[Music] hi Shannon Waller here and welcome to inside strategic coach with Dan Sullivan Dan we have been doing the inside strategic coach podcast really focusing in on scary times and your scary times success manual which is brilliant and Incredibly helpful for people and we've been doing what we call a deep dive I really love calling it that and today we're on number five forget about your difficulties and focus on progress and I think this is really appropriate because when we're recording this we're weeks in now to the covid-19 health scare and Global shutdown and there are difficulties and initial difficulties aside there's even some other ones that are emerging but you have a real perspective to focus in on progress so let's just jump into that why is it important to forget about your difficulties and to focus on progress well you have a choice I made in a previous podcast the difference between reacting which is emotional and responding which is a combination emotions and reason and experience and problem solving okay so it doesn't take any talent to react emotionally to bad news I mean it's not any more Talent than your heartbeating or you continuing to breathe you know it's it's just natural everything reacts but the big question is can you actually take the initial emotional impact and quickly transform it into positive and so I liken it in this particular strategy to muscles that you know people who are suddenly confronted with a physical challenge find out very very quickly whether their muscles have actually been trained to you know be strong enough and be capable enough to actually respond to the physical challenge well here it's not a physical challenge here it's emotional psychological strategic Challenge and the question is have you during normal times actually prepared yourself for that but even if you haven't I mean I feel that personally I was prepared for it but I was prepared for what I knew from previous scary times so you know I was 100% good if it repeated itself but every new scary times have a new something that you couldn't have prepared for I think the social distancing is the one that really is different about this one financial downturns and that you don't have social distancing if anything people hang out more together during that so there's been kind of a challenge to me that I had to be better than I had been previously one is in the normal times we had just had I had to be better than I had been before the pandemic started and then in the way that I successfully transformed previous scary times I had to be better this time there was new capabilities for me to be useful a lot of it has to do with the Mastery of the virtual platform so I look at it as sort of muscle building that probably in the first month or so of the pandemic I'm in training like I have to do extra calistenics and I have to put myself in position where I'm not comfortably I'm not comfortably capable but I have to be capable and that's the same thing as if you're experiencing a physical challenge you know where you're going to be painful and sore probably physically until you reach the level of toughness and fitness that are required for this situation so that's just a way of looking at we've all I think everybody who's prepared themselves for physical challenges kind of understands that this is a good model it's actually a good model for thinking about it it's a great model Dan and I really like how in our preparation document you talk about really training the muscles in your mind your spirit and your character and I think this particular set of circumstances that we're all doing to take care of ourselves and one another it really is testing some of those aspects of ourselves that we're frankly probably not used to having been tested in much more comfortable times can you speak to that for a moment well one is the First new piece of knowledge that everybody who's going through this experience which you know really includes pretty well everybody on the planet sooner or later the first piece of knowledge you get is who can you count on right that's the first thing immediately can I count on this person and my feeling is that there's three aspects of accountability in this situation one is do they have a mind that actually works do they have a brain that actually works and the other thing is are they optimistic or are they pessimistic are they encouraging or are they demoralizing you know as a person the other one do they have skills do they have skills that are actually useful in the situation and so I think if you're getting yourself in shape those are three exercises to make yourself better into a better person to rise to the new challenge as a choice I'm not one who said that people have a responsibility to be heroes or they're responsible to be useful I mean it's a choice whether you want to do it or not and the only person I can actually lay some sort of responsibility on is actually myself I can't ask other people but you know they do understand very very quickly that if they're not count honorable then I won't take them seriously I'll bu pass them I'm not going to give them a lecture I'm just going to bypass them you know I'm not out to correct other people's character correct their thing but I do want to find the ones who are account aable and create a new kind of teamwork out of it you got to size people up really quickly but you got to size yourself up are you someone that other people can count on and that I take a 100% responsibility for and it strikes me that if you do have practices or Habits Like physical on for example to strengthen yourself be it you know meditation or positive Focus we were talking about that before we started you know if you've done some preparation you already have some of that musculature so that you can then bring it to bear in a situation like this but if you really don't have anything ready then you know if responsibility means able to respond you're not very able to respond in this situation and you're you're going to be in that reactive I mean I just cracked up when you said it doesn't take any Talent to react it's totally true I mean that's just your default yeah well we have nerves and we react but in the first instance when you're shocked in that there's a great deal of understanding of why you would respond it but in a very short period of time we want people to transform the initial emotional hit and we want to see intelligence and we want to see teamwork behavior and we want to see real skills I think those three things in particular Dan we're not going to spend that much time on this but if we don't do this and you by the way have some phenomenal questions that people can ask themselves to help build up that mind spirit and character aspects of ourselves but where can people get trapped or get hooked and not focus on progress but instead focus on their difficulty what do you see with that the people that you bypass well the entire series here we have 10 strategies in the scary time uccess manual and the first one is you're going to get trapped in thinking about yourself rather than thinking about others you're going to be trapped in well you know I'm only useful in terms of what I do normally which is I have a product or a service and you can't expect me to be useful if I'm not selling my product or service well nobody's buying so you aren't useful so you've got to switch into a different gear here of usefulness and I think thirdly you know we're all selling something in life you know our time we're selling our skills we're selling but you know the market in scary times for what people want to purchase is radically changed it changes and you've got to be quick enough to know that it's not about you it's about what people are actually looking for so I think the biggest strap is you're seeing things only from your perspective you're not seeing it from other people's perspective and I think the difference between scary type Shannon and normal times is that you're penalized during normal times for being unself-aware but I think it's more subtle and I think it's over time that you're actually penalized and punished for seeing things only from your point of view but I think in scary times it happens real quick because people have limited time and they have limited tolerance for people who just don't show up that's really really true and the people who don't show up are also the ones who treat as though something's happening to them and it's unfair and that they're still bought into wanting things to get back to normal that kind of thinking doesn't help develop any of those muscles we're talking about if someone chooses to do that they're afraid to do so but they can't be on my team and people want to be on your team so that's good I try to have good teams yes yeah so let's jump into the questions because I think these are very very powerful provocative well they create action just by asking them of yourself so Dan your first question is what's your single biggest commitment and I think this is a great question to ask and I pretty sure I know where it came from yeah well the thing about here is there's in life period just life the progress is made by acquiring new capabilities and higher levels of confidence so we know that visibly we can see that someone has improved themselves because they are showing up with a greater capability and they are very very confident about that capability but there's two invisible steps to doing that to actually acquire the new capability and one of them is that you commit to improving yourself in a particular way and I would say in scary times you know I'm looking during this period of time to improve myself very fast and very impactfully in other words that what I do has a great impact using Virtual Technology because it's what's available right now we're still under lockdown orders and unless I'm skillful with virtual Technologies which you and I are doing right now then I'm not going to be useful at all and you know I said well I can't do what I do unless I've got a live group in front of me you know my business is live Workshop and live speeches and if I don't have a live Workshop well you know that's taken away from you so you have to go back so I had a commitment as fast as I could and continually is to get better and better at using Zoom you know which is just a terrific platform I mean I loved it before this but it's there's loving it and then seeing it as as Central as breathing it's this one technology that I think is going to be so crucial to individuals and groups and companies and organizations making fast turnarounds but the one thing is that I made a commitment the moment it happened I remember we made the decision we were in Chicago and on the plane ride home and I said well I'm going to get a lot better real fast with using zoom and I've noticed myself even this week I've done about five six things this week with zoom and I give myself a little checklists to make sure I do this when I come on and then I notice new little refinements sometimes big refinements that I can do before I do it again so I'm in a really great learning but I visualized how I would be operating and how I as quickly as possible I could be more specifically useful to our most important relationships which internally is our team and then externally our strategic coach entrepreneurs and I said I got to get a lot more useful so that's really what it was so I think everybody you have to say these are new conditions this is a new game you have some of the skills you have some of the capabilities you have some of the confidence so you know maximize what you already have but then you have to add some new capabilities and new confidence and that takes a commitment before you actually have them well and one of the things that's been so gratifying as we've been having some clients Zoom sessions which has been really really fun is everyone is so clear in their commitment to being useful to their clientele talk to someone this morning who say you know it's purpose ahead of profit right now it's just I want to go out and be useful to my clientele I mean he just put it really succinctly but I've heard it dozens and dozens of times already and that's their commitment and then the commitment drives everything else and they'll figure it out as they go they don't already have to have it figured out which I think is pretty profound and a very great aspect of entrepreneurs now I like your next Point Dan it's acknowledging the fact that you don't have everything already figured out and that some of the things you're going to be doing will take courage which means you have to dig a Little Deeper this is the character part yeah I'm in a leadership position as you are Shannon so my behavior and how I show up during this period of time is crucial to other people's sense of their own capabilities and certainly their confidence level so I can't show up without confidence you know so I've got to show up you know and I'm used to doing this you know over a course of three qus of a century you know in 75 years I've been put in a lot of situations in my life where you have to act courageously which means that you don't yet have the capability but you have to act effectively nevertheless whether you're feeling good about it or not I would say that I'm over the hump with that I mean since the first couple weeks in March I'm really over the hump with that but there were some sleepless nights waking up in the middle of the night worried about particular events coming up worrying about particular things I kind of calculated that you know just from previous situations in my life that would take two or three weeks and what I had to do is just relax and go with the flow and be directed by other people and just see what was the unique contribution that I could make that was just part of a lot of contributions that the team was making and I have to tell you I think I've jumped I feel very much that I've jumped and I can feel it probably this week more than the first month of the pandemic but I'm feeling I said you know I've kind of Hit the center of the capability that's needed right during this period could not agree more Dan the information you're putting out the knowledge the wisdom the perspective you're putting out has been so so valuable and such an anchor for people in what are very turbulent times so I love being part of these conversations and lots of people I mean the thing is that I can only have an impact on people that I actually know I can only have a known impact on people I actually know because you can converse with them so there's some demands I notic that certain people make demands that we sort of a cosmic we or a global we we have to do something in this situation and I said if the Wii doesn't have a email address you know I don't take it seriously you know and all my wi are known individuals and they're all in teamwork with me and they're in relationship with me so that's the scope that I look for I'm only being capable with the people that I actually know because they being capable with other people that I don't know so by you know being positive and being contributory to people I do know them I actually am affecting people Beyond myself but that's through other people that I actually do know well I think that's a really key point and we went into that a little bit in one of our previous conversations but it really means that your in your case coaching your perspective can be very precise it can be very accurate to that person as opposed to General generic which I'm finding not useful at all out in the world so when you really know who your audience is and pay attention to what their specific issues are you can be incredibly prescriptive and useful but if that generic we no thanks and I know that I my feathers get ruffled When someone tells me what to do if they don't actually know my circumstance so I appreciate your perspective yeah it's kind of like getting a sermon from a clergy person who doesn't believe in God you know it's my attitude towards it is you know just talk for yourself you don't have to talk for anyone else about yourself but it's not a question of what somebody else is doing it's really a question what I'm doing so I try to be as specific as possible in terms of what people actually have access to which they actually can take greater control of and actually to produce very very positive outcomes so what what's your most important new capability so your commitment is so you specifically list the three most important measurable ways that you can prove that you've become more capable I'm just adding up the list of compliments that I'm getting from my zoom performance and people say you're so cool you know you just seem so calm you're so relaxed you're cool you go stretches and then when you do talk you're very very insightful and everything else I said said that works that works that works you know so I'm checking off the list and I said you know I think I'm a lot better at this than I was month ago I think I'm really getting and that's important to me because I take other people's feedback you know I'm doing it for people who I believe in that I believe in what they say to me that it is true one of the things is to accept other people's insights during this period of time both where it's corrective they said you know it'd be better if you did things this way and I take that seriously and when they say you're doing this incredibly well well then I double down on it I get better at the things that people are telling me that I'm getting better at that's a really great Point Dan because I think people rebuff compliments they don't take it seriously and they tend a lot of people tend to take criticism far too seriously I think you have a really great balanced way of doing it so you take the corrective the way it's int ended but then also when someone says hey this really works well I like your doubling down idea it's not just okay do more of it you're like okay do way more of it because that's really working and giving that much credibility and Credence to your audience's input I think is something that's why I love having you as my coach and why so many other clients do too but you take it seriously and I think we could have a whole conversation about what you take seriously but I think that's an important enhancement for anyone looking to improve their capabilities to actually take the feedback seriously both what is working and what could be better because a lot of times we don't do that and then we don't improve when we don't understand why we're frustrated I think it's a lack of respect there's two things make sure you're working with the right people because you can have great capabilities but they're just wasted capabilities because you can provide them to other people but for whatever their reasons are they're not going to take them as valuable so you know in coaching entrepreneurs I said the number one thing you have to do to be effective is you got to make sure that you have the Right audience but if it's the right audience then the audience is always right in terms of their feedback both from the standpoint of Praise but also from the standpoint of Correction you know so I've got audiences that I think are completely right and therefore the feedback from those audiences as far as my contribution I said well whatever they say is right if they say it's good it's good and if they say it could be better then it could be better and that way I don't have to you know second guess second guess it's a lot simpler that the feedback is correct feedback so anyway I love that Dan just to recap if it's the right audience the audience is always right yeah which is a really nice upgrade to the customer is always right because we neither of us think that that's always true but with the Right audience the audience is always right so love that all right so let's go on to our next one where do you want a new higher confidence this is so there's two things here and oftentimes these get mixed up there's actually capability which is the ability to affect very positive change create new value create new Solutions create new improvements and these are measurable okay but there's the other thing is that you yourself are doing that new capability with a very high level of confidence and you're getting it confidence as a reward a lot of people think confidence is the means but confidence is actually the reward okay it's the capability that's the means so there's a separation here so what I pictured myself in this situation you know at the beginning of March and now we're going into the second week of April and this is 2020 so this is very dated this is you know historic world event so we can date it here but I'm feeling very very confident right now much higher than I did when we were just faced with a challenge of making some significant switches you know in how strategic coach operated backstage and also front stage and I'm feeling very very confident right now and this is kind of my reward for the commitment the courage and the work it took of making the muscles stronger I love it making that distinction Dan is really interesting capability is the means confidence is the reward so it's really the byproduct yeah then there's something else you can go to because you have the competence to commit at an even higher level and now you know five or six weeks in I'm saying oh I think we can make even bigger progress than I thought at the beginning you know which is going back to that higher level of commitment for the next time got yeah but I can only commit to the level that I have some confidence to make the commitment and now I've got a lot more confidence so I can make a bigger commitment and that would be more Improvement even greater capability I love it so before we get to our fifth question I want to just recap the first four questions so the first one is what's your single biggest commitment then what's going to require a period of courage and I love love that you don't step over that necessary point just recognizing that new things are a little scary and so that's courage is what's called for and then what's your most important new capability and where do you want a new higher level of confidence so Dan your final question here is who's the better you as a result of your scary times growth and this to me is so aspirational and so fun well there is going to be a point down the road you know time wise when there's a new normal and you know we don't have to self- quarantine and we can mingle and we can congregate and we can go back and be socially physically close to each other and what I'm seeing is because of the work that I'm doing during the scary times to increase my capability for things that are really crucial and important during scary times I'm going to get a big reward out of this because I won't lose this capability when the scary times is over so the progress I make that's going to require weightlifting that's going to require you know physical exercise I'm going to get a huge benefit out of this when the new normal times comes back and it'll be different from the the old normal times there's no return to where you were you're always going forward so I'm starting to appreciate the new Dan who's going to be you know fully operational when The New Normal takes as much growth as we had during scary times I think the growth is going to be faster and more powerful during normal times just because of what got achieved during the scary times you know what this reminds me of Dan is when we were in our all team company meeting via zoom and slow slow B on related a story of when he was training as a soccer player and they wanted to make them faster they would make them run with these kind of thick elastic bands around their legs which is really hard to run like attached to a fixed point so they had to run away from a wall or run from and it was hard and they felt slow and they felt heavy but the moment that the bands were taken up that story is the perfect story for what we're just saying here at number five and then as soon as the band's taken off bam you just go fast as the wind which I think is what we're all bu building I really like this context Dan because there are difficulties but we can look at it from the perspective of growing muscles growing new capabilities it requires a higher level of commitment and courage to develop those capabilities and confidence that we can actually come out better and we can come out with new strengths and new insights and new ways of being in our new normal because it's not going to be the old normal that's for sure and really going back to that whole thing about being able to respond creatively I think there's a huge payoff at the end of it so love these questions because they really instigate that thinking I think in everyone's heads which will help them just be much more effective today so thank you as always appreciate that thank you very much Shannon this is a very intriguing series that we're doing I mean this was created 20 years ago and here we are 20 years later going deep into something that for 20 years is just been four pages and now we're going into lawn periods a video audio and we have a book coming out of this so it's really interesting and it's been especially useful to communicate this so that other people get the benefit but it's been sort of the game plan that I've been following myself each of the strategies of scary times I've been taking them seriously on a daily basis of are you doing the thing that you're writing about are you doing the thing that you're discussing with Shannon is a really great check off list to see how to commit to being a better person but also having check off points that show you that you're following the right route to actually doing this and I appreciate the Teamwork because it inspires me every time we have this conversation to do exactly the same thing so as a check off as a checklist for yourself and for growth nothing better thank you Dan thank you Shannon