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Glenn Mattson
Welcome back to the Building Blocks of Success. What a great last couple of sessions, we've talked about failure, the lessons of failure, the anatomy of failure, and how you can use failure to really springboard yourself into success. If you really look at when we were children. You know, there's no way that any of us walking around planet Earth right now wouldn't be walking if we didn't learn from failure. As a young child, we learn from failure all the time. That's how we learn how to stand, run, write, etc. And all of a sudden, as time goes on, we become less and less comfortable with failure. So we've talked about that. We've talked about understanding the risks and how to maximize your outcomes with those.
Glenn Mattson
This session is really about what is going to occur, what can occur when you take risks, and then every time that you take a risk, there is a part of an outcome. And these outcomes are what we call emotional risking. And these are some of the things that you may expose yourself emotionally to when you risk. So this is a list of things that you may find are things that are happening internally inside your head, heart, and gut when you take a risk. And there's this list is not all encompassing, that doesn't include everybody. But when I read through this list, you may find yourself nodding your head more than you may think. So let's jump right into it.
Glenn Mattson
Now, these are the things again, that when you take a risk, you may be exposing yourself, you may be showing these things to others or to yourself. So let's get right into it. The first is, when you take risks, you expose yourself to fear. Now, when the unknown is involved, fear always accompanies it. So anytime you do something that you're not sure of, or you don't have confidence in the outcome, there's going to be some fear. Now, a lot of people look at fear as a as a negative. And quite honestly, fear is a fantastic has great upsides. It increases our sensibilities, it's the areas that we get even more aware of what's been going around in terms of surroundings. Honestly, fear is some of the things that made us survive years and years ago. So when you take an emotional stance in your risk, you're going to be having the capacity to be afraid.
Glenn Mattson
The second thing and every time you take a risk is you're exposing yourself to possibly being hurt. Every time you set yourself up for rejection, you're going to be vulnerable. Now when I say rejection is there's always two outcomes to every risk, what you were hoping for, and what you didn't want to have happen. And many of us, as we talked about in the past, look at that as failure and a success. But and we talk about it, but there is no failure, there's only lessons. But when you do take the risk, and it doesn't happen the way you want it to, you are setting yourself up to potentially be hurt. Now, the other thing about hurt that always surprises me is when you take risks is when you take a risk and you don't get it right. There's always those individuals that love to come over and share with you what you should have done, could have done, or a different way of doing it. It's called unsolicited criticism. You don't really need it, but they're gonna offer it anyways to you. So when you take these risks hurt is a possible outcome. When you get yourself into that position.
Glenn Mattson
Another risk that you're going to take besides fear, and hurt is anger. You attempt something, it doesn't happen at the way you want it to. You have that risk of feeling disappointed in anger, right? That's part of failure. So yes, you're going to have some anger, potentially as an outcome when you're taking risks.
Glenn Mattson
Now, the fourth one is one that I like. Now, when you take risks again and they don't happen, the outcome doesn't happen. And sometimes even when it does happen, you get the ability to take in stock within the world of your fear, hurt, and the anger and that's called experience. The next is growth is that when you're stung by your risk taking, when you choose not to take risks, when you're afraid to take risks, your growth is going to be impacted. So growth to me is one of the greatest things. It's like if you want to get stronger and better but you don't feed the plants, if you don't water them, you don't give them sun, they're just not going to grow. It's just it's impossible. So one of the things that you do risk by not taking risks is your own personal growth.
Glenn Mattson
The fifth risk that will happen is what we call imperfections. And what that means is that when you take risks, you're allowing yourself to have others see the imperfections inside of yourself, the small things that maybe you've done a hell of a job keeping quiet from everybody else. Some of us call this a reputation gap, when we are an older individual, more experienced individual, and we are with a younger crowd, we had it the other day, when we were doing some role playing. And this individual had to take a risk, it was one of them veteran people inside the room. But in their role plays, they were taking a risk, because they were going to expose to everybody in the room, they're not perfect, they're just like everybody else, they have issues. So that's a that's a that vulnerability is an emotional risk. So you're going to be vulnerable, you're going to put yourself out there. That's a risk. You learn a ton from yourself, when you do that, though.
Glenn Mattson
Another risk is being wrong. Look, every time you take a risk, you're you have a high possibility, or at least the possibility not a high possibility of being wrong. So you know, even sure things don't always happen the way they're supposed to. But you know what, learning, just from the possibility of being wrong, comes from great lessons. So risking should always be part of your equation. But without risking there is zero gain. So if you're going to risk, you're gonna raise your hand, you're gonna say something in a group of friends. Yeah, if you want to add value to the conversation, there is a risk. That risk could be is what you're saying and what you're adding value to is wrong. That's a possibility. For sure.
Glenn Mattson
One of the other chances on an emotional level when you take risks. As we start to look through this pile, is failure. It's called for what it is. So one of the outcomes of risk taking is failure, it's part of the human condition. To deny yourself that failure doesn't exist is not even remotely facing reality. You can't just put your head in the dirt and play music that makes you feel good. And think that if I get motivated, I'll get out of this. No, failure is a reality, it happens. So why are we so afraid of failure, when only some of the best lessons that we've ever learned about ourselves come from failure? Disney could never figure out why so many people were afraid of failure, because in his quest to have the movies and the entertainment company that he had, he failed miserably, miserably twice. I mean, just flat out, broke absolute misery. But that's where he learned how to make the right decisions next time. It's all a part about the parts of what you gain from taking risks. So failure, we talked about this last time, and I spent a lot of time on it now. But failure for some reason for so many of us is like our anti-magnet we go away from it's so often. And please don't misunderstand. I'm not asking you to be super excited about failure. But what I don't want you to be is afraid of failure. If you're afraid of failure, you're not going to take risks. So sometimes we have to ask ourselves, what's the worst case, right? Those are some of the rules, maximize your risk taking. So the more you fail, the better you're going to be at making decisions, the better you're making at decisions, the less you're going to fail. That's why Sandler keeps saying, and that's why that's our second rule of all the rules we have it's number two. To learn how to succeed you have to learn how to fail first. So one of the outcomes of emotional risking is failure. Not saying you should look for it, but never run away from it. Never run away from it. And any of your friends that mock you or laugh at you when you fail. Are they really your friends? No, obviously there's some people that may say a tongue in cheek, but what the ones that have malice intent? What are the ones that their comments are to make you feel bad? You realize that your mindset towards failure, do you realize your mindset toward risk taking mirrors who you hang out with? It mirrors it.
Glenn Mattson
They've had sayings forever about who you hang out with represent who you are. Or my grandfather. We're talking 45 years ago. Would say to us constantly, that says to us constantly, if you want to be an eagle, yes, it's outdated, but if you want to be an eagle, you can't hang out with a bunch of turkeys. Turkeys think like turkeys, turkeys act like turkeys, turkeys take risks like turkeys. Turkeys expect outcomes without the risk without the effort. You're never going to be an eagle; you're hanging out with turkeys. So when you're taking a look at risk taking, one of the outcomes, that's an emotional side of taking a risk is there is failure there.
Glenn Mattson
The other outcome of emotional risk that happens is the flip side of failure which is success. Now, I'm not talking about, hey, this is fantastic, the more you succeed, the stronger you are, the less you fail and success is awesome. No, what I'm talking about is when you take risks, part of that emotional side is the fear of success or success. And what I mean by that is, unfortunately, lots of us walking planet Earth have scripts in our head. And what that means it's almost like a roof on top of who you can be these these ropes that hold you down on how high you can grow. And who you can become. Whoever has the right to tell you what you can and can't do. So when you look at success, a lot of our success comes from head trash, or self-empowering beliefs. A lot of head trash that we have comes on top of us and is early communicated to us by our family growing up. I don't know about some of you, but my parents, blue collar, lovely individuals had all the love we ever wanted in the house. We had food, we had clothes, we had a roof of her house, but not much more. And I would always remember my parents telling me, hey, just because your friends have money, just because your friends are going on really nice vacations. Just because your friend's parents have really nice cars, doesn't mean they're happy. Just because you're wealthy doesn't mean that you're happy. And my parents would say that, that money doesn't make you happy because they didn't have any. And that's a script, that if you became successful, therefore you will not be happy. What's a lot of money to you, is a lot of money to you 30,000, 50,000, 80,000, 300,000, 30 million? What's a lot of money? A lot of money is dictated to you by your, historically, your parents and your friends. Do you realize you earn what you think is a lot of money and not anymore. Unless you believe that you're worth that.
Glenn Mattson
So success, how much you make, what companies you work for the jobs that you have, how much money you're supposed to have, how much you save, things that you're supposed to earn and have, how many of you, when you would come home with something nice that you've earned and you've put them goals down. And you wanted to get this as a recognition of all the hard work and stress and process you went through. And it was kind of your own reward. Maybe it was a car, it was something materialistic. But as you're sitting there about to buy it, did you hear something in your head like hey, who do you think you are? Think you're better than us? Think you deserve this? Be a big shot. Those are scripts in our head that are pulling us back from being successful. So when you take risks, some of the outcome is you're going to be successful. And when you start to become successful, you're going to put pressure inside of your family, the culture, potentially where you are and putting pressure on saying I can be better than those around me. When I say better, I mean being your best version of yourself and not allowing yourself to be less than who you can ultimately be just because those around you choose not to or can't. That's what I mean by you're emotionally risking. Part of it is the success.
Glenn Mattson
You realize that all the people that we coach and train and help with, when individuals start making more and more money, they start to becoming more and more successful, they start to have more and more things in their life. As sad as this is gonna sound in a podcast, but do you realize that as those people start to become more and more successful, they're not all, not always, but frequently, their friends will look at their success, and they mirror it as my failures. Instead of being happy for what I've done in the work world, instead of being happy for the results I've been getting for all the time and energy and effort I've been putting into my business, instead of being happy for me, what they see is, I'm succeeding, and they're not so therefore, subconsciously, they may take potshots. Hey, you too good for us to come out anymore on a Thursday night? How about the people when you're out and you're on a diet, and the person across from you says, hey, let's have dessert, we'll split it. I'll take half the cake; you take half the cake. And you've been really successful in your quest to get to where you want to be. It's a reflection on what they're not doing is what how they see it, versus a reflection of all the hard work that you're doing. So when we're success, part of the emotional risk taking is that there are many people that don't want us to be more successful than they are. And they're not gonna tell that to you, but they do in so many different ways.
Glenn Mattson
I remember I personally had some trials and tribulations over a car, one of the cars I bought at a certain time. And you know, in my mind, it was all the scripts. If I get this car, it's going to show everyone I'm successful, whatever the heck that means. I've wanted this car since I was a young kid. I've worked my tail off to get to the point where I could afford the car. But that script in my head of saying when I drive it home, and I drive to my parents house, not my house, my parents house to show them listen, listen what I got. What are they going to think? What the neighbors gonna think? Do they think that Glenn is Mr. Bigger, you know, big britches? Or are they going to be happy for you? And those that are happy for you are the ones that should be part of your circle. And those that are resentment shouldn't be. But don't be surprised when those people that have resentment are some of the closest ones to your family and your heart. So part of the risk and the emotional side, when you do take risk is when you actually succeed, and you start to succeed more and more and more and more. And as you're getting better. Again, it is a self-reflection to those around you that they're not changing, they're not getting better, they're not getting out of their comfort zones. So instead of being happy for you, they have a little bit of resentment towards you, because you're doing what they chose not to do.
Glenn Mattson
Another piece that's really big, when we take a look at failure and risking and how to maximize your risking. Besides success and failures, I'm gonna give you two more. This next one I want to share with you, it's called being on your own, it's risk number 11. And being on your own means that when you take a risk, and it does not happen, the outcome doesn't happen the way you want. And we talked about this and the mindset of living the lifeline when you make a decision, you gotta live with the outcome. You cannot blame outside forces. So one of the emotional risking, is that when you do take a risk and you get the outcome they're not expecting or want is you're on your own, you're on an island. And you have to be responsible for where you are. So when you're on your own, you know, you have to own what you did or didn't do to get you there. It's very tempting, very tempting, to externalize your problems. It's very tempting to your frustrations and your failures. It's super seductive to blame things on the outside. It's not me, it's the economy. It's not me, it was the weather. It's not me if my alarm didn't go off. It's the coach. It's my boss. We always blame outside forces for our failures rather than looking at the real issues. If you can look at their situation and assume responsibility, you are way on your way to solving the problems for today and for tomorrow. But when you make a mistake, when you have an error, when you have an outcome because you took a risk, and you don't own it, and you don't turn around and be responsible for it. One of the biggest issues, stop making excuses, own the decision, own the outcome.
Glenn Mattson
Another thing about being on your own, I want to talk about is, stop blaming other people for how you feel. This drives me nuts. Why would you turn around and say, you're embarrassing me? You made me feel terrible. No one can make you feel anything. No one can make you embarrassed, you chose to be embarrassed by their actions. They didn't do anything. So why would you blame other people for your feelings? So if you feel bad about something, that's your choice, they took an action and you interpret it and you made your decision to say that made me feel bad. No one has the ability to make you feel terrible or anything, you're responsible for your own feelings. So when it comes to risk taking part of the outcome is being on your own. When you make that decision, you got to own it. And that's being on your own. I love that one.
Glenn Mattson
Another outcome of emotional risk taking, which I really enjoy, we've gone through a lot right? Fear, hurt, anger, we've gone through with those, right, imperfections being wrong, for sure happens. Then we take a look at success, which is a big one, it's really a big one, and then failure. So failure and success are equally, side by side. Same amount of people fear failure as they do fear success. Always interesting because the people who fear success, don't fear what we consider any success. They just fear what they were considered success. And that's a very different ceiling for everybody.
Glenn Mattson
Now, the last one I want to share with you is one that has helped me personally through many, many scenarios. Have to remember when I first got started in my business, I was young, I moved to a state that didn't know anybody, I was selling something that very few people would pay for, but everyone needed. I had the ability to blame a lot of stuff if I was not successful. Economy, my manager not being around, but one of the things that helped me through a lot of years in the beginning, especially since I was in commissioned sales, which means that I didn't get a salary. If I didn't do my behavior, and I didn't see somebody and I didn't sell something, I didn't pay my bills. If I didn't go out and hustle and prospect and qualify and grow, I wasn't gonna have the capacity to put food on my table for my kids. So this one liner really helped me dramatically in my quest to be my best version of myself. And maybe you can relate to this one. But again, I grew up in a blue collar household. Lots of love, there was food, who has, you know, a roof over our head, our vacations were camping, not going to Jamaica, not going skiing, right? Camping. So we had everything that we needed, just on a different scale. In this fourth, this one I want to share with you right now, this potential area, this thing that you're going to be risking when you do take risks. This is an emotional risk. It's called being poor. I'm gonna say it to you three times and love for you to write it down. It's really important about a lot of different areas of your life.
Glenn Mattson
Being poor is a state of mind, while being broke is a condition. Being poor is a state of mind while being broke is a condition. We employ language, habits. We do things, we exhibit activities, in lack of actions, that we have a poverty mentality. A poverty mentality is never going to get you to be successful. A poverty mentality is one of those areas that you will not find yourself taking risks because of it. Now, when I talk about being poor, versus being broke, being broke is a condition. That means that if I don't have any money coming in this month, that is a condition. If I allow that to impact my state of mind, if I allow that to impact my ability to take action, if I allow the fact that I have not done my behavior, if I have not done the things that I was supposed to do to fill my calendar, and because of that I have no money. First of all, I gotta be in an island and say, look, what I didn't do, look where I am. Yes, I'm going to be afraid, yes, I'm going to be angered that I didn't do it, I'm afraid that because of it, what's going to happen? All that will happen. But at the end of the day, if I believe I'm poor, I will get immobilized. If I believe I'm in a condition of being broke, that's a condition. A condition can be worked out of. A condition can be addressed; a condition can be changed. If I prospect, I fill my calendar, I will see people, I will not be broke. That's a condition. Being poor is a state of mind. So ask yourself as you're taking risks, and especially if you're in the environment, where you're in commissionable sales, there's lots of us out there. Man, I love every single one of you, because you're out there without a tight rope. It's a very different way of selling than if you sell on a base plus bonus. If you are commissions, if you are looking at your pipeline, if you are listening to this, it's the end of the year, and you're looking yourself saying I did not do A, B and C, therefore I'm in a bad spot. Yep. But that bad spot is fixable. That bad spot, you already got yourself into it. Now the question is, what are you going to do to get yourself out of it? If you act like you're poor, state of mind, you will do nothing. If you understand that you're in a condition, an action brakes paralysis. Which means that you're just in a condition and your behavior and your mentality will get you out of it.
Glenn Mattson
So when we're out there taking risks, we have to ask ourselves, how are we acting? What is the things that may be holding us back from taking more risks? What are the things that you should purposely start to do as you're taking these risks? See, one of the things that's interesting, and I have found with successful people, as they do have a high confidence in themselves. And confidence is the belief that I can do it. And you know, how they get the belief of I can do it is because they practiced it, and practiced it until they have the conviction, I can do this. And by the way, the reason they practice and practice and practice so much. So they had that confidence is because they believe that if I screw it up here, and the more I screw it up, the faster I'm going to get it right. So what's interesting about this little tip, and I want to share this with you, and I hope you listen to this part 5, 6, 7 times and you write it down and you do it, as it works.
Glenn Mattson
One of the things I'd like you to do from a risk-taking standpoint is make a commitment to yourself to take any activity, it could be get up at 6am tomorrow. It could be is don't have sugar in my coffee. It could be dial the phone 50 times. Could be ask for a referral. Whatever you decide that you're going to make a commitment to, this is important, people the high self-confidence. They make commitments to themselves, and they stick to it. They don't let themselves down. So that make a commitment, whatever it is, make a commitment, today, when you're listening to this podcast. Make a commitment in the next five seconds and then do it. Now, here's the key thing. When you do it, you need to say to yourself, Glenn, you just made 50 dials when you were afraid to and you did it anyways, you did it. Hey Glenn, you wanted to sleep in because you were tired, but look at you, you're walking across the kitchen floor right now, you're being your best version from yourself. Heck, you can even say how many people would have gotten up? How many people would have done what I just did? We know that 80 some odd percent of individuals stop all their, you know their new year resolutions by February.
Glenn Mattson
So when you do something, and you make a choice, to better yourself, it is not a bad idea. As a matter of fact, it's a great idea to reconfirm that decision in your head. You need your child and your parent inside your head to hear the fact that you made the choice. And by making the choice, you did the activity. And I'm not even concerned about what happens afterwards. I don't even care if the activity was to dial the phone 30 times, and you got zero appointments. That's not the point. The point is you are terrified of doing it, you made the commitment to make the dials, and then you made them. You should walk around, like you just won the lotto. That is fantastic. You have to say to yourself, I made the dials, I pushed through my fear. You have to stroke yourself on what you did well. It's one of the great easiest ways to build confidence and confidence is what individuals need to increase their ability to learn from failure and to take risks.
Glenn Mattson
We have a great podcast, we went through a whole bunch of stuff so far. And we the these are really the building blocks and fundamentals of making sure your head, heart, and gut is strong. Without having your head, heart, and gut strong, it's gonna be very difficult to follow through on the next phase of the Building Blocks of Success, which is behavior. As we are taking a look at goals, taking a look at motivation, taking a look at discipline, taking a look at the things that we need to have, so that we can be behaviorally stronger. We've spent quite a bit of time talking about the attitude under the success triangle. Remember, the success triangle is attitude, behavior and technique. Congruency is key. You can't have a plan that calls for you to do X, yet your mind isn't behind it, then you choose not to do it. And then you make excuses on why you didn't do it. So congruency between attitude, behavior and technique is key.
Glenn Mattson
Don't forget the issues about risk taking. The act is so much more important than the results in the beginning. Believe in yourself, take risks. As you take risks, you're going to find out that your head doesn't blow up, the world doesn't fall apart. Worst case scenario often very rarely happens. And you can start to build more and more confidence encouraged that comes with it.
Glenn Mattson
Next time we get together we're going to be talking about the behavioral side of the building blocks of success. Remember, every day, ask yourself three simple questions. What could I have done better today? What could I have done differently today? And what could I have done more today? Instead of asking yourself and beating yourself up on what you didn't do, focus on your areas for improvement. Talk to you soon.
Glenn Mattson
This is the Building Blocks of Success with Glenn Mattson.