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106: How to Build a Mind of Steel
110 Plays5 years ago
How do you build a mind of steel and get through rough and tough times? Listen closely and get some insights on the 3 things that have helped me get through droughts and cancelled appointments
#solarpreneurs #integratedmarketing #sandiegocaliforniasolarpreneurs #solarsales #entrepreneur #solarclosing Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/taylor.armstrong.330 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylor-armstrong-3ba975139/ iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-solarpreneur-podcast/id1438556991 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5LDMDHyVB5iti1TwCrmMON Anchor: https://anchor.fm/solarpreneur/
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Transcript
Introduction to Solopreneurs
00:00:00
Speaker
What do you call an underground group of solar professionals on a mission to create a more sustainable world?
00:00:05
Speaker
We call ourselves solopreneurs.
00:00:08
Speaker
And while some might call us crazy, foolish, and dissatisfied with the status quo, we're the ones taking action to create a better future for ourselves and the world.
00:00:17
Speaker
Solopreneur is dedicated to give you, the solar professional, the tools, skills, technology, and mentorship to take the industry by storm and sell more solar with less effort.
00:00:30
Speaker
We are solopreneurs, and this is our story.
Challenges in the Solar Industry
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What's up, solar slayers, my solopreneurs?
00:00:45
Speaker
Hope everyone is crushing it.
00:00:47
Speaker
Summer's coming to a close.
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We're getting our high bills out here in San Diego, California, wherever you're at.
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People should be getting their high bills.
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Unless, of course, you're listening to this in Southern Hemisphere because it's winter for you guys.
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But regardless, should be closing deals year-round.
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Today, it's just me.
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Wanted to do a quick episode.
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Had some thoughts.
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Speaker
Wanted to share with y'all.
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Hopefully you've been able to listen to a few of our interviews.
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We've got some exciting guests that are going to be coming on in the next few weeks that you're not going to want to miss.
00:01:22
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But today it's just me and I've been thinking, wanted to share today just how to build a mindset that's unstoppable.
Overcoming Sales Slumps
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We all go through hard times.
00:01:36
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I'll be honest, for me it's been a week and a half since I've had a deal close.
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which is unusual.
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Always try to get at least a few a week, but going through a drought here.
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It's been 10, 11 days since I've had one close.
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And yeah, I could make up excuses, could blame it on areas, whatever, and that was my first instinct, is to do that, honestly.
00:02:05
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Probably like a lot of people, but really it just comes down to
00:02:09
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think the amount of effort you need to put in more effort, your results are always going to affect or reflect the amount of effort you put in.
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That's what it comes down to.
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But the other thing I've noticed, it really messes with your head, especially when you're used to closing a few a week.
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It can mess with your head.
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It can be like, what's going on here?
00:02:31
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If any of you are watching the NBA playoffs right now,
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which is shut down.
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I know there's a lot of racial injustice going on, so hopefully it starts again soon.
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And shout out to all my people of color.
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We love you.
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We support you during this time.
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And hopefully every one of us, slorepreneurs, stands against the social injustice that's going on.
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But if you're watching the playoffs,
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I watch a lot of basketball the LA Clippers.
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They have Paul George.
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He's one of their top guys But in the first round of the playoffs here, he is doing terrible He had three games where he barely was scoring his mission shots left and right So you start to think what's going on this guy's a superstar and how is he in this big of a drought and
00:03:22
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And he opened up, ended up being some depression stuff he's gone through.
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They're playing in a bubble right now, so they're isolated from everybody.
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They're not having really interaction with their families or anything.
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So he kind of blamed it on that, which, yeah, I know it would be tough.
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I don't blame him.
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But you see even these top guys like that in sports, in business, whatever it is, people go through slumps sometimes.
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But I think what separates the champions from the losers are the guys that can push through it and don't give in and come out on top.
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And Paul George, the last game, he scored 35 points.
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He hit most of his shots and he came through it.
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So
Developing a Resilient Mindset
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that's what it's about.
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So today I'm going to share with you three tips that help me in times like these.
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Yeah, I'm still learning every day.
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I'm not the greatest solar solar system in the world.
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I'm pretty good, but not the greatest.
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So I want to go through three things that have helped me just build a mind of still get through these times.
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And anytime you're going through tough things in life, these things are going to help you.
00:04:39
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overcome whatever it is, whether it's a cell slump, whether it's stuff in your family, whatever hard times you're going through.
00:04:48
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Hey Solarpreneurs, real quick, if you've been in the solar industry any amount of time, you know that in order to take it to the next level, you need to always be recruiting.
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What is it?
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ABR, always be recruiting.
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So if you need help with recruiting, I wanted to share with you something that helped me take my recruiting skills to the next level.
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We literally went from an office of less than 10 reps to 25 to 30 reps in less than three months.
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And we did this with reps that continue to sell with us.
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Two or three of them went on to become managers.
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Several of them were top producers in our office.
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And there are multiple reps that are still with us to this day, more than a year later.
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So what is it that helped me?
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I took up the services of Ryan Holman with Cells Recruiting University.
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He helped me develop a system to take my recruiting game to the next level.
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And he really helped me follow up with the recruits, schedule group interviews with them, get a huge pool of applicants coming in day after day.
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I wanted to share with you guys his link.
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If you are looking to take your recruiting skills to the next level, go to Calendly.com slash sru forward slash solarpreneur.
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Once again, that's Calendly.com slash sru slash solarpreneur.
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SRU is Sales Recruiting University.
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Ryan will help you take it to the next level.
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The number one is doing something hard every day.
00:06:33
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Okay, a few of you might have heard of, there's this challenge going around, it's called 75 Hard.
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You've probably heard of it, it's Andy Frisella, I think.
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Yeah, Andy Frisella is the one that does this challenge.
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And what it is, it's 75 days where you have to do basically hard stuff every day.
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and I haven't done it personally although I should I'm considering it but a lot of my buddies have they've gotten good results because what you do you have to have every day for 75 days you can't mess up you have to stick to a specific diet okay I've seen some people just do no sugar 75 days maybe it's the keto diet can't eat carbs high fats
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Just pick a specific diet.
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Maybe I'll do it and just do the seafood diet where you just see food and eat everything.
00:07:27
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No, I'm just kidding.
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But a diet that you're going to stick to.
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It's going to improve your life.
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And then it's 75 days of workout.
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So it's 45 minutes indoors and 45 minutes outdoors.
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And then a couple different things.
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I know those are two main things with it.
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I think there's...
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some a few other tasks needed create uh... but the base of it is you have to do a hard thing every day and then i know he takes it to another level you can do think there's like a hundred hard where you take it to another level uh... but anyone that's done this has gotten awesome results and improve the quality of life it but because they're doing something hard every day so the key with this is pick you don't have to do this challenge but even if you don't need a challenge
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pick something hard to do every day and do it.
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Maybe it's waking up early.
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Maybe it's cutting something out of your life that you usually do.
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It's not a great habit.
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Maybe it's taking a cold shower.
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For me, it's actually taking a cold shower.
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And I've challenged myself to do this.
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I did it for about a year straight, and then I took
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probably a year off of it.
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Now I'm back on, been doing it three, four months now.
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And I, what I do, I take like a 30 second cold shower and then I turn up the heat after that.
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Love me some scorching warm showers too.
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But what it does, it just trains your brain to do something that you don't want to do.
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Whenever we want to find that success, it's going to take that mindset.
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We're going to have to give up something, we're going to have to do something we don't like to get the results we want.
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So by doing something hard every day, you're going to train your mind to have this resilience.
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You're going to train your mind to do something hard even though you didn't want to.
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So the challenge is this, just pick something hard, maybe it's cold shower,
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Maybe it's a specific diet, whatever.
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You can start with a 30-day challenge.
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A lot of people are doing 30-day challenges with things like that.
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But for me, it's a cold shower.
00:09:47
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Start with that.
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Do what I'm doing, 30 seconds.
00:09:50
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A lot of people have heard Tony Robbins.
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If you've watched the Tony Robbins documentary on Netflix, he's jumping in his cold little pool.
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He has that little, it's basically a water pit that he jumps in every morning.
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It's like 60 degree water, something like that, cold water.
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And he just does it every day.
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Okay, so that's tip number one, do something
Fostering a Growth Mindset
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hard.
00:10:13
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Number two is develop a growth mindset.
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So get around people that will help you grow.
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Get around people that challenge you.
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Get around people that are a step ahead of you.
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Get around people that are better leaders.
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As you do this, it's gonna help you develop a growth mindset.
00:10:29
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Okay, so I think it was, what's his name?
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Forget his name, but he says you are the five people that you hang around the most.
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That'll come to me in a minute probably.
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But whatever five people you hang out with the most, that's who you're going to be in your life.
00:10:46
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So take a good look.
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What five people are you hanging out with?
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Who's surrounding you?
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Is it lazy people?
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Is it people that are playing video games all day?
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They're watching Netflix all day?
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Is it people that are just not doing anything with their lives?
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Take a good look because that's going to help you develop the growth mindset.
00:11:06
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So someone that I have been working with lately, he's been on the show, but we're working together now.
00:11:13
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His name's Earl Kapueh.
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He's a great leader.
00:11:17
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He has a bunch of different pages.
00:11:19
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He's always posting about solar, and they call him the gratitude man because he's known for helping people develop gratitude in their life.
00:11:27
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But Earl, we put together leadership training, something that we're doing in our company now.
00:11:36
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And we actually post it.
00:11:38
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We're opening up to everyone.
00:11:39
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Okay, so it's Thursdays at 1 p.m.
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It's a free training, just Zoom.
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We go on and we, it's kind of like a book club.
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Imagine a solar book club.
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We go and we just discuss a book.
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Right now it's the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, I think it's called.
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It's by Maxwell, John Maxwell.
00:12:00
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But stuff like that, are you in a company, are you in a place right now where there's guys like that putting together BOM leadership trainings, having that growth mindset, trying to grow?
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If you want to take part in that, hit me up or go search Earl Kapoole.
00:12:15
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He can give you the details.
00:12:17
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We're opening up to everyone, I guess until Zoom doesn't allow us to invite more people.
00:12:25
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But have that growth mindset, always be learning.
00:12:28
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In our company right now, we have a company, Audible.
00:12:32
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And if anyone, I don't care who you are, you should be listening to podcasts, to books in the car.
00:12:38
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Hopefully, this is your number one go-to podcast every time you get in your car to go to a deal.
00:12:44
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But you should have an audible.
00:12:45
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So if you're a company owner or business owner, get a company audible.
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Open it up for all your guys.
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Get books that are self-development, that are sales-related.
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They're training.
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Encourage your guys to listen to them.
00:12:59
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And then do that in your own company.
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Start some sort of book club.
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Start some sort of leadership training.
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Maybe you do it for one of the meetings every week.
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Get around people like that and that's gonna help you grow.
00:13:10
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That's gonna help you be resilient during tough times.
00:13:14
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So that's tip number
The Power of Gratitude
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two.
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Okay, my last tip is, like I mentioned a second ago with Earl, is practicing gratitude.
00:13:24
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We recently did a gratitude challenge, Earl led us in this, where 30 days, every single day we had to list something that we're grateful for and post it in our group chat as a team.
00:13:39
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And let me tell you, for the first three, four days, yeah, it was super easy.
00:13:42
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Yeah, and you know, got my wife, got my kid, got sunshine here in San Diego.
00:13:49
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But after a week or two, it honestly got tough, because at that point, you really had to, you couldn't repeat yourself, had to be something new.
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So do something like this, practice gratitude, and it should be a part of your everyday routine, should be a lifelong pursuit, practicing gratitude.
00:14:10
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But again, start with a 30-day challenge.
00:14:13
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You can start now, and that's something you can hit up Earl.
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I know he has a Facebook group for this, too.
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He has gratitude challenges that he does with his followers.
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So find someone like that, or just do it on your own, but it's nice to have the camaraderie to do it with other people.
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But what happens is you practice this gratitude.
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I like to compare it to the same thing that happens when you're buying a car.
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What happens when you buy a car?
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Imagine you're buying that Tesla Model X. It's looking good.
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But what happens when you go to the dealer to look at it, take it for a test drive?
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The moment you step out, what do you notice?
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You see all the Teslas on the road, especially if you're out here in California.
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There's a million of them out here.
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But you start to notice whether it's Tesla, whatever car you're looking at, now all of a sudden you notice every single Tesla drives by.
00:15:04
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You can't stop looking at them.
00:15:07
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So that's the same thing that happens when you practice the gratitude.
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As you make it part of your life, what happens?
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Your mind starts to focus on the things that you should be grateful for.
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Your mind starts to look for those things.
00:15:19
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And that's exactly what happened when you did this 30 day challenge.
00:15:24
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Once it got hard, it really made you think.
00:15:27
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You stepped out the door and you're thinking, okay, I got to think of something that I'm grateful for today.
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What's going to happen today that I didn't practice that gratitude for?
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So do that.
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Those three things helped me immensely.
00:15:39
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They're helping me right now.
00:15:40
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They're going to help you build a mind to still.
00:15:44
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So again, do something hard every day.
00:15:47
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Develop a growth mindset.
00:15:50
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Always try to improve, have that self-improvement mindset.
00:15:53
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Always be learning, be reading books, be studying, and then surround yourself with people that have that same growth mindset.
00:16:01
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Number three, practice that gratitude.
00:16:03
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Do a 30-day challenge.
00:16:06
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There's journals.
00:16:06
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I have a planner.
00:16:08
Speaker
You can get it on Amazon, actually.
00:16:13
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I'll post a link here in the show notes.
00:16:16
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Hit me up if you want a link to.
00:16:18
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I can give it to you.
00:16:19
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But it's a 30 days planner.
00:16:23
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I think that's the brand of it.
00:16:25
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But in the daily planning section, it has a daily review where you have to go write down three things that you're grateful for that day.
00:16:33
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And a lot of planners have stuff like that.
00:16:36
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So get something like that.
00:16:38
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Make it a daily habit.
00:16:40
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I promise you if you do these things, it's going to help you develop
00:16:44
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that mind is still it's going to help you get through challenges and even if you are going through a sales slump like me it's going to help you push past it okay but again it's all about the effort too so i don't think these are going to solve your problems if you're not working hard because that's half my battle gotta work hard you gotta put in the effort maximum effort or you're not going to close the deals but these things are going to help you if you're having that same mind that same um
00:17:11
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challenge.
00:17:13
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I think that's probably what Paul George was doing as he was in a slump on his scoring in the NBA playoffs.
00:17:19
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But look at the greats, do what they do, model yourself after them, and that's going to help you continue to crush it.
Engagement and Listener Participation
00:17:27
Speaker
Let me know what you thought of this episode.
00:17:29
Speaker
Share it with someone that's going through a cell slump right now or that's struggling.
00:17:33
Speaker
And guys, leave us a review.
00:17:35
Speaker
Share this.
00:17:36
Speaker
That's how we get the word out.
00:17:38
Speaker
All of this is free.
00:17:39
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I don't ask for anything.
00:17:41
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So come on, at least throw me a bone by leaving a good review, Gavin, or some honest feedback.
00:17:45
Speaker
It doesn't have to be.
00:17:48
Speaker
You can give me four stars too.
00:17:51
Speaker
But okay, tune in to next week.
00:17:52
Speaker
We're going to have an awesome guest on for next week.
00:17:55
Speaker
He's going to share how he combines marketing and specifically he uses an app to get reviews from his clients and get referrals.
00:18:03
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Okay, so tune in to next week and we will catch you later.
00:18:07
Speaker
Keep dominating.
00:18:11
Speaker
Wow, what another value-packed episode of The Solarpreneur.
00:18:14
Speaker
Guys, if you couldn't tell, we spend a lot of time and energy to put these episodes out to hopefully give you just one strategy, one golden nugget that's going to launch your solar career to the next level.
00:18:25
Speaker
And we do it all for free.
00:18:27
Speaker
And if you found any value in this episode or it's helped you in any way, all I ask in return is that you just take 30 seconds of your time and leave us a review on iTunes so that we can help more solopreneurs like you to change the world.
00:18:39
Speaker
And as a gift for leaving us a review, we have a special training package exclusive for solopreneur listeners over at solopreneurs.com.
00:18:48
Speaker
Remember, you need to leave us a review on iTunes to qualify for the training package.
00:18:53
Speaker
So take care of that now and we'll see you on the next episode.