I spent 22 years flailing. No defined goals. No emotional intelligence. Just brute force and hoping things would work out. They didn’t. In 2010, I was 365 pounds, broke, and depressed. That rock bottom moment changed everything for me.
I shared this story during an Ideas on Tap talk at Vendasta headquarters in Saskatoon, and the response told me something important: people are hungry for honesty about what it actually takes to win. Not the polished version. The real one.
Here is what I learned across 30 years in the media and sales business about emotional intelligence and what separates people who keep winning from those who plateau.
Open Your Mind and Analyze Yourself Every Day
The foundation of emotional intelligence is an open mind. Not everyone has all the answers, and that includes you. I spend at least 30 minutes every morning on personal development. Sometimes it is a podcast. Sometimes a book. The format does not matter. What matters is the commitment to keep learning, even when things are going well.
But an open mind is only half of the equation. The other half is honest self-analysis. You have to look in the mirror and ask yourself where you are today. Are you getting better, or are you just repeating yesterday?
In 2010, around Saint Patrick’s Day, I looked in that mirror and was forced to be self-aware that things were not going well. That moment of brutal honesty became a daily habit. Even now, I ask myself every day: “Was that the best you could do?”
That daily self-assessment is what I believe separates people who grow from those who stay stuck. If you are not investing in yourself and constantly improving, you cannot expect to keep winning.
Curiosity and Empathy: The Two Skills Nobody Talks About
You never know when you are going to meet someone who can change your life. I almost let that happen with my colleague Song at Vendasta. I actually extended his probation when he first started. But because I stayed curious about other people, I realized Song could teach me things I did not know. He has taught me a lot over the years, and we built a real friendship from that curiosity.
Empathy was harder for me to learn. For the first 20-something years of my career, I relied on sheer force. I was going to outwork everyone. I was going to push through every obstacle. I had all the answers and everyone should just listen to me.
Then I learned from colleagues like Tiffani, Mandy, and Jackie that there is another way. Listening. Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. Trying to understand why they have that look on their face today. That is where deeper relationships are built, and those relationships built on trust are what give you real satisfaction when you do find success.
Winning alone is lonely. Winning together is the ultimate prize.
Accept That You Don’t Know Everything
This was a tough lesson for me. I thought I knew everything. I didn’t. I have failed a million times and maybe succeeded once. The way the algorithm works in my life is that I try so many times, I expect to fail first, and then I learn from the failure.
At Vendasta, our team on the second floor did something that had never been done before. They booked 425 presentations in a period when we used to book 25. That result only happened because people accepted that they did not know everything and stayed open to finding new ways to do things.
Remove the Toxic People from Your Circle
I want you to think about your circle of friends right now. How many of them actually get you closer to your goals? How many make you a better person? How many give you honest advice?
Here is the thing about advice: some of you may not even remember what real advice looks like because we have been living in a social media environment for the last decade where everyone avoids sticking their nose in someone else’s business. But that is called being a friend. That is called caring about somebody. If you see someone heading toward a cliff, would you just let them run off it?
When I was at my heaviest, my friend Connie, Brendan’s wife, looked at me during a trip to Italy where we walked 5,000 steps for 19 days and she said point-blank: “You are getting your hips done when we get home.” That is the kind of person you want in your circle. Someone who will give you the hard truth.
I made a deliberate choice to remove toxic people from my life and surround myself with people who tell me the hard truths and push me toward my goals. If someone is not aligned with where I am going, they are not in my inner circle.
Stop Lying to Yourself
The person we lie to the most is ourselves. We tell ourselves it is okay to go to the buffet. We tell ourselves it is fine to repeat the same unproductive day we had yesterday. We tell ourselves our goals do not matter that much.
Here is a challenge: look in the mirror every morning for the next 10 days and ask yourself whether you are actually moving toward something or just waking up and doing the same thing you did the day before. I think most people would find that for 8 or 9 of those 10 days, they just woke up and repeated yesterday.
By developing the emotional intelligence to recognize when you are lying to yourself, you start to improve. You start to break cycles that have been holding you back.
Expect Success and Never Stop Starting
About three years ago, something shifted for me. I started waking up in the morning and expecting to be successful. I have a set of tactics that I know work. When something goes wrong during the day, I know how to work around it and collaborate with colleagues to find solutions. I do not sweep problems under the carpet anymore.
Here is the key mindset shift: if you are not expecting to be successful, what are you expecting? To be average? Nobody wants 3 out of 5 stars.
A close friend of mine told me something that stuck: “You are one of the best starters I have ever met. But for once in your life, would you finish something?” That was a wake-up call. I used to start 15 things and finish one. Now I start far fewer things and I finish them. I knock them out of the park. And when something is not working, I fail fast and move on.
Find Your Catalyst
I went from 365 pounds to about 208. That is a big change, but the weight loss is just one visible change among many. The thing that made all of these changes possible was finding my catalyst.
My catalyst was simple: I never want to go back to being the person I was in 2010. Every day, I apply that catalyst to every decision. It drives my discipline. It fuels my commitment to building great teams, building better relationships, and never settling for average.
So I leave you with this question: What is your catalyst to win and keep winning? If you have never asked yourself that question before, start today. Because finding that catalyst is the single thing that will define where you end up.
Watch the full Ideas on Tap talk above for the complete story, including some moments I could not capture in writing.