Navigating Professional Validation: Heartfelt Salesforce Wisdom with Vanessa and Josh

This is a unique episode! Valentine's Day brings thoughts of love and appreciation, but what about the validation we yearn for in our professional lives? Vanessa Grant joins me, Josh Matthews to unravel the subtle need for recognition that often fuels our journey in the Salesforce community. Inspired by Vanessa's candid LinkedIn article, we reflected on the real drivers behind our work—those moments of validation that go beyond public accolades, deeply connecting us to the human side of our professional endeavors.

When we opened the floor to our live audience, the conversation took a profound turn, merging practical advice with personal tales that resonated with everyone involved. We dove into the realm of digital validation, where likes and comments can be double-edged swords, contrasting sharply against the authentic connections and learning experiences shared within the Trailblazer Community. There were laughs, nods of agreement, and the occasional "aha" moment as we dissected the intoxicating allure of online metrics and the more enduring pursuit of meaningful engagement.

Wrapping up, our hearts were full as we pondered the unexpected avenues of growth and the joy found in simple acts of kindness within our community. As we look forward to the year,  we're reminded of the profound impact every single interaction can have—whether it's a word of encouragement, a piece of constructive criticism, or a story that inspires. Join us for this insightful blend of heart, humor, and Salesforce wisdom that promises to leave you feeling both challenged and cherished in your professional journey.

Chapters

• 0:02 Unconventional Validation in Salesforce Community
• 9:05 The Power of Validation in Success
• 17:05 Validation and Encouragement in Salesforce
• 27:30 Importance of Validation and Self-Awareness
• 38:29 Building a Brand of Value
• 44:51 Impact of Validation in the Community
• 52:00 Navigating Validation in the Digital Age
• 1:02:36 Reflections on Validation and Gratitude
• 1:14:54 Importance of Seeking and Receiving Validation
• 1:19:09 The Power of Validation
• 1:30:04 Potential Audio Link on Next Program

Transcript

Announcer: 0:02

And now the number one audio program that helps you to hire, get hired and soar higher in the Salesforce ecosystem. It's the Salesforce career show with Josh Matthews and Vanessa Grant.

Josh Matthews: 0:21

Welcome everybody. My name is Josh. We are joined by Vanessa Grant, we also have Peter Ganza on the panel, we've got Steven Greger, who may remain not pipe up, and some more on the way. Today is Valentine's Day, so happy Valentine's Day to all of our live listeners. We thank you for joining us on this special, special day special for some people, not special for others. We get that.

Josh Matthews: 0:45

I'm excited about today because Vanessa has penned a fantastic article. She posted it up on LinkedIn and it is called unconventional validation from the Salesforce community. So we're going to dive into that we're going to talk about and, by the way, this is not a validating code or anything like that. This is about or validation rules, yeah, or validation rules, right. So I'm going to go ahead and let Vanessa go ahead. Tell us just a quick overview of our article.

Josh Matthews: 1:17

And, by the way, keep in mind, this is a live show. You get to raise your hand. We're happy to bring you up to this stage. You can ask a question live. You can also share your input and if you're shy, you can send a message, preferably just DM. Vanessa, she'll read it aloud. We'll do our best to help solve whatever challenge you're facing in your career right now, be it something to do with your resume, interviewing, how to network, where to find jobs, or it could be about how to be more efficient, have more accolades, get more recognition in your role, things like that. Okay, vanessa, the floor is yours.

Vanessa Grant: 1:55

Yeah, and actually just to kind of piggyback off that, josh, I think if anybody who's listening on the podcast when we're not live all of a sudden thinks of something that they want us to cover in the show, feel free to DM me on Twitter or on LinkedIn. Just let me know that it's a question for the show and not just something that you're asking me personally, and I'm happy to bring it up next time we record so unconventional validation from the Salesforce community. So this came up in. It's actually this article's kind of been in the works for a while.

Vanessa Grant: 2:27

Back in 2022, paul Ginsburg went to a talk that Stephanie Herrera did on Salesforce pressure cooker. The heat is rising and talking about how folks in the community often feel a lot of pressure to do the work that they do, and it can be a little bit challenging, taxing certainly on personal lives. I mean the community. We love it, but it does take a lot out of you, and so one of the things that Gemma Blizzard had mentioned was that everybody needs validation, and how people receive validation can be very personal, and so particularly me, I know I personally get a lot of anxiety right around this time of year because I am pretty sure that MVP announcements are right around the corner. If I had to put money on it, I would say next Tuesday we'll know who our new class of Salesforce MVPs is or are. I don't know if I'm being grammatically correct there or not, but close enough close enough.

Vanessa Grant: 3:36

So I wanted to write an article where you know what I've been nominated for MVP every year since 2020 at this point, and not that like I don't do any of the community stuff I do for for an MVP award, like that. I mean, at the end of the day, like it still is a marketing strategy for Salesforce to have all these folks that are are talking about Salesforce and socializing best practices and being experts that people can reach out to. So I don't know that people necessarily while there have been historically like a few folks that I think do the work that they do in the community because they want the accolades, I think that's not necessarily the most common reason why people do the work that they do. A lot of the work that folks in the community that are really active do they do for free. They do because they like helping people, they like supporting people in their careers. That's why you and I do this show, josh. You know it's not like we're raking in sponsored dollars here.

Josh Matthews: 4:36

Oh yeah, and there's, you know there's. Look, the validation for this, for this program, is in the results, right, and? And everyone's got their own thing for me. I judge myself, and I do judge myself. We usually do in some way shape or form. I judge myself based on the quality of help that I provide to other people. I want to see them succeed. That makes me feel happy. It's not altruistic, right. I mean it can sound like it might seem like that, it could even appear like that, but I actually get something out of it that apparently I need. So there you go, right.

Vanessa Grant: 5:16

You and me both, and I think that's part of OK. Well, what is the validation that? What are the different metrics we can use for validation to really feel good about ourselves, to know that the work that we're doing is landing, that it, that it is valuable? And so in my article that I threw up on LinkedIn if folks want to follow me on LinkedIn, I think it's real Vanessa Grant but I, yeah, I covered a bunch of the different ways that you can find validation outside of kind of the more award based sales force things like Golden Hoodie and MVP, because the work we do is valuable and there are lots of different ways to still feel good about yourself, even if you weren't one of the 20 something folks that got picked this year. So how would you like me, should I just kind of go through some of the, the ways that I that I suggest receiving validation?

Josh Matthews: 6:18

Yeah, yeah, maybe I'll kind of do a quick high, high level thing here right.

Josh Matthews: 6:24

So we've got all the different ways and this is this is good for the people listening after the live show on the podcast kind of get a sense of what's coming. Vanessa is going to be talking about supporting others, right. She's going to talk about events. She's going to be talking about social media and then validation for yourself and then how to get the validation that you might need, and then I'm going to be piping up here with some thoughts on some of the information that she's sharing and maybe putting up some guardrails around some of this stuff too. That might, might, help you as well. So I would just start at the top and let's, let's rock it. I love that.

Josh Matthews: 7:02

I love this article, by the way. I was reading it and then I got to the part where you start, where you start quoting lyrics from rent. What is it? The 500 seasons of love. Seasons of love yeah, I was at something. Minutes, 500,000 minutes or whatever it is. I'm like, oh yeah, I know that and I actually shot you like my own validation stuff. I don't even remember what I said. It was, like you know, in podcasts and sessions and whatever it was in times that Peter Gensler shows shows up to the show.

Josh Matthews: 7:33

Yeah, exactly, it's kind of fun. So, yeah, just go go for it. I love this topic.

Vanessa Grant: 7:39

So the reason why I quoted brand is you know that there's a song in the musical that talks about how do you measure a year, like is it the minutes or can it be in cups of coffee in you know, and laughter that you had over the course of the year. When we're talking about validation, it's not just award based, like there are lots of ways to receive validation. So the first way I touched on was in supporting others, and I really that's the crux of why we do the work that we do in the community, and so some of the ways that we can get fulfilled here. You know when our validation tanks are low.

Vanessa Grant: 8:16

These are some of the things that you can think about that I that I urge you to think about One thing about the number of trailblazers that you've helped. One of the examples that I cited here was that you know, sometimes we do our Twitter spaces and, like, I don't know 20 people show up, but when, when we think about the times that this, these Twitter spaces, can help people in the future, like over the course of the next week, maybe 200 people are going to listen, how many people are going to listen to the podcast, and we don't even necessarily know how many people are actually going to get value from, from the podcast that we're doing.

Josh Matthews: 8:56

Yeah, it's about 500 right now. So you know this is going to be listened to by about 500 people in the first 30 or 30, 40 days, something like that, right, and then more after that. And then the other thing I'm just going to add in here real quick, vanessa, is something that someone might learn from this program. They may, they may, share with someone else.

Vanessa Grant: 9:14

Yes.

Josh Matthews: 9:15

Who may share it with 100 people right, who may share it with 1000 people four years down the line, because they remembered something and now they're, you know, crushing it and really out there in the community. So it's, it's the pebble right, it's the ripples of the pebble, it's the, it's the butterfly wings that you know, make the heart hurricane or whatever that analogy.

Vanessa Grant: 9:37

So the other ones I have another big one, and I think this one is underappreciated is questions that you can answer in the trailblazer community. So again, trailblazers, you can help. But one of the things that I think is super valuable when you're on your Salesforce journey is learning publicly. I think a lot of people are really afraid to like share their learning journey and make mistakes along the way and make statements that people might disagree with. So I think it's great to actually converse with people through the Trailblazer community when people have a problem. The crowd sourcing of answers super valuable for your learning journey, but also great for validation, especially when you come up with something that a lot of people agree with. Oh yeah, I use that approach and that worked really well for my business or whatever that might be.

Vanessa Grant: 10:28

Times that you were asked to write an article or give your opinion or present to a group, even if it's just a lunch and learn within your organization. Hey, you know it really helped the salespeople if we did kind of a lunch and learn so they could get a little bit more about Salesforce, that you are an expert in that particular area and ask to support others great validation right there. Times that you were able to answer someone's question about Salesforce outside of work. Are you known as the Salesforce person in your apartment building and this is actually one I got from Tracy Green, you know where they're like the Salesforce person in there in their building, like that's. That's amazing.

Josh Matthews: 11:03

I love that one. I thought that was funny. It's been a long time since I've lived in an apartment, but I get it, I used it and I get it. Yeah, it's cool.

Vanessa Grant: 11:12

You know, I've had like random people ask me about my Astro keychain. Like I'm just that person. You know, the Salesforce is a lifestyle person and I and I do that proudly and when people notice and they go hey, I'm excited about Salesforce too, like there's validation in that. Can I do something?

Josh Matthews: 11:30

here. I just I just want to talk about why validation might be necessary or why it might not be necessary. Right like when, what happens when someone is working really hard and they're not getting any kind of external validation? And and then the idea to Vanessa that, look, not everybody needs it, and that's a real thing. Some people need none like none.

Vanessa Grant: 11:54

That is a true thing.

Josh Matthews: 11:55

Yeah, it literally doesn't mean anything to them. They are unto themselves, they have confidence in themselves, they know what they're doing and they're proud of their work or not. They're just living their life. It doesn't matter, right for other people, and everyone's got. You know, there's a variety of different personality styles. There's about 20 different tests you could take. They all almost say pretty much the same thing, but some people need recognition.

Josh Matthews: 12:22

One thing I never knew and I'll tell this story super quick I never knew that recognition was important to me when I was younger. So I'm what? 30 years old and you know. So, going back 20 years, okay, a little bit more than 20 years, all right, a little bit more than that. So I started working at Robert Haff and I was doing, I was a recruiter, and then I got into sales and it wasn't until I had actually I'd done a good job and I was getting an award right. And when I knew that I was in running for that award and I still had three months to go and every week you could see where you ranked, because it was all based on numbers, it's based on your sales, and I never realized in my life that that was important to me, and it wasn't until my manager said something to me is like so you're not really because I killed it.

Josh Matthews: 13:18

After that next three months, I saw I was in the running. Then I went full steam and he's like so you're not really motivated by accolades or recognition, josh, and kind of laughed because he'd asked me when I'd first joined. Like, what's important to me? Right, and I was. I was like, oh, that means nothing to me because I'd never had it and I really hadn't not, really not at that level, not in a company. And once I, once I had it, it became important to me. And then, after a fairly long career, it's not, it's not nearly as important to me anymore. It just isn't right. You kind of like, oh yeah, cool, like I had to scratch that itch.

Josh Matthews: 13:57

But so the valid, the idea of like, getting validation, meaning what you're doing is good, keep going right. It's like having, it's like getting a pep talker, cheerleader or just like you're on the right track. It's confirmation that you're moving in the right direction. And there will be stages in your life when you need it more and stages when you don't. And needing it more doesn't mean you're insecure. Needing it more doesn't mean there's something wrong with you, right? Not needing at all doesn't mean there's something wrong with you. It really doesn't matter. It's just your personality, makeup and where you are in your life at that time, and I think that it's very valuable there. It gets tricky, though, when you can't be happy without lots of validation.

Josh Matthews: 14:40

Okay, think of the famous rock star. I just watched this great documentary with Casey last week about Wham, and George Michael was opening up his heart, love that dude, and he was talking about how the fame became addictive. Right, was addicted to it. He needed that massive validation from millions of people, and it kind of messed him up for a while and, let's face it, it continued to mess him up, you know, through the end of his life. So you know there's a balance here between healthy amounts of validation and and too much right. So just I wanted to share a few of these thoughts. Keep it in mind.

Vanessa Grant: 15:27

We'll come back to it later so I think my tenure might be stuck at the front door, so why don't we get here from our other speakers about validation for a quick second while I go get the door?

Josh Matthews: 15:36

pardon me sure, no problem. Well, we've got Elizabeth not here. Elizabeth, are you open to sharing your thoughts on this right now? Go ahead and tell everybody who you are and what you do well, certainly love being just kind of thrown into things.

Elizabeth Knott: 15:50

Right, that's right. Variety is the spice of life. You've been validated, thank you. So, yes, good day everyone. My name is Elizabeth not I am a salesperson Sultan at Deloitte, been there two years, which has been, you know, ups and downs, learned a lot about consulting and you know I'd like to focus a bit more. I'm considered what they call functional, but I'm really more techno functional and for anybody who may or may not know, you know and consulting speak, functional is just a fancy word for business analyst, and so I do a lot of the business analyst work, which is why I enjoy, you know, timing into the show and listening to Vanessa talking about the work of business analysts, but I also like to do a lot of the hands-on configuration as well so what about validation?

Josh Matthews: 16:44

so thank you for that. What about validation? Are there, what are your thoughts on what you've heard so far and is are there ways that you try to seek validation or have felt validated in your career that has given you the gas, the, the, the energy, the battery power, whatever to keep pushing forward?

Elizabeth Knott: 17:02

oh, yeah, it definitely. It definitely helps my mojo. I will say that I get it unexpectedly all the time, because a lot of I think for me I a lot of times when I share information or I post things, it's really because I like, whoops, I made a mistake or I've learned from this experience. Let me share it and maybe, hopefully, others don't have to go down the same path and then later people will message me. Or sometimes, when we connect, I love talking to people, so be like, hey, you don't sure they want to connect, I'll get on a call or something with them and they'd be like you know, I've been watching you a long time, which is, I know, one of the things that was noted in our caller or whatever.

Elizabeth Knott: 17:41

And man you've been, you know, you've inspired me to keep going, or or what have you, and it really does not cost people much to you know, to share compliments. And I've been a, I've always been, a big fan of encouraging people, because that really does pave the way, because it's, it's almost a part of being a not just a mentor, but a sponsor, and I I'm not gonna get into all the the biblical bits of that, but for me that's, I feel like that's an important role that should never be overlooked of, and being able to encourage people and that does come back to you tenfold yeah you know, it makes me.

Josh Matthews: 18:22

It makes me think that it's it's not just how are, how can we be validated and what areas might we be looking or overlooking for validation, but in what ways might be. Might we be overlooking opportunities to validate people around us our co-workers, our peers, our mentors and coaches, our bosses and managers and just say thanks, or hey, you're doing a good job. I'm our employees, right? I mean, I had a meeting today and, and one of my employees I was on the call with a couple different employees and one of them had done something to help me out. She did a really good job and I said, you know, thanks, so much, you rock.

Josh Matthews: 19:07

And she, she wrote back and she's like you really have no idea, like when you say that, what that means to me, right, like that's awesome, like I love hearing that. And now it creates this positive feedback loop, right, so that encourages me to compliment more, which will encourage her, make her feel better and do even better in her role, and so on and so forth. So it's, it's a, it's a pretty cool thing. What's a way we'll get Vanessa back on? Give us a purple heart or a thumbs up, vanessa, if you're back online, but in the meantime, thank you for that. So in the meantime, I'm kind of curious, elizabeth how do you, how do you help validate other people on their Salesforce journeys?

Elizabeth Knott: 19:48

the best thing it will keep. I guess that it's a two-part. Again, I'm always either sending messages, you know, directly on their post, or sending, you know, direct messages. And to the biggest thing, and you know, to help that momentum go, keep going, is provide suggestions or tips like, okay, you know, we're always happy once they have accomplished something or done something, but always to keep, you know, looking on the forward horizon. So it's not that you don't celebrate where you currently have done or where you what you've achieved. But now it's like, okay, well, here's a little suggestion, here's a little tip, you know, just helping to deposit something into them as they're going from one level to the next sounds like you're leaving breadcrumbs for where they should be going.

Vanessa Grant: 20:31

I would think that accelerators I would call them Josh, because you're basically the there's so much information in this ecosystem and for folks that are maybe it just you know a bit behind you on the journey to be able to, to give them the fast path. I'm like, hey, oh, you're interested in that thing. Oh, I'm off the top of my head. I can tell you these three things would be great places to start to dig into that a little further. Even just vocabulary and I didn't know what business analysis was until I sat down next to one and she explained what her job was. But gosh, what would have happened then? You, how much longer would it would have taken me to get to here if, if I hadn't had that moment. So I think sharing information to help folks accelerate their careers and in directions that they want to go, or that would be good for them to go, based on what you know of them amazing absolutely.

Vanessa Grant: 21:28

Well, let's pick up right where you left off when you did your own version of a door dash yes, sorry, my ten-year-old is no longer trapped outside of the house, so I know about getting validated as a parent today. But hey, back to Salesforce for us so.

Vanessa Grant: 21:48

So people you've talked to about Salesforce topics I think we're just talking about that so the information that you can share when when you've, and then those people achieving new jobs, getting new certifications or even getting trailhead badges. I've certainly pointed people to super bad just to go. Oh man, you know, I don't know how to, how to get hands-on experience with Salesforce. There's so many people who don't even know to like go on to trailhead like they're that far back in their journey that they and not that that's a bad thing. You are where you are celebrated, but even just connecting people to the free resources, a lot of people go trailhead looks really like like it's probably expensive, it's free. Guys, you know, go get that first badge, go get that first super badge.

Vanessa Grant: 22:32

Mentees you've taken on, while celebrating their growth with them, mentors and the community members who supported you.

Vanessa Grant: 22:39

There's validation in that that people see the potential in your journey and want to help you and want to provide you with information and we'll take their time out to guide you.

Vanessa Grant: 22:47

There's validation in that and also the times you've supported others by attending their speaking sessions or events, and I threw in bonus points if their session was at 8 am, I did I? We've talked about this. I have massive stage fright when I have a friendly face in the front of the crowd, even if they don't need my session, especially if the sessions at 8 am. Like Jack McCurdy, a gear set, and Melissa Shepherd, who's like a CTA, showed up at, like, my business analysis certification prep session at 8 am. Like nobody wants to work on business analysis certification prep at 8 am, but those two were there to like, cheer me on and smile at me while I freaked out, you know, to the 30 people and and conveyed information. But it was so validating to have people support me on my journey because they believed in what I was saying and believe that it was helping people and Vanessa, just because someone doesn't come to your 8 o'clock but they do come to your 1 o'clock, do you still like that person?

Vanessa Grant: 23:47

yes, so there was that time that Josh showed up to my and certainly you don't need any tips on networking, but you came to mine and Gabby's session on networking, that's right to be supportive and that was a great session thank you, I love that we were all laughing.

Josh Matthews: 24:03

Yeah, we're all laughing. But I remember that was the first time I ever met Janine and I in the hallway there at Tahoe Dreaming, and she looked at me and she kind of no offense Janine, but she gave me kind of some stink eye because I didn't make it to the session the first one. I felt really bad yeah, that's right.

Vanessa Grant: 24:26

There was also Tahoe we've been at, we've been in a few conferences, but yeah, it's there.

Vanessa Grant: 24:30

There is validation on people showing up for you and so taking taking some validation from that is great. And another one that I cited I mean it doesn't even have to be necessarily in person when I did my first solo speaking session and it was my first international session in London last year, gemma Blizzard wasn't able to attend. You know, something happened. She had a ticket but she couldn't actually make it, so she just recorded like a two-minute WhatsApp voice message for me and she called it. You know my my pre-talk pep talk, and it was wonderful where she laid out you know what to expect from a London crowd and told me, you know, that I had the right messaging and the right tone and and to break a leg and that was, I mean, did I still freak out while I was on stage? Yes, but there is something about almost kind of feeling that invisible hug while you're up there, that that people are rooting for you and there's there's a ton to to take in emotionally.

Josh Matthews: 25:34

That's validating from that there is, and for those of you who've never seen Vanessa do a presentation, it doesn't at all look like she's freaking out. It's all inside. It does not come across that she's stressing unless she says it, and she'll say that she'll say it, so like I'm totally forget out. She does great, so it's a. We've talked about this a number of times and I always think it's I always forget that you freak out when you are in some sort of public arena speaking, because I'm always shocked because you do it with a plon. You know you do it so well. Anyway, I just want to.

Vanessa Grant: 26:15

I appreciate that. Before that, that London session like no, no joke. I was in tears that that whole day. It was. It was rough. I have barely slept that night. It was something. So it is. It does help with the validation. I'm sure you know those friendly faces in the crowd, the, the pep talk that I got ahead of time, even though I was freaking out. It fueled me to deliver as well as I did. I look back on the YouTube video I'm like wow, I'm really actually happy with that session, even though I know how much I'm going to mess. I was like I left my body for that 25 minutes. But yeah, again, I think you consider. Even just showing up to a session is the work that you do in the community. That is part of your community work is showing up for other people, being a content amplifier, validating others.

Josh Matthews: 27:09

That's right. That's right, I think. Can we take a moment? Because before we move on to the next big section here, I think it's a valid thing to bring up that we should apply a moderate amount of like. We should have a filter on where we get our validation from. There are people in the world who will validate you, no matter what. Not everyone's mom, but lots of moms. I could draw the worst picture in the world and my mom would freak out and put on the fridge it's so good, You're so good. Now I don't think that hurt me necessarily. But now in your adult life and there are going to be people.

Josh Matthews: 27:55

You see it all the time. It's always in rom-coms there's a bad breakup and then the girlfriend of the girl is like I'll screw him, he's an horrible person and all that stuff. Maybe he's not, Maybe it just wasn't a good fit, Maybe it was just it didn't work out. I don't know. But you've got to be careful who you take your advice from. That includes validation. You want to protect yourself from being validated for doing dumb stuff. Certain friends, extremely loyal friends, who don't have the gene of discernment, can validate the wrong behavior, which can cause you to emphasize the wrong behaviors moving forward in your life. Oh, you don't like your boss. Just quit that kind of stuff. So careful where you get your validation from. Really understand what's in it for this person. Do they want to just agree with you so that they feel validated? Do you see what I mean?

Vanessa Grant: 28:51

Absolutely.

Josh Matthews: 28:51

I wouldn't agree with that anymore, yeah, so, just like we're talking about this stuff, we're going to continue to talk about it for some time now this evening, but I just want everybody to have their. I'm not saying put your guard up. It's just understand what the motivation is from the person across from you. Maybe it's genuine, maybe it's to suck up to you, maybe it's to float your boat, maybe they actually want something. Maybe the thing that they want is just for you to like them. So they're going to agree with all of your stupid ideas, even if they're stupid ideas which you don't need in your life. And it's like my friend Damien says the more famous you get, the more of an asshole you become. I don't know if this is 100% true, but particularly in young adults who aren't fully mature.

Vanessa Grant: 29:40

It's definitely true for me.

Josh Matthews: 29:44

I doubt that, but you can look at Justin Bieber. Justin Bieber had this phase where and I'm not a believer but he had this phase where he was acting the fool, he was just doing dumb stuff and no one was calling him on it. No one was calling him on it. All of my close friends, if it came to it, would throw me up against a wall and say you're being a jerk, cut it out, right. And that's why they're my good friends, because they will call you on it. So the validation works in both directions. You want to be validated for the positive stuff, but you also want to be called on the stupid mistakes that you keep making, which, consequently, if you keep making them, that's a pattern, and you really need to begin investigating why that pattern exists to begin with, so that you can undo it.

Vanessa Grant: 30:29

Yeah, I think it's also important to understand that not everybody is good at giving validation, so definitely take certain bits of advice with a grain of salt. I will give an example. Back when I was in the music biz, I was interning at a management company and my boss was like, oh, you're so organized, you got all this down. He's like you're going to make a great assistant someday. And I was like, wow, so is that all he sees me at? So think of, ok, maybe he did think that I could move further than the ranks of assistant, but that's certainly not how I received. It Wasn't the best way to deliver that compliment, and certainly I've done better in my career. But he had said, oh, you could be a little bit more proactive. Maybe that was the fuel that got me the career that I have today, but I remember at the time that had a huge impact on my validation levels.

Vanessa Grant: 31:34

Sometimes just things that people will say offhand. Just definitely throw it through that filter and see if there is value. Is there merit to what they're saying? Is there value to what they're saying and are you maybe receiving it in a way that they didn't intend?

Josh Matthews: 31:47

Exactly. I'm glad you brought that up. Look, when our parents say something, whether we like them or not, regardless of the relationship you have with your parent, it matters to you because they're your parent. You can't help that relationship, be that relationship, Right. So when they say, this is why we get hurt when we're young, or damaged when we're young, or invalidated when we're adults, and things like that, certain people in certain roles have more power over us.

Josh Matthews: 32:17

More power to influence our emotions is really what I mean, and so you've got to be really careful about that. So, in this instance, if the receptionist had told you, yeah, you're going to make a great assistant someday, that would have landed differently than if your boss said it Right, yep, okay, because we're talking about power, right, this is someone who has control over your career to an extent not 100%, but in that role so they have control over your career, or a parent, or an influencer. If somebody gets on LinkedIn and badmouts you, right, and they have 50 followers, yeah, whatever, who cares? If someone gets on LinkedIn and they have 20,000 followers and there's 2,000 people that are going to read this message that they said where they pooped on you, yeah, it's going to hurt a lot more, so be thinking about that power relationship as well.

Vanessa Grant: 33:16

Josh, I wish you'd told me that. I think it was towards the end of last year. I actually learned this lesson the hard way and I'll share that. I'll be a little vulnerable for a second Go for it.

Vanessa Grant: 33:28

Somebody kind of put a hot take LinkedIn post up last year around Thanksgiving time and it was something that resonated with me. But somebody else who was kind of newer in their Salesforce journey disagreed and made kind of a hot take post off the hot take post and so I got in their comment section like, oh, I really don't understand your point of view here and maybe I was a little bit fired up about it. But I kind of took it in the spirit of like, oh, we're both just Salesforce professionals and this is LinkedIn banter. I really didn't sit back and go how is this being received with, I guess, the? I don't think about the follow-up account a lot of the time, I don't think about the influence that I might have, and this person ended up actually deleting their LinkedIn. Oh, gosh, like because, yeah, I felt awful. Yeah, I felt awful, yeah, and it really did make me kind of sit back and go like, okay, these are kind of dynamics that I really need to think about before I open my mouth.

Josh Matthews: 34:30

Sometimes yeah, it's Uncle Ben's great power, great responsibility. Whether the power is great or not, any influence matters, and so you've got to be conscientious around it. Yeah.

Vanessa Grant: 34:40

Yeah, and just because I see myself a certain way which is just like I'm just a regular Salesforce professional, like maybe folks that are newer on the journey might not take it that way and so being, I guess, putting kindness at the forefront, maybe not saying something when I can just pass it by sometimes is for the best Arguing on LinkedIn.

Josh Matthews: 34:59

I've done it, it's. It doesn't end well for anybody Like you're either going to look like you're hyper defensive, right, like I try and imagine a silverback gorilla. Would a silverback gorilla actually engage in a debate in comments on LinkedIn if they could type Right? And the answer they wouldn't. You watch these nature videos, they just sit there. There could be four different squabbles going on. People, you know people. Monkeys, not monkeys. Apes, sorry, zoologists you know they could be mayhem around them. They're just sitting there chilling, getting groomed right, unflappable, and it's. It's that whole idea of you know, when you're good, you tell everyone about how good you are, and when you're great, you don't have to say anything. Other people talk about how great you are, right. It's that switch.

Vanessa Grant: 36:02

Excellent point, Josh, and I've hopefully I've learned my lessons since then, but yeah, always important to explore things from a power dynamic standpoint. Generally, I think it's good it is.

Josh Matthews: 36:14

And I had you know say something about silverbacks today on the podcast and I did, so I get to check that off of my list.

Vanessa Grant: 36:22

This is good, excellent. Do you have like a?

Josh Matthews: 36:24

bingo card going yeah, would that be fun. We should do that sometime, someday, and then we'll tell everyone what the bingo was at the end.

Vanessa Grant: 36:32

All right. So the next kind of category of validation metrics I have is expertise and thankfully, for a lot of these you don't really need somebody else to validate you. You can validate yourself by getting these certifications, getting super badges and getting other credentials. You know, by earning these credentials, that is validating your expertise in this industry. Make yourself feel good. Get yourself another trailhead module, score 100% on it, you know, get to range your status.

Josh Matthews: 37:01

Hey, what do you think about when people Like I saw now I'm in this position, I got to be sort of conscientious of this there was someone who was posting on a community group and it was like a million of their messages, like there was so many of them and everything was like completed, this badge, completed that badge, like it was all automated or something to to automatically post in a community. And I saw there were so many and I was thinking, look, this is really cool, like I'm glad that they're being successful, right, but it was too much, right, there wasn't enough breathing room in the rest of the chat. It was all just like this badge, that badge. What do you think about that?

Vanessa Grant: 37:44

I think when I talk about completing certification, super badges and other credentials, like I think it depends on the level of the credential Like if you get a certification, I think that's wonderful to share about your journey because those are hard to get. You know, for that admin certification, people are studying three to six months generally. So talking about your learning journey and then celebrating your win I think is totally worthwhile news. I think super badges, those are also really difficult and so being able to share that journey is great. I think when we're talking about, like the standard trailhead module, like hey, you know, I learned about the value of sleep today and I'm going to share it with my network without any commentary on it.

Josh Matthews: 38:27

Yeah.

Vanessa Grant: 38:27

And is not like. So Tristan Lombard did a session actually on building a brand of value on a YouTube show last week that I watched and I think that there I thought that was actually really eyeopening Maybe a topic for a future show for us, but like the idea of there's a difference between a personal brand and building a brand of value. So when you're putting something out there publicly, are you doing it just to make yourself look a certain way or are you actually trying to add value to the community? And I think there is a difference and I think there's integrity more integrity to be found when you're actually putting something out there, not just because it will benefit you, but also because other people will find value in what you're saying.

Josh Matthews: 39:12

Yeah, I want a sidebar for just a minute on this because this is actually critical and it was something that I wanted to mention since it's such an interesting topic and there are a variety of sides to this topic. So when we think about the human needs, the basic human needs and I'm not talking Maslow's law or Maslow's hierarchy which is the first level, is food, water, shelter and sex. Believe it or not, that's in there. And then moving up to, like human connection, these other levels. But there's six basic human needs and they are certainty, uncertainty or variety as we can call it, significance, connection and love, growth and contribution. And so when we think about these things certainty, uncertainty, those aren't going to weigh in so much on the subject of validation, but significance, connection, growth and contribution, which are again four of the six core human needs, all can tie in some way and I think what you're talking about is that sort of lower level of wanting attention. That's the idea of needing significance and we all need it. So there's nothing wrong with significance, but if it becomes your priority need, if you give that more power than some of these other ones, you may find that your life is a little bit unbalanced. You may find it difficult to actually truly be vulnerable, like you just were about three minutes ago. So do you need validation because you're insecure? And there's nothing wrong with being insecure, by the way, if you are, that's a real thing. Almost everybody feels like they're not enough at some point or another in their life or in one area, or it might be many areas of their life all at once. And if you're experiencing that right now, I just want to tell you it's going to be okay, all right, because it's hard. Life is not always easy. It can be quite difficult, right. But if you're driving for significance, right. In other words, you want the fast cars so that people pay attention to you or you're not embarrassed by the old Jalopy that you have been driving, or things like that, that's one thing. If you want the fancy, fast car because you just love cars and it feels good, like that's a totally different thing. That doesn't mean just because someone's driving a Ferrari doesn't mean that they have an overblown need for significance. They might just like Ferraris. I like Ferraris I don't own one, but I like Ferraris, right.

Josh Matthews: 41:44

And then there's that next, again, I'm not saying it's more important or less important, but that need for connection and love. That's where the community comes in. This is where we get a lot of connection. So is it validation that you're getting for significance or is it validation that, like no, you're in it, we're in this, tribe together, you know? And then there's growth, like that's a need, we need to get better at things Not everybody, by the way, and that's a real thing.

Josh Matthews: 42:10

I know some people like that, like they don't want to learn a new thing, they want to keep the same job for 40 years. They do the same thing every day. These are among the happiest people I've ever met in my life. Do I want their life? No, I don't, not at all, but they're very content, very happy, right.

Josh Matthews: 42:27

And then the last one is contribution. And this is where you know, as Elizabeth was talking about mentorship, you know being a mentor, you know helping to guide someone, being the smart sales force person in the apartment building, so to speak, you know, or what you do with having written this article, being on this show right now, sharing your experience. That's real contribution. That's not.

Josh Matthews: 42:54

You're not doing this because you know you need a lot of followers. You don't? You live most of your life with almost no followers, so you're just fine, right, and this is about that need to contribute, to want to help others grow. So think about that significance, connection, growth and contribution when you're seeking validation. Or you can even just take five minutes after this show. You might even mute it for a minute and come back to it later and think about what's most important to you, like where do you feel you're spending the majority of not just your time, but your energy as well? So I just want to throw that in at some point. This conversation and you gave me the perfect opener, so thanks for letting me jump in here. No, I think it's great.

Vanessa Grant: 43:39

It.

Vanessa Grant: 43:39

Actually, I have something to share as well, actually, because, from what you said, so before I got into all the Salesforce stuff, I did a lot of interning in the music industry and I spent about a year and a half doing PR internships and I would say one of the most that one of the biggest lessons that I got from working in PR shops was you want to train people that they receive value when they communicate with you, and so if you're putting a lot of low value stuff online where people aren't going to get value from it, you will train them not to put any significance on your social media.

Vanessa Grant: 44:19

But if, every time somebody speaks to you, they're getting something either information or validation or whatever it might be you will train people to still continue to reach out to you and feel like, oh, if I reach out to this person, or if this person reaches out to me, I'm going to take that message, I'm going to take that phone call, I'm going to take that meeting because that's a high value person. I'm always going to get something, because I get something every time I've spoken to them or seen something from them previously.

Josh Matthews: 44:49

Yeah, that's an excellent point. I'm so bad with names so I'm not going to really quote or share names of anyone, but I know that there are a number of professional sports, professional sports team coaches. There's so many different styles in coaching, right, and some of these folks I forget who it was. Someone might know it might be Lou Holtz, I can't remember. If you know, raise your hand or just raise your hand and speak up, because I'd love to remember who this is.

Josh Matthews: 45:16

But he goes in on his first day I think it was pro football and he said okay, everybody listen up, this is the loudest my voice is ever going to get. So when I'm talking, I want you to listen and it needs to be quiet, something like that. And he didn't. He never raised his voice at all. He's not shouting from the sidelines, he's not throwing a fit on the sidelines or yelling at reps. It's like the old commercial. If you're old enough to remember the old EF Hutton, when EF Hutton talks, people listen. Right, it's one of those things Like if you say less, but then when you speak up you only say smart stuff, Everyone's always going to listen, always when you do speak up.

Vanessa Grant: 45:52

All right, so continuing on our expertise to receive validation. There's also compliments on your work. Anytime somebody says they've been following your journey or keeping an eye on your career, that's always nice. Anytime recruiters have reached out to you, there's validation in that that what you've thrown on your LinkedIn profile is landing somewhere, even if it's just through a filter.

Josh Matthews: 46:22

You like me, you really like me.

Vanessa Grant: 46:25

Please take my email. Time's your ass. To share something with your network is indicative of the community around you and times folks in your network have wanted to connect with you or connect you with others for opportunities or to have you share your expertise. So, hey, would you mind speaking to? I actually had just had a solution architect that I worked with probably three years ago reach out to me via text message this week because his daughter's about to graduate college and she's interested in business analysis and he's like would you mind meeting my daughter for a half an hour? And there's validation in that that this guy that I worked with three years ago and had barely spoken to other than the occasional LinkedIn update, still remembered me and thought that the work that I did with him was valuable, that he wants me to actually spend time with his family.

Josh Matthews: 47:15

Yeah, I mean validation. If anything is a sign of trust, isn't it?

Vanessa Grant: 47:20

Yes.

Josh Matthews: 47:21

And a sign of trust is a sign of respect, right, I mean. I don't think we'd be using the word validation 30 years ago on a podcast, before podcasts existed. But whatever version of this show could have taken place in 1994, right, we would have said the word respect, probably before we would say validation. I don't know, what do you think? I'm just kind of curious.

Vanessa Grant: 47:47

I don't think they're quite the same.

Josh Matthews: 47:49

Well, they aren't, but it just wasn't in the lexicon back then.

Vanessa Grant: 47:52

Yeah, it wasn't used quite as much.

Josh Matthews: 47:54

Yeah, I mean I was 22. How old were you?

Vanessa Grant: 47:57

When you were 22?.

Josh Matthews: 47:58

In 94.

Vanessa Grant: 47:59

In 94, 14.

Josh Matthews: 48:00

14, okay. Well, I want to do some quick validation, if that's okay, because it was in 1994 that I met Casey Belisa and she was my girlfriend and we had 27 years apart. I'm just saying this because it's Valentine's Day and we've been back together now for three years. So I just want to tell Casey she's listening on the show live right now I love you. You're the love of my life. Keep going, baby.

Vanessa Grant: 48:26

Aw yeah, my husband's definitely not listening to this, so I don't know what that means as far as my validation. But anyway, let's move on to the next topic.

Josh Matthews: 48:34

All right, let's go events.

Vanessa Grant: 48:36

Events all right. So events such as like Trailblazer Community Group, sales Force Saturdays and Conferences are actually a really good way to connect with others and also to support the community. So some of the metrics that I have here are a number of events you've put on. So if you're a Trailhead Community Group Leader or, sorry, trailblazer Community Group Leader the number of events you've attended. Again, so if you're supporting others, there's validation in that Attendees to your sessions or events or podcast lessons, times that people have given you, swag that they thought that you were worth receiving, that sticker, claps that you've received from people celebrating your achievements or your speaking sessions.

Vanessa Grant: 49:15

Sometimes it's even selfies that people ask to take with you. There's actually it's funny, like, especially when you're really involved in the Salesforce community and if you interact with a lot of people on LinkedIn or on Twitter, once you start kind of connecting at a conference like TDX or Dreamforce, it's astounding, like the number of selfies I'll get asked to do in between walking from one session to another. Like, hey, vanessa, can you stop for a selfie? Sure, okay, no problem. Like there's so much validation in that, I love that.

Josh Matthews: 49:45

Man, I don't get that. I don't get that at all. I don't Really. I don't know about that. I don't think he's gonna want me to I'm gonna ask you for selfies, Josh, yeah, well, that's true. I think I have that look that says don't ask me for a selfie. Maybe I have resting cop face, so that could be it too, Like I don't wanna bother that guy's deep in thought, who knows.

Vanessa Grant: 50:07

So also, I mean, I guess this one might be more for the folks that are super active in the community. But the times that I've had to hardly say no, I'm not an MVP. After somebody has introduced me to somebody, it's like, oh, this is Vanessa, she's an MVP. Like no, sorry.

Josh Matthews: 50:21

Listen, you get to be an look, you are an MVP in my eyes and I think in most people on this program's eyes, whether you get this thing on Tuesday or not, like, this is the part where you know you don't want to invalidate all of the hard work that people have gone into, you know, have put into achieving an award like a Golden Hoodie or an MVP. It's important, right. It's a really incredible thing that the ecosystem does and I think it's a smart thing to do. It absolutely is validated. But for all of those people I'll bet there are as many people let's say there's 20 MVPs a year I don't know what it is.

Josh Matthews: 51:05

I think you said 20 earlier I'll bet there's 20 people that are doing even more than all those 20 people, and you might just not know about them, right, because do you remember going, like you go, to one of these rock concerts at Dreamforce? There's 40,000 people in there, right, which is not quite the size of my database, and I just think, oh my God, I know almost none of these people. Like, we're talking hundreds of thousands of people in this ecosystem and, for whatever reason, we all role in this group. It's you and me, and we've got Fred and Janine and Peter and a bunch of Golden Hoodies and a bunch of MVPs, but they're not all of them, are they Like not even close to all of them, it's not even a quarter, it's not even 10% of all of them. So we all kind of travel in these different circles and you just got to kind of keep that in mind.

Vanessa Grant: 52:00

Yeah, different circles of influence, and I mean I would say, even before community stuff. I mean I'd like to think I made an impact on the people that I worked with Exactly. I homegrew my own admin and my own Salesforce dev before I even knew there's a Salesforce community out there, and that was still good work and enough work. Yeah, yeah, other things as far as events would be, like thank yous, that you receive party invites, and also I remember I was speaking to a friend last year when I was writing this article, and this is one of those people that is not like they actually don't need a whole lot of validation, and so I liked that they said, even like the subtle reactions that indicate thank you, even if individuals don't come up to you directly, that sometimes you can read a crowd reaction or see a face and like know that they're learning from you and there's value in that as well.

Josh Matthews: 52:53

Yeah, I'll tell you for me personally, that's one of my favorite things, you know, like the Florida session that I gave on negotiating skills for Salesforce professionals, when I had people laughing. That's the best. If everyone's sitting there, learning great. But if they're not laughing, they're not anchoring that knowledge. Do you see what I mean?

Vanessa Grant: 53:12

Yep.

Josh Matthews: 53:13

And so that the laughter thing for me, like I get why these comedians, like, are addicted to what they do. You know it's extremely validated and I can't sing, so you know that seems more viable.

Vanessa Grant: 53:30

So onto. The next topic is social media, and this is. These are pretty obvious, but you know and I know a lot of people will scrunch their nose at the social media stuff. There's validation still to be found there, like Likes on your post, reactions on your post, post views, profile views, useful comments You've even made on other people's posts can be validating. Supportive comments that you've received, times you were tagged on other people's posts, even if it was like spam, like the fact that somebody thought I was a enough of a big deal to like, tag me on their spam Like okay, there's, oddly enough, sometimes there's validation in that too.

Josh Matthews: 54:09

Yeah, I just want to jump in with the big warning. I mean you probably knew it was coming. Oh right, look your likes and reactions on your posts. That like I've gone through it, you know. And the good thing is, if you don't have a lot of followers and you don't post that much, you just you're not going to expect a lot of, you're not going to expect a lot of likes or even interesting comments or useful comments or useful shares or anything like that. This is such a slippery slope. You know both my, you know all all of our kid Me and Casey's kids got five between us. You know not all of them, but the majority of them did grow up on social media.

Josh Matthews: 54:48

Not having your thing liked or not having enough friends or followers. Like that's kind of a thing when you're 13 or 14 years old. For some people it's still a thing when they're 65, right. So just be careful. You cannot measure your, do not measure yourself by your social media influence. Just don't do it. It is a terrible, terrible trap. And the valid. This is one of those things like yeah, you can be validated by it, but unless you know, I think it was like bullet five or six right supportive comments received or useful comments like that's. That's where it matters.

Josh Matthews: 55:28

You know, some of some of the most popular Posts that I've ever produced. I don't know. I mean, you see what's out there. You know it's like some tragic story that you overcame Some sort of struggle or something. So you're gonna get tons of likes on that on LinkedIn. It's just gonna happen. It's just how it is right. It's like if you, if you're on, my kid was on America's funniest home videos years ago, actually for a very funny little football video, and they told us up front they're like listen, he's not gonna win. I'm just gonna tell you that he's not a baby and he's not a cat. He's not a cat, right, it's cats and babies win. So understand, like, when you're going into this stuff and you're trying to like, don't start thinking that, oh, my post didn't get a lot of hits or no One's following me or whatever, and there's something wrong with wrong with me. I'm not saying there's not something wrong with you because there might be All right, but I'm just saying, like, do not tie in your popularity on a platform to how you feel about yourself. Careful, tread very carefully here, because it is a slippery slope and you and you just like I don't know how many people You've spent time with that. They're just. You can't engage with them because they're trying to post crap.

Josh Matthews: 56:42

I can't tell you how like we live by the beach we go to. We go to the beach not as often as we want, but we do go and you know You'll see these people who are doing those, those you know. Like, come on, take a picture of me while I'm jumping in the air. Shit, you know, like that kind of stuff. I saw this one video. It was these girls are out there with garbage bags and they're picking up trash and so their friends filming them right and and Whatever for Instagram or Tik Tok or whatever. Like, look at us doing good deeds, aren't we so awesome? And then, as soon as they were done, they left the bags of garbage on the beach.

Josh Matthews: 57:19

Like don't you know, no, well, come on like you're surprised. Of course this happens, right, because people are in there, enough people out there that are just, let's face it, they're not very good people or they're striving for significance instead of connection, growth and contribution.

Vanessa Grant: 57:35

Yeah, and I think that also follows the don't compare yourself based on what other people are posting on social media. Don't don't let other people's posts invalidate you.

Josh Matthews: 57:43

Yeah, exactly, exactly. So I just I had to throw that out there, hope you don't mind.

Vanessa Grant: 57:48

No, no, super important, and yeah, I guess you know that the will also. I'll also throw in the, you know, graduateatory messages for career changes, anniversaries and birthdays always nice, yeah, you know, but don't let it, don't let social media invalidate you. I think is really the the big point I also just wanted to throw in, like I, one of the validation metrics I have is like new and existing followers or connections. I personally, like found that as a at least a metric to kind of see if, if you know how, how my career was, how my influence was growing a little bit, where, if, if I had a post that landed particularly hard, you know, seeing the number of people that started following my content almost kind of indicated to me that People were getting value from it. I don't think it's the only metric, but it is a metric and certainly use it wisely.

Josh Matthews: 58:47

Yeah, look, people want to align themselves with people who are visibly successful and Can be, you know, to an extent vulnerable and open. I saw this thing. Someone had sent this to me. No, they didn't send it. I saw this on LinkedIn. In fact, there's this really very smart Solution architect from a PDO that I know he's a great guy, justin, and he posted this and it was a little video and it was Julia Roberts.

Josh Matthews: 59:19

Now, I'm not a fan of Julie, ask anyone. I know I'm not a huge fan of America's sweetheart. I'm just not right, but whatever, I like some of her movies, anyway, I'm. I watch this video and She'd posted a picture of her and, I think, her daughter having breakfast or something like that, and that. Then there was this video it was just audio of her talking about posting this picture, you know, having a nice morning with her daughter, and then these comments coming in she looks terrible. Oh, she looks horrible. I mean, she's 50 years old, right? 51. I think she looks good, you know, and they're just trashing her Strangers, armchair critics, right, and it really affected her.

Josh Matthews: 1:00:05

Now, this is someone who has gone through. Like you know, you can't get much more famous than Julia Roberts, right? Like you really can't. And she still has feelings and it still hurt her feelings and it made her feel bad and it's like. This is why people are like you see it all the time stores like I'm quitting social media, like I'm out. Shia LaBeouf did it.

Josh Matthews: 1:00:23

A bunch of you. He went bonkers for a while, maybe still is, I don't know, but like you know they just you got it, you got to be nice and you. You just shouldn't pay attention to all the chatter sometimes. And that goes for the good stuff too, because if you're leaning in to Feel good by what strangers are saying, or you're getting thumbs up or you want them to say that they like your new mustache, like whatever it is, it doesn't matter.

Josh Matthews: 1:00:54

Like, if you need that to feel better about yourself, well, you know you're getting. You might not have a rude awakening that day or that month or even that year, but you will have one because it's not, it's not healthy, it's just not healthy. Still, you can be validated that there's something about what you're doing and something about who you are and the way that you're delivering it. That is helping others, it's connecting with them because it's authentic and there's some there's truth to it and like like a bell. You know, truth rings like a bell. When you hear it, you're like oh shit, that's true, right, but just again, just be careful.

Vanessa Grant: 1:01:33

Practice social media responsibly.

Josh Matthews: 1:01:34

Yes, exactly, should have a warning, should have a warning label it should.

Vanessa Grant: 1:01:42

So, moving on to the last topic of validation, before we talk about how you can ask for validation if you're not getting it from all these other categories, I don't think all validation needs to necessarily come from external sources. It can come from you. You can give yourself validation. So think about things like how wonderful your community makes you feel, the career that you've been able to achieve, often as a result of your community connections, and the work that you do in that community, friends that you've made along the way, maybe through social media, possibly if you've been practicing responsibly and putting it through the the right filter and their own frenemies.

Vanessa Grant: 1:02:21

You know the connections that have grown deeper. I mean, I met Josh online a number of years ago and, like you're one of my friends now, like we're friends, josh, I love you.

Josh Matthews: 1:02:29

We are friends likewise. The number of only because you're popular, though.

Vanessa Grant: 1:02:36

Renemies filter the number of challenges that you've taken on that you've never thought you'd have the opportunity to tackle. There are opportunities that arise just through community work and it's hard to explain it. But, like when I first started diving into community stuff, it was me proactively trying to support people and help and commenting on things, and Now it's people coming to me because I have managed to do good work that people have found valuable and Taken on. I mean, I never thought I'd be speaking international. I never thought I'd start my own trailhead community or in my own trailblazer community group.

Vanessa Grant: 1:03:19

Like still kind of blows my mind the things that I'm still taking on as a result of these connections that that I've made, and also how much closer you've gotten a being or if you've already become your most authentic self through Salesforce community work. Like there are people I'm surely one of them where Salesforce is a large part of my life, not just my job. You know I sales for sales forces with me always, but it is to a certain extent it is a big part of my personality and my lifestyle. I build a lot of my vacations around Salesforce events. A lot of my friendships are built around Salesforce and that's great. I feel good about it and and it's part of my authentic self.

Vanessa Grant: 1:04:05

Being a big bill force nerd.

Josh Matthews: 1:04:07

That's right. Those are really. Those are all really good points. I, if you're, if it's okay, I'd like to share a way that people can validate themselves in a very Easy to do way, and we've talked about it before. Look, you can call it journaling if you want, right, but you, I'm talking specifically around accomplishments and failures, right? So if you're taking 20 minutes, you could probably do it in 15 minutes once a month, and they recommend you could do it every week. You could do it once a month.

Josh Matthews: 1:04:38

If you do it once a year, you're gonna forget, right, but you go back and, like, what I like to do is open up my calendar and I can see all the meetings I've had, all the activities or events I've I've been involved in. I can look at my stats. You know, here in my business, there's a lot of different things I can look at and I can think, okay, well, what, what did I succeed and what did I do? Well, you know what were my accomplishments and I can also write down what were my failures. Where did I fall short or did I disappoint myself? What did I learn from that? And when you look back on a year and this is a huge thing, so I have an accountability partner. His name is Francisco and he's been a friend of mine for well over 20 years and we meet every Tuesday, which means we met yesterday and we are. You know, we just kind of hold each other accountable In our roles, since I don't have a boss and he doesn't really have a boss, and so it's good to have that and a practice that he has is something that I do as well. It's looking at these failure and accomplishment lists at the end of every year.

Josh Matthews: 1:05:45

You will be surprised, not just by how much you've accomplished, but by how much you've accomplished that you've forgotten you've accomplished Right. When you go back two years, three years, you read those reports Compilation of all your successes from those 12 Journal entries that you made and you go back three years and read, read up on it, and you'll easily see your growth path and what you've been doing, and you'll probably achieve more too. That which gets measured gets accomplished. So if you can journal whether it's daily, weekly or or even just once a month and maybe you don't want to write down your failures I recommend you do, but you don't have to just write down the good stuff if that's what you need in your life right now.

Josh Matthews: 1:06:32

There's nothing wrong with that. But write it down. I use Evernote, I date it, I keep it in a separate folder. It's easy to access, can pull it up anytime, it's easy to collate at the end of the year and say November, when I'm starting to plan for right next year, and Look at all the things I learned and then also what kept repeating itself in the failure department, so that I know what I really need to focus on to improve. So you can get again, give yourself that validation by journaling love it.

Vanessa Grant: 1:07:01

Um, I, I Should do that more. Mostly what I do these days is I have a little WhatsApp Group that's just consists of me, and I take screen captures if there's something that I want to Feel good about myself.

Josh Matthews: 1:07:16

I love that.

Vanessa Grant: 1:07:17

No, I just go back and scroll so anytime. Somebody sent me a nice note, so just know, if you send me a LinkedIn message, that's really kind, like I might be screen capturing and scrolling it, scrolling through it on a bad day Just to give myself validation on certain.

Josh Matthews: 1:07:30

I love that I've. I've never even thought about that before. That's terrific.

Vanessa Grant: 1:07:35

So, yeah, it's called Vanessa's Joybox, actually, payment Lum set it up for me. She, she set up the group, invited me and then left and said here you go. Oh yeah, it was one of her gifts fruit to me, so it was a lovely way I and I use it often Just to kind of go back on on good moments and put myself back there, and I think you know part of that goes through the, the there's a. The last section really is is about asking for validation in ways that that you can receive Validation and and ask for. But I think this goes with one of the items there, which is a Tony Robbins thing that really stuck with me. Tony Robbins spoke at Dreamforce 2016 and before I even got into all this community stuff I actually was there as a as a Salesforce customer and I'm gonna read a quote here.

Vanessa Grant: 1:08:25

But this one really stuck with me, which is gratitude is the antidote to the things that mess us up. You can't be angry and grateful Simultaneously. You can't be fearful and grateful simultaneously. So gratitude is the solution to both anger and fear and, instead of just acting grateful, I think of specific situations that I'm grateful for, little ones and big ones. I do it every single day and I step into those moments and I feel the gratitude and the aliveness and that's what I do when I scroll back on these lovely messages or these lovely moments. If it's a photo that I took with somebody that that brings me back to a moment that I felt really good about myself, I will go back to those on the days that I am feeling angry or fearful.

Josh Matthews: 1:09:04

Yeah, that's. I love that quote. I I am. I am a fan of Tony Robbins. I've gone, I've done, you know, at least two of his events before virtual events, and I have a Tony Robbins executive coach that's been with me for, I want to say, three years now. I mean about three times a month, and this is this is so true Tapping in and accessing gratitude, especially when you are feeling at your worst.

Josh Matthews: 1:09:33

It's, it's a panacea for all things. Now you can be a little bit like me and I can get a little bit what's the word I guess? I can get a little bit emotional. I can. I can start feeling gratitude For something if, let's say, I'm having a really hard time in my life, right, or I'm having a hard day and I go to access those feelings of gratitude or those moments that were great. You know, I have faced it and I I know what the word is nostalgic.

Josh Matthews: 1:10:01

I can get quite nostalgic, particularly about my kids when they were young and little little guys, and it can make me actually Quite sad and feel longing for those days. And then I I have to like it's like it didn't work. You know I, so you've got to be sort of mindful of where can you go in your moments of gratitude that are also safe to go to when you're already feeling down? Does that make sense? It's like.

Josh Matthews: 1:10:27

It's like sometimes we can feel grateful for things but that in itself can make us Feel really emotional. We haven't been doing it as much lately, but Casey and I Spent, I want to say, like a good five or six months where we were doing this every morning, you know, going and Visualizing, remembering three moments from our past and this is we're together, but doing this quietly in our own minds and and starting the day that way a little bit of movement, a little bit of stretching and exercise and and then some gratitude Exercises and it's, it's really, it's really powerful. Even just talking about it, you know, makes me, makes me want to step back into it. I think it's needed right now. So I'm glad that you brought this up. Thank you, you've been validated.

Vanessa Grant: 1:11:16

Oh, thank you. Thank you for validating my article. So other ways to ask for validation, I think you know, when we're still struggling, it's important to know that the community has your back and sometimes it just requires a little bit more of a proactive approach. So I think one of the things Train people to give you, train people to want to give you appreciation, like if somebody says Something nice to you, don't be like, oh, stop it. Oh, you don't mean that. Or and or, or, even worse, you know, say, um, you can't mean that I'm the worst. Or like, oh, yeah.

Vanessa Grant: 1:11:51

Just a thank you sometimes is is a better way to encourage folks to to continue to give feedback. Yes, yeah, I also think following up with mentees is, you know, a nice way to check in they'll. They'll usually appreciate it and they'll probably say something nice about you. So maybe it's a stretch in a little bit, but I know that that's. That's been something I've done in the past. Being vulnerable on social media. I know you social media responsibly but, um, I Find being vulnerable. The community, particularly the Salesforce community, has been really great about being there and solidarity with me and, and you know, saying something nice, like when I've had speaking sessions rejected. You know I've also used some humor to defuse some of the heavier feelings, but the communities come out and rope saying oh yeah, I didn't get picked either, that's all right, we'll go get a drink. You know just the little things where you feel like you're not doing this alone.

Josh Matthews: 1:12:52

Yeah, it's it. I Love all of this. That you put this together and and got it out for everybody, I think is, I think it's momentous. I really do. This is such a perfect Topic for right now. Let's, let's. I'd like to dive in a little bit On this, this asking, asking for validation.

Vanessa Grant: 1:13:14

Yeah, why don't we? Why don't we do that? And then we could probably wrap this up.

Josh Matthews: 1:13:17

Yeah, and certainly I'd love to hear from other people. If you like, just go ahead and raise your hand and we'll call on you. You know, maybe, what your big aha was from this session, or it could be an additional insight, or it could be a question about your career too. So one of the ways that we can get that we can ask for validation Is with our employers or team leads, right, or our men, mentee, mentors, right. Just, you can tell people up front like this is this is how I learn and you know If I do something really well, if I go above and beyond, or even if I just hit the mark, if I don't hear that from you, I I feel like it's fog around me and I don't really know, and that can create me. You know, maybe it creates depression, or maybe it creates insecurity, or it creates anxiety, and some people right, so you can be vulnerable requires vulnerability.

Josh Matthews: 1:14:16

The other thing that you can do is you can ask people on linkedin for recommendations, right, can you? Could you write a recommendation for me now? I strongly encourage people to write recommendations for other people before you ask those people for a recommendation, but it's, it's incredible how some Quotes or recommendations from people, whether it's on linkedin or on a reference letter or something like that, can help you to articulate some of your Exceptional aptitudes and and exceptional qualities that you are maybe a little bit too close to. And you know to your point, vanessa. Like, oh, stop, oh, that's not true. Like, oh, no, you know, whatever it is, like I don't look pretty, or you know I, you know I didn't do a good job on that contractor, like, whatever it happens to be, it doesn't matter, right? So ask for a recommendation.

Josh Matthews: 1:15:09

You can also go to your boss and you can say, just out of curiosity, I'm hoping you can help me, I'm trying to to build up an ability to better articulate some of my you know, good qualities. What would you say are maybe three things that I'm particularly good at? So if I was going to ask you to Talk about me and say a few nice things, what would that be? Just ask your boss. You know, hey, buddy, what do you think I'm, what do you think I'm good at? Just kind of want your feedback. If you're not getting it already, if you're not having regular one-on-ones, or if you're not getting, you know, monthly one-on-ones or quarterly reviews or annual reviews. Not every company does that. There are a lot of people who Get airdropped into a company and never even meet their manager, which is the weirdest thing in the world. I think you've had experience with that right, vanessa.

Josh Matthews: 1:15:58

I have yeah, and it sucks because you never know where you stand. And when you don't know where you stand, what do you have? You have uncertainty and a little bit of that's okay, but too much is not good, right? You need some certainty in your life and you need some sort of Significance. You need some sort of growth and all this stuff, and that requires feedback. I am going to encourage people to ask for the negative stuff too. If you can emotionally handle it. You can't emotionally handle it. You need to do some work on the side so that you can't, because if you cannot take criticism, it will be very difficult for you to grow, as much as you probably desire.

Josh Matthews: 1:16:33

All the things that you want in life comes from Getting some level of feedback or a level of honesty outside of ourselves, so that we know what's up. You know, even if that's just like Recording yourself on video to practice interviewing and going like, oh, I did this weird thing with my face or I say um and ah a lot, or whatever it happens to be, you know. So get feedback and some of it will be nice and some of it might hurt your feelings, but that's okay. You know you can do something about it. You know it's mostly in the delivery that the feelings can be hurt, not so much the content, because anyone willing to take the time to share honest feedback is doing you a service, so be grateful regardless. So anyway, that's my input on asking for validation.

Vanessa Grant: 1:17:21

No, I think it's. It's super important.

Josh Matthews: 1:17:23

We've got Peter with his hand up. I'd love to hear what he has to say so far. Real quick, go for Peter.

Peter Ganza: 1:17:29

Uh, thanks guys first awesome conversation. I. Just wanted to mention a couple things from a personal experience. I didn't. I did not know how how important validation was to me until I got it and Like real quick working at semantic text 30 calls a day was what the target was. I always did 31 anybody had a question.

Peter Ganza: 1:17:55

Like you know me right, I'm friendly, positive. Yeah, I was authentic and I I wasn't expecting anything. It's just, that's in my nature, right and lo and behold, I didn't know about this, but, um, I think once a year, twice a year, there was a. We'd all go across the street or whatever for an update. Anyway, they were given awards and I had no clue and then they called my name oh, peter guys, uh, you in a plus plus award.

Peter Ganza: 1:18:21

You know, it's just cheesy little piece of paper and I think a little money, but I didn't realize how Like how that made me feel so important to me was just what I found since then sorry in the car here, the best way I found at least for me to To get validation if, if it's something that you need is to give validation. Right, that's the least. Agree, that's the least and one of the thing I want to touch on. Vanessa was talking about earlier measuring measuring validation- by you know how many, how many new followers right those types of things when, when she puts out content. I Actually think that's not the way to go in your case.

Vanessa Grant: 1:19:01

Vanessa and hear me out. It's a rabbit hole you can go down.

Peter Ganza: 1:19:05

Josh went down this rabbit hole as well when I came to likes and all that kind of nonsense. But your influence grows within your, your network. So the connections that you have existing, right, the people that I've liked you know that followed you already are Going to see you as a as having more influence, right, they're gonna think of you more often, in whatever context, as a business analyst. So don't, so don't don't just measure.

Peter Ganza: 1:19:35

But you can't measure this right. But I can tell you personally, just from the time that I've known you, you're influenced. Grows within your, whether you see that or not. Does that make sense?

Vanessa Grant: 1:19:48

Yeah, and yeah, you know, and it's, you know, it's, it's, it's one metric and I actually love that that you and Josh have been sharing like even your own personal metrics. There's, there's so many ways to. I think that's really the point of the whole thing Is that there's so many ways to receive validation that aren't necessarily like MVP or award-based. There are things that that you can just just look around you and see all the ways that the world, that your people, your friends, your network, your, your work, is Validating you on a daily basis and and have gratitude for that and and feel that and let that still fuel your, your Community work and your, your expertise.

Josh Matthews: 1:20:33

That's right. And you know, if I'm thinking of kids right now, right, I mean, if you've raised kids, if you've raised your children and they're all healthy and they're all doing well, you should feel extremely validated, like extremely validated. If they're not doing well, but you're there for them, you should feel extremely validated. I'm just saying this because of personal stuff going on in my life right now and I'm telling you we don't have control over anybody but ourselves. Right, that's all we, whether it's our kids or, if you know, your partner or your boss or your colleagues or your best friends or whatever, we just don't. We don't have that. And this harkens back to the Tony Robbins quote. Just remember all the good that you have done. Remember how you've touched so many people's lives, and whether it doesn't have to be through sales force. It could be an act of kindness. You know, now, if you're one of those total freaking assholes on YouTube who goes around and films themselves passing out money to bums, I mean there's a special place in hell for these people. Like, honest to God, I just give the money and walk away. Don't make yourself popular on YouTube, for I hate that stuff. Sorry to speak so frankly. I really want to invalidate that kind of work because I think it's disgusting. But look, just do kind things. You do not need validation to be a kind person. You do not need to be validated on social media for every accomplishment that you've ever done or for every time you've helped someone out. It's perfectly acceptable to go out and share some of that. It's way better if they share that about you Again. If you're good, you talk about it. If you're great, other people will talk about you. Right, it makes sense to practice some level of stoicism with all of this stuff. If you know what I mean. If you don't know what I mean, just Google it, you can look up stoicism. But just be real conscientious of this. And I'll talk for just a second too.

Josh Matthews: 1:22:41

I think there's a really good point, peter, I've got a friend in Portland, oregon. He's probably the best at what he does in the entire Pacific Northwest. He owns his own company. He does not get glass trophies no one's handing out. He doesn't go to some annual realtor award thing or something like that. There's no governing body over the work that he does to pass out MVPs and Golden Hoodies. He was feeling bummed out one day. He may not have been getting validated at home. I don't know he wasn't getting necessarily validated at work. He rarely do. When you're the boss, that's part of the job.

Josh Matthews: 1:23:24

And I just said look, man, if there was a trophy in this ecosystem, let's say you're along the whole West Coast for what you do, you're walking home with the tallest one. You just are. You're that good at it so you can imagine your own glass trophy. You might even make one for yourself if you want to. But think about friends. Maybe that's something you could do for someone. Spend the 40 bucks, get a little cool trophy, give it to someone that you care about because they're doing an amazing job. You know what I mean. It can come from a lot of different places, but there are certain people who are set up, whether it's in their job or their role or their position, where they're never going to really get that much validation through an award, because there just isn't one for what they do. So this is why I love this article so much.

Josh Matthews: 1:24:15

There's all these other ways to get validated in this ecosystem, but whether you're a Salesforce professional listening to this program right now or not, or you might feel super validated in your work, but maybe you don't feel validated in your home. Maybe you feel validated at home but you don't feel validated for the charitable contributions that you make at soup kitchens or wherever you're spending your time. To Vanessa's point, there are a variety of ways that you can get that validation. Some you need to take control of, some you just need to be patient. And if you're getting zero validation and this is really important if you're getting zero validation you need to inspect carefully the community you've built around yourself. Are you with the right people?

Josh Matthews: 1:25:07

One of my sons had I mean, he's still super close friends, like best friends, with the same guys that he was years ago, but when he was in seventh and eighth grade. Do you think seventh and eighth grade boys validate each other or do you think they rag on each other? They rag on each other. You can't get a haircut without having to take shit for two days at school, and it could be a great haircut, it doesn't matter. You did something different and so now you're going to get ridiculed and picked on and this sort of thing.

Josh Matthews: 1:25:40

Now they're 17, 16, 17, 18 years old. So now they are way better at validating each other because they don't feel like they're going to somehow lose power by complimenting someone else. They think it's this finite resource that can only go around and they all want it themselves, and so they punish one another because they think that somehow going to prevent them from getting this resource. But it's this incredible resource that is absolutely bottomless. My cousin Ariel, who's an artist, she made this beautiful little painting for our home and it was a candle, and she had a quote on there. I think it was from the Buddha, and it said something along the lines of you know, like one candle can light a thousand candles, like just because you light another candle does not diminish your flame.

Vanessa Grant: 1:26:36

Love it.

Josh Matthews: 1:26:37

Isn't that cool? And so you can take that with you. You can. You want to get validated. Validate because you appreciate what people are doing out there. You see them working hard. Validate them because you understand the struggle that they are having.

Josh Matthews: 1:26:54

Whether you've gone through it or not, everyone's going through something right now, everyone you know. There isn't a single person you know that doesn't know someone right now who's going through some sort of health crisis or is going through some sort of financial crisis or an identity crisis right now, like you. Everyone who's listening to this oh, whether it's 20 people or 500 people or 10,000 people, everyone knows some someone going through shit, and it might even just be you, but you still get to light that candle and you still get to light the candles of other people. So go to that. And, with that said, I'll just say I really want to validate everybody who listens to this program, and not because I want you to listen to my show and I want you to hear me talk. It's literally not that at all. I want to thank you because you're taking time out of your day. You know you're putting a certain level of trust to an extent. Maybe you only get 15 minutes in this show. Most people who listen to this program will not get this far into this show, right? Maybe a third if that. If that's the case, it's lucky. So if you're listening to this long, thank you.

Josh Matthews: 1:27:55

You know, because a lot of times some of the best stuff happens towards the end. We never know right, but you should feel validated because you're spending time to invest in your career and to be a better person and to be a better Salesforce professional and to connect with others. Like you're doing something. You're not just whatever you know, but you, you know, overdrinking on the couch by yourself. You know, and maybe you are, I don't know but like you're here now and so thanks for that and keep it going, whether it's here or someone else's podcast or some other. You know, trailhead, that you want to jump on just whatever you're doing, you're doing it. Keep going, guys. Just keep going. You know, and it's not a race. Just do what you can and when you need a break, take a break, and when you need validation, go out and light a few candles and watch it come right back to you.

Vanessa Grant: 1:28:43

Love that, josh. I think it's like a great way to close close the show actually. Okay, I'm feeling inspired. Would you light my?

Josh Matthews: 1:28:50

candle. Well, I'll go back to the rent thing. Oh, too funny. All right, well, bring us home there, vanessa, and we'll wrap it all up.

Vanessa Grant: 1:29:01

I guess the last thing I'll say is you know, celebrate wherever you are in the journey, and I'm sure by the time we record again we'll probably know who the new MVPs are. But you know, thank you to the MVPs, past, present and future. We love them, they inspire us, but you know what you guys do too.

Josh Matthews: 1:29:21

Yeah, and everybody who voted too right, like everybody who took time to say thanks and share some really amazing accolades about people who are very deserving, you know, very, very deserving. And Vanessa, if you don't get MVP, I'm just going to say this like literally. I'm just going to say so what? I know what you do, you know what you do, all your followers know what you do, so you keep at it. You win. Well, hell yeah, you totally deserve it.

Vanessa Grant: 1:29:51

Well, we'll see. We'll see next show.

Peter Ganza: 1:29:54

But yeah, ambassador grant is far better than MVP grant.

Josh Matthews: 1:29:58

I like it I do. There we go. What a great show today. Thanks everybody. We'll be back in two weeks. We may be back on, we may try and link in audio on our next program. It's unclear right now. I've got a little bit more testing to do to see if it's actually viable and I've got to read some of the agreements for them about can we record off of it. So we'll have that information, I would think, inside of about a week, and we'll be making that public here on X, as well as on LinkedIn and anywhere else that you can typically find me and Vanessa. So stay tuned, much love.

Vanessa Grant: 1:30:33

Bye, everybody, much love, bye. So the other ones I have another big one, and I think this one is underappreciated is questions that you can answer in the trailblazer community. So again, trailblazers, you can help. One of the things that I think is super valuable when you're on your Salesforce journey is learning publicly. I think a lot of people are really