>> You're listening to Let's Talk Jobs, where we give you practical insights into jobs and careers. I'm Tim Chen and I'm joined by Kent Young. Kent, how are you doing? >> Hey, Tim. I'm doing great. >> Kent, you and I were talking about the art of storytelling and how to capture someone's attention.

I wanted you to share with the listeners your example because I thought it was really fascinating. >> The example about my history, learning how to be a minister? >> Yeah, that and you went into the whole like the preacher analogy and how they capture attentions and that just really fascinated me.

>> Well, I think with any style of communication, you have to make some connection with your audience. I think the best way that that's done, and we see it all the time like comedians, what do comedians do? They basically through a process of telling their own personal story because people really want to hear about someone else.

Then they immediately pull themselves into that experience and through that filter begin to feel how that might feel for them. That's how we create empathy as human beings. It's funny. Yes, I did study four or five years to be a religious science minister. Now, religious science in and of itself is a little bit different, little new thought, but the reality was learning all the concepts was great.

But then at the end, they go, "Okay, now you get to stand up and talk about it." >> Yeah. >> You can actually talk about what you learned and why somebody else should care. I think that's the point. The point is that in storytelling specifically, what we start out with is, we start out with ourselves and we talk about, we'll present the concept, but then we'll backtrack and we'll say, "Hey, this means a lot to me because," and we begin to explain how in our own personal lives, how that topic, that concept, that view of the world applies to me personally.

The goal is that if we are paying attention to our audience, we explain that in a way that the majority of people will get it. We'll appreciate that and they get pulled into it. Then at that point, you can pretty much start dropping other topics in that they then begin to be even more engaged about.

>> Yeah. I totally agree. I think, yeah, you're right. There's some formulas out there that allow you to do a better presentation, and they usually say, start with a personal anecdote or a grip or a hook that's interesting, and then you lead into what you want to talk about, and you come full circle back to the hook.

>> It reminds me of this one preacher I had once. Yeah, this is when we started off this conversation while preaching. He started off with this hilarious anecdote or story. The story goes, there's a man in a boat in the middle of the ocean, and the boat springs a leak.

The water is going up, and so this preacher, he says, he prays to God, say, "God, help me." For a while, nothing happens. An individual on a canoe rose by, and the guy's like, "Hey, you need some help over there?" He's like, "No, no, don't worry. I got this.

God's going to help me." He's like, "All right, cool, cool, cool." Then now the water's up to his waist, and now the boat's about to capsize. He's like, "God, where are you? Come help me." A guy comes by in the motorboat and comes by and say, "Hey, man, it looks like you're taking on some water there, buddy.

You okay?" He's like, "No, no. I'm good, man. God's going to take care of me." Now the water's totally capsizing the boat. The boat's no longer visible. He's just treading water. He's like, "God, where are you? Help me." Then this carnival ship, a cruise ship comes by. He's like, "Yo, you okay out there?

Do you need a life vest?" He's like, "No, man, I'm okay. God's going to help me," and he goes away. Then he drowns. He goes to heaven. He's like, "God, where were you? Why didn't you help me?" God's like, "I tried. I sent you a canoe, a boat, and a cruise." That led into his whole point around like, "Hey, are you listening?

Are you paying attention? Are you being aware?" But that intro totally took me by surprise because normally I'm sitting there in a pew kind of falling asleep or daydreaming, and that totally pulled me in. I utilize a very similar skill set at work, too, where you mentioned earlier about captivating your audience and knowing your audience, and it differs by seniority level.

And with senior leadership, I do the very same thing. Give a little anecdote, something that's top of mind for them, and I'll bring an illustration of something I'm trying to solve, for example, to kind of illustrate what I'm trying to do, and I'll lead very quickly into it. So like, given that, here's what we're trying to do today.

We're going to do these three things as an outcome, and we'll lead right into it. But again, it's grabbing their attention, and you know it's working because they'll close their laptops or they'll stop scribbling on their notebooks. So the body language is also a tell. - Totally, and it's interesting, too, because if it's something that you've done in the past and it's something you haven't tried at this new company, one of the things that I'll do is I'll say, you know, in my last engagement with this sort of setup, I did these three specific things and saw a net increase of X, right?

I find that, especially with senior leadership and to a certain degree, people that are peers, if you show up with not just an example, but you show metrics where you've hit the ball out of the park or at least, you know, got a base hit, people listen to that because we tend to be very metrics-driven, right?

- Yes. - Sometimes that's good, sometimes that's bad, but if you're metrics-driven and you give that anecdote and you say, I did this with this result, wow, it's an amazing level of engagement you get. - Yeah, you know, I'll give you an example of where it fails, you know, and it just happened in the last 30 minutes at work and I'm just trying to figure my way through it.

So one of the senior leaders in the company, they're in the break room, I was in there as well, I don't have any opportunity to speak to this individual, so part of it is like, hey, I want to put my name out there and whatnot, didn't come to it totally prepared though, probably should have thought this through a little bit.

So I went in there and just say, hey, you know, like, how are you doing? It's a Friday, right? And then they responded, they're really kind and they threw out a question at me, it's like, hey, how is this aspect of your business doing, like web traffic or whatnot?

And I panicked and didn't have anything. And I threw out a number, which absolutely made no sense. As a matter of fact, I think the number I recalled was based on my last job, which is peanuts compared to the metric that I was supposed to give him. And then like, and I kind of stumbled my way through that.

And then like, but then I said, hey, look, I do have data I do want to share with you. Like, if you want to have time, let's talk through it. He's like, cool, let's do that. Then I was thinking to myself, like, oh man, I did a really bad job of engaging my audience there.

That was like a total fail. What I hoped would redeem myself and we'll follow, we'll figure out if this happened or not. I can talk offline, is I sent them a message afterwards. I was like, hey, you know, like, here's the answer. Here's the actual day that you're looking for.

And here's how it performs against the quarterly, monthly average this year. So kind of immediately paint a good story. Like, here's how we're doing. Embrace my vulnerability a little bit. I was like, hey, look, by the way, like, you know, honestly, like in that moment, I don't get, I don't get many opportunities to talk to you.

So you know what? I kind of panicked and my mind blanked, but you know what? I do have a lot of good data to share with you that I prepared for you. So looking forward to going through with you. Even that is my version of an anecdote where you, you take something, an element of your personal experience you're going through, kind of open that up a little bit to your audience and then have a different connection beyond just the data, right?

So now like he knows, okay, Tim's human. That wasn't the best first impression probably, but hey, there's, he set some context. It's kind of funny, self-deprecating humor, but like we're still gonna get what's important. And so again, just even that example is like trying to use personal story to tell, maybe influence a conversation or a direction that you want to go is really, really important.

- Well, and, but we're all fallible. And some executives, I'll be honest, some executives don't place a high value in someone's willingness to fail and admit to it. Yet others are like, oh, he totally saw his mistake and he corrected for it. And that's all they really care about.

I mean, you're not always gonna have the answer in that moment, right? But more importantly, like, did you wait two weeks to get back to him? No, you did it within minutes. - Yeah, well, let's hope he sees it that way. I'll let you know how it goes. - Right, right, right.

It's all about how we deliver on stuff. - So shifting gears a little bit, you and I were talking about the importance of project management. And that topic is really near and dear to my heart 'cause that's how my career started. Now, I don't know if I told you like, like I graduated during the dot-com bubble burst, like nobody was hiring.

And what I, and then with a marketing degree, like first position game, like go during that time, that and effective sales. And so I took on all these random oddball jobs. One of them was at a startup and essentially it was project management. And I think the, I didn't have any hard skills to my name.

Like I wasn't a developer, I wasn't whatever. As a matter of fact, when I graduated from college and it was like a business, you know, business major, the only skillset I had was like communication skills. And that doesn't read well on resumes at all. And so what it looked like to me was like taking, being able to communicate, knowing how to hold people accountable, and then just be organized.

I kind of stumbled my way into project management. And so I kind of want to hear from you, you know, like obviously you have a really strong point of view on the value of the skills of project management. Can you just tell me a little bit, like what it means to you?

- Oh, I can, I could spend a lot of time on that. (laughing) Oh, so we're clear. Well, so let's think about this for a second, right? The context in which we were originally talking about this was when I talk to people that are getting out of high school, new college grads, people that are looking for summer jobs, young people for the most part.

And one of the things that I'll tell them, especially in the workplace, one of the first things I'll say is, hey, if you're going to do any continuing education, I would recommend that you take a project management course. And they look at me and I go, so let me tell you why that's important to me.

And I tell them, hey, when I was new to my, when I first moved to Northern California, I had a little bit of experience doing marketing. I was a graphic designer slash with a college degree. So what I learned pretty early with that project management class was, oh crap, everything I do, right?

Everything I do has an impact if I'm organized, right? If I'm not organized, it always looks like a yard sale. Right? - Yeah. - And the example is that, even when I was as a graphic designer, right? The old style of graphic designer, basically you had to take line art, go into a camera room, take a picture of it, create a negative.

Then you took that negative, you manipulated it. You did, if there were photographs, you had to shoot what we called half tones, basically breaking it up into a bunch of dots. And then you would strip all that stuff together and make basically a platform that you would use to burn a printing plate.

And then somebody could go and print that piece of artwork. Well, you have to understand every single piece of that process and do it in a certain process 'cause you don't end up with a finished product otherwise. Right? - Mm-hmm. - So one of the things that made me, I went from just being a graphic designer to actually being a salesman in the printing industry.

And what made me a great salesperson was I understood what my audience, my prospect, I really understood well what they wanted to accomplish. 'Cause I understood all of the pieces of the puzzle and what they were actually trying to finish with and actually give to their audience. And often I would sit there and I would negotiate with them, hey, I can do this, but I can do it more efficiently and cheaper if we do it like this.

And they'd look at me and they'd go, really? And of course, it made me a really great salesperson. So even in sales, having that background and understanding what the process was that was gonna be employed in order to get them a finished product made me an even better salesperson.

- Yeah, I thought you were gonna go a different direction with this, but that makes a lot of sense. When I think of project management, especially in today's day and age, there's a few things. Like the skills you gain from knowing how to hold people accountable and driving a schedule forward.

Rightfully, that skillset applies to many a job discipline as you're describing, right? Project management specifically is fascinating because you can actually shift across industries. You can go from consumer to enterprise to you can go from marketing to product management. Like it's truly the one transferable skill that can be like a leap off point to so many things.

I think that's what's so important today, especially with the way the job market is right now. We're trying to figure out like how do I market myself and how do I maybe reinvent myself or whatnot, or you're maybe looking for a new starting point. There are a lot of developers I know who went from development to technical project management and from technical project management into product management, right?

And then part of that is like they couldn't make or they weren't comfortable making the leap from development to product management 'cause they lacked at that point some of the soft skills needed to do that as well as like how to present. And so that was a good path for them.

It's also a good entry point into things like program management as well. And program management is actually a whole, it's very distinctively different than project management, but lean on a similar skillsets. So I always tell people, it's like, hey, if you're very early career, like we started this conversation around like college grads and you're looking for that first entry point, like project management, I think is the way to go.

And you also interact with so many disciplines that you can figure out like if there's something else you want to jump into or you start passively getting all the knowledge. So you kind of understand how the departments work. I think it's just, I think it's the most powerful, most overlooked role in any organization.

- Oh, and I will tell you this, that in the companies where they had departments of project management, that stuff went so much better than the majority of other companies that I was at where we didn't have a dedicated project manager, because frankly, they'd assign you somebody and they would sit down and they would dig into all the dependencies.

And a lot of people don't understand what a dependency is, right? - Yeah. - And that means that if that thing doesn't get done, that stuff that falls further downstream doesn't, right? So yes, it was critical to have that. And that stuff will often get missed for a couple of reasons.

But most of the time, those dependencies get missed because people don't understand the roles and responsibilities and the work stream that actually has to happen in order to produce product. - Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think we think about the topic of all these skills being additive, you know, like life or work experience is experience.

You know, and when I talk to people who are younger, they're like, "Oh, maybe they lacked experience "to bring into a job interview," for example. It's like, no, like you could be a star runner on a track team that has nothing to do with work, but telling a story, back to storytelling, around how your dedication to your craft and being a team player or excelling or going through the struggles and hardships to be the best runner you can be, like those skillsets are another way of helping people understand what you might bring to a work situation, right?

So I think knowing, again, like knowing how to tell a story about who you are, wrapping your experiences is huge. I'm kind of curious, Kent, do you, like you and I are like, we're old hats, you know, we're not necessarily just hats, but like we got plenty of white hairs under these caps, and we've had cumulatively many tens of, 20s of years in the industry.

Do you have any personal stories, whether it's work-related or could be a personal story of something that was really influential on how you handled yourself in the workplace or in your career? - As it relates to storytelling or-- - Or just your life, just life experience. Maybe I'll lead you off with an example.

I once, during a period of unemployment, this is during the time that .com bubble burst. And so one of my temp jobs was, I was a outbound sales at a call center for Wells Fargo. And it was every Saturday morning, you're on an automated dialer, meaning like a machine is calling someone for you, and you're measured by how long the conversation is.

And so you're literally auto-dialing, calling people at like eight in the morning, telling them that they've overdrafted their checking account by $5, now they're able to make 20. Like no one likes that conversation. And the thing that really sucked was, sometimes you're still in the middle of a call and the dialer already initiates the next one.

And so by the time you cut over, the person's already been there for like 20 seconds, like, "Hello, hello, who's there?" And in fact, when you pick up like, "Hi, this is Tim from Wells Fargo." Like they're pissed off immediately. And like that season was really, really tough. And I remember I learned how to deal with rejection.

And I had a lot of crazy stories around people next to me, just like flaming out after a week or two weeks, 'cause it's a grueling job and it was just terrible. And I had my terrible weeks as well, but it was really formulative in terms of how I process information, how do I figure out how to take someone from like one end of the spectrum to like totally angry and somehow bringing them around to a happy place where they're willing to pay the big money in like three minutes flat?

And how do you do that, right? So that was like a crazy experience that really shaped me. Like, is there anything that you've done that's kind of similar where it's like, you know what, this thing that happened to me, I just can't shake it. It just, for better or for worse, changed how I did anything at work?

- Well, I'll use a real life experience where I talked about being a graphic designer and moving into sales for a printing company. So I was in Phoenix and I'm like, these guys are like, "Hey, do you know your stuff? You're really good with people. Do you want to hire you to be a salesperson?" I'm like, "Okay, great." And so what they did was the head sales guy, he was the older son of the two sons of the owner that owned this business.

He would take me out for one day each week and we would cold call businesses in these, basically these industrial parks. And we'd go from door to door to door to find out A, what kind of business they were in, B, is printing something they actually do or use?

And then if those two things are checked, then do they have somebody that they already use? Are they open to getting a quote for a project? So interesting where he would go in and he'd do the pitch and I'd just listen and we'd leave and I'd ask him questions about that.

Then I would go in and I would do a pitch and he would critique my pitch because we didn't go into every business. I mean, some businesses don't need that, but very specific. And one of the things that I learned from that was it isn't the person who's the best at it, right?

I got very good at it, but it isn't necessarily the person who's the best at it. It's the person who turns over the most rocks, right? So I, trust me, I got a lot of rejection. I would go in, if I didn't actually see the person who buys, I'd get their business card and I'd call them and I'd call them and I'd call them and I'd call them.

Sometimes they would actually answer my phone call and give me an opportunity to bid on something. But probably 90% of the time it was either crickets or don't ever call me again, right? So it was a lot of rejection. But what I learned was, I'm in Phoenix, it's a big city.

I figured when I was going out to deliver a print job or pick up a proof or whatever, along the way I would stop and I would just hit a bunch of businesses in these office parks. And it's not, like I said, it wasn't that I was any great salesperson.

I was just diligent and I focused and I took every opportunity to make some cold calls and to drop off a business card. And let me tell you what the result was. The result was, after about a year of that, a little less than a year, but after about a year of that, they pulled me aside and said, we need you to dial back the selling.

'Cause we can't handle, I mean, you're finding the right businesses, you're finding the right projects, but we don't have enough people to support the production. So we have to hire more people, put on more shifts or get more equipment. And we don't wanna do that. So we dialed. And now the problem is that they tell you that you've gotta have the killer instinct to go out and find business, right?

To be a salesman and do that cold calling. And I looked at him and I was like, that is not the right answer. Right answer is, we're gonna give you some house accounts to manage so that you can spend time doing that instead of cold calling because you're beating us up with too much work.

That's one of those things where I learned, I listened and I executed. And I executed so well that they finally said, dude, dial it back. - Yeah. Do you have any examples of like advice you receive on the job that was really, really helpful? 'Cause your anecdote there reminded me of a situation I had where it was that previous company and I was a senior manager at the time.

And I had just earlier in that, maybe like a year before that, I was like a project manager. So I was still trying to learn what the difference is between these roles. And I wasn't confident in how I presented myself or I didn't have confidence in my own ideas.

Like I knew they were solid, but for some reason when I talked to people, it came out a lot less confident. I remember there was one individual I worked with and he was really intimidating to me. Like he was like physically intimidating and he had like, his demeanor was intimidating, but we get to know him.

He was actually a real softy, but most people don't see that side, at least not immediately. And so I remember I had one conversation with him and he stopped me in mid speech. He was like, Tim, stop apologizing for stuff. Like, you know your shit. Like, don't apologize, speak confidently.

'Cause I was always doing these things like, hey, you know, I don't know what's cute with you, but answer blank. Or it's like, hi, I noticed this thing in the data. I'm not sure if it was relevant to you, but here's what I saw. Like all of that kind of apologetic framing of my thoughts was really prevalent in everything I said.

And from that moment on, and I still continue to try to improve upon this, like exert myself with more confidence, and know it's coming from a place of experience. Do you have anything like that where like someone gave you on the job advice and it kind of just changed your mindset about how you carry yourself or how you do work?

- Well, we all have, I think we all have examples of that. I will say this, that as I've gotten older and more comfortable with my skillset, my confidence, I mean, you know this, right? I don't mince words about what I do, right? Like, you know, if you're gonna play in my sandbox, dude, I'm gonna tell you exactly what I think and why I think that.

That wasn't always the case. (both laughing) So I can appreciate, you know, I'm the go-along guy. So, you know, I would be like, hey, sorry to bother you, don't wanna interrupt, you know? But, so I played a lot of that soft peddling. I think one of the things that there's a big problem of in some marketplaces, and certainly with people that are getting newer roles is this concept of imposter syndrome, right?

- Yeah. - 'Cause I think when I was at, I wasn't there very long, but I was a VP at GoDaddy. And it was very, very, very tumultuous time for them 'cause they'd just been acquired by a, you know, big private equity firm, I think two private equity firms for a lot of money.

Anyway, so, but what was really interesting was that was one of those situations where I really did not know the landscape. And I got, I learned really fast that people who, people who you think you can trust, they may not have your best interest at heart, right? 'Cause everybody's looking out for themselves.

So I think that was a challenging role for me, not because I didn't know what to do. I was very clear about what the role should do and what the work stream looked like. The problem was more how I saw myself in that role and how I interacted with folks was basically, I wasn't comfortable yet in that role and in that position.

And so it affected how I came across. So I totally agree with you from that perspective. Absolutely. But I think one other concept, I think, you know, this whole concept of imposter syndrome, I think is really prevalent with people who get, who seek advancement, get it. And then when they're in it, they can't feel comfortable because they feel like somehow they didn't earn it.

They didn't do enough to earn it. Even though all of the people around them have already given them credit for being capable and see them growing into the role and all of that, but yet they have a hard time, right? - Yeah. - In that role. And probably the best example of that, you're gonna love this 'cause it has nothing to do with work.

Best example of that is people who win the lottery, right? 85% of people who win the lottery within five years are more broke than they were before they won. Did you know that? - No, that's a fascinating stat. - And it's because they can't see in their mind, right?

They can't see in their mind them being rich. And so what they do is they end up spending all that money and end up spending too much of it and end up worse off than when they'd gotten it. And so there's a whole industry of lawyers and counselors and financial analysts and stuff that just deal with sudden wealth syndrome, right?

People that are suddenly wealthy and they can't figure out how the hell to be in that, have it be a comfortable place for them. And so it's a really interesting situation where people don't get it and because they don't get it and they don't get the help they need to really understand what that means.

- Yeah. - They end up squandering all of it. - Yeah, it's funny. I've had a few conversations with folks in some of these videos as well and imposter syndrome comes up in almost all of them, right? And especially folks who are living in the Bay Area where I had a conversation with someone yesterday.

They're like, "Hey Tim, in a world where cost of living "keeps going up higher and higher and higher "and you got kids and you gotta deal with all these things, "but then at the same time, you accumulate wealth "and then you're looking around to other people "and you're seeing what things that they're doing "and kind of fighting the keeping of the Joneses.

"How do you do that?" And I told him, I was like, "Quite frankly, it's a persistent thing." Part of it is being able to shut it off. Some of it's kind of coming to grips with which aspects of it are true, right? And then the true areas of weakness.

And then some of it is just turning off the noise 'cause an example that's not work-related is, I look down a street in my neighborhood, I've got like a 60-year-old house now, right? Which by California standards, like that's new. You're not gonna rebuild, that's new. But everyone on my street, well, not everyone, but quite a significant number of people are rebuilding and remodeling, right?

And it's like, you know the cost of materials is going up and I'm looking at these people, I'm like, "You know what, how are you affording this?" I know the tear down of one property, for example, in itself and rebuild that in itself was like a 1.2, $1.3 million venture, but they had to buy the property first, right?

And so it's like, how does that math work? You know, and then there's other ones with like their single income earners and they're doing remodel. I'm like, "How are you doing that?" 'Cause I'm comparing their output with my output, which is like zero, it's not connected in dots. And what I had to remind myself is like, A, I don't know the context of where their wealth is coming from, right?

Zoom just put that thumbs up on the screen. I don't have any context. I don't know, like they could have been a lottery winner. They could have been a really good job investing. Maybe they had parents and they all pulled in. Like you just don't know, all you see is the output and to measure yourself against that is just unrealistic, right?

And the same thing goes into work. Like you don't know what took someone to get there and like, there might be a reason why they're just being really awesome and making you feel inadequate. 'Cause maybe they just busted their butt and they got there. But some of it could just be like, you're only seeing like the veneer of it.

But underneath the water, like ducks, their feet are doing like, right? 'Cause they're struggling just like you are. And like, maybe that hard work is because they're also insecure as well. And so I think you're totally right. It's such a prevalent thing. I deal with it all the time to various degrees.

And by the thing, as we get older, like you mentioned, like I think we start separating like what's fact from fiction, what's truly important versus not. And I think over time you develop a sense of your worth. And so I think you're right. As you get older, you have less appetite for the fluff.

Just shoot from the hip. Here's what it is. You know what you put to the table and let's just get right down to it. Let's forget about the packaging. Let's just get right to business. - Well, and I think with young people, you find that, well, some people middle-aged, but sometimes you see it with young people where they will hop from job to job.

- Yeah. - The money isn't right, or this isn't right, or the management isn't right, or they'll have an excuse. - Yeah. - 'Cause they're looking for the perfect scenario. Well, dude, sometimes you have to make the perfect scenario in the place that you're at, right? And so that lack of patience, that lack of willing to pay your dues is concerning.

- Yeah. - And you see that happen where, like, dude, you're not gonna learn the hard lessons if you keep jumping from job to job. You're gonna learn hard lessons about people not wanting to hire you because you jump jobs, right? That's a pain by itself. But just the fact that sometimes toughing it out, right?

Just being in the role long enough to learn the lay of the land, to learn how to manage people's expectations and how to work with everybody at every level. So whether it's executives, peers, or subordinates, or people that are somehow, just how you treat the receptionist. I mean, just sometimes those soft skills, they don't show up.

You actually have to practice them to be good at them. - Yeah, I love that. I like making your own environment. I'm gonna make that a t-shirt. Well, hey, Kent, I just wanna thank you for your time. This is really fun. You've just gotta come back and we gotta do this again.

There's so many things that I wanna talk to you about and pick your brain about. Some of it serious, some of it not. But yes, thank you for spending your time with me here. - Oh, my pleasure. Thank you for inviting me. - All right, thanks, Kent. - Yeah, bye.

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