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This is the Building Blocks of Success with Glenn Mattson.
Glenn Mattson:
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Building Blocks of Success, Season 7, Episode 7.
As we're going through the last handful of episodes, we've been talking about something that I think a lot of people struggle with on a daily basis. What they struggle with is, is how does an ordinary person choose to be extraordinary? How come I look around at some of my friends and they're always going to be who they are, yet other individuals constantly push themselves to be a little better each day. And over the last five or six years, they really have progressed in their professional career and you haven't. So today I want to talk to you really about the keys of making sure that you understand that the lot in life that you have are really the outcome of choices that you've made that kind of created the scenario that you’re in.
You don't like it, which I get, then change it. I'm going to walk you through some things that you can do to do so. And you have to realize that all of us, and I know you've heard me say this the last couple of podcasts, but all of us have two parts of us. We have an inside part and we have an outside part. The inside part is almost always bigger, stronger, more capable than the outside part. It's almost like having a lion look at a house cat. And the lion's the inside part and the house cat's the outside part. But here's part of the craziness. The outside part, we have taught ourselves that if we do well, we feel great about ourselves.
Your kid gets an A on a test, they feel fantastic. You go out and close a good deal, you feel like you're amazing. And the flip side is when you don't do well in your roles ,we feel like crap. You were supposed to pass your test and you didn't. You had an F on your paper. You're on a sales call and you know that you should have asked the pain question, but you chose not to and it bit you in the tail. So in our roles, those are things that we do in life. Those are things we acquire when we're born. You acquire being father, son, daughter, married, best friends, golfer. We acquire those. Some of them we're good at and some of them we're not good at. But see, part of the issue is when we are challenged to do better in our roles, when we want to be a better student, better athlete, better salesperson, better prospector, better business owner, better communicator, whatever it is, when we want to do better, majority of us have to get outside of our comfort zone.
Doing better means typically doing things differently or more of than what we're doing now. You have to learn some new things. You have to apply things that you haven't been doing in the past. See, a comfort zone is doing something that you've always did to get the same outcome. Comfort zone is every single one of us brushes our teeth and we have our morning ritual is a ritual. Most of us, it's all subconscious empathy. You don't even think about what you're doing and you just go through one act to another, to another, to another. Shaving, brushing your teeth, combing your hair, drying your hair. You're on autopilot.
Glenn Mattson:
The inside of us has an automatic rhythm that we do. When it's time to make the outside better, the inside, right? Our body and our mind is geared and designed for comfort.
You put your hand on a hot stove, your hand will pull back in one second and your body will scream, never do that again. So when we look at comfort as any activity that doesn't take a lot of effort from us, doesn't take a lot of energy. That's a comfort zone. Anything outside of that is. So when we have to do something outside of our comfort zone, there's going to be a little bit of anxiety. Anxiety is a good thing. I don't know why people say anxiety is bad. Anxiety is your natural feeling saying something ain’t right in the cookie jar. Just like sadness. Sadness isn't bad. It's what you do with sadness. Frustration. Frustration is a natural feeling. Frustration is not bad. It's what you do with it. So anxiety, uncomfortability, fear, all those things most of us take as negative behaviors or negative feelings. Reality is those are just feelings saying, uh-oh, I'm not comfortable.
Not that we're in a bad place. It just means I'm not comfortable. And you're trying something different. You're trying something new. So when you try something new, there's a risk there. And every risk either has a success or a lesson. So every time you try something new, it's going to be outside your comfort zone and you're not successful at it, your brain will say you, I told you so. Why are you doing this? Go back to the way it used to be. It was so much easier when you didn't have to do it like this. So even sometimes when we fail, our brain will kick in and start hitting us for trying, which kind of makes us feel like maybe we should go back to our comfort zone, which at the end of the day means that your brain wins.
It says, aha. I got you to stop acting like that and start doing what you should have been doing, which is stay normal. So you have to realize that when we are trying new things and trying to get outside of our comfort zone, one of the hardest roadblocks that we all have is us. That's why January 21st of every year is quit day. Literally three weeks after people make a new year as a resolution, that they have a national, I don't know if it's a holiday now, but it's a national recognized day. 21 days into January is quit day, which is the day that you quit your goals, the day that you bag it. It didn't even last 21 days. So when we look at trying to be better, trying to get outside of our comfortabilities, you got to realize everything that your body is made of will try to keep you where you are. That's why when your body's screaming you not to change, it's more of the reason you have to change, which we went through really four stages of the growth curve and how to do that.
Glenn Mattson:
So whenever you're looking at something new, I don't care if it's something as easy as like, for me personally, I'm going through a growth curve right now on delegation. I know if I do it, it's done right. It's easier for me to do it than it is to teach it to you. By the time I teach you, I could have been done with it. I have all of the excuses in my head for delegation. Is it easier for me to do it? Yep. Am I very confident in doing it? Yep. Do I have anxiety when I have to give it to somebody else? For sure. Will they make mistakes? I would expect so. Will some of those mistakes be big? Yeah, probably. Am I going to be uncomfortable? Hell yeah. So it's not something that when we talk about a stretch goal, we're not talking about trying to save the world. Some of this stuff is just make one more dial a day. Don't go home after just making three when you're supposed to make seven.
So when you want to change who you are, just realize it's going to be uncomfortable. And then when you start it, your brain's going to tell you to go back to the way it used to be. That’s resistance. And if you don't listen to those two, you will practice, you will get better. And then you will hit number three, which is, my God, this is working out. I get better at it? That's adaptation. That's the best part. Everyone listening in right now, you know, you've had the scenario where you were trying something different and it starts to work. I mean, work pretty good. Then you're looking around going, my gosh, I can actually do this. That's adaptation.
First time in my life, I actually hit a drive the other day on purpose and it went exactly where I wanted it to. I said, man, this is pretty good. Golfing is pretty fun when you can actually hit the ball and hit it straight. Then you started making up these crazy ideas, or maybe I'm going to do a fade, maybe I'm going to do a draw, maybe I'm going to do this. That's adaptation. But that also leads us to the next phase. So when you're afraid to do something and you start doing it, maybe that's moving someone upstream, for instance.
So I had a client of mine whose average household was 400,000. And for him to get to where they wanted to be, his average case size had to go up. Part of the issue was he's very good. Name is Brandon. Very good at what Brandon did. So there wasn't really anything left to be done to increase the average case size, which means that he is tapping out with the demographics that he's in. He's got to move demographics. So if you can't increase your average case size, that means that you're in the wrong demographics. So he had to move his demographics over to a million in the household. And usually it's one. household earner. So by going from 400 to a million, he basically took his average from 8,000 to 15. Nothing changed, not the number of people he met, not the conversion ratio, nothing changed.
So think about it. If they needed to do three sales per month, his average before was eight, that's 24 is the average. Now the average is 45 a month. And the reason being is we changed the demographic, which allowed him to change his average case size. So his average case size went up, his demographic went up, and now per month, he's earning 100% more with no additional energy or effort. So when we're in that area, now Brandon is seeing these people pretty consistently. He is very consistent, making the sale, getting the referrals, etc.
So for this one area, which is getting outside of his comfort zone, because I got to tell you, in the very beginning, he would have rather cut off his left pinky toe than do what I asked him to do with regards to socialization. Sure, he was afraid, but he did it.
Glenn Mattson:
Momentum gained more momentum, which gained more momentum, which gained more momentum. In the beginning, only 10% of his clients were the right people. Then it became 30% of the right people were his prospects. Then it became 60%. Now you cannot look at his calendar and find any new prospect that's under a millionaire. So everything changed.
Now what starts to happen is we get fat and happy. And that's stagnation. Stagnation is you finally accomplish your goal and you start to celebrate with everybody and then you sit down. Sitting down means that once you accomplish it, you're good. What I’d rather have you do is once you accomplish your goal, the next thing I want you to say is, what's next? What's next? Put it as a little flip card or a sticky note or whatever you need to on your computer screen. What's next? Just because he moved up demographics, great. Average case size, great. Now it's time to increase his average case size again and then one more time. And then after that, we're going to probably have to change demographics again.
So as you start to get into your own growth of where you want to be and what you want to accomplish, you have to realize it's a hell of a lot easier being mediocre. It's a hell of a lot easier being nobody. It's a hell of a lot easier being one of the masses. It is not easy being the best version of yourself. If it was, everyone would be doing it. So you have to realize if you're going to be one of the few people in your friend group who is willing to be the best version of themselves, if you're one in the friend group that is looking to be that kind of person that everyone else kind of emulates to and says, man, they deep down inside want to do what you're doing right now.
Deep down inside, they want to have the confidence to push themselves. But not many do. So if you have individuals that, and unfortunately this is true, it happened to me at least four times in my life, where some of my best friends, some of my closest friends didn't have the same vision, didn't have the same belief of where they wanted to be in life. And some of the things they wanted to do and some of the things, their choices they wanted to make didn't align with where my choices were and where I wanted to go. They are super nice people. We just live two different worlds. So realize that sometimes as you start to grow, there's a lot of roadblocks you're going to have in your life. That's why understanding where you want to be is very important so that you understand what you're willing to give up to get it.
I saw a little thing last night in psychology today that the theme of the paper wasn't about how bad you want something. It wasn't about desire, wasn't about responsibility. It wasn't about commitment. What it really, this article is about was, was very interesting. The connection of what are you willing to give up to get where you want to go? You have to give up going to bed late. You have to give up having cocktails for dinner. You have to give up that feeling you have when you're in your office all by yourself and the doors closed before you make a cold call. The real question about your own success is what are you willing to give up? What are you willing to let go of to get something of greater?
Remember the definition of risk. Definition of risking is letting go of something you know to be true to go towards something of greater value. And that's what we're talking about. We're talking about taking risks on yourself to make yourself better.
So as you start to go through your journey, don't forget the four stages of personal growth. Be prepared for it. And have it in your back pocket to help you go from your comfort zone to your stretch zone. Stay in the stretch zone, even when it comes back to comfort.
It's a cognitive choice to say, got it. I took care of that one thing. What's next? What is next? Join us in the Building Blocks of Success as we continue the conversation.
This is the Building Blocks of Success with Glenn Mattson.
