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This is the Building Blocks of Success with Glenn Mattson.
Glenn Mattson:
Hey, man, welcome back. Glenn Mattson here. The Building Blocks of Success Season 6, Episode 12. Today I want to talk about the lure, I guess, of the comfort zone, comfort versus discomfort, and what does it really mean. Look, when you first get in the business and you have to start doing things that are uncomfortable, prospecting, qualifying, closing, rejection, all those things are forced upon us. And for many of us, we had to make a decision early on that we knew what we needed to do, but we were uncomfortable doing it, and we realized at some point, if you don't change who you are, if you don't change some of your thought processes, if you don't get tough, you ain't gonna make it.
We had the ability to start to change. We had the ability to start to push ourselves and start to have some success. Today I want to talk about why some people stop at comfort while others keep pushing. Why do some people climb relentlessly when they don't have to, and why others plateau at certain dollar amounts, and they call it good enough. A lot of us, it's not about talent or luck or circumstances. I want you to realize it's really about your comfort zone, because at the end of the day, your comfort zone is the one that decides. If you have a plan, the plan calls for activity. Your activity is about vitality, guts and discipline. Discipline is, by far the most important thing.
Discipline is doing what you're supposed to do, regardless of how you feel. Guts waiver. Guts are when you have to, you do it, but when you don't need to, you don't. So guts is another little false pretense, right? So when we're looking at our comfort zone, a lot of us are looking to have comfort as our end objective. What I really want you to feel today is the fact that comfort is not and shouldn't be your main objective, because nothing happens good in comfort, and I'll share that with you. So I want to talk with you about why it's going to be good to unpack discomfort, why it's not the enemy, while it's actually your compass. We got to learn how to lean into it. We got to learn how to train ourselves to tolerate it and to gain the lessons from it.
The key here is how to ensure that we can keep climbing higher and higher and higher and don't get stuck based on certain limitations that we put on our head. These are called lids. Some of us grew up on understanding what a lot of money is, right. We were told by our parents what a lot of money is. And many of us, when you finally get to that dollar amount, were like, oof I made it! And all of a sudden your desire to grow turns into a desire to protect what you have. Now, if that is your goal, I get it. I want to share with you today about those individuals who climb. They decided to camp. I just want to share with you the differences between those who camp and those who wish to climb again. Because at the end of the day, comfort, if that's your end objective, got it. But no growth comes from comfort at all.
Glenn Mattson:
It’s a it's a false pretense. Granted your body and your psychological mind really screams and is geared towards driving towards comfort, and it really does move you away from discomfort. But we have to realize that between comfort and discomfort, I wanted to share with you today, that it is discomfort where I want you to go. Discomfort where I want you to lean in. Discomfort is not bad.
See, in the early days, discomfort was forced on you if you didn't get uncomfortable, if you didn't force your fears, if you didn't deal with your fear of rejection; prospecting whatever you know, calling on certain individuals, overcoming your fear of being a salesperson, etc. holding people accountable, or whatever you the role is, we all have things that we are uncomfortable with. But when you're broke, when you're building a business, when you're first starting off, discomfort was chosen for you. You were put in the hot water and you were told to swim.
But today, I want to talk to you about what happens once you reach that level of comfort. And now discomfort has to be chosen like I can't even tell you how many clients... I just talked to one last week. He just sold his business for hundreds of millions of dollars. He doesn't need another 150 foot yacht. He doesn't need another house in the Caribbean or a compound out west at the end of the day. He's not doing it for the money. What he's doing it for is, how good can I really be? It's a drive inside of them that tells them comfort is not good and discomfort is good. So, the second they feel comfortable, time to change.
Others will strive for comfort. They want comfort. Once they finally hit comfort, they raise their hand like, excellent. Then they plateau. Look around you. There's people in sales that make $80,000, $120,000, $180,000, $225,000, $375,000, right? Just under $400,000, right under $500,000. Big campground right around $750,000. Under a million. Ooh, one more zero and you made a million, right? So it's like this big campground in the $900,000, then you have those that hit the million. So $1,000,000.03, there's a big one around $1,000.000, 8..2..4..3..9...; areas that people will continuously get to. When they get to this campground, they will fight, they will take risks, they will be uncomfortable. They will push themselves. They will get knocked down and get right back up again.
But when they get to a certain dollar amount, you got to remember, people earn exactly what they think they're worth. So once they get to this dollar amount, all of a sudden their passion to be discomfortable turns into the desire to be comfortable. When you got to get your bills and everything else taken care of, it's easy to understand why people do what they have to do when they're hungry. But the real fight to me is what happens when they don't need it anymore? What happens when you just don't have to do it right? What happens when you hit good enough?
Glenn Mattson:
Here's the truth: Most people plateau, not because they fail, not because of anything else besides their brain says, you're comfortable, you're good, you got here. So they start to confuse attainment with achievement. They start to confuse goods that you can get, things that are out there, houses, cars, etc., as my level of success. So once they reach that certain level, what they believe that could be a couple cars, could be European cars, could be four houses, three, whatever it is, once they reach it like, I'm here. And that desire to grow turns into a desire to protect what they built, and that's really a big difference, right? So once you hit a comfort zone, your desire is to more protect what you built, not necessarily grow what you have. And that's where it's sneaky. That's where comfort zones sneak in and steal your edge. It's a trap, super easy to understand when you got to pay your bills.
But what happens if you're doing well? Reputation is awesome. Clients love you. Referrals are coming in fast, and you can probably handle them. See, the average performer seeks comfort. The high performer seeks discomfort. Let me tell you what I mean by discomfort. It's not that they want hardness. They want difficulties, but they want to have that little thing in their belly button that goes a little sideways, or when things are going too well, they're like, ah, something's not right. This is boring. Okay, so I want to walk you through a few things to help you understand what that looks like, because I got to promise you this bottom line. Every level of success that you have hits a new comfort zone. It's a trap. So maybe you're at $150,000 and you say, okay, this is really, really good. You live there for two or three years, and you say to yourself, this is ridiculous. I can do so much more. I can be better than this. You jump out of your comfort zone into discomfort, and you grow again. But then also you hit a new plateau. Ooh, making $300,000, so now I slow down. Then after a couple years, like this is ridiculous, I can do so much better. Boom.
So we have individuals that will climb, then they camp, again. Their desire to grow now turns into a desire to protect. Yet others will be there for two or three years, and their mind says, it's time. And they grow. And it's not because they know more. It's not because of new knowledge. Most of them psychologically say, it's time. So all of a sudden, now that they say it's time, they get outside their comfort zone to start to either grow up stream, get better types of clients, increase their average case size. And that discomfort is what causes them to make the change. So I want you to realize that discomfort really is the currency of growth. The more discomfortable you are, uncomfortable you are, is really where your growth happens. Change happens. And for some of us, we'll turn around and say things like, ooh, I don't want discomfort. It's awful. If you really look at your comfort zone, those are the things that you choose to do that make you comfortable.
Talking to same type of clients, saying the same type of products, sell them for the same amount of dollar amounts. That's in our comfort zone. But we have to look at things that are outside of our comfort zone. Look, me personally. I know I can sell. I know I can have this practice. Know we can coach people. You know whats discomfort is actually delegating more, delegating to individuals and trusting they're going to get it done. How about some of you? Is it moving upstream, starting to talk to larger net worth individuals? Is it increasing your average case size? Because you got to realize your average case size is 100% connected to your self esteem, not your skills. It always blows me away when companies will spend enormous amount of money to train their people to talk to large net worth individuals. They give them the skills, they give them the the information, so they say. Yet ,they're still terrified of talking to someone who makes $3 or $4 million to get marbles in their mouth. It's not because the $3 or $4 million person is better than you. It's just that you don't see yourself there. Equal business stature is missing.
Glenn Mattson:
So we got to take a look at really where the test happens. The real test happens not when you achieve success, it's what happens once you get there. What do you choose to do next? And I call that wimp junction. Wimp junction is choosing to go the easier path and raise your hand and convert your really, your motivation from growth to protection, or you want to go the other way. Another way is that you know that you hit that plateau. Congratulations. That's what your goal said. Congratulations. That what the plan was for the outcome. I don't know why you're so shocked that you got there. You got there because you followed your cookbook and did your behaviors, and that's what the objective was. So, you know, plant yourself in the back and give yourself a thumbs up, but you got to have alligator arms at some point, right? Your plan worked. That was the plan. So once you got there, you shouldn't sit down and say, hey, let's throw a party. It's like, okay, do what I was supposed to now it's time to move on. Move up.
So as we start to do this, you got to realize that it really is success that sometimes is a trap. We push, we work hard. And for many people, they hit a wall, and that wall invites you to stop. You know, it's interesting. My wife loves to run marathons, and a couple weeks ago, my son and my wife ran a half marathon. And when they're running a half marathon, I remember my wife always telling me, especially if you're doing a marathon, the last two miles is is littered with people sitting on the curbs. Now, most everyone running has fire in their knees that feels like their ankle is going to pop off. They're just absolutely in agonizing pain. And there's all these people sitting on the side and the curb, sitting down, looking at him, going, I won't pass judgment if you want to sit right next to me and just stop the pain, I won't say anything, because you got to know misery loves company, right? So as we're running that last two miles , it's all about grit, especially when your whole body's screaming for you to stop. So I want to share with you that as you start running to where you are and where you want to go that discomfort isn't a roadblock.
Discomfort isn't failure. Discomfort is only information. Nothing ever happens in comfort. You don't grow in comfort. You don't grow psychologically in comfort. You never grow physically in comfort zones. You're not going to grow your client base, your case sizes, your income, staying in your comfort zone. Discomfort is information. I felt awkward when I had to do X. I struggled with. Man, I can't make those phone calls. I feel like the telephone 16,000 feet big. That's just all information. What caused you get discomfort? And I'm going to talk to you in a second about a fix. I don't want you to run from discomfort. Discomfort is your friend. Discomfort and how you handle discomfort actually defines you more than your results. Kind of crazy, right? Because every time you hit a certain plateau financially is where new comfort zone pops up. So, the traps are everywhere. They're everywhere, and discomfort is the currency of growth. So if you want to climb, you want to get better, discomfort is where you need to choose to go to.
Discomfort is where you need to seek, not run from. You can train yourself for tolerance. You can train yourself resiliency. You can absolutely train yourself to live in the world of discomfort. It's a process. So I want to share with you a systematized way to actually look for discomfort and handle discomfort, because at the end of the day, I want you to realize this comfort kills your potential. Comfort kills your growth.
You're sitting there at three o'clock in the afternoon and you know you have to make a phone call. You say, you know what? I'm doing pretty good. I'm doing good enough. And you go sitting down with a client and it's time to ask for a referral. Little part in your brain says, do I really want to be that pushy? Is that really something I really want to do? You just got to sail. Be happy and get the hell out of here. So, we have all these scripts in the back for a brain that will help us see that comfort is better. But I want you to realize comfort kills potential. Your growth comes from discomfort.
Growth always comes from discomfort. It's one of the things that we have to realize and one of the things we have to understand. Because you may want to write this down, right? You don't build confidence by winning. You build confidence by surviving the parts where most people would stop, when most say it's good enough, and you keep going. That's what builds confidence. Because you get knocked down, you get back up, and you keep moving, and you start to show yourself. I can do this. Very important. I can do this the comfort zone. Nothing changes. Your stretch, right? That's where growth happens and your fear exists. You got to realize the good and the bad with it. Fear, absolutely, growth, absolutely. And part of your growth is resiliency. And resiliency is is that I can actually do this. I've done in the past. I've been successful in the past. I've been knocked down and get back up.
Glenn Mattson:
So when we're looking at our ability to grow, we have to have and understand that tenacity and resiliency is somewhat important. And you did this in the beginning of your career. So all of us should have a belief system that says that we can handle this. I've had success handling it. I'm not going to like it. Ain't going to be easy. They ain't going to kill me. So identity alignment means that you have to have the ability to prove to yourself that you can do it. And for some of you who don't have that yet, you need micro successors. Micro successors are, if you want to have, you know, for instance, a very successful cold call, and you just panic to the point where you want to vomit in garbage cans. A micro successor is dial a telephone and do the first sentence of the script and hang up. Call another one. First sentence, now the second sentence, hang up. After a handful of times, all you got left is you got to do the whole thing. So micro successors is learning how to get baby wins.
Baby wins start to help you learn resiliency: cold calling, asking tough questions, going for the no, being okay, walking away from a piece of business. All those things are small, micro successes. Next thing you got to learn how to do is have a really strong why? Because your body's gonna scream to you that mediocrity is okay. So you're gonna have to have something to pull you through this mud besides, I want to, because your psyche is gonna be pretty darn strong. So make sure you have an understanding of why you're doing this. Now, it doesn't have to be absolutely 100 that you're gonna run through a wall for it, but it's got to get you where you, when it's time to have your body say, don't do it, there's no reason to do it. You have something to turn around and say, quiet down. I'm doing it because. Your why gives you meaning to the pain that you're going through. It gives you the understanding that this is, this is your olive brain. This is what you have to pay the ferryman to get what you want. Next thing you got to make sure that you have is a reinforcement system. I remember when I trained for lacrosse tournaments or other things. I don't want to get up early in the morning go run. Not a chance. Bed is nice, it's warm. But you're never going to be the guy in the field that people are afraid of. Never be the guy in the field that people don't want to go up against if you're sitting in bed nice and warm.
So, you got to go outside and you got to run. You got to get in shape, etc. But having someone that has a reinforcement now, that could be a partner, that can be an accountability coach, that could be having the right tools or processes in place to not let you avoid doing paid time activities and hiding and no pay time. See, pain tolerance, resiliency are those who reframe discomfort as something you should avoid, as something now that you seek out, because you know discomfort is where growth happens. So you got to be aware of comfort. You also have to have and build resiliency. And that's the small successors. And those are really, really important. So as you start to build these small, micro successors to get to the larger piece of what you want to learn how to do and change, it's like a stepping stair, staircase - little bit, little bit, little bit, little bit, little bit.
Now, for instance, your average case size. You know, the average person, their average case size and or their conversion ratio, is one of the easiest things to change? If you can increase your average case size by 10% every single month, you grow by 30% every year, without doubt. So, why wouldn't you want to turn around and say I got to double my case size and start with that? Micro successors. Because once you believe you can do it, once you believe that you have done it, and now you have expectations of doing it again.
Glenn Mattson:
That's what those micro successors are all about. So you got to make sure that not only do you have a reinforcement systems, but you have some accountability. You need people around you that aren't going to challenge you. You need people around you not saying why are you doing this? This doesn't make any sense. You're doing great. You want people around you that are like minded, that are willing and able to help you push.
I remember one of my buddies was training for the Iron Man. And Paul is a big guy and doesn't move very quickly and very well. And Steve, my buddy, super fit, and I always remember Steve saying that when they would go to the ocean to go swimming, it's frigid out the snow on the beach. Doesn't want to go in the water. He's sitting in his car. This is crazy. Paul opens up his door, gets out, puts down a towel on the ground, puts on the wetsuit, looks at Steve, who's still in his car with his hands up in the air, like, what are you doing? And walks right into the ocean and starts to swim. And he'll turn around and say, What are you doing? We're here to swim. It's not going to get better if you wait. So if you wanted, you turn around, face it, and walk right in the water. You're going to be freezing for a minute or two, and then you're going to be warm again, because you're swimming.
So, that partner of his never doubted he was going to do the swim. And that kind of person pulled Steve into the ocean. That's accountability, surrounding yourself with people that think like you, act like you, have the same mindset. Because when we push through comfort, when we push through failure, when we come out on the other side, that's about resiliency. That's when we start to learn that we can do these things that most people didn't think we could. So the first piece you got to do is, again, make sure that you start to build some resiliency. Micro wins. Got to have a why, but to give you clarity, my why in the very beginning was super easy. I don't want to be afraid anymore.
My other why was I want to make sure that my wife, Heather, had a big house super easy. Didn't complicate things. I knew that it was going to be a long road, and I have to do a lot of things to get there. But each time that you won and you hit wimp junction, it wasn't about the outcome. It was about the fact that you chose to be uncomfortable. And by the way, the more you choose to be uncomfortable, yeah, over time, the more money you're going to have. So I want to again, share with you that you can't outperform your comfort zone. That's the whole purpose of a comfort zone. So if you think you're a four from an identity standpoint, your comfort zone is going to be between, going to be between a three and a five.
So you can have all the role performance. You have all the knowledge that you want to to perform like a 10. But if you don't see yourself as a 10, you're never going to get that high. So you got to remember, you will never outperform your comfort zone. You can only expand it. Which means I want you to think about, how do you increase and be more comfortable being uncomfortable? And to do that, you got to be aware. You got to be aware of the fact that, hey, man, I am uncomfortable in this area. I got to get outside my comfort zone.
Next thing you have to make sure, as you're going through this and taking a look at your growth, is that as you start to grow, and as you're getting outside that comfort zone, it's going to be difficult, so you have to lean into practice. And this is really important, because practice and perfect practice, which actually builds up your ability to handle resiliency. So as you're getting better, as you're starting to grow in that area of discomfort, realize you're these are things you're going to have to learn. Learning new things and learning how to apply new things is what really starts to dissipate that discomfort. Because when you start to learn new things, or actually apply new things, over time you start to get pretty good with it. And as you start to get pretty good with it, it actually fuels the the fire inside your belly to keep pushing.
That's always crazy. You push, you push, you push, and you get to a certain level, and now you have success. But see, here's the interesting thing. The successful people will go back up to the beginning and say, uh oh, I'm feeling comfortable. What do I have to do to get outside my comfort zone? And they start the process all over again. So, I want you to think about what makes you comfortable. Is it the people you're calling? Is that how many first appointments you have? Is it your closing ratio? Is the fact you're not delegating? Maybe you're not prospecting at all, and you're waiting for people to call you. So what are the things that you find comfortable? What are the things that you strive for? And by the way, things that you have to do that's outside the comfort zone is usually where excuses occur. I really want you to get comfort zone false pretense.
You want to grow. You want to get better. Want to figure out what your best version of yourself is that occurs in the world of discomfort, not comfort. And every time you get uncomfortable, if you sprint from if you run from it, we're gonna have a big problem. You just can't get there. You gotta remember, comfort kills potential. Just kills it. The successful people don't wait to feel comfortable before they act. They act their way into comfort. Let me tell you that again, they don't wait to feel comfortable to take action. They know the action over time is what's going to create the comfort, so they lean into it. They don't run from it. They're not embarrassed by it.
Glenn Mattson:
My gosh, my best individuals, when I talk to them, the most successful producers that you can think of, especially when we start talking about a new topic, one of the first things they'll say is, okay, okay, okay, I got it. Let's role play. Yet an hour later, I'm talking to someone else. I'm like, okay, ready to role play? Ooh, I don't role play. It's embarrassing. Don't want to do that yet. The ones that lean into role playing, yeah, it's embarrassing. Yeah, they're uncomfortable with it, but they know this, if I don't role play, how can I get good? If I can't get good, then how am I supposed to make any money from it? So they understand that means to an end and what it does mean.
So as you're looking at comfort and discomfort, as you're looking at 2026 and what your goals are. Right around now, everyone's quitting. Right around now, all the new year resolutions are all going backwards because they're seeking comfort, and that's your first challenge. So every day you're going to have wimp junctions. Every day everyone has wimp junctions. Quite honestly, all you have to do is pick one of the right ways to go each day more than you did the day before. You know your first whim junction every day is the snooze button. I just don't get it. Why the hell if you're going to get up at six and you set your alarm and you snooze and you snooze and you snooze, just set the alarm for when you're not going to snooze and just get up. You made a commitment, and now you're just wimping out on it. Right from the get go.
You've heard me speak numerous times about making sure you make the decision to do what the behavior says before you put the plan together. But I want to talk to all those people out there. They're doing well. They're doing okay, whatever that may mean for you. You know who you are. You know what I'm talking about in terms of comfort. Don't want you to feel that comfort is the goal, because the second you get to comfort and you achieve comfort, that's when the slow death happens. It's actually a trap. So if you're comfortable, seek discomfort. When you start to seek discomfort, be aware of it. Realize I now need to learn new things. And now I need to understand what I have to do to be less uncomfortable. With that, you have to lean into it and practice.
Practice is what builds up the competency. When you start building up that competency, you're going to start getting successes, and successes where all of a sudden the results come from. And we start getting successes, we get excited. It builds up more motivation to push even harder, push even faster. Then at some point we're saying, oh, I'm here. So please, if you find yourself a climber who camps, turn the page and ask yourself, am I really the best version of myself? Am I truly at my max? And I'll tell you, most of you are always going to say no. And when you want to climb, figure out your why, figure out the purpose. Get some accountability.
Start with your micro successors, if you need to, because the best part of you always is the output of discomfort. If you look at anything you've done in your professional career, all the things that you like, all the things that you say five years, six years later, you remember. The things that stick in your head aren't necessarily the wins. Most of the things that stick in your head are the time you got knocked down on the ground and you got back up and then you won. Being knocked down is okay. Staying down is not okay. Being knocked down and standing back up is good. Standing back up and winning is better. It teaches the resiliency that you need to to understand. Choose to live in the world of discomfort, not comfort. As you start to grow yourself in 2026 to help with the building blocks of success, let's keep talking about living in the world of discomfort and growing to the best version of yourself.
This is the The Building Blocks of Success With Glenn Mattson.
