6 - Life Promotion THROUGH Demotion

Ever poured everything into a goal—hard work, sweat, and sacrifice—only to come up short? Maybe even get demoted instead of promoted? That gut punch can feel like failure, but sometimes, what looks like a setback is actually setting us up for something greater. No victim mentality here!

Today, I dive into the concept of demotion—whether it’s being cut from a team, passed over for a promotion, or losing something you thought was yours. I share personal experiences and insights on how these moments aren’t the end but rather a test of resilience. True growth often comes from adversity, and how we respond defines our next move.

Let’s talk about how to turn disappointment into momentum and redefine what success really means.

00:00 Facing Demotion and Dismissal
03:19 Overcoming Setbacks in Sports and Education
06:30 Navigating Professional Challenges
09:16 Resilience in the Face of Adversity
12:18 Finding Purpose Through Pain

Make a Cold connection with exercise physiologist, sales coach, and much more @JoeWannerOfficial on Instagram

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:31

You ever get that phone call, that request to meet, that you know, announcement that you've been anticipating, whether it's being promoted or making a team, and then it just doesn't happen. Or even worse, you've poured all this energy, work, sweat, equity, tears, everything just to have this goal happen. And not only do you not hit the goal, but then you get demoted. Welcome to another episode of the Built for the Cold podcast. Too cold for the average Joe, just right for me and the listeners of this show, where everything that is too hard for others becomes our beginning. That's our playing ground. That's where we thrive. So to recap, real quick, I know we've covered two of the D's so far. We've covered death and we've covered disease. So this is gonna be a little less morbid today. We're gonna talk about different areas where we may have felt we've gotten demoted in life or dismissed. You could have been cut from a team. I know there's a lot of younger listeners to this show. You could have been, you know, waiting for that first job like right out of school, only for it not to happen. That's one of my stories. Or all of a sudden you pour all this time and energy into a company you've been a part of. You thought you were gonna retire with the company, you thought you were gonna put everything in, and there's one day, just despite everything you've done, poof, it's gone. So I'm gonna run through everything that I've overcome as far as this topic is concerned. Now, keep in mind, remember the timelines in the background, all the the disease, all the death that's going on. That's happening simultaneously as these things are going on. So I'm gonna share that with you to hope to inspire you to be like it doesn't matter what happens to you, it's what happens through you and how you overcome it. Because if you get knocked down, like that quote, famous quote says, if you can look up, you can get up. And that's what I chose to do in spite of everything else going on. I chose to look up. It didn't matter if I got up right away, but at least chose to look up. Okay. So in 2009, I had spent my entire like youth wanting to be in the NBA. I just I wanted to be a basketball player, I wanted to do really, really well at it. I was kind of the star of my eighth grade basketball team. I know a star, you guys are all probably laughing like eighth grade, who right? But you know, dropping 30 points or whatever in a championship game. That was me. So when I got to uh the top high school in Oregon, actually our sophomore junior and senior year, we won the state championship at the highest level, which is 6A. So already the top basketball program in the entire state. Um, teammates went on to play in the NBA, stuff like that. So when I got cut in 2009, I just remember that conversation. And the coach didn't mean anything mean about it, but I just I didn't have the money to do AAU basketball. I didn't have all these extra opportunities to really get better at my IQ in basketball. I had the skills, I could work on my ball handling, shooting, and the coach pulled me out of one of the trio teams like, hey man, like, it's just you're just not talented enough to keep up with these guys. So that that was the first time where I was like, all right, this is what a lot feels like to get cut. And it hurt. It definitely hurt because I'd worked my I'd worked my butt off, right? I got cut my freshman year, made it to JV2, my sophomore year, only to warm the bench, and I just kept trying. I just kept trying because I had this dream, but it just wasn't meant to be. In 2010, I remember sitting in the library, this is my senior year, and I had just my track teammates from the previous years, I was never varsity. Um, but the guys who were, I went on to play football at the University of Oregon, actually quite a few of them. So just imagine the speed that they had. Um a lot of them ran Division I track, won college championships, NCAA championships in division one track. These are a lot of my teammates, right? And in 2010, I'm not supposed to hear this conversation, but I'm sitting in the library studying, and I hear the Sprinters coach and the head track coach talking about who they can depend on in certain events. And this is the fall because track's in the spring. And I just remember hearing them talk, they started naming names of like the seniors that they can count on to step up. I was a senior that year, I was gonna go off for track, my name wasn't mentioned at all. And it created this fire in me, this absolute fire. I'm like, I feel so dismissed right now. They don't, that's not their fault. They didn't know. They didn't know I was listening, they didn't even know my intention. So, what did I do with that? I went on to run three varsity events that year. Actually, got ranked into the top eight 400 meter runners in all of the Portland metro area. You know, I went to all these invitations and everything else. I went from a no-name athlete to all of a sudden starting three varsity events. I was in our final four by four relay just because like it inspired me. I looked up and I'm just like, I'm ready to go. I'm ready to face this. I don't care what people think, count me out, but I'm not gonna count myself out. Okay. So that was in high school. And then I got to Marquette, and there's a lot of different stories that I'm I could focus on, but just for the sake of this shorter podcast, is that in 2013, I was an RA, right? Room and board covered, everything else. And there was a there was a couple, if I want to call them this. I'm I've throughout this whole thing, I'm not gonna be naming names just for the sake of um confidentiality of these people because they'll if they ever hear this, they might know who they are. So I'm gonna keep that safe. The companies I'm not gonna name, everything else. But 2013, I get let go um from being an RA. I misunderstood a procedure of someone I uh was friends with in that dorm had uh stuff was stolen. So following procedures, trying to figure out how to help this person. Apparently, there was another RA. I don't think he was totally out to get me, but I had also approached him about a situation where he had actually been like sleeping with one of the other residents, and uh it was bothering a lot of people on different floors, and it was a situation I had to navigate and and I called him out on it and didn't really own up to it. And personally, I kind of feel like he was out to get me, and so used the opportunity of when I was trying to help someone else to kind of like uh write me up, and just like that, there goes 10 grand of room and board. Already I kind of shared different financial struggles, and that's gonna be kind of a future episode here of debt. Um, and but that took away 10 grand and put me in a very tough spot, right? So that was that was one situation that happened. Another situation that happened, so this is at my final senior internship, my spring of my senior year, and I, you know, the owner of this company I'm working for wanted to do some networking with the president and Marquette at the time, kind of the health and wellness team for all their staff. And apparently what happened, I just remember this like it was yesterday. I had sent two emails, one to like the director of like kind of the the healthcare of all of Marquette's staff, and then one to the president just to just to set a meeting. And apparently that was misconstrued by me trying to circumvent a process to the point that actually Marquette wanted to expel me after four years of putting time in and all these internships and jobs and everything else. They wanted to expel me for this mishap, for sending an email inappropriately. And so I had to write this whole letter, which I I I don't I still don't understand why that happened today, but I just know I wrote a letter of like, hey, I apologize, I've misjudged this situation, everything else. But also part of me in the back of my head, I was like, this is ridiculous. Like, I'm about to get expelled because of an email. I didn't even say anything bad. I was just trying to coordinate a time to meet. And I'm I thought I was doing what I was doing for the president of the company for my internship. Yeah, Marquette actually almost kicked me out and expelled me. And many of you probably don't even know this story if you were my classmate at time of Marquette. But they ended up not. I ended up graduating, Magna Kum Laud, you know, good GPA, all that kind of stuff. So I just, but despite that, though, it was it was it was so stressful. I'm like, are you serious right now? Everything I just put in, I'm about to just like lose like this and not even get my degree. This is one month before graduation. One month before graduation, they're about to expel me from my program. Didn't happen, but that was insane. All right, we're gonna fast forward. So, well, not totally fast forward, because that company that I had done that for, by the way, it was a free paid internship, so I wasn't making any money. They offered me a job, nothing crazy, like 30K coming out of school, right, to help them and stuff. I do two weeks of training, and at the end of those two weeks, president pulls me aside, it's like, hey, um, I don't know how to tell you this, my friend, but we we lost some of our biggest clients, so we just don't have the money to pay you right now. And hear of him sitting two weeks post graduation with no professional network in in Wisconsin, because I'm from Portland, Oregon. I'm sitting there like, all right, cool. I don't have a job. Everyone else is all set up, and now I don't have a job, and I need one because I'm the only one out here and I gotta pay, like, I gotta pay rent, I gotta do all this stuff. So that that happened in 2015, and that's what actually catapulted my career into sales because just through just through my ability to cold network with people, that that's it. I've only relied on, that's why I'm the cold call coach. Cold networking, cold calling, just networking with people, get into kind of a staffing and recruiting position, and that started my sales career to the point where in 16 to 17, we had quite a transition in that company where the president and the founder of the company for 25 years and the VP of the entire sales team both got the boot in a matter of like two months. And uh just at that time, a lot of people were leaving everything else. And I did the best I could to like stay there and do what I could, but I ended up getting demoted down to kind of more of a BDR level. I was just I was new, I was young, I was 23. I didn't understand how to navigate you know the tumultuous landscape sometimes, especially in software. So I experienced a demotion in 17 to 18. This was kind of the biggest eye-opening experience when you like put your heart and soul. Remember, I had mentioned I was involved in a network marketing business, and this network marketing business, a lot of great people I've met over the years, I did it for like eight or nine years, but this first team that I was with, this first organization, it got to a point where things started to get a little uh like uh, how do I want to say it? I don't want to say completely shady, but when you get a call and say, hey, if the corporation like calls you, like say this. I'm like, um, here I am trusting all these people that act like they know what they're doing in business. And now I'm gonna get found out by the contracting company because of something you guys did to my volume or whatever. Like, hold on. Like, and I had a team at that time and everything else that I had built up that I just I chose to leave because I cannot operate with people that don't have integrity. Now, I know some of those people who are listening right now remember this story, and I just want you to know that I forgive you. I'm not holding any bitterness. You guys just did the best you knew at the time based off the information you were given. I know other pupp people have released podcasts and what happened, all that type of stuff. It's like I if you take ownership for it and you say I'm sorry, like I'm gonna forgive you. And I forgive everyone that I've experienced these different situations with. That's the thing. Like forgiveness, what whether they did wrong or not, forgiveness actually cleans your heart so that way you can keep going and pursuing what you need to pursue. Because the devil actually wants you to stay in that place. He wants you to play victim, he wants you to ask, oh, woe is me, all this type of stuff, because that's preventing you from actually moving forward into your God-given purpose, right? So that was network marketing. Um, from 17 to 18, that whole situation happened. I had to leave that whole environment with my girlfriend, left the team and everything. I'm still great friends with those people today. That's the crazy part. But I'm gonna fast forward here a little bit um just because this is when I from 18 to 2023 is when I started to see some success, you know, where I'm basically in my late 20s, making a couple hundred thousand a year, um, feeling pretty good about everything that I've built up to that point. And that was in commercial insurance. Well, in 2023, I had just come off um actually a pretty, pretty decent month. Um, probably I was like 70k in commission that month. So I'm sitting there, like being like, all right, this is going really, really well. And now all of a sudden I'm being recruited by a very large company. Again, I'm not naming names of companies or people or anything. And people who are listening to this might know this story, but I'm just not going to name it for for many of you here. But a very large company reaches out to me, asks me to head the enterprise team and build out their whole business-to-business strategy. So, you know, on track to make another few hundred thousand that year in insurance, I actually completely gave that up and just went for my shot to be with this company. Only for within a month, them to fold that entire strategy and division, not only to do that, but then a month later, after I'm just like, I the floor just felt like it was just ripped out under me, and they gave me some options like, well, you can sell this or sell this. And I'm like, this is not what I was brought here for. And then all of a sudden, one month later, I get a call from them to get on this meeting, and now I'm here sitting on a performance plan a couple months in. And I just can't believe what's even happening. I was like, how did I go from doing this to taking a shot at like a like a dream job or position or career to all of a sudden having the floor taken under me? And now not just that, but adds you know, salt to a wound or whatever. It's like now I'm gonna be putting a performance plan for this when there's nothing that I was brought here to sell in the first place. There's no infrastructure, anything. And I forgive these people. They they were they were doing the best that they could at the time, but the craziest part about it is like all those people that were involved at that time are actually no longer with this company. So that was fascinating. That was quite the experience. Very stressed out, caused a lot of anxiety, caused a lot of stress, but I at the same time, it's just it took a couple weeks, and I'm like, all right, let's think. How can I use this? How can I overcome this? Remember, it's feel it, pray into it, and then how can I use it? That's the system. It's the simple system. It's just you can't spend so much time getting caught up in it because this final story was November 11th at 1111 a.m. I can't even make this up. I have it saved on my phone exactly when I got this call. Okay. This is uh a very large company I was working for. You know, they do mid-nine figures. Not gonna name them, not gonna name the people. However, my manager and his manager, I was very good friends with, actually both veterans. I remember because it's 1111, it's Veterans Day. I thanked them that morning for their service. About two hours later, I get a call from neither of them, from an executive that I never reported to, never really talked too much at all, called me and said, Hey, is this Joe? Yeah, hey, I got HR on the line with me. Um yeah, well, there's been some internal discussion, and you know, uh, we don't think you're a fit anymore for a company, so today's the last day. And I'm sitting there like, hold on a second, hold on a second. I just came here and within an entire year built up a brand new book from zero, from absolute zero, to almost about five million in premium, on top of helping manage and train an office that was around 30 to 40 reps. We grew from about like 10 to 20 to 30 to 40 reps within like nine months. And that's where we're at. And you're telling me, and I just had like a 500,000 premium month the previous month. And so I'm sitting there with all these thoughts in my head, and I asked this question I'm like, can I I'm really confused because based off how my performance and metrics and everything else, but can you guys at least tell me why? No, we can't. We'll send you the paperwork, HR will reach out to you. Click. No exit interview. My termination letter said I'm no longer a fit. And I was bamboozled. I was like, what just happened? I don't even under I I don't understand. And I had friends and I had you know, attorney friends and everyone else being like, hey, you should go after blah blah blah. And I just I didn't feel that in my heart. I just didn't. I just felt like what's the point of that? They kept a lot of commission I had stored up too. And again, I'm not I'm not bitter. Like it took time to kind of just recognize what's the whole point of this story, but it was so significant that I'm like, it took one or two days, and then all of a sudden I'm back on my board. I'm trying out what's the what's the next step. So instead of pursuing uh attorneys or pursuing, hey, like how could I whatever for this unjust termination I feel I just had? Guess what I did? I poured my energy into my businesses and tripled my monthly income within one month of what I had from them. Because think of it, almost a 5 million book, average commission percentage is, you know, three, three and a half, four percent. You do the math, yada, yada, yada. I tripled my income because I don't care what happens to me. It's how I respond. That is ice cold resilience. That's Mamba mentality. That's how you face the storm of whatever happens to you. And I just remember praying and praying, like, God, why has this happened? Why has this happened? Give me the answer. And I was at a networking event for actually that they hosted this, like, you know, AI dude that's worth like 130 million. And in networking in that room, I met one guy who was actually one of the top executives ever in print, worked with all these bougie brands, like all these yacht companies, you know, Ferrari, Bentley, everything on their digital print. And he told me his story. And he asked me this question that gave me my whole purpose. He was like, Did you at least get what you needed? And I was like, Boom, that's it. There's a story. Because remember this system. Remember the system. You have to feel it first. With all those cuts from teams or feeling like I was dismissed or I was demoted, I felt it. I took time to just absorb what just happened because if I didn't feel it, I knew I couldn't get clarity through it, right? I did pray a lot because I didn't understand. I didn't understand why I would do all this stuff and like leave insurance, get completely the rug taken out from under me on the division I was hired to bring on, but on a performance plan, only for a year later to be almost in the same spot where I build this whole thing up again, pour into so much into this company, a company that I was rookie of the year in. I helped lay the framework for their entire enterprise division. That's the foundation for what they actually use now as their scaled model, right? Not only that, but also help build one of their largest sales offices and train them. All this stuff I did, I'm like, God, can you give me like why? Because it turned into a story. I am using this as a story to help each one of you understand it's not what happens to you. Some things you just can't control, but you need to eliminate the excuse of other people that are gonna use that story to play victim. I don't care what's happened to you. I pray for you. What like I that does not take away from the very real feelings that you have because feeling victim is different than acting as a victim. You can feel like a victim in that moment in time, like what the heck happened? Like, I don't understand. But if you choose to stay in that, you're gonna miss out on the deepest purpose God has for your life because He's meant to use that so you can help someone else understand and overcome it. So hope this makes sense. Hope this helps. I love you guys so much. And I think the reason why I feel so strong and compelled is that there's so much that has been thrown at me because I really believe the devil wants to knock you out when you have a dream for God's biggest purpose in your life. So go and grow. You know, hope you enjoyed this with another cup of gel. And see you on the next one.