No One Escapes: Sales and Mental Health, with Amy Hrehovcik [Episode 819]

Amy Hrehovcik is Channel Director at Sales Hacker, Inc.A few weeks ago I read an article Amy wrote about the mental health challenges that salespeople face day in and day out. What particularly struck me about the article was Amy’s courage in revealing and talking about her own struggles with mental health. So, I asked Amy to come join us on this show to talk about mental health in sales.

Click here to read Amy’s article.

Episode Transcript

AP: Amy, welcome to the show.

AH: Thank you, Andy. Delighted to be here.

AP: Pleasure to have you here. So where have you been hiding out during the pandemic?

AH: I have been toughing it out on the Jersey Shore with-

AP: -Since, since March?

AH: Yeah I actually made this decision to come right, right early on in the beginning. And it’s been particularly, um, fun, uh, you know, during the summertime, when you can just go to the beach at will.

AP: Yeah. Okay. So Jersey Shore, not a bad place to be. Um, so you’d written an article about mental health challenges in sales and, and actually talking about your, some of your own mental health challenges. And I read that and was struck by it and said, yeah, you know, I need to invite Amy to come on the show and talk about this. Beause i think it’s such an important topic.

AH: I’m so pleased to hear you say that because I, I obviously agree, a little biased, but agree wholeheartedly, and I think more, more notably your willingness to engage so quickly with someone that just to your point wrote an article. Um, I think it speaks to your character and, you know, I’m honored, as I said to be here and I’m excited to, you know, forward this particular dialogue, um, you know, for as long as, as, uh, people are, are excited or interested to, to hear from my experiences.

AP: Well, I’m glad you’re here and it’s it’s, you know, I’m concerned that this gets too little notice because to your point is when we talk about improving sales performance is rarely does the topic come up and say well, okay., but what about, what about mental health as a component of that? Because it clearly has an impact and I speak from personal experience as well as, I mean, I.

Yeah. Well, the darkest times in my sales career from a performance standpoint was when I was going through a divorce. Um, and you know, as your marriage falls apart and so on is, is, you know, the stresses and everything that come with that are. You know, they have a huge impact on you and you and, you, you know, sales has always been this sort of stoic environment, right? Where we’re supposed to swallow how we feel, but it has such a huge impact.

AH: You’re absolutely right. And I think the impact that mental health has in, I think any kind of performance based industry, um, is, is very real. And I, I draw correlations to, um, athletics quite often, which, you know, I, I did listen to many of your podcasts and I’m delighted that we can have this, this kinda like common ground.

So we could definitely talk about that. But yeah, anywhere where you’ve got a performance based, um, team of people, mental health is, is a major factor. But to your point about being concerned that there’s too little noticed on this topic is almost in my opinion, like not strong enough a statement because it’s amazing how many people we burn out, um, in, in the sales profession on all, on all sides of this scale, the performance scale. So these are your failure to launch folks, as well as your top performers who just straight burnout. And so the waste is, is extreme, but these are also human beings that we’re talking about. So-

AP: Right. Well,

AH: yeah.

AP: I started talking more about this about a year ago on my show is, is, and I was inspired actually by, and I’ve mentioned this by watching the show. Billions. And about, uh, I don’t know if you’ve ever watched Billions, but about a hedge fund. Um, and you know, one of their key employees is a staff shrink. And you know that here in this high pressure trading environment, uh, you know, if someone’s struggling with something on a personal level or they think they’ve hit a rough patch and just not connecting with the customer or burnt out or whatever, is they make an appointment with the staff psychiatrist for some talk therapy and it’s, and it sort of struck me. It’s like, wow, you know, you look at sports and there’s not a major league sports organization,I’m pretty sure, in the major sports and certainly soccer, which is my big one. They have staff, psychologists, they have staff sports, psychologists. They have people there to help because they know that they’re in a performance based business with individuals that have complex lives and they struggle with this. And so in order to help them perform when they’re needed, they provide this level of

AH: this resource. Yeah. They have this resource. And, you know, I think one of the reasons that the article has, um, resonated as well as it, as it has, was the, the flipping of the message to, you know, the upside potential by, you know, taking the reins on the mental health of your team or of you as an individual and that could obviously be the competitive advantage that it entails. But I, I mentioned that because when you make the statement often and I’m laughing that I’m about to make it again. However, I, when I’m poking fun at sales leaders that are unwilling or uninterested in investing in there people to this level, the joke is, you know, I wonder how hard we Bill Belicheck had to be convinced to hire a sports psychologist, to, you know, help not only his team get through the tough times, but to mentally prepare and deal with even the nerves of, of performing.

AP: No doubt. Well, I mean, right. So, you know, one stat that’s thrown up quite a bit, not about, you know, uh, mental health per se, but you know, they’re talking about coaching, you know, effective coaching and sales. Uh, the one study everybody cites is the single best thing you can do to contribute to an uplift in performance, they had like an 18% improvement in performance based on effective coaching. Well, what we’re talking about is if you have, you know, applies to mental health as well. Right? I mean, for people who, who are prepared, as you said to encounter the stresses and prepared, then also too, to know mentally how to deal with the stresses and the challenges and so on is yeah, the payback for making available, and I think in a sales organization of, I don’t know what the cutoff would be, cause obviously it’d be hard for startups, but for, you know, in the tech world there’s tons of companies of sufficient size to say, yeah, we should have this type of resource on staff. If we’re truly committed to being a performance based business,

AH: Yeah. I mean, I think that’s one way of handling it. I think another way is to focus on the coaching skills at the management level. And I mean, I think about all the one on ones that I’ve sat through as a seller or observed, um, during my time in, in sales enablement, which has been about, I don’t know, like five years now.

And it’s, it’s incredible how much room for improvement there is on the, on the management, the coaching side of the house. Yeah. And so yes, you know, is a, a specific, dedicated, um, resource like a, uh, therapist, hopefully if we’re, if we’re doing performance coaching, it’s a cognitive behavior therapy, but I think it can even be a little bit closer to home than, than that.

AP: Sure. Well, I, yeah, well sort of unpack this because I think so much of it starts with just, and you appoint those in your articles, just the culture that exists within most sales organizations. And that really inhibits any sort of conversation. And I think it’s, it’s not just that it’s historically sort of these stoic macho cultures.

But I think, yeah, it’s something, a realization I’ve come to a greater degree as I progressed further in my own career is that it’s fundamentally about fear. You know, like the most sales cultures are driven by that. Fear of not hitting the number, fear of being fired, fear of disappointing people, fear of not being enough or not feeling like enough, sort of the imposter syndrome, fear of expectations.

And you sort of, you know, address this in your article is that, you know, very real syndrome that the psychologist talk about called achievemaphobia, which is successes cause increased expectations. And, and it makes it hard for people to perform at that point. Because they don’t want to perform because they know if they do succeed, more’s going to be expected of them.

AH: Yeah, no, you’re, you’re absolutely spot on. It’s. I’m sorry, please continue.

AP: But it’s just, how do we, yeah, it’s like the challenge. I think ultimately it starts with how do we break the cycle of fear, but somehow you’re going to be considered less than if you admit either as a sales leader or as an individual contributor that you’ve got issues you need to deal with.

AH: Yeah. Oh my gosh. It’s so true. Um, yeah, so I have a green belt in process improvement, which is only something I’ve mentioned because I run everything through this process improvement filter, and I apologize in advance for that because I know how fun like PI conversation can get, um, but yeah, so I, I think that fear is a big piece of it and.

I, it reminds me of my, one of my first books that I read as a, as a aspiring salesperson, which was feel the fear and do it anyway. But I think there’s a bunch of other factors too. And, and like, for example, lack of awareness. I forget the gentleman who wrote it, but it was a commencement speech at Kenyon College, I think in 2005 and the topic was, or the subject was called, This is Water.

And he starts off the commencement speech talking about how there’s like three fish and they’re all swimming together. Or there are two of them are swimming past one other one. And though the older fish says to the two little ones, you know, how’s the water today. And the two little fish look at the older fish in and say, what’s water.

And that parable really resonated with me because I think theres’ a lack of awareness around what the problem is, how big it is. Um, What the upside potential is, as we’ve mentioned. Um, and then of course, there’s the systematic challenges that come into play, like, you know, the unhealthy competition frameworks internally, or lack of infrastructure for peer to peer development, which is the best way that sellers learn as we know.

So, yeah. Um, and I’ll even take it a step further on the management. You know, there’s something called the four stages of competence and just really quickly, the bottom is unconscious incompetence. So this is where that lack of awareness comes in. After that though comes the harder or the, excuse me, the hardest stage out of all of them, which is conscious incompetence, moving through to conscious competence and then, you know, acting without doing habitually, so unconscious competence. But anyway, in that third and hardest stage, you’ve really have to look at yourself and look at your own, um, gaps in your, your core competencies, your, your own skills. And that’s a hard thing to do.

Hard thing to do. I equate it to, you know, no getting up and getting ready in the morning and staring at what, what my women friends will know lovingly as the mirror of truth, which is that mirror that’s magnified like 20 times on your dress over you apply makeup. Anyway, so staring in the mirror of truth is hard and it’s much easier to, you know, close the book or look away and I think that that’s a big part of, of the problem as well. And I’ll even add one more that you touched on in a different podcast, which is this idea of not being able to institutionalize or operationalize, um, the, the changes that we want to see happen. So I think that’s another massive piece of it too.

AP: Yeah. Well, I mean, just from a scoping standpoint is, you know, we talk about self awareness is, is you write in your article that salespeople are three times more likely to struggle with mental health symptoms than the average American and sort of interested where you, where you found that or how current that, that data was.

AH: Where I got this note was from it, so great. Um, yeah, so I had a phenomenal editor on this piece, um, over at Sales Hacker, Michael Aragon. Thank you, Michael. But anyway, we went back and forth about how to present the data at the beginning, and I originally had the links in there. So, um, that would have, I’m glad you asked the question.

So the numbers came from two places. Um, it was the CDC numbers of Americans that are reporting, um, problems with symptoms. And it was for two years in a row. So it was last year and then this year, and I believe, um, Yeah, maybe it was like the end of last year and then in may in March or something to that effect, but what was before COVID and then during COVID. And then the second piece of that is, is the research that is coming out of a phenomenal organization called the Sales Health Alliance. And when I got into like, actually like researching for this piece, it, it was part, you know, totally expected to not find anything about sales and mental health, but at the same time, I was delighted to come across the Sales Health Alliance and its founder, Jeff. But anyway, so Jeff has done some fantastic work about, um, gathering data and, you know, packaging it in meaningful ways that drive these, these conversations. So CDC and Sales Health Alliance.

AP: Alright, but I mean, let’s just repeat that. So that know people are listening, you know, understand is that, you know, three times more likely than, than the average person to struggle with mental health symptoms, so, and will continue to sort of, dig into this, but it’s like, yeah, you have it, to your point, you have to have the self awareness to understand that you may have felt this way for a long time and may think, Hey, this is just the normal part of being in sales, but it’s not.

AH: No, it’s not it’s, it’s not. And the, the challenge with not recognizing that you’re what water is when you’re in water. And then, you know, the, I referenced also the filter bubble or the echo chamber that is just rages, um, in, in, in our profession, is it, it just perpetuates these, you know, inaccurate beliefs, but yeah, so three sellers are three times more likely to struggle with mental health symptoms.

And I I’ll even take that a step further when I first, um, compared apples to apples, both in the CDC study to Jeff’s study done during identical time periods. Um, I, I then cross referenced it in the middle of it, of COVID. So I was able to look at it, the CDC numbers and the average American struggling with symptoms during COVID and it had tripled, right? So my, my assumption, and it’s a loose one that I make in the article, but mostly for dramatic effect, but the idea is if the average American symptom rate has tripled now since COVID then what do we think that’s doing for the salespeople? Um, and it’s a staggering number when you, when you get into it, just to think that, you know, over 90%, that’s what it ended up coming out at over 90% struggle with symptoms. But I think, um, you know, it’s worth having a conversation of, of scoping or defining what, what counts as symptoms, um, Specifically ones that we can see or feel and ones that we can’t necessarily see or feel. Um, but anyway, yeah, it’s just, it’s insane. It’s insane.

AP: well,

AH: Pun intended.

AP: but yeah. Well the bottom line is no one escapes. I think. Right. I, in my long career, uh, working with hundreds and thousands of sellers and managers and so on is, is, yeah, I don’t think anyone ever escapes unscathed. And the question is whether they ever did anything about it or them sorry, came and went or so on.

But, but I was wondering if you okay. If we get into your story, personal storu.

AH: Yeah, of course.

AP: So. Yeah, you’re fairly dramatic in your, your articles that, uh, you spent time at a treatment facility and, um, tell us what happened.

AH: Yeah. So I think it was a culmination of many things leading into the treatment facility. But I want to just preface that by saying that I, I consider my story to be now like in two phases. And the first was, you know, starting with the decision to seek treatment. And then the second one and more interesting one I think was, um, you know, reclaiming my power back after kind of going through the system, but you know, just for continuity sake, the the treatment piece of it, I mean, you’re talking about 15 years in sales at that point. So at top performance too as I mentioned, but that’s, that’s 15 years of pressure and managing daily swings. I don’t want to like, kind of, yeah, just repeat what I did in the article, but I misconstrued or misunderstood the idea of like, how to handle those swings. Which I think about when, when I watch Training Day, you know, the scene where Ethan Hawke talks about, uh, how he figured out the streets, that it’s just about controlling your smiles and your cries. So it’s like the same kind of thing with selling, but I, I chose the wrong way to control air quotes around control, um, the swings and I chose to freeze them out, which was-

AP: And the swings in this case, being swings on emotion based on what’s happening on the job. And not, but not just your performance, but also the environmental, environments you worked in, the cultures you worked in and so on.

AH: Oh, yeah. I mean, there’s no support. There’s no resources. Most of the time, the coaching that you’re getting is, is fundamentally inaccurate and wrong. Um, and you know, for me, I didn’t, I knew very early on that I didn’t want to be a sales manager. And my, as I mentioned in the article, my last year selling, I, I hit my annual quota three months into the year. And so there was a, there was a boredom aspect to it. Um, like another story I’m I was on the upper West side and I was heading to a big law firm in Midtown, maybe probably downtown actually. And I was putting together my presentation in the cab on the way to the the meeting. And it’s like, at that point, you know, now mind you, these are partners at some of the most prestigious law firms on the planet, like smart, brilliant people. But I, you know, it was just, it struck me as my gosh, has it, has it really come down to this that I can feel confident as putting this together and mind you have nailed the meeting, but there’s a big boredom piece to it and then the hopelessness sets in, when you look at like, what else do you do with, you know, the experiences that you’ve racked up so far. And so, especially when you associated so much you on your career, like, like I do. Um, so that was hard. And I will say that the icing, the icing on the cake, um, was the, the MeToo movement and Trump getting elected and recognizing the extent of like the Brotopia and in San Francisco, where, where I was at the time.

So there was a, you know, a little bit of, of PTSD, you know, tossed in there because when you ice your feelings out for a decade or more. You know, you don’t, I, there was a lot to process. There’s a lot to process. And so I just realized I was out of my league and, and sought help.

AP: Yeah, well, so two questions. One is first, I mean, in that environment, you’ve talked about sort of the, in the Brotopia in LA, but San Francisco students, but also in, in New York, before that you feel isolated being a woman in that environment.

AH: No, it wasn’t about that. It was more so there were two things. It was the results that you were getting because, or as a top performer, like it was the snickering about, Oh, it’s has something to do with the way that you look, like that’s why you’re hitting your number. And, you know, that’s a pretty pervasive, um, thought it’s like it gets in your head inception style.

And so there was that piece of it. And then there was, um, You know, literally what you deal with from your prospects. And sometimes clients as a female salesperson that is supposed to cater to, you know, your buyers. And I was fortunate in the sense that it I had a director who became a VP that was a mentor of mine. And he, after I told him one particular story was, thank God was like, you know what Amy, we don’t need any business that badly, like walk away.

AP: Is that like a prospect propositioning you or

AH: Prospect being very inappropriate. And, you know, it was beyond inappropriate that I actually said something about it because most of us are conditioned not to say anything about it. Um, and then the second piece of it.

AP: Hopefully we’re changing that with

AH: Yeah.

AP: Episode with Rachel May last week.

AH: Oh, I loved it. I loved it. I loved the comment thread on your LinkedIn profile about it, but yeah, so that was a big part, but then I also had a sales manager that was, didn’t want to hear about it. And there was one deal that was pretty important. And we had worked on it for a while and.

We had rented a black car to take, um, this particular prospect out to dinner. And he, I, everybody else had exited and as I’m leaving, like literally pulled me onto his lap and try to kiss me. And now this is happening as we’re walking into the restaurant.

AP: So this is somebody you worked for.

AH: Yeah, this was a, no, this was a client or a

AP: is the client. Okay.

AH: This is a prospect, not a client even yet. And the, the hard part about it was not what happened. But when I went to my manager about it, like it was, his response was get the close, the deal, you know, and the under the not spoken, um, remainder of that sentence was, was at any cost necessary. I mean, it was just insane. Like that’s insane too.

AP: And this is I imagine, and, you know, following up again with the conversation with Rachel is, you know, for most men, they just don’t have any conception of what’s going on and how often the women in sales confront this.

AH: You know, it’s so funny that you’re asking this question. I have no idea. I mean, have you seen any studies on this particular topic yet?

AP: No. Cause I think people are afraid to report it.

AH: Yeah, I, it’s there. So yeah, fear of certainly, but a big piece of it is we have been reporting it and nothing changes. So why bother.

AP: Yeah, well, I was being more encompassing. I was saying afraid of reporting. It’s not just women, but I think it’s back to the fear part with their managers is suddenly this is a black Mark against them. So they just sweep it under the rug.

AH: Yeah. Yeah. So one of the things that I’m I’m working on is, you know, picking the next topic to write about. And I’m full disclosure going back and forth between, uh, gender and sales or, you know, the true impact of, of performance coaching. And I I’m on the fence about it. I’m on the fence about it. They’re two important topics.

I, I don’t know, part of me feels like I’m still a little bit too angry to write about the gender stuff. Um, But I am reading this book when I, yeah. And the, one of the books I’m reading is called Good and Mad and it taught, it’s like a deep dive into histories, um, of like the, the transformational power of women’s anger, which also gets brushed under the rug. So I don’t know, this is where the unlearning comes in. Like I’m challenging my own beliefs about, um, is it, where’s the line about being mad? Publicly, you know, how’s that going to be can conveyed or received, which is another part of it.

AP: Well, yeah, I mean, it’s a good topic. I mean, I, I know you look at an example like Rachel, who just enough was enough. And did something that was fairly unprecedented, which was naming names. Um, and I, I think we’re well past a point where we should be seeing more of that. I mean, it’s just, it’s, it’s people have to understand that they have to be, there are consequences for their actions.Yeah. It’s it’s. It seems like a basic sort of parenting lesson.

AH: I know, right.

AP: you know, men have been enabled by culture to do these things and expect they get away with it. Well, how do you, how do you change that? Unless you call it out.

AH: Yeah.

AP: And it’s risky, right? It’s it’s it’s, you know, it was a act of courage on Rachel’s part, even though she had no doubt that her boss Keenan was going to back her up, but it was an act of courage and it’s-

AH: she, and I, so I’ve connected with Rachel since your show. And she sent me the funniest message this morning about, uh, you know, taking our, our new, like relationship to the next level, but just joking around friendship, like let’s have our first meeting. And so I’m excited about that next week, too, just to get to know this brave courageous person, that to your point, um, you know, said something about it when it’s still not the norm to do so. So yeah, I think that applies to you for sharing your story, your mental health story as well, you know?

AP: Well as I said no one escapes. That’s the thing that I remember, uh, early in my career, there was a guy that I, he was sort of a peer from an age group perspective, but you know, he had this amazing facility with people, right. It just made people feel instantly comfortable. And, and, um, I didn’t have that. Right. I’m sort of the opposite as an introvert and sales from the beginning was extremely hard and sort of going against type for me. And I thought, you know, this guy’s got it, but I, yeah. Learn subsequent and so on that. Yeah, he was really struggling. Yeah. So superficially looked look fine, but you know, he was struggling and I’ve had numerous people I’ve managed that, you know, had addiction issues or other mental health challenges.

Um, yeah. You know, myself, I mean, I, I. Well into my career when I was traveling hundreds, thousands miles per year around the world and selling stuff, I went to the airport one day and I got on the plane and I had to get off. Out of the blue had an anxiety attack. I’d never had one before

AH: Yeah. Yeah.

AP: And it’s like, what is going on?

AH: Well, it’s so true.

AP: And this, this happened before 9/11. So, but even then they, weren’t happy to have somebody sit on the plane and then at the last minute hop up and leave, but I just couldn’t have stayed on the plane.

AH: Yeah.

AP: Um,

AH: So, what did you do? How did you connect the dots between what was happening and like anxiety attack?

AP: Well, I figured out pretty quickly, it wasn’t a heart attack. Um, but. But yeah. Yeah. I just, it was so clear to me it’s exactly what it was. And so, yeah, so that, yeah, over a period of time led to me seeking help down to, to deal with some of that. Because in my business, like I couldn’t not get on airplanes. And, uh, but yeah, there was a period of a number of years where, you know, flying was extremely challenging.

AH: Yeah. So I just a quick rephrase on the, on the question. I, I, I should have been clearer and that was, there’s a disconnect between, you know, feeling a certain way and taking a moment to, um, you know, really think about where that feeling is coming from. And I, I’m going to bring this back to my story and specifically.

AP: I can relate it to, I mean, to your point is, is, yeah. I mean, there’s things that I talked before is this is, uh, going on in my marriage that were extremely difficult. And in addition working, uh, you know, high stress startup job. Yeah. Um, and, uh, Hmm. Yeah. I mean, there are lots of contributing factors and it didn’t just materialize out of, out of nowhere.

AH: Yeah. Yeah. So. That’s definitely the truth that takes a little bit of time to kind of build up to that point. But I think that what’s more hopeful or worth noting at this moment is how quickly the anxiety evaporates when you connect it to a source. Um, and I experienced this for the first time, probably about three or four months ago.

And it was in the context of this phenomenal book website, which I gotta, I gotta mention it’s called workresponsibly.org, and it’s designed beautifully. It wins awards for, for the website, but anyway, it’s a curated, um, collection of resources about how to work responsibility. And one of them is called youfeellikeshit.com.

And the idea is you’re supposed to, to go in in the moment you feel like shit and it walks you through. Okay. Have you, when was the last time you’ve eaten, right. Go eat. When was the last time that you, um, you know, had something to drink, go get something to drink. How did, how much sleep did you get last night?

And I, I mentioned this moment because I, I don’t necessarily, I don’t anxiety. It was never one of the things for me, I’m delighted to talk about some of those symptoms, but anxiety wasn’t one of them. However, I, I recognized when I, when I, when it started and it was unusual. And so, yeah. I walked through these steps and then I, you got to the third step on again, youfeellikeshit.com and they said, they asked you about your sleep. And I realized that I didn’t sleep well the night before. And that is something actually that I have struggled with. And I know better that right around three o’clock that’s when, like, for me personally, the paranoia kicks in. And so in that moment, though, when I connected the dots between the way that I’m feeling right now, again, which is that function of step one, get present and evaluate to, okay. Where did this feeling come from? It evaporates. I mean, I I’ve never experienced anything like it. Yeah. Just dissipated in like two seconds and.

I also feel like we’re not talking about, um, you know, some of the easy ways to kind of manage in real time, like the feelings that you’re having.

AP: Yeah. There’s all these tools out there. I mean, I’ve, I’ve got my HeadSpace subscription, my Calm subscription, you know, I do the breathing exercises. I love the breathing exercise on column. Um, I was talking to a friend who’s president of a high profile startup in San Francisco, yeah, for him it’s I don’t know, 10, 15 minutes a day with Headspace. Yeah, that’s just been the way to sort of, you know, keep all the, keep all the Beasties at Bay.

AH: Yeah, I it’s a great one. Do Andy, would you mind if I like maybe list out a couple more that have worked for many, um, So I think it just kind of staying true to those steps. Um, co as I said, DVT therapy, cognitive behavior therapy is incredible. Um, and I’ll even take it a step further for those that have never, um, participated in talk therapy it’s can be annoying to connect with the right therapist.

And so sometimes there’s a period of, you know, just kind of like dating around for awhile for lack of a better analogy. However, Betterhelp, um, had, has really done a phenomenal job with their onboarding and connecting process. So, you know, shockingly technology kind of helps to make things better, um, when used appropriately, so betterhelp will help hack that um, you know, that, that dating period and, and they really do a phenomenal job connecting you with, with somebody that specializes or has an expertise in what you describe, um, your needs to be. Yeah, betterhelp.com also very timely.

AP: Well, I think there are other things though, too, as it was sort of alluded to in the Ted talk, yet you linked to Shawn Acre, um, which I’d read about earlier in the pandemic. And I think just made so much sense, which was, um, first of all, turn off Twitter. And as you know, you just have to quiet the noise and we talked about is, and I think it’s nothing it’s important. And this was somebody’s advice given by a psychologist back in March, I’d read them, you know, read enough to stay safe and then that’s it in terms of the daily news.

AH: Yeah. Yeah.

AP: And yeah, I think it’s. As you referred to earlier. I mean, everybody’s been feeling these attendant anxieties, uh, during Covid, literally everyone. Um, and yeah, you need to take steps to keep everything in check.

AH: Yeah, it’s it’s spot on. And I actually want to put a pin next to the social media or specifically LinkedIn, um, because I think that’s a key piece of this topic that’s worth noting, but yeah, quieting, the noise is massive. I think. My time selling information services like that, that changes you. And so you just learn, you interact with information or data differently when you know how to, you know, assign a dollar amount to its value, which is a function by the way of connecting it to business decisions and the person making the decision in that moment so real time.

But anyway, I’ve now, like really cultivated a very healthy disdain for both white noise and misinformation. And so it plays nicely though into this step two, which is eliminate. So cut out social media. That was a big part for phase one for me. I mean, I’m still not back on Facebook or, or Instagram, um, and like tiptoeing around LinkedIn, if I’m being honest, but it’s also the newsfeed to your point. And I’ll even take it a step further. Like I actually canceled or, you know, pause my subscription to Netflix and HBO so that I could triple down on like reading books right now, which was something that I had identified as during evaluate phase is something that, you know, recharges to me.

And so that’s been an issue. A fun way to kind of, yeah, no push the boundaries, my own personal boundaries on eliminating something that I love for a short period of time to, you know, kind of hack the whatever kind of results I’m looking for on the performance or mental health side. So that’s been amazing too.

AP: Yeah, well, we’re going to unfortunately running out of time, but, um, we’re going to continue this conversation. We’ll have you back again and we’ll, we’ll spend some more time talking about it. It’s, it’s, um, such an important topic and it’s so tied into performance and increasingly that’s topic we’re dealing with here on the show is how do we improve performance?

And there’s so many dimensions to it. That don’t include making more calls. So, um, we’ll start with that as sort serve the posit that, and then we’ll move on from there. So, Amy, it’s been a pleasure to talk with you

AH: Well, thank you, Andy. It’s been a pleasure. A true pleasure to be here. Thank

AP: and if people want to connect with you LinkedIn, best way to do it.

AH: LinkedIn is the best way to do it also. I’m, uh, I’m very active as the channel director for the channel on this Sales Hacker Community. So you can come play with us over there too.

AP: Alright, perfect. Amy. Thank you.

AH: Thank you, Andy.