Playing Head Games

Stephanie Maas: 00:00:00

Hi and welcome to today's Talent Trade podcast.

Stephanie Maas: 00:00:03

This is Stephanie Maas, partner here at ThinkingAhead Executive

Stephanie Maas: 00:00:09

Search. I am super excited to have one of our favorite my

Stephanie Maas: 00:00:14

favorite partners here with us, Chris Gray. Chris is a true

Stephanie Maas: 00:00:18

Renaissance man, but today we are going to focus on one of his

Stephanie Maas: 00:00:24

specialties within the executive search practices here at

Stephanie Maas: 00:00:28

ThinkingAhead, specific within the energy practice. Chris,

Stephanie Maas: 00:00:33

thank you so much for joining us.

Chris Gray: 00:00:36

Thank you, Stephanie. It's really an honor

Chris Gray: 00:00:38

to be doing this with you. And as you know, I'm a huge fan of

Chris Gray: 00:00:42

yours and in the podcast, and that's meaningful to me to be

Chris Gray: 00:00:45

doing this here with you. And so thank you for having me a little

Chris Gray: 00:00:49

bit about me and my background. So I did not start out in sales

Chris Gray: 00:00:52

or recruiting. I started out in music. I started playing music

Chris Gray: 00:00:56

in sixth grade, and my first instrument was the saxophone,

Chris Gray: 00:00:59

and I did that for a couple of years, but I was always really,

Chris Gray: 00:01:02

really drawn to the drums, and my parents did not really have

Chris Gray: 00:01:06

faith in me to stick with something. I was the typical

Chris Gray: 00:01:09

kid, you know, I had started and quit multiple things, like Cub

Chris Gray: 00:01:12

Scouts. I took karate for about three years, where I got the

Chris Gray: 00:01:16

crap kicked out of me Tuesdays and Thursdays for three years of

Chris Gray: 00:01:19

my life. Taught me a lot, but it wasn't that pleasant, so I

Chris Gray: 00:01:23

dropped out of that, and here I am telling my parents, hey, you

Chris Gray: 00:01:26

know, I don't want to play the drums. And they were like, yeah,

Chris Gray: 00:01:30

right, sure. Okay, whatever, buddy. But I just persisted. You

Chris Gray: 00:01:33

know when, when a kid wants something and they stick with

Chris Gray: 00:01:36

it? You know, parents are all over the place and unfocused,

Chris Gray: 00:01:40

but children, when they want something, they're very focused,

Chris Gray: 00:01:43

so they can sort of wear you down. And that's what I did.

Chris Gray: 00:01:46

Kept bringing it up to my parents over and over again,

Chris Gray: 00:01:49

and, you know, finally they agreed to get me a set, but not

Chris Gray: 00:01:53

before I basically practiced air drums in my room to MTV for a

Chris Gray: 00:01:56

year, and then they finally got me the set. And the first set

Chris Gray: 00:01:59

they got me was really cheap, and I beat it into the ground in

Chris Gray: 00:02:03

like six months. But that was the beginnings of a probably

Chris Gray: 00:02:06

close to 30 years in the music business. Got two degrees in

Chris Gray: 00:02:09

music, got a master's degree from the Eastman School of

Chris Gray: 00:02:13

Music, lived and taught music and played music and helped to

Chris Gray: 00:02:16

run a music business in New York City for about 12 years. And you

Chris Gray: 00:02:20

know, been talking with my family about New York. It's a

Chris Gray: 00:02:23

very tough place to live, very expensive. Now, there's really

Chris Gray: 00:02:26

two New Yorks. There's the New York that you go to when you're

Chris Gray: 00:02:30

a tourist, and then there's the New York that you are in when

Chris Gray: 00:02:33

you have to live and pay bills. And those are two different New

Chris Gray: 00:02:37

Yorks. Then it just became apparent that it was at the

Chris Gray: 00:02:40

time, it was time for a change. So we sort of started plotting

Chris Gray: 00:02:43

to get back to Tennessee, and we got back, and I'm kind of trying

Chris Gray: 00:02:47

to figure out, like, what am I going to do? You know, I had

Chris Gray: 00:02:50

done some HR functions within the company I was in New York.

Chris Gray: 00:02:53

But of course, there was nothing down here, like what I was doing

Chris Gray: 00:02:57

up there, which was traveling to schools all over New York City,

Chris Gray: 00:03:01

Philadelphia. So I just kind of started applying to jobs online,

Chris Gray: 00:03:04

kind of what we tell people not to do. I did everything through

Chris Gray: 00:03:08

the internet. Got no results, got discouraged, and I started

Chris Gray: 00:03:11

going to a group in town called the National Career Transition

Chris Gray: 00:03:15

group. And I met a guy there, and I was talking to him about

Chris Gray: 00:03:18

my background and things that I had done, and he said, you know,

Chris Gray: 00:03:21

maybe you should go into recruiting, you know, like third

Chris Gray: 00:03:25

party recruiting. And he goes, You know, I'm I'm not really

Chris Gray: 00:03:28

hiring right now, but I know somebody that it might be good

Chris Gray: 00:03:31

for you to meet, and it just happened to be thinking ahead,

Chris Gray: 00:03:35

and as I move forward now, after being here for over 11 years,

Chris Gray: 00:03:38

you know, this has just been a very good place to me that I did

Chris Gray: 00:03:42

not expect. And that's kind of how I got from music business in

Chris Gray: 00:03:45

New York City to head hunting in Nashville. I joined the energy

Chris Gray: 00:03:49

team because that was the opening that we had. I'd

Chris Gray: 00:03:51

actually interviewed for nonprofit a year before that. So

Chris Gray: 00:03:55

what we do here in the energy practices, we work with

Chris Gray: 00:03:58

substation and transmission engineers, and these are the

Chris Gray: 00:04:01

people that design the stuff. These are the people that build

Chris Gray: 00:04:04

it, highly paid people with PE licenses and bachelor's and

Chris Gray: 00:04:07

master's degrees. And we've also branched out into renewables

Chris Gray: 00:04:11

engineers and also environmental engineers. It's been really,

Chris Gray: 00:04:14

really fun for me, you know, working with all the people that

Chris Gray: 00:04:18

we work with, and clients and candidates, but also our

Chris Gray: 00:04:21

teammates. There's really no place like this. I've learned a

Chris Gray: 00:04:24

lot. So wanted to talk today about head game, you know, and

Chris Gray: 00:04:27

Stephanie. And when you're teaching and training, you break

Chris Gray: 00:04:31

down what we do into four categories, recruiting, biz dev,

Chris Gray: 00:04:34

planning and the head game. And I've had some definite doozies

Chris Gray: 00:04:37

and tests with the head game over the course of my life. I

Chris Gray: 00:04:41

broke down the head game into five categories that I think can

Chris Gray: 00:04:44

apply to almost anything or anyone, no matter what you're

Chris Gray: 00:04:47

dealing with, whether it's a personal thing, whether it's a

Chris Gray: 00:04:51

professional thing. Something at work. And so I'm just going to

Chris Gray: 00:04:54

talk about each one of those, and I'll try to include a little

Chris Gray: 00:04:58

example of how that applied to me. So the first thing in the

Chris Gray: 00:05:01

head game. So let's just assume that you're in a you're in a

Chris Gray: 00:05:04

you're in a pickle, you know, you're in a situation, you're

Chris Gray: 00:05:08

you're losing the game, you're you're back sliding in some way

Chris Gray: 00:05:11

in your life, the situation that you're in, it's not going the

Chris Gray: 00:05:15

way that you thought it would go and, you know, we go through

Chris Gray: 00:05:18

different stages of how we deal with that emotionally. You know,

Chris Gray: 00:05:22

the five stages of grief you talk about, I guess the main

Chris Gray: 00:05:25

three, you know, denial, anger and acceptance. That can

Chris Gray: 00:05:28

definitely happen when you're when you're going through

Chris Gray: 00:05:31

something difficult, you sort of deny that it's happening, or

Chris Gray: 00:05:34

maybe you you don't see that it's happening, and then you get

Chris Gray: 00:05:38

you get mad, you know, and you're just angry at the

Chris Gray: 00:05:41

situation or yourself, you know, a lot of people go into self

Chris Gray: 00:05:44

blame at that point, and then at some point, you accept that,

Chris Gray: 00:05:48

okay, this is real. I'm dealing with this. You decided that this

Chris Gray: 00:05:51

is real, and you're looking at this, and she said, Okay, I

Chris Gray: 00:05:54

gotta do something here. So I think the first thing I would

Chris Gray: 00:05:58

say is, get going. Get going. Get started. Move. One example

Chris Gray: 00:06:01

that comes to mind for me is, you know, it's teaching music.

Chris Gray: 00:06:04

And I was working for a company that provided instrumental

Chris Gray: 00:06:08

lessons and the instruments to Catholic schools all over New

Chris Gray: 00:06:11

York City. So it's our business. Had well over 12,000 kids that

Chris Gray: 00:06:15

were customers of ours. And one of the things we did was every

Chris Gray: 00:06:18

year we would get the best kids from the school, from each

Chris Gray: 00:06:21

school, and we'd get them together, and it was called

Chris Gray: 00:06:24

Honor Band. And in New York City alone, we had over 300 kids in

Chris Gray: 00:06:28

the band. When you think about 300 kids playing music at the

Chris Gray: 00:06:31

same time, these are six to 12 graders. They are at various

Chris Gray: 00:06:34

levels. Some kids are superstars. Some kids probably

Chris Gray: 00:06:37

got invited so their feelings wouldn't get hurt. They got

Chris Gray: 00:06:41

various stages of intonation, how to put the instrument

Chris Gray: 00:06:44

together, their quality of their sound, they're just overall

Chris Gray: 00:06:47

musicianship. And all of a sudden, you're standing in front

Chris Gray: 00:06:50

of these 300 kids, and they you start the first song, and I'll

Chris Gray: 00:06:54

never forget like and it was an easy song, and I could not tell

Chris Gray: 00:06:57

what was happening. It was such a monstrosity of sound. It was

Chris Gray: 00:07:01

such a wall of chaos. And all these kids were blaring into

Chris Gray: 00:07:04

their instruments at the same time, with no regard to playing

Chris Gray: 00:07:07

with each other, listening to the beat, watching my conducting

Chris Gray: 00:07:11

your knee. That was just total chaos. And I just remember, and

Chris Gray: 00:07:14

I had my superiors were watching me. You know, it's like I was

Chris Gray: 00:07:18

almost like being observed. I kind of felt like I was on

Chris Gray: 00:07:21

trial. I mean, it was super intense. You know, you stop the

Chris Gray: 00:07:24

band because it's terrible. It sounds awful, and you stop them,

Chris Gray: 00:07:28

and then the kids are like, all quiet. They're looking at you,

Chris Gray: 00:07:31

300 kids, 600 eyes, and they're like, what's he gonna say? You

Chris Gray: 00:07:35

know, what's he gonna tell us to do? Is he can tell us it was

Chris Gray: 00:07:38

good. And I froze. I didn't know what to say. I just stood there.

Chris Gray: 00:07:42

And the more I didn't speak, the more pressure I felt, and I felt

Chris Gray: 00:07:46

my colleagues staring at me, and it was not a great moment, but

Chris Gray: 00:07:49

eventually I just said, You know what flutes are at a tune or

Chris Gray: 00:07:52

something's off, so let's just run the flutes. And then I said,

Chris Gray: 00:07:56

let's just run the clarinets, and let's just run the trumpets

Chris Gray: 00:07:59

and just the act of starting somewhere, I started to build

Chris Gray: 00:08:03

momentum off my own action. And that's one of the things I would

Chris Gray: 00:08:06

say, is what you need to do if you're stuck is, get going. Get

Chris Gray: 00:08:10

moving. Do something. Start small. Start anywhere but start.

Chris Gray: 00:08:13

Don't sit in the unproductive energy of inertia, but get

Chris Gray: 00:08:16

going. Next thing, I would say, is one day at a time. So when

Chris Gray: 00:08:20

you're dealing with a task, or you're dealing with a mountain

Chris Gray: 00:08:23

that you have to climb, it's really, really easy to look at

Chris Gray: 00:08:26

the totality of your task and get overwhelmed. And that's when

Chris Gray: 00:08:30

negative self talk can creep in. You know, wow, look at this huge

Chris Gray: 00:08:33

thing that I have to do. I'm not going to be able to do this. I

Chris Gray: 00:08:37

can't do this. It's not going to happen. It's too big. The odds

Chris Gray: 00:08:41

are against me. Logically, it's crazy to think I can do this.

Chris Gray: 00:08:44

And so we start convincing ourselves that we're not going

Chris Gray: 00:08:47

to be able to do what we need to do to fix the situation. So just

Chris Gray: 00:08:51

one day at a time, just kind of focuses on, okay, I'm here, I'm

Chris Gray: 00:08:54

present, I'm in the moment, and I'm gonna decide and figure out

Chris Gray: 00:08:58

what I can get done right now. And these are closely related,

Chris Gray: 00:09:01

you know, so get going is about the right now, and so is one day

Chris Gray: 00:09:05

at a time. It's about being present in the moment, not

Chris Gray: 00:09:08

overthinking the next week, the next week, or even, really,

Chris Gray: 00:09:11

tomorrow. And you know, my faith also tells me that I'm not

Chris Gray: 00:09:15

supposed to worry about tomorrow. And that is a skill,

Chris Gray: 00:09:18

that is a skill that will not come naturally. We are all

Chris Gray: 00:09:21

inclined to look forward and stress out. So the skill is, I'm

Chris Gray: 00:09:24

not going to do that. I'm going to stay here in the moment. But

Chris Gray: 00:09:28

one of the things I do is I make a list of everything that's

Chris Gray: 00:09:31

freaking me out. So it could be a Word doc. You scribble it on a

Chris Gray: 00:09:35

piece of paper. It doesn't really matter, but I make a list

Chris Gray: 00:09:38

of the things that are swimming in my head that are negative,

Chris Gray: 00:09:41

and I get really specific. So like, let's just say it was a

Chris Gray: 00:09:45

financial thing. Like, right? Let's say I was kind of worried

Chris Gray: 00:09:48

about money. And I will literally put not just I'm

Chris Gray: 00:09:51

worried about money, but I'm. Worried about paying XYZ bill,

Chris Gray: 00:09:54

and then I just go through and I make the list, and one of the

Chris Gray: 00:09:58

things I notice when I do that is that the list is never as bad

Chris Gray: 00:10:01

as I thought. You know, when I'm looking at it on paper, it's

Chris Gray: 00:10:05

never as bad as what I had swimming in my head. Is it just

Chris Gray: 00:10:08

gets it out of me, and I'm not sitting with that negativity. So

Chris Gray: 00:10:11

one day at a time, the next one is, remember your most

Chris Gray: 00:10:14

successful times, or remember your wins. And when I think

Chris Gray: 00:10:18

about that, I think about my time in New York. I'd been there

Chris Gray: 00:10:21

for about a year, and I was a teacher, so I was making like,

Chris Gray: 00:10:24

32k in New York City in the year, 2000 in a single income

Chris Gray: 00:10:28

situation. So of course, I'm looking at the summer, and

Chris Gray: 00:10:31

teachers don't get paid in the summer. And I'm like, What am I

Chris Gray: 00:10:34

going to do? So I started looking through the New York

Chris Gray: 00:10:37

Daily News, like the hard copy, and I saw that there was a job

Chris Gray: 00:10:41

posting for a couple 100 bucks a week part time. I thought, well,

Chris Gray: 00:10:44

if I can start now, this was in January of 2001 I thought, if I

Chris Gray: 00:10:48

can start now, I can build up enough cash to get through the

Chris Gray: 00:10:51

summer. So I found out it was a paper route for the New York

Chris Gray: 00:10:55

Times, and I was waking up at two in the morning in Queens,

Chris Gray: 00:10:58

and I was driving to Hell's Kitchen to a warehouse. I was

Chris Gray: 00:11:01

putting together papers like 225 editions in the New York Times,

Chris Gray: 00:11:05

loading them in my car, driving across 23rd Street to the east

Chris Gray: 00:11:08

side to four buildings called waterside Plaza. Each had 37

Chris Gray: 00:11:11

floors. You need to take the elevator all the way up to way

Chris Gray: 00:11:15

up to the top stall the elevator with your push cart, run out and

Chris Gray: 00:11:18

toss all the newspapers at the doorsteps of the people so that

Chris Gray: 00:11:22

when they came out of their apartment, the newspaper would

Chris Gray: 00:11:25

be there and pretty on their doormat. And that was four hours

Chris Gray: 00:11:28

of work. And then I went and did my full time teaching job, and I

Chris Gray: 00:11:32

was working overtime with that. So I was basically working from

Chris Gray: 00:11:36

2am to 8pm I'd go home, eat a sandwich, go to sleep, wake up,

Chris Gray: 00:11:39

do it all over again. I did that for a year, and I learned more

Chris Gray: 00:11:43

about myself in that year than I ever have in my life, the things

Chris Gray: 00:11:46

that I was capable of doing, the ability to push myself, the

Chris Gray: 00:11:50

ability to believe in myself, and then again, tied to these

Chris Gray: 00:11:53

other two right, one day at a time, and get going. So I was

Chris Gray: 00:11:56

able to do that. And I remember that a lot when I'm in a pickle,

Chris Gray: 00:12:00

you know? I remember those times of of what that was like, and

Chris Gray: 00:12:03

sometimes what you feel in the moment is the worst times can

Chris Gray: 00:12:07

actually be the best times when you look back and you realize

Chris Gray: 00:12:10

how you grew as a person, how you strengthened as a person,

Chris Gray: 00:12:13

and and just the lessons that you learned and the memories

Chris Gray: 00:12:17

that you made. So the fourth one I would say, is visualize

Chris Gray: 00:12:20

winning. So remembering successes, that's about looking

Chris Gray: 00:12:23

back at winning. Visualizing winning is about looking forward

Chris Gray: 00:12:26

and saying to yourself, Okay, what's going to happen when I

Chris Gray: 00:12:30

win, not if I win, when I win, what's going to happen? What's

Chris Gray: 00:12:33

that going to look like? And you go through that, and you

Chris Gray: 00:12:36

visualize, okay, if I hit this goal, or if I get out of this

Chris Gray: 00:12:40

situation, or if, obviously, in what we do, you know, if I make

Chris Gray: 00:12:43

that placement, or if I get that billing, or if I win this new

Chris Gray: 00:12:47

client, if I win the search, and you you start to let your

Chris Gray: 00:12:50

emotions fill in that picture in your mind. You start to

Chris Gray: 00:12:53

visualize what that looks like, and everybody will react to that

Chris Gray: 00:12:57

differently. You know, some people, that'll be great fuel

Chris Gray: 00:13:00

for them to move forward. Somebody like me, I struggle

Chris Gray: 00:13:03

with it a little bit. I'm not I'm not as good as visualizing

Chris Gray: 00:13:06

what the future is going to be and how good it's going to feel.

Chris Gray: 00:13:10

I do think that it's good to at least like. Think forward into

Chris Gray: 00:13:13

the future. Think about those positive pictures and what

Chris Gray: 00:13:16

that's going to look like when you overcome, when you pull

Chris Gray: 00:13:20

yourself out of this and when you win. So far, we have get

Chris Gray: 00:13:23

going one day at a time. Remember your success is in

Chris Gray: 00:13:26

visualize winning. And so that brings me to the last one, which

Chris Gray: 00:13:29

is tune out the negative as much as you can, even if it's real.

Chris Gray: 00:13:33

So an example might be that you're in a situation and the

Chris Gray: 00:13:36

odds are sort of long that you're going to win, you know,

Chris Gray: 00:13:39

almost like an athletic event between a really good school and

Chris Gray: 00:13:43

a sort of a not really good school, you know, the odds with

Chris Gray: 00:13:46

that not so good school winning are slim, you know. And

Chris Gray: 00:13:49

sometimes you might be in a situation where you have a slim

Chris Gray: 00:13:52

chance, or a less than 5050, chance. And sometimes people

Chris Gray: 00:13:56

around you, even if they love you and they care about you,

Chris Gray: 00:13:59

they'll point this out, you know, they'll, they'll try to be

Chris Gray: 00:14:02

realist with you here, you know, we call it being a billionaire,

Chris Gray: 00:14:06

and it's kind of like, hey, you know what? You got this thing

Chris Gray: 00:14:09

going on. It's kind of a long shot. But hey, you know, do your

Chris Gray: 00:14:13

best. You know, give it a go. We're pulling for you, you know,

Chris Gray: 00:14:16

we're praying for you, and all that kind of stuff. And it's

Chris Gray: 00:14:19

like, sometimes you have to just tune all of that out, because if

Chris Gray: 00:14:23

you focus on it, even if it's real, that's the key. It's not,

Chris Gray: 00:14:27

I'm not just talking about people being negative. We all

Chris Gray: 00:14:30

know that that's probably not good, you know, people being

Chris Gray: 00:14:33

negative, but I'm talking about people being realist with you,

Chris Gray: 00:14:36

and it's negative. You gotta tune that out, because it will

Chris Gray: 00:14:40

pull you back, and you'll start to give that life. You'll start

Chris Gray: 00:14:43

to give those long odds life, and you have to tune it out and

Chris Gray: 00:14:47

say, You know what? I'm not giving that anything. I'm not

Chris Gray: 00:14:50

giving it any of my energy. I'm not giving it any of my time.

Chris Gray: 00:14:53

I'm focusing on all these other things that are positive, and

Chris Gray: 00:14:57

I'm going to believe in myself even when it doesn't make sense.

Chris Gray: 00:15:00

Six if I don't believe in myself, why should anyone else

Chris Gray: 00:15:03

believe in me? So those are just some things that I have

Chris Gray: 00:15:06

developed over the years, and I'm definitely not saying that

Chris Gray: 00:15:10

I'm expert or sensei on that stuff, but I'll just hit them

Chris Gray: 00:15:13

real quick again. So it's get going one day at a time.

Chris Gray: 00:15:16

Remember success is visualize winning and tune out the

Chris Gray: 00:15:19

negative, even if it's real.

Stephanie Maas: 00:15:21

Well, I had planned on my brain not being

Stephanie Maas: 00:15:24

able to keep pace, and I was literally hanging on every word,

Stephanie Maas: 00:15:28

Chris, thank you so much. That is such good counsel. Thank you

Stephanie Maas: 00:15:32

for the vulnerability and sharing some of who you are on

Stephanie Maas: 00:15:36

and off the field with us. And you know the reality of it is we

Stephanie Maas: 00:15:41

only learn these things when we have to. The fact that you know

Stephanie Maas: 00:15:45

them means at some point you've had to learn them.

Chris Gray: 00:15:49

Well, I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you. Stephanie.