9min chapter

The Art of Being Well cover image

Brazilian Blowout Toxins, Seed Oil & Sugar-Cancer Connection, Red Meat Myths (Ask Me Anything!)

The Art of Being Well

CHAPTER

Sugar, Cancer, and Whole Foods

This chapter explores the intricate relationship between sugar and cancer, highlighting the advantages of whole foods over processed sugars. It also features a lighthearted discussion on fruit preferences, encouraging listener engagement and dispelling myths surrounding natural sugars.

00:00
Speaker 2
So I'm gonna get to your book in a minute, but since you talked about baseball, I wanna jump right to the Barry Bond story, right? In the book you talked about the advice that you got from Barry Bonds. You personally knew Barry Bonds, you hung out with Barry Bonds, you were there. Tell me about that moment when you were there with him and maybe some of the advice that Barry Bonds gave you when you were up to the plate.
Speaker 1
Well, that's funny, but yes. So in the introduction of my book, the first story I talk about was it was alumni weekend in early, I think it was 95, 94. And there's no state baseball. I was hitting third in the lineup, it was the game was just starting. I was kind of sitting off to the side of the batter's box. And there's a lot of ex alumni there for Arizona State, Barry and others. And I was watching the picture and I heard this voice and said, hey, 20, 20. And I just didn't really pay attention. He's like, hey, I'm talking to you. So I turned around and I looked in the crowd and it was Barry. And I'm like, okay. So I kind of go over to him and he says, watch this picture. When he squeezes his glove, it's a fastball. And he's secured off the guy through a fastball. When he holds it flat, it's a curveball. He's like, pay attention to that when you get up to the plate. So Brad, I get to the plate. And I'm like, I know Barry is watching. I'm a little nervous anyways. And first pitch, I'm like, squeeze. It's got to be a fastball, boom, curveball. Next pitch. I thought, here comes another curveball. And it was a fastball. I got it wrong twice. I said, let's forget that. I can't see things that Barry can. The guy threw me a fastball in the middle. I hit a double in the gap. When I got to second base, I gave Barry two thumbs up. Shaking his head like he helped me. And the funny thing is fast forward to 2008, Barry became really good friends with my father, Walt Lemby. And he didn't remember that. Recall that story at all. But I got to travel with him when he went to break the home run record. And I learned a lot. And really, going back to the alumni game story, what it taught me for my book was Barry was like, he's a student of the game. Here he is watching a college game. And he's dialed in. He's focused. And he's learning. And which is great. He's not only learning, but he's sharing back with somebody like me and helping out. And that was just a tremendous experience for me. And it was a lot of fun.
Speaker 2
That sounds awesome. I bet Barry was an interesting character. And he was incredible, for sure. Regardless of all the vibes, he was an absolutely stud of a baseball player. And I'm an Atlanta Braves fan, as you know. And he terrorized us for years with multiple different uniforms that he had on. So I know that leadership is a passion of yours. And this is your first book, right? Show us the book, by the way. Show us the cover. Show us what it looks like. You see all the leaders.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Learn it all later.
Speaker 2
Mindset, Trait. It's awesome. That's your first book?
Speaker 1
Yes. OK.
Speaker 2
Fantastic. Had a lot of success so far. What was the catalyst to write it?
Speaker 1
So really, the main catalyst to write it was that I really enjoy giving back and helping others. In the business world, especially. And I've had a unique look into all these organizations, thousands of organizations over the years, about how they lead teams, how they drive motivation, and everything. And so I just really wanted to kind of give my unique spin on leadership. I think it's unique. I, getting back to baseball, I played for three Hall of Fame Division I baseball coaches. Pepperdine, the junior college for year, and then at Arizona State. And really, what I learned from them is what I helped model my leadership style, as well as what I learned from my dad. So learning and me being able to do that, I wanted to be able to give back. The second motivation was, I really, my father, who was like my idol, he passed away in 2010. And I have two little kids, as you know. We spoke about this. A five-year-old and a two-year-old. And I really want them to be able to see how, learn more about their grandfather. And I thought this was a unique way to do it. And not just, you know, all this stuff my dad did, but you know, my mom and everybody else, and my family, who contributed to learn it. You know, like you mentioned, we've trained about close to 2 million people. So we've touched a lot of lives, and I want them to get to know my father's legacy, and learn from his leadership style, as well.
Speaker 2
Fantastic. What would you say his leadership style is?
Speaker 1
Well, his leadership style was he was super positive, and it was a very outgoing, and had a big heart. He trusted everybody, Brad. He gave everybody an opportunity, and he had a big vision. He had moonshot vision. He would shoot for the moon, and even if he landed halfway, it was better than what most people would even give a shot for. And he wasn't somebody to put together a 15-year business plan. He was more like, hey, I got this idea, let's do it. You know, and then get behind his team, and try to get it done.
Speaker 2
That's how you move mountains. Reviewing your book again, I read it when you first sent it to me, and I was so thrilled that you thought to even conclude me on that kind of that first PDF, if you will, before you even sent it to print. But one of the concepts that you mentioned is the concept of go all in, go all in. What is an all in approach, and why is that so important to be an effective leader? First, let me start off by defining what I mean by
Speaker 1
the term leader. Now, being a leader, Brad, it doesn't mean that you have to manage 100 people, 50 people, even two people. We can all be leaders in our own right. You know, as an individual sales rep, you're a leader. You can be a leader on your team. You know, of course, as a parent. So I just want to set the record straight. Leader is all of us. And what I mean by going all in, is if you look at what you're doing, is just give it 100%. You know, I mean, for me, and you can be all in different areas. Like, I'm all in, I've always been 100% in at learning, right? I'm gonna give it my best shot. And now I'm a parent of a two year old and a five year old. I'm all into that too, you know? So give it in your best effort. And I think that that really resonates in sales as well because sales isn't the kind of occupation, let's say, that you go in and you just kind of have hazard, at least say, you know, I'm gonna try sales today. I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna pick up the phone and dial 10, 10, 10, make 10 calls. Next day, not do it. You gotta be committed to sales or committed to your leadership or whatever you're doing. And if you go all in and you fail, you know, a lot of people don't want to go all in because they don't want to fail. But even if you fail, you still have great learning opportunities that you can move for next time. So that's really what I mean about, you know,
Speaker 2
going all in and really committing to what you're doing. I love that. My son, Smith, he's my third son. He literally just yesterday started a role. He's still in college, but he's working for a roofing company and he's selling roofs. It's probably not the easiest sales job. But what I love is he is, he's just such a, he's just such a learner. Like he's been like, Brad, he calls me Bradums. He calls me Bradums. He calls me Bradums. Yeah, Bradums. The reason for that is because, you know, whenever he would say dad, you know, like five dads would turn around and look. And so then he started calling me Bradums and I was the only dad that turned around and looked. And so he got my attention that way. But he's been watching these, listening to these podcasts and watching these influencers on TikTok and just like, he's just like absorbing, absorbing, absorbing. He called me last night at nine o'clock after he was done doing doorknocks and was just lit up like a Christmas tree. Just so excited. And clearly like he's all in, of course that was day one. You should be all in on day one, right? But I love that concept of all in. You can't, if you're trying to lead people and influence people and move people and shape people, you can't dip your toe in. You've got to be 100% committed. They're going to smell it. They're going to see it. They're going to know it. If you're not authentic and engaged, it's going to be a problem. So I really like that. So one of the core principles, and I'd love to see that I saw this in your book, one of the core principles that sales gravy is that we always do the right thing. And sometimes that causes me to have to go back and redo something or whatever. And it's punitive sometimes. But at the end of the day, like doing the right thing is so important. And so when it comes to doing the right thing, why did you think, I mean, I feel like this is a blinding flash at the obvious question, right? But why did you think that was so important to include in the book and share with us some of the things or the stories around doing the right thing and why that matters for leadership?
Speaker 1
You would think it'd be blindly obvious, but it's really not to some people. And again, the first baseball coach I played for was this Hall of Fame coach named Andy Lopez, who's awesome. And Andy and I actually connected 30 years after I left Pepperdine, year after I left, they won a World Series Go figure. And reconnected. And I met up with him in Tucson, and I gave him a copy of my book, and he kind of flipped through it. And he's like, you know what, Damon? If you recall, I had two rules at Pepperdine. Number one was show up on time, and number two was do the right thing. And I think that this is really important for sales. First of all, showing up on time, that has to be a no-brainer. I mean, you have to have respect for your customers and your coworkers. You always have to show up. And then the second do the right thing, sometimes players would say to them, well, coach, that's kind of broad. What do you mean? He's like, you know what that means. Whatever the situation is, you know the difference between right and wrong. And do the right thing. And in sales, if there's a better opportunity for your customer, lead them down that path. Don't sell something that is going to be flipping a grenade over the barracks to your customer's success team. You know, that we are over promising and under producing. You know, we've all seen that like, they're like, oh my gosh, how am I supposed to do this? You know, do the right thing. And lead with integrity, you know, that's really where it comes into. I think it's great that that's one of the values that sales gravy has. I have a lot of different stories around that. And if we get around to talking about culture, I've got a great example of somebody not doing the right thing. But I just think that that's something that I went off the bat, show up on time, do the right thing.
Speaker 2
100%. Let's talk about culture. So tell me that story about culture.
Speaker 1
You know, there's sales culture, there's culture. And you know, what you see sometimes, and this is something that I, you know, I coach or mentor a lot of these individuals, sales leaders and just regular leaders. And this woman, you know, she came to me and this is her first sales job really. She's been in, she's been in it for about six months. And she's like, you know, I got the situation. One of these, and this is a large SaaS company. And she said, and she manages a team of about 14. And she's like, you know, one of my top producers, I think number two or number three, you know, we had this contest as well as quarterly goals. And this person blatantly cheated on the contest. You know, they had deals and commit that they went into the quarter of the close. And then after they quarter closed, they closed them out as closed lost, you know. And they said, you know, it's blatant that this has happened. And there's been a couple of other instances where the customer success people have come to me and said, hey, you know, so and so is, you know, this isn't right. They said, well, what should I do? And it shouldn't matter if it's $200 or 40,000, but this is about a $40,000 situation here. And I said, well, what you should do is you should fire that person. You know, I mean, this is, they're not doing the right thing. This is unexcusable, especially if this isn't like, that you mentioned the first time you've caught them doing something like this. And it wasn't really her response. So she turned it up to the VP of sales and explained to him, her boss, what happened. And you know what Brad, the last I checked about it two months ago, that individual was still on the sales team. And to me, having somebody who's blatantly lying or cheating is setting the wrong example, and especially when other team members know about it. And the short-term gains aren't going to make up for I think the long-term effects that that's going to have on I think culture is really important. Sales culture is really important. And going in and doing the right thing. And that's a blatant example of not doing the right thing. I think, I mean, have you seen situations like that where you just kind of turned a blind eye to a top performer who was cheating and moving on, keeping them around? I sure
Speaker 2
have. I've seen it a lot. And it's a really challenging thing because you, as a sales professional, you want to sell. And as a leader of sales, you've got to lead your team to sales. And there's a metric associated with your team. And your executive team is expecting you to deliver the metric through the people in your team. And you rip out the best performing salesperson and move on. It's a terrifying thing to think about, right? And so one of the things that I always talk about is, why are they doing this in the first place? Like, have you addressed this? Have you coached it? And if they didn't know, I mean, to me right and wrong is so black and white. My dad sounds like your dad just, it's like, there's no gray area, Brad. If you have to ask yourself if it's right, it's probably not. Right. You know, you already knew the answer when you're asking yourself. But when you've got that ultra high performer that is producing, but is doing it in a silo and being on cancer for the team, you can't really shape anybody else. Because if you tell, if you coach other people to do things the right way, they're going to look over and see this person, person X who's doing it the wrong way. And you really lose trust with your team. And so you have to, you know, put them on a rapid coaching plan to fix it. Because if you've not ever tried to fix it before, that's the first place you need to start. But if you've already had these conversations before, the only thing you can do is introduce them to your competitor. I mean, that's all you can do. Just get them out, like cut the cancer out. I mean, when, you know, when someone has cancer and they go to the doctor, the doctor doesn't say, oh, yeah, we'll just kind of let it grow and see what happens. It happens. They attack it vigorously, because it'll kill the body, right? And so it'll kill a sales team and you'll lose some of those other professionals that are earlier in their growth, but just don't want to be a part of that crappy culture. And it's a tough decision, but you've got to make it anyway.
Speaker 1
I agree. And I agree. You first, you start with coaching. And the first thing you have to do is address it with the sales executives, you know, and then coach through it. But if it continues, you really, it is very difficult because you have numbers, you have to hit. But it's going to erode the long-term culture of the team. And the other reps, they see that. And they see what's going on. And like you said, you can't shape the rest of the team and expect them to be, do one way and then let somebody else, you know, cut corners and do things like that. So it's a fine line. But to me, it's if you have somebody on your sales culture who's either, you know, not making calls or, you know, just not putting any effort, it really affects your team. Because you want everybody kind of aligned with the same purpose and beliefs.
Speaker 2
So you mentioned you had a five-year-old. I imagine you've probably heard this before. You know, you say you're five to your five-year-old, hey, you know, you've got to do this or you can't do that. And the first thing they fire back at you, well, well, Jimmy's dad lets him play with the iPad till 10 o'clock. You know, and it's like, and it's so maddening as a parent. But, you know, that mindset isn't everybody. I mean, it's if people see other people doing things that they're not allowed to do, they have that FOMO or they just completely shut down and you're never going to get the, you know, and until you get rid of that person, you're going to have a wonky culture to a bad culture. Yeah, culture is so critical. And I think that you, yeah. So what do you do other than doing the right thing? Like how, like, I've talked to your team and you've got people that have been there for a long time. Like they started off as high schoolers practically and here they are, you know, having grandkids. I mean, they've been with you for a long time. Those are exaggerations, by the way. But obviously you've done something to create a really good culture for your team. What are some of the things that you've done?
Speaker 1
Good question. I think what I've done is, well, I've had a lot of success getting people early on in their career, you know, and being able, you know, with maybe the right kind of attitude and the right kind of traits and developing them and their skills. The other thing you really want to do is you want to create a healthy competition, you know, amongst the team members when it comes to sales, but you also want them to be collaborative. And so to do that is, you know, you work with them. We also spend, you know, we also invest quite a bit in training and coaching, not just through our own learning classes, but, you know, other platforms like sales babies and others, you know, it's investing in your team, showing them the right direction. And also really supporting them, you know, supporting them through trial and error and mistakes and everything. And yeah, and then really what happens is, say, for instance, yes, we have some individuals who stayed a really long time. We also have individuals who have stayed, you know, two or three years and left, but they left on great terms. And what happens when you do that, Brad, is it becomes a funnel for referrals. So people understand what the learning culture is like and they know their friends or people they actually work with. And if they think they're a good fit for the learning culture, they'll send them our way. And that's like our number one way to recruit is just through either existing team members or the alumni as I call them. I love that.
Speaker 2
They learn it alumni.
Speaker 1
You can be part of it.
Speaker 2
There you go. You can be on the sidelines, say,
Speaker 1
20, 20.

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