Ep. 19 | Going Pro: Kerlee Nicolas

What's up, guys? Welcome back to the Lead Fast podcast. My name is Daniel. I'll be your host, and I'm joined with Tommy Lawford, our fearless leader today and every day. What's up, Tommy?

I don't know if I'm fearless every day.

You're fearless every single day.

Hey, guys. What's going on? Welcome back. Glad you're with us. We've got a good show for you today.

We do. We are in our new location we talked about last episode, and I'm really liking it. We'll have two cameras this time, not a third. Yeah, we don't have a third.

The other one was. The third camera was too much. It was a bridge too far. It was like, oh, man, we've gotta. We've gotta do something.

And, you know, some things are salvageable, but that third camera is not salvageable. And we. I'm not even getting into what it was, but just know it was unsalvageable. And we were back to two cameras now, so. Hello, everybody, and welcome to our new spot.

Yeah, but it's still nice. It's great. I like being on this side of the. This side of the studio.

That's because you got all the buttons over there.

Well, I always have all the buttons, but I like being. I can see the rest of the office. We should. We should do an entire episode where we give an office tour so everybody could see.

We should.

Yeah, we'll do that.

I think that'd be good. It'd be a short one, but it's okay. So we have a special guest today, and I'm really excited about it. This guy is.

He's a big deal.

Yeah, I mean, like, most of the people that we have are, you know, in the. In the arts, I guess you could say, like that.

Or sports. Yeah, sports, arts. We're just really blessed that we have a lot of friends that are super talented, either artists or actors or athletes. Yeah, this is not either.

No, this guy, he's a. He's. He's climbed. He's climbed the corporate ladder, and he's got an incredible story. He is the sales director at Procter and Gamble, which is a big deal. It's a very big deal. And I'm excited to jump in there. I know he's got some. Some things to say. I mean, obviously, you can't. You cannot get to that level and not have some stories to tell.

Here's the. Here's the most amazing part. Like, if you came to me and you said, hey, give me an age. Range for the sales director of Procter and Gamble.

I'm going to tell you right now, I would say 50 to 65.

Yeah, yeah. So in the 50s at least. Like.

At least.

Yeah. He's not 40 yet. Like, he's in his 30s and he's the sales director. So by the way, be impressed. I don't know if you know that. You should be impressed, but. You should be impressed. But. Yeah. So Curly. Curly Nicholas is his name. And he's going to be here with us in a little bit. We're going to have to. We'll break and then we'll come back in. But super excited that he's here. Uh, we're gonna dive in his story because he's done a lot of things, man. He's been.

He has done a lot of things. And speaking of that, we've done a lot of things. Not. Not climbing the corporate ladder, but lead fast has been very busy. And some of you guys noticed that because you respond on social media to a lot of stuff we're doing. But I mean, tell us. Tell everybody what's been going on, man. We've been. We've been busy.

We've been very busy. So we've been sort of reformatting what we do. You'll see, you know, a lot of new looks on our social, man. And thank you guys so much. What I like. Hey, we broke followers on IG this week, so that was incredible. What a ride. But we have been executive producing a show that we're gonna pitch to Netflix soon and based in Nashville called the Uncut Experience with Chase Irwin and man, we just a ton of things with a lot of travel, a lot of coaching, we have lined up an incredible set of going pro for October. We've got. Taylor Smith's gonna be on with us.

That's gonna be wild.

Yeah. So if you. If you watch Netflix, there's a new movie out called the Outpost. Go watch it. It's got Scott Eastwood and Jake Gyllenhaal, Orlando Bloom. I thought both of them were in there. The other guy that is in there looks like Jake Gyllenhaal. He does so. But Orlando Bloom and Scott Eastwood and Taylor Smith are in this movie called the Outpost with Danny Rodriguez. And you know who is incredible. So anyway, so these guys are all in that mo. He's gonna. Taylor's gonna be on talking about it and talking about being a professional actor and what that requires and how much work that is. And I'm.

I'm a little. I'm not nervous because of the content. I'm nervous for me, you, and Taylor.

To be on the same thing at the same time.

Yeah. To be back.

Taylor's a good friend, and we are full of shenanigans, and so that'll be a fun episode. Travis Austin.

Yeah.

Who? Guys, I guess you don't know how excited I am about this. So Travis Austin is one of my very favorite designers. He designs ha and leather jackets and all this other stuff. And I am a big nerd about hats. I always have to wear these headphones, so you rarely see me in one. But I've got a stack of fedoras at my house, and that happens to be what he makes. But he custom makes them. He interviews you. He talks about your, like, what your interests are and your, you know, family and all this other stuff. And he's building me a custom hat. And we're actually gonna go to his shop in Nashville and film an episode of the podcast there the day I get my hat at the end of the month.

I can't wait. I can't wait. Will he be in his new place?

He'll be in his new. So we'll. We'll be the first people in his new place. But shout out to Travis Austin because he is a genuinely just the coolest guy ever. So we've got a big going pro month coming up for Lead Fast. On top of that, Lead Fast curriculum is live, and it's. We've dropped the subscription price that's available. We are partnering now. We have a chamber of commerce program where we can partner with your Chamber of Commerce, and we can do chamber of Commerce luncheons and breakfast and teach live, but also offer a discount. So if you are part of a Chamber of Commerce and you want them to be able to get the chamber discount for Lead Fast for you and the rest of the chamber members, then send us an email and we'll reach out to that chamber on your behalf, use you as a reference, and give your chamber a discount that they can use for your business. Hey, but, guys, listen. There are so many, like, incredible things. Like, really, like, honestly, we've been very, very busy. We've three new flagship courses coming out. We've got an entire new process called Process X that we're launching. That's an actual online tool to help you plan the next move. You know, that courage part of things. We always talk about commitment culture and courage, and we've got content for commitment culture, but having the next right step planned out and knowing whether or not you can pull it off. And being able to analyze it, that's a skill set. And we've put that into a process called Process X that lets you figure out anything. And that's coming. God, man, we've got so many good things coming down the pipe.

It's. It's crazy. I'm excited about it.

Well, hey, let's get to our guest. How about that? Let's. We've got. He's. I know he's kind of waiting, so we've been talking a lot. So what we're going to do is he's going to be as a zoom call, so he'll be up behind us. We'll also cut here. So we're going to take a break real quick and we'll be right back with Curly Nicholas from Procter and Gamble.

All right, guys, we are back. We have our special guest Curly Nicholas on the line. And for those of you who don't know, Curly is a talented individual. I actually did a little bit of stalking on LinkedIn and you have got the rap sheet. So you did your undergrad at Mount Ida College, you have mba, University of Arkansas, and currently you're the sales director at Proctor and Gamble. Is that right?

That's right.

That's crazy. That is like. That's huge.

But he's been. I feel like he's been everywhere. Like, I was like, you, you. You worked at Nestle, like. So Procter and Gamble is not your first stop. Like, you. You've worked up through the ranks, right?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Procter and Gamble is probably the third major CPG manufacturer I've worked for. 34th. And not only have I kind of been all over the place in terms of companies that I've worked for, but geographically, I've kind of been all over the place for 20.

Oh, wow.

In the first place, 10 to 12 years of my career, I had like six different out of state.

Wow, that's hard to settle. But also, like, the fact that you can continue to progress a career with that much, you know, sort of unsettled moving is pretty impressive, man. Congratulations.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

That's like the military moving that much.

Yeah. So Daniel. So Daniel's former service was in the military, so I feel your pain on that. Yeah. So he's moved a lot.

I appreciate that. Thank you, sir.

So. So let's talk. I want to talk a little bit about the move. Light up, because sales director for a national brand or conglomerate of. Conglomerate of brands like Procter and Campbell, man, that's. That's a big deal. 1 like, so, like, as a guy that knows business, that's. I understand that that's a big deal. We're very lucky to have you on the show. But also, like, you look like you're 14, bro. Like, how did, how did, how did you get like. Because, I mean, I mean, I'm 40 and I know you're not 40 yet, but, like, I feel like if I would have accomplished that at 40, 40, I would be like, man, I did some things like, right. I would, I would be excited about that. But you're obviously younger than I am, so how did, how did you get there? Like, what was the journey to get to sales director for a conglomerate like Proctor Gamble?

Yeah. Well, first, I appreciate that compliment. I guess I do look younger than I am. I'm a little younger than you by a handful of years. But I can tell you it certainly wasn't a straight path. I feel like if you look at my resume, it may feel like a lot of fast progression, but it, you know, during the journey, it certainly didn't feel that way. I'll kind of back up to how I got started in my career a little bit first. Yeah, I'll give you some more context. So I got my undergrad in Newton, Mass. So I grew up in Boston, got my undergrad in Newton, Mass. At Mount Idaho College. And during my last semester of college, I was a business major. Had no idea what I wanted to do. I actually got a job delivering frozen pizzas for craft. And the only thing that I saw in the job posting was directional delivery. Delivering pizza. I had no idea what I was going to be doing. I thought I was going to be driving Domino's Pizza from house to house. But I started that job during my last semester of college. And that job entailed driving a 24 foot frozen truck full of frozen pizza. One grocery store start probably about 5am Go to a grocery store, walk in the store, see what the shelf needs, write in order, go back to my truck, grab 10, 12 cases of frozen pizza product, bring that back in, check it in at the receiver, load the shelf, and then leave some back stock. If the store needed some or would allow some, I do that and then go off and hit my next. I hit probably 10 or 12 stops throughout my day. So I'd start my day probably about 5am I'd be done by 1 to 2pm in the afternoon, and then I'd head back to school and take my classes at like 4pm in the evenings. So my last semester was really busy and really challenging and I say all that to say, you know, it's not the most glamorous of jobs to start off with slinging frozen cases of pizza, £20 each, just about. And it was hard, but I learned a ton. I learned so much about how things happen at the retail environment. I learned so much about customer service. I learned so much about just the mechanics, rotating product, etc. Forecasting inventory. And so I did that for some time and then I took an opportunity to go manage a distribution center. So the distribution center where I as a sales rep would go load up my truck and get pizza. I now move to Connecticut to go manage center for other sales reps. So I had to forecast for that distribution center for about 10 or so sales reps who cover the state of Connecticut. And I managed everything in that building. Not just forecasting the product, but like fleet management, maintenance, building, you know, orders and stacking pallets and, you know, the warehouse was essentially a huge freezer that was at like negative 10 degrees at all times. And so I'd be just completely covered up and buttoned up. You would only see my eyes because I'd be in the freezer all day long working and having to manage the staff and manage some other things on site. So I'd say that experience was extremely humbling and it was very hard physical labor. I moved away from my family. I was 25 years old, away from everlasting, just got an apartment by myself in Connecticut. And it was really, really hard work. And while I was doing it, I struggled a bit because there were moments where I thought, you know, I can't believe I went to college and got a four year degree in business to come now to be doing this job where I'm working so physically hard with my body and I'm in a freezer all day long. So that job was one of the toughest. I had no intention of kind of working in a supply chain role, but I learned a ton from that role. Like I learned, you know, kind of the domino effect of all of my decisions. Simple question couldn't be answered without considering five, six other variables. So there was a ton of learning there while I was there. The company was acquired by Nestle. So then I got an opportunity to move back to Massachusetts and do business development on the Nestle ice cream side. So Eaty's and Haagen Dazs ice cream brands. So I did some business development back in Boston. And that was another great role where I got a lot of great experience calling out a bunch of different people trying to Build new accounts. So all in all, that was about the first five, five or so years of my experience doing those three roles. After that, I got an opportunity to leave the company and go join ConAgra and actually moved to Northwest Arkansas to do that. I did a category management role again, a role that I had no interest or desire getting into. I had no plans in getting into category management, but I learned a ton in that role as well. You know, it's a very analytic, heavy type of role. So you learn a lot of great stuff, a lot of ways of looking at the business and a lot of ways of creating some impactful selling stories with data. So I did that for a couple years and then I got a chance to get into account management at some regional accounts. So from Arkansas, I moved to New Orleans and started calling on a wholesale group, AWG out there. I managed the entire Gulf coast area. I mean, that job was like speed dating with buyers. So I would have a group of buyers. I probably called on a good dozen or 15 different buyers in that one role. And you quickly have to learn different classes of trade. Whether it's an EDLP or cost plus or high low customer. You have to quickly learn what's important to certain people, how to present information to them that'll be relevant for them. I remember some people, I'd go in there with all the data experience that I just learned the previous two years. I'd go in there with spreadsheets, data and it would work. And other people were like, yeah, I don't need all that data. They literally needed like anecdotes to sell. So I'd go in there and just kind of adjust my sales plan based off of the personalities and what would be packaged. That was a really, really cool experience. And getting a lot of fat bats with buyers. So I feel like that was kind of an expedited process to gain a lot of valuable experience selling. And then I moved to Charlotte to call on Harris Theater, another regional account there with the same company. I did that probably about a year and a half or so. All in all, that's that sums up about the first 10 years of my experience. A lot of different types, the role of different state moves. At that 10 year mark, just about I got a chance to join my current company, which is Proctor Gamble. I moved back to Northwest Arkansas and I came on as sales executive, a senior sales executive did that for about a couple years and I was performing pretty well. And you know, I was fortunate enough to get a promotion about a couple years into my Time with the company to my current position.

That's incredible, man. So, you know, that's a journeyman's kind of approach to things. And so that's one of those things where. Where like, you people always say, like, you're. You're either winning or you're learning, you know, if you. If you have the right mindset. And like, you know, you took all. Some. Some situations that were bad situations. And I lived in Connecticut too, so I know like, 10 degrees in a freezer could also be called Thursday in the middle of November. Like, that could be a normal thing. Like, and so, oh, man, it would snow in October, not melt till April or May. It was awful. So I get that, like, 100% like, that that was not a good experience. But you took all the things that you learned, and every place was a place to build on the next thing. And so. And hats off to you, like, be able to take 10 years of experience and turn that into an opportunity. Because Some people take 10 years of experience and turn it into just a complete meltdown. I've been doing this for 10 years, and I'm not where I want to be. And so now I'm just going to, like, give up. You know, that many moves might have broke somebody, but you, you had enough tenacity to stick with it and to learn the lessons that qualified you for the next move, like, for the next move up the next position. You know, that's one of the things and one. The reasons I wanted you to be on the program today. Not only your. Your vast experience and all the things that. Lessons that you learned, but, you know, there are a lot of people that listen to our content, that are entrepreneurs, that are out there on that. On that solo grind. You know, they're hustling and, you know, we have a lot of content for those guys. There's a lot of people who are what we would call creatives, who are in the arts. They're either actors or musicians, and they're. They're sort of. That's a solo grind for a lot of folks. You know, they're out there doing their thing. But I just, like, I was the senior director of business development for Heartland School Solutions up until like, a couple of weeks ago. And that was. That was my first experience being part of an executive team, being part of, you know, a billion dollars and plus in revenue and all of that stuff. And that was hard for me because I cut all my teeth. I had 10 years of being an entrepreneur. You know, I was seven companies into it, and three acquisitions and I knew how to be the boss. What I didn't know was how to be a team member, you know, and then it's the opposite for you coming from like, you know, I was on a truck slinging pizza. And so like you're sort of the, you're not, it's not necessarily low man on the totem pole, but you are definitely the customer facing side of things. You know, you were, you were removed from the C suite about as far as you could get. And then, and then to work from there into an opportunity to manage multiple decision categories. But also people, I'm assuming, and then having that experience catapult you to when they got bought out, to being able to say that what I've done here has qualified me for the next thing, which is qualified me for the next thing. You know, that's, that's a lesson that I feel like a category of people that listen to our program, which is people who are in corporate America need to hear. Yeah, I had to actively reinvent myself several times because I had to figure out how to now operate in this new ecosystem of, you know, compatriots where they were, you know, I had new peers and I wasn't the first and last word to things anymore and had to work inside of understanding other people's objectives and have empathy for those objectives so that I could also be passionate about those objectives and want to be on board with them too. How specifically if you can like take a couple of minutes and talk about any challenges that you had, like going from different sets of people to different sets of people and how you had to like, maybe even change your mindset some to really take advantage of being able to like be a good team player.

Yeah, man, you're absolutely right. It requires a lot of mindset shifts. And I specifically recall a lot of kind of heart to heart moments that I've had with myself around changing mindsets. You talked a little bit about the entrepreneurial route being kind of bone man journey and talked about the journey that I had. And I think a lot of what I used to, to kind of get me through the 10 years where it felt like maybe things are taking a long time or I'm not exactly where I want to be, is really reminding myself to stay focused on the present. And I always tell people being focused on the present is what's going to unlock what we want in the future. And sometimes, myself included, I've been guilty of this too. You get so caught up with where you want to be or what you want to accomplish or where you want your business to. If you're an entrepreneur that you're so focused on that that you lose sight of what's happening now. And really, I think accepting where you are now, deciding to be the very best that you're going to be in this current role. Like when I was managing the distribution center, I said, got it. This is what I do. I manage distribution center. How can I be the best at managing a distribution center? Forget about where I want to be. And then when you start really focusing on the present thing, getting very good at present, do I feel like opportunities just start coming your way? Because people see that you're really grasping what you're doing, you're really mastering what you're doing, you're getting good results. So now those things that you wanted in the future, you still want them. It's not that you have less ambition, but it's funny, when you shift your focus to the present, those things start kind of, I think, being drawn to you because of things that you're doing in present. And it's interesting because I've had so many different dynamics throughout my career with dealing with different people, having different roles on different teams. I essentially, because I did so many roles within my first 10, 12 years, I never really got to a place where I was a master in my role. I feel like I was always constantly learning. You'd get into a role, you learn, you know, 18 months in, you really start kind of getting your feet under, you start getting good, and then you go shift to do something else. And now you're the new person again, trying to learn new people, new brands, new personalities, your new role. So I spent a lot of time learning and a lot of time kind of adjusting. And I think maybe being humble, especially in the learning phase, will help with that mindset shift. Sometimes you go from, hey, I was doing something for 18 months, I got a good sense of what I was doing, to going into a new role where maybe you're doing something new or maybe you're doing something similar, but you're dealing with new people, you don't have that credibility built with them yet. So the way that you communicated with people before who you had this relationship effectively built may not work with a new group, because even though you know what you're talking about, got experience doing this type of work, maybe you won't be as effective influencing as you need to be. And so I think being humble and realizing that you're learning, even if you know the content of the work you're still learning the people you're learning, the personalities, I think that goes a long way. And I think when people see that you're willing to learn and take information in, I always say, you can't improve something until you really understand it. So I would never go into a situation and say, these are the five things I see wrong. Here's what I think. I think you really need to spend some time taking things in, learning from those who are already doing it, gain perspective. And I think when people see you doing things like that, they start to open up more and be more receptive to kind of your ideas. And even the language that I use early on kind of depended on the situation that I was in. So, you know, even if, even if you have what you think is a great idea or an idea that works in some different environment, being mindful of, hey, I'm the new person here. People here have been experienced and they have their own kind of dynamic, maybe framing things around. Hmm, that's interesting. Have you thought of X, Y and Z? Or. Here's a thought that I have. Have we looked at this in the past versus hey, this is what worked in my previous company. I think this is what we should hear. So I think even being intentional with the language that you use when you're dealing with people, especially as you're transitioning and going through change, I think it's really.

Yeah, that's so good, man. That really is. You know, one of the things we talk about here on our. In our content is that, you know, you can deploy excellence as a strategy. Like, you can be strategic with your excellence. Like, and so that seems to me like that whether you knew it or not was what you were doing, you know, and so, like, when we, we talk about that a lot, it's. And we coat when we're coaching people because, you know, I believe you can have perfect proficiency, you can have perfection and not have excellence. Because for me, excellence is the combination of proficiency and passion. Right? And so I love that you said, like, okay, I'm managing a distribution center. I'm not worried about whether or not that's where I want to end up. What I'm going to do is I'm going to be the best at doing what I. What I have to do in front of me. We talk about that a lot in the, in the context of if what you have right now is what you have, then if you can figure out a way to deploy empathy which will allow you to have passion. If you do that job really well now, you have excellence now. You have proficiency and passion. Like you said, I'm going to be the best at this. But when it comes time for the move, your passion is what qualifies you for the promotion. I've always been surrounded by people who did my job as good as me. You know, like I always tell people, proficiency is the base minimum. Nobody hires you with the expectation you're going to give it 80%, right? They the expectation is that you're going to be proficient, you're going to do good work. That's the base minimum. That's what you get your paycheck for. But you get promotion based on passion. You know, your patient, your paycheck is about proficiency. Your promotion is all about passion. That's what sets you apart. And it just seems to me like you were able to tap into that and qualify yourself for promotion because your attitude where you were was, I'm going to be the best, I'm going to do this with excellence. And I think, man, that is a lesson that middle management people who aspire to be in the C suite, people who aspire to be at the director level in corporations need to understand desperately. Because I know, like, for example, I know a dozen really, really good sales guys that are just good at selling, but they are not passionate about what they're selling. They're basically mercenaries. They could leave one sales job and go to the next and go to the next and go to the next and they've got a technique and they're going to be able to go be proficient, they're going to make money, but they're not passionate about where they're at right now. They wouldn't care if they were a medical rep or we're selling ice cream or anything. Like, they don't, they just, they have a skill set and they're going to go use it. And nobody, nobody falls in love with a brand that hires mercenaries.

I kind of relate to a lot of what is being said. And one thing I want to know about that, specifically everything, everything you just said, is that something you developed like while you were in that, like while you were going job to job, or is that something you kind of had, you know, like in your back pocket going into your career? I mean, did you have that resiliency already or did you just work that out, you know, by process?

I think, I think it was a combination. I think by the very nature of some of the experiences that I've gone through in life personally, I've had to build some resiliency out of need as a necessity. But certainly throughout my career, I had to develop that mindset of kind of how I approach. And it's hard for me because, you know, I don't know if you're familiar with strength Finders test, but I, you know, I take a strength finders test. My top number one strength is futuristic, which makes a lot of sense. I'm always thinking about the future. I'm always paranoid. Not paranoid, but I'm always obsessed with thinking about what's around the corner. If you look at my phone, I've got notes and notes and notes in there saying, this is what I want to accomplish in six months, in a year and two years. And here's my accident. Always thinking about future. And so for me, it was especially hard to stay in the present. That's something that I have to try and do, and that's something where, you know, talking to mentors or external sources, listening to podcasts or some other kind of inspirational people, I've picked up some tips and tricks along the way. So it's definitely something that I've had to cultivate. And it's interesting because I mentor people younger in their careers now. And they'll say, I'll hear things like, I've been in this role for 12 months. When's my promotion coming? And I always try to redirect them to. Instead of looking at this, like, time serve thing, instead of looking at your role in your experience as a length of time, what's the minimum amount of time that I have to serve in this role, look at it in terms of what can you gain from this and how can you learn things here to set you up for the next thing? Again, going back to focusing on this goal and this present situation. Get very good at it, but don't look at it in terms of time. Look at it in terms of really, what do I stand to gain here? How can I be the best here and how can I learn things that will help me in my next role? And it's funny, so many times throughout my career, I did roles where I didn't think I needed to do them. I thought going in, this was a waste of time. I don't need to do this role. I'm ready for the next day. And it's only in hindsight that I look back and say, wow, the two years I spent doing that is probably what prepared me the most for doing the thing that I'm doing now. Those two years that I was convinced I didn't need. And so with every experience is what can you draw from it? What can you learn from it? Someone said something earlier that I want to go back to things. You, Thomas, about people being really good at things. I think, again, going back to that humility of what can I learn? How can I get better? We can always get better, right? And it's like, I think people can be technical experts at something. You can be very good at what you do. You can be an extremely good salesperson. That doesn't necessarily make you a good leader. And I think sometimes people take people who are technical experts and say they must. They must be a good leader as well and put them in a position of leading people and leading teams, and they don't necessarily have the skills that they need to do that. It doesn't necessarily translate. So I think if you are that person who is technically good or an expert, and you do have aspirations to move up into leadership, I think developing those soft skills, developing those leadership skills, developing those kind of matrix skills are things that people ought to invest in, because the same muscles that it took for you to be very good at what you do, you're gonna have to exercise different muscles to lead other people and motivate other people and to coach other people to be good at that same thing or whatever function we're in.

No, that's. I'm glad you said that, because I felt like in that journey that I feel like I'm on right now, and other people, I think, who are watching this may feel this, too, is. You get. You start getting momentum, you start thinking, okay, I'm moving in the right direction. And then you take a job, or you. You land at a job that you may initially feel like, you know, you're wasting your time, and then that. I think that right there kills a lot of stuff. I mean, it has for me before. But like you said, that job sets you up for success. Like, it sets you up because you're being the best that you can be at that moment. I don't think you can. You can do that. I don't think you can, like, strive for excellence, be excellent, and just have passion and not learn something that you can take to another job. I mean, I was in the military, and things that I've done there have carried over into every single job that I have. And there's a lot of, like, overlap with that stuff. But I'm glad you said that, because I know there's a lot of people out there who feel like that, you know, they may be in a job now that they had to take because Coronavirus. Like, everybody's getting furloughed. There's a lot of stuff, you know, shifting around. And I think this is a good opportunity for people to realize, hey, you're not like, you know, predestiny or fate. You're there for a reason. But just like you said, I mean, don't miss an opportunity to make yourself better at something. And, I mean, it's just like, hearing your whole story and, like, how your career went so fast. I mean, at what point did you start feeling like, okay, like, now the ball's rolling now. Now we're moving in the right direction because you. You had to. I mean, it was a process. You didn't just jump into, you know, that job where you're like, okay, this is. And then also another question is, what kept you from being comfortable and just staying at one job?

Yeah, I think. I think I didn't really feel like the ball started really rolling until the last two or three years, to be honest. You know, a lot of the roles that I took were technical laterals. Like, the first five years of my career, it was a lot of laterals. You know, the second stage of that, I think when I joined that company back in Arkansas after five years into my career, just about every role that I had there was at the same career level. So I spent five years not really receiving an actual promotion, but getting a lot of varied experiences. And so at the time, it felt like things weren't progressing like I wanted wanted them to, even though I was picking up a lot of valuable experience. And so I think in the last. And it's. Again, you know, you go back to. You hear theories about doing things for 10,000 hours to really be good at them. And I think, you know, I've heard if you break down the math, that equates to about 10 years of experience. And that kind of coincides with my story, too, where I feel like the first 10 years happened at a pace that wasn't as fast as I wanted it to, but I learned a ton. And then really, in the last two or three years, I feel like things have been accelerating. And honestly, if I didn't learn all the things that I learned, experience, all the things that I experienced in the first 10 years, I wouldn't be set up for success now. Wow. So as opportunities came to have more influence or to be on a larger platform, I wouldn't have had the tools that I need to be good. Maybe I could have done them. Maybe I could. I could have stumbled along, sure. But I certainly wouldn't have performed the way that I did unless I had gone through what I felt like really slow season. And so, you know, going back to your second question, how did I prevent myself from being comfortable? It almost happened by mistake because again, when I was doing a sales rep role in Boston, I didn't seek after this, the distribution center. I didn't seek after a supply chain. I was interacting, again, kind of going back to staying in the present, being the best who you are in that present moment. I was interacting with someone. I forget what it was about, but that person who I was interacting with managed warehouses, and this person liked the conversation that we had and reached out to my manager and said, hey, would certainly be interested in managing distribution stuff. I had, I had no interest in it. But again, I think being present and being engaged allows you to dive into a conversation. You're hearing people, you're present, you're giving them what they need back in return. And I think when you spend the time getting good at what you do and you're present not only in your role, but then you're present in this moment, in this conversation, people are engaged. And then the thing that you got really good at comes across through normal conversation. And so people pick up on those things and they want you for roles without even going after things. So that's kind of how I got into something different with supply chain role and then the category management role. Again, that's something where I wasn't necessarily looking for an opportunity in that, but it's something that I. That I went and did. So I think the lesson in that is staying open. Sometimes you can do it intentionally, sometimes it happens by chance, kind of how it did for me. But I had to stay open to doing something different. I thought I was always going to be a salesperson. I thought I was always going to be strictly in sales. I don't want to do anything for myself. That's why I like doing. I took roles that I had no experience in and no real desiring, and they helped me a ton. But I, you know, again, you got to stay open. And once you start learning something new, it's hard to get bored because you're not good at this yet. Yeah, for me, I find, you know, I'm also a learner. That's. That's in my, you know, top five strengths. So I actually enjoy the act of learning. I like figuring things out. I like when I start to grasp a concept and I can ask more nuanced questions. And I see the improvement in myself. And so Taking roles in different functions causes you to have to learn. These aren't things that you've experienced before. And I think getting good at something for a couple of years and then wait, shift and go work in a different function now or go back into sales, it's like, well, how can I take the things that I learned from this different function back into the thing that I do that a little, do that a little different. So I think constantly iterating, constantly learning, constantly applying the things that I've learned really helped me to not get bored. These six different out of state moves helped as well. I lived in, you know, New Orleans. I got a chance to live in great cities. I lived in New Orleans, I lived in Charlotte. And so I always had to get used to not only business, new team members, new branch, but new cultural dynamic, the way people live and talk and celebrate. Things are different around the country. And so you're learning about different types of people. So just staying open to different experiences I think helps stave off that boredom.

And Curly, that's so good. You know, I feel like we're just scratching the surface. I know we're out of time, but like, man, I feel like, would you, will you come back on a different day? We come back on and we can talk more about it, please?

Absolutely, man.

That would, that would be great. I would, I would love that. I've got. So, I mean, I just really feel like we're just scratching the surface. Absolutely. We definitely want to have you back and talk more about the journey. Talk. I want to, I want to, I want to. We've heard so much about how you got to where you are, but I want to hear how you actively help other people because I know like, you know, you just seem like, I can already tell. Like I bet your people management skills are great. I bet you're, I bet you score really high on like team satisfaction, your team likes to work for you and stuff like that. So I want to, I want to, I want to talk more about that the next time you're on. That would be, that would be super. I feel like I would learn so much, man. Thank you so much for coming on. Genuinely such a pleasure to have you. And if people have questions, here's what I want you to do. So if you're watching the program and you have questions for Curly, you want follow up questions, he's gone, he's already committed. We're going to make him come back. So you can, you can, you can write in to Tommy or Daniel, either one at, @leadfastcode, tommyeadfastcode.com or danieleadfastcode.com and send Curly some questions. Shoot your shot too, man. Maybe. Maybe you're working somewhere and you want to make a move to png. Hey, we've got. I'll send him the resume. I'll put it in his hands, and what he does with it's up to him. But, you know, hey, thank you again so much for being on and, you know, I'm looking forward to continuing the conversation.

Yeah, thank you for having me. Really appreciate the opportunity. I'm more than happy to come back when you guys want to.

All right, guys. Well, that's gonna wrap it up. That was such an awesome episode. I learned a lot, and I definitely feel like I could talk for hours. I mean, that was just. That was mind blowing.

Yeah. Curly, it was such a great guest.

Yeah.

And thank you again, if you're listening now, thank you for. For coming on and. And being a part of what we do here at Lead Fast. It is incredible how many amazing people are willing, just willing to share their hard fault knowledge. I mean, that, like, that was 10 years of experience that we just got, you know, to live ourselves through. And, you know, we always talk. There's only two ways to learn in life. Mentors and mistakes. And like, if you can take what he learned in 10 years, where he said was like, how many times did he say humility? Yeah, the word humility in that, in that 30 minutes. Like, that was incredible. That, like, that's the thing that sort of stuck out to him is like, how he progressed so quickly was humility, not, not know how, not capability, not influence humility. Like, that's awesome.

That he's definitely somebody you can learn a lot from. And I just want to say thank you to everybody who's watching the podcast. We went from, like, I don't know, what, six views, 60 views views to now, like thousands.

Yeah. So that's great.

The people's writing in. We appreciate it. So if this is your first time, subscribe to the podcast at YouTube. You can listen anywhere. Podcasts are available. And we have a website, leadfastcode.com and we talked about that a little bit, but check it out. Leadfastcode.com and if you know anybody who'd be interested in anything that we talk about or if you have any questions, write us and we'll be happy to answer those on air. And we'll see you guys next time.

Yeah, see you guys.

Nailing the purse.

You're getting better.