Drayton Wade - Senior Director Strategic Partnerships UiPath

"If work is going to be that consuming and that integratable into life, it better be something you’re interested in. I keep making these pivots because of A.) self-awareness and B). what I am interested in. If I’m going to put in lots of hours, I want to be interested in it. [So I ask myself,] is it something I’m interested in? Is it something that leads to more opportunities?" -- Drayton Wade

Drayton Wade (@draytonwade) is a millennial entrepreneur, start-up veteran, Clemson grad, Knoxville Fellow, and graduate of London School of Economics. As one of the youngest delegates at the Christian Economic Forum, Drayton has worked at multiple start-ups and is currently working at a start-up in the area of technology and automation at UiPath. His passions include counterterrorism, economics, automation, artificial intelligence, nonprofit work, and sales.

Drayton joins Bob in this podcast to talk about his unique passions and how they helped him pivot in his atypical career path from his college studies that started out in engineering to his post-grad days working for start-up companies in AI and automation. Together, they banter back and forth over what sales really is, the differences between American education and British education, and the many remarks people make about millennial career men and women. Not to mention, they discuss countless books they’re reading, how they implement education into their life, and the mentors that have authority to speak into their lives.

Quotes from this episode:

-“People with backgrounds that are atypical can leverage that in sales because they have a good EQ. They have a good understanding of how to communicate precisely and concisely. [At the London School of Economics,] they wanted to know how you thought, how you could structure an argument, and how you could communicate. That’s sales in a nutshell.”

-“We aren’t rational creatures. With sales, it’s the same way. It’s all about the relationship. It’s about understanding the person, it’s about getting to know the person on the other side.”

-“The atypical path has helped me. I don’t know any better. I don’t have this rigid path I have to follow. I jumped around, and I pursued whatever there was.”

-“I’ve changed jobs almost every 2 years. It’s often viewed as a negative [for millennials]. It’s total crap to me. Think about the expectation you’re setting on them. You’re expecting them to be self-aware enough to know their interests and gifts God has given them [for their lives at the young age of 18 - 22].”

-“If work is going to be that consuming and that integrable into life, it better be something you’re interested in.”

-“I keep making these pivots because of A.) self-awareness and B). what I am interested in. If I’m going to put in lots of hours, I want to be interested in it.”

-“Too little options cause unhappiness and too many options cause unhappiness.”

-“[With a mentor], there has to be the freedom to just straight up tell you, ‘You’re wrong.’ That’s really valuable in a spouse and in a mentor. Otherwise, you don’t really have a mentor. I’m giving you authority over my life to tell me no or to tell me I’m wrong.”

-“Every day is running up the score. Every day, [I ask myself] what meaning can I derive from this particular day.”

-“If you truly believe what you say you believe, it doesn’t matter. You’ve already won. I’ve gotten more than I deserve to begin with, so I’m just running up the score.”

Links in this episode include:

The Knoxville Fellows, a branch of the Fellows initiative in Knoxville, TN

The Fellows Initiative, a network of Christian Fellows programs all over the US

Thinking, Fast and Slow, a book by Daniel Kahneman on Amazon

Force multiplication, a military term to multiply power to have greater effects than without it

Napoleon Hill, a Wikipedia article on his life and work as an author

MOOCs, these are massive open online courses available to all via the web that are free

Khan Academy and Coursera, both are online learning platforms where you can find lots of courses on various subjects

New Way MBA, an online learning community designed to help entrepreneurs fill the gaps ...