Have you ever wondered what’s really going on in the mind of Shocklogic CEO, John Martinez? After picking his brain on various topics, here’s an insight into John’s life.
What is your morning routine?
Before I do anything when I wake up, I meditate for about 20 minutes. This helps me to gather my thoughts and sets me straight for the day. I do this before going to sleep too, as a kind of wind down exercise for my brain. I’m constantly thinking thinking thinking and so this really does help me find a collected sense of relaxation and calm. I’ve been doing this for 10 years now! Sometimes I mix it up and meditate through movement, I find 5 Rhythm dancing and Qigong are the most enjoyable.
Breakfast is my favourite meal of the day and so I always make sure that I have a nutritious one! Everyday, I have 3 boiled eggs. On weekends I treat myself and my partner to a cooked Venezuelan breakfast, it’s our Saturday tradition. If we don’t cook it at home we go to a local Mexican restaurant in Brixton – the owners are Venezuelan, so know exactly what we’re looking for.
Where does your passion for events stem from?
I believe my passion is for people. Although I call myself a nerd to friends, colleagues and even people I meet at events, I’ve become the opposite of the cliche introverted geek. In my early 20s I used to shy away from anything that proved uncomfortable, like human interaction. I found humans to have the most complex algorithms in the universe! How was I supposed to communicate the correct message with the correct intent? How do I translate the code in my brain into a human language? I always believed I was misunderstood until I decided to change this limitation. Mindfulness helped a lot with this, I could calm myself and channel my communications properly.
What’s your favourite Shocklogic product/service?
I don’t have a favourite product! I love how we make our customers feel after a successful event using our softwares. It’s the most rewarding part of the job.
However, I love the story of Scanlogic, our access control, tracking and lead retrieval software. I first was inspired on a train while in the US, and instantly began thinking about how we could adopt this technology and use it at our events. Since its launch, it has been incredibly popular and successful, even leading us to create a modernised app that we call Leadlogic.
In the 20 years of Shocklogic, what would you consider to be the most challenging/enjoyable part of your job?
The greatest challenge I’ve personally experienced is to learn and realise my limitations. Even when I have the humility to identify and understand it, I am still driven to overcome it in order to give the best experience to the client. I also want to prevent my team from facing barriers to providing everything we initially promise.
The best part of my job is watching my team grow and bloom both as people and in their job roles.
What is one random fact about you?
Not a lot of people know that when I was younger I was a champion wrestler! Nothing like what you see on WWE, but it helped me to pay my way through university and I absolutely loved it.
What software/technology do you rely on most in your day, and what’s your favourite feature of it?
The entire Google suite. From gmail right through to google docs – I love it! The calendar helps us all in the company to stay on top of meetings, client events and the working hours of team members who are working away from the office and in different countries. The docs, sheets and slides feature allow us to collaborate with a lack of confusion and share these documents a lot easier than emailing word documents.
What’s one piece of software you like to share with people?
I love Jing, a free multimedia screen-capture software. It allows you to take specific video and static screenshots, so either your entire screen or a section of it. Once the shot is taken you can highlight elements of it using the arrow, box and highlight tool. Anyone can view it with access to the link, and we use it internally as well as with clients and partners.
What do you in your free time?
I don’t tend to get a lot of ‘free’ time because I’m so in love with my job! Aside from spending time with my partner, I really like listening to podcasts, especially ones by Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan and various other audiobooks. I also do this when travelling around the world for the various events. This also makes time for me to listen to our weekly company-wide meetings, we call it our “scrum”. During our scrum, we get everyone together to discuss what they’ve achieved in the past week, who they want to recognise for their hard work, and any issues that we need to discuss and overcome as a team. I also get a chance to address everyone at the same time. Listening to them means I don’t miss any ideas that have been shared or suggestions that are made to make improvements to the company.