019: Special Operations Leadership: How Quay Barnett Transformed Warfare Techniques into Business Success

Quay Barnett (00:00:00) - I like to think and have tried to describe in your circle the things that I can control. That second outer circle is the thing I can influence. And that third circle is the things I can respond to or have to respond to. What can I control? My actions, my attitudes, my networks, my responses, my interactions with my teammates? Those are the things that can quickly get back into grasp.

Christopher Nelson (00:00:26) - Welcome to Tech Careers and Money Talk. I'm your host, Christopher Nelson. I've been in the technology industry for 20 plus years, and after climbing my way to the C-suite, working for three companies that have been through IPO and investing my way to financial independence, I'm here to share with you everything that I've learned and introduce you to people along the way that can give you strategies and tactics to help you in your journey. I'm very excited about today's episode where we're going to talk to Quay Barnett. Quay has been a 20 year veteran of the United States Armed Forces in special operations. He was the director of a high performance institute that kept special operations soldiers operating at a very high level of performance while under great duress.

Christopher Nelson (00:01:16) - He's now the chief revenue officer of StriveWorks, a artificial intelligence and machine learning ops company that is helping businesses solve a lot of problems around Al and AI ops. Today, we're going to talk about his career, how he went from the military to working in technology. That's going to be the first half of the show. But in the second half, stay tuned for that because we are going to be breaking down strategies and tactics of how you who are working in high stress, high performance environments can prevent burnout, can make sure that you have the right mindset to move through and perform when it's needed most. Excited to share this with you. Let's get into it right now. All right. Welcome to Tech Careers and Money Talk. We're here with Quay Barnett. She is the chief revenue officer of StriveWorks, an AI and MLOPS platform for many business use cases. But interestingly enough, before that, she spent 20 years in the military, 16 years in special operations for the Army, where he led operational teams during 12 overseas deployments, and provided strategic communications at the White House to the National Security Counselor Council.

Christopher Nelson (00:02:32) - And he was also the director of human and Cognitive performance for a 1500 person elite organization. I'm excited to have Quay here today to talk about this transition from military to tech. See a lot of people out there making this transition. It's so important for us to understand the stories and how Quay was able to do that successfully and then also to dig into high performance organizations like Special Operations, like working in technology. And what are some of the things that he learns that map to both. So thanks so much for taking the time today.

Quay Barnett (00:03:10) - Thanks. Really looking forward to it. I've really enjoyed getting to listen to some of your other episodes and constantly learning from them.

Christopher Nelson (00:03:17) - Oh, thanks so much. And I know that, you know, as you and I over the past year have been getting to know each other, I've, you know, been thinking that this is a great opportunity to really share those experiences that you had before and how that maps over. But I would love to start off with, you know, your journey.

Christopher Nelson (00:03:36) - What took you from a West Point graduate into special operations?

Quay Barnett (00:03:42) - Yeah. And I think as is often the case, usually it's a mentor, right? Like you start to see people that you want to emulate. So for me personally, there was a specific professor at West Point who was a Special Forces officer. And in the kind of context of the broader army, as you'd expect with any organization that's a lower, smaller type construct, there just weren't a lot of Special Forces officers. So when you met one, he kind of embodied what that entire community would look like for you and your kind of mind's eye. And he was kind of that person that you'd want as a mentor and a leader, you know, so very mentally challenging, very disciplined, very outgoing, very competent and very physically kind of fit. And so as a young, you know, cadet who's thinking about how do I go lead and serve people in the military? He was kind of that thing that you would look at and be like, Well, that seems like the right kind of person to want to be like.

Quay Barnett (00:04:36) - And then it kind of backed into like, Well, what does he do? I should probably try to learn what that is and explain it and explore it a little bit more. So a lot of that was really just that. First, you get those good positive mentors in your life and you start to understand what makes them tick. How do they get to where they were? And as is, you know, very similar in our tech careers.

Christopher Nelson (00:04:56) - It is. And I think, you know, we get so excited, I think, in tech and this is where I do want to spend some time sort of connecting some dots that I think are very similar. I think in tech we get so excited with the impact that we can make. We sit at this front row seat to the future and we're literally, you know, helping create things that impact the way that we work, that we live, you know, forever. And so for you, when you think about these smaller teams, but the high impact because when I think about special forces, special operations, I think they are the tip of the spear.

Christopher Nelson (00:05:36) - They're out. You know, arguably some of them are on different assignments that can either change history, impact history. So was that impact that front row seat to history being made per se? Was that something that influenced you or excited you about this opportunity?

Quay Barnett (00:05:55) - 100%. And it's interesting. You know, at the end of the career, a lot of reflection as I was transitioning into that next professional career, I could actually map a lot of that exact kind of importance or kind of value that you assigned to that kind of to my own personal kind of blind. So for me, kind of looking back and thinking, okay, what is it that I want to do in a technology career, it was very much about how do I take to see the future or the kind of the current state for what it is. Look at what the future state could be, take, you know, kind of optimize capital and resources, deploy that in a way in which I can get some kind of outsized impact.

Quay Barnett (00:06:33) - So that literally manifested itself kind of early in my life around like I loved old cars, restoring old cars, and I'd always just thought it was cars. And then later life will probably talk about it. We started the flipping business and then ultimately it was what I was doing in the military was having this outsized impact based on the ability to kind of predict what the future, see what the future could be lined, those resources, that vision, that intent, bring those together and then get that like multiple effect of small teams having huge impact. I got to watch it kind of firsthand when I first came out into the military, just kind of timing of when my career was, you know, I was there kind of beginning of the global war on terrorism and the initial invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan. And so I got to watch literally these kinds of small teams come in and have that outsized impact on things that were, you know, literally front page, like you said, impact to the region and back to the world.

Quay Barnett (00:07:33) - And you could see they could do it with a lot less. And that became very attractive to me.

Christopher Nelson (00:07:39) - Yeah, I think that's, um. Yeah. When you. When you're able to see and understand and you get a taste of that impact, it becomes, I think, something very, very exciting in, it actually draws you in, pulls you into it. One of the things that I wanted to just sort of take a step back and clarify for people that are listening that may not understand a little bit of you know, what would you define quickly for them? Like what are special forces, special operations? What does that really entail?

Quay Barnett (00:08:11) - That's a great question, Christopher. And so when we have our Defense Department, we've got different service branches. So you're familiar with the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines now, Space Force. And so the special operations as a service like component inside of our Defense Department and then inside of that special operations community, every branch of service has their own variant of special operations, whether that's Navy SEALs or Army Rangers, Army Green Berets or Air Force Special Tactics soldiers.

Quay Barnett (00:08:42) - So all of all the branches kind of bring part of what that unique special operations combined community is in their specific service application of that. And then you see those come together, we'll call the joint force. And so a lot of the joint special operations really takes those as combined individual skills, not like, you know, how you combine a lot of the go to market functions of a tech company, right? And then leverage them for that kind of outsized impact at a minimal cost from a resourcing standpoint, from a force projection standpoint. And so it's a great corollary, I think, between what a lot of people are already probably familiar with and kind of the method in which we employ our special operations forces.

Christopher Nelson (00:09:26) - It's interesting. I hadn't thought about that before. Like, you're right, the concept of a go to market team where you need an account manager or somebody who's relationship focused right on the ground, you know, creating alliances, creating partnerships. Then you bring in your sales engineer, technically focused, showing what are the capabilities we can deliver.

Christopher Nelson (00:09:45) - Then there's going to be, you know, implementation partners, all these things, right? There is a direct corollary. So now I'm getting the clarity of where it makes sense for you as a go to market leader, you're really mapping some of the same skills that you learned before.

Quay Barnett (00:10:02) - Yeah, I think what's even cooler for me is, you know, you're you're seeing impact. Right? And that's why I think, you know, all of us are really looking for lots of different ways, levels in which you can have that impact. But if you're building something of value and you can bring that in a cohesive way out into the marketplace or into environment you're operating and like, you can have a real outsized impact and think, you know, that's the things when you think about legacy and you think about like, what am I doing kind of here on Earth to make things around me better? The people, my relationships, the organizations, there's been a great like marriage between those two implementations are often very different.

Quay Barnett (00:10:39) - Some of even the skills required are different, but there's this massive, overlapping and almost foundational aspect between the two.

Christopher Nelson (00:10:48) - And so going back to your story, I know that as the war on terror kicked off and I think to for for myself, I was part of a disruptive technology here on the civilian side, cloud technology, when I transitioned from working from traditional ERPs like PeopleSoft to Salesforce.com in 2004. And I know that there was a huge operational disruption that really happened in the theater, which, you know, I think of. I read Stanley McChrystal's team of teams where they wait, the way that the Army was structured, the military was structured to execute. You had to truly start disrupting that. Was that something that you were a part of that you got to see in participation as you refactored literally the way you operated?

Quay Barnett (00:11:35) - Yeah. And what's interesting about that kind of corollary, it was a lot that was certainly accelerated, if not enabled by technology. So in the past, if you think about means of communication, the interpersonal and relay like a commander's intent or sending specific guidance, the standard kind of forms of that communication was certainly accelerated by things like video teleconferences.

Quay Barnett (00:11:58) - So when Stanley McChrystal is thinking teams of teams, yes, he's thinking about the fact that he's got people out in all these kinds of embedded we called them like liaisons or liaison officers. They were in all these adjacent companies, so to speak, or organizations. But really, it was the technology that accelerated. That was the ability to chat among teams literally globally. It was the ability to hop on a VTC, you know, teleconferencing. Back in the day, this was before Covid made it, you know, kind of business practice. It allowed you to take common shared information and then propagate that out for the kind of execution level tasks that were needed. And that coordination, that was what he was orchestrating from a concept. But really analogy was the main conduit that was enabling.

Christopher Nelson (00:12:49) - And I don't I don't want a rabbit hole here, but I, I love that story. I think it's fascinating because when I read it, it seemed to me that some of the processes that he was adopting were almost like a daily stand up meeting.

Christopher Nelson (00:13:03) - What you actually see in Agile development in software. I'm just trying to understand because I know that a lot of software, a lot of development happens, civilians go to the military and vice versa. I'm curious if any of that process, you know, came from Agile development or Agile development came from that. I don't know if you know.

Quay Barnett (00:13:23) - Yeah, I'm not sure the true lineage would say it's effective communication, right? So I think people quickly adopt common concepts that are effective for getting value and impact for that particular time and place. That was a really impactful way of communicating that standing up. It almost kind of forced it into a more truncated form of communication, right? Because we couldn't have 150 people all giving 15 minute speeches. Right? Like this needed to be like distill it down, tell people what adjacent organizations need to know, get guidance from, you know, the control tower, so to speak, and then be able to go back and implement on a daily basis very similar to the how do we build an agile, responsive, you know, software development process.

Christopher Nelson (00:14:10) - So I'm sure we're talking about, you know, a lot of the great things, a lot of the positive things that happened. But I think just like in, you know, technology in tech environments that have a very low margin for error and then can also be incredibly stressful at some point in your career. Like there started to be some friction. And I think, you know, arguably you probably had, you know, I mean, bullets coming in the opposite direction can be very, very friction filled. So how did you start coping with this and how do you know, I think for a lot of people, you know, in tech, when they start getting headwinds, they start questioning themselves. Obviously, you know, you had a larger directive that saw you move through a lot of that and then learn to deal and operate in dynamic, chaotic environments. Like what? What were some of the you know, I'd say what were some of the things mentally that you had to really realize to move forward and what were some things that you leveraged to cope with that.

Quay Barnett (00:15:10) - You know so product markets it may not be the perfect corollary to that one. Yeah.

Christopher Nelson (00:15:15) - Yeah.

Quay Barnett (00:15:16) - No, it's a great question. I think there are some that are very transferable. These are the things that I have kind of learned, I think, over time. Even whether it's a technology or whether it's an organization delivering technology, it's still humans that are involved in human endeavors. And so a lot of the kind of foundational values and overlap with these kinds of principles are true and hold fast. The way in which it's being implemented might be different. The construct of the team, the way communications handled all of that has variance. But this, you know, taking technology out into the market is a very human endeavor. Right. And it's not devoid of all the humans that are involved behind it to make it work, to make it effective, to make it fit well to the. One of the things I think that really helped was, you know, when you think about things like, how do you prepare for those chaotic moments that you really can't fully anticipate because you don't know exactly how that's going to go, if you have your base plan that everyone understands, right? You have a very clear understanding.

Quay Barnett (00:16:12) - And the way we would manage that was having everyone kind of briefed back very similar to, you know, your stand up so that there was this kind of constant two way alignment from team members of if we're going somewhere, this is what we're doing, here's what we're trying to accomplish. And that overarching intent always had to be very clear because at some point, groups, teams, development efforts may get isolated and then maybe faced in dynamic circumstances in which they need to be able to kind of respond inside of an intent guidance. And I think oftentimes that can be missing. Sometimes when we take a very engineer led, kind of more black and white approach to thinking about things as tech integrations as opposed to customer intent, customer value, customer impact. So I see a lot of the corollary there. And then once that intense established, you know, work through those contingencies ahead of time and that's that helps people over time. The more you refine that contingency planning that gives them more and more autonomy to be able to operate and close that decision cycle, they can make that decision at their level.

Quay Barnett (00:17:16) - They can make that next decision faster. That helps speed up really that tight alignment of an organization that's trying to do something together.

Christopher Nelson (00:17:27) - So you're in the military, you're growing your career. And I'm sure at that point, right there was throughout the war on terror, there started to be more integration of technology. At what point did you start seeing yourself thinking about exiting the military and thinking about a career in technology or was it, you know, more subtle than that?

Quay Barnett (00:17:52) - Yeah. So I think it was very much related to this overarching theme we're talking about, which was impact. Um, again, just kind of looking out at the kind of time horizon cut out the series of like positions and what would be kind of coming in the future and kind of where we were from a kind of geopolitical standpoint. I felt my greatest impact was actually stepping out of the military and providing more advanced solutions back into the military or back into the commercial space for back into the kind of broader, more impactful markets.

Quay Barnett (00:18:25) - Right. In some times in some careers, you can get kind of in that silo, so to speak, where your sphere of influence is always, you know, expanding based on your personal networks and relationships. But even organizationally, you know, there can be confined to how much impact you can have where. Whereas, you know, from this perspective, I can work with dozens of different organizations, you know, literally inside of a given day or week and have impact across lots of different organizations. So for me, it was kind of, again, envisioning where can I have the most impact and what do I need to do to position myself to to be ready to make that change?

Christopher Nelson (00:19:03) - And so I know there's many military members that have been in there that have spent careers there, have done the 20 years, and then they start thinking about transitioning out. You know, tell us a little bit about you know, I think we just heard about the opportunity. What were. Did you have any concerns? Did you have any fears that, you know, you had to navigate through as you started that process?

Quay Barnett (00:19:30) - Yeah.

Quay Barnett (00:19:30) - And I think looking back kind of three years after being out, what I did for a lot of guys who are transitioning are people who are making that transition is really the kind of take a little bit of that pressure off yourself in the sense that make your first right decision. That opens up as many future pathways as possible, but you're not going to be able to solve your next 20 years in your first year decision. Right. I think for some people who are making those major career shifts, especially if they've been highly performant in their past career, they almost feel like they have to bake in kind of that same level of performance. And that just may not be known when you start into a new career, you're going to step into what presents the most options, the most network capabilities that will expose you to the most learning so that you can make that next best decision.

Christopher Nelson (00:20:20) - I know myself, having done some work with transitioning from the military to tech. The biggest question that I always had is, you know, I came, you know, what I hear from the military members that I came from a family like everybody is part of this family.

Christopher Nelson (00:20:37) - We continue to help each other. Who do you trust or how do you build that on the outside? And my reply is always, oh my gosh, like my network of peers is that family. Like there's people if for some reason I need to get employed right now or do have a question answered, I know a list of people that I can call, but how do you how did you navigate that and how do you, you know, advise other transitioning military people to to start building that, you know, network and career that's going to be outside of your current frame of or sphere of influence?

Quay Barnett (00:21:12) - Yeah, great point you bring up. I think it's really salient in the sense that it is not just a work relationship. Right? When you talk about what is your network and what is your kind of value around you, there's lots of different places. You've got your family, you've got friends that have nothing to do with work, and then you've got hopefully like a really broad array of types of work, friendships.

Quay Barnett (00:21:32) - So one thing that I found very helpful was actually going to partners at venture capital firms because they just saw so much deal flow that they were being exposed to lots of different networks, lots of different industries, lots of different companies that I wouldn't necessarily individually be able to map to. So in my mind, it was to let me kind of partner with a couple of these, you know, strategic gateways to new networks that I would really find valuable and really found interesting. But I probably won't necessarily be able to get, you know, directly connected to them just on my own. So finding your kind of places where you can kind of build those hubs that you can branch out of in a couple of different areas of your life, I think builds for a more fulfilled, you know, broader array of relationships. And that, to your point becomes that that family or that culture of support that maybe you found in a narrow organization kind of in a past career.

Christopher Nelson (00:22:27) - And were there some were there some techniques that you use to to build rapport or to choose the people that you said, you know what, I want to go deeper in some of these relationships so that I can, you know, create deeper connection and we can support each other.

Christopher Nelson (00:22:42) - Now is where on this civilian side of our career.

Quay Barnett (00:22:46) - Then we think it goes hand in hand with a kind of a growth mindset and with humility. So I don't see how you kind of possibly disconnect those two personally. I think that growth mindset is something that is, you know, it's inside you that you're fostering and you come to these new relationships and you come to these new kinds of markets or new networks. It's that kind of open questioning. Like, I'm really interested in learning more about this. I'm really excited about seeing what you guys are doing from the outside. I'd love to learn more about the processes, where I'd love to learn more about how you evaluate those markets, or I'd love to learn more about how do you see opportunity over the horizon? I think it's coming in with that like a learners mindset that a beginner's mindset is really a disarming way oftentimes. And most people who have, you know, strong convictions about the thing that they're doing and converting, committing their lives to. They'd love to.

Christopher Nelson (00:23:43) - Right, Right. They'd love to spend time telling you about it. They'd love to educate. And then I think to, you know, one of the things that I always try and advise people on is if you are humble, you're asking questions and they, you know, in your mentor or whoever's giving you guidance, ask for some help. Just try and be quick in the response. Try and think ahead. You know, ask smart questions. I think that you'll find that you can start creating some really good sticky relationships because, you know, to your point, I think people that are on these journeys that are building something that are trying to make impact in the world, they're looking for other like minded individuals because, you know, many times they're probably part of a smaller circle themselves. So I've found the same thing, too, that they're always willing to invite you in if you're leaning in yourself.

Quay Barnett (00:24:33) - Well as obvious self hacks for that for me personally was, you know, every time I had this conversation always ending it with two, you know, specific things.

Quay Barnett (00:24:43) - One, come in and be prepared and have an ask of that person because there are times really valuable not leaving, it just open ended discussion. Give them some framework and reference. So when you come to that conversation, they know you've got an intent, they can add value to it, and you both walk away kind of having had a great exchange. Then the second part of that is always asking who else should I be speaking to? Like, can you give me the names of, you know, two more people in your circle that you think would really be beneficial for me to learn from them? So I always have encountered that next step. Asking always asking for that next connection, I think is pretty elementary. Another novel there, but certainly a powerful tool for continuing to expand those networks.

Christopher Nelson (00:25:27) - It is. And I actually love, you know, very simple hacks like that because you really it's not harder than that. I mean, I remember it's interesting. I was trying to teach my kids, you know, Dale Carnegie how to win friends and influence people.

Christopher Nelson (00:25:41) - He has, you know, a series of questions. So where are you from originally? Do you have a fan? Like they're very simple questions, but I literally use the same questions all the time. And you're right, some of that programming, you just need to have that ready available, get comfortable using it, and it can open doors.

Quay Barnett (00:25:59) - Sometimes it helps to have a weird name like. Yeah.

Christopher Nelson (00:26:03) - Yeah, right. Or to have a name where people always take your syllables. I'm Christopher. Oh, hello, Chris. Hey, can I get those syllables back? If you could just pass them right back. We'll be good. We can move forward. But, yeah, quite like this.

Quay Barnett (00:26:17) - But I'm a Christopher K, so Christopher is actually my first name.

Christopher Nelson (00:26:22) - Oh, I had. Okay. I'm more to catch up on that later man. But K is definitely unforgettable so stick with that. We're good. So let's try and I think so at some point you made the decision and you started transitioning out.

Christopher Nelson (00:26:39) - You know what? So what did you do? What did you discover on sort of your first venture outside of the military and then now, you know, the job at StriveWorks?

Quay Barnett (00:26:51) - Yeah, I think it kind of goes back to that stepping stone principle and it goes back, I think also to that, you know, learners mindset. I came out into what I would have described as you were looking at it on paper from a title position. Responsibility like this was the ideal job kind of coming out of the military and going into that first job and first market. And it was like a ten month, you know, great experience in the sense of that on the job kind of learning. And it very much distilled into me that I was looking for something different from a scaling standpoint. So don't view that as a negative experience. I view that as well. This was fantastic, but this wasn't the ultimate place where I was going to stay and work. This wasn't the ultimate team that was going to be part of.

Quay Barnett (00:27:37) - But that's not a negative. That's a while I was there. It opened up, you know, numerous other opportunities, learned more about how to take things to market, how to build new product lines. Ironically, even a couple of the customers that I worked with in that first job offered me roles coming, you know, later down the line. So, you know, as you're building those relationships and as you're learning those markets, keeping that kind of open learning mindset was really important. That first step wasn't kind of, you know, the ultimate stuff that I was looking for. And so for me personally, I actually think I did a lot more reflection in ten months out than I did as I was getting out. But I think it was good because it was more steeped in the experiential learning of what was on the commercial side of things. So I think it was good timing to kind of stop and have that. You know, let's put some real reflection time into my schedule.

Christopher Nelson (00:28:35) - I think it's so important to tell that story because I know with 2 or 3 guys that I followed their transition out of the military, that was their experience as well in the sense that they got into these roles and honestly, they had very high expectations of them. And then when, you know, ten months, 12 months, 14 months later, it didn't turn out to be the right fit. They had to manage through some things, which I think I understood on the civilian side is sometimes you're going to get into a role and it's not the right fit, and that's okay. Like that's normal. Like it's not. And I know that especially one of the guys felt like, Oh, am I failing because I didn't find my next 20 year career? And the answer is no, you didn't fail. It's normal. This is a step. And this is where I think you know, how you articulated your experience is so important for people to understand.

Quay Barnett (00:29:34) - Yeah, we're all learning and growing constantly.

Quay Barnett (00:29:36) - I think that's the kind of value add when you think about where you add value and impact back into your networks as you're learning those experiences, Obviously you're sharing those back out with people. This is a prime platform for that. Like the fact that you went through not only just the personal experience of the roles and responsibilities you had and how you kind of instructed that. But I think we're a key part of this, too, and I've really benefited from is also on the kind of financial side of that, like understanding the value drivers of you as a specific value commodity market or understanding the role of equity, understanding how that plays and interplays with the business profit and loss kind of architecture like that is super valuable learning for those of us who are who have had different value drivers in different organizations.

Christopher Nelson (00:30:25) - Well, and it's true. And that's actually, you know, now you've opened up the soapbox. Okay. So I'm going to step on to it, which is that there are so many people coming out of the military that have skills, that have experience that are needed in technology.

Christopher Nelson (00:30:42) - Huge opportunity. And I'm not talking about detailed experience in cyber security and cyber warfare. I'm talking leadership experience and dynamic environments that can help them come in operational experience at a scale, you know, and then. And then coming down and, you know, sometimes the fit of taking something from when you operate at a large scale, trying to then go into a very chaotic startup and get it operationally sound and scaling can be a challenge. However, if you can figure out how to do that, like there is so much value and then for people to then start understanding, they have this what I call career capital and they can trade that for some nice tranches of equity going forward. People need to understand that transitioning out of the military, you have a lot of value.

Quay Barnett (00:31:32) - Yet I think in some ways, though, it's an inverted value proposition in many regards because you come out in the sense with all this kind of like organizational leadership that would be more commensurate with, you know, senior levels inside of a company or organization, but you may have no industry expertise.

Quay Barnett (00:31:48) - That's right. And so sometimes it's really hard also for a company to map to that as a what role do I put you in? You seem to have all this, you know, experience at the organizational level, but you don't know anything about our industry. I don't know if that's a good fit or if it's not a good fit. The things that I found super useful kind of going back to that, leveraging the kind of partners they would introduce me to a company that was looking at or assessing kind of where they were, what they needed. I would ask a CEO, What's your strategy for the company? They obviously knew it and could articulate it. That's a good indicator whether there is one or not. Right. And then the first thing I would ask is like, what's your biggest blocker to getting there? And so instead of me trying to map, you know, special operations experience to the biopharmaceutical industry, it was what's the human problem, What's the organizational problem, What's the market blocker that you've got? What's your, you know, utilization issue that you're having? And then speak specifically to how I leveraged other organizational situations and experiences to address similar problems.

Quay Barnett (00:32:53) - They don't really need to know or care whether or not that was in another country or whether that was, you know, a different dynamic entirely. They want to know, can I solve a problem that they have time now in their organization? And so I think the military sometimes tries to map a job resume and think that can be a limiting factor when you're trying to find the corollary on the outside.

Christopher Nelson (00:33:16) - It can. And I think that that was. That right there, I think was a great little hack instead of trying to do the mapping because when you get internal to an organization and you know I've been at Accenture larger consulting organizations you do that okay what are your capabilities? What have you done? Let's map you into a role, a theater we're going to drop you in. I consider Accenture in some of these companies, like the Special Forces of business. They have a very similar mindset. And you're right, then when you go and you say when you go to a smaller technology company, you're going to need to look at problems to solve and then map your own skill set instead of putting that onus on them.

Christopher Nelson (00:33:57) - I think that's a great, great framework. Great way to think about that.

Quay Barnett (00:34:01) - I think, you know, one of the other things that I think was helpful for me was really just. I had defined goals. I had a defined kind of value proposition. And the way I got there wasn't thinking about my experiences. It was kind of asking the seven whys, right? Like if you keep asking yourself, why is that important? Why is that important? And if you ask a lot of people who are transitioning, if you're flying on a helicopter and fast roping down and, you know, doing an assault on a target is the thing that made them happy. It's like, well, that's going to be really difficult to map to a business opportunity on the outside. But if you're telling me that you or have time constraints having operational environments where it's highly dynamic, you're ultimately dependent on the people around you and your team and you've got to deliver some kind of outsized value in a compressed timeline. There's lots of places you can find to do that, so don't stop there.

Quay Barnett (00:34:56) - Kind of the experience like going down a couple more whys as to what was that underlying value, that foundational value that made that experience super helpful or made it super energy producing for me.

Christopher Nelson (00:35:10) - That's great. That's the Seven Whys. Yeah. And helping people map that over. I think that's really good. So you wound up at StriveWorks and this seems to be where you've really hit your stride and it seems like it's a good fit, mean, fast growing company, dynamic environment.

Quay Barnett (00:35:31) - What's there not to love, right?

Christopher Nelson (00:35:32) - Yeah. What's there not to love? No. I had a chance and thank you. Had a chance to meet some of the founders and the leadership team. And I think I'm. I'm excited about the company. I'm excited about what it's doing in the commercial and then also in the military marketplace. I think it's a dynamic team. And now you are in this go to market position. You're helping, you know, lead these teams through these very dynamic times right now.

Christopher Nelson (00:35:59) - I mean, I think geopolitically we're in a very interesting environment that you're now selling into. And then I also think from a commercial time, right, you know, high interest rates, high inflation, you know, it seems like you were made to be a go to market leader in these times.

Quay Barnett (00:36:16) - Right. And it's been great. I think part of, you know, that natural wit to kind of what was that value proposition? It's why it maps so well. And I'm so excited about the time I've had that StriveWorks. Strive works fundamentally in the machine learning ops and I kind of market is really focused on what we call a day three problem, which is day one. Everybody's building a model somewhere. Everyone's trying to get, you know, artificial intelligence produced. They tell you they're excited. They got it into their production environment, which is a massive hurdle for lots of organizations. And then day three, it fell, right? And the model no longer performs or the world has changed.

Quay Barnett (00:36:53) - Or the questions I want to ask are different. And so I do think there's this great mapping to, well, how do you keep things performant in a dynamic environment where your operational requirements are constantly needing to adapt to a competitive business environment, whether that's national security or whether that's purely a commercial industry that's trying to keep a competitive edge for the athletics, It maps very cleanly to those kind of similar value drivers. I think on a personal level, it's a little bit ironic because in my first like Leader book that I had, you know, as a brand new lieutenant, had a couple of quotes on the outside. What was, you know, John Stuart Mills. And the other was the man in the arena from Teddy Roosevelt. And so when I think about it, what did I want to do as a leader in the military, like I wanted to be the man in the arena, I wanted to go find those organizations that were striving to do great things, that were daring. And if they failed, they felt, you know, achieving, going to achieve greatness, not, you know, kind of the cold and timid souls that don't need the victories or the defeats.

Quay Barnett (00:37:59) - So for me, I found a company in the tech world that literally the name was founded from that same quote. You know, we've got the man in the arena up on the wall like it was a very natural kind of values alignment for me.

Christopher Nelson (00:38:15) - Yeah. And I'm excited about yourselves, the future there. I'm also excited about the second half of this episode where I want to take a little pause right here. But I want, you know, everything that you talked about, right, of or of, if you're in these dynamic environments, you know, need to perform things under stress. You've also helped people do that as well in these dynamic environments on the battlefield. And I want to really be able to provide everyone with that experience as well. So hold on, everybody. We're going to be right back with Quay for the second half. We're here with Quay Barnett. We heard his story of West Point military, now tech chief revenue officer, where I really want to double click in the second half is your time that you spent as the director of human and cognitive performance for the.

Christopher Nelson (00:39:07) - Special Forces, Special operations. I want to really understand how some of your learnings there we can map and we can help technology professionals today in dealing with dynamic environments, in dealing with stress and understanding how they can perform their best in those environments. So the first question I'd want to start with is, you know, where do you see some of the similarities in what you were training and how you were leading teams in, you know, special forces to now in technology?

Quay Barnett (00:39:40) - I think we've talked about this a little bit. You know, everything is still a human endeavor. So a lot of those things that overlap are foundational, like how did humans align? How did humans come together to form this kind of outsized impact and how do they perform at a consistent rate? That's common. Think across lots of different industries. It's certainly accentuated in technology because of that pace. And so the pace starts to have that other mirrored kind of component to the called an operational tempo for like a special operations person.

Quay Barnett (00:40:13) - So how do you keep on that treadmill that's going in. Someone's turned it up tonight and you've hopped on and you've got to be able to keep running at nine. So there's a couple of things I think that help one foundation and maybe a couple of just little hacks. So one foundation is I like to think and have tried to describe concentric circles when thinking about kind of where the relation to things going on around me, that first kind of inner circle is the things that I can control. That second kind of outer circle is the thing I can influence. And that third circle is the things I can respond to or have to respond to what I'm trying to do. Like everything that I'm working on is how do I grow that first circle larger? How do I grow and then expand out into those things that I can influence? And then how do I minimize that outer circle as much as possible? The things I'm just having to respond to, these are the forecasted things. Those are the things that are the externalities of the market.

Quay Barnett (00:41:13) - But if I find myself in a place where I'm literally facing something that I'm having to respond to. Mentally mapping myself back to it at this moment. What is the thing that I can control? What's the next thing that I can influence? And then that minimizes those things that I'm having to respond to. So that's just a mental kind of approach that I've used and I've found helpful with talking with other high performing team members because we quickly find that the treadmill gets us on the back end and we're just kind of responding to those outings off. But can I control my actions, my attitudes? You know, my networks, my responses, my interactions with my teammates. Those are the things that can quickly get back into grasp. This feeling like I'm kind of outside the bounds of just having to respond to all these things that are coming in.

Christopher Nelson (00:42:05) - And when you train that, when you train that for team members that were in the field and deployed. Were there physiological things that you did along with that? Was there breathing that went with that? Was there, you know, physically removing yourself from a situation, clearing your head? I mean, what came with that from a physiological sense?

Quay Barnett (00:42:26) - Yeah.

Quay Barnett (00:42:27) - And each situation's a little bit different. Sometimes you can physically pull yourself. Sometimes you've got to be able to continue to function in that environment. One of the things that kind of always went with me, though, is the idea of like, you know, adrenaline versus energy, right? So what we think physiologically about dumping these adrenaline releases over time, if you're not resetting those, you literally you're physiologically your body will get at that like 80% hover point on all things. You could literally be kind of sitting on your couch and your hypothalamus hasn't reset like you literally haven't neurologically, you know, taken that cold shower, so to speak. That kind of resets your nervous system. And so you can literally be at a hover even when you're not, you know, an externally stressing environment. And so we've had to have a lot of work with that. That's you. Mental discipline around, like understanding and being able to kind of reset yourself. Being able to focus on things like, I'm exuding energy right now, but I'm not dumping adrenaline.

Quay Barnett (00:43:31) - Being able to kind of think about it in terms of if I'm getting this dopamine hit from this kind of like response that I'm I'm having, like, that's great, but also need to be in a more kind of moderated state where I don't want to be on this emotional rollercoaster. Right? I don't want these, you know, these really, really highs to like drain me when it does the next thing that's coming. Right. And having literally that kind of mental mindset of you don't ride the roller coaster up or down, you stay in a level energy state where I am in the moment, I am present and I am mentally focused on the things that I've got to do. But I'm not, you know, trying to like, really overstimulate my system in either direction. I think more tangibly, like we get a lot of stimulation now from things like devices, right? So, you know, the ability to literally kind of remove from that, not have to consume things in 12 second instrument increments, doing deeper, reflective thought.

Quay Barnett (00:44:28) - All of these are kind of those little hacks you can use to help reset that kind of central nervous system so you're not constantly in that hover state just because of your work environment, but similar to that kind of high adrenaline state.

Christopher Nelson (00:44:44) - It's a very interesting point. I remember. And fortunately, Trevor, his name's escaping me right now, but he was the performance coast that worked with Russell Wilson for many years. But his philosophy was, you want to remain in neutral, You want to think of yourself as a car, as a race car, in that in this is really what I think you were saying is and now it makes sense to me what he was saying all along is that you don't want to be in the highs, which may be the drive. Like you're going really fast, you're winning. You don't want to be in the lows, which is the reverse. You're going back, but you want to remain in neutral because every time you go back to neutral, then you can execute and respond to things.

Christopher Nelson (00:45:27) - But you're not in a sort of momentous reactive mode in either direction.

Quay Barnett (00:45:33) - Yeah. And it's funny you bring that, that algae of one of our original street coaches actually went on to be the Oakland Raiders performance coach and they had it dialed in with Derek Carr and probably gave us massive trade secrets. Right? Yeah, they had it dialed in where they knew what his number was. Right. Literally, they had it on, you know, a decibel scale, you know, like so he said, I'll I'll potentially skew it. It's a 55.2 is when he's performing optimally. So you're kind of literally instrumenting your day and life and your food and your, you know, your kind of experiences to get you to that place where you're at, that kind of like optimal performance, where your decision making is not, like you say, overstimulated, you're not under engaged, but you're in that kind of neutral space where you're cognizant of what's going on around you and you can make good, timely, thoughtful decisions without it being impulses or kind of lagging behind the time.

Quay Barnett (00:46:30) - You need to respond.

Christopher Nelson (00:46:32) - This is one of these conversations as well. You know, obviously, career and money is the big focus that I want to bring to the table. But the other one that's coming up as I'm having more podcasts, I'm talking to people is, you know, the career, money and health. Right. Is that all related and well in this physiological component, because, as I was working in the early 2000 for a large consulting company for Accenture, there weren't any conversations about health. There were conversations about the deadlines about getting things done. And there was a big up or out mentality in the organization. So you were always pushing, pushing, pushing led to a lot of burnout where I know in your organization talking yourself and other people that I know that and part of that managing your physical, your body is really important and I think that's something that's coming to light now in in tech, as you hear people talking about, oh, I'm taking, you know, cold dips in the morning so I can go to the office and be reset and focused and centered.

Christopher Nelson (00:47:38) - Or I had an interview with a friend of mine, Gautam, who was a Deloitte strategy consultant, who's now very focused on mindfulness and breathing to do some of the resetting that you're talking about. But I think that this is an important conversation to have in trying to bring forward some of the stuff that you were doing as well, where it incorporates the physiological is, you know, to help you get to that mental performance.

Quay Barnett (00:48:03) - You got to change your entire company name. Now it's like.

Christopher Nelson (00:48:08) - Exactly tech career money and health talk. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's it's.

Quay Barnett (00:48:14) - A flop, really. Well, for an acronym like that, the longer the, the closer.

Christopher Nelson (00:48:18) - There you go. Exactly. That the military guys would eat it up.

Quay Barnett (00:48:22) - They love people right now we've got an acronym on the horizon.

Christopher Nelson (00:48:28) - Well, and I want to continue this conversation because, you know, in tech where you may not have people in great health, there may be these you know, you may lose a big client, you may lose a big opportunity that you were going for.

Christopher Nelson (00:48:46) - And so you have this mental downward pressure, you know, or the sports analogy is you're playing behind somebody who has more points on the board and you are fatigued and you need to still continue to perform. What were some of the, you know, again, techniques or strategies that you were using in the special Forces to to get past some of those things?

Quay Barnett (00:49:10) - And I think some of it is there's probably two parts to one. I do think that there is something to be said for grit, right? You know, the ability to endure when things are difficult is a differentiator oftentimes. So I don't want to undersell the value of that persistence with passion. If you think about it from our standpoint as a company, you have three core values. One of those is persistence with passion. And that's kind of where I think about Brett in a positive sense, right? Like I'm passionate about the thing we're doing. I see the impact we're having, but I've got the underpinning, persistence, to your point, that means I've got my health, my family, my mindset in the right place that I can be persistent.

Quay Barnett (00:49:52) - So think about it as I'm gearing up to be able to kind of endure if necessary, but do it in a way that's not detrimental. Doing it in a way that I can sustain higher performance. I think sometimes I know that's the rub, right? Some people see it as like I've just got to endure the pain and sprint through it and don't think in the long run that ends well.

Christopher Nelson (00:50:16) - It doesn't. And this is something that I'm glad that it's spoken about more is, you know, the multi dimensionals. You have to make sure that your health is right, that your family is right. And, um, maybe that's something that is done better in tort, you know, foundationally in different points of the military or the special forces. But I think in tech, you know, people are learning to find some of that balance a little bit more.

Quay Barnett (00:50:44) - Now I’m curious about your thoughts on it, too. Are you seeing those inflection and reflection moments as you mature through your career as well, things that you wouldn't have thought that to be important, you know, kind of as you were taking kind of the early steps of your career and everything was maybe driven by that next deadline or that next, you know, career ladder you were trying to get to.

Christopher Nelson (00:51:07) - Well, it's interesting is, if I was so I was first in this organization, Accenture, which I compare that a little bit. I call it the special forces of business because you're always going to be dropped into some type of theater where something bad is happening or you're going to have to implement some big change. And they wanted to, again, to be a small, nimble team. And in that environment, I think probably similar to yours, we were surrounded with mentors. There was a formal organization where you created connectivity with people that were higher in the career ladder, where it was their job to create relationships and to show you the ropes, show you Here's how you do it from a career perspective. And then, you know, you also had the opportunity to see how they were doing it from a family perspective. And this is where I realized that I had a choice. I could align with guys that were doing career at all costs, or I could align with guys that were doing career and family, you know, much more balanced or or they had much more of a rhythm.

Christopher Nelson (00:52:16) - And that was something that I learned personally is, you know, you want to align yourself with the people that you really want to be like in all aspects, not just in one dimension. As I transitioned out of that into the startup world, that was really where I took that mindset to seek out peers, to seek out mentors that I wanted to be like. And it was in that that I started finding. And I think we were all on this journey together if we pursued a career. Then we realized, okay, maybe our families are a little stretched. We'd go and you figure out family, then we'd figure out, you know, health. That was I mean, and I think that was a big thing. I think I could say for many people in tech, it wasn't until, you know, the last 5 or 7 years that really, you know, sitting as the new smoking came out, you know, so now this is a sit stand desk and, you know, how do you move and make sure you're taking care of your body because all the sitting will destroy you over time.

Christopher Nelson (00:53:17) - And then, you know, the whole concept of, you know, morning routines and routines to really get you in a mindset to be your reflection, your reset before you start your day. I know that that's something that has, you know, permeated a lot of leadership in tech and I think throughout the United States that's helped. And I think now it's starting to trickle down.

Quay Barnett (00:53:43) - Yeah. And I think there's a couple of great, you know, kind of things that can take away your stream's listeners, those hacks you know are big believers in the 5 a.m. club right? I've actually kind of modulated my growth and learning. I use headway for 20 minute book compression. Right. So if I can take you know, you mentioned earlier about the seven habits of highly effective individuals or something like that. They mean something you've read before. Like if I can compress that down into my 20 minute focus period, I can get through that with a summation of like, okay, this is the key takeaways.

Quay Barnett (00:54:16) - I'm not hearing the entire content, but got some new kind of thought stimulation going about how I would apply that today. My then when I'm on like a longer business trip or something and I'm traveling to and from an airport that may be more the kind of I've got an audible where I'm actually going a little bit later, deeper, a little bit more context, a little bit, you know, longer short period around a topic of interest and then, you know, where do you kind of layer that in with the family, with your your personal and physical health, you know, so having those kind of like building those systems and in your life to allow for that I think is really important.

Christopher Nelson (00:54:53) - It is. And I'm curious if from the military perspective, because health is so important and because it is you know, you talked I, I have to think that the selection process going through special forces is something that probably reinforced taking care of yourself physically and then also creates a level like it weeds out people who don't have grit and passion, arguably.

Quay Barnett (00:55:19) - Yeah. And I think, you know, it's as we apply this into like, you know, the, let's say, the software setting or a tech space, how do you how do you equate that or how do you actually replicate the parts of that that are healthy and useful for the for growing inside of that business? I think the stress inoculation is a good way to do that. So what I mean by that is if you've got a give the quarterly business review and that's like the most terrifying moment of your life. Like, don't let that be the singular time you're giving that type of event, just like. If I'm going to go to a physical event, if I wait three months before I go do it, it's going to be very painful. There's going to be lots of scar tissue and probably some some injury involved and certainly some humiliation. What can I do today? What can I do this week? What can I do this month that's that kind of like stress inoculation to that that gets me conditioned mentally performance wise.

Quay Barnett (00:56:13) - It says, Yeah, this is just the next natural progression. We're doing the quarterly business review. I've been doing these monthly updates with my team. I've been doing these daily stand ups with my partner to kind of get me into the place where this is not like this again, not on this massive roller coaster of emotions and stress that comes with that. It's I'm doing those daily inoculations that help me be prepared to perform when needed, when called upon or when.

Christopher Nelson (00:56:42) - I think stress inoculation is is a powerful tool that, to your point, can be like needs to be considered in and understand where to leverage that whatever point you are in your career. Is it, you know, trying to  meet some type of a coding deadline or is it trying to, to your point, deliver a customer or internal facing presentation that has a lot of visibility? These are these things because I. Uh, was hearing the other day. Somebody's talking about the fact that I don't know if it was stress inoculation specifically, but it was just talking about the fact that the more you work on the skills of your craft and you, you actually then display those in a in a public forum and you get comfortable with that, that's going to build confidence.

Christopher Nelson (00:57:33) - And then once you build confidence, then you can keep pushing the boundaries of that that are going to allow you to then understand how you can perform higher and higher as your career progresses.

Quay Barnett (00:57:47) - Then this is one of those interesting kind of probably maybe unthought of points about that military transition because we think of those individuals coming out of maybe a special operations background as being highly confident because in theory they've honed a kind of subject matter expertise that is by definition or some way specialized. But when they come out into this new environment that doesn't have that same subject matter expertise and ironically enough, confidence is one of the areas that people struggle with because, you know, let's say you're coming into the real estate market, right? And that person that may be 26 that's been in that industry for three years, you know, they've got the quant sheet down. They understand the highest and best use for that property. And it doesn't matter how much leadership you've experienced, you've had, you can feel very unconfident in your ability to understand that very specific specialized industry or market or capability.

Quay Barnett (00:58:42) - So it does kind of put people kind of on their back. Putting a little bit sometimes where they've been so confident in the street. Now they're moving into maybe an adjacent one that that confidence is not transferred, not that they're not skilled, not that they don't understand leadership or people or organizations, but there's a very specific, you know, industry confidence that comes with experience as well.

Christopher Nelson (00:59:04) - Yeah, that's true. And that can happen with people that are transitioning from even larger established software companies to smaller software companies where they are in a routine rhythm. And that's where I, I think, understand how to. Know the skills that you need in being able to then, you know, flex and understand how to learn those skills, get comfortable with those skills. That's something that I learned. It was interesting spending time at Accenture, where you were. You could be in multiple industries with an expertise, so you had to gear up on different industries very quickly. I think that skill in and of itself of how to get smart quickly on a subject and start getting repetitions reps early is really, really important, you know, in any type of transition.

Quay Barnett (00:59:56) - And so you bring up a good point like those those kind of matrixed organizations or those consultative organizations sometimes can be really great transition platforms for someone on a who is trying to learn how to quickly now get value propositions across lots of different markets, but transfer the business knowledge that they have. They show leadership, they have the communication skills, and I've seen that work well where people transition out to the center or to a Deloitte or a consulting firm and it's a great kind of launchpad out to the next kind of long term career they have, you know, coming from the military. Into the tech space.

Christopher Nelson (01:00:36) - So what were some of the techniques that you used in the military to manage burnout?

Quay Barnett (01:00:43) - So I always think about it as like mental alternatives. I think burnout oftentimes there is a physical component that certainly you environmental component. I think a lot of it is mental and I think people get mentally fatigued when there's a lot of repetition, even if it's a very dynamic environment. But it's the same environment over and over again.

Quay Barnett (01:01:05) - So I just found mental alternatives. People have different things. Some people like to play video games. Some people like to do, you know, books, whatever that neutral alternative was. For me, it was running a business. So even while I was deployed, we were running our own real estate flipping business, and that gave me a complete mental alternative where even though my mind was being engaged, it was being engaged on something completely different. And in many ways it was energy producing. You know, you come off of a, you know, 12 or 18 hour day and I was going to put 3 or 4 hours into another, you know, business and kind of do the coordination for that remotely. That was very energy producing. At the same time, it took me out of that kind of rut of doing the same thing for 12 hours over and over again. I have this other thing that's exciting. That's kind of at the end of this workday that I'm leveraging or abusing my mind to try to solve these different types of problems.

Quay Barnett (01:02:03) - And for me, that kind of mental alternative has always been really helpful. Some of us think that it's our family or it's a hobby or a passion. Adding something that you dedicate that to.

Christopher Nelson (01:02:15) - Well, in that and in I'm seeing there's a pattern because I found the same thing too. So I started my private equity business when I was still working full time and it was the same thing. I wanted the stimulation. I wanted to build something that was different. I also found that building something that I knew that I could move into or would partially support me transitioning out of a company was the way I like to describe it is that gave me a different purpose and it made my work purposeful. So I wasn't so burnt out on my day to day because to your point, I knew that I had something to look forward to. I had something else that was growing. It brought a lot of energy. And I'm seeing in technology a lot of people are doing that, whether that's consulting and helping other people, whether that's developing an expertise in sharing that with other companies or whether it is building, you know, different real estate businesses on the side, they're finding that as a great alternative to give them that mental release.

Quay Barnett (01:03:26) - I think. What are your recent episodes with Chris that were perfect for this. Now he was using Accenture as what he was using to build the thing that was his purpose, that he felt really his long term focus. I think that's a phenomenal way of characterizing that and think it's really valuable doesn't mean that you're discounting the responsibility you have to your current employment. I found that to be more stimulating and helped me think about problems differently and helped me solve problems from a little bit different perspective than kind of the same way you'd always look at.

Christopher Nelson (01:04:00) - Yeah, I think the interesting thing is employers are becoming more comfortable with it. There's an episode that will release soon with a gentleman by the name of Adam Broda, who is a senior product manager in Big Tech, and he has a thriving consulting business, helping people transition from non tech to tech jobs because that was his story. And he, you know, just feels, you know, a purpose to help people go through that. And his employer is supportive because they also realize that, you know, what he's doing also creates a pipeline for them of potential employees.

Christopher Nelson (01:04:37) - And I think more and more where before there was a concern of, oh, you have this side gig or side hustle, for lack of a better term, that could be distracting where no, it's actually bringing, you know, more ideas. It's actually bringing, you know, preventing my burnout and those types of benefits are letting companies see that as a plus, not a minus.

Quay Barnett (01:05:05) - Well, I think it goes back to, you know, you kind of have some judgment and discernment there. But that willingness to explore something is a little bit different. I remember, you know, early on in my last operational roles, we were really not doing anything with drones or drone technology, just wasn't mature yet. It was just kind of happening in the drag racing league and there were some, you know, small like little pockets had an individual who was a junior guy on a team who just had a passion for it, and we enabled him and equipped him and gave him like literally kind of a sidecar project, go figure out drones and then come back and tell us if there's any application.

Quay Barnett (01:05:44) - I can fast forward about seven years later, literally from, you know, that operational context to then like we were completely different in the way in which we operated on target. We had drones, we had, you know, ground systems. We had lots of these capabilities that were fully integrated into not only our operations, but our tactics and procedures, and how we thought about problem solving in those environments. And it literally came out of those individuals kind of having sidecar interest. And hey, there's this thing out there that I think may be applicable. Let me just kind of have some freedom to explore it, change it back to the organization.

Christopher Nelson (01:06:24) - Well. And I think that those are the types of stories that you're going to find are coming to light more and more, and companies are going to start understanding that, number one, people want these side hustles to be able to get that mental relief, to find a different purpose and that it's going to bring benefit back to the company as well.

Quay Barnett (01:06:46) - Yeah, not for sure it's growing the pie, right? Get everybody in the pie, you know.

Christopher Nelson (01:06:53) - So I did want to ask, you know, how do you see that both the military and tech, you know, teamwork and collaboration are being critical to execution? And what are some of the key things you learned in the teams that you're bringing to your teams?

Quay Barnett (01:07:10) - Yeah. And I think the human endeavor, it's got that underpinning like this. Even if it's a technology output, it's still a human endeavor. Teams are still building things for purposes to help other people or to add some kind of benefit or efficiency or optimization. So you do that with other people. There's rarely this kind of isolated idea hatched in someone's head. It's built on their own and they, you know, release it into the wild and manage it on its own. Like just not how, you know, really great products are developed. They're developed in tight collaboration with people and their team the whole way. I still think you can approach really in any other kind of framework. So some of the things that I think are most applicable and maybe lost a little bit on the, you know, the technology side is really that kind of intent.

Quay Barnett (01:08:01) - Yeah. So what is it that we're actually going after? We're doing a series of potential tasks or we have a series of deliverables not losing sight of why we're doing it. Who is it for? What's that problem that it's solving? What's the pain point in the market that we're addressing that, you know, our outsized impact is going to be felt when we solve that? A lot of times that can also help you get down into very technical decision making. Yeah, we're going to take this your tech stack approach versus that. That intent is really important when you're thinking about the long game versus maybe even some of the here now decisions that would lead you maybe a different direction even in technical decision making. But I think keeping that at the forefront as your teams are aligned on why they're doing what they're doing is really difficult to do in a dynamic environment. And it's really critical when you're trying to communicate across your teams. You're trying to align resources for some size outsized impact.

Christopher Nelson (01:09:00) - That is critical. And I think that, you know, and I can say for myself that thinking evolves for me over time.

Christopher Nelson (01:09:07) - It was really what was our definition of getting something complete, like what's the complete definition but intent? Why are we doing this? Who is it for? What is the outcome that we're seeking? What I witnessed is that the more your team understands that, the more they can work autonomously, the more they can work without you. And yeah, it's empowering and it enables people to do things better. But that is a subtlety and a methodology that I think the commercial side really needs to get better at 100%.

Quay Barnett (01:09:41) - Then you've got to have the skill to map that to specific. You can't just stay at a high level either. That's that kind of nuance, right? How do you translate that down into actions and deliverables that occur in route to that intent? You can't just be envisioning the mountain miles and miles away either. So it takes communication skills. It takes feedback. You know, let's say it's an engineer that's providing that feedback like when you say that I don't know what I'm supposed to do tomorrow, right? Like there could be that misalignment of, okay, that sounds great, but what do I need to do? So having open channels for feedback to say, okay, that until.

Quay Barnett (01:10:18) - Was not clearly conveyed in a deliverable manner that I can understand will take and then actually their intent until empowered. That's a feedback channel that needs to be there.

Christopher Nelson (01:10:29) - It does. And that's why I've seen this evolution of engineering managers who were always very technically proficient to now the great ones are technically proficient, but they have an element of storytelling. They have an element of being able to tie these business reasons and in technical terms for these engineers so they can bring that to life. And the ones that can do that really well create very, very high performing teams.

Quay Barnett (01:10:59) - A lot of value to the marketplace for sure, and get rewarded well for and come back to your kind of point on. That's part of, I think, one of those value propositions. When you think about a company looking at you as an equity asset, your ability to do that, bring that kind of outsized impact is not a literal kind of W-2 relationship, right? Like they realize they get the scaled value of having somebody who can lead teams like that as well.

Christopher Nelson (01:11:24) - They are able to. It's interesting that when you interview somebody, they may be focused on one thing. But the more you can tell your own story and talk about the value, articulate what that brings in, you know, you say the terms outside outsized outcomes for the size of the team. And this you know, in my speak I talk about the results and quantifying that that becomes incredibly powerful of being able to articulate what is your value in the marketplace, especially when you can, you know, mark that to where you see the market, where you see peers performing that can get more equity, more dollars on the table. Hands down. So I do want to move on. Like we could talk all day on this high performance stuff. I mean, I really enjoy the conversation and I don't know if at some point we'll have live meet up with you and some other tech people like just jamming on this because I think people will really get a ton of value.

Christopher Nelson (01:12:26) - But I want to take a moment before we get to the fire round and just ask, so where are you with real estate today and what got you into real estate? What keeps you in real estate?

Quay Barnett (01:12:36) - Yeah, I think it kind of goes back to that idea, like we said, kind of early on, just like being able to look at what the future kind of value of something could be, figure out how can I like resources in a way that's efficient so that I can get some kind of value, you know, profit on the back end of it? That was old cars, you know, restoring them. That's houses and flipping. And for us, it was something that was accessible, right? Given my kind of schedule, if I could build a team of contractors who could do the work, you know, I could have the ability to go find the deals and I can have the ability to structure them and I will have the ability to manage it. And then problems are solved through it.

Quay Barnett (01:13:15) - And you kind of see where that market could be. So that's what was really attractive. And the other part of it for us was it was bringing my wife kind of into that because we had, you know, my work was fairly compartmentalized in the sense that we weren't talking a lot of the kind of operational specifics at home. So this gave us something where we could team together and build something and we could bring the kids into it. They had, you know, junior partner status and they had to work on the projects before they could get paid. And they had the delayed gratification. Or just because you finish a project doesn't mean somebody buys it that day. You have to wait right and see those returns down the line. And it may not be, you know, be weeks and maybe months down the line before you see the value return.

Christopher Nelson (01:14:00) - Now, is that something you're still doing?

Quay Barnett (01:14:02) - So we've put it on pause right now just with some market conditions here from a flipping standpoint. And I feel like the market will be better suited for.

Quay Barnett (01:14:11) - We weren't doing whole long term asset maintenance, so we were doing purely the kind of turn. So I think the market kind of will rewrite itself into another direction that may be something we pick up again. Still doing the old cars, you know, that's something that I still find a lot of fulfillment in. So we're flipping those right now to the houses.

Christopher Nelson (01:14:33) - Do you have a make and model that is your favorite or anything goes?

Quay Barnett (01:14:38) - Well, I mean, I think I grew up a, you know, Chevy guy when I was 16, My first car I worked for was 1957, Chevy Bel Air. Of course, because I was 16, I could only afford the four door model. So I literally had like a, you know, 26 foot steel beast that had to drive everywhere but was as happy as could be. Soon I like a lot of the kind of 50s and 60s muscle cars.

Christopher Nelson (01:15:03) - Okay. Well, we'll have to talk. I'm.

Christopher Nelson (01:15:06) - I'm sitting in . I got from my pops a 64 Chevy Impala Super Sport convertible. Right.

Quay Barnett (01:15:14) - Right now we're on a 68 Dodge Charger. So the old Bullitt film.

Christopher Nelson (01:15:21) - Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a huge fan of bullets, man. That's it. I mean, the chase scene through Save Cisco and stuff. Yeah, it's good stuff. All right, well, I don't want to keep you here all day, so let's get to the fire round. We're going to hit you with five questions right now. You may have answered some of these already. How do you keep learning?

Quay Barnett (01:15:41) - I do it both through kind of that morning, like quick learning, like trying to get something new out of that. Haven't thought about it. That's that kind of 20 minute block of time every morning. Kind of bring that five and 530 window and then try to do it deliberately in a book that I'm interested in. So when I get kind of every couple of weeks, the chance to consume a book.

Quay Barnett (01:16:02) - And then the other thing I have is that annual goal, which is I want to learn a new topic or a new field or something new each year. And so for me, moving into the data science and machine learning field has been a massive learning opportunity. I'm surrounded by amazing professionals, so I kind of do it in those kinds of chunks of work.

Christopher Nelson (01:16:22) - It's great. Yeah. It's a very, very formalized discipline. Love it. What do you do to recharge?

Quay Barnett (01:16:29) - So for me, the family is the big thing. The other kind of mental, you know, kind of alter mental is that kind of old cars or side hustle kind of thing. But we've got three wonderful kids, a wonderful wife, and so we've got everything that comes with that, which means our schedules are mapped out with every travel sport, every weekend. So spending time and then just devoting that presence with them is really recharging.

Christopher Nelson (01:16:56) - That's really good. What's the advice that you give to your younger self working in tech?

Quay Barnett (01:17:04) - I think it's the willingness to learn, because I think especially as we're seeing, we saw it at the tail end, we're incorporating more and more technology in the way we operate.

Quay Barnett (01:17:14) - That half life is just so quick as technology continues to develop. So whenever you think you've solved something or you have your system in place, someone coming up probably has something that's newer, that's faster, maybe even better. Just being willing to kind of adapt and adapt to that when necessary and really continuing kind of learner mindset.

Christopher Nelson (01:17:35) - It's great. What's the best investment of time that you ever made?

Quay Barnett (01:17:41) - I mean, I think for me, you know, that's kind of the God family and then, you know, to the country, right? Like I felt very, very tightly aligned when I was able to kind of orient my time that way and focus my efforts and make sure those were all kind of in that light right alignment. And I wasn't in any part of that, right? There was a kind of growth and development when you keep those kinds of things aligned purposefully.

Christopher Nelson (01:18:11) - It's great. And then what was then the best return on time that you ever got?

Quay Barnett (01:18:16) - I think it was learning a business again.

Quay Barnett (01:18:20) - We've talked about the kind of flipping because it made you kind of walk through every aspect of it, right? Things you didn't know you would need to learn, whether that's legal, whether that's understanding, you know, a process by which to get homes, understanding the due diligence to you go through looking at properties, looking at different, you know, capital rates across different types of investment portfolio and be like, Oh yeah, it was literally just you couldn't replicate that until you just got in and had a business that you had there, had to keep solvent, had to keep growing. And it just was that wonderful kind of crucible to like focus and distill learning for.

Christopher Nelson (01:18:59) - Yeah, I agree 100% that getting into real estate you learn the skill that really anybody can manage. Anybody can do the math. It's not hard. There are some tricky parts, but arguably what we do in tech is really much more complex, but it's a skill that I'm excited to be able to pass on to my family for multiple generations, and it's something that adds tremendous value to your family and to the bottom line for sure.

Quay Barnett (01:19:31) - Like I said, being able to bring them into that was a lot of fun too. From kind of stroller days on, they were there at the houses, so. Yeah.

Christopher Nelson (01:19:40) - Well, great. Well, thanks so much for joining us today. K, I appreciate your time. I hope that you enjoyed today's episode with K. I got a lot out of it. My ask for you is please subscribe to our podcast. We're on Apple and please leave us a review. We need to know what value you're getting out of the podcast. And number three, send us an email. Let us know what you want to talk about, what questions you may have asked. Ask at Tech Careers and Money Talk. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks so much. See you next time.