[00:00:06] Speaker A: Welcome to from caving in to crushing it. The podcast for those who find themselves immersed in adversity and choose to write their story instead of having others write it for them. I'm Drew Duraney, and I'm your host. Today's guest is Adam Citron. Adam's mission is simple yet powerful. To serve his network by making profitable connections and bringing value to every interaction.
As a seasoned conduit, strategist, and problem solver, Adam is passionate about fostering enduring partnerships with organizations to create an impact that goes beyond the revenue.
Adam founded the strategic conduit of where he is devoted to connecting clients with the resources they need to achieve their goals and overcome challenges. With over two decades of experience, Adam has honed a unique ability to swiftly assess an organization's needs and, in turn, holistically advise and strategize, helping them to overcome challenges, achieve goals, and improve their bottom line. Relationships matter to him, and he operates with integrity, transparency, and respect in all he does. Adam is committed to establishing strong partnerships and by facilitating connections. With his rigorously vetted network, Adam brings value to each interaction.
Connect with Adam and see how you can work together with him.
Enjoy the show. Adam, good to see you. Hey, Drew.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: Good to see you as well. Thanks for coming on.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: Oh, it's my pleasure. I actually love talking before we start recording because we get to know each other even a little more and gives us more ideas about what to talk about here. But this. This just takes a life of its own, this discussion. It's really organic, and. But what I like to do right in the beginning is I like to thank the people who introduced me to you. So, I know that we met ed in shared connections. So it wasn't a direct intro from drew and.
And Chris, and it was, who's the third? Is lord. Jeff lord. Those are the three who run shared connections. So it wasn't a direct introduction from them, but I thanked them anyway, because if they didn't host that platform of shared connections, you and I wouldn't have met. So thank you, guys.
[00:02:40] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:02:41] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. So, Adam, I wanted to have you on because you are who I consider one of the man number threes that I've met in my life. And you and I briefly talked about what my thoughts are about the different types of men out there. But before we get into who we are as men, I like to talk about how when we're young, and it's not our parents fault or people around us, but we're taught that life is linear, that life's a straight line, if you do these certain things, and certain things are different from each family, then everything's going to be fine. And we, in essence, listen. And a lot of the similarities are you. You go to middle school, you go to elementary school, middle school, whatever. Then you go to high school, then you go to college, and it might be graduate school, then you would get married and have kids and rinse and repeat, and everything's gonna be fine. And it's a beautiful way to think if it's actually accurate. And for a lot of us, life is linear until it's not. Something will happen on the external, exterior circumstance that kind of gets in the way of those perfectly aligned letters of a, b, and c and moves our life to more of a circuitous route. And I like to talk a lot about defining moments. And when we get to this, man number one, two, and three, to me, man number one. And we can be all three of these men in the same day. It depends on our level of awareness. But man number one is that man who's got so many blind spots and just goes through life with that belief system about the world and himself that he's carried for so many years, and life doesn't change.
Then we have, man number two has a little more heightened awareness and notices when adversity hits and then says to himself, you know what? That's a barrier. This adversity, this is life happening to me. I'm the victim. And they live through life in blame mentality, which is not healthy. And that's how they live. Ultimately, we all hope to be man number three, where we notice a shift in our life is right in front of us. Something's happening, and we see it more as a positive than a negative. And it's more of an opportunity to become a stronger person and do things differently. And it's more of life doing it for you.
You know, it took me four, what I call faith shaking moments, five to six years ago, to hit me upside the head like a two by four, to wake me up. And it's taken some time for me to get to where I am, and I'm still a work in progress. For some people, it's that tap on the shoulder. They can say it may be God or the universe or something, and it just takes a simple shift to change for you. I'd love for you to reach back as far as you have to and establish where that defining moment was and what it was. That was either that tap on the shoulder or the defining moment. And that made you realize you're not the victim. You can control a certain aspects of your life, and you're going to make a change to make life better. Would you be willing to share that with us?
[00:05:34] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like I've had a few of those defining moments in my life, without a doubt. Not sure we even have a long enough podcast to go through them all, but happy to share. It's very clear in my mind what those are. The first one for me as I was going on that linear path was my junior year of college, actually.
And I had a lot of fun in college, too much fun. And that came to a head junior year, and had to make that decision.
Am I really absorbing and learning enough to really take me to that next stage of life?
And through a lot of introspection, talks with parents, et cetera. Right. I changed schools, and I went from a mentality of let me do the minimum to kind of get by, right? Get a certain grade level, et cetera.
I remember when I changed schools, I graduated in four and a half years because I took a little transition. And last three semesters at school, and I got straight a's, minus the first class was a bdez, but I got straight a's. And I'm not patting myself on the back, but it's because I actually paid attention to every class and every, you know, everything that was going on and took it more seriously. But I, you know, that, to me, was a big defining moment, right? I take this seriously. Would have loved to do that freshman year, but, you know, I didn't get that tap on the shoulder. Nothing changed my mind, you know, that's. That was really the first one for me.
I was lucky. My career got started with, you know, with a great job, with folks that I was working with, experience. And not too long after that, and I can tell you the date.
September 4 of 2003.
[00:07:18] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:07:19] Speaker B: Was the first day I felt symptoms of my Crohn's that I had.
[00:07:23] Speaker A: Oh, boy. Okay, okay.
[00:07:25] Speaker B: And I went through hell, you know, from there, you know, long story short, I mean, I'm 45 years old. I have Crohn's. I've had 13 surgeries.
[00:07:33] Speaker A: My goodness.
[00:07:34] Speaker B: Tried all the different drugs and all of that, and spent many, many a night in different hospitals.
And that was a big defining moment for me, that I just live how everyone else was living, whether it was just eating what I want or doing what I want. And I had to do things different. And still today, I have to spend a lot of time, effort, and unfortunately, a lot of money to maintain myself I tell this story a lot. People will look at me and always say the same thing, which is, first of all, you don't look 45, so I'll say it for you, Drew. No worries.
And then the second is, well, you look healthy. Like, what do you mean? You had 13 surgery surgeries, and you have Crohn's.
[00:08:12] Speaker A: Oh.
[00:08:12] Speaker B: And I had my large intestine completely removed.
[00:08:14] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: And all of these things, and it's like, well, yeah, it's because I intentionally put that effort in every day that changed my life completely.
[00:08:22] Speaker A: Of course it does. Yeah.
[00:08:23] Speaker B: And still affects it, because if I don't do what I need to do on a daily basis, you know, I could be sitting on a couch for three days with a horrible upset stomach, brain fog that I can't think at all and useless as a human being.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: My goodness. That really was a shift that you had to take. And, I mean, they had to raise your awareness of who you are as a person. Now, you don't question for you, as far as we use the word defining, how do you, as an individual who has endured the effects of Crohn's disease, not define yourself by the illness and more define yourself as Adam, who just happens to have this illness? I know that's a challenge.
[00:09:09] Speaker B: It's a great question. And surely I've gone in and out of feeling bad for myself. No way. That's not the case. Right? My last four surgeries were 2018 and 19 and just kind of ended right before COVID I mean, it was hell, right? I just. I don't give myself a choice.
You know, I was talking with my daughter the other day. She's eleven years old. And I said that to her, you know, I don't give myself a choice. And she said, but you have a choice, dad. You can eat gluten, you can go and eat chocolate, right? But you're going to feel bad.
[00:09:44] Speaker A: Right?
[00:09:45] Speaker B: And I said, no, sweetie, I don't give myself a choice.
[00:09:49] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:09:50] Speaker B: I don't sit there and say, well, should I have gluten or not? Because I really want to taste the Dunkin donuts or whatever.
[00:09:57] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:09:58] Speaker B: You know, whatever.
But I don't give myself that choice. And I did that early on.
That's my way of being Adam. And so Adam just happens to be, you know, I'm very specific about what I put in my body. I often eat meals before I go to holiday dinners because it's not about the food for me, it's about being with people.
[00:10:20] Speaker A: Of course. I understand.
[00:10:21] Speaker B: And I will make sure that my body gets what it needs. So Adam can be the best Adam as possible and I do what I have to do.
[00:10:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:10:30] Speaker B: And that's just me and me doing it right.
[00:10:33] Speaker A: You know, it's interesting, it's very insightful on your daughter's part age eleven, because she's accurate when she says you have a choice.
[00:10:42] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:10:43] Speaker A: And you're accurate in saying that you're not giving yourself that choice. And in and of itself, you're making a choice not to give yourself a choice. And, and for her at eleven to have that insight is wonderful. And I hope for her sake she takes that advice that she gave you throughout her life. In essence, we all have choices. That's a lot of times when I talk about on this podcast in today's episode, too, is that we do have a choice. What we allow ourselves to think about ourselves. And ultimately these dark thoughts will creep into our head in an effort for our ego to try to protect us, because it's used to protecting us between fight and flight. But life is not that linear. And so the choices we make will make an impact on our lives depending on how aware we are about who we are as people. So in your life, when you got control and not control of the crones, but control of the fact that what you're going to allow yourself to do and not do and that has bettered your life, right, because you're not lying on the couch for three days with a killing stomach and the brain fog, what have you been able to do in other aspects of your life? To be able to give yourself the choice not to give yourself choices, to make things worse, whether it's professional or other parts of your personal life, what tools do you have in your tool belt?
[00:12:21] Speaker B: That's a great question. I have a lot of tools, man. I've gone through a lot of therapy, man. I had a 25 minutes meditation sitting outside of my balcony this morning. That to me is everything for my body, my mind, my brain.
I know the things, whether it's working out, staying hydrated and just those types of things, because again, a lot of it's physical for me personally.
And my brain will typically go through a spiral if I don't have all of those things in the workplace as well. And so it's, again, figuring out over the years, lots and lots of trial and error what works best for me. But how have I applied it? I mean, I've been through divorce, how I handled divorce and even handle co parenting. My co parent and I, we put a lot of effort into being a good relationship together for our career.
It showed up there.
I lost my father last year, 23 in January, which we met soon after, and I shared that with you.
But really, I think one of the biggest things is professional.
My business is about two years old, and I've owned some businesses. I've been partners in some businesses. You know, I was lucky enough to have my business acquired when I was younger. I've met some folks, but right after my surgeries in 2018, 2019, I really thought through what I wanted to do next, how I can support myself fully. Because, number one, I'm not a cheap human being. Everything I do is very healthy for you, and nothing is covered by insurance.
My body is a huge investment. Financially.
[00:14:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:11] Speaker B: And then just having the freedom to do what I need to do in the best way possible.
Part of that for me is working from home. Right. I got my daughter 50%, sometimes a little bit more than 50%, and I need to be around to be an involved parent. So going to an office or driving around just didn't work for me. Living in someone else's world and someone else's rules and trying to fit around what they need. If I was an employee, it just long term would not work for me. No matter how flexible an employer is, in the end, they're your employer and they're paying you to do your job. So I put strategic in the name of my company because it took a lot of strategy and I defined what do I want this to look like?
And the freedom of having my own business, of just relying on myself, of being able to take off when I need to, to sit back and relax because I can't push through when my body feels like crap.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: I'm not going to do this for anyone.
[00:15:13] Speaker B: Yeah, that was a big deal. So over Covid, I had a full time consulting gig, did a couple of other consulting things, and had a great role and was helping someone build a company and started to move on. And knowing myself, sleep is huge for everyone, let alone myself. I know what that means to me and absolutely how it affects me. So I decided because I didn't feel like I had the physical ability to build something while I was doing something else full time. I wasn't able to put in that extra 6 hours at night after a normal day wouldn't let me, I took a risk and jumped in. So I remember today that, you know, I told the person I was consulting for that I'm done. And I didn't know what I was going to do.
I knew the general concept, all the things I kind of mentioned and the freedom and what I was trying to build and why, sure. To a process for a few months, you know, not having any income and just saying I'm going to invest in myself. Maybe I buy a business, maybe I build a business and I explore, you know, multiple things throughout that process ended up coming with, you know, this particular concept.
But, but the key there is that I took a risk on myself and I said, listen, the only way I'm going to get from here to where I'm going to go, and I need to accomplish is to take a risk. And the risk is, you know, myself.
[00:16:46] Speaker A: I love that.
[00:16:47] Speaker B: I love myself and, you know, knowing that I will make it happen one way or another. And I need to full time focus on making that happen. And so I did that.
[00:16:56] Speaker A: Good for you.
[00:16:57] Speaker B: I'm really, really, really grateful that I did.
[00:17:01] Speaker A: That's wonderful. I'm proud of you, man. And I love hearing that. And, you know, I'm in that. I think I'm 18 months into doing what I'm doing to do that same thing. And for me to be able to surround myself with people like you who could encourage me because I get my down moments, too, just like we all do. And so thank you for sharing that. And I'm glad. I'm so grateful that you put you invested into yourself that the most important relationship that we can have as human beings is the one with ourself. And we need to not just feel comfortable with ourselves, but love ourselves. And for men, it's a challenge for us to look in the mirror and say, I love you, and then to mean it, because we're conditioned not to be like that. And so I commend you, my friend. So tell me a little about the strategic conduit and what you do for your clients and how it feeds you each day.
[00:17:52] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm a broker and a consultant, really, always have been. But I was mostly in the IT space, not super technical, always a consultant, always focusing on bringing solutions to folks, helping them to understand how it benefits them, educating them, and then they make an educated decision on what makes sense for their own organization.
And so over the years, I expanded out the types of solutions that I would like to bring to organizations. I've gotten away from the it and telecom that I spent most of my career.
I like bringing value to people. I like finding these wonderful, everyone wins solutions that aren't like everything else that are out there, and I like bringing those to organizations. I also like helping other people and I like doing it together. One of the strategic things when I went to build the business is I didn't want to build a company with a bunch of employees.
[00:18:54] Speaker A: Got it.
[00:18:55] Speaker B: I know that's not my best skill set.
And so what I chose to do is instead of paying employees and building it out that way, I created a model where my whole business is revenue sharing.
[00:19:10] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:19:10] Speaker B: One side of my business, I have signed contractors with a whole bunch of different vendors with some really great solutions. Typically, they focus on increasing the top line or the bottom line for an organization. Most often they're unique and people haven't heard of them when I approach them. And so on the other side of my business I work with right now, I have 43 signed referral partners.
Spend my time focusing on supporting my referral partners. They're trusted advisors in their industry. They're ethical in what they do, and they want to bring more value to their network and their clients. And I ensure that they can do that and monetize it.
[00:19:49] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:19:50] Speaker B: Because you should get paid for bringing value to people today.
[00:19:55] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yes, absolutely.
[00:19:58] Speaker B: I have my rules. My vendors aren't allowed to charge more than a standard rate just to pay me. Either it's built into their model, or I don't work with them.
[00:20:06] Speaker A: Got it.
[00:20:07] Speaker B: And so I work with all sorts of industries with different solutions in different areas that can affect an organization. Again, top line, bottom line is where we focus.
[00:20:18] Speaker A: Wonderful, wonderful.
[00:20:19] Speaker B: I get to focus every day on helping my referral partners that are committed to bringing more value want to create an additional revenue stream themselves and for their family.
And I really enjoy it.
[00:20:33] Speaker A: I love it.
[00:20:34] Speaker B: I have a lot of passion around the value we bring to the end organization, getting to meet new people, helping really good folks that are trusted advisors to be able to make more money in what they do. It's not just about money, but, you know, in this world, right. Typically, the folks that I'm working with, it helps owners or sales folks, consultants like you're out there to make a buck and do go.
[00:21:02] Speaker A: We need to pay the bills. I agree with you 100%, and most of us are in it for what's in the heart to help. And it's that balance of the putting in the value and standing our ground that our value is worth something. And so I appreciate what you're saying about the financial piece, too, because it does go hand in hand. So I commend you on that. Anything else you want to share with the audience? I know I do want to. I do want to promote you because you do some awesome stuff. So, folks, I know you've captured the essence of Adam Citron right now and you want to get in touch with them, and I definitely suggest you do, even if it's just for a conversation. So, on LinkedIn, connect with him on LinkedIn. And if you mention this podcast, and even if you don't, just introduce yourself to Adam, have a call. Because what he does, and I love it, he explores the synergies that you have with each other.
And when you find a synergy with somebody and you can connect and align, it makes for a wonderful relationship. So please reach out to Adam. Adam citron on LinkedIn. I definitely know that's going to add value to your life. So just want to mention that. So, Adam, I have a couple questions for you to give you an opportunity to use your imagination. You are now sitting down with seven to ten year old Adam, and you want to give him advice about life. What are you going to tell him?
[00:22:30] Speaker B: I'm going to tell him that I'm not invincible because I surely, like many, definitely felt invincible until I wasn't.
[00:22:42] Speaker A: Absolutely. The second question is putting a different hat on. Now you're speaking with young Adam, the young entrepreneur. Young businessman. You want to give him advice about business.
What might you tell him?
[00:22:56] Speaker B: I would tell him the same thing that I've shared with my nephew, who is now a sophomore in college, which is, while it is important to understand a direction, you want to do something you want to do, potentially a career, you want to get into what I think is the most valuable, which I didn't do, which I would tell myself to do, and I've advocated for my nephew to do, is learn a lot of things.
Okay, so you might want to go be an engineer. You might want to be an entrepreneur. What does that mean? I wish I learned a little bit more about legal. I wish I learned a little bit more about finances and accounting and didn't think in my mind that if I learned something about, you know, more about the law, that I'd be a lawyer, or if I learned more about accounting, that I'd be an accountant, and that, you know, a well rounded entrepreneur or engineer or whatever, name it, that has an understanding of other, other aspects, other subject matters.
It gives you more flexibility in life.
[00:23:58] Speaker A: Love it. Absolutely love it. That's great. Absolutely fantastic advice.
It's funny that I give my guests the opportunity to do that, knowing a couple things, that your younger self's not going to listen to you, nor do we really want him to, because you wouldn't be the Adam you are today. And we wouldn't be speaking if he had listened. But in a beautiful sense, the advice you're giving is really the advice from your younger self for the Adam ten years from now. Because we hope that the Adam ten years from now will listen to this younger self, Adam, and apply that advice. And many of us don't take our own advice. Right? You find that you give advice to others, they take your advice, they thrive, and we sit here and don't take our own advice. So I'm thankful for you to share that information, Adam.
[00:24:51] Speaker B: Well, I'm grateful for you for having me on. I'm grateful that we had a chance to meet when we did.
[00:24:57] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:24:58] Speaker B: I think what you're doing is great. You know, men need it.
[00:25:01] Speaker A: Thank you. Thank you, Adam. So everybody, please get in touch with Adam and I want you all to sit down today and do something for yourself and take care of yourselves. Goodbye, everybody.
Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe and give us a review to help others find it.
I'd like you to answer this question. Are you living the life you want to live or are you living the life others want you to live? I'd like you to think about that for a second because I strongly suggest you live the life you want to live. If you want to learn more about what I stand for and my services and how I'm able to help many men get out of their own way, please go to my website at www.prophetcompassion.com. feel free to also email me at
[email protected] I'd love to have a conversation with you. Take care of yourself and choose to write your own story instead of letting others write it for.
