SnapShot: Had to Get out of My Own Way, Making Relationships That Matter

What if the measure of success isn’t the sale but the person across the table? We open up about a hard pivot from product-first tactics to people-first presence, sharing how a therapist’s straight talk, a return to Alaska’s handshake culture, and three powerful encounters reoriented our work and our lives.

First, we relive our son’s 0% survival odds and months in a Portland NICU—and the goosebump moment years later when a coworker revealed his mom was Nurse Nancy, the one who dressed our boy in his first outfit on Easter. That full-circle connection reminds us how stories stitch time together when we’re brave enough to tell them. Next, we revisit a fishing trip that grew into a steady friendship with someone old enough to be a father figure, proof that patience, honesty, and small check-ins can become a real safety net. Finally, over coffee, a business contact shares the loss of his son to carbon monoxide and the weight of the unanswerable questions that followed. We don’t fix it. We witness it. And in that space, a different kind of value appears.

Across these moments we explore reframing sales as service, building relationships without tidy metrics, and trusting that presence beats pressure. Alaska’s slower pace and deeper courtesy help us remember who we’re called to be: people who answer the phone, connect the dots, and make time for what matters. If you’ve ever felt stuck chasing numbers or wondering whether your work truly helps, this story offers a grounded path forward—see the human first, and let outcomes grow from trust.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with someone who could use a reminder to slow down and connect, and leave a review telling us the moment that stayed with you.

www.StreamlineEventsLLC.com
www.DoubleDownDuo.com

@StreamlineSEE
@DDownDuo

Youtube-Instagram-Facebook

Transcript

Setting The Stage

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to a murders to music snapshot. So, what if I said it like this? Yo, what's up? Welcome back to a murders to music snapshot. Or I said, Hey guys, this is Aaron with Murders to Music, and welcome to my snapshot. Either way, I'm about to give you 10 minutes of something fun, entertaining, or just something that's on my mind. This week it's on my mind. So when I started talking to my current company about my job and it was a sales position, I told the very first person that I spoke to, and he said, Have you ever thought about sales? And I believe my immediate response was, I don't want to be a greasy used car salesman. That's not who I am. And in that moment, that person said, Hold on, what if sales look like building relationships and being there for people when the phone rings and fixing their problems and connecting the dots for them? And I thought, you know, that's what I've done my entire career. So then I come in to this job, and there is a need, a desire to sell because it's a sales role. In order to sell, you have to plant seeds, you have to cultivate crops, and the nature of our business is we are not going to necessarily see immediate results on our efforts. There's no matrix to measure my progress against. In life, I have noticed that there's no matrix really to measure my progress against in several areas. So I focus on the product and selling the product, and I find that I don't really make a lot of deep connections. So then in frustration, I go to my therapist and I talk to her, and she tells me, you know what your problem is. I'm like, what's that? She's like, you have a bad attitude. And I'm like, well, okay, I guess I do. What does that mean though? And she's like, well, take those same skills that you had in an interview room, connecting with people, listening to them, befriending them, truly investing in them, and do that in your everyday job. She says, God is going to put you in contact with people that may need something beyond whatever you're selling. They may just need to be heard. They may just need a connection. And it resonated with me. So over the last year or so, I have been really trying to connect. And I won't connect with everybody. Not everybody is my cup of tea, and I'm not everybody's cup of tea. But I'm traveling in Alaska this week. And since I've been up here, you know, Alaska is different. Being born and raised up here, I feel like I have just a kinship and a connection to the state. It's a smaller territory, it's not a rat race, and a handshake still means something. If you're broke down on the side of the road where I currently live, people are going to pass you by. In the state of Alaska, you'll have multiple people stop to lend you a hand. It's just the way the last frontier is. And I love this state and I love the people for it. And when I come up here, I find I have a connection, which makes it easier for me to connect and build those deeper relationships. So by the nature of the beast, I meet people in my day in and day out world up here. And I find just this week I have found two different connections. Let me back up. In the last week, I have found three different connections. Let me tell you about them. The first connection, this is actually out of the Portland market. You see, when my son Justice was born, he was born with a congenital diaphragmatic hernia. And that is a hole in the diaphragm where the guts go up into the heart and lung space and compromise the heart, and children are given a very low chance of survival. When my son Justice was born, he was given a 0% chance of survival. We were in Anchorage, Alaska, and we got Medevac to Portland, Oregon. We got Medevac to Emmanuel Hospital for the NICU, Natal Intensive Care Unit. When we arrived, we went into the ladybug section of the NICU. You see, there's a ladybug, a bunny, and a duckling. And it's the different areas of the NICU where the kids go, and as they get towards that duckling, then they get to go home. We were in the NICU for two months. My child was the sickest baby in that hospital for two months. During that time, there's a very few select nurses that could work on those babies and had care for those babies. So we survive, he survives, and next week he turns 21 years old. So last week I'm in Arizona with a coworker of mine from a local distributor in the Portland area. And as we're on that trip, we're talking about family and we're talking about how we got to the Portland area. And I told this story in brief about just like I told you. And he stops me and he says, Hey, he says, When was your son in the NICU? And I said, 2005. And he said, My mom was a nurse in the NICU in 2005. And her name is Nancy. I remember Nancy being my son's nurse. Nancy is the person that first dressed my child. It was Easter Sunday, and I went with another family from the NICU to their church. And when I came back, my son Justice was dressed in his first outfit, and Nurse Nancy is the one that dressed him. Nurse Nancy is the mother of somebody who I work with now. Talk about a full circle God moment. Connecting on that level, getting goosebumps, it is pretty amazing. Would have never got there had I not been willing to open up and share. In Alaska this week, I met with a gentleman who I actually went on a fishing trip with last year. And on the fishing trip, he got to hear a little bit of my story, and I got to hear some of his. And he's he's old enough to be my dad. And as we're talking, as we're talking, I get to hear about some of his family and some of the issues. And he doesn't go too deep. Kind of keeps the cards close to the chest, but there's enough there for me to understand there's something going on. Since that fishing trip in September, I've met with him a couple of times, and each time we become closer and closer. And the relationship gets deeper and deeper. And I saw him this week. And you know, when you have those relationships with people where you feel fully invested, you feel like you could call that person, and they are in your corner 24-7. The look in the eye, it's not about selling the product. It's not about what are you going to buy from me today. It's about how are you and the family and how are you doing and what are you doing to take care of yourself. That relationship I absolutely cherish. I wouldn't have got there unless I was willing to put my bad attitude to the side, use the skills, talents that God gave me, and make a friend. The third, I'm sitting down having coffee with a man who owns a business, and he and I met on a trip last year. These trips, we go out on town for relationship building, and this is the product of it. This week we're sitting down for coffee and we're talking and we're discussing families and how many kids do you have and how many kids do you have? And this question was asked before, but I didn't get the same answer from him. This week I got the answer that seven years ago he lost his son to a carbon monoxide accident. And his son, Gavin, and his mother, this gentleman's wife and Gavin's sister all went to a family cabin, and an accident incident occurred, and Gavin passed away due to carbon monoxide poisoning. The wife and the sister nearly passed away, but by God's grace they survived. And there was the do you blame yourself? There was the could have I done something to prevent this. There was the why did this happen to me? And you're gonna hear this gentleman's full story on the episodes. But the point is, you can sit there and connect when you get out of your own way, when I got out of my own way, when I chose to see beyond the sale, when I chose to see the human being sitting there, that is when I've made these deeper connections. Sitting there with this gentleman, me in tears, and him telling his story, me sitting there with my fishing buddy, connecting on a real level, talking about real family problems, me connecting with my sales manager in Portland about his mother, who's the first person to put clothes on my beautiful 21 year old son. Those are relationships worth having. That is what getting out of your own way will allow you to achieve.