Ep. 131 - Angi Hurt - Winner’s Problems

[00:00:00] Welcome to Mental Toughness with Dr. Rob Bell.

[00:00:13] Each week, Dr. Rob sits down with athletes, executives, and expert coaches to talk about

[00:00:18] mental toughness and their hinge moment.

[00:00:21] Here's your host, perform, recover. So our guest today on episode 131 of Arnold Cuffus podcast, she is CEO and founder of

[00:01:40] Erasti Consulting, Kansas City based tech with, I mean, it's still a fun time to be a Kansas City Chiefs fan.

[00:03:05] It is. Yeah, they're in Germany this weekend. And we were already, I'm a season ticket holder. And then in addition to that, I think that the fan experience and Phoenix was just not quite what it was. And in Miami, I just think it was the facilities is all, you know, the venue that what they were working with. But, you know, cool thing to be at, right? Like it's exciting no matter what.

[00:04:20] I'm always curious about that. Because I mean, I was out there during that time,

[00:04:22] I didn't get up to the game. Obviously was out there son in Miami. So there were a lot of things that made that special. And now I went, I was like, I don't feel like I ever need to go to another World Series. Let's take it back from that. Another Super Bowl. I think you experience it and that's good. But then you realize all the things that you miss being in the stadium. Unlike any other game that you go to when you're live versus seeing it on TV,

[00:05:44] my people were texting me, it's like what was life growing up for you? What was that like? Yeah, it was fun.

[00:07:01] It was stressful.

[00:07:03] I grew up in a small town, 75 miles southeast of Wichita,

[00:07:07] very close to the Oklahoma border. mindset. And you know, I have I have other people in my family that have such a scarcity mindset. But it shaped me in a lot of ways. But you know, there's there's scenarios of which looking back, you know, I can't imagine my child kind of going through some of the things that are going through. It's kind of made me over responsible, right? I also as not a middle child,

[00:08:20] but kind of a middle child, I have two older siblings, and then I'm a twin, I was a shortstop. And so I, not only did I play, my older sister was the same way. We both made the all-star teams. We both started in our position. We were very good. And we were the ones that'd be kicked out of our position, right? Everybody's coming from your position. And that's translated really well to me as an adult,

[00:09:41] being in the IT space, right?

[00:09:42] Everybody's like, oh, you're in such a male-dominated space.

[00:09:46] But I never looked over it. And my mom got so tired of me doing that that one day she says, Hey, tomorrow when you get off the school bus, you're going to go into the high school and you're going to see Debbie Simmons, Coach Simmons, and she's going to teach you some stuff. And so she taught me hurtling. So I

[00:11:04] was a hurtler and she started, she started goes out for softball. And I'm like, I can't, I can't leave Mr. and Mrs. Simmons, right, they did all of this for me. And I didn't go out and everybody expected that I would because I was such a baseball player, you know, all think about how it was Debbie Simmons, Mrs. Simmons, who was like, hey, I think you can go to this. And if you guys don't have the finances for it, we'll find a way to get you a scholarship, you know, things of that nature. But it was always somebody seeing talent in me and then giving me an opportunity and then me grabbing that.

[00:16:21] And so volleyball paid for my college, right tassels. And that all came from me being at a high school graduation and saying, hey, what are those extra tassels? Oh, that's this. I'm like, well, I want that, right? So what do managed, which is let me just get my stuff done, right? Well, as an organization, we've set out for this 10 year vision with a three year plan. And part of that is, well, it's all of that is around financial growth, right? And so we, this is the first time that we did that. And I told people, I'm like, this is why I've never wanted to set financial

[00:16:25] goals for our sales team.

[00:16:27] I become a different person.

[00:17:22] and how that becomes sort of the sole focus. What takes place?

[00:17:25] Yeah.

[00:17:26] Happens for you.

[00:17:29] Vulnerably, I'll tell you what just came to mind

[00:17:32] and what I think that it is, is I don't like failure.

[00:17:35] And I have put myself in a position so often

[00:17:40] that my success has largely been driven

[00:17:43] by my ability to make things happen

[00:17:45] and the close people around me, right?

[00:17:47] So my exact leadership team, right? All I can think about is how this is going to impact other people and their expectations and their excitement around this if we don't get there. And for me, I think that change is is seeing that target kind of thinking through what if we don't make it and then what can I do

[00:19:00] to make it happen and how much can I mean when you have internal individuals And I'm not sure if that has been always part of your business But how important is that to have the incentives and to have the compensation tied into how well the overall team does?

[00:20:26] You know, this is just really something that we recently

[00:21:25] conversation during my YPO forums. And one of my fellow YPOers said, I used to deal with this every December and then we put a stop to that because this is what we've now done.

[00:21:29] And this is what we said. And everybody's excited about it. And there's never a surprise.

[00:21:34] But if we don't hit this number, nobody gets a bonus. Well, Angie can't do that. I mean,

[00:21:39] I already know this because I'm already this morning. I can't wait if any of our team members

[00:21:43] listens to this. But this morning, I'm emailing our-ass job. So it's tough, right? So I'm trying to stay true to the new process that we have that does create complete transparency throughout the entire organization, but also make sure that they're rewarded because if we're just so close,

[00:23:01] we wanna make sure that they get there.

[00:23:03] Right.

[00:24:05] successful. Absolutely. And I think rugby of all the other sports that I've played, I think rugby

[00:24:11] is the best example of a team that I can think of. You know, in every team, there's a different skill set, a point guard, a shooter, a post, whatever, but rugby, you really have some different

[00:24:17] types of individuals on that team, right? You could look at one rugby person and think that

[00:24:23] that's the stereotype of a rugby mate and it's not're going to go tell the girls that we're showing up at the lake at 6.30 AM tomorrow morning for Hillsprance. And we're going to run the dam, right? And I learned how to have really hard conversations and have people still like me at the end of the day through being a team captain. And so when I think about our organization today

[00:25:41] and parallel to a rugby team, number one,

[00:25:46] I don't look at myself as the head coach.

[00:25:47] I don't look at the shapes and sizes. And rugby, we have different shapes and sizes.

[00:27:00] You know, within veracity, I think obviously every company

[00:27:03] does.

[00:27:03] But you can't have everybody like me.

[00:27:06] We would be a complete failure if everybody badly it takes a lot of them. Well of course. Yeah. Always say you can slow down a race horse easier and you can speed up a turtle but it's tough to slow down the race horse. Yeah that's true. See there's one for you. I love it. I'm got it in my head. I heard I heard a good one the other day

[00:28:22] and it was you know knowing your team means you would never put a put a plow on Secretariat.

[00:29:24] stuff for the sales team. But it's always a challenge. Yeah. Well, that's why I mean I was immediately intrigued by the incentive and compensation factor

[00:29:30] for, because I'm just in companies that don't have that in place. And I'm like, you get a bunch of

[00:29:37] bulls running around and people are just not going to like do whatever it takes in order to be successful based organization. So we follow Gallup, we do strength finders. I have a phenomenal leadership coach that coaches me and has coached a lot of my direct reports. And she does everything through a strengths perspective. And so we have gotten to where we understand each other's top 10 strengths. And are you familiar with with strength finders and Gallup

[00:31:00] strength finders? So you either lead with execution strategy,

[00:31:04] relationship or influence. I lead with relationship my my And so I do it in a way that's always maintaining relationship. And I think that when those conversations, they don't have to happen often, right? Our organization is top-notch. Our people are high-level, experienced, experienced people. So it's rare that those things have to happen. But when it does happen, you know, it's done in kindness.

[00:32:22] And it's done in what's best for the performing, I take my personal responsibility that they're not performing, and my positivity tells me that I'm going to get them there, and I might try to get them there for a little bit too long, right?

[00:33:40] But we have those open conversations,

[00:33:42] and it's become a really great tool for us to use so that we can,

[00:33:46] you know, we share that you, an offensive player that does not have the ball, the way that you move defense is so great if you ever thought about playing rugby, which I didn't know anything about rugby at the time. And now,

[00:35:00] like, that makes all the sense in the world to me, which it did at the time when I get back on both my feet that I'm not going to take for granted ever again. How did you see that? One of the things I'm never going to take for granted again is going to be walking or running. I can't wait to go to a high school and do I love love love running bleachers. I'm unlike you. I don't want to go out and run a marathon anymore. I don't ever want to do that again.

[00:37:25] I get put into the game and I'm scared to death because what I've not done at this point is I've not been tackled and I've not tackled anybody hadn't done that that was not part of our drills that day, right?

[00:37:30] And so they put me in and I tell people to this day like if you if you just stand on the sidelines and watch rugby

[00:37:38] It's hard to learn and when you first start playing you literally say why did we just kick that ball out of the bounds and and now

[00:37:44] We're clapping about it. I don't understand to do it again. So when the new season would roll around, it was always anticipating that pain. It's this, I know it makes me sound psycho, but I love it. Look, I think all entrepreneurs,

[00:39:01] one way or another have to,

[00:39:02] cause entrepreneurship is a collision sport.

[00:39:06] Basketball is a contact hat, right? So leading into veracity, one of the things that really drilled me to start the company in the first place was that I cared about people. And the role that I was in, I'm working with clients

[00:40:22] who I developed really great relationship.

[00:40:23] But by what we do as a service-based business,

[00:40:27] our assets are our focus. It's generally the outcome, but never our focus. So I'm going from a salesperson to becoming an

[00:41:42] entrepreneur. And some of the big things for me was like, I'm going to say the biggest stretch for me from it wasn't leadership. It wasn't how to sell business. It wasn't how to deliver the business. It was finances. So if you think about it, me as a, as a salesperson, the finances that I look at is the revenue that I've sold. It is the gross profit.

[00:43:01] And then it's what is my commission out of that?

[00:43:03] Literally, that was my idea of finances.

[00:44:05] telling you. It was a big stretch for me. But it's something now that I'm so comfortable with, that I help other people understand when they start businesses. It's one of the things,

[00:44:10] one of the first things that I talk to people about when they're struggling in their businesses,

[00:44:15] what do your financials look like? And they're like, well, I just do this and that and it's on

[00:44:19] a spreadsheet. And I'm like, now let's get to spend the money on. But otherwise, like I said, now I understand how important that balance sheet is because you can see the reward there as we're going out and investing into future things for our company. And that all comes from how I started the company. And those few people around me that I can think of like my

[00:45:43] CPA at the time, I'm asking him, have, how does the power of being curious plays out? Yeah, it starts from the very beginning of my career, taking a chance, moving to Kansas City to take a job as a recruiter.

[00:47:00] I was a recruiter in IT before anything else.

[00:47:03] My degrees in computer information systems,

[00:47:05] but the things that I learned back then

[00:47:07] are really not even applicable today. trying to get out of them, what can I find out about you so I can sell you something? When I sat in front of people, I'm like, tell me about your next 18 months and what are you most worried about? And things ended up falling out of that process. But for me, it was like learning. I'm somebody who, if you and I sort of have in a conversation about an enterprise IT department,

[00:48:23] technology department for a large company,

[00:48:26] I can talk to you, if when you're trying to understand where somebody's coming from and you really care and you're asking curious questions instead of leading questions, it's one of the things I tell people all the time. I used to have bosses that ask me leading questions all the time and what they were trying to get me

[00:49:42] to a place that they wanted me to be.

[00:49:43] They were not curious about what was going on.

[00:49:46] And so I use that as of people on our team. And I do that because I want different perspectives on this person because again, I lead with relationships. I also have Wu in my top five. I have a tendency to get somebody so excited about a job. And the next thing you know, they want it so bad that they are, they're like saying all the right things.

[00:51:03] And so in return, I lot of people are good fits. But I think one of the things that I've decided I'm going to do is I do so much on Instinct and Gut that I'm trying to get more mature about using some data points in addition to that. And asking more open-ended questions to people and let them

[00:52:23] talk about how they handle things. Because for me, for the same. They want to be treated that way, but they don't want to treat that way. Does that make sense? Absolutely. It's tough. Well, thank you for sharing that. It's insightful. Yeah. Angie, what, so I can think back to the question you said earlier about sports. Looking back, I had an awful temper. So I've been intrigued with you since I since I started learning about you because of this whole aspect of mental toughness, because the thing that I've always said, even with my golf game is that my mental

[00:55:06] capacity is what is keeping me from being an exceptional every now and then because I'm so hard on myself. And golf every time I play golf, I realize how hard I am on myself, even if I've let myself slip in other areas. It's the one area that I'm just like, and it's, it's all I'm always chasing something. You know, you're never, I picked up rugby and that weekend scored a

[00:56:21] try and then made an all-star team the next month. And golf?

[00:57:24] somehow, even if it's unrelated. Yeah, I am not when I'm having a bad round, I'm not only a bad golfer, I think I'm a bad person,

[00:57:27] like I'm just now there, an horrible person even, you know,

[00:57:30] it's crazy. Like, I don't just suck at golf, I just suck at

[00:57:33] life. And these are the this is the crap that golf does to you,

[00:57:37] right? And yeah, it's interesting. I think I've come a long way. I

[00:57:41] really have. But I have these moments. And if I have something

[00:57:45] else going on in my life, when I haven't played in the last month because I haven't been wanting to play. No, that's not a couple of scrambles. Scrambles are great, you know what I mean? Because who cares? Not a problem. I can hit the bad shots and that's fine.

[00:59:01] I don't have double double staring at me and, you know,

[00:59:04] I'm a mind.

[00:59:06] I mean, I, right? Like, I'm an athlete. I should be great at golf. And that's where this sport is. So it's humbling, right? But I don't have the patience to do the things that I have improved and improved and improved. But I'm like, why am I not there yet? Like, I just don't understand why

[01:00:21] should ever get a bogey, let alone a double. And when it

[01:00:24] happens, a triple when that happens or like because I really don't like the gamble when it comes to golf because that it changes the game. Yeah, it's just not make it fun for me. Right. So, and I'm not saying like on occasion we can, but I don't know if you're the same way.

[01:01:40] Like if I don't have that, like if I'm not tethered to something outside of like golf,

[01:01:44] like my self will will run riot. done. So I've got the Garmin watch that has, you know, you can, you can put your score in after every hole. I'm now in the habit that when it says, do you want to keep your score this round, I say no, because it drastically changed my game when I did, because every time you put it, it will tell you how many how strokes upper par you are as soon as you go to the next hole. And seeing that every time made me so tense for the next hole, because

[01:03:02] I was like, I can't have another par on this I had a beer and maybe said F this and you know took off I don't like go ahead. I was just gonna say it

[01:04:21] They put that they put your scores up on the window and it stays me because I want this to be a lifelong sport But there are times I ruin it for myself. I I don't have fun. I'm I I think I for the most part I make it I I am in a place. I don't make it not fun for other people because I've been around those people too, right?

[01:05:44] but there's

[01:05:45] there's there's been occasion where I

[01:06:45] Which is what makes individual sports so difficult, right?

[01:06:49] I mean, in a group sport, it's about the whole team winning. And that's like the competitiveness from that angle.

[01:06:52] But then when it's an individual sport like golf,

[01:06:56] when you're an achiever, I mean, it's all on you, right?

[01:06:59] And it's like, one quick thing before we go,

[01:07:03] I did my 360 review with'm there and I'm like, it's a moving, moving target. It's golf. More little word. Yeah. Ha ha ha. For sure. Thank you so much. I really did. I really enjoyed this and yeah, I appreciate you.

[01:08:23] Appreciate you too.

[01:08:25] Thanks for listening to Mental Toughness

[01:08:27] with Dr. Rob Bell.