How are you? | Jim Gonzales | Ep. 105

[Dillon] (0:00 - 0:37)

This episode does contain mentions of suicide and self-harm. If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, there is help available. You can call, text, or chat 988 for 24 7 around the clock confidential support from a trained crisis counselor.

And if you're experiencing a life-threatening situation, call 9-1-1 or go to your nearest emergency room and stay safe, folks. What's up, lifers, and welcome to The Daily Standup with Lifetime Value, where we're giving you fresh new customer success ideas every single day. I got my man Rob here.

Rob, you want to say hi?

[Rob] (0:37 - 0:38)

What's up, y'all?

[Dillon] (0:39 - 0:42)

And we've got JP here.

JP, do you want to say hi?

[JP] (0:42 - 0:43)

Vita Valor.

[Dillon] (0:44 - 1:01)

Yep. And we've got Jim with us. Jim, will you say hi, please?

Hi, everyone. Jim Gonzales here. And I am your host.

My name is Dillon Young. Jim Gonzales, thank you so much for being here. Can you please elaborate a little bit?

Introduce yourself, please.

[Jim] (1:01 - 1:05)

Yes, it's an honor to be here. I'm out here in Oakland, California.

[Dillon] (1:06 - 1:06)

Oakland represent.

[Jim] (1:06 - 1:27)

Yeah, Oakland represent. First generation Filipino American, born in San Diego, lived out there my whole life, relocated in the Bay Area 2018. Have been in customer success since 2020, so right before the pandemic, but have been wanting to be in CS since 2018.

I could talk more about that later, but excited to be here.

[Dillon] (1:28 - 1:40)

I love it. I love it. Jim, you know what we're doing here?

We ask every single guest one simple question, and that is, what is on your mind when it comes to customer success? So Jim, why don't you tell us what that is for you?

[Jim] (1:41 - 1:47)

Yeah, top of mind right now is the job hunt. I do want to talk about mental health as well, but primarily the job hunt.

[Dillon] (1:48 - 1:59)

Cool. So how do they go together? I know you just recently had a transition, right?

So congratulations. Tell us what that was like and maybe how you maintained your mental health and your mental fitness throughout that.

[Jim] (1:59 - 2:25)

Yeah, so right now for the last couple months, I decided on starting my own business. It's called JobQuest Heroes. Check it out.

But essentially, because I've had multiple jobs in the span of four years, I've been equipped with skills and experience with finding opportunities and offers. Essentially, the business is to help other job hunters out there land opportunities in whatever field they want in tech.

[Dillon] (2:27 - 2:52)

Awesome. Awesome. Well, congratulations on starting your own thing.

That is no small feat, as several folks on this call can attest to. Actually, I guess all of us, really. But tell me where mental health intersects with that and what you think about that, and how do you manage the two?

And maybe what sort of conversations are you having with the folks that you're working with in regards to maintaining that through what is a historically difficult, unprecedented job market?

[Jim] (2:52 - 5:37)

I'm about to tell you guys one of the realest stories. Back in 2018, my friend was trying to break into tech, trying to break into customer success. I was on my morning run, so I decided, hey, just give me a call.

I can show you the ropes. I'm giving him some advice, some thoughts, and then I'm approaching the Golden Gate Bridge. I lived in San Francisco at the time.

I see this guy on the other side of the bridge. It's early in the morning, so I'm like, what the heck? What's going on?

Is he just trying to admire the sunrise from a closer view? I told my friend, hey, I'll call you back. So I get closer.

I'm running, and I finally see this guy, and I put two and two together. I realize, oh my gosh, this guy is not in the right state of mind. He's on the other side of the bridge.

There's no one out here. It's early in the morning. It was 7, 6 in the morning.

I say, hey, what's going on? What's your name? He doesn't say anything, and I continue to talk to him.

I'm like, hey, I'm Jim. I'm curious. What's your name?

He says, it doesn't matter what my name is, and then I'm thinking in my head, like, damn, this guy could jump, and no matter what I say, this guy could jump. So my goal at that time is to just stay in conversation with him. It gets to a point where after me telling him about myself, hey, I'm Jim.

I'm curious to hear what's your name. Do you want to talk on the other side? He eventually starts talking, and he's mumbling.

I could smell that there's alcohol, and we're talking for five minutes. I don't remember exactly what we're talking about because my mind's just running all over the place. It gets to a point where there's other runners, walkers, who kind of chime in, and after maybe ten minutes, which felt like a lifetime, he's looking over the water, and then eventually he gets on the handrails.

We grab him and lift him over, and a car comes in. There's the police officer ready to escort him, and I finally get a chance to actually talk to him. I find out his name is Chris, and he starts telling me about his story of how he lost family members.

He lost his job, and he just wasn't in the right state of mind. He was apologizing to me, saying, hey, Jim, I'm sorry that I had to put you through this. I say, hey, don't worry about it.

I haven't seen him since. I hope he's doing all right, but ever since then, mental health has been top of mind. How it relates to the job hunt is I think a lot of people relate their title and their role is a huge part of their identity.

When you lose that, you lose a lot, and it messes with their mental health. Ever since then, I've tried to bring awareness about the job hunt and mental health and how to balance that.

[Dillon] (5:39 - 6:45)

Well, thank you for sharing that story. I guess what I would say to piggyback on that is if you today are identifying yourself primarily with your job, then we talk a lot in customer success about single threading. Within a company, you only have one champion.

You only talk to one person. You're single threading your life in that case. I would encourage folks to do the hard work of trying to identify other things that they find joy in, other things that they identify as a neighbor, a friend, a community member, passionate about reading, playing video games, exercising, whatever it is that isn't related to your ...

It should in no way be related to your job, because I found myself there as well and already struggled with mental health. Never been in the position that Chris was in, but can see how the path leads that way. I agree with you 100%.

Super important to call attention to it. JP, why don't you jump in and talk about what Jim's story means to you?

[JP] (6:47 - 8:42)

Yes. I have this new phrase that I've been saying, which is Deed of the Lord, which is like a translation of lifetime value. I also think about it as the value of life.

That's the way my mind flipped it, but I liked it as a slogan. I think that's always been part of my outlook that whether I had ... Because I've had a lot of jobs in my lifetime, I think that at some point I had to learn to dissociate my sense of self-worth from whether I was employed or unemployed, whether I was underemployed.

I've never been over-employed, but I've had to learn that dissociation because I have had so many periods of not having a job. I'd just say that my more recent experience, I think I was out of a job for about five months-ish. This was after me getting clean, so I'm in good shape.

I'm not taking any drugs or drinking anything, but I still remember after maybe my third or fourth failed interview or opportunity where I thought I was close, I had a thought where I was like, what if I wasn't here? I'm one of the most positive, optimistic ... Ask anybody, that's not how I present.

That's generally usually how I feel. But if even I could get to a point where I was just taking that rejection in such a way that it would make me question my existence, I can only imagine what so many people out there are going through, especially when it comes to the job market right now. Thanks for bringing attention to the topic.

I think as Dillon said, and I'm sure Rob will agree, is your life has an intrinsic value that has nothing to do with what you produce, and I'll just leave it at that. Yeah, appreciate you sharing that.

[Dillon] (8:43 - 8:45)

Rob, go ahead, and then I want to bring it back to Jim.

[Rob] (8:47 - 10:04)

All I'll say is this is one of the most deeply personal topics to me personally, Jim, and I appreciate so much you bringing it up because for me, the worst mental state I've ever been in was before I graduated college, and it was like this culmination of ... I grew up perplexed by this question, what do you want to be when you grow up? Like most of us are.

You look at the root of that question, what do you want to be when you grow up? It's answered by your career. So, your being is your career.

Then I spent four years in the most toxically pre-professional university that I could ask for. It was a great experience, don't get me wrong. But I was so upset with myself because I felt like I was the only person I knew who didn't have it figured out, and that I was going to graduate and didn't have a job yet.

It wasn't until I just made up some semi-bogus business that I was going to go start instead of all the prestigious consulting and banking jobs that my friends got, and a lot of self-work, like what Dillon said around identifying who you are outside of your work, meditation practices, and things that taught me the lesson that I am not my job, and that my job is just one little feature in this overall ecosystem that I am.

But this is a super important topic, so I appreciate it.

[Dillon] (10:05 - 10:16)

Jim, what are the tips or the pieces of advice you give to folks about how to maintain this while they're going through a transitional period?

[Jim] (10:17 - 10:32)

Yeah. First off, JP, Rob, thanks for sharing your stories. I think the more we share, the more people are able to share their story, so I appreciate that.

As far as tips, advice, tricks on maintaining your mental health during the job hunt, was that the question, Dillon?

[Dillon] (10:32 - 10:36)

In general, in any difficult times, tell me where you want to take it.

[Jim] (10:37 - 11:42)

Yeah. This market's crazy. I've had to job hunt maybe a year and a half ago, and that market was already crazy as it is.

It's even more competitive today. So I talk to people who are dealing with rejections. They're not even able to land interviews.

So typically, I tell people to take a step back. The job hunt will be there. Obviously, everyone has a different background.

They have different financial means. For some people, they need to support their family, pay rent, pay a mortgage. I totally understand that.

But if you're just constantly applying to jobs and going nowhere, getting rejected, and you continue to have this negative perspective on the job hunt, it's not going to serve you well. So I always encourage people to take a step back, take a couple days off, do whatever you have to do, go out, get some fresh air. It's hard to say that, especially when you get rejected.

Oh, you'll be fine. Go out for a walk. But I really believe in just doing you before you go back into the job market because it is competitive.

Rejections are inevitable. It's going to happen. Yeah.

[Dillon] (11:43 - 12:19)

It's really hard to do. But you should be asking yourself on a regular basis, how are you? And listening to what the answer is, not telling yourself what the answer should be, and acting accordingly.

Jim, that's our time. Absolutely phenomenal topic. As I told you, I knew I would say that.

But appreciate the vulnerability from you and from Rob and JP. But that is our time. Would love to come back and hear how things are going in a couple of months with the new venture.

But for now, we've got to say goodbye. Awesome. Thank you so much for having me, guys.

Thanks, Jim.

[Voiceover] (12:23 - 12:54)

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