hi I'm Alice hi I'm Justin and you're listening to the utterly awesome podcast who knows what we'll talk about Irish doodle yeah her name's Rory I think I think before they get done they're gonna have like bear Doodles and stuff we have we have a Cavapoo and a labradoodle and our next we want to get us a Bernie noodle because we want it to be yeah let's do it again they did this on Monday with Allison for video good because I thought I had started drinking and I didn't drink anything yet I was like or I was having a stroke and my right eye was going on or something well Welcome to our show herb thanks for uh thanks for joining us happy to be here hopefully you haven't wasted your time uh watching our show yeah I've seen a couple Snippets I think I want to the ones y'all post it I I actually don't listen to as many podcasts as like people probably think I do uh it's only when I'm on long drives is when I find the time yeah like all right we'll do that we'll listen to the podcast for the next five hours yeah I find that dog walking and chores is a it's a good time for me I like the charge one I just don't like doing chores so it kind of because I don't know I don't either so uh so Allison I don't want to step on your toes but uh you you invited her but I'm really interested in how you guys first met but I don't want to ruin your intro of her for everyone so that's that's my all right well I'll do it visual curiosity I'll let him dive in so I help with the next gen program with servicenow and one of my very good friends for many many years um used to be over the program and then she got to hire herb to kind of take it over so I've gotten to know him over the past have you been there a year yeah a year and a half I guess now year and a half and so I've gotten to work with him and I'll let him give his background he's got a very cool background and was doing great things oh yeah I appreciate it Allison yeah it's a year and a half time flies on your uh either having fun or busy or you're having fun while you're busy uh so yeah no I've been a service now a year and a half uh yeah right at a year and a half backing up even further four years ago I retired out of the army as a special forces team Sergeant people know is a Green Beret and then was like hey what's next in my life and my claim to fame was hey I'm the only person ever to be the Army's drill sign of the year and a Green Beret and all that gets me nothing right there's no discount at the gas station or anywhere else so I was like hey let's figure it out so I went to work at Accenture as a Management Consultant in that pathway I was doing my MBA at Cornell and then was like hey I got to do something else this is uh this isn't challenging me it's not fulfilling me I found out about service I've been doing service now work but I was like oh this position that service now looked at it looked at my fiance Court I was like this was rope for me this is this is they should just put my name on there I don't even know why they're posting it and I I you know submit application went through the process and then year and a half later here I am yeah I was I was following your uh kind of trajectory on I'm going through Linkedin and all your posts and everything and you actually posted today about um interviewing at a startup um and then your friends interviewed the startup and like you guys have gone your separate ways and I found that really intriguing about just kind of how life for everyone goes different directions they were in there as in the first 40 employees I think like 36 and 39 or something so I was like oh I'm a good shot to get in this is going to be awesome uh and it just didn't work out and I knew pretty quickly during the interview it was in person and it was this is going to make or break it what I didn't realize though they they had a problem and they like hey what's your solution so I got up on a whiteboard I drew it out it was the same pitch they had made the day before and the guy I was interviewing was like no that's not it did the same pitch because we came from the same background like same similar type of thinking but it all worked out right they're a billion dollar multi-billion dollar company now a couple years later and um I'm not a multi-billion dollar entity though um I'm doing okay I I would I would bet you've had billions of dollars of impact on other people though yeah it's hard to that's why I love what I do though it's you get to you can't buy it you know when you help someone and you change their life whether it's you know a little bit or you know even a tiny bit you can't purchase that how good that feel so it's awesome that's actually what I love about her is like his content is just so like real and it resonates with so many people of like he's taking his experiences and how his journey has taken him and it's very cool to read because I'm not a veteran so I can never ever relate to what you've been through but I know several that when I read your stuff I'm like oh my gosh like this is awesome and the people and the cohorts just love you and what you do and the things you bring to the table especially like your content I'm like I could never do that ever like I want to be you whenever yeah it's uh people all the time go I'll ask her they'll reach out like how are you so authentic I'm like I don't know how else to be like it's uh I just be myself but part of it really is like giving enough care of what people think but really not caring what people think because you're never gonna make any everyone happy and for me there is it's great you point that out Alice and I was like those that have served and those not served all are equal there's no one better than the other but there's a divide right and most people unless you have a family member don't know what it is so I'm always about building bridges and if in through often you know authenticity of like hey this is the real experience and do that we need more of it right I think we need more coming together instead of polarization so anything I can do help whether it's veteran non-veteran I'm all for it because we can all get along we all succeed together do you want to tell our audience kind of what next-gen is and what and what do just because I don't think everybody knows about it no good good next gen so servicenow we have next gen and it's not just in the US globally focused but I'll talk mainly about what we do here for veterans but focused on underserved populations the people normally can't break into tech let's give them training and let's get them a step up and get them into the ecosystem so we have programs here in the US that are veteran focused that's where I reside and then we have non-veteran Focus so certain different parts of America and then other ones in uh you know across Europe also in Asia for a lot of refugees and stuff going through with England training so it's really a way to get servicenow training for free for a 10-week program or our military program is 16 weeks because we're connected with the Department of Defense to really go through a boot camp and learn service now but not just servicenow but career skills and like Hey how do I use this thing called LinkedIn what's a resume and some of the mental components of like I'm leaving service to my nation behind it's going to be different now in Corporate America and going through that and interviews Etc so we hit on that but also I mean it's mainly drinking on the fire hose of learning service now and it's it's amazing we just finished up and we're talking about a project that you know about Allison and it's it's so amazing to see the participants as they come through you know day one I always joke but it's not far up they could spell service now like that is their expertise level with servicenow to you know by week 10 they're developing an application in service now working at a small team of three to five people and then work for weeks and solving problems that you know really uh you know architect not necessarily an Architects not a developer and people who are out there in the ecosystem for a couple years are doing so it's just awesome to see their progress and then the end end state is and this one I love it is servicenow I want to tell you get these people hired right whether it's at servicenow it's out at our partners it's just a way to grow the ecosystem and I love helping because I love seeing the enthusiasm because I'm like I remember those days and I'm like I wish I would have had this when I started because I was drinking from a water hose it was not helpful so you're you're in survival mode I think right yeah thank yourself do you do you have a particular part of service now herb that like appeals to you and like I I don't know how technical or how familiar you are I know you're over the program but yeah my coding expertise stops at my ATM pin code and I'm good if I remember that so I am not Tech now from a process project management program stuff that that is what I do what I love about servicenow and and really it goes back to my military career I think about all this stuff and it's everybody in every company workplace that was just mundane I'm like why are we doing this again like when I out processed out of the army right after certain 20 years they gave me the stack of papers and they had to walk around the base and they had to give a stamp and I'm like I've never been here before why are you even giving me why do I need your permission so I can go home essentially right that could be automated and I would not have spent you know the historically the at least the Army and most you know military branches give you 10 days to do that now you're running across posts for days getting stamps on paper and it's like that could be a simple workflow and service now that would take click click click click and it's done so that is actually what I love about service now is the ability to just the bureaucracy the mundane stuff that just eats at me serps now can solve that and I know it to me it's people across companies everywhere whether you're served or whether you know you're in office or a warehouse it can just make your life easier so you can focus on your work that you're supposed to be doing and that's what I love about it I can talk about it I can get in and do it I've done it I've given training on servicenow I've you know used it but I don't dive into the like different kind of sections of servicenow and what we actually do it's just at a very high level gotcha well you know what you made me think of sorry I was in that but real quick like when you're talking about getting rid of the mundane or the bureaucratic stuff like right before this I was going through a lot of your posts and you seem very reflective and creative and like you can't get to that headspace if you're caught up in all these new nuances and itty bitty details I think um you're living that um in your in your online presence at least exactly I mean if I hate anything I hate bureaucracy and then what was yours no go ahead Allison oh I just say was there any like advice you have for people that you felt was like the hardest part of your transition like whenever you came out of the military was there like that light bulb moment where you're like it's all gonna be good or because I'm sure that's like a drastic change after so many years uh thank you for asking it it's a huge change and it's really a way of life right it's not changing a job it's not doing anything like that and for me there was doubt I just said hey I'd been success you know whatever you say that I was successful in my military career I accomplished a lot but when I where I came from you know I grew up in a trailer park my dad was on welfare and lost his job Etc there wasn't nothing to go back to so I had doubt of like am I gonna I was successful in the military but could I be a successful a civilian so to speak and for me the the magic moment was I got accepted into this two-week program up at Dartmouth I went there the first day and it's an awesome program it's like a graduate certificate program and they mix athletes like Olympic athletes and Veterans and I looked around the room and I was like I believe I can do this I believe I belong I can be successful and from there on granted there was all kinds and there still will be in the future or you know trials and tribulations ups and downs but from that moment I believed in myself and then it was okay as long as I believe to myself I'll make it happen y'all Allison and I have talked about um on the podcast a lot imposter syndrome kind of coming in and feeling like you know you're not in the right place or everybody knows more than I do and I'm kind of someone's gonna catch me um you know what I mean and it's I think there's a point and I think you kind of just described it where you're just like no I got this and and be humble enough for being like when you don't got it you say like oops Yeah but now I know and you move on and stuff like that so yeah it's I don't know how to describe that mental leap either but um it's important in your career and I think if I can add on that Justin I for at least military folks I learned there right if I went and worked hard I had to learn a process it was the same thing when I got out right it was like let me work hard not you know believe that I know everything believe that I can do it and put in the hard work and it's like wow that worked in military Works in general people are people right if you work hard and smartly you're you're gonna be successful so that but believe in ourselves we're all we all deal with that I think of looking in the mirror and going am I good enough whether it's in a personal relationship or a professional you know setting and we just have to believe in ourselves to go okay I'm not perfect none of us are we'll never will be but I can keep going forward I can learn and I'm gonna make it it's gonna be okay I like that sign work hard and be nice to people yeah yeah but I was looking through um the application up well first of all I noticed that next gen when I went there it's actually hosted on service now so I thought that was pretty cool I was like one in the back I don't hit a knowledge base article but in the FAQ it goes through kind of a typical cohort and um and it's got technical stuff like you're talking about but do you guys incorporate what we were just talking about like kind of like the the more soft skills side of things and you know having that confidence and presenting and consolioning like you were talking about your first job interview for the for our programs yes each of them had their own little unique tweaks based off of you know where where they're located at uh specific for our veteran programs that's our whole first week is focus on that to set the conditions for learning now we come back and hit on it but the whole first week is making the mental shift uh you know realizing you left the uniform behind or you know our other programs do hope thoughts and fears like let's be real let's talk about what well we may not talk about at parties you know let's say the sign of things out loud let's let's talk through it but also continue to do that and bring in people as guest speakers that go hey it sucked you know what yeah I didn't get the job or I I struggled to you know get my certifications but I'm here and I did it uh you can too and and that's such a powerful especially with our alumni and the people like Allison that come into our our programs that really share back and give back saying hey I've been where you are it's gonna be okay hugely impactful on top of the technical learning that is just through the roof as far as the amount that they're learning in a short period of time yeah we talked about interviewing and it's like my favorite session that we do because I'm very which is I feel like there's no other way to be and I always this is going to give it away but we surprise them with questions at the end that I ask in interviews and so there's always that deer in the headlight slip her gets my easy one every time of K versus treehouse wait wait wait was it K versus Treehouse where would you rather live in a cave or a treehouse and why he has to answer that or the students downstairs he does okay is to kind of break the ice when you have like a nervous interviewer you just ask like would you rather have like six hands and no feet you know just something random yeah but I ask it because everyone I interview says a tree house because caves are wet the cake but her didn't have that answer and I was very excited but we don't want to give it away is that what I'm sensing like we can uh I just don't I don't think of cases wet I think if I'm uh from a military mindset like nothing good happens in a cave right I think we can go and go through history and see what's happening cave so I I live in a tree I'm looking at trees right now I essentially live in a treehouse so I choose tree house but for a different reason but I love that Allison does that she throws those questions when I was uh my final interview at Accenture it ended with hey you're on the toilet and um there's no toilet paper what are you gonna do and at first I was like what the you know but it was it's such a great question because you see that someone have a personality you see could they talk through a process of like hey here's what you do I got to do this this and I just thought it was a fun unique question that I was like wasn't prepared for but it it I was able to see a little bit of the interviewer and they were able to see a little bit of me and I just thought it was really cool yeah I think Alice and I were talking about when you can see the wheels turning in somebody when you're interviewing and watch them kind of figure something out it's very telling and revealing into their their process I guess their internal process and I don't want robots like I want you to answer like I don't want the dictionary definition of something I want you to use your words and I want you to like just be you because that's who I'm hiring I'm not hiring like I can teach you service now but I can't teach you to be who you are like that's you can't teach it we cover that a lot in that session it would just be yourself yeah with back when I was an interviewing manager of what I was always looking for was I need someone that can hustle like I need someone that I don't have to be whether than with a clipboard and that's gonna go after the next thing and learn I've saw that in your application too it was like you want um I'm just quoting your grit resilience uh growth mindset all those things that make a good employee or a good um a good Steward of your own career I think you know regardless of your employer yeah I think service now just like Allison was saying you know wherever you're at we could train you as long as you're trainable right if you're you have that grit resiliency the hustle uh and probably a little personality because we we don't want to work with serial killers we actually want to work with some people we enjoy right so if you could show them I think too often people very rightfully so they're nervous it's an interview oh my God I'm being judged it's like just be yourself that no one's No One's Gonna Take You Out Back and like beat you right like worse can happen is you don't get the job but just be yourself and I always tell people if if you can't be yourself what are you gonna do once you start the job you got to keep playing to be someone else all the time versus at some point the real you is going to come out and or the real them will come out and it won't be a fit so just be yourself yeah I try to explain that too of like if it's not a fit that's the best blessing you could get of you being yourself and it not being a culture fit because you're not going to be successful in a culture you don't put in like I've interviewed people that were fantastic but would not have fit in and so I had to pass and it was not because they weren't intelligent they just weren't perfect for what we are building so I don't think I've ever looked at that as a positive that's the first time that's a great great way to think about it yeah yeah if I may Corey my fiance's been in the job search right and one of those companies I won't name them it was going well like five interviews in right and on the sixth interview like it got opened up to like oh this this isn't a fun place like like it was a panel interview and like people looked like they were you know in prison and she was like oh my God I don't want to work there and they they didn't want her also so it was like that was a good thing right because do you get hired and then what do you do oh I need to quit or what do I do and it's we all want to enjoy what we do we can't always love everything we do and there's gonna be stuff we don't agree with but we should be able to look forward to going to work and if not then we probably need to be somewhere else that's how Justin I talking to each other yeah talking in um and spending time uh discussing weird stuff that we don't have to do for related to work maybe a form of procrastination I love I love it what's a good weird thing what's what's a good weird thing uh oh man with lots of good weird things most recent Maybe boxed wine yeah yeah what's your name what's your name Allison cardboard oh [Music] classic there's some that are not bad there's some that are terrible but there are some that are not bad yeah cardboard wine that it just presents an image in my mind that is like again that's a stereotype I have it's like yeah not good I love having those conversations too my son has a garden and since Dad was bad without the guard that yeah yeah gardening is fun did you say a plant doctor yes technically it's a plant pathologist um and basically we used to work for Homeland Security um but basically looking at pathogens on agriculture and you know you don't want something coming from another country into the U.S um and before that he would work on you know for seed companies if they sell all these seeds and they get a disease or something so I do have a quick plant story if we have time for that oh yes when I met my fiance Corey her her dad he's uh he's just retired after like four years as a Methodist minister so hey Herb's coming over he's a Green Beret all this good stuff and he takes me around their property and he he's like hey do you know what that plan is I Fern and he's like what about that one and I'm like Fern he's like we have four different types of ferns and as we're going like this was every plant he has a couple acres and it was like do you know what that tree is no and I'm looking at Corey like what we still haven't figured out why like if he thought Greenbrae met like something with like greenhouses or something or like what happened but we walked for like a mile and I just I kept getting asked like do you know what that plan is and I was like no we we still haven't figured out why he was asking so we'll joke about it from time to time like do you know what that Fern is nope oh that's hilarious yeah they have apps for that now that's what you should have said yeah I used I used one so we do have to ask her what you think your spirit animal would be because mine's water and Justin's is the owl hence our name so I'm gonna go with eagle uh because I am a I don't get excited about Mantra I'm pretty level-headed I don't fam like someone famous could show up right now walk in the room I'd be like whatever but if a bald eagle flies by right there and people have seen it on call to me I'm like and uh Corey will be like dude you're there's something wrong with you people probably think you're you're mental and I'm like bald eagles I just love them so I'll go with a bald eagle just because they're so cool and they look like they wear Gaucho now I hadn't thought of it that way but now I will whatever it looks like they have little couches I'm not gonna look good at the same now they just went from Majestic to something that's really different that's fine but yeah that's how we got our name so I have to always we're now gonna have to ask all of our guests because you're our first I love it we love otters for the right we like owls because we uh the joke in the house is one of our kids looks like a owl so we always talk about that because he always been uh and then um we love otters just because they're mischievous so we're always trying to go sea otters uh and see them in the wild uh so when we're out walking around and usually we fail and we don't see them but we talk about the little otter in the house down there like reading the paper smoking a Cobb pipe and uh yeah we have we have some interesting conversations and now people probably will think uh I'm mental but there's a aquarium in Georgia where you can like hold hands with an otter and I don't live far from Georgia so I've been like how do I convince my husband to let me go we we saw somewhere on the signs going to Delaware it's in Delaware you can swim with otters there's like a swimming pool and you hop in and then the Otters get in with you and you sit there for like a half hour in the pool with them so oh uh Allison we could do a podcast in the pool yes or if David asks what he should get me for my birthday I'll I'll send it to you I'll send you the info on it Allison yeah and so we have a condo in Myrtle Beach and not the aquarium they have sloths that are coming soon and I will pay money to hold a sloth as soon as it opens I'm going it's funny the animal ties and tie-ins with this conversation our daughter is scared us lost and we're like you realize they can't move right so like in the Baltimore aquarium that we go to sometimes though there's two sloths and they're way up in a tree like they can't get to you and like everyone's like where are they she's like it's right there like she can find it because she is so deathly scared and like she's like walking so now I didn't realize all this all these places sell sloth things so we buy them all the time just to mess with her so like hey here's a soap holder that's a sloth here's a stuffed animal here's a keychain like now that I know that you don't like them like you're gonna get everything slow I wonder what creates that like just natural aversion to certain things I don't like mascots they forget us we we talked we talk about it that everyone has an irrational fear so in her case it's lost I don't know what you alls are but everyone has an irrational fear yeah there you go there's I should be scared of them but they terrified me at knowledge one year the power buttons were like everywhere I went before they changed logos to the little toilet seat logo the old power buttons all over knowledge oh my God I know it's supposed to be a person but yeah I I'm not gonna look at that the same now I know I'm sorry I've never lifeltering podcast I had not thought of that as a toilet seat but I can see it now like we have this map of the world in our living room and it's like a Print on wood and stuff and uh now when I look at it Brazil and a couple other South American countries look like Colonel Sanders so I I can't unsee it so I'm like look there's Colonel Sanders and like other people can't necessarily see a debate okay maybe a little bit but now anytime I look at I'm like Brazil and a couple of the other countries don't exist it's just Colonel Sanders have you seen their logo it looks like he's got like little arms and little legs instead of the bow tie you need to pull it up when we're done and you'll just feel his little hands yeah herbal we pull up the screen share it can go really downhill very fast I see that good though it's fun that's how it should be yeah these gas stations one day do you guys have Bucky's in you're in Colorado right I'm right outside of DC we do not I think I've seen a Bucky's in like Kentucky or somewhere one time so we get down butthole I love it sorry my dog just started snoring I hear that I was like Mike I was like wait did I fall asleep am I snoring because I do snore and I was like wait did I did I do that nope not you it's her and she gets right underneath like the desk so I can't I'll probably just put it filtered out in post but it has to you guys have faster we do we have um our two dogs and then there's a turtle over here that like you can't hear but like our sun hasn't filled up the water so it's like trickling and it's like it's really annoying and I'm like why do we have this Turtle no one pays it attention like no we can't get rid of the turtle so we have a turtle and uh two dogs nice we want more dogs we did have chickens that lasted for about two days once we put them outside and then uh the fox the other fox or Hawk said hat we'll take the chicken so uh after raising them from like a day old to being I think it was like 10 weeks old we decided not to have chickens anymore I've entertained the idea I've never done it it was really cool I put a lot of work in fencing like converted a shed cut out a hole so that a door installed a solar powered door and then you know the second day they're out in the wild they're gone and I was like and there was just blood spots I was like okay I'm not investing in this I also had like built a frame in the shed with fencing to like fence off I put a lot of hours into this and I was like we'll just buy our eggs this is not worth it yeah not worth it because before they went up on price right it was that well Jackson you can buy a pre-built Chicken Coop to Stripes I mean not a bad idea just more fencing maybe well her thank you for coming we were trying to be cognizant of your time but any last things I see Rise up on your shirt I know that's new it is uh rise up with service now kind of you know expounding upon what we're doing with our next gem programs just you know service now said hey we're gonna train a million people in two years on service now not lofty go or anything but really hey we how do you get people into the ecosystem right as we're growing the company's growing uh we need to people need to have training so that's the goal as we go forward and it's evolving around the globe of getting people more trained in service now and uh just happy to be a part of it yeah well thanks for their being here for our podcast um we're we're just trying to spend time together and maybe share a little bit of service now stuff so you're actually our first guest here we've never had a guest before so uh I I'm honored or scared that you picked me first but thank you Allison Allison voted for you she was a big supporter of her being first so I I appreciate it Allison thank you no you know I love I love this like just people talking and getting to know each other and I feel like it's a good way to tune in learn a little bit information and uh you'll you'll keep doing it because I like the otter and the owl uh they're pretty cool so uh like you get my vote we can have a little ego um oh yeah with the pants [Music] [Music]