Episode 88 - Danny Gamboa Found Success By Changing His Perspective

I do really believe 100% from every part of me that everyone has the capacity to be able to do the things that they want and not to be held back by the mental baggage that's in our head that we want to push through.

Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. In each episode, we get down and personal with people who go after the things they want to make all their wildest dreams come true. Join us as we unveil and dissect a formula for what it takes to do the thing. Here is your host, Stacy Lauren.

Hey everyone. Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. This is your host, Stacy Lauren. I love how a shared experience can really connect you to another person in such a meaningful way. Today's guest is a perfect example. During college, he interned for the Southwestern Advantage program. As many of you know, the same door to door sales job completely transformed my journey. And he had a comparable life changing experience. Knocking on doors taught this guest how to control his mindset. To build his character and boost his confidence. His team used many creative techniques to keep the job fun without losing sight of their goals. And while he took cold showers and worked long days, he still loved every moment of it. So much in fact, that he turned it into his full time career. But our stories are also quite different and his is beyond inspirational. Born in Colombia, his family entered the US as refugees when he was only five years old. He remembers his dad only having 50 bucks in his pocket. They didn't even speak the language. But his dad did work hard and he always focused on serving and helping others. Those traits made a lasting impression on this guest. Today he's a senior district sales leader for Southwestern Advantage. He now trains other aspiring college students to overcome rejection, understand the numbers and set big goals. His internship has come full circle. I know that I learned so many life lessons from that summer job and I love that he now mentors other young people to reach for the stars. His story will motivate you to go after hard things and do the thing. Please welcome Danny Gamboa to the show. Hey, Danny.

Hey, how's it going? Great to be here. Excited to be here.

I am so excited to get a chance to talk to you.

Yeah, thank you. I'm pumped as well. This is going to be fun.

Good. I have a lot I want to talk to you about, but with your story, if you don't mind, for the listeners, share who you are and more about you.

Yeah, absolutely. So I guess where to start? So yeah, My name is Danny Gamboa and I'm originally from South America. Was born in Colombia and Bogota and my family and I are refugees. Came here to America to seek asylum back in 2000 when I was pretty young. I was five years old at the time. So I was born in Columbia and pretty much raised. And where we landed, that is Grand Island, Nebraska back in 2000, we just never left. So been here for a while. And we came here just because with everything going on with the war back in Columbia, it was just the safest thing to do for our family. And it was crazy culture shock and leaving everything behind and we're just very blessed to have found a awesome, awesome place to grow up like Nebraska. So I stayed there. I played quite a bit of soccer growing up. That was my main thing. Didn't have much soccer in Grand Island, Nebraska growing up, as you can imagine. So my dad actually started an academy that I was a part of and I got the chance to travel quite a bit, play some soccer in England for a while and it was a great experience. And when I graduated I decided to hang up the cleats and go to the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. So I'm a cornhusker. And the year I think if we're going impactful years for me was 2013 where I actually was introduced to the Southwestern Advantage program which is my full time career now. I met my wife that year in the program and it's also when I surrendered my life to Christ that year as well. So it was a big year. 2013 and 10 years later I am still with Southwestern and I'm the director senior sales leader for Central Midwest area. So I get to work with students in the central Midwest of Heartland. So now married for four years and got the second kiddo on the way in like six weeks. So we're super stoked about that. So that's kind of where I'm at now. And along the way we, we also got involved in some real estate. So it's been really cool to start a real estate company with my wife. And we also just started a property management company. So we kind of have three full time jobs that we're juggling. I guess parenting would be the fourth. So it's a fun little act that we try to put together.

You guys are super slackers.

Much time on our hands.

That's amazing. So you married a book woman?

Yes, yes, yes. It was awesome. So we met in 2013, started dating like our third summer working together, our third year working together. And yeah, I've been together since 2015.

That's got to be cool. Because you kind of both speak the same language and positive thinking and able to handle adversity and just all the things that you learn during that, that has to be really, really great.

Yeah, absolutely. And with the traveling that we did with Southwestern, it just kind of helped really grow our relationship and it's just exactly what we needed. So.

So for the people that haven't heard of, I have interviewed a few people that talked about Southwestern, which is the job that I had also during college where I sold books door to door and it is my claim to everything in my life, pretty much. So let's, let's talk about it from your perspective, if you don't mind just sharing more about Southwestern, what it is and why you ended up doing it.

Yeah, absolutely. So Southwestern, I guess, easy in layman's term, it's the summer internship opportunity for college students. It's a global internship now. We've grown quite a bit. So we work with about 1500 interns from around the world. Half of our interns actually come from Europe nowadays, from countries like Estonia, Latvia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic. And they get their work visas, they're college students on there and they get to come to the US and join us. And, and yeah, like you said, Stacy, we have a 12 week summer program where we teach students how to run their own business in the summer. And we have them sell and market educational books and apps now. Yeah, believe it or not, Stacey, the term bookman and book girl kind of has disappeared and we're now the education people. I don't know if you've heard that. No.

Yeah, I was wondering because my last year I was just hearing about CD ROMs and so it's just, it's great to see how you guys have evolved over the years.

Yep. So, yeah, we sell educational products from apps to Act Prep down to colors and shapes for little ones. And like you said, Stacey, we knock on doors 80 hours a week. And it's the school of hard knocks where we. Our main goal is just to help build some great skills and character and young people and college students and help them really set themselves up for success once. Once they graduate college. And like, I'm sure you know, it's a great way to pay for school too. So that definitely attracts a lot of students to our program is the chunk of change that they can make over the summer.

Oh, totally. Yeah, I talked about this too, as I had decided when I was going between selling bookstore to door or doing that thing with fish in Alaska. Which one? And then I just interviewed someone who had taken the Alaska job, and she got, like, the same similar skills. So it's kind of interesting how that. Yeah. So do you mind sharing, like, what got you to start selling books? Well, I'm saying books now, but what got you to join?

I mean, back when I started too, it was just bucks mainly as well. So in 2013. Well, I guess that starts in 2012. My older brother was recruited to work with Southwestern after his freshman year in college, and he had a great experience. He. I didn't really know what he was doing. I was still in high school, But I just knew that he went out to New York to go sell something door to door. I didn't really know what it was. And so when he came back, he, man, you know, as an alumni, say, I don't know, you know what I'm talking about. But it's like he came back and he had. He had, like, this different aura about him. Like just confident, just very different attitude, more positive. And he had this new friend group that were very similar, and my parents loved his new friends. And so he put a bug in my ear and he told me I should check it out. And, yeah, I looked into it, and he was the one that recruited me. So I just love the idea of getting to get out of Nebraska and travel. Since our students don't work in their home state, they get relocated to a different part of the country and they get to stay with host families. So I just thought it was a huge adventure. And he kind of enticed me. He told me, man, you're. You're probably. This is probably too challenging for you. 17 years old at the time. And, yeah, my competitive side just said, oh, okay, well, I guess we'll see about that. So he definitely knew how to get me on board by.

Motivated by. By you not being good enough to do it.

I don't know if you qualified for this. I don't think you could. You could, but you're probably gonna cry if you do this.

Fire. Yeah, that was like your fuel, right?

Absolutely. I just. And that was a big motivator for me all summer, was just seeing what I was made of. I wanted to kind of see, yeah, just, man, if I could. If I could do it or not. So that was how I started my. My journey.

How did you handle that? Like, the summer in terms of rejection and just all the different things that have come during that. That process.

So, man, it was tough. I, high school treated me very well. I was honor roll student, did really well. I was a varsity soccer Player, varsity show choir. I was dating a cute girl, you know, so I thought I was, I thought I was the king of the world, you know, 17 year old. And I was very. And had what I thought was a lot of confidence. What I learned later was a lot of conditional confidence. And the summer was like the first time that I, man, I got my teeth kicked in. Just door after door rejection as you know, and learning how to. The training I got was amazing, like, like all of us get. But it was the first time that I had to go out there and kind of fend on my own without my parents help and no one knew me and it was just, it was a true test of my confidence and it definitely shook me. It was tough. So the first three weeks, four weeks were just eye opening, you know, getting used to the schedule, working 80 hours, getting used to just, yeah, the uncomfortableness of approaching people and getting told no and living with the host family definitely took some getting used to. So it was tough. But I'm very grateful that I, I learned the concept of self talk. Man, that was huge. And probably the thing that got me through is just learning how to crystallize my days. That's, that's something that they taught us. How to break down my days into goal periods and turn them into bite size parts of the day to make it more, just more manageable, more easier to wrap your head around, you know. Cause I remember thinking about 14 hour work days and doing 40 demos a day. I mean that was very daunting, right? So thinking about just two hours at a time and, and, and just five demos at a time instead of 40, you know, just. That's kind of what got me through my first summer. I would say.

Yeah, so, so what do you think helped you when you, you mentioned. Shook me. What helped you kind of walk through that more besides the goals and the incremental goals?

I would say what got me through it was. Well, one, my brother. I didn't understand why he had me do this during our training before the summer, but he was really good at making sure I had a good list of emotional purposes while I was out there, you know, some good whys, because he knew that when he flashed around his $20,000 check from his previous summer that I'd get excited and of course I was. But I'm very, very blessed that he was. He was wise enough to make me think of deeper, deeper reasons for going out there other than just making money. Because yeah, when you're out there just getting slammed door, door, door. I mean you can, I mean, the money doesn't even, it's inside. You can't put enough zeros behind the check to really get you to get out of your car and go do it again, you know, so, so yeah, he, he had me sit down and added some good emotional purposes that, that really helped me get through those tough times of tears, of frustrations. Like I remember one was I, I wanted to, I remember even at 17 years old, it's kind of amazing I even thought about this. But at 17, I remember thinking like, I want to work hard for my K day. I want to not have to work and be able to go to my kids soccer games. Like I remember thinking that at 17, which, I don't know, that's kind of crazy to think about, I guess, but, but different things like that, you know, I wanted to be able to be financially independent and I wanted to make my parents proud. Wanted to make sure that our trip to America was, was worthwhile. And that was something that was very meaningful for me. So my parents were very meaningful. So I had a whole list. I remember I had like a list of like 20 and I definitely have to read them throughout the day and. Yeah.

How did he help you tap into your emotional purposes?

He started out with like this exercise. I remember doing this exercise with him. He, he, he started out with just asking me like, yeah, what, what, what, what are some of the reasons that you want to come out for the summer? And it started out with a very surface level kind of meaning. For example, money. And so you go, okay. And then he would just ask me like, why is that important to you? And so I would just dig deeper. I remember thinking like, well, I, I don't, I don't want to be able to pay for school and I want to be able to not bother my parents with money when I'm in college. And then once I came up with that, he wrote it down, he go, okay, now bother mom and dad for money. And then he'd follow up and say, why is that important to you? And I'm like, okay, well geez, I guess I don't want to ask them for money because I know how much they, they've supported us over the years and I know that they don't make a ton of money and I don't want to put that extra strain on them. And then again, I mean, why is that important to you? And so he would just kind of keep digging deeper, deeper. And it just kind of opened up the layers and layers and what was once this, this Very surface level, emotional purpose of money ended up 5, 6, 7 questions later ended up being this very meaningful, even emotional. Right. That would, like, tug at my heart a little bit. Emotional purpose that came from that. That was super helpful.

That's really good. And then what was your favorite type of self talk? How did you work through that? You mentioned. Oh, the power of that.

Yeah, my self talk. It was funny. That was a very uncomfortable thing for me to learn. I remember it took me a while to really be coachable with that because they. They tell us me all the time. Self talk, self talk, self talk. And again, I was 17 years old. I had this big, cool card. I thought, I'm like, I don't. I see how it might help them. But I. I can control my thoughts. I don't need to do self talk. Right. And again, yeah, lo and behold, I got my teeth kicked in the first couple weeks. So it took me to like my third week. I remember I went and followed this guy. His name was Phil Zolke. I still remember him. He was doing pretty well. He sold with for like five years. And, man, the biggest takeaway I got is he was just a chatterbox. Literally from the moment I got in his car to job shadow with him to the day to the like 10 hours later when he dropped me off, it was just a constant. He was a constant chatterbox. And so that's kind of when I finally decided, all right, I should probably try this thing out. And so at first, it was kind of awkward. You got this. I love my job, and you're the man, the myth legend, you know, and then finally, you know, evolved to more creative things that just either make me laugh or put me in a good attitude or give me confidence, you know, I remember saying, man, one of my favorites was, moms love me, dads want to be me. All right, here we go. Yeah. Anything that would put a smile on my face definitely be something that I would try to say out loud.

Did you say anything when you were waiting in front of the door? Did you do anything?

Oh, yes. Yeah. My ritual kind of became. I remember I got this from a mentor of mine, Matt Atchison. He. It was just super helpful for me at least, you know, everyone kind of has different things that helps them. For me, when I knocked on the door, I remember taking my steps back and my side profile breathing was actually something that was the most helpful for me. I just remember taking as many deep breaths as I could. And then I just remember saying, this is going to be my best approach ever. And That's. That was my routine. And then when they opened, I was just very relaxed and had a good smile on my face and went for it.

What kind of breathing did you do?

Like the Dan Moore. I mean, actually, he taught us like the. The square that the Marines practice where they. I think it's trying to think.

It's.

I think it's four counts in and then you hold for four and then you out for four. Might be six, actually. Four or six, but that's not what focus on.

That's awesome. So. Oh, this brings back so many memories. So the thing that I remember a lot is just kind of making things fun, learning how to have fun during craziness. And so I think that was a huge lesson for me. I'm just wondering, how did you adapt to the fun part of it?

Yeah, that's another thing that takes some getting used to. Right. Because you can either make a hell out of heaven or heaven out of hell. And so I remember thinking, you know, if I'm going to be working for 14 hours a day for 12 weeks, I might as well have fun. Right? So, yeah, I try to do anything that would. That would lighten up my mood. Whether we would do three o' clock dares. Those were so much fun with my roommates. Or in the morning before we kind of went off to work, we'd write down a little dare in a piece of paper and we'll crumple it up so the other person wouldn't see it. And then you would. You would give it to your roommate. And we couldn't open it up until 3 o'. Clock. At 3 o', clock, we had an alarm on our watch and it go off and you go, oh, boy. Time for your three o' clock there. So you'd pull out the wide, you know, piece of paper and you open it up, see what the dare says, and you got to do whatever's on.

It, you know, no way.

Oh, so fun. And just some crazy dares. Like, I remember my roommate. I opened it up one time and it said, approach with your shoes off. Talk to the next family. Shoes. I'm like, oh, my gosh. Or sometimes it was like, go hug a tree. Or, you know, do an approach in a British accent. Or yeah, maybe. Maybe do your whole presentation in Spanish, even if they don't speak Spanish. Those things that.

How did you guys even come up with that idea?

Oh, man, we got so creative. I don't know, we probably heard it from some other guys that were doing.

That's so cool. Did you know, I'm doing dare challenges right now. That's part of. Yeah, it's so funny. Yeah, I'm doing so one. One is a dating dare challenge to get people to not to use, like a dating app. So that's one of the challenges. And then I just committed to doing a do the thing public speaking challenge. It's going to be in, like, February. I'll have to share that when it comes through. But doing things, talking on the. On the announcer at Walmart, when making an announcement, it'll be different dares. Like that. But no, that's cool. I love that idea of the note. And then it's at 3 o' clock and you have to do it.

That's so good. Yeah. The suspense is crazy. All day you're like, oh, man, I wonder what my dare is. I hope they weren't too mean to me, you know? And lo and behold, it's always just a great time. You just laugh and.

Yeah.

Take yourself too seriously.

What else did you guys do to keep it fun?

So in the morning when we had breakfast together, we'd all start out with like a paperclip or something really small, maybe a pen or a paperclip, typically. And we go, okay, bigger, better game today. Let's. Let's go out. And so whenever you went out and talked to families throughout the day, whenever you ran into a cool family, you go, hey, Ms. Jones, I got a paperclip and I'm playing a bigger, better game with my roommates. Do you have anything that's bigger and better than this paperclip? And so they're like, oh, man. So maybe they get like a water bottle and then I got a water bottle and they go, cool. So then you trade them. So you give her the paperclip and she gives you the water bottle, and then you take that water bottle to the next house and you do the same thing. And it just kind of gets bigger and bigger. And yeah, we came home. The goal was to come home with the craziest, coolest thing, and that was the winner. And my roommate one time came home with like a flute. My brother one time came home with like an Xbox. Just crazy things. We just crack ourselves up with. With the stuff that we would bring home is hilarious. So that was fun one.

I love that. Okay, before we move on, I have to hear one more. Do you have another one?

Yeah, yeah, we have fun stuff. Yeah, we. We did, like the word of the day. That was really fun. So we know it's our word of the day. It's let's say it's kerplunk, just a goofy word that no one ever says. So the goal is that you need to. Whoever can get Mrs. Jones to say the word of the day without. Without telling her to say it.

Yeah.

You have to be pretty clever about it. You'd be talking to a mom. You go, yeah, Stacy, is this. This road here? This is Peterson is next. Is that road next? Is that Kerplunk Street? Is it Kerplunk? And she'd go, kerplunk. Anything you can do to get her to say the word of the day. You know, that was kind of the. The mission for the day.

Yeah. That is so cool because it just takes your mind off of all the other stuff. You know, the rain. I remember tornadoes. And you might not had in New York, but like I was in Michigan, Iowa.

It's.

And rain and just the nose and the dogs. Takes your mind off of all that.

Absolutely.

Yeah. I just watched a video. I'll have to send it to you. It's on. You might have seen it, but because you're in this world. And then it shows these people that put piano steps on the stairs and then they showed how everyone wants to go up the piano step stairs. And it just shows by adding. And they're having so much fun, whereas everyone would normally take the escalator. And it's just that idea of bringing fun to something and it gets you to do anything.

Yeah, especially in a sales job. Right. I mean, we're always told that next 90% of selling is your attitude. Yeah. When I was out there selling my focus, anything I could do to guard my attitude was the key for me. So, yeah, having fun was definitely a big part of that, for sure.

So how did you decide to then work for Southwestern full time?

Yeah, that's a great question. So when I graduated, I was so young. Most kids don't start as young as I was because they're in college. So I was 17 out of high school. I wasn't even in college yet. And so I got to work at Southwestern for like, I think five or six years before I actually graduated college. And so by that time, I'd worked enough hard enough during my undergrad that I kind of gave myself the option of being able to stick around because I had built a good enough organization where I had that option. But I also had some other sister companies that drew my attention. But I think what got me to stick around was like, I just, I. Man, I just. I'm a pretty loyal guy. And I just, I just felt like so loyal to Southwestern for what it did for me. And like I said, that 2013 summer changed my life. You know, I met my wife and met Christ and found an awesome career that I really believed in. So that's probably what kept me around and still keeps me around is just what we do. I just love working with this college age group and having an impact on this age group is really meaningful to me. And I love working with that 18 to 22 year old range where I feel like I can make a good impact. That's probably the biggest thing.

And so how many students do you manage in the summer?

So anywhere. This last summer we had about 60 and this year we're looking to have about 90.

And that's all nowadays. How does it work? Do they all make it? Are they all, are they all there.

At the end, just like the good old days? It depends on the year. You know, we've had some years of great retention and some of tough last. The summer of 2021 was, man, one of the worst years of retention I've ever had. Actually the worst year of retention I ever had. Where. Yeah. That a lot of them unfortunately did not finish their summer. And luckily, you know, this last year we were very blessed. 22, 2022 Summer, they did great. I think we only had three kids go home. So it was a great year.

Yeah.

We try to figure out every year what we. To reflect on that and what helped us do that, what, how can we duplicate that and, and keep that kind of retention up? And that's, that's the goal for next year.

And are you doing the same thing that your brother did with you on the, the emotional kind of readiness in terms of the why and getting through the superficial layer? Like, how are you helping these kids.

Yeah.

Identify their why.

Same. Yeah. Similar exercise. And I would say 80% of our training with our students before the summers is a lot of emotional preparation. And we do that through like situational prep. So whether it's exercises like the one we talked about or just walking them through scenarios that could happen and walking through the emotions of, for example, like, let's say you get pulled over by the cops because someone called the cops on you, how are you going to feel in that moment? Like, what's that going to make you feel like? Let's, let's talk about that. Yeah. You might feel like, man, am I doing something wrong? Something not supposed to be. You might feel embarrassed, you might feel a little scared. Maybe that's the first time you get pulled over. For some kids, it might be. So we kind of walk through all those emotions and, okay, so what are we going to do about it? What are that. What's the action item that we can do to overcome that? And so I think we do the best with. Students tend to do the best when they've been coached very well on that emotional prep through all those different situations, whether it's getting pulled over or having a roommate quit or rain. I'd say, honestly, Stacy, I think rain is probably one of the man. Rain can send a lot of kids home if they're not prepared for it. But those are, like, the little things that are so important to cover with and make sure that it doesn't totally catch them off guard.

I loved the rain because everyone always felt bad for me. And then, yes, I had the best sales in the rain.

But anyway.

And then it's funny because even with my. I worked for Tom James after Southwestern for four years, and that was always the time when a salesperson would say, oh, I'm not going to work because it's raining. I'm what? Like, that doesn't mean compute.

Yeah, Rainy day is my best day. What are you talking about? It's liquid sunshine.

Exactly.

We're going to make it happen.

I love that. That situational emotional readiness. I think that's really good. Was there anything else that you guys do to help them get ready in that prep work?

Yeah, everything. Again, emotional is a big part, but I think going over. Building a relationship with their parents is a big part as well, of keeping them out. There is something that we found. So we meet with their parents after they get selected and give them more info. And our goal is to kind of get the parents to understand that we're on the same team and that our goals are the same. We want them to have a great summer, a great experience. And, man, the reason that's so important is inevitably there's always a time in the summertime where you kind of break down and you want to call home. I know I did that. I'm sure you probably did too, back in the day. And if parents aren't prepared for that call and parents aren't really on board, that can really be a pivotal moment for a student because the parents either going to say, yeah, why don't you come home? I told you that was a bad idea. And, yeah, there goes that kid. Right. Or they're going to be a super positive parent that gets it. And they were. They built a good relationship with us enough to Be like, hey, you know, I know it's tough, but you got this. I believe in you. Encourage them, motivate them and, and help them move forward. And I've worked with both types of parents and it really does make a big difference in a lot of kids summers.

Can we talk about sales school? So what is for people that don't know? Can you explain how that works? Is that still happening before?

Yeah, absolutely. So we, after selecting the teams from all over the campus, all over the world, before our students commence their sales, they go to Nashville where our company's headquartered and they go there for our sales school, which is. Well, actually these last two years have been a little different. But traditionally it's a seven day sales program where it's, it's everything they need to know and how to be successful in our job. They learn it there and it's about 80 to 100 hours of training and they get everything from technical training to more emotional training like we talked about, motivational speakers to actually a lot of it, a big chunk of it is just is role playing, practicing with each other, making sure that they know how to their sales talk, their presentation. So by the end of it, the goal is that they feel confident, they're, they're very prepared technically. And it's kind of like we always describe, it's kind of like the mixture of finals week where they learn a ton, they cram it just like school mixed with the pep rally where there's so much energy, so much motivation, there's hundreds of other college students there at once. So it's hard not to have a great atmosphere with that kind of, that kind of crowd. So that's how sales school kind of works right now.

Yeah, I remember just that synergy. I mean you feel electric by the time it's over. I've tried to recreate that, get my company and I was never able to get it there, but it was.

Yeah, well, it's hard. Yeah, it's hard to duplicate more. Dudley and Dan Moore, you know, it's, that's very important. Yeah, those guys are awesome. Motivating our kids. But yeah, I totally agree. Like you want to punch through a mountain by the end of sales school, you know, you feel like you can do anything. So it's a great, great way to start the summer.

Do you have any thoughts on. Because they were so good at telling stories and being able to, through the stories, being able to just emotionally impact you, to move, literally jump out of your seat. Do you have any thoughts on how they do that?

Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, I think one of the things, you know, Dan Moore, for those listeners that don't know Dan Moore's was the president of our company for 16 years and been working in our company for 50 years, 49 years. And he actually just retired this year, so kind of heartbreaking for us. But Dan was just probably the best speaker, public speaker I've ever seen in my life in person. And, man, he just had this power of really relating to our students in such an incredible way where he would tell his story, how he was recruited as a student at Harvard where he attended school, and just getting to their level of man, a lot of you guys might be feeling this way, like, is this really work? Is this really worth it? And man, just relating to them, meeting them, where they're at. I think he does such a good job of that. And so kids really relate to him. They really connect with them, even though he could be their grandparent. And yeah, from there it's just, it's captivating how he, he's able to just dial his energy at that age especially. He's just a little kid again and, and just share that energy, energy with the crowd. It's incredible. So that's, that's awesome. I think that's good. And then, of course, Mort Utley are. Every year we show Mort Utley, who's another keynote speaker, and he passed away in 93, I believe, and we still show videos of his keynote. And yeah, it's just incredible stories that he tells about other salespeople that have overcome and, and why it's worth it. And. Yeah, that just gets people jacked up. It's pretty awesome.

And the pony story is a big part of my mindset. Right. That's really carried me through. What's, what's your interpretation of it, just for the listeners?

Oh, the classic, more deadly pony story, man, that's. That is a staple of Southwestern. I love that. Yeah, he talks about the two twins, right? Yeah, the two twins that polar opposites. One's super positive, one super negative. And negative can find a negative out of anything positive. Super optimistic. And they check on the little boys with some doctors and they put them in two different rooms and the doctor says, hey, we're going to put the negative kid in the most beautiful room with all the toys, with all the candy, with everything that a kid could enjoy. And we're going to put the super, super positive kid in a room full of horse manure and see what he does with it. And then they, yeah, they visit back with him after like 30 minutes or whatever. And they check in with the negative kid and he has no fun. He's like, I don't want to ride the bike because I scraped my knee and I don't want to eat the candy because it gave me a toothache. And I didn't want to blow up the balloons because they make my head hurt. Just negative neg. He's like, man, this guy's in rough shape. So then he goes into the other room with the positive kid and he's like, I wonder if he's gonna say with all this literally manure in the middle of the room. And he walks in and he says that the kid's knee deep in all this horse poop and it's all over the place. And he's like, what are you doing? And he says, man, if there's all this poop here, there's gotta be a pony here somewhere, right? That's. Oh, man, I love that story. And so, yeah, moral of the story is I love what Mort says at the end of that. He goes. He goes, this summer, I just want you to know a secret. You're gonna have to wave through a lot of it. But then he says that the. The bigger the. The pile of manure, the bigger the poop, the bigger the ponies. And so, yeah, it's just such a good metaphor that, man, sometimes you just gotta. You gotta dig through all the crap. But at the end of the. There's always. There's always a pony. There's always a big pony, a big prize. And the bigger the crap, the bigger the prize. So.

And it's so cool because I don't even think you realize what you're hearing when you hear it. But then when it's 8 o' clock at night and it's raining and you've heard no all day, you're ex. Yeah. And then the dogs are yapping and then the, the wives are like, oh, I don't know if they're still like this, but like, oh, my husband will be home, whatever. And then all of a sudden you think of that pony. You have that visual and it literally. He puts it in your unconscious mind and then it gives you that visual. It's so cool. That still carries with me.

Yeah. Yeah, you still find those ponies, right? And sometimes when you need it most, right, those ponies pop up and it's like, man, yeah, like you said, when you're sitting on zero sales and it's 9pm Then you find that mom that you knock on her door and it's like dark outside, right? And she's like, oh my gosh, come on in. You know, and you're like, thank you so much. She buys everything and she just, she feeds you pizza. And man, those ponies are the ones we live for. So yeah, God bless the ponies out there.

What do you think helps in terms of mindset for the, the students and for you? Is there something. So you have the pony story, you have the mindset of controlling your attitude and fun, being able to add fun into it. I love your fun stories. Power of self talk. Is there anything else that powers your mindset?

Yeah, I mean a couple. I think, I think the crystallizing is a huge part of helping kids with having the right mindset and perspective especially and just. Yeah, breaking, breaking up their days, breaking up their goals into. Into bite sized things and just having the right perspective. That man, I don't know if I could do this all summer. I mean I remember I sold eight summers and I remember even my eighth summer I told myself that I don't even know if I could do this all summer. I don't know if I could do this all week. I don't know if I could do this all day. But you know what? I can do this until 10:30 for the next two hours. I could do anything for two hours. So a lot of times that's really what kept me going. And also just the mindset that man, it's just the finding away attitude and that it's okay that growth isn't always fun and growth isn't always enjoyable and the process isn't always a lot. Rainbows and sunshines like we see on social media. Like the, the process is, is man, it'll, it'll grind you and it's uncomfortable and, and it's gonna put you through the ringer. But man, learning how to enjoy that process and, and being. I remember, I remember one thing I used to tell myself and coach myself through when I used to get frustrated about people telling me no all the time is I, I had to remind myself like, hey, this is what I signed up for was like these no's. Like if everyone told me yes, this job would be easy and I wouldn't, I wouldn't get paid as well probably and I wouldn't learn as much and I wouldn't grow as much. So I remember I used to have to. When people told me no and I got frustrated, something that kind of grounded me and kind of brought me back home was I used to grab my Nose. And I used to say, embrace my nose. Embrace my nose. Great reminder for me, I'm like, I need to embrace my nose. And what that meant for me is just, yeah, I be grateful for my nose. Like, hey, I. This is what I signed up for. You know, I need calls, demos and sits. I need everything, all three to have a great summer. And that's okay. Nothing personal. It's. It's part of my journey and it's part of my, my, my growth. So anything we could do to help them have that kind of mindset. Yeah, towards. Towards their problems. Man, that. Those are top first years for sure.

So really having that really good mindset around rejection too.

Yeah, rejection problems. Whether it's a flat tire, them getting kicked out of their turf, or host family kicking you out. I don't know. There's so many problems that come up in the summer. Right? Yeah. And just having the right attitude towards problems. Right. And seeing them as an opportunity for growth, not like a woe is me.

What did you mean by crystallizing your perspective?

The. Instead of being overwhelmed with the, with the attitude of man, there's a long way to go. There's a, There's a, A lot of space between me and my goals. There's a lot of long ways to go. I mean, a lot of times that could be so discouraging. Right. Especially for someone who's never worked in our program and they're getting zero sales the first week. Right. And in anything, right, Whether it's whatever career you're in, when there's that much distance between you and your goals, it can be kind of tough on your attitude. So, yeah, when we coach them on just breaking down their, their, their perspective and breaking down their goals and to make it just more manageable, not only does it help with, Help them get out of that mindset of like losing hope almost, in a way, it also helps with complacency, even for kids that are doing really well. Like, I remember there was, there was days where, man, I was cranking and I had like three customers by 10:30 in the morning. And it's really easy to get complacent and when you're performing well. And so when we crystallize our goals like that, we just work by goal period. And just increments of two hours, it kept me from getting too complacent. So after 10:30, I would forget about my day and I would act like it was a brand new day. And I don't care if I sold 0 or I don't care if I sold 10. It's a new day and all I'm worried about is642.6. Six demos, four sit downs to customers. That. That's what kept me from getting complacent even when I was doing well. So that's kind of how we help them understand that.

I like that. And then in addition to the incremental goals, how did you guys do goal setting like for the summer and just overall.

Yeah, for the summertime we did a couple different things. We, we did exercises like we helped them visualize like how much money they wanted to make for the summertime. And we got really in detail. My rules when I'm putting together goals with our students is, is you got to be a. You got to think big. Was one rule that I always tell them they have to follow and they have. The more specific, the more terrific is what I tell them. So just very specific goals that were big and that stretched them a little bit. So they come up with a unit goal or how much money they want to make, let's say $30,000. And then we would take it a step further by taking that $30,000 and go, okay, we got $30,000 in August, we're gonna, this is your goal. Let's say this happens. Okay, now I want you to spend that money. What are you gonna do with that money? So we'd actually walk them through an exercise of your goal is by the next time we meet, your homework assignment is you need to spend $30,000. And so it can be anything from 10 grand has to go to school, I want to spoil my parents with the dinner, 100 bucks or my rent is going to be 5 grand for the semester. And so they would kind of budget their next year from everything from things that they needed to pay to things that they wanted to have fun. You know, like I want to go to Europe. They put that in there. So it made that a little bit more realistic for them. And it started help them to think more about the things that it would bring and not just the money, if that makes sense. So that was one thing that we would do. And we'd also do the same thing with what are some character traits you want to gain this summer and develop? So we'd walk them through like confidence. And again, the more specific, the more terrific. So don't just say character. Like, what do you mean by character? What is it? That can be a lot of things. What character traits specifically? So they walk through that as well. So, yeah, several exercises like that to get them really specific and thinking big and getting them excited about their goals.

What else did you do to get them to bring out the character traits that they wanted to have? I like that idea.

Yeah. I think just a lot of great questions. Just following up with good questions. As one thing that we ask him is like, think of, think of a role model, for example, that you really respect or admire a coach, someone that's mentored you, maybe your parents, maybe someone, maybe someone you don't even know but you admire. Like athlete that you, you know, pro athlete, you know, what are some character traits that they possess that you would love to grow in? What are some things that you appreciate about your high school coach that you love that, that really made you feel special? Like, what are some of those things? So giving them ideas, like that was always a good place to start.

Yeah, I think it's great because sometimes it's good when you're struggling to think of something, to look outside of yourself, to be able to find what it is you want.

Yeah, absolutely. Totally agree.

So as far as accountability, I remember those, the morning meetings and the Sundays. I thought we could talk about that a little bit more because I think Southwestern has a really great model of accountability to be able to achieve your goals. So can we talk about. About how you guys work through that?

Yeah, accountability is huge. Yeah, we always say that the more people you're account accountable to, the better. Right. And I think that's. That's something that's still true with me today. I mean, the more people I can have coaching me, mentor me, the better. So in the summer, specifically, one thing we do every night, if you remember, stat calls. Did you guys do stat calls?

Actually, I don't think so.

I don't know if you guys. So I. Probably not because cell phones, I guess.

Oh yeah, we didn't have cell phones. Yeah, we were pay phones.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So probably not. So now what we do is every night our students get a coaching call every night. So when they're going home, they call their student leader that they're assigned to and they report their stats and they get to kind of talk about their day. So that's a nightly just coaching call and letting him vent, coaching him up a little bit and giving him something to focus on for the next day and then holding them accountable to whatever they committed to, whether it's like, no matter what, I want to start at my start time. Tomorrow is going to be 7:45 and I'm going to go till 9:31. Cool. And holding them accountable to the next coaching call the next night. So that's on a daily basis. And then like you were talking about on Sundays, our Sunday is our day off, and it's our weekly meeting where we get together as an organization and we do some training in the morning to help coach them. And we let the guys that are doing really well, the girls that are doing really well, go up and speak and share their ideas. What's helping them, motivate them, give them some great ideas for the next week. And that's kind of when we lean into the fun activities of the summer where we get to relax and do the skydiving and stuff like that. Did you guys ever go skydiving?

No. We went to. I mean, it was president's club, like Cayman Islands and things like that, but we didn't do any, like, skydiving.

They're great. I think we go to, like, you.

Know, I want a refund. No, I'm just kidding.

Do over.

Yeah. Do.

Sign you up for next summer, Stacy. No problem. No problem. You mean org leader again? Yeah, they have a lot of fun, so they kind of get some of that fun summer experience at the same time. Not just.

Yeah, I'm gonna. I need to, like, go back because some of the memories keep coming up as I kind of explore more. But I have to tap in now to remember.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's fun talking to alumni because just the. So much has changed, you know, even how they get paid. A lot of alumni are like, wow, I'd probably still be there if we got paid like that. I know.

So are you not doing the breakfast meetings then? Are you guys still doing those. The morning breakfast meetings?

Tell me more about that. Or like, every day, you mean?

Yeah, okay.

Yeah.

Because that's. My fun story is we used to go to Bob's big boy and we'd, like, rub the belly of Bob's big Boy.

For good luck.

Yeah, for good luck.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We. We do the breakfast spots with our roommates. Yep. And we still. We. We still read Ogman, Dino, Greatest Salesman.

Yeah.

Yep. So we read that in the morning. Yeah. Have a little breakfast routine where we're kind of prepared for the day.

And then when they're. When they're holding themselves accountable, it's. So it's at night they're talking to their student leader, and then the morning, they have the meetings with the roommates and whoever else is nearby. And then they have the weekly. The Sunday meetings where they're sharing their wins and able. The ones that are able to that are successful are able to share. So they're going in the leadership role, basically, which, so that, that's a way of accountability is by being able to do that too.

Yeah, absolutely. Yep, yep. And just checking in with them every night and following up and, and making sure that they're, they're on track.

And we talked a lot about education in terms of how you guys educate the students. So I just want to make sure we're kind of there with different books that you're having them read, motivational SPE speakers that they're listening to, being able to do role playing. And also that's the quote that I really like. I just heard it the other day. Compressing time by learning from other people. Something like that, because. Yeah, isn't that good? Right? Yeah. I have to remember the actual quote because I don't think that's it. But that's the idea is. Yeah, when you learn from other people, you're compressing time for yourself, which is really cool, that concept. And is there anything else that helps in terms of education?

Big part is the, everything from just technical training that we do. Product knowledge, I think is a big part of it.

Yeah. Product knowledge, yeah.

Making sure they understand and they're, they feel pretty convicted in what they're promoting and selling while they're out there and everything from like knowing there's. Oh, probably the biggest thing that we preach technical wise is just memorizing their sales talk and their presentation for the summer. So.

And then the other piece is you have them, then they get to educate others after they've been successful. And that's. Even if they, after they've completed one summer, they get to move into a, a leadership role or mentor role, essentially. Can you talk about that a little bit too?

Yeah. So students, after their first summer, they get the opportunity to become a student leader and build their own team and kind of be able to lead a mentor. Because the first summer is a great experience where you kind of get to learn how to lead yourself. You're out there on your own and you're doing the thing. And I think that's a great first step for leadership. Right. Because you have to learn how to lead yourself before anyone's going to follow you. So that's kind of the taste of the first summer. And then the second summer they get the opportunity to actually build a team and learn the skills of, of recruiting and leadership. And that's a whole nother monster on its own. From my experience, building teams is way more challenging than selling books. Door to Door. It's tough to really sell intangible things as opposed to a product. So that's always a great skill set that kids get to learn as a second, third, fourth year student.

So good. I want to make sure I got that. So that's education. And then why do you think it's important? Because I know one of the other things you guys do is they surround themselves with like minded people because that's part of the atmosphere you're creating for them by. Between the roommates and then the group that they're going out with and everyone they need at sales school. Can you just talk about that? Why do you think that's important?

Yeah, absolutely. It's very. I have kids ask me that before or a similar question where they're like, man, so why can't we do this job like back in our hometown? Like why don't I have to be away from home? Right? And it's like, man, it is really tough to do a job like this with. With how much we go through when you're. With that many distractions from back home, whether it's your girlfriend asking you to hang out all the time or just the comfort of your own bed. Right. In the summer it's so easy to sleep in. So again, one of our, A big part of our mission is to build character in our students. And so it's really hard to do that when they're in their comfort zone. So we're very intentional about the relocating for the summer and living with the host family and being on your own out there with the team just for that reason. Like it was for me, my first summer as a 17 year old, it was the first time I was out there on my own where I couldn't call mom and dad to help me. And that was. I'm so grateful for that experience because that's what helped me mature so much and, and build so much confidence myself and my problem solving abilities. And definitely I don't think I would have gained that had I been living with mom and dad all summer. And also with the amount of hours that our students put in and like you said, the attitude and the habits, it's so hard to do that when you're not surrounded by people that are doing it as well. Because again, the more people you're accountable to, the better. I mean when we jump out of bed at 5:59 in the morning, I still have a hard time doing that to this day. Right. And, and there wasn't a single day in my eight summers where I didn't jump out of bed with enthusiasm and didn't go take a cold shower. And I think the only reason I was able to do that is because I had roommates that were doing it with me, and I had people that were jumping out of bed with me, and I had people that were holding me accountable to taking that cold shower where we call each other, like, hey, this bathroom felt a little warm this morning. Who's the culprit? Right? There's some fog on the window here. Cold shower or the warm shower. Right. And so, yeah, that, that like, mindedness in that environment that we were surrounded with was. Was such a huge, huge part of, of the formula. Right? Because I don't. Man, it'd be. I can't picture doing this job without that, you know, that'd be so tough. That'd take a lot of mental fortitude to do that on your own.

Totally. It's so cool hearing you talk because it just. It shows me just how much everything's been programmed unconsciously without me even realizing. It all connects back to this job that I had in the summer. It's so crazy to me when I think about it, just my thinking and just the way that I do things. When you're talking, I'm like, oh, my God. It's literally how, like, it's where things came from. So, anyway, just interesting. It's really interesting. And what do you think's the way. The number one way that you are able to overcome. Help these kids overcome their fear of doing something new?

Yeah, that's. I, I would argue that's the second hardest part of my job is, Is helping people overcome that fear. I think the biggest thing is when we can help them identify that, when we can help them connect what they want most with their fear, that. That's when we can help people overcome it, you know, and understanding that in order to get those things that they want most, whether it's, man, it's building confidence for the summer or building character, building good professional skills, or getting out of my comfort zone. When we can help them connect their fears to that. That in order. The. The way to those things, those things that you want most is through this fear. Not. Not that shying away from it.

Yeah.

That's when. That's when students really click. Not just students. I think that's true with anyone, right?

Totally.

For sure.

You mentioned second hardest part of your job. What's the hardest part?

Parents.

Oh, yeah, that's true. Yeah.

Parents. Yeah, parents. I tell you what. Yeah, it's tough, especially with different generation of parents that we work with now, you know.

Yeah, I was curious too, because I just wanted to go back to what you said earlier with your parents basically, and you guys, you guys all moving here and the refugees and then seeing your parents re. Establish their whole lives. Like, what do you think that has done for you? Like, I mentioned a lot with Southwestern, but I'm imagining that experience and watching your parents go through that.

Yeah, it was just very humbling. It was very eye opening. I mean, they did a great job of making me feel like I didn't, I was in need of anything, especially as a kid. But it was, it was definitely. No, it was different because we in Colombia, my father was a entrepreneur. He's always been an entrepreneur. And before we left, we were doing pretty well. Like we, I had a nanny and full time nanny and we're living a good part of Colombia and we were doing pretty well for my parents. Worked really hard for that. And so to go from that, he came with 50 bucks in his pocket, didn't speak the language. And best of all, he came during the winter in Colombia. And Bogota doesn't snow. Like, it's, it's beautiful weather, it's 60. Picture Florida in the winter all year. It's perfect. When he showed up, he used to tell us that. He's like, yeah, I, I thought, I literally, I thought it was in hell because everything was dead. All the trees are dead, everything is dead. And so it's the first time he saw snow, you know, didn't speak the language. And he went from having a pretty established position in Columbia to his first job here was, was cleaning horses at the, at the race horserace place in our hometown. So yeah, to go from that. And then, you know, I remember we, when we showed up, we showed up three months after he did my brother at the older brother who's three years older than me. We had little plays, you know, four forks, four spoons, four bowls to how they're doing now. And they're doing great. And I'm so proud of them through all that struggle and through all the triumph that they went through. I think the biggest thing I took away from my parents was they never lost focus in helping people. And that was the biggest thing I saw as a kid from them biggest example is they're always so. Even when we had so little to give, we had a lot of Colombians that would come to the US and they would stay with us. I remember we had so many Colombians that stayed at my house growing up because my Parents would let them stay with us until they got on their feet. And even when we were like, living in this tiny place. And so they always had such an open door to people that were in our situation. And they still, I mean, to this day. My dad owns a nonprofit soccer academy where his goal is to get kids off the street to play soccer. And my mom helps Latino businesses, she helps startups in the Latino community to help enrich the local economy in my hometown. And so she's like always serving people, always. So that's been the biggest takeaway is just. And again, that's probably why I'm still here in Southwestern is. Is. I just. I love being able to. To make an impact. And they have, and that's kind of the example that they've. They've shown us. So.

Yeah. Unbelievable. That's amazing. What a thing to witness, to be able to see that growth and just evolving and going through all of that.

Yeah, absolutely.

I'd love to hear what your number one piece of advice is for the listeners on how to do the thing.

How to do the thing, man. Number one piece of advice. I think for me, just looking back, the three things that kind of. That we've been blessed with, my wife and I, is one, just surrounding myself with great mentors, with great people. I truly believe that we stand on the shoulders of giants, that we just get all this knowledge from these people. So just surround yourself with great people that are doing what you're doing and that you would treat places with and give to get. Don't. Don't just be selfish and take information, but see how you can add value and build some great relationships. That's a big part for our family, at least for me. And then second, just, yeah, have big goals, think big, what's possible, and then how do we get there? That's always our motto is, man, what would be epic? What would be epic? And whatever we're going to do. And then lastly, just just taking action, man. Action cures fear. And it's so easy, especially in today's social media world where there's all these courses on how to do this and all these courses on how to do that to just get soaked into that. And I'm not saying there's nothing wrong with those. You know, I've signed up for courses myself, but the only downfall from some of those things is it can just cause analysis paralysis. And, man, sometimes you just got to take step. And one thing that I learned from my dad as a soccer coach is he always told me that the game is the best coach. The game is the best coach. And he told us that I can coach you up and train and train, but man, you're going to learn more from just playing the game. I think that's so true in whatever your thing is. So just go out there and enjoy the manure, enjoy the poop, because you'll find the ponies and you'll learn so much more that way just by taking action. So I think that those would be my three things.

So good. Well, this has been amazing talking to you, Danny. This is really, really, really good. I really appreciate your time.

Yeah, likewise. It's been so much fun. I love going down memory lane. I. I honestly, I haven't thought about my first summer in Southwestern in a long time. So 10 years ago. It just brings back so many great memories. So thanks for being the catalyst for that.

Totally. Yeah. Thanks for coming on.

For sure. For sure. Thanks for listening to the do the Thing podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. But even more, we hope you'll be inspired to do the Thing. Do you have a burning question on Doing the Thing that you'd like answered? How about an inspiring do the Thing story of your own that you'd like to share? We'd love to hear all about it. Just leave us a voice message at do the Thing callcast co or email us@helloothethingpodcast.com.