard to not talk upfront out the gate about what your product does. Right. Super hard. I mean, you're, you know, like you're an engineer, you're a tech guy. Like you wanna talk about the speeds and feeds and all the cool like shit it can do. Well, what we had to do was change it to here's the, the real value it provides to your business and what it enables you to do. Or what it prevents. Although I would say what it enables you to do is usually a much stronger value position to sell from. So we had to really coach our entire sales team and do this like huge paradigm shift over to this value, like sales framework, much easier said than done. What I saw in terms of patterns is, you know, sellers who can easily adapt to that nuanced message, right? Because it's not that it's a different message, it's just you're leading in different ways. You're communicating kind of over the course of a narrative arc with a customer, the value and the solution and the competitive differentiators and, oh, again, the value. And, you know, it's like you just have to navigate it differently, right? So the people who could adapt their conversations to that different approach were the ones who did well. Now, because Ping also had a lot of, I would say, more technical sellers, the sellers who knew enough of the technical elements to be dangerous and could speak to the value, that was when like magic really happened because they could relate it all together. Yeah. And I think that was where we saw a lot of success.

Yeah. I think I've started to really see the value in like in storytelling the last couple of years. Right. I, and I even hesitate to say that or talk about it in that way, cause I feel like everybody's trying to talk about it and make it a thing. Like naturally, like I always told stories, it's just, it's what I did.

Right.

And I just. It was just talking about something that was cool. But when I started to work a lot more with sales folks in the field and either SEs or evangelists, things like that, going to these different conferences, talking to customers, you know, realizing that what was resonating with them a lot more was 1A about their business, but like, again, why it mattered and going to that value, but all in telling stories because, you know, for the most part you can get super technical, but like most of the customers still don't really understand all the technical depth, right? But, but they understand like what they're going through and, and how, you know, a, a solution or a product they're going to buy can help like remediate some of those, those pains. And then everybody connects to stories cuz they might not remember like, you know, XYZ and this protocol, but they just remember a story. And that's, you know, I mean, it's, it's, When you think about it, right, it's, you know, it's one of the oldest ways of communication that we have, right? Before we had phones, emails, any of this stuff, whatever. And it was just, you know, cave people and fires and shit. We would just sit around and just tell these stories, right? And so this, these people tell this story, then they take that with them. They meet other people that tell that story and that's how we got things across. And so I think it's just, it just kind of naturally resonates. And then once, you know, what I've seen is once that, once that comes together, once you have a really good story around You know, what your product or solution does. I think that, that helps kind of push, you know, whatever it is you're doing kind of to that, the next level. And we've seen it get better and different in all kinds of ways. Right. I mean, that's why we have, you know, that's why you have con men. That's why you have, that's why you have scams because people can tell really, really good stories and it's like, oh yeah, I'll take that. It's like the product doesn't exist. I just told you a really good story, but people kind of fall into that. Right. But I'm not saying that any of the vendors we know and love are con people. Just saying.

Yes. Yeah. I mean, I think people, yeah, it's to your point, storytelling adds a very, it adds a very human side to sales. And I think even talking about value selling and whatnot, that still sometimes sounds very like, oh, I don't know, academic or lofty or just pie in the sky ideas. And I think it's become such a common approach that it's, I don't know if it's watered down, but it just sort of, you say that and it loses its meaning maybe to some people. But I think when you can tease out the value through some sort of narrative at both the company level and the individual level, that's when I think you like, Sales really works because sure, like you as an individual, you know, you care about the company, you care about achieving success and hitting targets and whatnot, but you also care about your job and looking good and making sure that, you know, your ass isn't on the line and like you're covering your bases. Not that it's always fear-based, but you just, you know, when you can also reach into that value element. I think that's really important for the sales cycle too. Just like that human to human, like, I see you, I understand where you are both in the company and individually, and I'm gonna speak to you at that level.

Yeah. I wholeheartedly agree. Right. I think one of the things that I've learned this last year, right, in both, you know, the newsletter and then like crafting these podcasts is that specifically more in the newsletter. When I write it, like I always write it from the perspective that I have. And so people can always hear my voice in the newsletter. And I've heard a lot of that feedback from people that that's why they love it. Cause they feel like, hey, like you're right there and I'm having a conversation with you. But specifically, like I'm, I'm, I'm targeted to a person. Like I'm speaking to you about a specific thing and not at you about some random thing that I could just, you know, it's not an XYZ variable where I could say, oh, I'll take this thing and this person, plug it in and I'll say the same thing. Right. It's not right. I think the power in there lies in the ability to take a generic message that I can tell anybody, but I can still personalize it and bring things in and tell you still get the same values across the same point that I want to get across. But maybe I don't quite use the same words in the same pattern and kind of get into there. So I want to take that, right? Because, you know, this kind of concept of storytelling and segue kind of into the next part of it where, you know, I want to talk about, you know, the recent announcement that you made and what you're currently doing and kind of talk about that transition from, so you're doing the sales, you've done it at Ping, you do it at a couple other companies. So you're taking all this, you're seeing all this, you're learning the value of storytelling. And then take me to the point where, because I'm always curious to hear this, like from other people, both for my own sanity too, because I'm like, am I really this crazy? How crazy are the people? Like, what was the point where you were just like, hey, like, seen this stuff enough times and kind of, I've done this and I've run this play and maybe I kind of want to take this to the next level and do something a little different. Like, what was, where was that, that moment? And please let it be like, you know, like you were on a retreat somewhere, like in the middle of Istanbul and then it like, it just came to you, became clear.

Right. The line, the stars opened up and I had a revelation. Not quite that majestic. Yeah, I mean, I spent, call it 10 years roughly doing sales enablement. I don't wanna say running the exact same play over and over again because it's always different, but certainly like leveraging my expertise and replaying some of that across different companies. I got to a point about a year ago where, look, I am like, I'm the oldest daughter. Okay. I am Type A. I've done like a million marathons, ultramarathons. I go, go, go. I strive. I like, yeah, it's crazy. Yeah. You think you're crazy. Go run. Yeah. 50 miles. Anyway. So I'm like, I always have these bars and I've always had an internal competition a little bit to see how like, What can I test myself on? How, how much can I achieve? How far can I go? And it's, it's not out of like, I don't think any, um, like I need to compensate for anything, right? It's just, I enjoy that endeavor. I enjoy trying to be better and, and see like testing my limits and seeing, pushing those boundaries really is what it comes down to. So I, I kind of got to this point. In my, call it corporate career where I was like, all right, I've done this many times now. Like I know I've run the marathon. I know I can run 26.2 miles, like check right now. Let's go for the 50K and see if I can do 32 miles through the mountains. And so what I did there was I quit my job. It's probably important to note at that moment in time too, I had this call it an existential crisis. I don't know, but just this moment of like, how am I living my life? Do I own my life? Am I autonomous in my decisions? What am I working towards? And like, what am I putting into the world? Right. And there is nothing wrong with corporate careers, like nothing wrong with it. Right. But I think every individual has their own set of values. And for me, the values that were becoming more and more important to me was like, I want the freedom to pursue what I want to pursue, and I want the autonomy and the creativity and the ability to work for myself and not have to report up to somebody else. And that was just kind of a personal, I guess, life orientation at that point.

Yeah.

My husband is very much the same way. So we were kind of decided in tandem to go out and see, okay, what kind of life can we build for ourselves? And what that ended up looking like was trying to find small businesses to acquire and own and operate for the long term. Not a get-rich scheme, but a really like, let's build a portfolio based on values that we care about. Let's give back to communities. Through jobs and build companies based on what we wanna put out into the world, right? Respect, integrity, like all of these buzzwords, but, you know, really try and make it mean something. So to say, I decided to look for businesses in the sales space because, you know, that's what I've been doing. And I came across Revenue Accelerator, which was for Sale. It is an outbound sales company. So we do all the like cold calling, cold emailing, just cold outreach on behalf of our clients and had a good, good chat with the founder and he liked me. I liked him. And yeah, we, I guess the rest is history at that point. Here, here I am as CEO of Revenue Accelerator and I like to think I'm owning my life a little bit, but yeah, it's just, I think it's, it's just different when you are a founder, a builder, like, and you have that constant striving of like, all right, let's see what I can do here. Like, let's put this to the test. And I'm, I, I am enjoying that.

Yeah. And it's, listen, it's, it's, it's awesome. Right. I, and I'll speak for myself, right. When you posted that on LinkedIn, like I literally, I literally went nuts. Right. And like we have this—

You did, you did message me like really quickly. I did.

Because I was just like, yeah, I remember. I was like, this is because it's one of those things that I had never— for me, I never just kind of put two and two together, right? Like, when I thought about it, I was like, oh, like there's people owning franchises, stuff like that or whatever. But like in this kind of corporate, like B2B world, and I'm just like, well, I mean, it's a business. Like, yeah, you could do the same thing. And I was like, holy shit. Like she went and acquired and bought a business and now she's CEO. I was like, this is just— it was awesome. And I was like, and part of it is because, you know, going down this journey now, like I I think, and we're gonna get this in a little bit, like founders, other CEOs, like it's like crazy recognizes other crazy, right? Like we just, there's a thing when you, when you see, yeah, when you see somebody else and it's just like, yeah man, it's our own like little matrix because it's the thought process that you go through and the things that you have to do to go about it. Now I do want to talk a little bit about like the difference between like founding and then like acquiring, right? Because this is, You know, you've got like this kind of, there's a different path to start, right? You've gotta go, you're acquiring somebody's company, then you gotta come in, you gotta bring that. So what's, what's been like this, this kind of, you know, first is it, you're just a year in, right?

No, not even. I'm like a year in yet. I'm like 4 months in, David.

4 months in.

I'm still, I'm still fake it till you make it mode right now.

So, so take us behind the curtain a little bit. Like just what, what, what the process was like, like once the deal's done and then kind of getting started and ramping it up? Like, what's that been like for you?

Yeah, it's— I mean, you know, you go through the whole due diligence process and that's its own animal, like trying to really understand what you're buying and make sure that the company's fairly represented through its financials and, you know, kind of operational overview and whatnot. So that's a mountain to climb to begin with. And then, yeah, you get to close and I mean, truly day one, I step in on a Zoom call and say, hi, I'm the new CEO. Nice to meet you all. To, you know, my team of 15. And I'm probably just as nervous as they are to meet me. Like, this is a two-way street here. We're both like, oh man, what is this? So, you know, when it comes to stepping into that role, I think the hardest part, at least for me, has been trying to split my brain between learning and assessing, right? So I'm, I'm coming in as a CEO. I have, I had to learn the whole business. Like, yeah, I learned a little bit in due diligence, but it's nothing compared to like, right, operating it. So I have to learn everything. My team is, they're the experts. I'm asking them a thousand questions, you know, They're trying to educate me on our processes, our systems, like ground up, trying to teach me everything I need to know. At the same time, because I'm running the business, I have to look for efficiencies, right? And look for places where it's like, okay, well we could be doing that better. Or if we could fix, you know, this, you know, a little hurdle over here, we could run even faster. So trying to like walk the line there and not, and like keep a balance between those two frames of mind. That's been the hardest. And I didn't, I didn't expect it. Maybe.

Yeah. It's, you know, I think it's one of the things that I've, I've learned this year is that there's, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna butcher this analogy, but I think I said it and kind of people kind of get the point. So my, one of my mentors told me when I was thinking about doing this, right? And I was thinking about it all last year and still, still very much an engineer's brain. So I'm like, you know, doing my pros and cons list and laying everything out. Like, should I do this? Should I do this? Blah, blah, blah, whatever. Right? And he sits down with me and we, you know, go to have a drink and he's just like, listen, man, I'm gonna, cause I'm gonna tell you like this. He goes, being a CEO is a lot like having sex. He was like, you just, you, you know, the people that have done it and you know, the people that don't. And he was like, just think about, think about when you were a kid, right? And this is, this is probably mostly for guys, so it's probably kind of sexist or whatever, but you know, I wasn't a girl, so I don't know what, I don't know what girls talked about at that age. But like, guys, for us, like, you know, like 14, 15, it just could, you know, everybody wants to, yeah, I've had sex, all this stuff, whatever. Like, everybody wants to say they've had it, right? And it's just the thing, you talk about it and then like it actually happens, and you can just tell the people, like, and it's just, I think it's how parents can tell when their kids have done it, because it's like all of a sudden it's like Yeah, I know that. I know that, or okay, whatever. Right. So, but it was when he said that, like, I laughed and I was like, dude, but it made so much sense. Like, it's like, you just, you know, you can tell when you're talking to somebody who's done it and somebody who hasn't, because there's just something about doing it. Like, you can't really explain it. You can't really like, you know what I mean?

It's like, you just, yes, you'll do it.

Like, and it's the same thing with like kind of getting into it. There's, you look at all these things from the outside and it's like, okay, we're going to do this. We're going to start this. We're going to do this. And then. And then you just gotta get into the day-to-day and it starts happening and you get like, oh, okay, well the process is really like this, or this really isn't as cut and dry as I thought it was. There's this nuance, there's this, and then there's just shit that you just learned, right? Like brand new shit, never done it before. Like, okay. And then that's when you just kind of lean on like the experience that you have and what you have done and be like, okay, well I, I don't know the answer right now, but I know I can figure it out. Right.

And, right.

You know, I think, you know, one of the things that I will, I will tell people is, is you're listening to this, right? Is. If you're at that point in your life and you're thinking about like, hey, maybe I should do this, whatever. I will say this. I'm never one of those persons that says it's only certain types that can do anything, right? I think certain— your personality type, your makeup, your values give you strengths, right? And make certain things easier. I think anybody can do this, but you have to be crazy. And what I mean by that is like, you have to think a certain way. And then you have to be willing to build on— you really got to be able to build the plane as you fly, right? You got to get really comfortable knowing that you're not going to know all the answers, but get really good at like figuring out what the answers are. Um, and that, that's uncomfortable, right? That's not, you know what I mean? Like, it's, it's not a good or fun place to be at the time, but like you just kind of get used to doing it. And so like, I think once you Once you kind of get comfortable there, then you just kind of, you know, you keep, you keep going, right? I think the one thing I tell people now is like, I, I am completely comfortable knowing that every day I'm going to be uncomfortable. Something's going to punch me in the face, guaranteed. Yeah. And it's going to hurt like shit. And I can say it now because I didn't get punched in the face today, but like tomorrow I probably will. And if you talk to me then, I'm gonna be like, man, fuck this, don't do it, quit. Like, just— but then, you know, the swelling goes— like, it's just, it's the same process. You get over it.

Like Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

You can figure out this next part.

Yeah. I mean, to throw my metaphor, it's not a sex metaphor, but to throw a running metaphor at this, you know, go like, you know, I run a 50K. Okay. It's my first 50K. That's 30, roughly like 32 miles with, you know, 5,000 feet elevation gain. Okay. Like when you look at that in its entirety, you're like, holy shit, I don't know if I can do that. But what I do know how to do is run a mile. And I can run a mile over and over and over again until I hit 32 miles. And trusting yourself along each of those miles, I think that's where I've like, I've had to sit in that space. And when you, when you do it sequentially, it does get exhausting, right? Like you hit mile, for me, you hit mile 26 and you're like, I am tired. I'm hungry and I want to stop, right? But, but it's like, okay, another mile, I can do another mile. And before you know it, you hit that 32 miles and you're like, oh, I'm an ultramarathoner. Like, it happens, right? But it takes that, like, just repetition in small sections based on what you do know how to do. And you do learn along the way, but you have that foundation and you can build on it. I think that's Like that's where I have really felt that in the last, you know, 4 months.

That's a, that's a much better metaphor than mine.

Um, no, I mean, yours is definitely more interesting, but, but I mean, like, I'll, I'll never, I'll never run an ultra marathon a day in my life.

Just, I just, I just have no, I have no desire to run that far for anything.

It's, yeah, it's, you know, I can't really tell you why I signed up for it. I, I'm gonna say I was bullied into it. I don't really think that's true. I did it of my own accord. But it actually was one of, I mean, it was one of the most amazing experiences I would say. Like you test your body, test your mind. It's, it's good.

That, that part, I think I, I will say this, right? I think if anybody, you know, kind of going back to my, my statement of like, I think anybody can do this. I think one of the key things you do have to have is you have to be either A, gotta commit to learning this or already have this. You, you gotta be comfortable testing yourself. Like you gotta be driven by that. Like, hey, like. I did this, but can I do this next thing? And I think that's what that really kind of comes into play. Like, I, I will say this, like, out running, not my thing, but my, my buddy of mine, he's got me into cycling. Him and his wife, like, they go cycling all over the place. They do like 100-milers, shit like that. And I'm just like, I don't know about 100, but I was like, I got up to 20 when I was in Austin. I was like, but like, I was like, 20 is pretty good. And so now I'm just like, you know, it just, it starts to kick in. I was like, ah, can I do Like, so I know eventually I'm gonna get up to 100. I think the biggest thing for me honestly is just I don't trust people in cars. So I'm just like, where can I find a 100-mile stretch where I'm not with cars?

Without cars.

I'm just like, I don't— like, I'm sorry, especially I live in Atlanta. I'm like, yeah, I trust nobody in a vehicle out here for me to be on that bicycle. Like, I just don't do it. But it is definitely, you know, it is to that point like where, you know, you're riding, you're going. And I remember the first time I started doing it, I was like, dude, how do you I barely made it like 4 miles and like it hurt. Like just, you know, people, if you've not been on a bike for that long, like, yeah, some things are just meant to be like that shit hurts. And he was like, he's like, oh yeah, no, you got to get like, he's like, you got to get these much kind of short. And I'm like, you didn't, you didn't think to tell me this shit before I decided to like get up there? He's like, ah, you know, everybody's got to kind of go through it. But it's funny because you just get to this certain like you get to a certain mile marker and then it like, it just, it just, it, everything goes numb and now you're just, you're just going, right? And I think it's that part that when you learn kind of to harness that, it helps. And to your point about you look up and you're there, you know, one of the things that a piece of advice that I got from the CEO of Ping, uh, Andre of Acclaim, everybody loves him. He's a really good guy. I talked to him before I did my talk at Identiverse and I was, you know, telling him I was going down this path and he was just like, the best thing I can tell you is, he goes, don't quit. He goes, and I know that sounds easy and I know that sounds like, you know, I could tell you all this other stuff. He goes, nah, I'm gonna tell you what matters. He goes, don't quit. Cause there's gonna be days you're gonna want to.

Yeah.

You're gonna wake up and you're not gonna wanna do it. You're not gonna, he goes, and that day. He goes, don't quit. He goes, don't quit the next 2 years. He goes, just that day, don't quit. Tell yourself I'm not quitting today.

Yeah.

And then get till tomorrow.

Yeah.

And then like that next thing. And I was just like, wow. And it was, it was so funny because of the way he said that we were on Zoom and it was like the way he's, how serious he got when he said it. I was just like, this guy's like giving me the, I just didn't care.

Yeah. Yeah. Right. Opening the vaults of wisdom.

Right.

Yeah.

And, and he was just like, it's, it's, he goes, it's just being kind of mentally tough enough to hang around it until you start to get the results that you wanna do. And yeah, I would, you know, had like baby, baby journey of, of mine compared to his, but like, I get it. Right.

Yeah.

Cause I've already kind of had those days and, and kind of going through, so.

Yeah. It's funny you say that. I, maybe it was our 2014, like all company kickoff, I think for Ping. We were all down at the Broadmoor and Andre had brought in a couple, I think they're Navy SEALs, like trainers. They do, they do the workouts at Identiverse and the Cloud Identity Summit. They do the like crazy PAMPs. I'm sorry, I'm not remembering their name, but they came through and we were all in this big, auditorium, whatever, conference space. I can't exactly remember. And they had us all stand up and do these exercises. And there was at one point we were all, I don't know, holding a squat for a minute and everybody's dying and they're up there yelling to embrace the suck. And it ended up just being this kind of theme of the week is like embrace the suck. And we're all we're all kind of like, ugh, this is like, what do you mean? This is dumb. Like, I don't want to deal with this. Like, why are we squatting? But it's funny, I do go back to that now and there is something true to it where you do just have to sit in the discomfort some days, some weeks, some months. It's very real and you have to just get really comfortable being uncomfortable. And that's very cliché. But I really do think it's true.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Well, superstar, thanks for the time.

Yeah, of course. Let me ask you a question. What's been, what's been, what are, what are your learnings for the past, call it couple months? What's, what's on your mind as a founder?

That falling from a second story window won't kill you. So great. Not worth it. Just, you know, start at 4 'cause it's like if you're gonna Honestly, it's the biggest thing. Okay, people are going to take this the wrong way. Like, I'm joking, people, right? But there are— listen, the reality of it, there, there are, there are rough days. So I think the biggest thing I learned is two big things. Number one is emotional stability, right? Things aren't— things are gonna— things are gonna go crazy. They're gonna go haywire. They're not gonna go your way. And it's not like dealing with the nos or dealing with the bad things or whatever, that's cool. Like you make the decisions, but the emotional stress that it takes on you, right? Because you then start to, depending on how you're built, my personality is like, you know, I'm a problem solver. Okay, boom, we can solve this, we can do this, we can do this. And then you just start to question, you start to doubt, like all that stuff comes in and it's amplified, right? When you are trying to build something and it stops with you. Learning how to develop that emotional stability to go through that's again, to ride that roller coaster and not let it start to not let your, your worth or anything get tied into this, right? It's like, no, like, this is just, it's just another thing that you got to do, and you're going to fail, you're going to make mistakes, you're going to learn, you're going to get better. It is what it is. So that's number one. Um, so, and I learned that through the summer, right? Kind of going through in this roller coaster of, you know, talking and negotiating with VCs and up and down and, you know, just, just craziness of it, right? And then realizing that, like, it's It was like, okay, are we gonna make it? We're gonna make it. Then something happens and then we go through that. And so that was kind of crazy. The second thing is, is like learning to like do just enough just to get to the next problem, right? Like, mm-hmm. I don't have to have, again, engineer background, right? Which I think a lot of people sometimes forget is real. I have like two careers now. I have people who remember me as an engineer and then people who just know me as like, oh, he's a speaker and does all this or whatever. And it's like, yeah, code buddy, don't get it twisted. But. I just choose not to, but learning to, learning to be able to make a decision, look at something and go, I don't need to know every single way this is going to go. I just need to know this decision. Right. So being able to, in that moment, okay, we're going to make this decision. We're going to move here next. And then once we, once we, once we get through that. Then bring me the next problems and then we'll solve the next, right?

Yeah.

Being able to take that very— to your analogy, right, one mile at a time type of thing— really, really hard for me because I am by nature, I'm a strategic thinker. So I automatically zoom out, look at the big picture, I'm making plans and paths on how we get there, and then, okay, this makes sense, we're going to take these steps because the bitch is going to lead us here, right? And then I had to learn how to go, no, you got to make a step and you don't know where the fuck it's going. Like, wait, what? No, my brain was like, no, we don't We don't do that. Like, we're not gonna make this stuff. Are you crazy? Why are we stepping in the dark?

Does not compute, right?

Like, no, like, it was, it was like, I mean, when I tell you, like, weeks of me just working to get comfortable, like, okay, no, this decision we got to do, clear about that. And then shutting off my brain to asking the next million questions that it's going to ask. Nope, just this one. And then when this gets done, okay, left brain, You are now allowed to ask these questions. Oh, great, good. We can figure— oh, this, this solves this problem. Now shut up. And then like go in there. And then once I was able to do that, like the shift in the kind of focus that we had as a company and, and then the ability and decisions I was able to give my co-founders and, and help them out, like, okay, now we're gonna do this and we're gonna go here. We started to kind of get there, right? And so I think those two big things the last couple of months have, have been crucial for me. One, to kind of, you know, help me with my sanity, but also just kind of learn how to like, okay, control what we can control and then everything else we just gotta figure out.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think being able to like do those kind of mental gymnastics and like retrain your brain on how to, how to work in certain situations and not just go to your default mode of thinking is, it's hard, but you have to do it.

Yeah, it is. It's, it's, that is the, that is the ice bath. Of things, right? Like you just, you have to get in there and just kind of do it. Cause if you don't, yeah. Like you'll, you'll find yourself just spinning. Like it, it's, you know, I'm not perfect by, by any means. I haven't got it down, but like I know enough to know, okay, Dave, you're thinking too much. You're going too far. Stop.

Yeah. Yeah.

What's, what's, what's, what's, what's the minimum? What's the MVP? What's the minimum viable product we can do with this, with this decision? What absolutely do you need to know to make this decision? This is all I need to know. Great, got it. Let's go, right? Yeah, yeah, we'll figure everything else out.

Yeah, well, sorry, I didn't mean to go longer. I just, you know—

oh, it's all good.

Listen, you gotta, you gotta share your opinions here too, man.

Uh, I, I try, right? I, I, I try and make— listen, I, I'm a— you know me, I'm a talker. I can talk for hours, so I try and make sure—

what?

I give my guests, you know, time to shine and stuff or whatever, so, you know. All right. So before, before I let you go, let, let all the people know where they can reach out to you, what you got going on.

Probably just LinkedIn, easiest place to find me. I'm fairly active on there. I see most of my messages that come in. So yeah, just find me there. Happy to chat anytime. Yeah.

Christie's a lot better than me cuz she actually responds to her messages. You send me a message, I'm gonna probably look at it for 2 weeks. I'm like, I'll get back to it.

Oh, I still got plenty. I still got some of those in my inbox.

All right, everybody, listen, thanks for, thanks for tuning in. Christy, thanks for coming out and chatting. So great, um, having this conversation with you. You guys know what it is, this Identity Jedi Show podcast. Make sure to subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcast from. We're exclusively on Spotify, that's where we launch everything, so we know— I can guarantee you it's there. All the other ones that distributes there at some point. You can also watch this on YouTube, The Identity Jedi Show, it's on YouTube. You can watch us and do that. And make sure to subscribe to the weekly Identity Jedi newsletter every Wednesday, sometimes Thursday, at least by 5 o'clock. But listen, it's coming to you every week. You get all the greatest about identity and access management. Until next time, you guys know what it is. Be good to each other, be kind to each other, love each other. It's the Identity Jedi Show. See you guys later.