Joey Pinz Discipline Conversations

#869 Kaseya Connect 2026: Erin McLean - 🥎 From Olympic Stage to Business Strategy

• Joey Pinz • Episode 869

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What does it really take to perform at the highest level—on the field and in business? 🥎➡️📈

In this episode of Joey Pinz Conversations, Joey Pinz sits down with an Olympian-turned-marketing leader to unpack the mindset, habits, and lessons that translate from elite athletics to real-world success. From competing on the Olympic stage to helping MSPs scale through smarter go-to-market strategies, this conversation blends performance, leadership, and modern marketing insights.

You’ll hear how resilience is built through failure, why marketing and sales are more connected than most think, and how AI is reshaping the way businesses operate—without replacing human creativity. The discussion also explores the shift from a “win-lose” mentality to collaboration, and how parenting, career growth, and personal routines influence long-term success.

If you’re an entrepreneur, MSP, or growth-focused professional, this episode offers practical insights on building momentum, adapting quickly, and thinking differently about performance.

🔑 Top 3 Highlights:

✔️ Olympic-level mindset: performing under pressure & embracing failure

✔️ Marketing = Sales: owning pipeline, revenue, and growth

✔️ AI + Creativity: why human thinking still wins

 

 

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Join us for enlightening discussions that spark growth and exploration. 

Hosted by Joey Pinz, this Discipline Conversations Podcast offers insights and inspiration.

 

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Discipline. How does it play a role in your life? How does it drive your decisions? Do you have too much or too little? Every profession, hobby, or passion requires a level of discipline. I have used it in weight loss (+130 lbs.), family death, and found a +25 year business. Am I an expert? Absolutely not! Please join me, as I speak to interesting people and find out how discipline affects their career, life, goals, and decisions. Join me as I talk to interesting people in: #Health, #Fitness & #Wellness: #Business, #Technology & #Science: #Art & #Culture: Website: joeypinz.com All social media @TheJoeyPinz Do you wish to Sponsor? Get the prospectus here: www.joeypinz.com/sponsor

 

 

 

 

 

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SPEAKER_00

Kaseya Connect 2026 in Las Vegas. What a wonderful, wonderful event. Lots of energy, lots of new things coming on the platform. The new CEO was great. So much energy. Vender Hall was really, really involved and just really well-run operation. Really enjoyed the event. I've been going to them when I was an MSP and now as you know, as not an MSP, as a as a media, as a as a vendor, etc., since 2007. Really great event. Um I'm going to say it was the best ever. Three great conversations. First with Andrea McLaughlin. Oh my goodness. Great conversation with Andrea. Andrea uh works at uh is at Moonvela and uh account manager there and does an incredible job talking to MSPs about how to run projects, how to use their great platform to do so. She's open, she's insightful, she's honest, she's uh energetic. Really enjoyed the conversation with Andrea. Thank you. And then I spoke with Aaron McLean, an Olympian. She's CMO over at Cy and Nomi, great cyber security platform. Aaron, I thank you so much for your time. Uh from the Olympic softball stage, I mean the Canadian Olympian to the chief marketing officer now. Great energy, really enjoyed talking with you. And then last, Jim Lippby, the CPO of Kaseya. I've had the pleasure of knowing Jim for at least 10-15 years. He was an MSP, and then he was uh a SaaS vendor and came out of it, and now he's been in Kaseya for all this time. We go in deep about some of that transition, some of the great new things that are happening at Kaseya. Great conversation with Jim. Wonderful experience there at Kaseya Connect 2026. Thanks for watching. Thank you. Thank you for all my great guests. Hi, I'm Joey Penn, and here's my 45-second introduction. After starting my business in the 90s, I started developing poor habits of eating in my diet because of working way too much. I found myself at 340 pounds. The doctor told me if I don't lose the weight, I'm not going to see my daughter graduate. I took the next seven months, lost 130 pounds. People ask me, how'd you do it? What's the secret? I need to lose weight. How'd you do it? How do I lose the weight? Just one word. Discipline. I've had other successes in life, and I attribute them all to discipline. No, I'm not the king of discipline, but I believe that it can help all of us. Friends convinced me to start a podcast. The podcast mission? How do we better ourselves and society? I talked to interesting people in health, fitness, sport, wellness, business, technology, science, art and culture. And I eventually asked them how discipline plays a role in their life, podcast vision, growth through learning from others. What's it like being an Olympian?

SPEAKER_01

You just do it. It's just it's not that it's something that you are, you just do the work.

SPEAKER_00

How did you know that you were gonna become an Olympian?

SPEAKER_01

Um I didn't for a long time. I just didn't stop playing. I was good, but I worked third base softball. Third base softball. Yeah. Worked really, really hard and had very supportive parents that definitely were like, keep going, keep trying. And that eventually led to the right try-outs and the right university and the right opportunity.

SPEAKER_00

What university?

SPEAKER_01

Um I actually stayed in Canada and I went to a place called Simon Fraser in BC. Wow. But the head coach of the Canadian Olympic softball team was the head coach there.

SPEAKER_02

Wow.

SPEAKER_01

Only for my first year, and then got fired.

SPEAKER_02

So he got fired.

SPEAKER_01

He got fired, and then there was a new coach. I was like, oh no, I came all the way out here for this guy. Um but it worked out really well. It was a phenomenal program, and it was the right training.

SPEAKER_00

What should people know about third base, the hot corner?

SPEAKER_01

Uh pressure situations.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Pressure situations. You have to be agile, you have to have a great arm. Can't be afraid. So in softball in particular, there's a lot of short games. So bunting, slapping, so you get pretty close. So good reflexes.

SPEAKER_00

And positioning.

SPEAKER_01

Always. You just you have to know how many outs. Well, everybody needs to know. Who's on base?

SPEAKER_00

Everyone needs to know who's left and right, left and right hitter.

SPEAKER_01

Everyone has to be.

SPEAKER_00

But it's a position. Uh every every position needs to know that.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, yes. But it the entire game is definitely one of strategy. Yeah. And in it's such a compact game, so like major league bases are much farther apart.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_01

Um, a different power game. And so you have to really be in the right position. You have to react quickly. You have to just be also on the same page. There's a lot of coverages and just different ways that you can play a lot of that short game.

SPEAKER_00

So in baseball, we're two bases ahead. So if the person's at first, the plays at third, etc. If the plays the second, is that the same thing in softball?

SPEAKER_01

If it was to go to the outfield, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Ah, if it was to go to the outfield. How about in the infield?

SPEAKER_01

Um Well, of course, yeah. Yeah, of course. Yeah, you're just making a double play if you can.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So that is the same.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And the the speed at which those women pitch is absolutely incredible.

SPEAKER_01

They're only 43 feet away. So they are throwing the equivalent of a 90 mile an hour fast. Like baseball, hardball.

SPEAKER_00

And explain what it's like to have a ball coming to you, a bigger ball coming to you at that speed.

SPEAKER_01

You don't really know that it's bigger. Like you grow up playing with it at that specific size, so it doesn't make a difference. But I think you see a lot of speed and spin. So what's different in softball is the rotation of the spin goes up, down, in, out. So the velocity and the, I guess, kind of distribution of where the ball can go is very different than hitting a baseball.

unknown

Wow.

SPEAKER_01

So if you see, there's always these amazing clips of really great softball pitchers striking out MLV batters, like these like Albert Polos and like these amazing hitters. Yes. But it's because of the lift that they're able to get. Like they're not used to a rise ball coming at them and going up as it comes into the batter's box.

unknown

Wow.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And what is super hard to lift to miss. Like it should not swing at it. It's very hard.

SPEAKER_00

It's very hard, right? Because it's right in front of you.

SPEAKER_01

You think it's so great, and then it just cuts.

SPEAKER_00

Because you have less than a second to make up your mind.

SPEAKER_01

A very short amount of time.

unknown

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And tell me what it taught you about teamwork. Being on. I mean, you played as a very young child.

SPEAKER_01

Everything, yeah. I started playing at four. Um, and just always loved it. And every year my parents would ask me, like, do you want to try something else? Do you want to do soccer? Do you want to do gymnastics? And I was like, nope. I just really loved the game.

SPEAKER_02

Wow.

SPEAKER_01

And it took a long time until you kind of get into high school and a little bit later where you realize, like, I'm failing seven times out of ten, and people think I'm great at this. I'm hitting 300, maybe I'm hitting 400 on a good day, and I'm failing a lot. And you don't really equate it with failure right off the bat. But the more that you do, you see teammates that are either gonna start to really struggle, or they're just gonna start to kind of lean in and be resilient and figure out a way to win together. And for me, that was the big lesson in team was trying to keep people on the same page, communicating the same goal, working at the same level of work ethic, like pushing each other and lifting each other up and those failure points because everyone's gonna have a bad day, everyone's gonna slump, everyone's gonna have those moments, but it's the bounce back and how you do it collaboratively that really taught me a lot about team.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I I played soccer all my life. My daughters played soccer too, but just being on a team area, it just makes makes it just makes a really big difference.

SPEAKER_01

I'm an only child, so it was a big thing for my parents to put me into this team environment and team sport. And I think I I do think it had a big bearing on why I continued in the sport because I was you know surrounded by friends, continuing to grow up with that you know, same team of girls and get into a university experience where like you have these friends right off the bat.

SPEAKER_00

Right, and through thick and thin, totally, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Bridesmaids in our wedding and just like still girlfriends today. But when you go through something like that, you stick it out, it means something.

SPEAKER_00

And do you still play?

SPEAKER_01

No, no, I don't.

SPEAKER_00

It's a young person. I really don't. Why? Had enough after the Olympics?

SPEAKER_01

Um, yeah, I did. I um it was time, it kind of just coincided at a good time professionally to start that angle. And um I which just sounds funny at like 22 you retire. Um but we knew going into the 2008 Olympics that there wouldn't be a 2012 Olympics where softball would be included. So in 2007, we knew that softball and baseball were gonna be eliminated from the Olympics. There had been the steroid scandal in baseball, we were the sister sport, and so we knew that this was the last one for a long time.

SPEAKER_00

Isn't that so the repercussions went to softball too? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and so and we had never had a positive drug test in the like history of Olympic or even I think world championship sport. So it was it was going into that moment knowing you could I could absolutely have continued a career and continue to play on a national team level, but you've hit that Olympic peak, and I would have loved to go to another games, uh, but it it wasn't in the cards. And amazingly, three of the women I played with in 2008 stuck it out. Wow, and they were on the Olympic team in 2021 that won bronze. And so it was really cool to see that they had like stayed with the team, continued, continued their careers and done it. Then I was pointing to my husband being like, maybe I should have stuck it out. And he was like, Thank god, no, please don't. That was not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00

Wearing those colors during the ceremony, you have the flag. What is it? Yeah, huh?

SPEAKER_01

It was unreal.

SPEAKER_00

It was how many athletes represented in Canada that year? Do you remember?

SPEAKER_01

Oh gosh, it's well over, I want to say it's over like 150 to 200. Like it's a big team, especially in like both summer and winter for Canada, it's a big team, but you have a lot more team sport. So you've got the soccer teams, and obviously swimming is a big team. Swimming, yeah. Track and field. Um, and so I just remember one of my most vivid memories of the Olympics is you're in the tunnel. So in the Beijing games, there was the bird's nest, which is where you kind of like walk into the overall experience of the track and field center. And we were in the tunnel, and a bunch of the athletes started singing O Canada as we were just kind of waiting to go out. And so you're singing and you're singing, and then you realize like walking into the Olympic Games. Like this is an incredible opportunity, and you're just looking around and there's lights, and it's that thing. And um my mom wasn't able to travel to the Olympics, she was sick, and so I funnily enough, they gave us world phones at the time. So we had a Blackberry World phone, could call anywhere in the world, no phone plan attached for us, like it was just a thing. And so I was calling her while I was walking into the opening ceremonies, and she saw me on TV. And so, like to be like, I'm one of those people you see that do the lap with the flag and the whole thing, and it was just an amazing kind of that moment where you're like, I'm actually doing this, but then you have to go do it, right? And then you actually can't be a tourist and you have to show up and play and perform and yeah, have that experience.

SPEAKER_00

What was Beijing like?

SPEAKER_01

It was um it was really interesting. We went to Beijing four times in the lead up to the Olympics, intentionally, so that we would not be tourists and not care about where the Olympics were. So we were used to the time zone, we'd been in Japan for weeks prior. Um, we'd done all the touristy stuff as a team, our world championships were there, our tryouts for the team were there. Oh so we were very familiar. Um, it was phenomenally clean and a beautiful setup for the Olympics. They had done so much to make the city ready.

SPEAKER_02

Really?

SPEAKER_01

Um, and I think that they were incredibly appreciative of just the sport in general and had such a high level of respect for for all the athletes.

SPEAKER_00

Are there different rules in Olympic softball versus college?

SPEAKER_01

No, um not really, no. No, it's pretty consistent.

SPEAKER_00

Officiating was fair.

SPEAKER_01

It was, it was. And actually, uh one of the things that was interesting, we one of our best moments for the Canadian Olympic team was beating Team China to get into the playoff round.

SPEAKER_02

Wow.

SPEAKER_01

And it was something we had never done before. Uh we, you know, they had historically, as Team Canada, kind of come fifth a lot and not made it into the top four. And so we knew we had to win this game. We were playing the home country. Yes, and nobody was cheering for us other than like the small parent group in the stands. Um, and we ended up winning the game uh one-nothing, and we scored on the top of the seventh inning, which in softball there's only seven innings. And when we won that game, it was our like Olympic moment. And it was very quiet, but it was an amazing moment for us.

SPEAKER_00

They're not really booing there, right? They're a little respectful. They're very respectful. Very, very respectful.

SPEAKER_01

It was just quiet. It was just quiet. There were no booze.

SPEAKER_00

And the powerhouses in softball are probably US and maybe Australia?

SPEAKER_01

Um, so Japan and the US. Yeah, yeah, Japan won that gold medal, and then they won actually the most recent Olympics as well.

SPEAKER_00

That's right, just like baseball, yeah, softball. Fond memories. Very, yeah very much. So then you became a professional and you were at Virgin for a while?

SPEAKER_01

So I, yeah, I and actually softball got me in the door there. So Belle was an Olympic sponsor in Canada, and they would sponsor business graduates or those athletes that had business degrees to work within some part of the company. And so for the last year when I was training for the Olympics, I had a business mentor who did networking. He's a phenomenal guy, but it was phone networking, and I was like, I don't know, this isn't gonna be for me. It's not my my thing. But as part of our mentorship, um, when I finished, he offered me the opportunity to speak to his leaders. They were going through performance review cycles.

SPEAKER_02

Pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01

And he said, Come on in, talk about your experience, about goal setting, and do a presentation. And if you do that, I will pass your resume to every hiring manager within the company and we'll see what happens. And so I did the presentation, he passed it on, and I was fortunate enough that one of the hiring managers in marketing really appreciated athletics, came from a hockey background, and was just willing to take a chance on a student basically that was kind of a new grad, but had this, you know, athletic background.

SPEAKER_00

And why marketing for you?

SPEAKER_01

You know, my mom was a cop, she was a police officer. Really? Yeah, and my dad was in business, um, retail stores, grocery stores, and uh I w came home in high school and was like, I'm gonna be a cop mom. I am gonna be just like you. And she was like, absolutely not. No, you will not be. Yes, that wouldn't make sense to anyone not from Ontario. Yes, yes, yes. Um, and so I went, okay, well, do I want to be a lawyer? Like, what do I want to do? And I always loved the idea of working creatively. I loved pitching, I loved the concept of being in like an ad agency, and I kind of just thought naively that that's what marketing was. No concept of really what it meant and how I was going to build a career, what this was gonna look like. And so yeah, went to university for a bachelor of business administration, ended up doing undergrads in marketing and human resources. Wow. And then my master's later on.

SPEAKER_00

What's the difference between marketing and sales?

SPEAKER_01

Nothing.

SPEAKER_00

There's no difference.

SPEAKER_01

I would tell you everyone's a salesman. They should be, everyone's always selling.

SPEAKER_00

That's right.

SPEAKER_01

Um good marketers should tell you that there isn't a difference because it's about pipeline generation, it's about actually driving to a sales outcome, and it's about owning revenue. Um but that changes based on what you like and what you're good at and where you find your sweet spot and how you drive to that performance. But at the end of the day, that revenue performance is what matters.

SPEAKER_00

But the positions pay very differently.

SPEAKER_01

They can, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Right, because generally speaking, sales are commission a lot of commission, and marketing generally isn't.

SPEAKER_01

I think it's the pressure and the ownership. And so I think if you set yourself up properly to own revenue, you can see that scale. But a lot of times, you know, marketing can be viewed as an assist, as it should be. There's a lot of assist and a lot of help, and there's a lot of contribution, um, but you aren't always put in a position to be accountable for revenue. If you're willing to take that accountability, then you hold more of the cards.

SPEAKER_00

I was gonna say it is, but how is AI affecting marketing?

SPEAKER_01

In every way possible.

unknown

Really?

SPEAKER_01

Every way.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think your brand deserves to be in front of the right audience decision makers, entrepreneurs, and professionals who are ready to take action. That's exactly who listens to the Joey Pins podcast. Thousands of engaged business leaders and consumers tune in every week. Millions of views and listens across YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. Sponsors to real impact, higher engagement, brand trust, and conversations. We offer strategic partnerships tailored to your goals, including targeted ad placements, branded guest appearances, multi-episode and event sponsorships. Make your brand part of the conversation. Let's grow together. Visit joypins.com slash sponsor to explore sponsorship opportunities, or email us at sales at joypins.com, the Joy Pins Podcast, where brands and thought leaders connect.

SPEAKER_01

There's a lot of operational roles out there, whether it's marketing, um, finance, even HR, where I think they they typically can be the first to get cut. You're gonna make changes, you're gonna drive efficiency, let's cut the marketing team, let's cut the marketing budget. And I think that's right, because I know when you again back to that ownership of pipeline, back to ownership of revenue, if you can demonstrate contribution and demonstrate success, you're not going to be viewed as a cost center, you're gonna be viewed as you know, a pipeline generator. And so when you think of AI, you can be more efficient, you need to build teams of agents, you need to build skills, you need to build more systematically, and you have to, as a marketer, understand how that can enable you to do everything faster, higher, stronger to pull on the Olympic theme. Um but you have to have an opinion. You can't AI your way out of creativity and unique original thought. And you shouldn't, in my opinion, AI your way out of brand. There is a lot of same-same slop m-dashes, industrial revolutions happening out there that you can tell when there is an effort put in to the output in thought leadership, in the simplest webinar abstract, in an email. And it can be used correctly and it should be. And my God, the scale is amazing, and what you can do and what you can learn is phenomenal. Um and we fully adopted it at Synomi in terms of like really being an AI native, go to market team. But you still have to think and you have to prompt, and that takes a level of creativity that you can't get away from.

SPEAKER_00

You can't.

SPEAKER_01

You shouldn't, you really shouldn't.

SPEAKER_00

I like your term AI yourself out of it. Yeah, because you still have to think.

SPEAKER_01

You have to.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, you have to make a judgment, you have to decide. Where does branding fit in with marketing?

SPEAKER_01

It is synonymous, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_00

Just like sales.

SPEAKER_01

It is, it really is. And I think that the more that you think of them as kind of this all-bound spectrum, the better off your business will be, especially when you're in, you know, a channel ecosystem, because it's so ingrained. Your reputation, your brand, your community, your content, um, and how you're viewed, how you're understood. All of that really goes together.

SPEAKER_00

Wow. You have a passion for it?

SPEAKER_01

I do, I love it. I really love it.

SPEAKER_00

And even like you say, everybody should be selling. So I really everybody, or you say everybody is selling, is everybody marketing as well?

SPEAKER_01

Yes. If done well. It's really I think that it's actually one of the harder things to try to get a full go-to-market team on board with and really understand. One of the areas that you can see a lot of success in that I've seen in in my career so far is in advocacy. Like really having your own team understand that like you're a representative for our company, for our business, for our service, for our clients, or for our partners. You it starts with you. Like you're putting a personal profile up there, you are wearing the swag, you are engaging. Like how you treat our network and ecosystem is how people will perceive us. And it starts with that, and then it starts with so how do you describe us? What do you say? Why? And do you believe it or not? Are you passionate about it, or are you just talking? And so, in that way, yeah, that is marketing, that is positioning, and everybody has a role to play there.

SPEAKER_00

So Sinomi works with the uh partners with MSPs. Yeah. I'm a former MSP, a lot of MSPs are smaller businesses, and they don't really understand the difference between marketing and sales, but you're telling me they don't need to.

SPEAKER_01

They don't need to. And I think that those that do it well see it as I just described, it's all one thing. I need, I know I need to sell. I need to, and don't get me wrong, you need to have functional expertise. There's a point in time where yes, you need support for marketing, yes, you need some product marketing capability to really understand differentiation and you know that that feature set. Um you need to be able to outbound, you need to be able to close a deal, you have to be able measure pipeline and have a level of a forecast. Like those are skills that are required. But at the end of the day, you need a group that thinks of it as one team. And I think that that trumps all if you're able to work together. What do you need? What do you need? What am I thinking? Okay, what's your feedback? Let's try this. Let's see how it worked. Let's pivot quickly. And like just continue to adapt. That dance, if done right, is what makes a lot of MSPs successful.

SPEAKER_00

It's um many MSPs struggle just with growth. You know, yeah. And they kind of look sales, sales, sales, but they have to really consider the full cycle like you're talking about.

SPEAKER_01

100%. And it's um it's one of the things that's been most surprising to me in joining Synomi. I spend the vast majority of my time with our partners doing go-to-market planning. Interesting. Talking about the ways they can use our assets, the ways we can build things custom, how to build a quarterly plan, what kind of communication they can do. Because in our world it's not about the fact that you know they have Synomi and then they can sell a platform. They're not doing that.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_01

We're the layer that allows them to sell their service. They're selling themselves. They're selling their business their team and we can help make that possible but it's giving them some of the tools and the ways that they will be able to attract an end client and grow. And to be fair you have to think of it both ways. How am I growing wallet share with my existing base? How am I keeping them? How am I going to um drive you know higher retention, higher uh expansion? And then how am I going to scale? And what does that look like? And that system is where our marketing team spends a lot of time. Wow.

SPEAKER_00

How does Synomi help MSPs?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah so you can look at it in a few ways. You can look at it functionally in terms of we enable their security services. So we're a platform that allows you to drive efficiency and kind of more standardized operation if you're driving a security service, uh GRC risk or third party risk management service. All of that can be built on our platform and scaled across your team and you don't need to be a CISO level expert to leverage our platform. So you can be driving a cyber advisory practice, a virtual CISO practice and empower your junior team members to take on a lot of that work because you're leveraging a platform like Synomi.

SPEAKER_00

So when an MSP is considering a security platform like Synomi what questions should they be asking?

SPEAKER_01

Of Synomi?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah or of a competitor.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah so I think there's a couple of things they really want to understand one what kind of outcomes should I expect here? Like what is this really going to do for me? Where is your sweet spot? Are you in compliance? Are you in security? Am I getting efficiency? Like what is the outcome that again I'm really going to get do you have happy partners can you point to me just some use cases or examples of what good looks like and then I think something that is overlooked often is how easy is this really? Everyone wants to say it's really easy. Everything's simple everything's a unified platform there's still in our our space whether it's the MSP community or cybersecurity at large there's a lot of same verbiage out there. And so making sure that you're really kind of cutting through that to go what makes it so easy prove it to me can I try it and what is the experience like as a partner? How are you as a company going to show up for me? You should be able to answer that really cleanly and make sure that your partners feel that from you.

SPEAKER_00

Now you come from the enterprise space and now you're working with MSPs. What's the biggest surprise about the MSP community?

SPEAKER_01

I don't know if it's a surprise I think I love that it is a community. Yeah. And it really feels that way. I was like after I had my time in telco um I joined a company called Herjavet Group which was a VAR then eventually one of the leading MSSPs across North America and spent seven years there through its scale up and then went to ECRE for the last four and a half years. So with eCentire in particular we had a channel ecosystem and we were doing quite a bit of our new business about over 70% of new business through and with our channel partners. But and so I got a taste of it but I didn't fully appreciate the breadth of community we had a customer advisory board we didn't have a partner advisory council or a partner advisory board. And so just to be able to see how open people are how willing people are to learn when I joined we had already set up a weekly community call was structured it was it it happened it was already on the books and I was like weekly are you kidding me there's no way people are going to show up to this thing weekly every week it's phenomenal. Wow and to see these MSPs what they share they're telling their stories they're talking about wins win backs things they wish they could do over they're giving tips tricks to each other it's unreal like that for me has been the biggest surprise and I think for someone that maybe has grown up in the channel they would go oh of course yeah that's that's normal yeah that's totally normal but that has been the most pleasant experience.

SPEAKER_00

Let's go back like maybe 10 years or so you believed firmly in 10 years ago that you no longer believe now.

SPEAKER_01

I think probably 10 years ago I would have believed that for me to win someone has to lose I think it was a race it was ambition it was softball being athletics winner or a loser there's a winner there's a loser we have to figure it like you go this way I go that way like it was just a constant forward momentum kind of like what is that next thing and I think that comes with maybe being young and ambitious in your career and wanting that next step. And I think that now I definitely see it differently. I see just more community more opportunity to work together just a different way to be successful. And yeah it's kind of nice.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah win-win exists. It can yeah yeah it really can so I I'm a little bit older than you Aaron I started my MSP back in the 90s and I was working way too hard not working out anymore eating terribly next thing I know I'm in front of the doctor she tells me I'm at 340 pounds.

SPEAKER_02

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00

So I knew I was gaining weight I didn't think I was that bad.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

And she says to me look if you don't lose this weight you're not going to see your daughter graduate my daughter just born.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Driving home punching the steering wheel you know I I can abuse myself all I want but now I've got family of course I've got you know priorities have changed. So I spent the next six seven months lost about 120 pounds and I kept it all so the idea you know you can't look at these things as finishing lines right these are like lifelong changes.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah when I tell people this story they say what's your secret what you do and I always say discipline you know focus motivation routine how does discipline play a role in your life it was the thing and I think um for me it's two things because discipline is there but it has to go with passion. It has to be there with love joy something additional that moves you and so what started out for me as just like for softball loving the game just enjoying it just wanting to be there just wanting to work on it and then what changed was probably having a level of success and then going there's more like if I really want to make a Canadian team if I really want to go to the Olympics like I have to do things when no one else is watching I have to put in extra time I have to do the extra stuff and then the discipline kicked in and a little bit of that was the competitive angle and a little bit of it was pride and developing a work ethic and realizing what what was possible and what you could do. And then that's hard to kick once you start to have that kind of feeling that shows up like that was when I started working in telco it killed me to go to a cubicle every day. I would drive an hour to get to my office I'd go sit in a cubicle in a corner on the seventh floor of a building that nobody cared that I was there. That's not entirely true but it just it felt that way like what difference does it make if I'm sitting here versus three months ago I was traveling from Japan to China to play on this world stage with my best friends and have this life altering experience like these don't equate. Wow and so I I ended up having five jobs in four years because I kept quitting to go to the next thing like what's next like what's coming and that wasn't discipline that was looking for something like trying trying to just like find that same feeling of I love this like I love this in the same way and uh it I would say like professionally discipline kind of came back into it once I landed at uh Her Chevek group interesting but I think it was also my dad being like you really gotta make one of these stick like this is I was a virgin for about three and a half years so that one stuck but once I I it's like there's gotta be you've got to see that same level of growth in an opportunity and you have to be able to show discipline you have to be able to commit you have to be able to like actually work it and that's not something often that CMOs or marketers are known for you kind of do your thing you're in you're out and that's um once I really kind of understood that that's never been my MO as a marketer.

SPEAKER_00

Mother's a police officer father's in business as a child was discipline discussed was it exemplified discipline was expected.

SPEAKER_01

I say only child of those two discipline was expected it was black and white there was no gray I was very respectful most of the time interesting and yeah I was uh I I had what I would consider a healthy fear and respect of my parents that I laugh now I have two little boys and I say to my husband all the time like he's not scared of me at all like and I think that I'm more harsh than they were and like it it doesn't work. There's like and I yeah he's got some kind of our eldest in particular has some he's almost six he's got a level of confidence that I don't know where it came from but there's no healthy fear there not even a little bit.

SPEAKER_00

Is marketing a science or an art?

SPEAKER_01

It's both when you do it right it's both you have to be you have to be analytical you have to ask the right questions you have to think about owning pipeline and owning revenue but you have to find the joy in the art because I don't think I don't think that your brand and your business will benefit if you don't have that creative lens.

SPEAKER_00

You often find yourself asking your gut what to make a decision?

SPEAKER_01

All the time.

SPEAKER_00

Does it override the science does it override the facts?

SPEAKER_01

No. So you get the facts and then you ask your gut I usually try to ask the data the right questions to reaffirm the gut. I see also your gut's already made the decision then you're asking the data interesting wow and when you played softball was it that way you had a batter up would you and your gut was saying well I kinda I think she's gonna pull it at the end you're in the game you know what the pitcher's throwing well that day you have a sense of you know what's going on what's been happening um what's the situation on the field and sometimes you just you think about what what would you do if yeah yeah it has to be both.

SPEAKER_00

Is there a questionnaire and you wish more people asked you that's a great question.

SPEAKER_01

So I went to this uh podcast had a networking event at RSA and they were giving out all of these questions that you should ask people like at the end of uh at the both the beginning and at the end of a podcast. And so at the beginning it was what's something that you're obsessed with and then it was like to kind of disarm people and like all that. And then at the end it was what's the most important thing that we spoke about.

SPEAKER_00

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01

And I say that all this time to like bide my time and think of something so that I could tell you this answer. But you have now made the list of the top three questions I'm gonna ask people for future podcasts. Yeah something I wish I was asked more. A question you know it's interesting I So you're really closing the loop then I get asked a lot about the softball to business angle. I think something that I don't get asked a lot about is the parenting and business angle and it's not to sit on a soapbox and be like it's hard to be a mom and do business and do all of that. I think so many women do it incredibly well but it's still not something that's ever brought up.

SPEAKER_00

Now especially boys right yeah yes very much so yeah I I I have girls and uh so your husband's not as confident as your older boy?

SPEAKER_01

He I don't know how to answer that one. He's a very competent person but he is not the level of no fear in this kid is admirable.

SPEAKER_00

I mean well when I was certainly in my 20s I felt nothing can kill me but I mean that was the 20s I guess it's different.

SPEAKER_01

I just I wonder where he gets it from I we have empowered him to an unhealthy degree.

SPEAKER_00

I that's it maybe yeah it might be it so what has parenting taught you about being a professional?

SPEAKER_01

Oh um work-life balance is not a thing right which is um it just isn't nice to talk about but it's really it's a great concept it just doesn't exist and so I think that there's a push to be present in whatever you're doing but that the balance is always gonna ebb and flow.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_01

I also think it's probably taught me what I can do in 15 minutes is very impressive. And like if you commit and you commit to time like the days of sitting on something for hours on end or like cycling through something you don't have that kind of time. You are troubleshooting you are compartmentalizing and you are moving. Yeah. Is there something in the last month or so Aaron you changed your mind on if Tim Coach is listening to this he often gets me to change my mind on things. Does he how because he's persuasive or he provides a good perspective or Tim usually provides a perspective that is jarring and then you need to take some time and think about you usually have a visceral reaction to whatever his perspective is and then I need to take a beat. So most times that he's most successful is when I take a beat and then I come back and go, you know what I think you were right. It's best if I don't react to your first statement. Right. It's best if I come back I'm sure that there's something he is 100% of course I'm sure there's something Tim has said or done that I've disagreed with that I've cycled all the way around with sure.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah he's he's he comes a long way and uh I value his uh his opinion good people can disagree totally yeah all the time yeah yeah I I I uh I really really enjoy it I thank you so much for your time today Aaron anybody watching and listening how can they get in touch with you?

SPEAKER_01

You can hit me up on LinkedIn um and you can also always check out uh Synomi.com and learn a little bit about us and the work we're doing with the MSP community.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you so much Aaron thank you really appreciate it. Thanks thank you for listening andor viewing Joey Pins Discipline Conversations. Please share this episode with one or two of your friends who you think may benefit from the episode our website www.joeypins.com there you find lots of resources and you can join our mailing list please follow us on all our social media Instagram Twitter and Facebook podcast information the video version of our podcast is on YouTube please subscribe audio is on all major podcasting platforms please follow them and if you like it please consider giving five star rating would really appreciate that thank you again for listening or watching Joey Pin's discipline conversation