Chaos Was the Catalyst: How Mallory Glessner Turned Pressure into Process

Welcome back to Grow Your Impact, Income and Influence, the number one show for entrepreneurs looking to reach millions.

If you are somebody who has some skeletons in your closet, if you're somebody who is building a business and sometimes you feel like the world is stacked against you, maybe you had some difficult problems in your past, well, we all do.

Today's guest has gone on to turn lemons into lemonade in the most magical way. She is the head of content at Trainual. So we're going to talk a little bit about content, but more importantly, we're going to talk about the stories that led to her being where she is today. Mallory, how are you doing today? I'm doing great. How are you?

I am awesome. So for those of you who can't see, she actually has a tree in the background, and I felt pretty bad because I was going to put up a tree this weekend, and I didn't do it.

And then I showed up, and she's got an awesome tree. it actually though replaced a skeleton yeah i loved your skeletons in the the closet comment there i was like oh good nice she got rid of her skeletons in the closet and put up a tree instead and the that's kind of a metaphor for what we're going to start with this on this episode if you guys have ever heard the story of jim and john grew up with an alcoholic parent jim went on to be an alcoholic, homeless, tons of problems.

And John went on to live an amazing life. It's because two people looked at the same life event and treated it differently. And it's the frame for the saying of things happen for me and not to me. I can use anything to my benefit. So that being said, Mallory, I'm going to throw the ball over to you. I mean, how does one become an expert in systems and processes and laying everything out? Yeah, where do you want me to start? Because I feel like systems and continuous improvement are in my DNA.

But that's probably not at all true. Because if we relied on my DNA alone, I would be a felon, an addict, probably narcissistic, maybe some other not super great traits. And so I really, you know, growing up had to not rely on my DNA and the things that were around me. And I had to rely on trying to figure out what I didn't want to be and sort of systematizing my life and being resourceful and creating processes and things like that.

Because I had to figure out a way to go from nothing and this sort of chaotic life that I was living to where I'm at today. And that journey was anything but easy. So yeah, I mean, to answer your question, go ahead.

I was going to say, I mean, you, you grew up with felons for parents. Your siblings are all over the place, right? You said one's an addict, other ones have problems.

And I mean I saw a picture of you just backstage with Damon John so how how did you end up different talk to me about what it was like growing up and some of your thoughts in dealing with this super chaotic environment first off let's design let's define what the chaotic environment was like I think a lot of entrepreneurs one of the things that was shared with me that really resonated is entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs because we thrive in chaos,

Whereas most people want to go home at the end of the day and, you know, get out of the work environment and get out of having pressure on them. Entrepreneurs say, give me the pressure. Like I work really well with that. And that's where I actually feel kind of good. What was it like growing up for you? And on that note, if you are looking to hold a live event or fill a live event or sell from stage, I would encourage you to click the link in the description down below.

It's going to take you to all of our free resources, whether that is fill your event fast, maximum conversion from the stage, or if you'd like to jump on a call with me, there's a way that you can book a call, jump on my calendar, and I'll be happy to walk you through anything I can to help you with a live event. All right, let's jump back into the show. Yeah. I feel like we just don't have enough time together to really tell you what it, you know, what it was truly like.

You know, going home was not a place of safety. It wasn't like I got done with my school day and I couldn't wait to go home. I dreaded going home all day long, sitting in class. And I felt like I wanted to be involved in extracurriculars and I wanted to do really well in school because I got the care and affection from teachers and from mentors that I wasn't getting at home. And I realized, oh, if I do well in life, good people are going to gravitate towards me.

And if I do the right things and I'm a kind person and I realized that my parents were not good people. I actually lived with a step-parent because both of my parents were unable at that point to care for another human being. And my stepmother wasn't great. She was a narcissist, but she also attracted a lot of other people with toxic traits. And so I just realized that, you know, her behaviors attracted this like.

Terrible environment for herself and she you know would lay on the couch all all day long and and do nothing and then you know when when she would get up she would be this like you know mean and nasty person and her life was so terrible and she'd take it out on everybody else and it's like she didn't ever do anything to change her environment the people that were around her the circumstances or the things that she didn't like she would just take that out on everybody else.

And obviously I saw like how much that didn't work and how much that destroyed everyone around her. And, and, you know, all of us grew up in different ways. And I try not to compare myself, you know, to my siblings because they all dealt with that environment the best that they could. And I was just, you know, fortunate whether, I don't know if you're a religious person, but, or, you know, if people are listening are religious, but for me, I am a spiritual person.

And I don't know if, you know, you know, God put it on my heart or what it was, but I just feel like I was I was given a different chance mentally than than the way that I grew up. And I think that a lot of people have that deep inside of them to be resourceful and to create a different life, no matter what their circumstances are.

So yeah i mean growing up it was my mom would do anything in her power to make it difficult for me whether that be you know not allowing me to to shower not allowing me to wash my clothes not allowing me to eat you know whatever it was people always said well she was never physically abusive to you but those other things you know like the mental abuse and just the way that she made it impossible for me to live. I was talking to Ezra Firestone on the podcast that I run.

And he said, you know, because he had a rough upbringing too. And he said, I opened my refrigerator and I see it stacked full of drinks and like I can have anyone I want. And he's like, and that's that was the epiphany for me that I had made it.

And I was like, oh, man, sometimes I open my refrigerator and I just stand there and I stare and I get teary eyed, you know, all these years later, because my kid can walk up and take anything they want out of the fridge and, you know, I'm not going to tell them that they're fat and worthless and I'm not going to, you know, tell them that they can't have dinner just because I feel like torturing them that day. And it's like. That's kind of how I grew up in a nutshell.

It's a little all over the place, but there's like 101 stories that I could tell you to kind of frame this picture of mentally how I grew up and how long it's taken me to rewire my brain and to find the success that I have and just wanting to instill that in people that are listening and people around me and my own children.

Yeah, hopefully that answers your question. Well, so I have a few things, a few threads I want to pull on. The first one is going back in your memory. When was the first time that you remember, because most, most children that grow up model their parents, they, they see their parents do something and they're like, that's how I have to be right. Like, this is why you see bullies turn into bullies. And you see, like, you see them modeling their parents.

What, when was one of the first memories that you had where you were like, I need to do the opposite. Because that's having a great lens to look through to be able to say, I see them doing something. I don't want that outcome. Did you have a mentor? Did you have anybody who pointed you in the right direction? Or was there a moment where you just said, that's not what I want? Do you remember any of that?

I don't necessarily remember any of that. I think I've just always been really driven and I've always wanted to succeed. And I think the more that I did that, the more it would trigger my stepmother. You know, if I would get an A on a test, it was like, well, now you have extra chores to do. You can't do your homework. And it was never directly, oh, because you did this. It was just like this underlying thing.

Like whenever I would be successful, she would try to pile on more so that I couldn't be. And I don't know if like, this is why I say I'm such a spiritual person, because I feel like. If you were to go back and watch the interactions and kind of see how small and powerless I was at 12 years old, but how goddamn driven I was, like, I just feel like it's always been on my heart to say, okay, I can deal with you. And I, you know, I would never like talk back or anything like that because

that would be crazy. But it's like, I learned how to thrive in that chaos or not really even thrive, but just survive the chaos and deal with that environment. And then when she wasn't around and I was at school or I was doing an extracurricular or whatever the case may be, I was like full force. You can't stop me. I am not in your little ecosystem when I'm at school. And I think that translated. I moved out when I was 16 and I got my first job.

And I think I realized gloves are off like this person is no longer in my world anymore and I was just really driven and I think if I actually keep a binder of all my performance reviews that I that I've gotten since I was 19 years old and every single one is like I can't set a goal or a milestone for you that you're not going to absolutely crush and set a higher one for yourself like I just I've always felt like I can do more

than anything you tell me I can do or anything you tell me I can't do and I just feel like there's just nothing that's been able to stop me despite people trying. And it's like obviously I couldn't remove my mother from my life when I was 12 years old 11 years old or even, you know, 13 or 14, but I never saw that as an excuse. It was always just like, all right, I'll work around it. So, I mean, it was, it's, you were proving her wrong, right?

Like you were saying, oh, you're going to throw, you're not going to feed me. Watch how great I do anyway.

Oh, you're not going to, you're going to give me extra chores. So I can't do my homework. Watch. I'm going to stay up two extra hours when you're in bed and, and you're proving the difference. So my, and you, you just proved the next point. A lot of times that carries over into adult life. So you're looking at your performance reviews and the people that you work with. And they're, they're doing the same thing, but they're, they're doing it probably in a much more loving and kind way.

They're saying, Hey, this is the goal. And you're like, wait, I'm going to do 10 X that I'm going to do so much better. Talk to me a little bit about how this led to systems and processes, because that's what you love. Did you, you had to start creating these at a young age in order to maximize your output. What were some of the first systems and processes you remember doing probably to deal with stuff from your mom.

Yeah. I actually think you nailed it when, you know, you, you talked about, you know, the two hours at night and, and being able to like do my homework or like catch up on things. And I, and I did that for a long time, that like mental strategizing and that mental planning of like how to make the pieces work, the good ones and the bad ones.

And when I was 14, she said, okay, if you're going to stay here and you don't, you don't want to go up, you know, to the foster system or whatever else she was threatening me with that week. She, yeah, whatever else she was, she was threatening me with that week, I would work a job. Then I would, I was working three jobs at one point. I was still going to school. I was still taking care of my two younger siblings. I was still doing all of my chores.

And I'm not talking like the chores that most people think of when they think of chores.

Like I was mowing our acres of grass and I was painting rooms and scrubbing walls and top to bottom like, our whole entire house and my mom would hide things in like weird places behind the bed or under a desk or something like that and if I didn't find the things that she would hide there would be consequences and so it's like the magnet I don't think people always understand the magnitude, of what I'm talking about.

But yeah, I would just have to figure out, okay, here's another obstacle in my way, another bottleneck, right, is what we call those things today, another risk or another roadblock. And I think I learned very early on how to identify those, how to work around them, how to manage my time extremely strategically. And eventually there was a turning point where. The lifestyle was just not conducive and I couldn't keep up anymore.

And I think that was one of the turning points where I said, okay, I'm not going to fail. I'm choosing my words carefully because it's going to make me sound egotistical and I don't mean it to, but I don't, I don't fail a lot. If I do, it's like, you know, little things. We tried something and it didn't work.

But I don't believe in like, you know, these big, massive sort of failures. I think they're just lessons that we learn from and we're able to continue on. And I think I'm going on a little bit of a tangent and getting away from your question of systems and processes. But it all adds because I think systems and processes are the way that we think and the way that we operate.

And I think that's why I love them so much because whatever you can learn to systematize takes away some of that mental pressure and that mental load that you carry around so that you can be creative and effective and strategic and grow. I mean, ultimately I had, how do you grow inside of all of that chaos that you're dealing with as a young teen?

You have to learn how to strategize and and operate very strategically and i think i just have always carried that that with me and i and i realized very early on that that systems were going to help me to get out of what i was dealing with and they've carried me through my career systems have helped me with every promotion have helped me grow teams have helped me triple companies that i've worked for. Systems are really the lifeblood of everything for me.

Well, I think there are a couple things that set probably when you built your systems apart. So the first thing is to most people, the worst that's going to happen if they mess something up is they might get yelled at by their parent. They might get smacked or spanking, right? They might, that's like extreme even anymore.

They're most likely if they mess something up, if they don't clean the house good enough, they're going to get told, you didn't clean the house good enough, no TV for the next hour or maybe, right? You were threatened with. Extreme if things didn't go right. So you had to design systems. The harder you squeeze coal, the faster you get a diamond, right? You were squeezed really hard in that analogy, and you came up with really great responses.

You came up with, how do I do this to the level that is better than X? And the other thing that you pointed out, failures aren't failures. Their learning experiences, but you still shouldn't fail. If you can learn and not fail, you're better off, right? Like I interviewed somebody from Silicon Valley. I'm trying to remember who it was. It was a couple of years ago, but they said, you know, everybody's talking about, well, you want to fail fast. You want to go as fast as you can.

You want to learn from your failures for sure. And you should not get paralysis analysis and not take action because you don't want to fail. But two things being equal, you can succeed and learn the lesson and succeed, or you can fail and learn the lesson and go do it again. You want to succeed. And I think you've become very good at that just from listening to the way that you talk and the way that you grow companies.

I want to kind of talk, you moved out when you were 16. I moved out when I was young as well. A little bit different story behind that. But when you move out, when you're that young, you're still in school, you're working usually two or three jobs to make enough money to be able to provide for yourself. What kind of systems did you have then? And then we're going to get into systems that you have today. Yeah, this one always shocks people, but I actually didn't graduate high school.

I went and I got my GED and I had that for several years before I was already established when I went to college and it's so funny because I actually had a son when I was 19 so kind of in the middle of all of this right and. And the person who hired me at the time, he's the VP over an aerospace and defense company. And he was looking for basically what we might call like a customer success, you know, manager. I'm not really, I don't remember what the title was at the time.

Basically a you know a customer service person and he said when when he when i was interviewing with him he remembers very vividly and i don't remember this but he does and he tells the story so beautifully and he says you know i could hear the chaos of your son screaming in the background you had all this stuff going on i said hey is now a good time to interview you and you just calmly said yeah now's a great time and he's like it was hard for

me to talk to you because of everything that was going on in the background, but your tone was calm. Your demeanor was calm. You gave great answers in the midst of it all. And he said, I remember hanging up the phone and saying, we have to hire her. Like we have, we have to, she's so calm in the chaos. She, all of her answers were great. And he said, like, he just couldn't get that interview out of his mind. And he told me this years and years later.

And I said, well, I don't even, I don't even remember that interview. I don't remember your question, bud. Well, we were talking about systems, but honestly, that points to the comment that I made at the beginning. Entrepreneurs thrive under chaos. I work well if I have pressure going on. You work probably extremely well with that all going on as well. That story that you just told, right? And that is what helps great entrepreneurs thrive.

It's what helps great leaders thrive. If there's 50 things going on and you've got bombshells coming at you from every direction and you can think clearly instead and you can respond versus reacting. With your mom growing up, I can tell the way that you're talking, you didn't react emotionally to her because you would have gotten crushed. Instead, you thought and you had a strategic answer as to how you were going to do something.

And although that is a not fun way to learn, that's putting it mildly, right? I wouldn't wish that on anybody. You learned a skill that has served you extremely well in life.

And that's how to maintain composure and how to think clearly when you're under pressure. And I'm sure that has served you all the way up. So the question was around how did you start to build systems and processes when you were younger that have now transitioned into the position that you're at because you've built every every team every business you've been at you've built teams that have far exceeded expectations and those are built around systems yeah I think it's it's really like.

And I don't know that this necessarily, and I'm sure we could dig into it and kind of figure it out. And I'm not sure how much of it is tied to how I was wired when I was younger. But I know now everything is systematized. So I have all of my team's, you know, goals that they're tracking towards in Asana and the breakdowns of the ways that they can make an impact and the things that they can do daily and weekly and monthly and everything, all of our processes are documented in trainual.

And so if we bring on anybody to our team, they have our playbook immediately the day that they start. And we are communicating in our Slack channels and everything just runs smoothly. And I think if we're going to tie it back to kind of the sort of the all over the place conversation, I'm sorry for taking us everywhere today. No, you'd be great. I think what I can tie it back to is me wanting to protect those on my team from chaos.

Because as much as I've learned to use it to my advantage and I have thrived and I have figured out how to utilize those skill sets, there's still this level of anxiety and distrust sometimes in myself or an unrealistic standard that I set for myself. There's still there's still baggage that comes with that. And I think that people can operate effectively without having to go through, you know, a decade of trauma.

Right. And so it's like, how can I utilize the skill sets that I've learned over the years, but bring them to a team member or, you know, bring them to my kids even in a way that they don't have to carry around the baggage, but they can still benefit from these skills and these systems. and things that I've learned. And so I think I carry that to my teams as well. Like I want you to go and live a beautiful life when you clock out.

And I want you to invest your time in the things that fulfill you. And I want you to have happiness. And I think the best way to do that is for you to come and absolutely crush it at work, get paid really well for it, be a high performer. And I think all of that comes from good systems. That's, I think that is very, very true. having great systems and routines.

So systems and routines, I look at daily routines as to how you optimize your time and then systems as to how you get things done without wasting more time. I don't know if you have any thoughts around that. That's how I always separate them for myself. Any personal thoughts on that? Say that for me again. I want to like, okay. Yeah. So systems, right.

I look at how, like a routine, right? So routines are things that we click fire, how you make coffee in the morning or how you get out of bed or, so like I build routines that serve me well. I think a lot of people in life go through and their happenstance, right? Maybe I hit snooze twice, maybe I hit snooze five times. I have like my timings all over the place.

And if you just build routines, it's done, right? A simple one that I use as an example with people, I wash my dishes while I'm cooking. So I will make food and I will do my dishes. And when the plate is ready to eat, all the dishes except the plate, the fork and the knife that I'm using are done or they're in the dishwasher. Usually I just cook for myself, single guy. But it's all done and I don't think about it anymore. Like I've done it enough times that it's habitual.

Same with getting out of bed. I've trained myself that I get out of bed when the alarm goes off. I have a light that comes on first, so I wake up a little bit, my watch vibrates, and then two minutes later, the alarm goes off. And when the alarm goes off, I'm out of bed. I got that from Tony Robbins.

When something happens, you build a click routine. A system is how you do specific things. So if you're in content creation, so let's talk about content creation a little bit. We'll bring this home for people that want some business help. Content creation, a lot of people struggle because they're like, I'm going to make a video. I got to write an email. Oh my goodness, I need three social media posts. I want to do a launch. I need a funnel page and I need the follow-ups and I need all the stuff.

And they get overwhelmed. But if you build a system that is, hey, I'm going to shoot a 20 minute video, I'm going to send it over here, they're going to edit it down into shorts, they're going to write five emails, and I'm going to proof everything in two days. And you build that system, maybe you tweak it two or three times going back to failure versus success. It's not going to be perfect out of the bag, but it'll get something done.

You get it successful, and then you systematize it, and then you follow that system every time it optimizes your time.

That's like system and routine and example yeah i'm totally with you and i think i think a lot of people whether it's you as a as a person or it's a it's you as a business owner or maybe you leading a team i think a lot of people get stuck in this well i'm not going to document my processes or create routines because that's how you you know create mundane can't grow this is the way we've always done it.

And I'm like, actually, documenting your systems and creating routines is the only way that I think you can effectively grow. Because if you document the 80% of things that don't really need to change, you can focus all of your extra energy on the 20% of things that are going to move the needle that need to be changed. And that 20% can change at any given in time and be part of what was once the 80%.

But if you're always juggling 100% of things being unsystematized and just lacking routine, and you're just willy nilly winging it every day, those people are so chaotic, and I won't hire them on my team. They're great. They have a lot of great ideas. Don't get me wrong. You know, visionaries, I think add a lot to the world. But if you don't have systems, and you can't follow systems, and you don't,

like processes or you can't document processes. It's just not somebody I want on my team because I think those are people that you have to drag uphill. And so, you know, I just don't want anybody on my team to have to drag another teammate uphill, no matter how great their ideas are. So yeah, to your point, I think if you can create routines, I mean, a lot of the best people I know have routines. Damon John has routines and Cody Sanchez has routines.

And you just mentioned somebody as well, the speaker that you just that you just mentioned not long ago, Tony Robbins. Oh, Tony Robbins has a ton of routines. They all have routines because they know the only way they're going to grow and be successful, make more money, do the things they want to do as if they systematize the 80 percent so that they can focus and invest their energy in that other 20.

Yeah, I want I have a lot of thoughts around this and I love where this is going. And I think this will probably be if you take nothing else from this podcast, taking time to think through your routines and your systems, it is better to do a couple of things and do them really well than to try to do everything. And I'm at my heart. I'm a visionary. I built routines because I learned actually one of the books that I read back when I was starting my journey was Damon John's The Power of Broke.

And he talked about some of his routines. And I saw Tony Robbins talk about routines when I started in 2012. And I was like, the question was, who do you need to become to get the things that you want? And I'm a visionary. I was an art major. I'm creative as crap. Like, I mean, that right there is my drawing table. I've got art stuff all over the place. And I love that. What I've done is I time block time to be creative. And I make sure that I have that.

But I've also found that I work much better. Mark Zuckerberg wears the same clothes every day. Steve Jobs wore the same clothes, same basic thing, right? It wasn't dirty. He washed them. But it's because it takes, you don't have that mental weight running in your head and it frees up RAM, frees up power and energy and bandwidth to go to your point, focus on the 20% that will cause growth. And you can always change the routine. This is what I always tell people. I'm like, I changed my routines.

I'll have a routine. I'll have it for a couple months. And I'll be like, you know what? What can I tweak over here? Maybe I want to try something else. I read this book. I want to do this thing.

I'm going to add in this thing and my routines switch but having a routine it takes about a week and then it's automatic does it lead to a better outcome i actually i dated i've dated a couple women who have man the comments around routine are always the funniest they're they're everyone's like can't we just sleep in or can't we and i'm like yeah you can i don't but i'm gonna do my thing like it works really well. I don't know.

Yeah. And, and, and I love the visionaries and honestly, I think it shocks a lot of people that I am 43% visionary and whatever the other percentage I'm bad at math at the top of my head was at 57% integrator. Like I'm really right on the line. And I think that's, Whether you lean towards visionary or whether you lean towards somebody who's more executionary, integrator, trying to find that balance somewhere in the middle is really your sweet spot.

So building your systems and then finding how you can create systems around the things that you want to be creative with is really the ultimate goal. And so before I was over content at Trainual, I actually started in Aerospace and Defense as a continuous improvement specialist. And then I was in the PEO space. As a continuous improvement manager and then I was a continuous improvement director so I've I've carried. The continuous improvement title for over a decade before.

Content so this whole content title is brand new to me and honestly feels a little weird and I had a little identity crisis over it for a while because I think to my core I am driven by continuous improvement and i don't and i and it drives me absolutely mad when people think that your your systems and creating process and creating routines prohibits you from from improving or from from growing when i actually think they are the perfect match they

go hand in hand you can't have one without the other yeah and if you i mean the thing is growth you can be creative build the process creatively tweak refine iterate and when you have the perfect process you you can go create something else and like you can create the next thing and the next thing and the next thing quick question i mean well statement first you are are you continuously improving the content at train you all oh yeah we're always experimenting and trying new things i think

you should get a sign for your door or maybe in the background you could give it to the skeleton to hold if you bring the skeleton back in that just says like the home of continuous improvement because you are doing it whether you mean to or not that's why you're great at your job that's why everybody is great if they're great at what they do it's because they're constantly improving there's a neon sign behind the tree that says trust the process.

Nice and it's it's yeah just trust trusting the process doesn't mean that the process is always going to stay the same and that we have to keep trusting and doing the same things over and over again trust the process means do do what's working know where you've come from but know where you're going and trust that the process is going to lead you to better processes and to growth as a person and growth as a company it's like trust the process of evolving.

Trust your process and your instincts. I think that is the perfect place to wrap up the show. Mallory, I want to say thank you for coming on. Thanks for being vulnerable and sharing from the heart. There are a lot of golden nuggets in today's show. If you guys enjoyed this, Mallory is the best place for people to find you on LinkedIn. Yes, definitely. LinkedIn is a great place to connect.

And if my story resonated with you and you want to chat about it more, I've had a lot of really great people in my life. I know we kind of talked about some of the not so great people, but I really have had a lot of great people that have stepped up and showed me the better way. And I always say that's what I want to be for other people as well. So I love when people reach out to me and just share their stories with me and I'm happy to connect.

Awesome. Well, we will link Mallory's LinkedIn in the description in the show notes down below. We'll also link Trainual. It is a, the way that I understand it is a house for all the SOPs and all your training documents that will help your company scale from five to 500. I looked through the software before coming on and it looks absolutely amazing. If you need help scaling, great resource and a great place to get started.

Mallory, thanks for coming on. Awesome. Thanks for having me. My pleasure. To everybody else out there, remember, take action, change lives, make money and live free. We'll see you next time. Thanks for checking out today's podcast. If you're thinking about holding a live event, It can be one of the most rewarding and the most challenging things in the world. I would suggest clicking on the links down in the descriptions.

We have a lot of free resources there for you, as well as jumping on a call with me. If you're serious about holding an event, click that link, jump on my calendar. I'll be happy to walk you through the do's and don'ts so that you can avoid all the landmines and hold a massively profitable first event. I'll talk to you soon and have an awesome day.