What's going on everybody? Welcome back to another episode of Two Dads and Tech. Today we got a really good episode. We have somebody that I think deserves a bigger introduction than just your typical introduction.
So let me get into, uh, let me get into the, the, the mode here. So, [clears throat] ladies and gentlemen- [humming] Coming to you from the startup trenches.
He has battled through nine surgeries, four years in the hospital, and came out swinging harder than ever, standing six foot two. I have no idea how tall you are. The man who turned pain- That's the actual- Are you 6'2"?
Literally 6'2". [laughs] Hey, whoa. Hey. We did it. All right, that was a guess. The man who turned pain into process and scars into sales playbooks, has scaled six startups from $0 to $25 million in revenue.
He's the founder of Scott Leese Consulting, the co-creator of the infamous Thursday Night Sales, RIP, and the mastermind behind Surf and Sales, and a three-time best-selling author. The man, the myth, the legend.
Give it up for- The one and only... the one and only, Scott Leese. Scott, Scott, Scott Leese. What's going on, Scott? Man, what an intro. That might be my favorite- Was that okay? [laughs]... intro of all time.
That might be my favorite intro of all time. That was my favorite intro. Mine. Was it, was it accurate? That was my favorite of all time. [laughs] Yeah. I mean- He's like, actually I'm five foot three...
I mean, I was gonna give you credit for doing some deep research to figure out that, that I am 6'2" actually. That's right. But it- I actually, yeah, it was a guess... it's actually more impressive that it was a guess.
It's actually more impressive that way. I was like, he's probably taller than me. And Daniel is actually surprisingly, what, 6'4"? Yeah, 6'5" if I'm wearing shoes. It depends.
[laughs] If I'm wearing my Brooks Max, I'm 6'6". Those things are massive. [laughs] But anyways, yeah. Yeah. 6'2" could be an offensive thing. You know?
If someone's, if someone's, like, not quite six foot, they're like, "Aw," and a little twinkle down their eye. That's me. Just because they're not quite six. I'm 5'11 and a half. [laughs] Oh, oh, oh. You're the guy.
Yeah, I know. Oh, man. That's me. The guy. You're on the other side. The ID says 6'0", of course, but... I know. Only, only people under six foot use half inches to describe their height. I know. [laughs] I know.
That's so true, actually. That's so true. It is. You will never see somebody say, "I'm 6'3 and a half." Yeah. Ever, ever. Yeah, no, no. Oh, man. We have nothing left to prove at that point. I know. Oh.
You don't, you don't. Well, we got some tall people in here. I'm, I'm above average in height, so that's kinda cool. I'm 5, I'm 5'11". Whatever makes you sleep at night. Um, anywho. [laughs] Scott, so great to have you.
Um, real quickly. What in the world does a fractional CRO do? Yeah, you work on a bunch of different things. It could be, uh, kinda retooling a, a startup's messaging, for example.
Could be a sales pitch, cold call script, inbound script, how they demo, copywriting that they use for emails or, or social selling.
Could be other outbound campaigns you're working with them on, like, uh, event strategies, referral strategies, in-person selling, direct mail.
Includes a lot of reve- revenue operations stuff, process optimization, you know, installation of, uh, HubSpot or Salesforce, things like that.
Or, or, or different tools like Gong or something like that, or Outreach sales loft back in the day. You help with recruiting, you help with coaching and training,
and, uh, yeah, it's just kinda everything under the sun, man. You know? Um. Yeah. It's a bridge between somebody who can't maybe afford a full-time VP of sales or CRO- Yeah...
um, and somebody who doesn't really want to or know how to do a bunch of these things themselves, to put the right sort of mechanisms in place to, to build a, a, a high-growth sales machine.
I'd love to hear how you bridge what you're doing day to day with the, I'll call it persona you give off on LinkedIn. It's something I'm quite fond of. I, I, I don't know if you've ever seen anything I do on LinkedIn.
I'm an idiot. I'm, like, a professional idiot. Uh, like, just a moron. Just a, just a full-blown, you know, you, you question how I even got where I am.
But so you're not that way, but I'm inspired by the, the gut-wrenching just this is how it is, this is how it's been, this is what sales is like, this is what I've seen work.
And, like, you peel back the layers, you're, you're very professional. Of course, you, you are helping businesses grow. You have grown your own businesses.
As this fractional, you know, you know, employee/contractor, like what, what's the, what's the connection? 'Cause some of the stuff you're writing about and the, the pers- personality you have is kinda out there, right?
I mean, it's, it's for LinkedIn. I mean, right? We're, we're... If you go to Twitter, it's just how everyone is. But- [laughs]... tell me, tell me about what you think about.
How, how do you, how do you come up with some of these, these pieces of content?
Well, listen, I, I've either lived it and been through it, or are going through it right now, or some of them come from stories that people tell me.
I don't even know how many kinda DMs I get per day where somebody's asking for help on such and such topic, or, you know, wants to talk to me for a few minutes about their situation, or is just complaining about something that they're going through and needs some advice.
So, you know, there's no shortage of inspiration at any given time. And, you know, when I committed to kinda growing my network and
figuring out this personal brand kinda thing, I never wanted to be somebody that I wasn't. I never tried to talk about things that I don't know anything about.
I never tried to pretend to be some corporate cog in the machine. I've never been that guy. So I, I, I am who I am.
And, and, and people who have met me in person and spent any time with me, sometimes they're a little surprised by that, and they're like, "Yo, wow, you're kinda the same person." I'm like, "Yeah.
I don't know what you expected me to be." I guess everybody thought it's, like, some shtick or something like that. But no, man, I, I, uh, just say what I say.
I, I don't care that much about the powers that be and what they, they might think of me. You know? I'm, I'm not for everybody, and that's totally fine. It's just a way to,
you know, kinda really disqualify people, I guess, [laughs] if you will. Yeah. And, you know- Yeah... be left with people who are kinda-Part of my, my tribe, so to speak.
And, you know, the feedback that I get more than any about people who, who review my content on LinkedIn is that they kind of thank me for being authentic and saying stuff that other people won't say. Yeah.
And, you know, kind of a- Yeah... a breath of fresh air stuff. I mean, I, I'm not trying to boast about myself, but that- Yeah... that's what I get the most from, from other people. Yeah.
And, you know, that feels pretty good- Yeah... to be honest with you.
One thing you said was, "I am who I am," and there was a post that stuck out to me, I think it was earlier this year, and I don't even know the post because I just... I remember I, I read it.
I don't know exactly what it said, but it was something along the lines of in 2024...
And to backtrack a little bit, everybody, Scott has over, like, 120,000 followers on LinkedIn, and if you're in the LinkedIn world, then you know that, like, you can make a good amount of money on LinkedIn.
If you're not in the LinkedIn world, now you know that you can make a good amount of money on LinkedIn. And so you made a post about how you spent 2024, I can't remember the...
what it said verbatim, but something along the lines of, like, shouting out products to get the bag, and, like, you're not gonna do that anymore.
And I've seen a lot of, just being in the creator space, I've seen a lot of creators also do the same thing, and then it damages their reputation. Did you- Whoa, man. Hey... see any of- Stop, stop firing shots over here.
I, I, I- No, no, no, no, no... my family's gotta eat. My family's gotta eat. Oh, yeah. No, I'm kidding. Dan is one of them. [laughs] No, um, no, no, I don't, I don't blame people. I don't...
Like, you spend years building up this audience- You can't walk it back... it's like you- Damage is already done... you can go... You, dude, you can go make, like, 10K plus just from 30 seconds of work.
Like, I, I know that, right? And so did that damage the reputation at all? Or, like, what made you decide, "You know what? No more of this BS. I'm just gonna be real me. I'm not..." And, and not saying that- Yeah...
you weren't real you, but I mean, you got... You know, you wanted to get paid. Yeah, that- Everybody wants to... that was, uh, some of those posts were probably the, the closest that I've been to flirting with
not being true to myself, to be honest- Yeah... with you. I was making pretty good money in 2024. I'm talking thousands of dollars for one single post regularly. Yeah.
And, you know, to your point, i- if you get to a certain level and you're getting thousands of dollars per post, it's not hard to make $10,000 a month just for shouting out somebody else's product and their company and, and things like that.
And if you know and like the founder or you know and like the product, then it's even easier to, you know, kinda endorse it. But for me, I just started to feel kinda icky. You know?
I, I just started to feel like I'm just shouting things out just for the hell of it, just taking the money, don't really care or know this person, don't really care or, or want to use this particular product. No. Right?
And, um, that started to kind of affect me a little bit, and I started to have one or two people message me and say, "Do you really use that product? This, this post doesn't sound like you. It doesn't feel like you." Mm.
And I just thought, "I don't need to do this anymore. I don't need that money." Not all, all dollars are good dollars. Yeah. And so coming into 2025, I, I just decided, "You know what? I'm not gonna do it anymore.
I'm not gonna do it this year, the whole year, and, uh, you know, let's see how that feels." Am I done with it forever? I don't know, but I haven't done any of those paid sponsored posts this whole year,
and, uh, I don't, I don't regret it, even though I've lost, you know, some significant income probably from it, but that's okay. I'm doing okay in, in a lot of other areas. And so I...
It was more proactive protection before I kinda lost myself potentially a- and maybe cause some reputational harm. So I think I cut it off- Yeah... before it, it got too, too damaging for me. Yeah. Yeah.
Not for other people- Yeah, yeah... I suppose, but for me, that's what it felt. Yeah. I've been in that same boat where it's like, "Oh, you wanna offer a couple thousand bucks just to spend 30 seconds writing a post?"
And I've done it a couple times here and there. Nowadays I just tell people, "Hey, like, I'm trying to figure out what makes my job more efficient.
I don't give a shit about the money you give me, but if you just offer me the product and I use it and I like it, I will post about it often because I use it often."
So a good example is I just did a 30-day cold call challenge. Every single day at the end of the day, I would post my results and the tech stack I use and how it's helped me, and they don't pay me at all.
I probably could have made a lot of money, but at the end of the day, like, it makes my job more efficient. I'm making more money by using them, yada, yada, yada. So yeah, I've seen some people that, you know, are
still posting all the time, and that's just... I get it. I get it. You know? Money, money is very helpful. Yeah. Takes you out of some stressful situations. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, like I said, I don't know if I'll
be done with it forever, but I'm definitely done with it this year for now. Just this year. Yeah. Yeah. I just told...
I, I, I'm getting paid to post, uh, periodically, but I told one of the partners I work with, I'm like, "Hey, I, I don't know if I can do this anymore." It's, uh...
because I'm, I'm at that cusp right now in my own journey of like, yeah, this feels like I don't need to even do it anymore, and it's, it feels kind of fake.
Uh, particularly when, when people know when I'm not being fake how outrageous I am, and then I'm in here with, like, a sponsored partner post. Like, well, that was clearly just to get the bag. [laughs] Yeah.
Well- That, that, that's a- that's also what screws it up, though, is that a- Yeah... lot of the vendors wanna control the copy or the style. I know. I know.
Which is hilarious because they come to you in theory because of this brand and reputation that you- Yes... built for yourself because of the way you talk and communicate. So they'd want...
They hire you for that, and then they wanna change the messaging and style. You, you break the table- I know... completely. It's like- Yeah... wait a second.
What did you even c- why'd you even knock on my door if you don't like the way I talk? You know? It's so counterintuitive. Yeah. 'Cause then your- Yeah... your followers know the way you talk.
It's gonna resonate with- Yeah... the people following you if you talk the way you talk. So switching gears, y- you've spent some time in the hospital.
I don't wanna take the words out of your mouth, but I'd love for you to take us back to those years. Uh, help us understand, like, the journey you went through that brought you to who you are today. Oh, man. Yeah.
Um-I, I was going to graduate school at Arizona State, and I was doing a two-year master's program in one year for some g- genius reason that I don't even remember. I just wanted to be done, get it over with.
And I was also teaching a full undergraduate course load at Arizona State. So I was teaching like freshman and sophomore computer literacy classes, which was hilarious because I was like the least tech savvy person ever.
So I'd literally be up like all night trying to learn the material that I was supposed to go teach at like 8 or 9 o'clock in the morning. Love it. And so it, you know, it was just like a really stressful year.
And I came home to Northern California, where I'm from, after that, uh, that year, and I just started to get really sick, man, just like out of nowhere.
Like somebody flipped a switch, and there was no going back, and I started to have a lot of severe stomach pain. I think I weighed about 195 at the time, and I, I lost like 50, 60 pounds, you know, within two months.
And I'm, you know, skeletal, basically, and ended up in the hospital very fast. And it, it took them a while to figure out what was going on.
They finally diagnosed me with autoimmune disease, severe ulcerative colitis, and then it just like spiraled from there. Yeah. I started having chronic kidney stones. I started having organ troubles.
I started to get cancerous growths on my large intestine and blockages, strictures, things like this.
And eventually had to, you know, come to me and say, "We've got to remove your large intestine, and you're too weak to kind of survive the surgery in one shot, so we've got to do, you know, a couple of them, basically."
And, uh, you know, d- I've had nine surgeries overall. Uh, four of them were major- Wow... life-saving, serious abdominal surgeries, two of which were emergency surgeries.
Like i- in recovery one time, I sprung a leak, for lack of a better word, and was, you know, kind of going toxic internally. Yeah, just a horrible, horrible period of time in my life. It's 25 years ago or so now.
Pre-Netflix, pre-social media. So you're really disconnected, you know. It was just like total isolation in the hospital.
And, you know, for four years you're in pain, and so what do they give you when you're in pain when you're in the hospital? They give you pain meds.
So by the time I, you know, was, quote-unquote, "healthy" and ready to try to leave the hospital, I was 27 years old, and now I had an opioid addiction. You know? Mm. Uh, they don't really warn you about that part.
[chuckles] So- Yeah... got out of the hospital, and luckily for me, for some reason, the psychological part of addiction didn't really take hold too much. It was really more physical.
I, I had been through so much that I sort of was like, "Oh, I gotta cold turkey and, and kinda, you know, detox for a couple weeks. Gotta go through withdrawals. Whatever, dude. A couple weeks is nothing."
You know, I was able to look at it like that. So that's what I did. I cold turkeyed, and it was against doctor's orders, and the hospital made me sign all this paperwork, you know,
releasing them of liability and all this kind of shit. So I did the whole Trainspotting thing, you know. It was not fun, man. Not at all. And, you know, so there I was, 27 years old.
I had a master's degree, an undergrad- undergraduate degree, but I didn't remember anything that I studied at that point in time, and I had no idea what I was gonna do with my life.
And a buddy of mine suggested that I try sales, and I try very early stage startups, because at the time, you know, it was kind of a grow at all costs, grow by headcount era, the early 2000s.
They would hire anybody off the street, basically. Right? So, you know, no, no business experience, no sales experience, no entrepreneurial kind of role model in my, in my family in that regard.
And that was it, you know. And, and I think some of the things that I have done and been through in my life translated, right?
Like, I had a psychology degree and a master's degree, uh, so I understood people and how to motivate people and how to coach and train people. My master's was in educational technology and instructional design. Hm.
So I combined that with psychology and just understanding human behavior, and I'm competitive as hell. I played two sports in college for four years at a pretty high level and, uh, obviously resilient, right?
So, you know, I, I, I got to a place where I'm like, "Well, I don't really think I should care about whether I hit my quota or I get fired, 'cause I don't think that's that big of a deal by comparison to what I've already been through."
Hm. So I had this different perspective and this sense of urgency because I had been deprived of fresh air for like four years. So, you know, got on the phone, and the rest of my career is, is history, so they say.
But it's, uh- Hm... it's very surreal to look back and think about all this, you know? Yeah. Yeah, so I've seen you post about that a few times, and it's insane to even think about.
It's insane to even try to imagine like being in those shoes. Like, you can't, right? I can't never imagine that, what that felt like, what that was like. When you cold turkey quit,
did you immediately say, "I'm gonna go out there and, and make something happen"? Or was there kind of like some sort of lull time?
I know that you, you got into sales soon after, but was there any time where you're like, "What do I do with my life?" Were you scared to like start over? You just...
You know, it's been years since I feel like you had reality- No... face you, and now here you are. You know, I, I had a lot of those thoughts while I was in the hospital. Yeah. You know, what am I gonna do?
I don't have anything. I've lost everything. You know. So I kinda had already been through the grieving period.
So by the time I was out a- and I was clean, and I was on my way to, to health, I really was kind of fired up to get started and do something, you know? Yeah. So I- Yeah...
there was no kind of period where I got out, and it was like, "Oh my gosh, this is great. I'm just gonna walk- Yeah... around and-You know, soak up the sun now.
You know, maybe I should have done that, but I wasn't, I wasn't wired that way. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I was sort of wired like, "Where's the starting line, man? I'm ready, dude."
I've, I've been, you know, obsessing over this moment for years, worrying if it was ever gonna come. You know, now I gotta go prove I'm here for a reason, and I gotta go prove it, right? Yeah.
Trying to make up for lost time. Um- Yeah... I had a, I had a friend recently, and she had a, a brain aneurysm, and she was 38 weeks pregnant at the time.
She's great now, but one thing now is, you know, she got through it. I wouldn't say great. She's battling through other things right now, but one thing she says is like she now has essentially PTSD.
Anytime she gets a headache, she's like, "Oh, crap. Is it happening again?" You mentioned that it started from stomach pain. Like, do you ever think like, "Uh-oh," like, "Is this, is this happening all over again?"
Or is it like- Yeah... "I'm good. Doctors gave me the clear. We're good to go"? [chuckles] No, no, no, no. My version of being healthy and good would put most people back in the hospital.
So I live with this every single day. I still have pain every single day. I still have scares all the time. I definitely have PTSD. I...
Part of my sense of urgency, I think, comes from a fear of the rug being pulled out from under me again at any point in time. And I have to have regular checkups and tests.
I have to take three different medications every day, basically, for the rest of my life. So I understand what your friend is talking about.
And, you know, you get a, a stomach pain, and you think, "Oh, sh- you know, here we go again." Mm. Over time, you know, you, you...
I've gotten more and more kinda tuned into my body, and I can tell the difference between certain types of pain or certain types of,
you know, sicknesses or illnesses that are, that are coming on, and I've started to care more and more about my, you know, longer term health as I get older and, and things like that.
But that, that fear doesn't really go away. You know, it doesn't really go away. And, and it extends to, you know, I don't wanna be a dad that goes away too early and leaves his kids, you know, fatherless when they're
in elementary school or when they're in high school or whatever. You know, I'm 48 years old now, and the life expectancy of somebody with my condition is in their early 60s.
So sometimes I think, "Jesus Christ, I got like 10, 15 years left. That's all I got?" Yeah. And then, you know, you have to try to push through that and, and
try to recognize that that's trauma and not necessarily re-reality, and the average doesn't mean that you're gonna fall into the average. But it, it weighs on you, man. It's an ever-present thing.
It's an ever-present thing. That's, uh, yeah, that resonates with me, uh, quite a bit.
I, I don't have the same health story as you, uh, but I've had chronic back pain for about 15 years now, and I've had four different back surgeries. And so the PTSD a-approach of, like, if I tweak my neck, my, uh...
Well, there you go. I'm gonna, you know, the two months out in the hospital. Like, every time I tweak or wake up in there, I mean, I'm just like, "Oh, geez, did I rupture a disc?"
And I have, you know, uh, undiagnosed degenerative disc disease, so I'm just always dealing with stuff. But what you mentioned around, you know, life expectancy, kids.
I had a midlife crisis along some of those lines about two years ago now, where my dad had a heart attack, the third heart attack, uh, that he's had. He's in his mid-60s.
And so, you know, this one was quite a bit more nerve-wracking than the other two, which, you know, heart attacks are heart attacks.
But I looked at myself, I looked at my health, I looked at the way I was treating my body, uh, and I had just become a father of my second child at the time, and I got scared. I got scared about what
m-my, not legacy, that's not the right word, but what my future looked like and how my kids either were or were not gonna have a dad when they were graduating from college or getting married or...
And that changed everything about my life. I changed the way I ate. I changed the way I felt about work, how I treated work/life balance. I changed the way I exercise. Still have pain right now.
Even right now, my neck hurts. Uh, and it's like a ruptured disc that an ortho said, "Yeah, you should probably get surgery," but I'm really trying not to. So it's like every day I'm dealing with it. I wonder,
and I, I don't, you know... I'm spiritual. That's how I deal with some of this stuff. But how do you ground yourself? Like, how do you, how do you stay out of your own head?
Because I find it's very hard to stay out of my own head, and I can spiral really fast. Yeah. It's a great question, and I think one that anybody who's had serious injury or health issues,
uh, you know, can, can relate to. You know, sometimes there's destructive ways that you deal with it. Drink too much or get into drugs or something that you shouldn't be, you know, messing around with.
Sometimes you can mask it by staying busy, and I've definitely been guilty of that. You know, and I, I've been told before that I have two speeds, and one of them is full speed ahead, and the other one is dead stop.
And sometimes I don't know how to shift between the two, and life just does it for me. You know, so you got neck pain. I'll use you as an example. You got neck pain.
It's like, well, as long as you stay busy, man, as long as you have this call now and this other call coming up, and you gotta go to this thing here, and you go to that thing next, you're distracting yourself from the pain, really.
Mm. Yeah. And I'm not saying that's a healthy strategy, but that is a strategy and one that I have used consistently for years to stay busy. I don't-I'm not good at sitting around and doing nothing, okay?
So that's one strategy. The other things that I've done is I've gone way deep down the rabbit hole of, you know, alternative medicine a- and non-kind of traditional things. I'm a huge proponent of cold plunging.
I, I have osteopenia. Okay. My ligaments and joints are all screwed up from all the medications that I've- Oh, hey, and while we have you hooked, let's go ahead and give a quick shout-out to our sponsor, Momentous.
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And, uh, you know, it's done wonders for just, like, everyday pain for me. Do you cold plunge every day? I, I mean, I live in Austin, Texas. It's hot as hell, so during the summer I go multiple times a day. Yeah. Right?
Yeah. Um- I've thought, I thought about doing that... if I have, if I have a- I still have never done a cold plunge, but I would like to- You-... start trying it...
well, you should given, given what you've had going on, you know? That's what people say. I mean, for anybody who has autoimmune disease or joint pain or injury, it's all about inflammation, right? Yeah.
So you're trying to- Yeah... get inflammation out of your body any way you can. Mm-hmm. So, you know, freezing cold water, that's one way to, to give it a boost. Changing your diet. Yeah. You know, I- Yeah...
I went down that rabbit hole, figured out I had 41 different food allergies. Whoa. So, you know, I had to rip out 41 different things from my diet. Normal stuff, you know, gluten, dairy, soy, things like this.
No caffeine, no coffee, no beer. You know, all, all, all that kind of stuff. I built a sauna in my backyard. So- I love that... you know, in, in the last year- I thought about doing that, too...
in the last year or so, I've- That's so cool... you know, so I go in the sauna every single day. I go in the cold plunge multiple times a day. So the- these things have become almost a ritual for me.
So in addition to the actual health benefits of them, there's a... It's like a grounding ritual, right? Either you start your day off that way, or you...
maybe I do it in the middle of the day because I'm feeling stressed and I, and I'm just trying to, like, recenter myself. Sometimes I'm too busy and I, so I do it at the end of the day to kinda wind down, right?
And the last thing I'll, I'll say is I try to stay grounded by never kind of, um, getting too excited about how great things are going and, and trying to never get too down about how things are going.
I try to stay- Mm... as even keel as I can and, uh, kind of manage the emotions of it a little bit.
So, you know, I'm not somebody that makes a million bucks this month and goes and buys a, you know, $500,000 fucking car or something stupid like that. No, no.
And, you know, if I, if I have a down month where I do 70% of my normal, I'm pissed off and upset about it, but I'm trying to re- I try to remind myself, like, "Ah, whatever," you know? "What's, what's the big deal?"
Yeah. Like, "You're fine. You're still okay." Especially now that I work for myself, it's like, you know, my boss is pretty cool. [laughs] So, you know, I take it easy on myself a little bit. Yeah, yeah.
And, and again, as I get older and I've become more and more kind of financially stable, uh, I, I can back away from some of the go, go, go stuff and quote call in sick and go play golf one day or, you know, just take the, take the foot off the gas every now and then.
So you gotta construct your life, I think, Daniel, in such a way that,
you know, this grounding, whatever it is that works for you, becomes a part of your every day, not something that you do once a year or once a quarter or something like that, but part of your every day.
Might be time for Daniel to hire Scott after this episode. [laughs] I can't, I can't let the conversation stop there, but for the sake of the episode, we can move on. [laughs] That's really... That's good. That's good.
Do you, uh- Yeah, I'm happy to help... do you think you found the balance between full speed ahead and dead stop? I think I'm getting really close, yeah.
I don't think, I don't think I've got it perfected, but I, I, I have landed in the sweet spot at times now, whereas before I think I really struggled to ever find the sweet spot. Okay.
And now I'm able to land there, and now I'm trying to stay there a little bit longer. So do I have it perfected? Yeah. No. I don't, I definitely don't have it perfected. Yeah.
But there's a lot of things that I can point to and say, "Oh, that's a different type of decision that I made right there. That's a decision that is more, you know, kind of middle ground.
That's a decision that is more steeped in compromise than extremism." And, you know, I'm sure for me, I think it will be something that I probably struggle with,
you know, my whole life, just trying to, trying to land in that sweet spot longer and longer and longer and stay there and be comfortable with it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think I'm in a... I don't know.
I think I'm also right now full speed ahead or dead stop, and, and I'd say dead stop as I try to get work done, but I find other, other things to do to, to keep me distracted. But it's just, it's tough.
It's tough to find that sweet spot. Two kids. Like, actually today they're home from daycare. I was like, "Hon, I gotta hit this podcast. You need to take the kids. I know you have a call at 9:00-" Yeah. "...
but I gotta go." Um- Yeah. So yeah, it's just, it seems like it's go, go, go, go, go right now, and, uh- Yeah, and, and when you're wired that way, the tricky part is
y- you're conditioned, you've conditioned yourself to believe that that is your edge, and that is the way that you- Ooh... win. Mm. You took it- Right?... you took it out of my, out of my brain.
And so- Over here just massaging my brain. [laughs] Oh, man. And, and, and so you s- there's a part of you that worries, likeWell, if I take my foot off the gas here a little bit, does this whole thing fall apart? Yeah.
You know- Wow... what if I can't actually be successful unless I am going 100% of the time? Yeah.
How can I actually maintain or become more successful, maintain my level of success or become more successful while also somehow slowing down on the gas pedal a little bit? And- Yeah. Mm...
that's a very real fear and concern, I think, for people who tend to go, go, go a- all the time and then crash. And they crash- Yeah...
by just, like, vegging out all weekend and not leaving the couch, or they crash by Friday or Saturday night getting absolutely shit housed and then spending Sunday trying to recuperate, right?
And it's a real, it's a real thing. Yeah. You know, I struggle with it even now, I think.
Well, if I, if I lose my competitive edge a little bit, and that is my competitive edge, like, I can outwork everybody, I can be more focused than everybody, give a shit more than everybody.
If I lose that edge a little bit, then what do I have left? And, you know- Yeah. Yeah... there's, there's a lot of reflection required to sit in that moment and try to figure it out. Yeah.
So- Yeah, I never thought of it like that, but now that you're saying it, I'm like, "Damn, that's me." [chuckles] I know. That's me.
[chuckles] Uh, so considering that, and I agree, uh, I do think I, I'm, I'm full speed ahead chaos or, like, depressed and not out of bed. [chuckles] It's, like, my two modes of operation. Yeah. That's a dead stop.
Which is- Fair enough... I mean, legit, like, uh, like, burnout, dead stop, sick physically, or just chaos, and that's not healthy. I know that's not healthy.
But when you go into a-- considering that as your worldview and your opinion, and I agree with the opinion, when you go into a startup as a fractional VP of sales and you look at their mode of operation, like, what's the first thing you're looking for in a team of 20 salespeople with, you know, a typical traditional sales org having been run?
I've worked in a lot of sales orgs and seen a lot of sales leaders, like, full speed ahead is, like, that's how you, that's how you build a sales org for a lot- Yeah... of people, right? So what are you looking at?
Well, I'm not- How do you, how do you approach that? Well, I'm not... Well, just to be clear, I'm not there to give these people life advice. That's not why- Mm... they're, they're hiring me, right? Yeah.
This type of conversation that we're having, that's not what they wanna hear from me. That's right. That- They want me to look at-... was the first thought I had.
[laughs] They want me to, they want me to look at what's going on and figure out how to, you know, dump kerosene on it and, and light it on fire. Yes. Yeah.
So the first thing I look for is what is the sense of urgency of the founder, number one, and that reveals- Mm... itself in a million tiny decisions every single day. Like, how fast does Daniel respond to me?
How long did Troy take to review the agreement before we signed it? Yeah.
Uh, you know, if I put inter- if I put candidates in front of somebody, how many rounds of interviews are they having with somebody before they're actually saying yes to this person?
If Troy and I are working on, I don't know, to redoing the, uh, objections and rebuttals kind of training and documentation, and it's his turn to get it back to me.
Does he get it back to me same day, or am I waiting four or five days? So that sense of urgency, I think, is massive from founders, from founding AEs, from heads of sales. So I'm always kind of evaluating that.
I'm evaluating the, the odds of this company being a home run, let's say.
I'm, I'm at a point in my advisory work and consulting work where I'm not really interested in just, like, taking the money from some client, uh, that I don't think that they can become a hundred million dollar or billion dollar kind of exit.
That doesn't do anything for me. It doesn't amplify my, uh, kind of brand or status. And I'm not padding my stats with that. Yeah. Right? Yeah.
So I'm looking for a problem that they're tackling that is massive, that has a huge upside, big TAM, sometimes a boring, kind of antiquated industry that is ready to be disrupted and, and revolutionized.
So I'm looking for that. What's its kind of potential? And then the willingness for them to actually ex- take and accept feedback. Y- you might be surprised- Mm... or maybe you wouldn't be,
by how many people will ring you up or pay you for advice, and they tell you, "Hey, this thing is busted, and I don't know why. You know, it's not working." And then you tell them, "Well, this is why it's not working.
This is how it has worked for 200 other companies I've worked with. We should probably do it this way."
And they don't listen to your advice, or they disagree with you and don't implement it, or they say, "Oh, we've already tried that."
And it's like, well, if you tried it, you f- you failed, not because that thing is wrong. It's 'cause you sucked at it. You didn't do it long enough- You didn't try right. [chuckles]... or you didn't do it right. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I'm, I'm trying to evaluate somebody's willingness and openness to receive and implement feedback.
Uh, and it is no fun to work with startup founders who don't receive feedback well and, and have a difficult time
implementing the feedback, who don't have a strong sense of urgency, and maybe don't have a big, huge product opportunity. Those are the type of leads that I'm trying to say no to, and I'll- Hmm...
you know, refer them to somebody else who maybe is in a different- Yeah... spot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Was it- Very interesting... was it scary taking the leap to go off into consulting?
I'm, I'm sure you were making a decent amount of money. Uh- It was very scaryVery scary. I, I actually waited way longer than people do nowadays, that's for sure. You know? Yeah. Um, and my friend Richard Harris had
gone out on his own maybe five or six years before I did, and he was doing fine financially, and he kept telling me, you know, "You should quit and go work for yourself.
I think you could make a good go of this, and you might be able to do better than me even," and blah, blah, blah. And I just wasn't ready, man. You know? Yeah. I had two little kids at the time.
I, I had my health issues, uh, you know, to worry about, and I hadn't had, like, kind of a home run. I hadn't had a unicorn yet that I had grown from scratch, you know?
I hadn't had, like, a big massive, you know, multi seven-figure payout, and so I chased that a few kinda extra times, you know? My fourth VP of sales gig, I was chasing that. My fifth VP of sales gig, I was chasing that.
My sixth VP of sales gig, I was chasing that. So what I decided, Troy, was to wait until my income from all of my side hustle extra kind of stuff matched my income from my W2 job.
And I was making, I don't know, you know, 400K plus stock options as a VP of sales. Somewhere in that range. 20- Yeah... 17, 18, something like that.
But slowly, little by little, all this other stuff started to creep up. You know, I, I wrote a few books. I started, uh, Surfin' Sales. I started Thursday Night Sales. I had some private coaching clients.
I had, uh, one or twosie of consulting clients and whatnot, and all of a sudden these things just started stacking. And I had been at my last SVP of sales job for a little over three years.
We suddenly were worth over a billion dollars, and I had built this unicorn from literally no paying customers to, you know, a billion dollar valuation in a little over three years, and I'm like,
"I think it's time," you know? I'd also built my brand obviously over that time,
and I just wasn't really having that much fun anymore, and you reach a place in your life where you're like, "I, I don't really want this 24-year-old founder to tell me I can't leave 30 minutes early to go to my kid's Little League game anymore."
Mm. Yeah. Like, this is re- that's real life. That's a real- Yeah... story. You know? And you're just like, "What the [censored] am I doing, dude? Are you kidding me?" Yeah, yeah.
"I just made you a billion dollars, dude. I can't go to my lit- kids'- [laughs]... Little League game? What are we talking about here?" Yeah. Right? Nah, that's when you, that's when you leave.
So, yeah, I pulled the, uh, I pulled the rip cord after a little over three years- Yeah... and I went out on my own. But it took me, it took me a long time, man. A long time.
I also think it has w- is responsible for me from year one through year six that I'm in right now doing so well and so consistent the whole entire time. Yeah. Because the body of work that I built and created,
you know, l- and the brand that I created along the way, put me in a position where I don't have to outbound. I've never had to outbound in my consulting business. Everything has come- Amazing...
to me inbound, content-driven referrals and whatnot. That's nice. And, uh, you know, I could say, "Well, I did this six times," you know? Not once. Yeah. Not twice. I did it six times, man. You want proof- Yeah...
that I know what I'm doing? That's my proof, right? Yeah. Yeah. Uh, but yeah. It, it was scary, and I, and I waited, uh, quite a while.
Would you, would you not wait as long if you were to go back and do it all over again? I would not wait as long to do a few things, actually. Okay. I would not have waited as long to give a [censored] about LinkedIn.
I would not have waited so long as to give a shit about Instagram, which I just started. Nice. I, I would not have waited so long to dabble in some secondary side hustle type businesses.
I would not have waited so long to try to get a W2 job that had the capacity to become a unicorn.
I had this naive notion in my early days of being a VP of sales that, oh, if we just get to, you know, 20 million in ARR, then we can sell this company for 100 million, and every founder should be stoked to sell a business for 100 million.
Well, I didn't understand the venture capital game. I didn't understand the greed that takes over in some founders' mentality and whatnot. So I, I aimed too small, right?
And it takes just as much effort, believe me, just as much effort and stress to build a $100 million company as a billion dollar company. Mm. I just aimed too small initially, so I probably would change that. Um- Wow.
And I think if I changed all of those things, it probably would've allowed me to leave and go out on my own earlier. Yeah. But I'm not really upset at all that I waited as long as I did.
I think it was a right move for me for the right reasons. You've clearly had a successful career. Do you feel accomplished, or are you still yearning for that? Oh, that's a great question, man.
I wish I could sit here and lie to you and say, "Yes, I feel super accomplished," but, uh, I can't. You know? I, I am proud of what I've done. I think I've done a lot. I think I'm close
to being accomplished, but not quite there yet. There's a few things that I have going on that when those things
kind of explode in a good way, when those things kinda pop, at that point I think I'll be able to consider myself accomplished, you know? Um,
I'm hoping that I can be-Willingly on my own choice, uh, retired in the next couple years if I want to. And I think, you know, anybody who's able to retire in their, what for me would be my early 50s,
that feels pretty good as a, as an accomplishment. And, and I think that I'd be able to say it at that time, but- Yeah... I'm still pretty hungry. I s- I can't stop the sort of, uh, avalanche of ideas that come my way.
I, I mean, I just was looking around my kind of business portfolio the la- for the last year and thinking, "I don't have anything in the trades business whatsoever.
I don't have anything in the old school services businesses that will not be affected by AI or robotics for a long time." So I launched a landscaping business in South Austin. Nice. Nice. Uh, it's been all...
It's been going on for about a month and a half now. Let's go. It took, it took a little while, but we- we've, we've got it kinda rocking and rolling now. Yeah. So y- I can't stop
thinking of new ideas and trying to add to my kind of streams of income and, and whatnot. Um- Yeah... but I'm a very competitive person, man, and I struggle deeply with the comparison game. Yeah. Hard not to.
And, you know, you know it's, uh, you know it's wrong. You know you shouldn't be doing it. It's all those things. You know better, right? Yeah. But you can't help sometimes.
You know, when you're wired a particular way to say, "F- me, this guy's over here. He's doing that. You know, I think I, I c- I should be able to do that. I can get there." Yeah. Yeah. And I...
So I have a difficult time with that- Yeah... a little bit, and it fuels me, and it helps me do well in business, but it's also not great sometimes on your mental health and, and your confidence and, and so forth.
So I, again, I try... I'm trying to find the balance of these things. I feel like I dabble sometimes in stoicism.
I hit the bullseye sometimes in terms of not giving a sh- and then sometimes I get sucked in, and I, I care too much. Something affects me- Yep... or somebody wins that I don't like, and I get jealous. Yeah.
I'm not above being petty, right? But I'm getting better at it, and, and
I think I'm proud of the fact that I'm actively working on it and can sit here and say honestly that I am getting better at it, and that's all I've got, you know, for right now. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's great.
Uh, it's a hard mindset to... I'm nowhere near feeling done. Like, a, a... I, I wouldn't say accomplished, but just, like, you know, I'm 32.
I feel like I have plenty of time to figure out exactly what finished looks like. Oh, yeah. But what's one piece of advice you wanna leave...
You know, someone's listening to this episode, they're a founder, a seller, a dad, maybe a parent, maybe something adjacent. Like, what's one piece of advice you wanna leave the audience?
I think my piece of advice would be to optimize for action o- over, uh, over almost all else. So many people, I think, get stuck thinking about things and debating things and
analyzing something to death when really they should just get started, whatever that thing is. And it doesn't have to be perfect, and, you know, it doesn't have to impress everyone on Earth.
You know, you, you could almost be a little bit embarrassed of it in some ways, right?
Like I, I've been running this landscaping business, and we've been doing deals, and people keep asking me for my Instagram page, and it's like, "I just built it. I don't have any posts on there yet."
And it's, like, kind of embarrassing, right? But I did it anyway. And so I've, I've been talking for a number of years now about how people should shrink the delta between idea and action,
and I think that's the best piece of advice I could give people out there. So if you're thinking about building a brand, just do it.
If you're thinking about writing the post, just put your finger on the button and hit Publish. Don't overthink it. If you're thinking about quitting your job, then quit it.
You know, don't be kind of one foot on the dock and one on the boat 'cause that ends poorly every single time. So that's what I would tell people. Yeah. That falls in line with this podcast.
I think Daniel and I talk about this a lot, like, just... Like, you can just go do things today. We're in a world where you can literally just do things.
Daniel messaged me on LinkedIn and was like, "Yo, you wanna start a podcast?" I had never met this guy. He helped me set up my Beehiiv account. I'm like, "That's it?" And I said, "Sure."
And next thing you know, it's done 70k in nine months, so it's like- There you go. [laughs] It's like you... We just did it, and now we're 39 episodes in, having you as a guest. 45 minutes a week we're committed to this.
Well, now 49 minutes- I love that... and 38 seconds and counting. [laughs] But, you know, we- But-... we have, we have delegated so much of this. It's- Dude... so cool. So cool. Yeah, it is sweet. Good.
Good for you guys. Uh- Yeah. Yeah, it's... You can just do things. Well, good for Daniel specifically. [laughs] I know. I know. No, I know. Thanks, Daniel. Thanks. I wasn't gonna pat myself on the back, but...
[laughs] Oh, all right, last question. How much would you sell your LinkedIn account today, no taxes, if you had a briefcase full of money in front of you? I know how important it is to your business.
If somebody said, "Here's this amount of money-" How much would I sell it for? If you had to leave LinkedIn. How much would I sell it for? Yeah. We asked Kevin Dorsey this, so I'm curious what your answer is.
Never- Oh, I can- You have no, no connections, nothing like that. You just have the- Yeah... you gotta leave.
[laughs] This is an interesting question because I have said the day that I leave LinkedIn will be the day you know I've made it. [laughs] Yeah. Nice. When I don't have, when I don't have to come back.
So let- Uh- So how do you know you made it? [laughs] Yeah. I bet Kevin gave a massive number because he always thinks things are worth more than I think they are. So I'm gonna bet that I- my number is less than his.
Ooh, let's see. We'll tell you what his is after you tell us what yours is.Yeah. And by the way, a briefcase full of money right in front of you changes the dynamic- Oh, yeah... because that's not a hypothetical.
This guy has a psychology degree. You can tell. Yeah. He's had these, he's done these- Other than-... thought experiments before... you, you put a actual briefcase on my desk right now with a million dollars cash in it,
that LinkedIn account is yours. I'll nuke it. Million? Mm. Nice. Yeah. That was less. By, by a- Yeah... substantial amount. Yeah. Kevin, Kevin said seven million. I was... Okay. I was gonna say, I bet Kevin said 10.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. He said seven million. And he thought... He didn't even, he didn't think about it. He didn't resent- He had to guess... he didn't even think. We said, "How mu-?" He's, "Seven million." We- Yeah...
he cut us off. We're like, "What? You've thought about this too much." [laughs] Kevin, Kevin's one of my best friends. He, he lives around the corner from me. Oh, that's so cool.
So I know exactly why he gave that number, and that's probably his magic number where he's just done. That's right. Yep. Right? I think that you're probably right.
He's like, "If I had that much, I don't, I don't have to work ever again." That's probably his thought process and logic behind it. Yeah. That's so rad.
I do think that there's a theory out there where, like, if you have $7 million and you can, like, f- fund yourself for life off of that without ever having to work again, I think there's something out there, but maybe that's why he said it, for sure.
Well, it's probably called living off the interest. Well, Sam Parr, we had, we had on ours, and- Yeah... you know, depending on how much you spend. It's, it's, everything comes down to how much you spend, you know?
Yeah, that's true. And if you can fund what you want to spend every month, then you don't have to make any more money. So- Yeah... it's, I think it's a variable, you know? All right.
Listen, if anybody wants my LinkedIn account for a million bucks, by the way, I'm completely open to it. [laughs] I have $11- Just so everyone-... and 29 cents in my account right now...
he's got, he's got a lot of followers. You can build a business- Yeah, that's right... for bigger than a million dollars with that. Yeah. [laughs] We can take it over. I think we're gonna start- Go ahead, take it over...
we're gonna start seeing that happen. I mean, that's already happened with Instagram and Twitter and, you know, every other social platform- I, I sold Twitter-... you're selling...
I sold Twitter accounts in high school, and for like- Mm... thousands of dollars each, just- I know. Did you really? You could get like 5,000- It's gonna start happening... followers and yeah. Yeah, yeah. Jesus.
So I know- Yeah... a lot of, lot of opportunity- Crazy... out there, but awesome. Hey, Scott, thank you so much for joining us. This has been a fun conversation. Ah, you're welcome, guys. Eyes, blows.
This has been great. You learned, all that fun stuff. I can say where they can find you, but it's probably better coming from you. Where can they find you? Yeah, you can find me on, on LinkedIn, of course.
That's probably the, the easiest spot. You can check out my website at scottleeseconsulting.com to see all the different things that I'm up to. And I'm very excited about this.
I started this Instagram account called thescottleese only this- Oh, right... last couple months, and I have, like, 3 million views in the last- Ooh... 90 days. Let's go.
I've closed $300,000 of consulting business from my Instagram account. Dude, jeez. It's bringing me real leads and real revenue, and I'm at 13- We should've started there...
thou- I'm at 13,400 followers on Instagram right now. Oh my gosh. Out of nowhere. Out of nowhere. That's amazing.
So I'm, I'm, I'm having fun with that because I'm, like, a complete newbie who doesn't know what they're doing and is just starting to see some success over there. So it's- Wow... it's been fun. That is amazing.
We're gonna, I'm gonna... We just started focusing on short forms, and I also, I see you on TikTok too, by the way. I'm a TikTok guy, and I see- I am on TikTok too, yeah... therealscottleese on...
Oh, yeah, I see you there. Yeah. Um. Yeah. All right, Daniel, who do you- Oh, it's been a little harder to crack for me, though. I've got only like- TikTok and Instagram... 3,000 followers compared to- Yeah...
13,000- Yeah... on Instagram. So- Something's gonna pop off on TikTok- I'm trying.... though. That's, that's all you need. I'm trying. You just need one or two to pop off, and you're, you're golden. Yeah. Yeah.
Dude, people on TikTok are relentless. Anyways, everyone, you found out where they could, uh, where you could find Scott Leese. Scott, thank you so much for the fun episode. It was awesome. Yes.
Daniel, I guess thank you, too. Whatever. Um. [laughs] And then if you wanna learn more about Two Dads and Tech, twodadsetechntech.com, Two Dads in Tech- Yes...
on every single social media platform, doesn't matter where you're at. Other than that, what else, Daniel? Am I missing anything? That's it. No. Find us at twodadsetechntech.com.
Go check out Scott, thescottleese on- On Instagram... Instagram, and then of course his LinkedIn is, uh, the prominence of, of, of his, uh, his, his fame I would say. Uh- Oh...
but no, Instagram, that's, that's incredible. You can, you know, watch this episode all over social. It's gonna be fun. It's gonna be fun. Right on. Awesome. Thanks, guys. All right, y'all. Awesome. Have a good day.
Thank you. We'll see you next week. Take care. See you next time