Hello friends. Welcome to the C3 podcast. I'm your host and co-creator, Myron Isaiah Bryant. Thank you for taking the time to listen and being a part of our community. At its core, C3 exists to create a safe space for us all to be humans first, learn from each other's professional and life experiences, and choose to co-create a healthy community of betterment. I'm excited for today's conversation with our guest. And with that, let's dive into the episode.

Hello friends, welcome to the C3 podcast with Myron Bryant. I'm super excited today for our episode. We're gonna be spending some time with Layne Brody, one of my closest friends that I've met here in Atlanta over the past, what, seven years now, and gonna be talking about her journey, the humanity she brings to solutions or sales engineering and leadership, some new things she's doing there to provide value to individuals that are interested in those areas, and then being...

just focused on the values and the themes that she's picked up along the way in her very, very diverse career. That's my quick introduction for you, Layne, but I always let people be there to talk a little bit about themselves. But first and foremost, I want to say thank you for being here. Thank you for being an amazing friend. I'm super excited for what you have to share today.

Thank you, Myron. I'm super humbled and grateful to be doing this episode with you. What an honor to be asked to be a part of the first few episodes, so thank you for that. And I'm just so pleased to be a part of what you're creating here. So thank you for welcoming me. My name is Layne Brody. A little bit of my personal background. I was born and raised in Saudi Arabia, and I bring that up because it definitely has informed some of the values that I've carried throughout my life. I grew up...

Yes.

a child to ex-pat parents, Americans who moved to Saudi Arabia and lived and worked there for 20 years, chose to have my brother and I in Saudi. We went to an international school and were surrounded by so many diverse cultures and nationalities and it was just a really beautiful way to grow up. When I was about nine years old, we moved to the US and moved to Atlanta and really got into swimming at that time. I had started swimming when I was in Saudi, but not seriously.

although we did identify that I had a bit of a special talent for it. And so when we moved to the States where sports are certainly a larger part of the culture, we, no pun intended, dived headfirst into my athletic career. And I started swimming year round at that point, which at age 10, to be swimming year round, just for those who are unfamiliar, is spending 50 out of 52 weeks of the year training and competing. And that was my life for.

I did take a step away from swimming and needed to really focus on treatment for my own mental health. And I'm very thankful to have had that time to step away from school and from the sport and care for myself in a way that I really hadn't invested in myself prior and in a way that I desperately needed. So after receiving some treatment and focusing on myself and getting back to a healthy place, I went back to school to finish my degree, this time as a normal student, which was wonderful. And

got a chance to see life from the other side. And that's when I began working in tech for the first time at a tech startup. So I'm sure we'll talk about my foray in the tech world, but that was my first taste of it. And there were a lot of things that I loved right away.

amazing and a couple of things that one I'm now learning this. I didn't know you were raised in Saudi Arabia. That's due to me there. So we're all learning live together.

Yeah, yeah, I know. I love that. It's my built in fun fact. I'm very grateful to my parents.

Oh, that's amazing. I mean, that's amazing for so many different reasons. And again, mental health is something that we're very keen on within this podcast as well. So we would create communities to be to share those things and happy we're able to talk about that inclusively today. And then just how your career in life is as diverse as it has been there. I think that's one of the things that we've connected on and kind of brings us together as friends. People I've connected with have very diverse lives, right? You know, you being born and raised in Saudi Arabia there.

moving at an early age, something that's I reflected in my life there as well, and in different roles along the career. So I think those different experiences just make for great people, they make for great people in the workplace and great friends. And it's just such an amazing to be to have those conversations about what you learn along the way in those diverse paths there. With this understanding here, Arler Layne, you kind of hit on your professional career there. One of the things that I think is really amazing with you is just,

again, how much experience you have within being an athlete. And that shows within just your coaching, within your leadership, and just your authenticity and what you bring to every relationship that you have there. So how do you kind of reflect that, right? Hey, what did you learn from being an athlete? And how does that impact what you may be seeing in a professional setting?

Yeah, so much. I could and maybe should write a book about all the things that athletes learn along the way that do translate into business. But I think a couple of things, it's quite common that athletes, once they retire, are recruited into selling positions. There's very developed channels where that is a pathway that's quite normal. So I knew that was going to be an easier

Yes.

For me, it was finding the right company. Where was my, not necessarily dream job, but dream company that I could grow at. And then it was my chance to show up and demonstrate a lot of these values that and characteristics and skills that I'd learned from the sports world, even though I hadn't been in the corporate world for very long. And so when I actually first got into Salesforce, I think the things that I took from the sport and brought to my corporate world were certainly a work ethic.

and a belief that sweat equity counts for something. And I was gonna outwork anybody that I needed to in order to find success. But it also, what I started to notice was, I come from being a part of teams and that is so deeply ingrained in who I am. And all of that is because of sport. And when I joined the corporate world, I looked around and people, they called.

their teams teams, but I didn't actually see the same thing happening. And that was really, it was very notable for me. And so when I actually got into leadership, that was one of the first things that I decided I was going to do differently. Is that we were going to create team culture and we were going to operate like a team, the way I knew it, the way the athletes know it. And I think that was a little bit disruptive in the, in the corporate place, but in a, in a good, a good way, a good disruption where we had a, a shared vision and

a fabric of our team that once you had gone through and passed through our team, you had that badge of honor on you and people knew something to expect based on having gone through you know our program if you will and you sort of took that with you into your career and I think that was a really beautiful experience for all of us who are part of that to understand that team really can be present in the workplace in a way that I hadn't seen it evidence before. And then obviously

you know, I got into leadership in my own career and I'm now doing leadership coaching. So much of my values and belief systems and philosophies come from what I learned from amazing coaches in my life, what I learned from some not so amazing coaches in my life, and from doing some coaching myself along the way in the swimming world. So, so much of that translates into the business world. And I'm just very thankful for the experiences that I have, because I

I brought so much of that gave me a leg up, I think, and also a different perspective than some people who get into corporate leadership.

Amazing. And what I've heard consistently is that word team, right? And to your point, you know, we, words oftentimes mean different things. That's one of the beauty of, of what we talk about as, you know, diversity and experiences and backgrounds there, right? Is a word that comes from one area can mean something different from some more different area. So team is used very much in, I think this corporate setting, but it very much so has a different meaning to people who actually come.

sport or different areas there. So to maybe clarify that for what it means for you, what does team mean for Layne?

It's certainly a bit of an indescribable feeling, but I'll do my best to describe it. It is a sense of belonging to something that is greater than just yourself. The way that shows up action-wise is somebody stumbles, you pick them up. Nobody is left behind. You fill each other's gaps. They're going through different strengths across the team. That is a wonderful thing. Rather than having ego teach you to compete.

Yeah.

you learn to compliment. When somebody is overstretched, overworked, my team members who were lighter in bandwidth frequently pick up that extra work to make it a more equal balance. That is not normal. I'm very grateful to have created this culture where people were bought into being a part of something bigger than themselves. And we, you know, every year we sat and wrote our mission statement for our team. What was our team going to be known for? That was co-created.

by all of the people that were a part of that team for that year. Those were the things that defined team to me that were radically different than what I'd seen being a part of a team when I first joined the corporate world.

I love it. And one of the words you mentioned there was belonging, right? And that's so, so important for everything we talk about here on this podcast. And I think I saw stat recently talking about millennials and Gen Z, how that belonging or feeling that they're partially bigger than themselves, right? It's not just work for many people in our generation and generations to come. I think corporate is catching up to that, right? We don't want to just spend our lives.

The majority of our lives working for something that we don't understand why or the impact of or identify with at least within some way, not that you are your job, but you want to be able to be a part of something bigger than yourself there. I just love that that's being called out and I hope that more leaders are able to understand that. And I think that's really a lot of where you're talking about with your coaching as well of where are some of the things that you've held valuable, team being one, but where are some other values that you've picked up along the way that you see being...

very effective for successful leaders or successful individual contributors there.

Yeah, belonging is so critical to me. I think it's one of the areas that many companies drop the ball on entirely, especially within broader DEI efforts. There's focus on hiring diversely, but then there isn't the care put into creating space where, okay, perhaps now we have a really diverse workforce with all kinds of backgrounds and all kinds of perspectives. Have we created safe space for each of them to?

Yeah.

be successful and to belong. So belonging is so critical to me. I think I honestly learned that as a child in Saudi going to an international school in a class of 20 kids, there'd be 16 different nationalities. And I taught I was I was taught and therefore learned that difference was just like a small part of the equation. And it was something to be curious about and excited about to create connection with people rather than to

to say, well, you're different and therefore this is the, you know, the instinctual movement that I make from somebody who's different than me. So I'm so thankful for that because that, I truly believe the difference is beautiful and everybody, everybody deserves a space to belong in. And, you know, to translate that a little bit into a leadership value that I hold very dear and a pillar that I sort of operate with as a leader is this concept of human first, employee second.

My job as a leader, I believe, is to treat each of my team members first and foremost as a human. Secondary to that, you happen to be my employee. So my job is to get to know you deeply, to earn your trust, to create space for you to show up authentically, fully, and belong. And if I do that and care for the whole person...

I guarantee you every single time, I will get their best performance every time. But I'm not chasing that. I'm not chasing the best performance first. I'm chasing the caring for the person. And I think a lot of that is what I now am bringing to leadership coaching, which is when you choose to focus that way, and you lead with mindfulness, you lead with emotional intelligence, you know, you have the chance to unlock

discretionary effort from your team members and they go above and beyond because they have that sense of belonging, fulfillment, of connectedness to the team that they're a part of. And that's a really amazing thing. Not only is it a pleasant experience for everybody who's growing personally, professionally, who's finding joy and fulfillment from it, but they're also performing at a really high level. And that was true of the teams that I led at Salesforce. And I'm very thankful for that. And when I trace the thread back, it starts with.

that leadership philosophy of human first, employee second. I learned that from a coach, story time real quick. A few years ago, I went back to Atlanta. I was being inducted into the Hall of Fame of the school that I went to in Atlanta. And as a part of that speech, I got a chance to reflect on a lot about that experience. But one of them was, one of the greatest coaches I ever had was the head swimming coach at the school that I went to in Atlanta.

He is an incredibly decorated coach. He has since passed away, but hugely successful. He has, I mean, just a bit of a celebrity. He's wonderful. And he was such a grandfather figure to me and one of the best coaches that I learned from. And when I was writing this speech, I was reflecting on what was it that made him so positively different than the other coaches that I had along the way. And I realized that it was because he treated me as a human first and a great talent second.

And when I reflected on that and the decisions he made, the way he communicated with me, the way he motivated me, the way he corrected me or gave feedback or critique, all of those things came back to him seeing me first and foremost as a human and second as a great talent. And I took that lesson to heart. And that's where that initially started for me to think about when I have a chance to lead people, to coach people, I want to make sure that I am first and foremost treating them as the human that they are and caring for that person.

Bye!

And secondly, recognizing that yes, they happen to be my employee, for example.

Yeah. So much of that is why we're here together today, right? Together as friends and on this podcast and what this podcast is for, right? You started off by talking about just diversity and how you appreciate that. And, you know, again, growing up with a similar background and you, I remember growing up in classrooms that, you know, there was every race or background in and I can't say how much I appreciate that and wish I see that more in corporate.

Yes.

because there's so much to learn from each other. And that is of course not just race, but there's backgrounds and experience and how everyone's experience is valued is always something to learn from each other. And that's just such a beautiful thing and such a impactful thing for each and everyone and the output, the success of everyone there. You also talked a bit more about treating everyone as a human first. And when I was creating the podcast, I was like, okay, maybe I should.

Mm.

name it is human, right? It's like blank is human. Because I talk a lot about like Daniel Pink's To Sell is Human and how everyone moves people things like that. But just that human word is so important to what we're doing here. In every conversation we have. So I love your conversations or experiences there that show that right with the coach that you mentioned, and how you lead your teams beyond that, that is just so important for everything that we're doing here. How do you go about actually doing some of those things there, right? Because I, you know,

I think our listeners can hear and see how authentic you are already within this. I can vouch for years of you being this way, not just on the podcast, but in real life IRL. But it's also often to see leaders just kind of say these right things, right? That say, Hey, we treat everyone as a human or, hey, we want to make sure that we are actual team and we, you know, fill in for each other, we're part of a longer, bigger belonging. But you actually do it.

What are some of the ways that you help create that culture and actually do it?

Yeah, I'll start at the individual level, and then I'll talk about a couple of tactical things as a team about creating culture. But I think the most important thing is that the moments where this can happen and the moments that are most impactful to focus on are actually these small moments, these quiet moments, where there's a decision about how to respond to something or how to word something or how to react when somebody brings up a scenario. And it's in those small moments.

Yes.

that you either earn trust in a big way or you chip away at it. And I think that's where I would encourage leaders to focus and to be present. And I think my practice of mindfulness gives me the mental space to notice when I have those moments to pause, to think about how I want to react and to choose my words wisely in order to make sure I'm bolstering trust in that moment and bolstering a safe space rather than eroding it. So.

For example, somebody comes to a one-on-one feeling, demonstrating clear signs of overwhelm. I can choose to react in a way that this is gonna pass, you're gonna get through it. It's a stressful time right now, just stay focused. I can go that route. I can pause and say, Myron, I'm noticing you seem...

to be dealing with some stress and some overwhelm. Should we hit pause on the work talk for a second and just kind of check in, give them space to unload and then talk about, your mental health really matters to me. This is the third one-on-one and the last handful where I've seen you show up in this way. What I don't want is for you to reach a point of burnout and for that to start affecting your mental health in a negative way. So let's talk about, right? Do you see where I'm going with that? Like there's a...

a chance for connection there, a chance to tell them that it is okay to not be okay, and that I do care about that. And then I, as a leader, can find tactical ways to help them prioritize or take things off their plate, whatever it may be. But it's that small moment of choosing to stop to recognize what I'm seeing in front of me, to call out, and to address it that's going to build trust. Similarly, if I lead in that way, if I lead with my own vulnerability, if I lead with normalizing talking about my mental health.

That now makes it okay and safe for the other people around me to do the same. So my therapy appointments are public on my calendar. During, you know, some of them overlap a little bit with what would be considered a traditional work day. Well, my employees get to see that is a priority for me. That is something I would step away from work and take care of, and I will get back to work when I'm in a head space to do so. And they are empowered to do the same. I remember having so many...

employees that I would hire who came from clearly toxic work environments who would sheepishly come to me and say, I have a doctor's appointment. The only time they can do it is 12 30 on Thursday. Do I need to take some PTO for that? Or, and my reaction rightfully is, are you kidding? No. Take care of your life. Take care of yourself. Make sure you handle your work appropriately, right? Tell your team you're going to be away. Um, get things done in the morning, block that time on your calendar.

And then go, you don't need to come to me and tell me that. Moving forward, you can do that yourself. If it's something alarming, I'd like to know so that I can be there to support you if there's something more serious going on, but you do not need my blessing to do that. So it's these small moments of demonstrating to them that you care, you're listening, you're trying to get to know them better. You've created safe space for them to be human, not just to be a worker bee. And that really builds the trust that allows them to start bringing their full self to work, to make it okay to.

to say that they're struggling with something or they're going through this experience outside of work. All of those things are so critical. And when you have that full person showing up and they feel like they can really be themselves and be supported, they are going to do their best work. That's the icing on the cake that happens when you do all of this. So those are some of the individual. Do you want me to talk about some of the team tactics and tips real quick?

Yeah, we can definitely dive in there. But I just want to say I love everything you just mentioned there, right? From the individual side to the authenticity that you show within that, right? What I would kind of encapsulate that as is you frankly live the values. It's not just Layne isn't just saying, oh, these are the right things. Oh, it's teaming. Oh, it's belonging. But you have very clear ways that you do that not just for your team. But I think one of the most important things is for yourself.

Right, you're saying, hey, I prioritize mental health, I prioritize being my best self, I prioritize mindfulness, which I identify with heavily as well. And because I prioritize that myself, I create space for that for everyone around me and that just multiplies there. So let's go ahead and go to the teaming side there as well. Why don't you set a pause there to say that that's amazing that you're not just doing that externally, but internally you're recognizing and living some of those key values.

Absolutely, thank you for that. On the team front, I think, you know, going back to creating this team culture and being purposeful about it and doing it differently, not just calling yourself a team, but creating that. I really thought, you know, the first time I got a chance to be in a leadership position, I said, this is my chance to create team like I know it. How do I translate that to many people who maybe have never been familiar with that concept in their own lives prior to now, but certainly not in the corporate world?

And so I gathered my team in a room and I said, we're going to talk about team culture today and what that means to me and what that will mean to all of us. Not in that I'm forcing this down your throat, so here's the team culture buy into it, but we're gonna co-create what we decide will be our team culture together. And that's also part of it is, I didn't come in with saying this is what it is and here take it and now that you're part of this team, you're bought into it.

I had to let go a little bit of control to say, whatever comes out of this two hour, three hour workshop is gonna be what it is. And so I need to let a little bit of that control go and trust that I have the right people and that I've motivated them to buy into this and we're gonna decide on the right team culture together. And we sat down and the way that I teed it up was to say, once you just think about some programs, places have really strong team culture, whether that's...

I'm going to use a quick sports reference solely because of where I went to school, whether that's Carolina basketball or West Point Military Academy or the Alvin Ailey dance.

Alvin Ailey Dance Committee, I'm forgetting the last word, their program, the Alvin Ailey Dance Program. These programs, these mechanisms that have such a strong sense of teen culture, where when you sign up to be a part of that program, you are buying in, you are signing up and willingly buying into a set of values, a set of disciplines, a set of beliefs, and you are subscribed to that for the time that you're there. And then once you leave, this was the other key part, once you leave, you take with you that,

badge of honor and you take it with pride. And when you start to build that consistent team culture and their success that follows it naturally, that brand starts to speak for itself outside of the walls of your team. And so when you leave our team, what came to be known as Brody's Blades, when you leave Brody's Blades, people will know that they can come to expect this level of work product, these values, these disciplines.

because you came through this program. And the really interesting thing is that team culture then starts to turn into a bit of a recruiting mechanism itself, where people start to hear about this program and the people who come from it and what they go on to do. And they say, I want to be a part of that. And that's, you know, that takes a few, a couple of years. That wasn't something that happened right away. But there's just so many wonderful things that come from, so many wonderful things that come from focusing on authentic.

team culture in the way that I knew it.

Amazing. So often the corporate word we hear is, oh, you know, leaders are multipliers, right? But you just showed a very clear way that by focusing on being human and acknowledging our values, right? Living those values, right? For ourselves and for others, that's the ultimate multiplier. Like we can come up with all these tactical things and dashboards and things out there, but just by you being the best team, you can be your best self and creating spaces for others to be authentic and their best selves.

That is always the ultimate multiplier there. In terms of maybe talking about your career trajectory there, we talked about how you got into tech. So maybe you wanna talk a little bit more about that. Obviously the past couple of years have been crazy. There was a huge influx of tech workers. Sadly, there's not as many of us in tech anymore, but there's still this almost mystery of what tech is and how to get into it. So how did you navigate into this tech world?

Yeah. I started working for a tech startup when I was finishing my degree and that was my first foray into tech. And the thing that I fell in love with was being around really bright, driven people and moving at a fast pace. And that was something that, even while that startup eventually was barreling towards bankruptcy and it was time for me to look elsewhere for some more stability, I took those wants with me.

into whatever I was going to do next. I wanted to be around really brilliant people. I wanted to feel like we were innovating and driving change and working at a fast pace. And so coupling that with stability, that led me to start looking at Google and start looking at Salesforce. And as I mentioned earlier, I knew that the most logical way for me to step into tech was going to be through some sort of sales role, given my athletic background. Couple that with, I was an English major, and so...

communication was something that I knew I was strong at, both written and verbally. And so I targeted an SDR role, a sales development representative, so an inbound sales development role. And that was my first step into Salesforce. And I'm so thankful to have earned my stripes there, to have started at the potentially, you know, bottom of that ladder within Salesforce. But I got a chance to learn so much from the inside. And

Yeah.

and pay my dues a little bit. And there's so much right with choosing opportunities that allow you to learn those things and being patient and playing the long game in your career. I wish I could tell my earlier self that to just trust and to breathe and slow down and trust that you're playing a long game and thinking intentionally about how you're gonna move through your career. So I got in via the SDR role and from there, actually because of our...

physical proximity to solution engineers in the office, that I would overhear those roles on calls and was like, what is that? They sound awesome. And as I started to understand more about their role, what really got me into the SE role myself, solution engineering SE, often called sales engineering too, was realizing that they were the translators is what I would.

What's going on over there?

come to describe our role as, which is they existed to liaise between businesses, many of whom were not tech savvy or didn't understand to the technical depth that the technology was gonna require, businesses and our technology. So they needed to ask questions in the language of their audience members to uncover and discover what the challenges were, what the goals were, what the vision was, and then translate that back into our technology.

decide which parts of the platform, which modules, we're gonna make the most sense here, how they were gonna deliver value, how to tweak them and build a visual about the future vision, and then take all of that and all the things that they know deeply technically and translate that back to those business users. And that is such a skilled role, and it is such a critical role. And I just, I found it fascinating to think about needing to...

kind of speak two languages, speak a business language and speak a technological language. And in combining those two things and bringing in this creativity and this storytelling, I went, yeah, this is absolutely what I wanna do. Got into that, was surrounded by brilliant people. I think the cool thing about SEs is they're often left brain, right brain balanced, which is really interesting. They're logical and analytical and detail oriented, but they have to be great storytellers and they have to be creative. And getting a chance to...

be surrounded by those brilliant people, I went, you know, I think this is where I want to lead and I want to go find people who don't realize like me that they would make a great SE. So I was very intentional when I got into leadership to start hiring from unconventional backgrounds, which I roll my eyes because why do we even have to label it as such? To me, it's just there are people who have had life experiences and have innate characteristics that will make them great at this role. I can see that.

Yeah.

Now our job is to go find them, help them understand about this role, see if there's a match, and then my job is to develop them to places they haven't had experience or the knowledge they don't have. And I knew that I could do that. My job was to go find these hidden gems, help them understand about this role that I fell in love with, and then bring them into the fold and start growing them. And that was so rewarding for me and what I did for the next almost six years at Salesforce.

I love it. Two things I wanna double click on there is, one, the hidden gems and characteristics of people who you looked for to recruit for the team there. And then maybe first talking about the solutions or sales engineering role, cause it's, I think it's a hidden role, both in terms of how many people know about it, period. And then oftentimes you're not at the forefront of the deal, right? So it's obviously the AE, the sales person that closes the deal, things like that. But solution engineers, sales engineers are absolutely so critical for...

everything you just mentioned. And it's one of the roles I've had the most fun in my career, right? I think you mentioned that left brain, right brain mix, right? And being balanced within that. I always say there's SEs who are sales, but they typically come from the eight-year sales side. They're maybe super technical there. And I used to say that the third kind of part of that triangle was this like super artistic individual, right? That, hey, they, I can be on a Tuesday.

7pm at night and I can watch Netflix or watch this person demo. And they were able to tell stories so good that I was like, I might just watch them demo because it's that good. And I realized that, at least in my opinion, that I think that's not the third part of the triangle. That's truly the middle ground is that person who can use storytelling, use technology, use humanity, and provide just a very clear story of what's happening in a compelling way. And that is just the ultimate kind of precipice of that role.

What is the SE role from your experience and what really makes a great SC more specifically? As you think about that spectrum or however the spectrum you kind of see SCs coming in and performing in.

Yeah. The SE roles, so I describe them as the translator. I think that's an easy way to talk to somebody who maybe has no real concept of technology or SAS in general to give a high level. But I would also describe us as basically internal technology consultants who guide and solution for

a customer who's considering buying Salesforce, well, in my case, Salesforce technology. And our job is to discover their needs, understand the value that could be delivered from our platform, communicate that in a way that compels them towards saying yes, ultimately. And so the other thing that I really, I should say, compels them towards saying yes, because we believe wholeheartedly in that our product will deliver those results.

I loved being a trusted advisor. We truly weren't motivated by a quota or sales spits, things like that. We were there to do right by the customer and solution technology according to the problems that they were facing. So that's really what I see the SE role as in that instance. What I started to look for from a hiring perspective was, when I think about looking for folks who come from unconventional backgrounds,

For me, it was figuring out what I consider to be what I call high calorie coaching or low calorie coaching. What are the things that I probably can influence and help them develop, but might take a lot of time and investment? And what are the things that are a little bit easier for me to coach and for folks to pick up? And so I wanted to look for people who possessed things that fell into that high calorie coaching bucket for me. And if they possessed those naturally or via experience.

then the low calorie coaching stuff was not an issue if they didn't possess that or if they hadn't had that experience or knowledge yet. I can give that to them. We have great onboarding, great support resources, great learning and development internally. We can get them where they need to be. And so the things that I was looking for were absolutely number one. And this is the thing that I contribute the majority of my own success in my career too. I'm looking for somebody with a high EQ, high emotional intelligence.

Most people scratch their heads and go, okay, I mean, I get it that it's nice, but why? For me, someone with high EQ likely has really high self-awareness. So they are already self-assessing, self-correcting regularly. They take each moment to say, how could I have been better? And if somebody is already doing that, they're also more likely to be really open to coaching, really open to feedback. That is somebody that I

my team.

Also, high EQ means they can read a room. And especially when we transition to virtual rooms, being able to read a room with nuance and with savvy became that much more important. Whether that's an internal room where you're dealing with, you know, competing motivations from your sales teams, your sales leaders, potentially the implementation partner, solutions, there's all these different perspectives and motivations, how do you read the room and navigate accordingly. But also,

How do you listen to and read a room of your customer where there's executives who, somebody sounds contrary or tense in their questions and their objections, but what you're actually realizing is that there's fear underneath that, there's uncertainty. And that rather than writing them off as somebody who's, they're just a bit of a detractor, you go head first into that to uncover what the objection or the fear or the uncertainty is.

to help assuage that fear and say, there are so many people who come to conversations with me like this, feeling uncertainty about that because they've been burned by a technology in the past. So if that's what you're experiencing, I wanna talk to you about some success stories of, or however you're gonna work through that objection to comfort that fear. But they saw that, they didn't see the surface level, they saw that there was something underlying. So having that EQ to read the room, I think is really critical. The other thing I looked for was a compelling communicator.

Yes, that means somebody who tells great stories, but it also means somebody who, going back to that translator notion, understands that the exact same fact that I need to deliver to a CEO versus the head of sales versus the head of IT. That very same fact should sound different to all three of those people. And I know in every moment when so-and-so asks the question,

I know their role, I have the context for that. I can now contextualize how I'm going to respond to that question with my own answer. Head of IT, I'm gonna give a much more detailed response. I'm gonna dive into some of it. I'm gonna use different language. CEO or an executive, I'm gonna make sure that my messaging is extremely value-based. I'm gonna give you a quick answer. I'm gonna get right to the point. They're balancing all of that and that takes finesse. And so a compelling communicator for me is that. So high EQ, compelling communicator.

Mm-hmm.

and somebody who isn't afraid of a good learning curve, meaning they've demonstrated at some point that they've had to learn something that was new to them. They did it with excitement, with fervor, with determination, and with a self-starter attitude. So if you have never worked with Salesforce before, or my team was a part of the financial services industry, Finns was new to you, that didn't matter to me. You had demonstrated to me that you had learned technology or knowledge before.

and had done so quickly, I knew that you were going to be able to learn what we could teach. So those were the things that I looked for and they showed up in all kinds of profiles, which was really cool.

I love that set of characteristics and attributes, right? Cause it's such a human set and kind of double click on the human word as we always do here is I see that not just within what you're looking for in the hiring perspective, but even earlier in this episode you talked about just the humanity in terms of conversations you have with executives, right? Their humanity and conversations you have with team members. If

there may be experiencing or showing some symptoms of burnout, right? One of the key things that you learn in being in sales type of role is you have to ask a hard question and if you don't wanna ask it, it's almost a question you have to ask. And that's not sales, that's a human thing. Like for us the best show up for anyone around us at work or in our personal lives, if we're seeing something, as you put it, you know, slowing down, just calling out, hey, this is what I'm.

kind of picking up on that just again, multiplies that relationship that provides a safe place for you to really understand who that human is. And it creates that trust that everyone's looking for, right? I know there's all these things with AI and all these things that we all find these words to communicate online, but I think more important than ever is just as you mentioned, Layne is being able to be an effective communicator to whoever we're talking to. And that's the space for.

the human in us to really be able to shine more than whatever technology will ever become there.

We've picked up a lot of keys so far around leadership, around coaching, around solutions engineering there as well. We started today's conversation off talking about a little bit of the mental health side as well. So some of the things you mentioned was mindfulness, which I identify with as well, with whether you have mindfulness practices or journaling, everyone has the things they start to do there on a day-to-day basis. What are some of the areas that you found work for you to create mindfulness personally?

And then do you find ways to maybe multiply that type of practice across the team?

I'm so happy we're talking about this. Mindfulness was something that I actually, I was introduced to when I was receiving treatment, that was to the tune of something called dialectical behavioral therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy. And if you ever have a chance to receive treatment in either of those schools of thought, you'll learn about a mindfulness practice. And so that's where it was introduced to me during my mental health recovery treatment.

Hahaha

And it was introduced as something that you practice. And I am so thankful for that because that is, it is not something that you either are good at or bad at. It's not something that you perfect. It is something that you practice every time that you do it. And so mindfulness for me was learned outside of a working environment, was learned for my own wellbeing. And I have since brought it into the workplace and actually would frequently.

bring it up with my employees, with other leaders. I would lead mindfulness minutes or mindfulness five minutes or whatever, just kick off all hands calls. So start introducing that and I'll talk a little bit about some of the tactical elements. I even do it with some of my leadership coaching clients now because it is so powerful.

One of the biggest misconceptions is that mindfulness equals meditation. And so for a lot of people, the thought of meditating, of being quiet, of being still, of closing my eyes, of sitting down on the floor, whatever that turns up for a lot of people, there's a lot of this reaction to it. One of the best things that I am thankful to have learned when I was learning about mindfulness in mental health treatment was mindfulness can be that. It can be sitting.

Mm-hmm.

silently with your eyes closed doing nothing but focusing on a singular thought or just noticing your breath or the sound that the building makes of the room that you're in. But it can also be mindfully doing something from something as simple as this is now you'll see me in meetings and probably this is my tell if I'm in a meeting and you see me do this with my hands in my lap. What I'm doing is I'm trying to connect mindfully to that moment.

trying to create space. This is my grounding mechanism where I can feel the sensation of fingertips. So I'm mindfully pressing my fingertips together. I also will, if somebody joins the meeting with me and says, I'm just gonna eat lunch while we have this meeting, I will say, actually, I would much prefer you take this time to mindfully eat your lunch and we can reschedule this meeting. I don't want you to be doing those two things at the same time. Or you can mindfully go for a walk.

or you and I can mindfully be in this episode together where all of my attention and focus and space that I'm creating is on that action. And so in introducing mindfulness in that way to people, I think it's more palatable. I think it seems more practical, more achievable and offering the idea that you can have a one-on-one mindfully. I can't tell you how discouraging and how deflating it is for me to be in a one-on-one

with somebody or see other leaders multitasking while they have this moment to connect with somebody who needs it, who needs them. And so to think about doing things mindfully, I think is so critical. And also, if you don't have time to sit down and do mindfulness for 30 minutes, that's okay. You do have 60 seconds. I can guarantee you at some point in your workday before a big meeting, before a difficult conversation.

you have 60 seconds to hit pause, to turn off your distractions, to listen to your breath, to press your fingers together, to ground your feet on the floor, and practice the act of non-judgmentally trying to still your mind. And the results that come from that are like plentiful. They are just so many.

I love we're talking about this. You mentioned the word practice and I've been going to therapy for what six or seven years, almost my entire time since I've been here in Atlanta. And I remember when I first started going, my therapist was like, Myron, I feel like you're the type of person who wants to get the solution and move on quickly. He's like, therapy is probably not gonna be like that. Ha ha ha.

And she's like, it's a practice, right? Spoiler alert is like, you might, once you get the answer, you're like, okay, onto the next thing. It's like, no, this is a practice, right? In therapy and mental health and mindfulness and whatever you, what are the tools you're using and carry with you is that it's a practice. And that's just something I identify with so much because when you frame it as a practice, everything you just mentioned is like, you may have a day where you're doing, you feel great about doing it.

Boy, will I learn art!

Every day, we're like, well, it's really hard for me to do this, but you know, you're going to continue to do it the next moment or the next day, because that is something you practice in so many things in life again, personally or even professionally. If you just look at it as a practice, they help you learn. I think you mentioned that earlier for the third thing you're looking for is like, hey, I'm just going to learn as best I can. And I may learn a lot today, a little bit, I may mess up, but I'm going to keep practicing this learning thing. And over time, I'm going to make that that.

that growth in that area. And I'm gonna be more appreciative for the growth that happened in that area. Another thing that you really mentioned I really appreciate is mindfulness doesn't always have to be you calming your mind, right? It can just be showing up in that moment. So you mentioned your grounding mechanisms there. Everyone has their things they do there, but I just love the aspect that you're mentioning that we can be present in our moments. It's simple as like you said, getting lunch, right? That's something that...

I even myself sometimes, you know, like, Oh, dude I got to eat lunch in this call or between calls things like that. And there's something to be said just to be able to be where you're at. And we're often not where we're at. So I appreciate that.

Absolutely, it's so hard and it's human. It's human, especially in today's world where I often describe my own brain as feeling like it has a thousand tabs open. We have wearables and devices that are going off and begging for our attention. But I will tell you that I've certainly been on the receiving end of it and I also have gotten feedback from team members of mine where it is remarkable the impact it makes when the person you're speaking with shows up.

Yeah.

Mindfully you suddenly feel like they're hanging on every word that what you have to say matters That they have carved out this time solely for you. That is an incredible feeling in today's world where everything is You know vying for your attention all the time

Yeah. It's so interesting. It's, there's so many things vying for our attention. It's hard to prioritize. There's so little time, so many different things to do. But what I always come back to ask is how often do we feel listened to? Right. So this mindfulness thing of showing up and having a conversation with someone, there's always something to do, but when is someone actually truly listening to us and giving us the space to communicate and be ourselves and respond?

to that. And I think that's becoming rarer and rarer today.

I totally agree. I think that ties into that EQ piece that I value so much in myself and in the people that I hire is, part of that is that you're an active listener and you give that gift to other people. Because when you take the time to notice, your ability to navigate the scenario is just so much wiser. It is so much more, it is less reactive, it is so much wiser.

We're getting towards the end of this episode. Something I've been starting to do is doing some three Cs, right? So C3 stands for Clarity, Connection, and Co-creation. Those are just some of the values I picked up throughout my career and experience. But doing a quick question on each one, right? So we talk about clarity. For you as a leader, as a coach, clarity, prioritization, that's so important.

which you just mentioned, right, is what a lot of people experience is there's so many things to focus on. How do I figure out where I can focus my one moment on at a time? How do you help others find that, right? Sometimes you interact and there's so many things going on. It's hard to figure out, hey, what do we want to focus on together? How do you help people find their why in their own personal clarity?

Something that I have learned that has become a strength of mine is to effectively read between the lines. It's a lot of what we've talked about in some themes earlier today, this art of noticing, active listening, this high EQ that's seeing that there's something else beneath the surface. I think that's the same. I had a coaching client a couple of weeks ago who came to the session and the thing they wanted to focus on was...

Yeah.

preparing for a really important meeting where they were going to be asking for investment in the form of finances and people for this important initiative. And I said, okay, so we start talking about it and as I'm asking some powerful questions I realized that this person has all the information they need to feel prepared and a very clear plan. And so I sat back and I said, and I regurgitated that, I said that to this person. I said, I'm noticing a very clear plan and total readiness. You seem aware of everything that you need.

Mm-hmm.

What is the real challenge for you? And that's when, after a few moments of reflection, they said, I think I feel guilty asking for money for my initiatives. I said, okay, now we're getting somewhere. Now we can, now my coaching is gonna be entirely different than helping you organize an action plan to gather information and prepare for, now we're getting somewhere. We got to the root of what you're feeling and what's causing this disarray in your own mind that's tangling you up from being able to take

Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

you know, good steps forward. And that is something that I really try to do is when somebody's speaking to me or just talking things out, if I can ask a few questions to peel back the layers and help them uncover their aha moment, I think that is clarity and that is a gift.

Yeah, that's so important is, is because it sums up this entire episode of writers, asking those questions, being human, really being mindful and listening to that. And then if you're doing those things, you start to pick up on those things that may not be said in words, but you fill the themes throughout the conversation there and that helps us be better advocates for everyone we're connecting with and even on the flip side of that there, I think, you know, we talk about mindfulness for maybe the other person in this coaching session you talk to.

One of the things I've experienced in my therapy there is my therapist always say, oh, Myron, I can only help you with what you connect and bring up here with, right? So being, for lack of a better word, courageous about our communication. Hey, this is what I really wanna focus on. It's just another way that we can best support ourselves and best support others in having those difficult conversations that ultimately help us all to be more clear and motivated in what we're doing there.

Connection. You've really kind of answered most of this, but just kind of put a period on it. What is the role of diversity you see in being successful? So earlier in the episode, you mentioned, hey, diversity of thought, and that helps with teams and experiences and being able to learn things quickly. But if you were just thinking about diversity and how that impacts people to be successful, what does that look like for you?

It's the best thing. It is people whose brains work differently, whose contexts are different, whose belief systems, motivations, way of communicating, strengths, talents, gaps, challenges, they're different. And when you get all of those voices and brains in a room and you tackle something together, it's the best thing. You are uncovering.

Hehehe

ideas that would not have surfaced if you had a more homogenous thinking group of people. You get the chance to work through objections that might come up had you decided on something in that room of homogenous people and then taken it out into the world and somebody had an objection that you hadn't anticipated or thought of. You get to mitigate risk in those moments because you have people thinking about things from a different perspective or bringing context. It is the best thing. I don't...

I know I was raised in a way where this was just ingrained in me, but it is the best thing. It is a beautiful thing, it is a powerful thing, and it is so good for business too.

In co-creation, you talked about this with what you do in your team meetings and creating, you know, that team culture. Um, one thing that we see as well as accountability along the way, right? So, Hey, once you decide you have a goal or that B from one on one relationship or relationship with customers, um, sometimes things happen. Life happens. Um, you know, priorities move around or whatever it may happen where you're going along this plan and oops, it looks like we have a fork in the world. We'll continue on this road or maybe do something different.

How do you best manage that conversation, right, with accountability on is it still a priority? Do we still wanna go this route or is there something we need to change up?

Just like that. Candidly, clearly, I believe in accountability so much. I think a lot of that comes from my life as an athlete. But I've taken that and brought that, you know, as an athlete, you're, you expect accountability. You expect that if you are a little bit out of line, somebody, whether it's a teammate or a coach, is going to call you out. And that's not something to react negatively to. That's the thing to say, you're right, and to hop back in line. And that is something that I bring to leadership into coaching as well as

I expect to be called out if I am misaligned, if I have fallen off of something that I was supposed to hold myself accountable to. I expect that, and I would tell my people that. This leadership for me is not me managing down. You all absolutely share feedback and accountability up with me as well. You also share it amongst each other, and that was a new concept for a lot of team members, was now that you're in this team, you hold each other accountable to. So accountability, it should be present, I should demonstrate it, it should be clear and candid.

Yeah.

And in those conversations, you treat it humanly, right? You treat it in a way that is gentle but firm to say that I've noticed we've gotten out of alignment with this, how should we proceed? Are we back to the same goal? Do we need to write a new goal?

Well, I know we're around our time here, Layne. I cannot thank you enough. Would love to have you back on the cast at some point as well because there's a lot of things that we want to dive deeper into, but thank you for the time, Layne There's so much that you left with us from just, again, leadership to humanity, to mindfulness, mental health, and then just navigating our day-to-day here. I know you're working on some really interesting things, so I want to make sure we talk about that there. So we started the podcast off with you talking about what you're doing with coaching there and leadership coaching.

Do you want to share a little bit more about that and maybe how some of our listeners can either follow or follow up with you on that endeavor?

Absolutely, thank you. I'm working on something really exciting right now that is very in line with a lot of what we've discussed today. It will be a six-month leadership academy that's about unlocking high performance through inclusive teaming. So it's designed for leaders who are wanting to work on their emotional intelligence, work on tactical ways to create inclusive team culture, to create a human first employee second mindset and a culture within their organizations. So if that sounds like of interest to you, open enrollment is not present yet, but...

There is a waitlist to sign up for and you can find that at mind or you can keep an eye on my LinkedIn and I'll be posting about it there as well.

And that was MindfulLeaderSolutions.com

That's right.

And any final thoughts or acts from our listeners here there, how can they give back to you've been so gracious and sharing again, your experience, your thoughts, your values with us, what can we do to give back to Layne and your community?

I think it's to carry the torch forward. You know, change starts in a very individual way, but when we all pick up a torch and carry it, it becomes a movement. And I would just encourage people to find those small moments that I was talking about to be a little more human, to lead with vulnerability yourself, to be mindful and present, and start to notice the change that it's making in your personal lives and your profession.

Yeah, I love it. Thank you so much, Layne. It's been an amazing episode. We'll be following up with you on your leadership coaching as well, but thank you and look to have you back on here soon.

Sounds good, Myron. Thank you.

Wait, friend, before you move on, take the time to gift yourself the "C" of Clarity or Community. With so many pools for our time and attention today, one of the best gifts we can gift ourselves is a moment to simply breathe and be present. To gently process our experiences, emotions, and thoughts with grace and non -judgment. To do this, take the next two remaining minutes of today's episode.

to practice simply paying attention to yourself, or maybe gift yourself and or others community by connecting with us online. You can thank today's guest, share your experience and lessons, or connect with others as well. To do this, go to the website, c3.community or our C3 Community LinkedIn page, or of course, our YouTube channel. As always friend,

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