Importance of Mental Health in Sales

Today's guest is Jackson Liu. Jackson genuinely likes to help people and you're going to find out why. He has introduced me to a lot of sales leaders in the US Whom I would not have known otherwise. He's also the most energetic salesperson I know and you will also find out why we take mental health very lightly. I think he has been through a lot personally in his life and recently he has shared his struggle with his mental illness and how he came out strong. And he came out really strong. He runs his own podcast which makes mine look like a thing of the past, so you should definitely check that out. I'm proud and happy to call him a friend and a confidant. Welcome, Jackson. Leave to the show. So welcome to second episode of Salespin. Today I'm not as energetic as our host today, which is Jackson, who's already sipping espresso, so I'm guessing he's gonna probably flawless with more energy and that's probably the question. I had actually parked for the rapid fire. But anyways, without further ado, I have Jackson and today I'm also blessed to have Kasuri who's co hosting the show so that I don't mess up. All right, welcome Jackson.

Thank you, Rahul. Really happy to be here, really, and congratulates to you on the ongoing content of what you're doing. I watch you start from the ground up in terms of sales spin and your consistency and persistent as it gets better and better in terms of quality. And I remember seeing one of the posts that you posted not too long ago that you didn't want to scale because of the quality. You want to risk that and that's something that I truly appreciate too as well. So kudos to you.

Yeah, man, I learned from the best. I learned from you. I think like I said, I do remember the first time you hosted me and at that time you were kind of doing the research for ten Bound and I remember you had all the same gear, which you probably have right now and maybe you have better now. But yeah, I think that kind of caught on to you, right? So totally. And I'm really happy that you're actually here to discuss something very important. And I think even as a leader, I think I've never embraced that. We all talk about it. It has been a taboo topic. So let's talk about it right now, which is mental health. You had recently posted all about what you have gone through recently. So I'm sure audience would probably love to know. You know, first of all, I think I'll probably start from the basics. Okay, what is mental health? Why haven't we talked about it so far? We are living in the 21st century. Why is this still a taboo topic?

Yeah, you know, absolutely. So before we even get started there, I want to throw something a little bit out into the. With a grain of salt here. I'm actually Vietnamese, first born Asian American. My parents came from Vietnam, so they were Vietnam refugees. And thank you for this too, the opportunity to share the story too, by the way, because I too not to do the show here, working on something on the side to expose this more in terms of the Asian culture. So growing up as a firstborn Asian American, 90s child, if you have any friends out there who grew up within the same era, mental health does not exist. It does not exist until you realize it actually does, which for me was recent. And to dive a little deeper, what I mean by that is in our Asian culture, right? Vietnam, Chinese, Japanese, whatever, growing up in that culture, they never talk about this stuff. They always say, just get your mind straight. But I'll stamp it here. Never. Growing up in my entire life, I had never still till this day ever had any sort of conversation with my parents about depression, anxiety and just things like that. And as you get older, as you grow and evolve, you start to learn and start to pick up these kind of things. But really, I truly believe mental health is your state of mind. You know, you know what to do, what not to do, what's right, what what's wrong. But sometimes you do the things that you know it's wrong, you do it anyways, but then you don't address it. And I really believe mental health tied strongly to that. And Asian, in the Asian culture, man, it just does not exist. They don't talk about it.

I think that's, that's also true for, and I'm sure Kasturi and I can probably, you know, say this. I mean, it's the same for Indian culture as well. I mean, I don't remember having any conversation with my mother. I've been close to my mother. I don't remember ever talking about it like that. You know, I'm stressed about something. I don't think so. I probably did that as a kid. I'm probably stressed about my studies, but that was probably a lie just to get out of the exam, you know, But I don't remember really talking about something unless, you know, recently, and I think I posted about that as well on LinkedIn sometime back that I've been seeing a therapist, which was sponsored by my previous company earlier and I'm continuing with her. And it's been like three months. And that's been the best three months ever. You know, I'm actually kind of relieved that I actually went to her. So. Yeah, I mean, it's actually a relief. It's just like, like nobody talked about it. Had somebody told me, hey, had you gone to this therapist or had you talked to somebody about this like years ago, I'm sure my life and all of our lives would be different.

Yeah, 100% agree.

Kasari, what do you have to say about this? Like, what do you think it's still taboo in our culture?

I have no idea, Rahul. But I think nobody really spoke to us about this as we were growing up. And even today nobody speaks about it. I don't know about the young generation today, but even as grownups today, we still feel we don't really need help. We don't want to talk about it. We don't want to acknowledge that, yes, maybe we would need somebody to talk to or just discuss something. We call it stress, we call it work pressure, we call it by a lot of things. But. But it's actually mental health and it's something that we don't accept and don't talk about. Yeah, I don't know why this culture or even I have friends from other countries and other cultures. I'm sure even they don't talk about it as often as they should be doing. So. Yeah, Jackson, totally, totally agree and relate to your story. But I'm just very curious to know, how did you come up to accepting it and why did you feel that you should be talking about it and where do you think we should start in terms of accepting and acknowledging mental health as a serious concern? Just not in our personal lives, but even in corporate spaces.

That's a great question.

Yeah, yeah. You know, to stamp it here. I'm not a mental health activist nor am I like a therapist or someone who's a professional that tend to give this type expertise, advice. But I really believe mental health should be talking spoke about really early on in our Asian culture. When it comes to mental health, if you talk about if you're sad, if you're depressed, if your mindset is not where it's supposed to be, you're deemed weak in our culture. That's the reason why they don't really talk about that. And to still. But as an Asian American, and I'll give you a quick example too. As I started to grow and evolve in the Tech game and sell. Started bonding with other individuals such as my co founder, Ryan Zero of sdu. When I took a trip over to Wisconsin and this is true story by the way, I text my cousin about this. I even told Ryan about it. I went to his house, bonded with his family. His dad is almost 80 years old, but he's standing tall and strong and he's, he drove and pick us up and he's healthy, he's walking around. His mom was retired working for the city, his dad was retired public defender. And I just got this whole entire family vibe of what it's really like to grow up in a true real American home. And the whole family's all happy as big house, white gated fans. And I look at his dad and his dad's like, hey, we're going to, we're going to the EAVV museum tomorrow. Which is like the airplane in Wisconsin. He's all giving us the whole entire tour, all smiling. And I was like, what are they doing different that are getting them to be so strong and still healthy? And I'm looking back at my dad, he's like 20 years younger, he's sick, he's diabetic, he's on dialysis, and he's about to go. All my other uncles didn't even reach that far. I'm like, what is going on? And they took me in like a whole entire family. And you know, when I got back to the hotel, I kind of, I kind of teared up and I was like, wow, this is what the American dream is really about. I'm growing up in that specific household. But I'll just stop there because I just get. I just wanted to give an example because of what the differentiate.

No, no, no, no. Totally makes sense. I think, I think you can probably talk a little bit more about what, you know, what Kasturi just asked, like, why are we not talking about it? And I think when I come to think about like how I probably opened up is I think this whole pandemic kind of was the push we all needed because we could not go out. And there was literally. So, for example, before pandemic, I would go out, you know, I would come home, my wife and I would often talk about, you know, what happened at the home. I would talk about what happened in the office. Now everything is like all combined, right? I don't have anywhere else to go to. My only friends and only colleagues are on screen. And once I'm done with it, I would probably be working. So I'm already stressed I'm already tired from all the screen time and I think that that all just added up and that was probably, like I said, just a blow we all needed, especially me. And that's when I decided, you know what? I've had it. There's something definitely going wrong with my head and I need to see somebody, speak to somebody whom I can really, really talk like my heart out. And I think I still remember, you know, the first time or first three or four session I had with my, you know, therapist. I literally cried throughout all the sessions because there were things which were kind of bottled up from probably the childhood, you know, because that's how the deep they go just to really find out the root cause. And yeah, I mean after that it was just liberating. I mean, I never thought I would probably cry so much.

Yeah, it was good thing you did that. You know, you got a really time to open up. For me, really, it came to a turning point because it got really, really, really bad. So, you know, it's bad when you start doing things by yourself, but when you start going on. For me, I went down a really, really, really dark path. It was a really nasty binge. It was like a three day binge. This is why I had threw a saying, I call it hashtag 72hard. Because it's three days straight and you know, it's just from. It was everything that accumulated from the ground up. I always had trouble with drugs and alcohol at really early age. I started drinking at the age of 16 and drugs and alcohol were, was always there. I was, you know, I'm known as. When every time I go to like the family parties, like you're known as the life, the party. You're really loud, super fun, you're energetic, you're always vibing with people and always having a good time. But as I started to make more money and started to be more successful at what I do, this addiction started to grow and evolve with me. And little by little it's starting to get out of hands to the point where I just sat there, I said, okay, I gotta get help, I gotta get help or else something's gonna happen to the point where, you know, I'm. I surprised, you know, I honestly believe I almost overdose once. You know, when you go that hard on a three day binge, just keep going at it. It's really, really bad. And you got to get help because if not, you know, you probably die.

My God. I mean, I can't even imagine Jackson, to be honest. Like, what it must be like, do you want to talk about. Are you comfortable talking about, like, how did you actually got out of it? I mean, I know that you realize probably after this whole three day binge that, you know, this is definitely not the life probably you wanted. Right? Nobody wanted. Right. And, like, probably that's, that's what, that was the turning point for you as well, right? So what did you do after you realize, you know what, the first. I'm guessing the first step is probably taking the decision that you don't want this anymore and you want like a better life. Am I, Am I correct?

Yep, 100%. You know, you. You know you're in trouble when every time you get paid, right? When you get paid, you're. You're broke because you're spending a lot of stuff, you know, and you really got. Just accepting. You got to ask for help. You got to ask for help. You know, when you. It made me do things I wouldn't normally do, and it was just. I was just a disgusting human being. You know, I've ruined a lot of relationships. A lot of people start seeing me different and look the other way. But that's who you start to really find out who your real friends are. Because if they're really your true friends, even though when you open up to them, you let them know, they would genuinely dive deeper and ask you, okay, what's the problem here? Why is it a problem? What's the solution? What's the end goal? What can we do to take you to the next step to help better yourself? And this is why I love my previous company so much too, as well. At better growth. We had a really, really good departure. They told me, hey, look, the job will always be here. We love you, we still want you here, but we want you to take care of yourself first. Go out, get the help you need, get healthy, to help you out. Here's a severance pay. Although that was good, that was also kind of bad on my end because as an addict at the time, it fueled the addiction even more. So there was a lot of heavy relapses involved. But through serious events, I'm more than happy to say that I finally got to where I need to be and everything worked out for itself. You know, looking back now, I have no regrets.

No regrets.

You have to be real and true with yourself. Look in the mirror and stare at yourself and go, what am I doing today to better myself each and every day? What am I doing right now that I'm not supposed to be doing? What am I? What Am I hiding from my significant other? Who am I? Who are you? Are you? What can you do to better yourself and attack it? Be real with yourself. Don't lie to yourself. There's a lot of people out there. Once someone up and they throw it out there, everyone attacks them. Oh man, that guy's whack weirdo. I knew it. Screw this guy. But David Goggin says better than else. Everyone goes through stuff. They're just hiding it better than you do. You are. You know when people throw stuff out there and they attack them? Those people that attack him, I watch him, I study. I had friends I thought were my best friends since junior high. We they straight up just cut ties with me and you know that's totally okay. But I look back and I. And you know they say this and they say that and I was. But I know for a fact that somewhere deep down, somewhere deep down what they're really saying is I'm glad my shit didn't come out.

True.

So true.

I think that's probably the one of the harshest lies or one of the harshest truths I might say Society, right? Like you said, I think everybody is. I think there's something read recently. Everybody's kind of wearing that mask, right? And some people are just. Some people are just better at hiding their true personality while other people are not. Right. It's just a matter of I think when that mask will probably wear off. I think it's a matter of realization. I think that you did and I'm very happy Jackson that you were, you were actually got out of it which I'm sure a lot of people are not able to get out of it. So I think I do have tons of questions. Kasuri, do you want to have any questions?

I have a lot, but I'll let you ask yours Rahul.

Okay? No, no, no. I'm sure probably our questions will concise. So one of the question is see Jackson, so for example, right now you're looking living in US where probably things are much better and India, you know, as you understand, right. Things might not be as better as you know in terms of for example the culture, in terms of like opening up to these things. On top of which for example, given the current situation, we all are sitting at home even though things are much better than what it was like a few months ago. I'm still not meeting my friends. I'm not still not meeting people in person. So the situation is more or less the same. Of course I've got to understanding that you Know what? This is something which I have to do. So my psychotherapy therapist, like she says I have to have a different screen time. I have to have time when I don't have any screens or not dealing with all this and, and have to spend, literally spend time with my wife even though I don't want to sometimes because, because you know, they're there calls. Because there are other things now, now the question comes, how do we deal with it? So for example, there must be members in my team whom I'm interacting with just on the screen. And truth be told, even though I've been like working from home for like one and a half year, I don't, I don't know, I can't say for sure that I'm an expert in probably reading those emotions which I would have probably done had I been in the office, right? Nobody taught us, nobody taught us, hey, you know, now, now you're actually going to have all your meetings on screen. But nobody told us, hey, this is how you manage the team. This is how you probably recognize their emotions. Nobody taught us that there's no course right now available, you know, out there to do that. So that kind of adds to the entire problem of this where one of my team member might be feeling that hey tomorrow I might not have a job tomorrow, you know what, what is my boss going to say if I don't meet my target? I can't read all that. Had I been in an office I would have actually said, you know what, let's go for a smoke break, let's go out, you know, just have a chit chat. I mean I can do that. But you understand, right? You know that's not same. So how do you propose that let's say one organizations kind of train their leaders at the same time, train each employee, you know, to deal with this personally and be open. I mean if you think about it, every startup would say hey we are an open company, we are a startup. But if that was the case, we would not be actually dealing with this in the first place.

Yeah, you know, that's a very good question and thank you for that. You know, I just throw my two cents in there too from based on my experience and the things I went through and that's the trouble things about so that this is the hard thing about it too because depending on the organization, right, internal alignment is always, always, always an issue. They're constantly working in silos. The bigger the headcount, the harder it really is to have everyone fully aligned especially and this is Very, very, very common with companies who just recently get acquired. Perhaps let's say you have like a for instance right now, did Zoom just acquired Clary, right? Is that right? Zoom info course, yeah. So let's say when they try to get everyone aligned, right, they're like, okay, hold on, we've been doing this for a set amount of years. I know how to do my job. I'm doing this and all of a sudden you have a news. You now have two separate sales team that you're trying to sandwich into one. And the leaders are the one who are responsible for the top down. But the thing is that their time is very limited, right? We all have the same amount of time, 24 hours. You can't give all your time all this. So one solution, I just throw it out there. So finally, free advertisement as a company that I was contracted to work for called Tangible Growth, over my time over at Better Growth. Tangible Growth provides an enterprise SaaS solution to help align internal alignment. And they give you the ability from the bottom up so that the top executives can see and hear what the bottom lines are trying to say. Because whenever the bottom chart reports up, it sometimes gets barred and barriered. As it starts to move up in terms of the chain of command from the manager to the SDR managers to the VP of sales director, information starts to rattle. So. But to throw what I truly believe into the sense is that a true leader, a true leader would do whatever it takes to make it happen. We regardless of the headcounts, you will put your time and energy there for them. And you see them no more and no less than you. You really got to. And Simon Sinek says it's better than anyone else. A leader is someone who sits down, stares at you in the eye and say, rahul, how are you? And he really means it rather than just saying, hey, you better get your numbers up or else the next one you cut. And those are people who believes in headcounts. But you want to believe in heart counts. There's a story that Simon Sinek once shared too. I remember listening to one of his motivational speeches and podcasts. He stated that there's this one company that was having trouble with revenue. They're about to go down. They have two options. Number one, they can just lay out 100 people or do his own salary cut. He and top execs did a whole salary cut so that everyone stays in there. And he gave a motivational speech and said, hey, look, we believe in heart counts, not head counts. And over like Six months, everyone starts to trust each other and they feel they're happy, they're motivated, they're safe. And you know, you're in a really good place when you feel like the co workers you work with, it's like a family. If you can somehow some way make them feel safe, that's leadership right there. You bring the best of them around them and let them know really. But more you, you have to be able to recognize who are, what they're doing here, what they're trying to achieve. And you also have to recognize ahead of time if they're in trouble and something's kind of off. Example, you know, during my time over at T mobile as a team lead, there's one person I trained ramped him up and he was doing in one week, he just kind of seemed off. So I just pulled him to the side and said, hey look, you're one of the best over here. I tell you I didn't help you every single time. You sometimes surpass me. But this week seems a little bit off. What's going on? Are you okay? And he just spilled it out, you know, he's having some family issues at home. Hey, I got you. Take some time off. Oh, but Jackson, I have this guy coming in at 5 o' clock for myself. I got you. I'll do it for you.

Yeah, man. I think that that was, I think I do remember the story which you shared with from Simon Sinek. I think I do remember. I mean he's one of my favorite author.

Yeah.

Because without saying so, yeah, I think you're right. I think it all starts with the leadership. But again, like I said, see, I'm a frontline leader. While I can understand, for example, let's say as a leader we understand that this is our responsibility to make everybody faith safe and make everybody, you know, feel that, you know, they're, they're, they're always welcome to share anything. But again that does not change the fact we are all working remote. And I'm pretty sure, Jackson, the one example you gave me just now, that was probably an in person, right? I can, I can show my true feelings. Right now you're just looking at my head. Head. Okay. I'm probably still here. So you can't even see like, but my body language is. You can't see my hand gesture. You can't see anything. And like I said, there is no training which I could find which actually helps me prepare or you know, read or understand people better on screen. I'm still struggling with it. I'LL be very honest. Okay. And I'm sure if anybody is like watching this and probably coming up with their training. Yeah, I'd probably be happy to take the training.

Yes, yes. Piggyback on that. Sorry to cut you off, Katzeri. You know, we now live in the 21st century. We now live in a digital world. It's now getting harder to really build relationships because now virtual world. Hey, nice to meet you. You know, my name is Jackson. I heard a lot about you, Rahul Katsuri. I heard you're a great SDR leader over there in India too as well. Love to get to know you a little bit more. But in the end, we're social animals and there's. I believe it's endorphins is what they call it. Or. Or, yeah, I think it was endorphin. Like, is this. It's the same concept of when a mother first give birth to a baby and they have that skin on skin reaction is to release that. Is it endorphins? Is it dopamine?

It's endorphins.

Okay. Yeah, it's that love chemical to touch each other, you know, and this is why people shake hands and give each other hugs, because it feels good. And just being virtual, it's just. Yeah, you don't really have that physical touch. That makes sense.

Kathari, over to you.

Yeah, no, I was waiting for Jackson to finish and it took me somewhere else. Jackson, when you were speaking about your experiences, I think we all have gone through that and we relate. But again, I would be very curious to know, Jackson, that while you were dealing with your issues around mental health and around things that you probably couldn't talk to about, talk to anyone about initially, how would you advise somebody who's going through a similar phase but is unable to accept it or unable to talk about it, to go about maybe sharing, asking for help or talking to somebody about it? Right. Because, Rahul, you're lucky that you have an opportunity to talk to a therapist. In India, people, we don't have that luxury. Right. Because we still feel it's a taboo. What would my family think if I tell them I'm seeing a therapist? What would my friends and colleagues think of me? Will it demean my image? Will it make me seem incapable or not competent enough? So these are things that we keep thinking about even when we know that, yes, we need help. So, Jackson, since you've been through this journey, I just want to know what would you suggest or what advice would you give to people who maybe realize it but are still hesitating to ask for help.

You have to be direct. You. You have to be direct. You gotta just open up and just let them know if there's. If you open up and there's no support there, you're in the wrong place.

Yeah, true, That's.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But just to piggyback on that too, if there's something that you know, I. And this is a shout out to my mentor, Chris Orlando. He used to do this sales stack videos where these people come in and meet every like Wednesday or so. And I can't think of the other name of the other individual right now off the bat. But I remember they had a conversation around mental health too as well. And they're pushing for companies to. They call it a hot room or heat room. I can't truly recall it to the back. I'm not sure if you guys heard about it, but they call it like the hot room where everyone from within that organization will come in and they would pretty much talk about anything they want to throw out there, then be zero judge, you know, just like letting them know, like it's something that they come in and say. The methodology, the philosophy for that is, hey look, we come in this room, we work here together, we see each other every day. What's one thing I would want everyone to know about me and just to open up and not be judged. And they call that like the hot room or shooting the elephant in the room. And I remember hearing stories that they mentioned that there was a lot of people come in and they just started opening up about all these things. And all these people were like, wow, I never expected that. I never knew that. For instance, let's say we're, you know, Rahul opened up a building and then Katsuri, you and I were spot on. And there's like 10 other people and we know nothing about each other and we work and see each other every day and you know, we get that free catered lunch and that drinks and free unlimited snacks and we're just doing very well for a year, whatever, right? And we never really fully bonded. And then all of a sudden Rahu's like, hey, we're gonna have a hot room. We want everyone to feel a lot closer. So come and share secrets without being judged. We go in our room and I was like, hey man, dude, I've been battling with addiction, man. And this is what I've been going on with drugs and alcohol. And I did this, it did that ruinous relationship, you know, and everyone be like, oh, God damn. But then there's no judge, right? And people will share their stories and stuff. And after we walk out that room the next day when we come back into work, it's a whole different vibe now. We now all trust each other because we know who we are and we're not hiding against each other. But that being said, the reason I brought up that story is, you know, if it's an individual, it's kind of hard. I know they get a lot of self doubt and don't talk is they call it ants for short, automatic negative thoughts. But one, one other way to open up is just to be indirect to us. Well, I prefer, I'm more of a direct kind of person where I just reach out. Hey, Katsuri, can we talk real quickly? This is all right. Hey, look, I've been going through some problems. I gotta let you know, man, I'm not sure what's gonna happen after this, but this is what's happening. Or they can be indirect about it and ask, hey, I'm curious if you know, asking, just out of curiosity, if someone was to go through a specific issue in their personal life, well, what does that look like here? That would open up the conversation, kind of stir it out, and that's what I would recommend. But direct is the best way to do it because you ain't got to hide behind the bush, you know, it's kind of things quite serious.

Yeah. Thanks, Jackson. I think we as leaders as well have some responsibilities. Maybe we don't spend enough time asking our team, hey, how are you doing? Are you okay? Just the basics, right? We do say, hey, how's everyone? But we don't really mean it most of the times when we talk over screens like this. But I think thanks for bringing that out. Helps us to remind ourselves that we need to be more mindful around asking those questions and really meaning it. And especially when we're having one on one conversations. Maybe we can bring it up as well. Thanks. Thanks, Jackson, so much.

Yeah, as a matter of fact, I think anybody who's probably going to join a new company, I think while you're like, and you know, most of the time interviewers will probably ask you, hey, do you have any question? I would suggest everyone who's probably taking a new job today, especially all the youngster, you know, who are probably getting to the SDR role or any sales order for that matter, I think this is, this should be like one mandatory question. Hey, I'm dealing with mental stress. Tell me, how would you, how would you Actually help me out, right? Or probably questions like, hey, when was the last time some, some one of your colleague or one of your team member opened up to you about their mental health? Or you know, you actually as a company or you as a leader talked about it? I mean, that could be a red flag if you, if none of them actually, none of these things actually happen.

Yeah, 100% agree. And I think that's one of the most strategic and simplest thing any new SDR BDR can do to when it comes to the review process. Ro, I agree with that. You know, just opening up. What does the conversation look like around mental health support? You know, hey, yeah, I'm curious, wondering over at company A, B and C, what does your mental health support look like? But the challenge too also is these new reps are coming. Now you think about it, most of them are, you know, young, fresh out of college, whatever. A lot of them don't really talk about that. They don't really open up. They don't, they're not really too open about it. They just hide behind a face. You know, hey, look at my social media. I am jumping off this cliff, taking pictures at a long river, cool skyscraper, whatever that is.

Right?

But as a leader, it's your job to pick up these kind of tasks.

You're.

And that's why you're there. You're supposed to catch something when it's off. You know, you get to know them first. And it doesn't happen overnight. It has to be through a series of touches. A series of touches to the point where you start to see them. And because we're animals, like social animals, right? The first one. First time. Hey, Raoul, nice to meet you. My name is Jackson. Katsuri.

Welcome.

Nice to meet you. And I can't just say off the bat, so, hey, Ro, what's going on in your ass? You know, what kind of mental health problem you having? Katsuri? Any problems at home, you can't do that on the first days. Through a series of touches to the point where you're just depositing, depositing, depositing to the point where it starts to open up and you build a relationship and then you start to noticing how they are and how they're not. And if something's off, you have to catch that. That's the leader's job, to catch that and address it immediately. Because conflict, conflict, not conflict ignored. And this is a great quote by Jordan Peterson, by the way. He says conflict ignored is conflict multiplied.

Yeah.

Pretty deep. Yeah. This was actually a very intense Discussion. At the same time, I think thank you, Jackson, for being a better than host than I am and you know, kind of ending it on a lighter note. I do have a small rapid fire round in case you're okay with that. Distribute to, you know, lighten the mood, if that's okay. And Kastori, feel free. As soon as I stop, feel free to, you know, ask him any other question. Okay. Just add it, add to the whole rapid fire. I'm probably shot off like one question. Okay, sure. Jackson, I'm ready when you are.

What's. What's a rapid fire? Fill me in.

I'm going to ask you. Like, there's no hamper. Okay. At the end of the discussion, in case that's what you're wondering, they're going to be rapid fire. I'm going to ask you a ton of question. It's going to be funny. Don't worry. Nothing serious.

Hit me with it. Let's go. I love games.

All right, I think I know the answer to this, but I'm still going to ask you. How are you so energetic all the time?

This is just the kind of person I am. You know, growing up, always been fun and joyful. I had a huge imagination. I. I'm a visionary. Even starting as a kid, I've just always been happy and smiling and energetic, just naturally in general.

It's not coffee, is it?

No, it's before that. It's always been like that since I was a kid. You know, there's a lot of people out there who are like negative Nancy's and downers and stuff like that, but I'm just a cheerful guy in general. Like, this is exactly why a long time ago, all my relatives and everyone was set always told me, like at an early age on that you're going to be a great salesperson one day because you connect really easy with people, you're very talkative and you know how to connect with individuals. For me, I've always been a connected person, you know, someone who really has a genuine interest in getting to learn more about you. Not me and making it all about you. And that's just the kind of person I am. The coffee does help though, in case you're wondering.

All right. Your favorite piece of technology.

Ooh, that's a good one. Sales engagement platform. Sales engagement platform. Is that right? Is that. Are we talking about. I don't know. That's the first thing that popped in my head. Not sure you meant like.

Yeah, no, no, it's totally okay. It's totally okay. It could be like. Yeah, I mean, I thought probably you'll say Marshall and the back or something else. Oh, but that's okay. No, no, it's totally okay. I think sales engagement platforms are cool if you ask me.

Baby. Sales development.

Your favorite sales or sales development leader in the world, David Delaney.

David Delaney, no doubt.

All right, if you were not in sales, what do you think you'd be doing?

God. Yeah. I thought about this a lot. Honestly, I. I'd be lost. I. I don't know. I'd be lost. Actually, I'll probably be a therapist, but I knew I. I would never finish school, so.

That's okay. I mean, a lot of therapists I know never finished the school, so. Yeah, you could still be a good one.

Therapist was one of my something I had in mind, but I knew I'd never make in school. But then again, back then, I was just a prisoner of my own mind. But no regrets.

Last question. One piece of final advice for anybody who is dealing with these mental health issues and not able to come up. Just one final advice.

Ask for help. You know, you're not alone. You're not alone. And I understand where you're coming from. You know, I'm sorry to see that you have to go through this. I feel you. I know you, you know, but you're not alone. There's people who loves you. If you're in a really, really, really dark place, you need to somehow, some way, ask for help from those around you, those who love you. Don't take the ultimatum of taking your own life. That's not the best way to do it. That's not the way to go. Because when you do that, you. All you bring is just sadness and sorrow to those around you.

You.

You want to leave the world better than you found it. So if you're going through some really dark times and you really need help, ask for it.

That's pretty cool.

No, I just got lost into what Jackson just said, so it was too.

He has that mesmerizing voice, right? So you kind of get lost in that.

True. Thanks, bro. I appreciate that. Katsu.

So I'm not sure Kasturi, if you have seen, he also runs his own podcast.

I did last, I think, when you told me about it.

Okay. So I think after I watched his first episode, I'm like, dude, how are you doing it? Like, this looks so much better than what I'm doing, and my quality is nowhere what he was doing. Then I asked him, he said, I'm using the zoom same Link, you know, so it actually helps. So for me it kind of helps because I can always look up to somebody who's doing it like better than me. And I can always. I'm always a sucker of all the good things. I get sucked from people.

Yeah, no, and yeah, I recall that. And you know, I'll just leave the process here in case it helps or there's anyone who'd be interested in starting a podcast. All my recordings are done through Zoom and. But what makes the difference is the number one is the equipment I use to record, such as what I'm using here, the MLX microphone itself with the focusrite. But it's also into the editing too as well. And what I mean is that once I record through Zoom, it goes through a process where I have to convert into MP3. Once it becomes converted, I strip into audio Audacity and then that's where the edit it comes in where you make the audio sounds a lot better or there's some background noise that you need to move. Once I do that and I normalize it to negative 0.1 dB, I just upload it to the platform I use, which is anchor, and that's pretty much it. But as for the video, it's in tangent with the Audacity editing in terms of digital media, with the video itself, you piece that together, you throw in some scripts and you throw in a layover on top and then you have a piece of art. Wow.

And you do that all yourself.

I do, yeah.

Wow. I'm such a lazy ass. I've outsourced that to another person. He does everything what you just described, I just have just outsourced it. I can't do this on my own because that takes like hours for me to do it and I'm. Because so for me it's like learning the whole new thing, right? And I would rather record something in that whole time and probably do something else. And in India it's not that expensive. I'm gonna cut that out so that my, my editor doesn't watch this.

Oh, Rahul, believe me, if I can't afford it, I outsource it too. Because time is at stakes here, right? Time. This is why Gary Vee is so successful at what he does. He pumps all his content. All he does is just go down and spit truth. He outsourced the people to record him. Do it for him. It has it laid out. He has a full system and processes in place and, and all he's doing is just depositing, depositing, depositing content and that's how he got to where he's at today.

Where do you think I got the idea from?

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

You should actually hire my editor. Yeah, you should actually hire my editor if you want. It'll probably cost you way less than you can imagine.

Yeah, I'll keep that top of mind and definitely look into it when I cut my next opportunity for sure.

Cool that, you know, everything comes to the end. So here we are. Thank you so much again, Jackson, for being in the show. I think this was probably one of the most intense and for obvious reason. Right. I think I felt it. I'm pretty sure we all have felt it. It's not something. And I'm pretty sure everybody who's going to watch this will be able to relate to it because that's something which they are either going through themselves or somebody in the family or the friends would. Would have actually gone through. So. Yeah, I'm very, very happy. You know, thank you so much again for sharing your whole journey, man. That was. That takes some courage. And I'm happy that you're back and I'm happy that you are. You're really bounce, you know, and doing much better than. And I'll definitely be looking forward to see what you and your partner is doing. Actually. I really did reach out to him, by the way. I told him that I'm having somebody on mental health. I did not tell him that it's you.

Yeah.

So I'm sure it's gonna be surprise for him too.

Not a problem at all. Rahul, thank you so much for having me. I'm really happy to be here. It's nice. And pleasure meeting you too, Katsuri. You know it. If you guys be open to. I'd love to come back later on, just chat sales development and strategy and get to know you a little bit more. Katsuri. But once I come down, I'd love to drop some bars on that too and you know, share with the world what it really. What it really takes to become an elite prospector.

Absolutely.

Jackson, thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Thanks, guys. Bye. Bye.

Thank you so much, Raul. Thanks, Jackson. Take care. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Okay, a quick recap. You should consider your mental illness as seriously as you take other diseases. Embrace other people when they open up to you about their mental illness or any situation for that matter. At the same time, you open up to people around you. Your family, friends, colleagues. If something is bothering you, first step is realizing that you need help. Understand that people have started accepting mental health as something worth discussing. And not all leaders are still trained to handle these situations and conversations. If you're a leader, understand what you might consider small might be a big deal for somebody else. It is your responsibility to know what's wrong with each individual. And you need to put your head and heart in ensuring each individual's well being. Sometimes you cannot help, sometimes you cannot talk. All you can do is maybe point them into the right direction. Have a culture where people can share things without being judged. In the end, do not hesitate to ask for help. Take very good care of you. Thanks for watching this video. If you like the video a teeny tiny bit. Would you like the video? Subscribe to the channel and tell me what you like. Throw your best insult at me. If you do not like any part and you would want me to improve, I promise you will not offend me. Seems like too much work, right? Let's start with subscribing and let me know in the comments what I should cover next. Thanks again. Come on.