August 2, 2023 • 32 mins
Ready to flip your perception of sales on its head? Join me and best-selling author Bob Berg as we crack open the secrets of successful selling, uncovering how a 'giving' mindset not only enriches your business relationships but also boosts your bottom line. You'll hear how Bob's 35-year journey teaching and practicing the principles of giving has shaped his perspective on sales - not as a transactional, but rather a value-based, relationship-driven process.
Let's delve into the essence of providing value in sales. Learn how focusing on your client's interests instead of your own not only fosters an environment of trust but also makes you irresistibly attractive for them to do business with. Bob and I pull back the curtain on the invisible connection between faith, money, and sales techniques. We help you understand why shifting attention from 'getting' to 'giving' is not just an ethical move, but a practical and effective sales strategy.
But we don't stop there. This episode also offers insights into leadership and character development, teaching you how to listen to your customers and focus on what truly matters to them. You'll also pick up tips on self-improvement and personal growth, as Bob and I look at how self-evaluation and mitigation of weaknesses can lead to personal and professional advancement. Tune in and be inspired by the teachings of Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius, and see how his wisdom can apply to your business and leadership style. The paradigm shift from getting to giving in sales can be your game changer - will you embrace it?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, everybody, welcome to another episode of
the Stoic Agent podcast.
Hyper excited here.
The guests keep getting coolerand bigger and better, even
though he's this going to be ahumble man.
Right here I've got Bob Berg,the author of the Go-Giver, and
the Go-Giver sells more and alot of other things you do, I
know masterminds and do somecoaching and all that.
(00:20):
So welcome to the podcast, Bob.
Thanks, Alex, Great to be withyou.
Yeah, man, Absolutely Well,let's dive right in.
Let's just so.
If the audience doesn't knowwho you are, why don't you talk
to them?
Kind of give yourself a littlebit of background here and why
they might want to listen to you.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Well, whether they want to listen to me or not, I
don't that I can't, that I haveno control over.
So I'll be like the Stoics inthat way and control only what I
can control and not what Ican't.
So but yeah, I've been sort ofdoing this for about 35 years
Now.
I started out in broadcasting,then sales and and learned sales
and began sharing with otherswhat worked for me and for for
(00:57):
those.
I taught and started writingbooks and speaking on the the
issue.
My first book was Analysts,referrals, networker, everyday
Contacts into Sales, which Ithink a good friend of ours, our
mutual friend Dennis G, and itfirst read many years ago and he
and I became friends after that.
And then a book I co-authoredwith John David Mann called the
(01:20):
Go-Giver came out about 15 yearsago or so and that's that's
been the kind of the biggiesince then.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
So when when I think I think that a lot of what you
do within the Go-Giver and and Iread the Go-Giver back in,
dennis introduced me to it andyou know it really comes from a
place of service, and youmentioned Offset here talking
about Marcus Aurelius and youknow one of the, I think that
things that made him such agreat leader.
(01:49):
There was a lot of things thatmade him a great leader, but you
know there was the Antonineplague, which actually went
through Rome A lot of peopledon't realize this and killed
countless millions of people andduring that plague he actually
sold all of the jewels and theyactually sold his wife's jewels
and the furniture and everythingon the lawn of the of you know
(02:11):
the kingdom there and so youknow that place of coming to
give to the community, would yousay that is kind of a
cornerstone around yourphilosophy.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yeah, I mean really the.
The basic premise, excuse me, ofthe Go-Giver philosophy, if you
will, is that shifting yourfocus from getting to give and
when we say giving in thiscontext, excuse me, we simply
mean constantly and consistentlyproviding immense value to
(02:43):
others, understanding that doingso is not only a more
fulfilling way of conductingbusiness, it's it's the most
financially profitable way aswell.
And not pretty kind of woo-woo,way out there magical, mystical
type of reasons, but really forfor reasons that, as the Stoics
(03:04):
understood, tied in with withhuman nature.
When you're that person, who,who can take your focus off of
yourself and place it on servingothers, discovering what they
need, what they want, what theydesire, when you can move your
focus off of yourself to helpingothers solve and overcome their
(03:25):
challenges and problems right,when you can, when you can take
the focus off yourself and makeit about bringing others closer
to happiness, well, people feelgood about you, they feel great
about you, they want to get toknow you, they like you, they
trust you, they want to be inrelationship with you, they want
to do business with you, theywant to tell others about you,
(03:51):
they want to be your personalwalking ambassador, and so, so
that's really what it's about.
You do it from a true,authentic heart of wanting to
give value to others, and youalso allow yourselves to receive
the benefits that come back toyou.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Do you think that there's some friction in the
mind of that sales is?
I've got to figure out how tomanipulate people to buy what I
want them to buy, and how dopeople kind of get through that?
Because what you're talkingabout is to give I mean, it is
the go-giver so to give and addvalue, and I think that people
get a little hitched up withthat.
(04:31):
They hear about sales and Idon't want to be salesy.
What is that you think thatgoes on in the human mind that
holds people back from beinggood salespeople?
Well, when people say theydon't want to be salesy, or
they'll specifically say youknow, I don't like selling it.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
It's not that they don't like selling, it's that
they don't like what they thinkselling is.
Because, let's face it, mostpeople have a Misperception
around sales.
They think selling is abouttrying to convince someone to
Buy something they don't want oror need, and that, of course,
is not selling.
(05:13):
That's called being a Conartist, right so, and I don't
think any of us would want to dothat.
So if that's what we thoughtselling was, well, of course we
wouldn't want to do it.
Yeah, the old English rude ofthe word sell, salan, meant to
give.
So when you're get, when you'reselling, you're literally
(05:36):
Giving.
Now someone might say well, youknow, berg, that's clever on
everything, but isn't that justsemantics, selling giving?
Well, what are you reallygiving when you're selling?
Well, let's say you're in thePresentation process, you're in
front of a prospective customeror client, you are selling.
So what are you giving?
I suggest you're giving themtime, attention, counsel,
(05:58):
education, empathy and, mostly,extraordinary value, value.
So when we look at selling thatway, through that lens now, we
see it as something verydifferent and it's something we
could absolutely Grab on to andbe proud of hmm, I love that.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
so do you think that there's also a sense of
Sometimes that there's a not,there's a delayed gratification
and that people haven't quitemade that connection?
So they want to present youwith a product and you sell, and
they get paid, and they justthey they're not used to like a
delayed or even let me ask youthis To shift that the dopamine
(06:41):
comes from actually givingrather than getting a hundred.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
That's a great way to look at it, and when we can,
and when we can get that joyfrom actually giving value to
others, that's a wonderful thing.
But I would say to somebody,even if you don't feel that way
right now, take that actionanyway.
Why?
Because and let's go back for asecond when you talked about
(07:05):
delayed gratification and one ofthe premises, or False premises
that someone might haveregarding the go-giver way of
doing business as well you knowthis go-giver stuff focusing on
the other person, focusing onvalue, rather than focusing on
the commission.
That's fine Once I have themoney, sure, but I mean I, I
(07:26):
need the money right now, Ican't wait.
Well, let's first understandsomething, and this is very
important Nobody is gonna buyfrom you Because you need the
money.
They're not gonna buy from youbecause you have a quota to meet
.
And they're not gonna buy fromyou just because you're a really
nice human being.
They're gonna buy from youbecause they believe that
(07:47):
ultimately they will be, theywill benefit.
Yeah right, it'll be better forthem to buy from you than not
to buy from.
That's the only reason, right?
So when we understand that nowwe know that it's actually in
the sales person's best interestTo place their focus on the
other person.
Now, what happens when we dothat and we make that shift?
(08:13):
Well, first of all, there's nobetter way to Create that
environment where that personfeels good about you, where they
know you, like you trust, youfeel confident in you, want to
do business with you.
Then, by trying to benefit them, riding value to them.
Once, this person who didn'tunderstand this previously, once
(08:33):
they get that Now, not only dothey, they see a much better
business results and a lot moremoney that they're earning, but
they actually do begin to feelgood about the process itself
and about the value they'reproviding.
Hmm, I love that.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
One of the things that came up when you were
talking about this and so it'smaking that shift.
Would you say that they're so?
You're offering something herethat you know works, whether
people believe it does or not.
That's another story.
Let's just say that they'rekind of stepping into this
potentiality when how do theyderive some faith?
(09:13):
Because, essentially, faith isbelieving in something that you
can't touch, in a way, right,how do they derive some of that
faith?
Do you think there's somewisdom of learning from Bob, of
learning from some of the othersthat have given and Talk to us
about that of like?
How do they make thatconnection when they are like,
yeah, yeah, bob, I need themoney, though, so I don't care
(09:33):
what you say, I need to learnsome fancy sales techniques.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Well, first of all, there's nothing wrong with sales
techniques.
Sales techniques are fine ifthey are benefiting the other
person.
If they need to learnmanipulation techniques, then I
want nothing to do with themlearning anything from me.
Now, the good news is, youdon't have to manipulate in
(09:58):
order to have a great salescareer.
Now, by the way, I mean, if you, if someone's gonna lie, cheat
and steal, you might be able tomake a sale, but you're probably
not gonna do very well inbusiness sustainably, okay, so I
just I put that out of the.
You know, out of the.
Not only does it feel yucky,but even it doesn't.
It's just bad business.
Okay, you can actually do muchbetter by looking for ways to
(10:21):
benefit others, but there'snothing self-sacrificial about
this.
Let's always go, then, for theperson who kind of doesn't
believe it, let's go back To thebasic statement that they're
not gonna buy from you becauseyou need the money.
If that's so and I thinkeveryone would agree, everyone
in sales would agree that soright, then it just makes
(10:43):
logical sense that you've got togive them a reason to see the
benefit of doing business withyou, and that's because they see
the value in it.
There's also no faith thatneeds to come into play, because
what John and I have shared inthis book is nothing new
whatsoever.
So long as, as long as there'sbeen market economies, these are
(11:07):
the people who have done thebest and sustainably so in sales
, and I'll say this by and largeit's it's quicker to do it this
way than to try to manipulateyourself and, you know, trying
to manipulate others rather andtry to just.
You know, no, if you find a wayto bring value to another
person, you're much more likelyfor this sale to take place.
(11:29):
So there's really nothing.
There's nothing that needs tobe proven because it's already
been proved Again.
In other words, there's nothingoriginal in what John and I
have, you know, have talkedabout.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Well, let's go back to that.
And did you?
How did you come across this?
So you know, you wrote this.
You know the first book of, youknow endless sales referrals.
Where did you stumble acrossthis?
Or was this part of yourupbringing?
Where did this come from?
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Ah, I mean, I studied sales.
When I got into sales I reallystudied it and kind of learned
what the challenge I had wasthat, although I don't seem like
an introvert, I actually verymuch am.
So I never really enjoyed thegoing to places to meet people.
Prospecting was not something Ienjoyed.
(12:20):
So what I had to do was come upwith a system that made the
prospecting process enjoyable,and what I found made it
enjoyable was when I couldrelate to people in a way that
they did the talking and that Iknew that they enjoyed the
conversation as much as I did,you know.
(12:42):
So my endless referral systemwas basically on how to
cultivate those relationships.
You know, I've been saying for35 years, since I've been doing
this, that, all things beingequal, people will do business
with and refer business to thosepeople they know, like and
trust.
Well, you know what's thefastest, most powerful, most
(13:03):
effective way to elicit thosefeelings Focus on the other
person, make it about them.
That's easy for an introvert todo, because we'd rather, you
know the other person do thetalking.
It's toughest for that personwho is the you know, the
extrovert.
I know they can do it, but theyneed to be able to pull
themselves back and make itabout the other person.
(13:25):
As far as with the Go-Giverwhich is because, you know,
while endless referrals isprinciple based, there's a lot
of strategy there.
With the Go-Giver and theseveral books in the series John
and I have written, it's muchmore conceptual so that you get
(13:45):
the five laws, the lots of value, compensation, influence,
authenticity, receptivity.
How do they work?
Why do they work?
How does it align with humannature, which is the most
important aspect of all, andJohn and I both have been
entrepreneurs.
John and I have both studiedsuccess for years.
He has a writer, has gotten tointerview some of the most
(14:08):
successful people in the world.
As a speaker Excuse me I'vegotten to share the platform
with some of the most successfulpeople in the world.
I ask a lot of questions and Ilove learning from everybody.
Plus, he and I both read lotsof biographies and lots of
history and a lot right.
So when we came together to dothis, it was very natural.
I mean, we just kind of said OK, so what are those things that
(14:32):
all sustainably successfulpeople did?
It wasn't a matter of did theymake a quick buck?
And that was it.
Where they want to hit wonders,or where they, you know, what
have you?
What is it that the sustainablysuccessful people did, whether
they realized it or not, becausea lot of people do things
intuitively and they don't evenknow that's what they're doing.
(14:54):
They just they have that knackfor it or just you know, for
whatever reason.
So we wanted to know what is itthat they?
And we just discussed it and wetalked about it as we did.
The laws, kind of built uponthemselves, you know, always
starts with that person who canfocus on others and look to
provide value, always startswith what is value.
Value is the relative worth ordesirability of a thing, of some
(15:19):
thing, to the end user orbeholder.
In other words, what is itabout this thing, this product,
service concept, idea, what haveyou that brings so much worth
or value to another human beingthat they will willingly
exchange their money for it?
Ok, that's different from price.
Price is a dollar figure, right?
So it's the dollar amount.
(15:40):
Value is different Valuesrelative.
It's in the eyes of the beholder, so that person who understands
how to discover from that other, realizing that we all value
different things in differentways because we have different
ways of seeing the world, ofunderstanding the world.
We all come from our own set ofbeliefs right, which has been
(16:03):
which were handed to us, whichis a combination of upbringing,
environment, schooling, news,media, television shows.
But you know, from the timewe're really young, we get hit
with this set of beliefs longbefore we're able to question
premises right and ask why.
So we grow up as human beingsand we are subject to an
(16:30):
unconscious operating system, ifyou will.
We don't even know we have itand we make all these decisions
thinking it's based on free will, when really it's within a
matrix of people, if youremember that first movie where
we don't even know that we're.
And so what the great failedperson knows is that what we
(16:51):
find to be a value is notnecessarily what someone else
does.
So they know how to askquestions and they know how to
listen, and they know how to digdeeper and really, really know
that they're going to decidewhat that other person holds to
be a value, what they need, whatthey want, what they desire
(17:11):
right, and only then connect thebenefits of their product or
service.
Whether you know, you speakwith a lot of realtors.
So, whether it's, you know,enlist in a home or buying a
home or whatever it happens tobe right.
They're going to know that.
They know what this otherperson is thinking, not assume
anything.
So you know that's.
That's really.
(17:31):
You know a big part of whatit's about.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
You know, something you said there sparked in me.
I don't know if you've everread the seven powers of
questions.
You know I'm kind of connectingsome dots here and Do you think
part of the value add tosomeone is holding a space and
asking genuine questions?
Rather, I've really tried toimpart on the Agents that have
(17:57):
aligned with me that you knowasking the right questions is
critical and and really activelylistening, not just waiting for
your time to talk.
Well, that's key.
Talk about that a little bit,about.
What do you think about thepower of questions and the value
that you add to someone's lifeJust by holding space and being
interested in and what'svaluable to me?
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Well, I love what you said about listening.
It's it's as you said, it's notlistening just to respond,
right, it's, it's listening as,as dr Stephen Cummy said, to
first understand, very important.
And so we, we don't listen justwith and John and I talk about
this in the fourth book in theseries, the doggiever influencer
it's not listening With your,just with your ears.
(18:41):
You know, that's the surfacelistening.
It's a good start, but that'sjust a surface listening.
It's listening with your eyes,it's listening With your, with
your body, with your posture.
It's an and John says this, Ilove this that he came up with
it's listening with the back ofyour neck and and what he's,
what he's saying is it's puttingyour entire being Into
(19:04):
listening to what this personsaying and then again at what's.
What's very important, I think,in the the listening process,
the questioning and listeningprocess, is to not assume that
we understand what they mean bywhat they say, because, remember
, we all come at things from ourown set of beliefs, including
definitions, and so so we needto be able to tactfully and
(19:28):
diplomatically ask that personto clarify.
You know, just for my ownunderstanding, when you say x Do
you mean?
Or what do you mean by, orcould you take that a little
further for me, so that I youknow in that that's very
important.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Yeah, it, and I love that.
I live that listening with theback of your neck.
So I was getting genuinelybecause people can tell right
when you're kind of feigninginterest, you know, is that what
that kind of means, like youreally just from that very
essence from back here, ratherthan just so, yeah, yeah, I'm
(20:06):
really here like my whole bodyis engaged in and what you're
saying, because I want to know,I Genuinely want to know well,
you know, alex, two thingshappen, I think, when you listen
with the back of your neckright.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
One is you really do Understand a lot more than you
would have, okay, so you areable to take in and receive a
whole lot more information.
That's gonna help you not onlyadd value to their life, but
communicate effectively,communicate that value.
The other thing is, as you said, they know you're listening
right and it's just another.
That's again, it's anotheraspect of human nature.
(20:40):
We want to know that personcares, that they have our
well-being at heart, that theywant to understand us.
So when we listen like that,what we're really doing is is
Expanding the depth of thatrelationship.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
And when and when you're listening in there,
you're also there's differentparts to what people are selling
.
For instance, you know let'stalk about homes here because we
sell homes, right.
So You're really listening towhat's important to them about
the home and then you're notgoing to talk about the other
(21:21):
things that you think areImportant about home ownership.
You're really just gonna honein, not to sell them.
That's what they want to talkabout.
That's what's important.
Is that what you're?
That's what you're talkingabout.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Well, I think there's a time and place for everything
.
So, yes, you know you, you needto be with them where they are
at this moment and what they'relooking to discuss now.
There's certain aspects you'vegot to be able to bring into the
conversation, obviously as anagent, in order to help them,
that they don't know, becauseyou know the process much more
than they do.
But but and you are there asthe salesperson, as the agent,
you are the leader, and soyou've got to be able to to
(21:56):
attain their buy-in.
But you do that Through, justas you said, you know, being
with them where they are at thatmoment.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Hmm, look, I love that you brought up leadership.
That's the concept that I justabsolutely adore.
You know, I heard somebody sayonce in order to lead others, we
need to lead ourselves first.
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
It's weren't the store.
It's all about that, more thananything, right.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Yeah, personal responsibility.
Um, could you talk about that,like what leadership means
within the concept of, withinthe, with the context of leading
yourself?
And there come, like maybe youcould dive into a little bit of
self-awareness around that aswell.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Well, I you know, in a sense and I'll just take from
one of the books on the series,the go-giver leader, aunt Al,
was the, was the Mentor in thispart, and she said to Ben, who
was the protege you know whatyou have to to give To, what you
have to offer.
She said you give, yeah, leastof all through what you say.
(23:04):
Now, that's what you say isimportant.
We need to be able to saythings the right way and and we
need to be able to say the rightthings, of course, but it's the
least important.
More important is what you do,but most important is who you
are, and that's where charactercomes into play.
Character comes from an oldGreek word meaning scrape or or
(23:28):
scratch.
It came to mean an engravedmarque and eventually a defining
quality.
Now, with one word of waxpoetic, one could say that
characters, what happens whenlife etches or scratches itself
onto your soul, which is verypoetic, of course, that's John
saying, because he's so greatlike that.
(23:48):
But I'm not as poetic I.
I, like You're defining qualityright to me.
That's your, your, yourdefining quality, which is some
total of all your qualities.
Your defining quality is yourcharacter.
It's interesting about peoplewith high character because Not
(24:13):
only do they tend to stand forsomething, but we tend to know
exactly where they, where theystand.
Now, that doesn't mean theydon't make mistakes, of course
they do, they're human.
It doesn't mean they don'tCourse correct.
You know, certainly they, theydo, but you know when it, when
(24:36):
it comes to those Values baseddecisions, they are absolutely
immovable, immutable and andjust right, there, you know,
right, you know exactly wherethey stand, and that's one
reason why we respect thosepeople so much and will follow
(24:59):
them, that they have highcharacter.
We develop high characterthrough our own self-improvement
.
We look at those areas where weneed to work.
Now I think there you knowpeople.
There's.
There's an old saying that youknow, forget about your
weaknesses, just focus on yourstrengths.
(25:21):
I Don't think that's a completesaying.
I understand what people meanwhen they say that.
You know you want to, to focuswhat you're good at.
You know, focus on yourstrengths, lead with your
strengths, try to.
You know, hire out yourweaknesses or try to.
That's fine, but I think thereare three types of weaknesses.
There are the weaknesses thatAre pretty meaningless and we
(25:45):
don't have to worry about.
I Mean, you know, I don't runlong distance as well.
That's a weakness of mine, butit's 65 years old with no plans
to run a marathon.
I'll let that weakness go.
Don't care, I don't file thingswell, don't have the patience,
I hire that out.
That's a weakness that I can.
You know what I'm saying.
Okay, then there are theweaknesses we need to mitigate.
(26:06):
We don't have to focus on them,but we need to mitigate them so
, so, for example, when it comesto numbers and and accounting
and bookkeeping things, that'snot a strength of mine, but I
couldn't just let that go.
When I did early in my careercame back to haunt me, so I
(26:28):
needed to mitigate that.
I needed to learn enough thatit was workable for me.
Right?
You know what I'm saying andand that's fine, so we know they
do with you what was?
I'll never be confused with a,with a CPA, but at the same time
, you know it's it's a mitigatedweakness and I'm okay.
Then there are those weaknesseswe need to turn into strengths
(26:49):
if we're going to Come anywhereclose to to realizing our
potential and being moreeffective.
These would be things that youknow.
For example, someone who hasanger issues.
Okay, they need to be able to,now that you know there's.
(27:10):
There's righteous anger, butthat's not what I'm talking
about.
I think you know they'rerighteous anger when some you
know something bad has happenedto someone or there's a you know
An injustice.
I'm not talking about that.
I'm talking about someonehaving anger issues where they
yell all the time and they'rethey.
They're not in control ofthemselves or their emotions on
that right.
That's a person who needs toabsolutely work on that, as I
(27:33):
had to.
Back when I Started working onmy character traits back about
35 years ago, I went on whatwould be now called Berg 2.0, I
guess in computer lingo.
But back then who thought of it?
I just knew I needed to work oncertain areas of my, my
character that were very weakand Turn that those weaknesses
into strength.
So very few people would everknow that Bob Berg ever had
(27:54):
anger issues right.
Another was a Appreciation andgratitude for the first 35 years
of my.
30 years of my life say 35years of my life I Looked at the
negative side of things.
They just it's where I went.
That was just my natural way oflooking at that.
(28:16):
Wasn't brought up that way, butthat's just how it was for me
and I realized I had to to startto Embrace gratitude.
I had to start to live ingratitude and I worked on it and
I'd live my life that way andit didn't take me long to get to
that point and immediatelythings got much better.
(28:37):
And there were other traits,character traits that I knew I
needed to.
We were to work on realweaknesses of character that I
needed to turn into strengths.
I think that's where it startsand I think that's where I think
this.
I think the Stoics had awonderful grasp on that and you
(28:57):
know, if you read that which Iknow, obviously you do more than
I do you're an expert with theStoics.
I'm not.
I just enjoy reading andlearning from them.
But that's really, those arethe things you can control, and
they're all about controllingthat which is within your sphere
of influence.
You're, you're what you cancontrol.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
That's fantastic.
I wrote those three down.
I love that you have the.
You know that maybe I'm notgood at running or filing and
that's okay, that's not gonnaruin your not gonna ruin your
life.
You could potentially ruin yourfiscal life by not paying
attention to that.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Oh, wait, it came back to hot Years ago.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Yeah, really sure, yeah, and Then I love that last
one.
You know what are the reallybig ones, and that's a you know
that self-evaluation.
What led you to that?
Like what was that juncture?
Did you have this epiphanymoment where you ruined a
relationship, or something likethat?
I don't need you look at it.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
They were books I was reading that I started to to
See myself in these books in inthe ways that certain character
traits were brought up Gossipingwas another one that I put.
I put to have been all the timeand you know, in other things
and I started to really seemyself.
And again, this is about 34, 35years old and I just saw that,
(30:20):
you know, I I wasn't gonna toCome near reaching my potential
if I didn't rework myself.
And then a great mentor of mine, charlie Cromendous Jones and
late Charlie Jones, he sent me abook with the autobiography by
Benjamin Franklin, which hadwhich is one of the best books
(30:42):
to me ever written wisdom of theages, and he had one chapter in
which he talked about Himhaving he did this at 20 years
old where he realized he hadcertain character trait
deficiencies that he needed towork on and he actually he
invented a course on how to doit.
You know this is long beforeDale Carnegie came along.
(31:04):
So Ben was an inventor and heinvented his own
self-improvement course and heshowed how to how to do this.
It was in the chapter.
I think it's chapter 8.
I'm not, I don't recall, but itwas on the oh my gosh, the I
can't think of the name of thechapter, my apologies, but it
was.
It was on that he talked abouttaking 13 traits he wanted to
(31:27):
work on and how to do it, and itwas a game changer for me.
I did exactly what he said.
I use some of his traitsbecause they were similar to
mine, but there were others thatwere individual to me and I
went through his course justright, as he suggested in the
book, and it turned my life.
I mean, it was just you know.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
I've got my next Amazon purchase, yeah well, hey,
in the spirit of the go-giver,I don't want to take.
You have been so gracious withyour time and I know you're not
great with filing, so I'm gonnakeep us on time here on.
You've been so gracious withyour time.
I want to also say you know howquickly you reached back out to
(32:07):
me, how you know howexpeditious your process was to
get into the calendar, settingme over the assets like just
talk, not, you obviously havesome people there helping you
out, which you talked about.
You know mitigating that kindof thing.
Hire that out.
You've got some great peopleand I just want to genuinely say
I really, really appreciate youtaking your precious time to
(32:29):
come and to add value To ouraudience and my audience not as
big as yours, but we know Okay.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
I'm a lot older, I've had more time to put it
together.
You'll.
You'll get there.
You're on your way, thank you.
All right, everybody, welcome to another episode of
the Stoic Agent podcast.
Hyper excited here.
The guests keep getting coolerand bigger and better, even
though he's this going to be ahumble man.
Right here I've got Bob Berg,the author of the Go-Giver, and
the Go-Giver sells more and alot of other things you do, I
know masterminds and do somecoaching and all that.
(00:20):
So welcome to the podcast, Bob.
Thanks, Alex, Great to be withyou.
Yeah, man, Absolutely Well,let's dive right in.
Let's just so.
If the audience doesn't knowwho you are, why don't you talk
to them?
Kind of give yourself a littlebit of background here and why
they might want to listen to you.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Well, whether they want to listen to me or not, I
don't that I can't, that I haveno control over.
So I'll be like the Stoics inthat way and control only what I
can control and not what Ican't.
So but yeah, I've been sort ofdoing this for about 35 years
Now.
I started out in broadcasting,then sales and and learned sales
and began sharing with otherswhat worked for me and for for
(00:57):
those.
I taught and started writingbooks and speaking on the the
issue.
My first book was Analysts,referrals, networker, everyday
Contacts into Sales, which Ithink a good friend of ours, our
mutual friend Dennis G, and itfirst read many years ago and he
and I became friends after that.
And then a book I co-authoredwith John David Mann called the
(01:20):
Go-Giver came out about 15 yearsago or so and that's that's
been the kind of the biggiesince then.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
So when when I think I think that a lot of what you
do within the Go-Giver and and Iread the Go-Giver back in,
dennis introduced me to it andyou know it really comes from a
place of service, and youmentioned Offset here talking
about Marcus Aurelius and youknow one of the, I think that
things that made him such agreat leader.
(01:49):
There was a lot of things thatmade him a great leader, but you
know there was the Antonineplague, which actually went
through Rome A lot of peopledon't realize this and killed
countless millions of people andduring that plague he actually
sold all of the jewels and theyactually sold his wife's jewels
and the furniture and everythingon the lawn of the of you know
(02:11):
the kingdom there and so youknow that place of coming to
give to the community, would yousay that is kind of a
cornerstone around yourphilosophy.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yeah, I mean really the.
The basic premise, excuse me, ofthe Go-Giver philosophy, if you
will, is that shifting yourfocus from getting to give and
when we say giving in thiscontext, excuse me, we simply
mean constantly and consistentlyproviding immense value to
(02:43):
others, understanding that doingso is not only a more
fulfilling way of conductingbusiness, it's it's the most
financially profitable way aswell.
And not pretty kind of woo-woo,way out there magical, mystical
type of reasons, but really forfor reasons that, as the Stoics
(03:04):
understood, tied in with withhuman nature.
When you're that person, who,who can take your focus off of
yourself and place it on servingothers, discovering what they
need, what they want, what theydesire, when you can move your
focus off of yourself to helpingothers solve and overcome their
(03:25):
challenges and problems right,when you can, when you can take
the focus off yourself and makeit about bringing others closer
to happiness, well, people feelgood about you, they feel great
about you, they want to get toknow you, they like you, they
trust you, they want to be inrelationship with you, they want
to do business with you, theywant to tell others about you,
(03:51):
they want to be your personalwalking ambassador, and so, so
that's really what it's about.
You do it from a true,authentic heart of wanting to
give value to others, and youalso allow yourselves to receive
the benefits that come back toyou.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Do you think that there's some friction in the
mind of that sales is?
I've got to figure out how tomanipulate people to buy what I
want them to buy, and how dopeople kind of get through that?
Because what you're talkingabout is to give I mean, it is
the go-giver so to give and addvalue, and I think that people
get a little hitched up withthat.
(04:31):
They hear about sales and Idon't want to be salesy.
What is that you think thatgoes on in the human mind that
holds people back from beinggood salespeople?
Well, when people say theydon't want to be salesy, or
they'll specifically say youknow, I don't like selling it.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
It's not that they don't like selling, it's that
they don't like what they thinkselling is.
Because, let's face it, mostpeople have a Misperception
around sales.
They think selling is abouttrying to convince someone to
Buy something they don't want oror need, and that, of course,
is not selling.
(05:13):
That's called being a Conartist, right so, and I don't
think any of us would want to dothat.
So if that's what we thoughtselling was, well, of course we
wouldn't want to do it.
Yeah, the old English rude ofthe word sell, salan, meant to
give.
So when you're get, when you'reselling, you're literally
(05:36):
Giving.
Now someone might say well, youknow, berg, that's clever on
everything, but isn't that justsemantics, selling giving?
Well, what are you reallygiving when you're selling?
Well, let's say you're in thePresentation process, you're in
front of a prospective customeror client, you are selling.
So what are you giving?
I suggest you're giving themtime, attention, counsel,
(05:58):
education, empathy and, mostly,extraordinary value, value.
So when we look at selling thatway, through that lens now, we
see it as something verydifferent and it's something we
could absolutely Grab on to andbe proud of hmm, I love that.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
so do you think that there's also a sense of
Sometimes that there's a not,there's a delayed gratification
and that people haven't quitemade that connection?
So they want to present youwith a product and you sell, and
they get paid, and they justthey they're not used to like a
delayed or even let me ask youthis To shift that the dopamine
(06:41):
comes from actually givingrather than getting a hundred.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
That's a great way to look at it, and when we can,
and when we can get that joyfrom actually giving value to
others, that's a wonderful thing.
But I would say to somebody,even if you don't feel that way
right now, take that actionanyway.
Why?
Because and let's go back for asecond when you talked about
(07:05):
delayed gratification and one ofthe premises, or False premises
that someone might haveregarding the go-giver way of
doing business as well you knowthis go-giver stuff focusing on
the other person, focusing onvalue, rather than focusing on
the commission.
That's fine Once I have themoney, sure, but I mean I, I
(07:26):
need the money right now, Ican't wait.
Well, let's first understandsomething, and this is very
important Nobody is gonna buyfrom you Because you need the
money.
They're not gonna buy from youbecause you have a quota to meet
.
And they're not gonna buy fromyou just because you're a really
nice human being.
They're gonna buy from youbecause they believe that
(07:47):
ultimately they will be, theywill benefit.
Yeah right, it'll be better forthem to buy from you than not
to buy from.
That's the only reason, right?
So when we understand that nowwe know that it's actually in
the sales person's best interestTo place their focus on the
other person.
Now, what happens when we dothat and we make that shift?
(08:13):
Well, first of all, there's nobetter way to Create that
environment where that personfeels good about you, where they
know you, like you trust, youfeel confident in you, want to
do business with you.
Then, by trying to benefit them, riding value to them.
Once, this person who didn'tunderstand this previously, once
(08:33):
they get that Now, not only dothey, they see a much better
business results and a lot moremoney that they're earning, but
they actually do begin to feelgood about the process itself
and about the value they'reproviding.
Hmm, I love that.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
One of the things that came up when you were
talking about this and so it'smaking that shift.
Would you say that they're so?
You're offering something herethat you know works, whether
people believe it does or not.
That's another story.
Let's just say that they'rekind of stepping into this
potentiality when how do theyderive some faith?
(09:13):
Because, essentially, faith isbelieving in something that you
can't touch, in a way, right,how do they derive some of that
faith?
Do you think there's somewisdom of learning from Bob, of
learning from some of the othersthat have given and Talk to us
about that of like?
How do they make thatconnection when they are like,
yeah, yeah, bob, I need themoney, though, so I don't care
(09:33):
what you say, I need to learnsome fancy sales techniques.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Well, first of all, there's nothing wrong with sales
techniques.
Sales techniques are fine ifthey are benefiting the other
person.
If they need to learnmanipulation techniques, then I
want nothing to do with themlearning anything from me.
Now, the good news is, youdon't have to manipulate in
(09:58):
order to have a great salescareer.
Now, by the way, I mean, if you, if someone's gonna lie, cheat
and steal, you might be able tomake a sale, but you're probably
not gonna do very well inbusiness sustainably, okay, so I
just I put that out of the.
You know, out of the.
Not only does it feel yucky,but even it doesn't.
It's just bad business.
Okay, you can actually do muchbetter by looking for ways to
(10:21):
benefit others, but there'snothing self-sacrificial about
this.
Let's always go, then, for theperson who kind of doesn't
believe it, let's go back To thebasic statement that they're
not gonna buy from you becauseyou need the money.
If that's so and I thinkeveryone would agree, everyone
in sales would agree that soright, then it just makes
(10:43):
logical sense that you've got togive them a reason to see the
benefit of doing business withyou, and that's because they see
the value in it.
There's also no faith thatneeds to come into play, because
what John and I have shared inthis book is nothing new
whatsoever.
So long as, as long as there'sbeen market economies, these are
(11:07):
the people who have done thebest and sustainably so in sales
, and I'll say this by and largeit's it's quicker to do it this
way than to try to manipulateyourself and, you know, trying
to manipulate others rather andtry to just.
You know, no, if you find a wayto bring value to another
person, you're much more likelyfor this sale to take place.
(11:29):
So there's really nothing.
There's nothing that needs tobe proven because it's already
been proved Again.
In other words, there's nothingoriginal in what John and I
have, you know, have talkedabout.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Well, let's go back to that.
And did you?
How did you come across this?
So you know, you wrote this.
You know the first book of, youknow endless sales referrals.
Where did you stumble acrossthis?
Or was this part of yourupbringing?
Where did this come from?
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Ah, I mean, I studied sales.
When I got into sales I reallystudied it and kind of learned
what the challenge I had wasthat, although I don't seem like
an introvert, I actually verymuch am.
So I never really enjoyed thegoing to places to meet people.
Prospecting was not something Ienjoyed.
(12:20):
So what I had to do was come upwith a system that made the
prospecting process enjoyable,and what I found made it
enjoyable was when I couldrelate to people in a way that
they did the talking and that Iknew that they enjoyed the
conversation as much as I did,you know.
(12:42):
So my endless referral systemwas basically on how to
cultivate those relationships.
You know, I've been saying for35 years, since I've been doing
this, that, all things beingequal, people will do business
with and refer business to thosepeople they know, like and
trust.
Well, you know what's thefastest, most powerful, most
(13:03):
effective way to elicit thosefeelings Focus on the other
person, make it about them.
That's easy for an introvert todo, because we'd rather, you
know the other person do thetalking.
It's toughest for that personwho is the you know, the
extrovert.
I know they can do it, but theyneed to be able to pull
themselves back and make itabout the other person.
(13:25):
As far as with the Go-Giverwhich is because, you know,
while endless referrals isprinciple based, there's a lot
of strategy there.
With the Go-Giver and theseveral books in the series John
and I have written, it's muchmore conceptual so that you get
(13:45):
the five laws, the lots of value, compensation, influence,
authenticity, receptivity.
How do they work?
Why do they work?
How does it align with humannature, which is the most
important aspect of all, andJohn and I both have been
entrepreneurs.
John and I have both studiedsuccess for years.
He has a writer, has gotten tointerview some of the most
(14:08):
successful people in the world.
As a speaker Excuse me I'vegotten to share the platform
with some of the most successfulpeople in the world.
I ask a lot of questions and Ilove learning from everybody.
Plus, he and I both read lotsof biographies and lots of
history and a lot right.
So when we came together to dothis, it was very natural.
I mean, we just kind of said OK, so what are those things that
(14:32):
all sustainably successfulpeople did?
It wasn't a matter of did theymake a quick buck?
And that was it.
Where they want to hit wonders,or where they, you know, what
have you?
What is it that the sustainablysuccessful people did, whether
they realized it or not, becausea lot of people do things
intuitively and they don't evenknow that's what they're doing.
(14:54):
They just they have that knackfor it or just you know, for
whatever reason.
So we wanted to know what is itthat they?
And we just discussed it and wetalked about it as we did.
The laws, kind of built uponthemselves, you know, always
starts with that person who canfocus on others and look to
provide value, always startswith what is value.
Value is the relative worth ordesirability of a thing, of some
(15:19):
thing, to the end user orbeholder.
In other words, what is itabout this thing, this product,
service concept, idea, what haveyou that brings so much worth
or value to another human beingthat they will willingly
exchange their money for it?
Ok, that's different from price.
Price is a dollar figure, right?
So it's the dollar amount.
(15:40):
Value is different Valuesrelative.
It's in the eyes of the beholder, so that person who understands
how to discover from that other, realizing that we all value
different things in differentways because we have different
ways of seeing the world, ofunderstanding the world.
We all come from our own set ofbeliefs right, which has been
(16:03):
which were handed to us, whichis a combination of upbringing,
environment, schooling, news,media, television shows.
But you know, from the timewe're really young, we get hit
with this set of beliefs longbefore we're able to question
premises right and ask why.
So we grow up as human beingsand we are subject to an
(16:30):
unconscious operating system, ifyou will.
We don't even know we have itand we make all these decisions
thinking it's based on free will, when really it's within a
matrix of people, if youremember that first movie where
we don't even know that we're.
And so what the great failedperson knows is that what we
(16:51):
find to be a value is notnecessarily what someone else
does.
So they know how to askquestions and they know how to
listen, and they know how to digdeeper and really, really know
that they're going to decidewhat that other person holds to
be a value, what they need, whatthey want, what they desire
(17:11):
right, and only then connect thebenefits of their product or
service.
Whether you know, you speakwith a lot of realtors.
So, whether it's, you know,enlist in a home or buying a
home or whatever it happens tobe right.
They're going to know that.
They know what this otherperson is thinking, not assume
anything.
So you know that's.
That's really.
(17:31):
You know a big part of whatit's about.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
You know, something you said there sparked in me.
I don't know if you've everread the seven powers of
questions.
You know I'm kind of connectingsome dots here and Do you think
part of the value add tosomeone is holding a space and
asking genuine questions?
Rather, I've really tried toimpart on the Agents that have
(17:57):
aligned with me that you knowasking the right questions is
critical and and really activelylistening, not just waiting for
your time to talk.
Well, that's key.
Talk about that a little bit,about.
What do you think about thepower of questions and the value
that you add to someone's lifeJust by holding space and being
interested in and what'svaluable to me?
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Well, I love what you said about listening.
It's it's as you said, it's notlistening just to respond,
right, it's, it's listening as,as dr Stephen Cummy said, to
first understand, very important.
And so we, we don't listen justwith and John and I talk about
this in the fourth book in theseries, the doggiever influencer
it's not listening With your,just with your ears.
(18:41):
You know, that's the surfacelistening.
It's a good start, but that'sjust a surface listening.
It's listening with your eyes,it's listening With your, with
your body, with your posture.
It's an and John says this, Ilove this that he came up with
it's listening with the back ofyour neck and and what he's,
what he's saying is it's puttingyour entire being Into
(19:04):
listening to what this personsaying and then again at what's.
What's very important, I think,in the the listening process,
the questioning and listeningprocess, is to not assume that
we understand what they mean bywhat they say, because, remember
, we all come at things from ourown set of beliefs, including
definitions, and so so we needto be able to tactfully and
(19:28):
diplomatically ask that personto clarify.
You know, just for my ownunderstanding, when you say x Do
you mean?
Or what do you mean by, orcould you take that a little
further for me, so that I youknow in that that's very
important.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Yeah, it, and I love that.
I live that listening with theback of your neck.
So I was getting genuinelybecause people can tell right
when you're kind of feigninginterest, you know, is that what
that kind of means, like youreally just from that very
essence from back here, ratherthan just so, yeah, yeah, I'm
(20:06):
really here like my whole bodyis engaged in and what you're
saying, because I want to know,I Genuinely want to know well,
you know, alex, two thingshappen, I think, when you listen
with the back of your neckright.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
One is you really do Understand a lot more than you
would have, okay, so you areable to take in and receive a
whole lot more information.
That's gonna help you not onlyadd value to their life, but
communicate effectively,communicate that value.
The other thing is, as you said, they know you're listening
right and it's just another.
That's again, it's anotheraspect of human nature.
(20:40):
We want to know that personcares, that they have our
well-being at heart, that theywant to understand us.
So when we listen like that,what we're really doing is is
Expanding the depth of thatrelationship.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
And when and when you're listening in there,
you're also there's differentparts to what people are selling
.
For instance, you know let'stalk about homes here because we
sell homes, right.
So You're really listening towhat's important to them about
the home and then you're notgoing to talk about the other
(21:21):
things that you think areImportant about home ownership.
You're really just gonna honein, not to sell them.
That's what they want to talkabout.
That's what's important.
Is that what you're?
That's what you're talkingabout.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Well, I think there's a time and place for everything
.
So, yes, you know you, you needto be with them where they are
at this moment and what they'relooking to discuss now.
There's certain aspects you'vegot to be able to bring into the
conversation, obviously as anagent, in order to help them,
that they don't know, becauseyou know the process much more
than they do.
But but and you are there asthe salesperson, as the agent,
you are the leader, and soyou've got to be able to to
(21:56):
attain their buy-in.
But you do that Through, justas you said, you know, being
with them where they are at thatmoment.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Hmm, look, I love that you brought up leadership.
That's the concept that I justabsolutely adore.
You know, I heard somebody sayonce in order to lead others, we
need to lead ourselves first.
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
It's weren't the store.
It's all about that, more thananything, right.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Yeah, personal responsibility.
Um, could you talk about that,like what leadership means
within the concept of, withinthe, with the context of leading
yourself?
And there come, like maybe youcould dive into a little bit of
self-awareness around that aswell.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Well, I you know, in a sense and I'll just take from
one of the books on the series,the go-giver leader, aunt Al,
was the, was the Mentor in thispart, and she said to Ben, who
was the protege you know whatyou have to to give To, what you
have to offer.
She said you give, yeah, leastof all through what you say.
(23:04):
Now, that's what you say isimportant.
We need to be able to saythings the right way and and we
need to be able to say the rightthings, of course, but it's the
least important.
More important is what you do,but most important is who you
are, and that's where charactercomes into play.
Character comes from an oldGreek word meaning scrape or or
(23:28):
scratch.
It came to mean an engravedmarque and eventually a defining
quality.
Now, with one word of waxpoetic, one could say that
characters, what happens whenlife etches or scratches itself
onto your soul, which is verypoetic, of course, that's John
saying, because he's so greatlike that.
(23:48):
But I'm not as poetic I.
I, like You're defining qualityright to me.
That's your, your, yourdefining quality, which is some
total of all your qualities.
Your defining quality is yourcharacter.
It's interesting about peoplewith high character because Not
(24:13):
only do they tend to stand forsomething, but we tend to know
exactly where they, where theystand.
Now, that doesn't mean theydon't make mistakes, of course
they do, they're human.
It doesn't mean they don'tCourse correct.
You know, certainly they, theydo, but you know when it, when
(24:36):
it comes to those Values baseddecisions, they are absolutely
immovable, immutable and andjust right, there, you know,
right, you know exactly wherethey stand, and that's one
reason why we respect thosepeople so much and will follow
(24:59):
them, that they have highcharacter.
We develop high characterthrough our own self-improvement
.
We look at those areas where weneed to work.
Now I think there you knowpeople.
There's.
There's an old saying that youknow, forget about your
weaknesses, just focus on yourstrengths.
(25:21):
I Don't think that's a completesaying.
I understand what people meanwhen they say that.
You know you want to, to focuswhat you're good at.
You know, focus on yourstrengths, lead with your
strengths, try to.
You know, hire out yourweaknesses or try to.
That's fine, but I think thereare three types of weaknesses.
There are the weaknesses thatAre pretty meaningless and we
(25:45):
don't have to worry about.
I Mean, you know, I don't runlong distance as well.
That's a weakness of mine, butit's 65 years old with no plans
to run a marathon.
I'll let that weakness go.
Don't care, I don't file thingswell, don't have the patience,
I hire that out.
That's a weakness that I can.
You know what I'm saying.
Okay, then there are theweaknesses we need to mitigate.
(26:06):
We don't have to focus on them,but we need to mitigate them so
, so, for example, when it comesto numbers and and accounting
and bookkeeping things, that'snot a strength of mine, but I
couldn't just let that go.
When I did early in my careercame back to haunt me, so I
(26:28):
needed to mitigate that.
I needed to learn enough thatit was workable for me.
Right?
You know what I'm saying andand that's fine, so we know they
do with you what was?
I'll never be confused with a,with a CPA, but at the same time
, you know it's it's a mitigatedweakness and I'm okay.
Then there are those weaknesseswe need to turn into strengths
(26:49):
if we're going to Come anywhereclose to to realizing our
potential and being moreeffective.
These would be things that youknow.
For example, someone who hasanger issues.
Okay, they need to be able to,now that you know there's.
(27:10):
There's righteous anger, butthat's not what I'm talking
about.
I think you know they'rerighteous anger when some you
know something bad has happenedto someone or there's a you know
An injustice.
I'm not talking about that.
I'm talking about someonehaving anger issues where they
yell all the time and they'rethey.
They're not in control ofthemselves or their emotions on
that right.
That's a person who needs toabsolutely work on that, as I
(27:33):
had to.
Back when I Started working onmy character traits back about
35 years ago, I went on whatwould be now called Berg 2.0, I
guess in computer lingo.
But back then who thought of it?
I just knew I needed to work oncertain areas of my, my
character that were very weakand Turn that those weaknesses
into strength.
So very few people would everknow that Bob Berg ever had
(27:54):
anger issues right.
Another was a Appreciation andgratitude for the first 35 years
of my.
30 years of my life say 35years of my life I Looked at the
negative side of things.
They just it's where I went.
That was just my natural way oflooking at that.
(28:16):
Wasn't brought up that way, butthat's just how it was for me
and I realized I had to to startto Embrace gratitude.
I had to start to live ingratitude and I worked on it and
I'd live my life that way andit didn't take me long to get to
that point and immediatelythings got much better.
(28:37):
And there were other traits,character traits that I knew I
needed to.
We were to work on realweaknesses of character that I
needed to turn into strengths.
I think that's where it startsand I think that's where I think
this.
I think the Stoics had awonderful grasp on that and you
(28:57):
know, if you read that which Iknow, obviously you do more than
I do you're an expert with theStoics.
I'm not.
I just enjoy reading andlearning from them.
But that's really, those arethe things you can control, and
they're all about controllingthat which is within your sphere
of influence.
You're, you're what you cancontrol.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
That's fantastic.
I wrote those three down.
I love that you have the.
You know that maybe I'm notgood at running or filing and
that's okay, that's not gonnaruin your not gonna ruin your
life.
You could potentially ruin yourfiscal life by not paying
attention to that.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Oh, wait, it came back to hot Years ago.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Yeah, really sure, yeah, and Then I love that last
one.
You know what are the reallybig ones, and that's a you know
that self-evaluation.
What led you to that?
Like what was that juncture?
Did you have this epiphanymoment where you ruined a
relationship, or something likethat?
I don't need you look at it.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
They were books I was reading that I started to to
See myself in these books in inthe ways that certain character
traits were brought up Gossipingwas another one that I put.
I put to have been all the timeand you know, in other things
and I started to really seemyself.
And again, this is about 34, 35years old and I just saw that,
(30:20):
you know, I I wasn't gonna toCome near reaching my potential
if I didn't rework myself.
And then a great mentor of mine, charlie Cromendous Jones and
late Charlie Jones, he sent me abook with the autobiography by
Benjamin Franklin, which hadwhich is one of the best books
(30:42):
to me ever written wisdom of theages, and he had one chapter in
which he talked about Himhaving he did this at 20 years
old where he realized he hadcertain character trait
deficiencies that he needed towork on and he actually he
invented a course on how to doit.
You know this is long beforeDale Carnegie came along.
(31:04):
So Ben was an inventor and heinvented his own
self-improvement course and heshowed how to how to do this.
It was in the chapter.
I think it's chapter 8.
I'm not, I don't recall, but itwas on the oh my gosh, the I
can't think of the name of thechapter, my apologies, but it
was.
It was on that he talked abouttaking 13 traits he wanted to
(31:27):
work on and how to do it, and itwas a game changer for me.
I did exactly what he said.
I use some of his traitsbecause they were similar to
mine, but there were others thatwere individual to me and I
went through his course justright, as he suggested in the
book, and it turned my life.
I mean, it was just you know.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
I've got my next Amazon purchase, yeah well, hey,
in the spirit of the go-giver,I don't want to take.
You have been so gracious withyour time and I know you're not
great with filing, so I'm gonnakeep us on time here on.
You've been so gracious withyour time.
I want to also say you know howquickly you reached back out to
(32:07):
me, how you know howexpeditious your process was to
get into the calendar, settingme over the assets like just
talk, not, you obviously havesome people there helping you
out, which you talked about.
You know mitigating that kindof thing.
Hire that out.
You've got some great peopleand I just want to genuinely say
I really, really appreciate youtaking your precious time to
(32:29):
come and to add value To ouraudience and my audience not as
big as yours, but we know Okay.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
I'm a lot older, I've had more time to put it
together.
You'll.
You'll get there.
You're on your way, thank you.
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