Learning history can be boring and tedious, and not knowing how to connect events, characters, and movements can be frustrating. Jeff Nichols joins us to discuss how to do history and to share with us how he approaches history on his new podcast, History Comes Alive.

Audio Production by Podsworth Media.

In 2016, when Jeff Nichols had been a senior member of Glassdoor’s FP&A team for 2 years, he and other members of the finance team were confronting the nagging truth that the firm’s path to going public wasn’t getting any shorter.

The online job recruitment firm’s efforts to grow its profit margins had met only mild success, while its cash burn rate was inching upward.

According to Nichols, Glassdoor’s path to going public was further complicated due to the unique characteristics of its business model. Points of comparison between Glassdoor and top recruitment rivals such as LinkedIn and Indeed offered few insights due to the firm’s unique approach, making Glassdoor’s story more challenging for management to tell.

To help remove the firm’s storytelling obstacles and address its meager margin growth, Nichols says, the firm’s finance team began asking, “How do we get the business to perform over the long term in a way that would actually make for a compelling story?”  

To help answer this question, Nichols reports, Glassdoor first had to widen its lens and search for points of comparison with SaaS companies, ad tech firms, and other companies beyond the traditional recruitment realm in order to identify competitive attributes that aligned with those offered by Glassdoor.

At the same time, this broader comparison helped to magnify certain weaknesses in Glassdoor’s model.

“What we were lacking was retention. Most SaaS companies are focused on net dollar expansion or gross dollar expansion, and we just didn’t have it,” explains Nichols, who says that another challenge that quickly came into view involved small and medium-size businesses. “The way in which we went about SMB sales was just not efficient—it was very labor- and cost-intensive,” comments Nichols, who—having played a central role in helping to broaden the company’s strategic view—was soon helping to put a restructuring in motion.

Says Nichols: “We reprioritized. We made some new investments that we had not made before, but at the same time we curtailed some costs and refocused what we were actually doing.”  

Ultimately, Glassdoor’s path led not to an IPO but to a sale, when in 2018 Recruit Holdings, a large Japanese human resources company, paid $1.2 billion for the company. Having been valued by investors only 2 years previously at around $860 million, Glassdoor had a story that had no doubt become more compelling.

Looking back, Nichols’ cites his part in helping the company to widen its lens:

“All of this was a directional change for the company. I feel that I brought something to the organization that it really needed, which was an honest, objective look at ‘here’s what’s going on in the business, and here’s how it appears to its peers.’” –Jack Sweeney 

Texas native Matthew McConaughey is an Academy Award-winning actor who has appeared in over 40 feature films, and become a producer, director, and philanthropist with his just keep livin Foundation. He is joined by Jeff Nichols, who wrote and directed the critically acclaimed 2013 film Mud, which starred McConaughey and Reese Witherspoon. 

Here is Ep. 2 of 12 of The Hard Question Podcast series with Jeff Nichols. This episode was absolutely amazing. You would be hard pressed to find a more humble, well-spoken, heart centered warrior than Jeff Nichols. In this episode he shares his story of dealing with mental illness, and how he found his way up from hitting rock bottom. Jeff talks openly about shedding his ego, and the wonders it has done for him personally, relationally, spiritually, and emotionally. Jeff is a natural teacher, and I learned so much from the episode and so will you

The life of a Navy SEAL is undoubtedly one of the most demanding setups we can imagine. From the physical and mental challenges, mortal dangers and ultimately the readjustment to something else upon return from service, the process can take a heavy toll on those who opt-in. Our guest today, Jeff Nichols went through all of this and experienced each and every high and low that you may imagine. Today he is a fitness trainer and life coach, having turned his difficulties into something supportive and helpful for others around him. We start off the conversation on the topic of loss and the funerals of people he knew in the military before transitioning into themes of vulnerability and compassion and how Jeff had to learn the importance of these values later in life. Jeff believes that now his life revolves around the special people in it, from friends and family to his partner and his son. He talks a bit about the anchors that keep him going and how this has all inspired him to help as many people with a similar experience to him as possible. For this truly inspiring chat with Jeff Nichols, make sure not to miss this episode!

Thank you to our awesome show sponsor, makers of my favorite grassfed collagen and powdered MCT: BUBS, a company making just a few extremely high-quality products and giving back a whopping 10% of their sales to charity. I use their powdered collagen and MCT in my coffee every morning. Use the code INTELLIGENCE for a full 20% off your purchase HERE.

Timestamps

• Jeff's experience in the Navy and the number of funerals he attended. [7:09]
• The place that vulnerability has in Jeff's life and how he grew into this more recently. [9:48]
• Jeff’s process he had to go through to reach a compassionate outlook. [14:19]
• People in Jeff's life that give it meaning and the centrality of his current partner. [19:04]
• The anchors in Jeff's life that allowed him to keep going on his journey of discovery. [24:52]
• Advice from Jeff for transitioning from one intense lifestyle into something else. [29:06]
• Finding purpose and bringing in the elements of spirituality and community. [32:22]
• The place of health, fitness and skills training in Jeff's work and mission. [36:38]
• Managing stressors and digestion with sleep; the first steps in Jeff's process. [43:22]
• Jeff's foundational approach to sleep and the two doctors who have influenced him. [48:12]
• How to get in contact with Jeff and some of his business aspirations for the future. [54:32]

Jeff Nichols is an exercise physiologist and a Unites States Navy Veteran.

Jeff and I speak about being in a constant state of assessment, the two options when you hit rock bottom, don’t be distracted by what the world says you need to be, and so much more!

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Jeff Nichols is a former Navy Seal, founder of Performance First, an exercise physiologist who has been in this field for over 20 years. Overall he’s just a pretty badass individual. He specializes in helping the fitness journeys of countless armed forces, law enforcement and firemen crews across the world. I was led to Jeff this past year while deciding it was time for me to come out of my military retirement and attend SFAS for the Army. Jeff’s program are well renown within the SOF community and I decided to give one a try. (his hypertrophy program is an absolute beast.)

This led me to wanting to bring Jeff on the podcast, I honestly wasn’t even sure he’d be down to come on but I cannot express how cool of an individual this guy truly is. We had an amazing conversation, not just about fitness but overall life. His mantra, his way of life, presence of being with leave you almost awestruck. My co-host Jeff and I come from a science back ground and listening to Jeff Nichols speak on the mind/body dualistic approach and his overall mastery of bio-mechanics will blow you away. I truly hope everyone enjoys this episode and pulls something from it. We had an amazing time having Jeff on and really hope he comes back on again in the future. Cheers everyone

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