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Glenn Mattson
Well, welcome back to building blocks of success. Last time we met, we were going through really what failure is, we were talking about the anatomy of failure. And what those steps are in terms of complete disbelief then fear then anger sets in, then you have acceptance. And with that comes despair. But then you can start moving on, we talked about some of the great lessons that come from failure. And there's amazing things that will happen and have the ability for you to grow new mindset towards risk taking, priorities, strengthening up your gut system, helping you understand who you are. All phenomenal things that come from failure. But we also have to take a look at the reality of something called risk taking. Risk taking is the really the beginning of the process of failure, right? So if we look at it risk taking is the mere activity of letting go of what you know to be true. Letting go of what is normal for you; letting go of what is predictable, letting go of what you know, but going towards something of greater value. Think about that for a second, you're letting go of something that's predictable, that has history to it, that you know, but you're letting those things go to go toward something of greater value.
You have to realize every single time that you risk, there is going to be some level of loss, you have to understand that you have to give things up to get things. And when we look at risk taking, you know, a lot of times people will ask me well, when do I risk? And I think it's quite easy, if you just look at a simple rule is, is it gotta risk when you're unhappy. If you're doing something, then you want to be better at it. If you're in something a stage of your life, and you're not happy where you are, it's a very simple rule. If you're unhappy, it's time for change. And change comes with risk. So if you're not where you want to be, if you're not what you are, if you're not doing what you'll want. Got it. But that's a risk. Risk is letting go of what you know to be true to go something towards you of greater value. So every time that you risk, there is going to be some form of a loss. But this is one of my favorite one liners, it's helped me tremendously through my professional and my private life is not risking is absolutely the surest way not to achieve your results. Say that again to you; not risking is the absolute surest way of not achieving your objectives, or not being successful, whatever that means to you. So risking isn't a oh, let's see if I want to do it today, you have to learn how to risk every day. So these next two compartments of the building blocks of success is really looking at and understanding what risk taking is. How do we understand it? How do we maximize it? But also what are the lessons that we get from it? So, you know, it's always interesting that when I'm talking with people that say, well, Glenn, I'm terrified of risking, I'm nervous, I'm afraid. I'm unsure of myself, right. But the reality is, is you're supposed to be afraid when you're risking. Remember, risking is letting go for, you know, to be true, to go towards something of greater value. So if you're not afraid, you're probably not taking a risk. So never assume or connect the dots that fear is something that means you shouldn't risk. Honestly, you shouldn't be afraid when you're risking. If you're not afraid, are you're really risking anything?
Glenn Mattson
So don't discount the the issue of of risking with being afraid and therefore walking away from it. No, you're supposed to be afraid when you take risks. That's one of the checkpoints of am I in a risky situation? Yeah, you're uncomfortable. Yeah. And the bigger the risk. Sometimes the more uncomfortable you're gonna be. Because it's a bigger letting go. You know, it's interesting, I watched a movie and it was about the holy grail. And you had Harrison Ford in it. Sean Connery in it. Sean Connery was Harrison Ford's father. And what they did in this movie is they shot Sean Connery. Now when they shot him he wasn't passed away or anything, they shot him in the stomach. And the only way to save his father is for Harrison Ford is to go through all these trials and tribulations and pathways inside of this cave to come to find the Holy Grail. And if he finds the Holy Grail, then he can bring it back and save his father. So here he is in the midst of a riddle. And the real as he's standing there, there's a massive, vast separation between where he is in the wall and the entrance to where he needs to go. And there's no tunnel, there's no bridge, there's nothing to get from one spot to another. So here he is, reading this riddle, his back is against the wall, he has a really small hole looks almost like a cave that's down where his feet is, it's where he came out, he's standing on a ledge is maybe three feet wide. And a good 30 feet away from him is the other wall with a small hole cave that he's got to go through. And in theory, that's where the Holy Grail is. There's nothing that connects these two walls, there's nothing that connects these two areas. So he says reading this riddle, he realizes the riddle has to do with belief. The riddle has to do with the step of faith sometimes is more important than anything else. So he closes his eyes, he picks up his foot, he steps forward. And you're thinking he's gonna fall, hundreds and hundreds, if not 1,000s of feet into this massive crevice. But the reality is he actually stands on a bridge, it's an optical illusion. And the reason that bridge is there is because the whole theme of the test was testing your belief, your belief in this situation, God and this belief in this situation yourself.
Glenn Mattson
So my question for a lot of us is sometimes the success of our risk taking depends more on our willingness to take the leap than being so concerned about what happens if I fail. Let me give it to you again, sometimes the success of a risk depends more on our willingness to lean in to take that risk, and not being so concerned about the what if, what if I fail, what if I embarrassed myself? So a lot of times, we have to let go of the what if and lean into what we believe is worth the risk. You know, we have this thing called a comfort zone. And our comfort zone is really our you look at psychology for a second, our brain is designed to ensure that we to the best of its ability, we stay away from pain. Either we get away from painful situations, we try to stay away from painful scenarios. Now we look at a comfort zone, a comfort zone is your body's mentality saying this is our safe zone. If you do these things and stay within this sphere, right, you're going to be okay, you're not going to be getting hurt too much, you're not going to be risking too much; comfort zone. So the reality of a comfort zone, a comfort zone is our identity, our self esteem, saying this is where you belong. This is where you should be, doesn't mean it's right. This is where you should be. And anytime you get outside that comfort zone, you're going to feel a little anxious. Remember, you take risks, you should feel anxious. So that's why most of us go back into our comfort zone. Versus when you feel a little anxious say, excellent, I should feel anxious, I'm getting outside my comfort zone. And the reason I keep pushing getting outside your comfort zone is a life without risk, a life without getting outside your comfort zone, is a life with no growth.
Glenn Mattson
Look, risks don't have to be huge things. If you're very comfortable taking this certain train to that part of Brooklyn, is there a different way to get there? That may be a little uncomfortable? It's a little of a risk, right, because uncomfortable but you can get there. So you could turn around and say, look, I did it. And I did it builds massive amount of confidence. So ask yourself, are you risking to stay in your comfort zone? Or are you risking every day to do something outside your comfort zone? Just because your friends do it every day doesn't mean that you need to do it every day. So we're gonna look at this thing called risking. And it's not as difficult as necessarily everyone looks at. Risking is letting go what you know to go towards something of greater value. When you're unhappy where you are, it is the absolute best time to take a risk. Not risking is the surest way not to succeed.
Glenn Mattson
You're supposed to be afraid when you risk. And quite honestly, you're supposed to be outside your comfort zone. That's what makes you nervous. So let's take this journey together on what this risking is, what does it mean, and how we can do it. So as we go through this, I'm going to share with you a handful of things that we can take a look at, and really understanding risking, and really how to understand how to maximize your outcomes. So let's take a look a journey with this, I'm gonna go through, there's certain rules, lack of a better word, there's gonna be eight of them. Let me walk you through these, you should listen to this more than once, for sure. Some of these are going to mean different things for different people at different times of your professional career. So let's go through this when it's time to risk, it may be the time to pull out this list, read through it, and ask yourself, am I really ready to take the risks? So here they are.
Glenn Mattson
The first one to understand your risks and how to really maximize your outcome when it comes to risk taking. The first one is you got to really know the rules. All right, what does that mean? Right, you got to be able to understand what you are risking, you need to be really clear on what you're risking. Tunnel vision isn't very good. Sometimes when we have to rest we have to get ourselves up, look around and understand the bigger picture. So when we know the rules, for instance, do you understand that if something happens, therefore what's going to be the next piece of it, we have to know the rules of what's acceptable and not acceptable. We're going to have to understand how you can go to market or how you can't go to market. You must understand the rules of how to take a tap I mean, the rules of the road. Like for instance, when I was in college, and we had a our philosophy, one of my philosophy professors to our last final, and he was the most serious individual, never laughed, never made jokes. Almost like a computer. But he was very big on several things. One, always be on time. Two, be respectful. Three, read through everything before you actually take action. He was really big on that. Those were his kind of his rules. So in the final, sat down, he prepared everybody, took lot lot of copy tests and practice tests and sitting down with our peers and practicing. And it was a lot of time and energy. When we sat down, all he said was don't forget my rules. Passed out the exam. And he sat down. So I'm looking around the room, everyone's got their head down, and they are open up the first page and they're going at it. So I'm doing his rules, read through the first page, the second page, the third page, the fourth page. And the very last part of the test on the bottom, it said if you have read through this test, and you have not put any marks on the test, hand it in. So I'm looking around the room, trying to figure out what's going on. Looking to my left, looking to my right, and I've been staring at all the the individuals in the school in this class that are much smarter than me, gonna get much better grades than I am. And they are all now on their second page doing work. I look over at the teacher he has his head down. I'm stuck. I'm reading it over and over and over again. So I say out loud, know the rules. I see him look up. And I stare at him and he winks at me. I sit there for another 15 minutes, I get up and I leave. All I did was sign my name on it.
Glenn Mattson
So let me ask you a question when you're about to take, take risks. Do you actually understand and have a very clear picture of what's going on? Do you know the rules? Have you gone through it? Have you looked at all the information at your hands so that you can make the right decision by making an informed risk? That's the key. We just don't want to shoot off the hip. We want to make an informed decision. So number one, know the rules. Know what you're allowed to do, know the timing, no allow what you're not allowed to do. Pure understanding of what's expected of the outcome. Know the rules.
Glenn Mattson
Here comes number two. Number two is one that has helped me quite a bit my professional careers and it's not an easy one to do. It is, number two rule is, know your limitations. Know your limitations. Do you have a realistic view of your limitations with regards to what you're about to do? You know, self awareness and this has nothing to do with guts or courage or anything of that nature. Knowing your limitations is having the ability, really the self awareness tool that we need to really a marketable skill is having the ability to look at you, at yourself, as a third person. Look at your strengths. Look at your weaknesses, look at yourself as a tool. Look at yourself as a computer. Are your is your memory getting low? Is your battery getting low? How's your keyboards are they sticking, everything's going well, we are a tool. So we have to understand what our limitations are. So when we look at and understand the risk that we're about to take, you have to take stock inside of you in your skill set. You got to be objective at measuring your strengths and your weaknesses. And looking at the scenario you're in.
Glenn Mattson
Look you know when you're when you're water skiing in the first couple of minutes of waterskiing, especially when we were younger, and our boat wasn't strong enough to pull us up to plane which means when you're in the water, you're half in the water half out, your skis are up in the in the air, the line that pulls you up from the boat to your hand is between your skis and the boat goes and starts to pull you. And you're doing the best you can to feel like you're sitting in a chair in the water, with your skis against the the pressure of the water as the boat's pulling you. Planing is when there's enough momentum and enough pole that you stand up. But until that can happen, it's called sucking water. And if you could just picture it in your head for a moment the boats moving along, your skis are in front of you, the ropes between your legs and the water's, hitting the skis and creating a dome that goes up over your ski into your face. So as you're being pulled by the boat, you have all this water shooting in your face. And now at some point, you will be picked up, you'll be out of the water. So sometimes we have to suck some water before we can stand up on our skis. But you got to know your limitations. Don't ever be a cheerleader to yourself and give yourself more than you are but don't ever, ever discount yourself. You got to take stock in really knowing your limitations. Knowing what your strengths are, knowing what your weaknesses are, knowing where your comfort zone is, knowing that your ability to talk and do the things that you're about to do. Where are you on your skill sets? So the second rule to really understanding risks is knowing your limitations, having a realistic view of what you're really good at and what you're not good at.
Glenn Mattson
So the first real good rule is know your rules. The second is know your limitation. The third one I want to share with you. It's a little more esoteric, but it's not. It's about do not discount your gut feelings. It's really good to be intellectual in these scenarios. It's good to collect data on what's happening. But I will say I never want you to forget what your gut says. The gut message, the message that you get from your belly button is something that is a fantastic part of the equation is the fact that many of us have learned to discount our gut. Many of us have been taught to look at different points of data, not your gut. See, a lot of times our feelings are the sums of everything else. They're the sums of observations, there are sums of our history, past performances, memory, our emotions, it includes your reasons, it includes perceptions into it. So when you put all that together in a blender, shake it up. That's your gut. And intuition is an absolutely, unfortunately on strengthen and people don't use it or work on it or trying to develop it. But do not discount your gut system. You got to learn that if you feel something your belly buttons not right. A fair amount of that is because you have all these different pieces of the pie again, your memory, the history, outside places, and you're starting to put all these together and they may not be in a logical process, but your gut says something ain't right.
Glenn Mattson
You know, it's interesting. Handful years ago, I was lucky enough to watch this high school lacrosse team. And they were down by literally five or six goals with a minute and a half to go. And anyone who knows anything about sports, you might as well pack it up and go home. But sure enough, boom, they win a face off, they go down and score. They do it again, within seven seconds. They do it again within 11 seconds. So now they were down by five, and now we're down by two, that's not a minute and a half left, it's 35 seconds left, it is chaos. In the stands, everyone's going crazy. All the people that were on the winning team, were in the parking lot, getting their car, singing, you know, so long, so long. And here, they are now getting out of the car going back into the stadium. So all of a sudden, three seconds left in the game. Now we're in overtime. This is crazy. Everyone's going nuts. They've dropped this massive play. Everyone knows what to do with three seconds left in the game. This attackman decides he's in the corner of the box, he decides to come out and a first step he takes. He goes into a different direction on step two than what the play called for. He blew right by his guide. He took three steps, made a great shot, and they won the state championships. Absolutely epic. Place went crazy. The amazing thing is what scored the goal was not the planned was not all what happened was the attackman. As the play got set up, he started to get a feeling that if they went with that play, it wouldn't happen. He kept screaming in his head, you should do this, you should do this. And he believed and listened to his head, and he did it and it won.
Glenn Mattson
Don't discount your gut, if you want to maximize your risking. The fourth one I want to share with you. The fourth rule is confront your fears that may be holding you back. And what does that mean? Well, what that means is that if you want to take risks, you want to get better at risks, you want to maximize them. You got to really take some stock in what makes you afraid. What is your fear that's holding you back from letting go? You know, intellectually, it's the right thing to do, but you're still holding on to it. We have to confront our fears that are holding us back. Do you realize that when we're able to analyze and plan and execute a method to overcome those weaknesses, those fears that we have. It's an amazing thing that happens, Sandler always said, your greatest fear, if you work on it, your greatest fear will always become your greatest asset. So if you take a look at what are you most afraid of, instead of being and moving away from it, why wouldn't you move towards it? And if you move towards what you're afraid of, you start to work on it. As you start to work on it, the belief of I can't do this turns into I can do this. And I can do this builds confidence. And confidence creates the ability to take more risks.
Glenn Mattson
So this is for everyone listening in. If you're driving in your car, waking up early in the morning time, taking the train into the city. Wherever you may be doing, ask yourself, what are the fears that I have in the heart of my belly button that's holding me back from being my best version of myself? And start to learn how to let those things go. Even, even if you do it in timestamps, which what I mean by that is this. I remember a long time ago, one of my coaches said to me, hey, what are you afraid of? And I shared it with him and one was fear of rejection, for instance, he would say okay, I got it. Can you not be afraid tomorrow from 8am until 8:30, and then be a big pile of of mush afterwards? Can you not be afraid for one half hour? I said alright, I'll give it a shot. So as time goes on, I'm absolutely fearless for half an hour. So all of a sudden that 8:30 went to nine, then 9:30, then 10 and 11 and so on. I wasn't necessarily meaning that I was 100% ready to rock and roll, but a dimes notice, but I could give half an hour. And I did it a little bit each time. So you got to learn how to confront your fears.
Glenn Mattson
The next one I want to share with you is one of my favorites. So it's taking a look at worst case scenario. What's the worst case that's going to happen? What's just gonna look at it and can be very third person about it. What's the worst case that can happen? If you can live with the absolute worst nightmare that may come from this. The absolute most disastrous thing that could happen? And you're okay with it? Swing for the fence. Right? Look at it, you're never gonna go to Las Vegas, for instance, and gamble your last dollar. It's a worst case scenario. Worst case scenario making a telephone call, what is it? What's the worst case scenario of going to a networking meeting? What is it? Can you live with it, then go get it done. Worst case has helped me through tons of, of immobilizing fear.
Glenn Mattson
The sixth rule I want to share with you, which is really about use worst case scenario, that's number five, right? So number six is never risk more than you can afford to risk. Never risk more than you can afford to risk. You've all heard about a never risk more than you're willing to lose. If you can't handle the worst thing, you can't handle worst case, you got to walk away. Never ever risk more than you're willing or have the ability to lose. If you risk more than you can lose, that's called sacrificing. We do not want to sacrifice. Sacrificing is letting go of something of greater value to go towards something of less value. Risking is letting go to go towards greater value. So when it says never risk more than you can afford to risk, what that really means is you just don't, don't risk more than you can afford to lose. You gotta be really good and honest stock at that too. Because you don't want your negative critical parent popping in your head, telling you things that aren't accurate. That's why we gotta have a good gut system. And that's why we really got to understand and take a look at ourselves in terms of third person.
Glenn Mattson
The seventh one, this is the seventh rule you should be doing to really understand yourself. The next one is, and this is gonna sound odd, I guess. But you got to know when to quit. You got to understand that when you've exhausted every possible avenue, that it's time to go to plan B, cut your losses. Now, that does not mean that when you risk, you gotta realize, when you say I want to have a job, or I'm going to try a career, and you go take a risk at it, and you try something doesn't work out, you just have to pivot and keep moving. Risking doesn't mean you quit. Risking means that what you tried didn't happen the way you wanted to, so you got a pivot, and you keep making pivots. After a while if all those pivots aren't working, you got to know when to quit.
Glenn Mattson
There's a gentleman who is an absolutely insanely unbelievable basketball player, his name is Michael Jordan. Many would say he is the best basketball player. Yet, he tried for many years to play baseball. And he stopped playing basketball and dedicated himself to baseball. He practiced, he practiced, he practiced. He did everything that he knew how to do. But at the end of the day, he was not going to be a professional baseball player. So Michael had to make a decision that, alright, I'm not going to be a professional baseball player, I'll be I'll go back to being a professional basketball player. I know it's a little different scenario. But you do have to understand and get the piece in the back of your head of when is enough is enough. And that's a hard area and hard place to take a peek at. There's a lot of variations to it. But just realize that each time that you want to go someplace each time you want to go to the grocery store, each time you try something, it doesn't work out, you try it again. But if your objective is not something that can be reached, that's when you have to start asking yourself, maybe the end game isn't something that I'm going to get so I have to have you really know when to quit, which leads us to step number eight, which is a contingency plan.
Glenn Mattson
You've got to have Plan B. If this doesn't work and people like no, there's no way I'm going to even give myself the ability to say I may not make it because that's that's weakness. I don't think so at all. It's okay to give mental recognition to the possibility of failure. Right? But if you do fail, then it's failure at whatever level you're not going to have it at. What's your plan B? So we have to make sure that when we have a contingency plan, that as we're going into this, we're not being mentally foolish by saying I have no plan. I'm all in. If this doesn't work, I'm going to be bankrupt. So we want to balance dedication, fortitude, grit, right? All those things are great one liners of when you get knocked down and knocked down hard. And you're knocked down hard, you start to get a sense of who you are. You start to understand more about yourself. It's all the lessons we talked about in failure. But those individuals who have the ability, right, the famous people, you know, they're just ordinary people have extraordinary lives. They have very common issues of determination, fortitude, right, tenacity. That's the mental strength to resist hardship. What about self discipline? Is push yourself forward to take action when you don't want to. What happens about determination when you try to achieve something even when it's difficult? What about grit, you have obstacles and distractions and failure, you still move forward. All these emotional words, right, about mental toughness, grit, determination, fortitude, tenacity. Those are all words about individuals after they have taken risks. And after they've gotten results that didn't and weren't what they were hoping for.
Glenn Mattson
So risk taking is a phenomenal thing. And you get to really learn a ton about yourself when we take risks. But realize without risks, there is zero growth in life. So every time that you come up, and you feel uncomfortable, you're nervous, or you're feeling the anxiety, it's a good thing, lean into it. And as you're starting to take risks, ask yourself these rules. Do you actually know your limitations? Have you taken a good honest stock about your skill sets? Do you know the rules? Number three is don't discount your gut feeling. Number four is you got to really understand how to what are your fears and being honest about what they are, so you can deal with them. That will help you dramatically become better at risk taking. Never risk more than you're willing to risk. You got to use worst case scenarios. Those are two great rules. And when you're coming to the end, and you've tried everything in 17 different ways to get to the grocery store, and you're all done. You got to know when to quit. And that's having a contingency plan.
Glenn Mattson
So we're going to take a much deeper dive coming up with really what I would consider some great things that happened with emotional risking. And what are some of the outcomes that happen with risking. I think there's some great lessons that we can have from it. I'm going to go through those with you in a moment. So every time that you're ready to take a risk or thinking about risk taking, you got to know the rules and learn how to maximize it. And when it comes to risk taking it's quite easy. Every day is a risk. There is no such thing as a guarantee. Some risks are bigger than others and some are smaller than others. But learning to be a risk taker is great. You're done listening to this, you're gonna go to work, you're gonna go home, maybe gonna go to a friend's, you're gonna go someplace, just drive your car in a different direction you've done in the past. Small risks, people, they will build. Next Building Block of Success. Let's talk about the outcomes and the risks that we will take when we do emotional risk taking. Talk to you soon.
Glenn Mattson
This has been the Building Blocks of Success with Glenn Mattson.