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This Principle Will Change The Way You Lead
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Transcript
Introduction to Solarpreneur Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
00:00:08
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
00:00:10
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I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fell.
00:00:19
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I teach you how to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro, and closing more deals.
00:00:31
Speaker
What is a Solarpreneur you might ask?
00:00:33
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A Solarpreneur is a new breed of Solar Pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.
Leadership Lessons from 'Extreme Ownership'
00:00:42
Speaker
Hey, what's going on, solopreneurs?
00:00:44
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Taylor Armstrong here with another episode.
00:00:47
Speaker
Today, we're going to be talking about why you should have extreme decisiveness in your solar business and why you should take ownership of everything you do.
00:00:55
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We recently got done reading the book Extreme Ownership as a leadership group here over in San Diego.
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And second time I've read it, but it was a powerful reminder of things we should be doing as leaders.
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and even if you're not leading, ways you can apply it in your solar business.
00:01:14
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We're going to be talking about that and much more in today's podcast.
00:01:17
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Welcome to the show.
00:01:18
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
00:01:20
Speaker
We're here to change your life and increase your solar business by closing more deals, generating more leads and referrals, and having a much better time in the solar industry.
00:01:30
Speaker
Welcome back.
00:01:30
Speaker
If you've been here before or if this is your first time tuning in, you are in for a life-changing experience.
00:01:36
Speaker
We are going to teach you how to crush your sales game, but appreciate the support that we've had.
00:01:41
Speaker
If you have not taken the time to review the podcast, it would mean the world to me.
00:01:45
Speaker
Please go and take 30 seconds to review it over on Apple, Spotify, iTunes, now YouTube, wherever you're tuning in to this podcast.
00:01:54
Speaker
And last week, I apologize if you were expecting two podcasts.
00:01:59
Speaker
It was the 4th of July on our regular posting schedule of Tuesday and Friday.
00:02:03
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So, hey, what can I say?
00:02:05
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I love America.
00:02:06
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I decided to enjoy myself a little bit, take a little break, celebrate freedom.
00:02:11
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I hope you did the same.
00:02:12
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And so we just did one podcast on Wednesday.
00:02:15
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We are back at you this week, bringing some great content.
00:02:18
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And so let's jump into it.
Decision-Making Amid Uncertainty
00:02:20
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Like I said, we just got done reading Extreme Ownership.
00:02:24
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If you're watching the video version of the podcast, looks like this.
00:02:28
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It is a great book.
00:02:29
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One of my favorite books on leadership and just some game changing of principles that you can apply in your solar business, in life, and really in whatever you're doing.
00:02:37
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And so a chapter I want to focus on today and just tell some ways we can apply in solar is I think it's near the end.
00:02:46
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Let's see.
00:02:47
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Chapter, as I'm turning pages here, this is chapter 11 and it's called decisiveness amid uncertainty.
00:02:55
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And I just got to think about this.
00:02:56
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There's so many different ways we can apply this.
00:02:59
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But the reason I thought this would be a good topic for the podcast is because as I've thought about just good leaders I've followed and great CEOs, leaders of companies, this is one key trait I've seen in really every successful business person
00:03:15
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and every successful team I've been under, every successful manager, successful owners, is they all can do this very effectively, make decisions amid uncertainty.
00:03:25
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And the most recent thing that's reminding me of this, this might be stupid, but I was playing, maybe some of you have played the game called Codenames.
00:03:34
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Great game if you haven't played it before.
00:03:36
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It has all these separate words.
00:03:39
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And the point of the game is you have to link these words together by using one code name, one word to link all the other words together.
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So you team up and then one person is given the clues.
00:03:51
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You have like a certain sequence of words that you're supposed to link together.
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Extremely frustrating game.
00:03:56
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And sometimes there's literally like no connection between the words.
00:04:00
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So we got playing this game.
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And this is a great example of making decisions amid uncertainty.
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Because sometimes there's no certainty in this game.
00:04:09
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No way to link the words.
00:04:11
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And what do you have to do?
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You have to make decisions amid uncertainty.
00:04:14
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Okay, so great little game.
00:04:15
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Maybe if you want to illustrate this point in your next sales meeting, go play this game.
00:04:19
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I was recently playing this, though, with one of my friends.
00:04:22
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He's been on the podcast, Mike Brand.
00:04:24
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Great episode if you haven't listened to him.
00:04:26
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A thousand career installs.
00:04:27
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But one of the best leaders I know has led multiple regions, led teams for 10 plus years now on solar.
00:04:36
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And we were playing this.
00:04:37
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We were on the same team.
00:04:38
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And Mike, he was the ultimate decision maker amongst pressure players.
00:04:43
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Every time we weren't sure what word to pick, Mike would just go straight and you know, boom, you know what guys, I'm making this decision.
00:04:48
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So I'm like, wow, maybe this isn't just in solar, but these leaders, they have this trait in pretty much everything they do in life.
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They make quick decisions.
00:04:56
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They're not a hundred percent positive decisions, but they're quick and they're certain.
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Okay.
00:05:00
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And so think of great leaders in your life and they probably done the same thing, made these decisions amid uncertainty.
Leadership in Combat: Jocko Willink's Story
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Hey, so yeah, in the book, if you have read the chapter, they get into the story about, it's the same guy in American Sniper, but his name's Chris, I think.
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And they tell the story about how the guy sniping, they had this decision they had to make.
00:05:23
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Guy in a building had a gun.
00:05:24
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They weren't sure if he was on their side or...
00:05:26
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Or if he is on the enemy side and they're radioing into Jocko Willink, who's, you know, author of the book.
00:05:34
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And he's the commander, right, of the group.
00:05:36
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So the sniper, he's radioing saying, hey, Jocko, do you want me to engage?
00:05:41
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What do you want me to do?
00:05:42
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And Jocko's communicating with his other, like, team leaders.
00:05:45
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The other ones are saying, yes, shoot him, shoot him.
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We got no other choice because they were trying to clear these buildings.
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And they were worried that this one dude in the building snooping around was
00:05:56
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was going to snipe them first.
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So it's pretty much kill or be killed.
00:05:59
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And so, of course, the other leaders were like, take this guy out.
00:06:02
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We got to move forward.
00:06:04
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And Jocko, he talks about how he was under insane pressure to make the call to snipe this dude in the building.
00:06:10
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But he knew that there were a lot of friendlies around and it got confusing.
00:06:15
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It wasn't like the streets we know in the U.S. where it's clearly marked.
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This was Ramadi, Iraq.
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It was extremely difficult to know which buildings was which, which
00:06:24
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addresses were which.
00:06:26
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And so he made the tough decision that because he couldn't say with 100% certainty that it was an enemy, he said, all right, we're not going to snipe this dude.
00:06:34
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And of course, he was taking heat from the other leaders.
00:06:36
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They were all pissed off thinking that they were going to lose lives because he wouldn't make the decision.
00:06:40
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But come to find out,
00:06:42
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Of course, they go in, they go to clear the building, and it was a friendly force in the building.
00:06:48
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So he made the right decision amidst uncertainty.
00:06:51
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And so obviously, we're not facing life or death decisions in solar, most likely.
00:06:57
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I hope you're not.
00:06:57
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But we do face tough decisions every day.
Challenges in Solar Business
00:07:01
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Sometimes if we're running teams, we got reps that maybe should be let go.
00:07:06
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Maybe they're closing multiple deals a month, but they're a cancer to the team.
00:07:10
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How do we make that decision?
00:07:11
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Maybe you're with a team that is not producing, that's toxic, and you have to make the decision between staying at that company or leaving.
00:07:20
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Hey, there's a lot of different decisions we can encounter in solar, but how are we going to make those decisions?
00:07:26
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We got to go full force with whatever decisions we make, and we're either going to learn a quick lesson or going to be the right decision.
00:07:34
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And sometimes there's no clear answer, but that's the point of this chapter.
00:07:37
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You got to take the information you do have and
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You got to act on it.
00:07:41
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And then you got to live and learn from your decisions and the consequences.
00:07:45
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Maybe it's going to be a wrong one.
00:07:47
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Hopefully you can learn a quick lesson for him.
00:07:49
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But a lot of times it's going to be right.
00:07:51
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And there's usually not a middle ground.
00:07:53
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I want to read just a quick couple sentences from the book that talk about the principle of this.
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Jocko says...
00:08:00
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Intelligence gathering and research are important, but they must be employed with realistic expectations and must not impede swift decision-making that is often the difference between victory and defeat.
00:08:11
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Waiting for the 100% right in certain solution leads to delay, indecision, and an inability to execute.
00:08:17
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Leaders must be prepared to make an educated guess based on previous experience, knowledge of how the enemy operates, likely outcomes, and whatever intelligence is available in the immediate moments.
00:08:29
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And then he goes on to talk about what's cool is he has a business application at the end of every chapter in Extreme Ownership.
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So the business application is they're going to consult a company.
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And these two, the CEOs of the company, he's consulting.
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They're telling Jocko, hey, we have these managers.
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They're not getting along.
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They're fighting.
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One's thinking about leaving.
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The other one's talking trash on the other, saying he's bringing down the company.
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And they have an extremely difficult decision because these are managers, their lead and other people.
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And like, we don't know what to do.
00:09:03
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And so the CEO goes to Jocko and she's like, hey, what would you do?
00:09:07
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I think I'm just going to let this play out.
00:09:09
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And whatever happens, happens.
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And Jocko's like, Jocko's like, you know what?
00:09:13
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In the battlefield, we don't let decisions play out.
00:09:16
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We act on the knowledge we have and we create our own results and basically tells her she needs to make a decision on the information she has, which is
00:09:25
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He suggests to her that he fires both of them.
00:09:28
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He's like, hey, are they bringing down the company?
00:09:30
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Are they contributing to the growth of the company?
00:09:33
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And starts asking her good questions.
00:09:35
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She realizes that that's probably the right decision.
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There's other people that can come and lead the teams that aren't cancerous.
00:09:41
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So she ends up acting on the information she has, fires both of them,
00:09:45
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And the company is able to move on and progress and not just stall.
00:09:48
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And I've faced this.
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I've made this mistake in my solar career, unfortunately.
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Some people know, but I was at my first company for four years.
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And this company, great company, I learned a ton and extremely grateful for the lessons I learned there.
00:10:02
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But about three years in, things started getting a little funky.
00:10:06
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One of the owners resigned.
00:10:09
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Offices started closing.
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Culture became a little bit cancerous.
00:10:13
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And yeah, maybe I could have helped prevent some of this.
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Who knows?
00:10:17
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But I ended up, instead of making the decision to get out and look for better options, I'm like, you know what?
00:10:23
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I'm just going to see how this plays out.
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I stay at the company for a whole nother year.
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Sure enough, things just got worse and worse.
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I ended up making a lot less money that year, my fourth year staying.
00:10:36
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And I just, I was scared to make a decision end of the day.
00:10:40
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And if I could go back, I would have changed things.
00:10:43
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I would have left when things started going downhill, when things started getting cancerous in that company.
00:10:48
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Hey, and lesson learned, right?
00:10:50
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Sometimes it's tough to know if it was right or wrong.
00:10:53
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Learn my lesson.
00:10:54
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And I'm not saying everyone should go bounce from a company, right?
00:10:57
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When things get tougher, when owners quit, that's a tough call, right?
00:11:01
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But in my case, I believe that I should have acted on the information I had and gotten into a better situation.
00:11:07
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I ended up leaving, running a team.
00:11:09
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Things were a lot better.
00:11:11
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And I wish I would have made that switch earlier.
00:11:13
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And recently I made another company switch, similar situation.
00:11:17
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But instead of dragging it out, I actually made a quicker decision to leave.
The Pitfalls of Delayed Decisions
00:11:21
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And this was right when things were changing with...
00:11:25
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net metering here in California.
00:11:26
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We know that now we have to sell batteries and the company I was with, they didn't really have any good leasing options, great solutions for the batteries.
00:11:35
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And so I made a quicker decision this time to leave extremely hard.
00:11:39
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I was friends with a lot of the people over there and just was going back and forth.
00:11:44
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But instead of going back and forth for a year this time,
00:11:47
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I went back and forth for a week.
00:11:49
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Still extremely hard.
00:11:50
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And maybe I'm not saying you should do what I do.
00:11:54
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I'm not saying always balance companies, but sometimes you got to make the call based on the information you had, just like Jocko talks about indecisiveness amidst uncertainty.
00:12:04
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And so that's the principle.
00:12:05
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That's what I wanted to share today.
00:12:07
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Whatever you do in life, try to practice this principle.
00:12:10
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Make decisions amidst uncertainty.
00:12:12
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Those are the people that attract other reps.
00:12:15
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Those are the people that become leaders, people that can act, people that make the tough
Practicing Decisiveness
00:12:20
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calls.
00:12:20
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Okay, so the applications in solar may be it.
00:12:23
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If you're deciding to invest in the next...
00:12:26
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coaching group or a program, don't go back and forth for six months.
00:12:31
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Make a yes or a no.
00:12:32
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And keep in mind the same objections that we have in life we're going to encounter in our sales presentations.
00:12:39
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So if you are someone that goes back and forth, that's indecisive, that can't make up their mind to invest, to do whatever, guess what?
00:12:48
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That's going to pop up in your clothes because whatever we think, it's going to be reflected.
00:12:53
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So keep that in mind too.
00:12:55
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But another application,
00:12:57
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Just like I did, maybe it's deciding if you should leave your current situation, get in a better situation as far as companies or whatever group of people you're selling with.
00:13:07
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Hey, maybe it's if you manage a team, maybe it's deciding to let a rep go.
00:13:10
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Hey, this can be extremely tough.
00:13:12
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And I've made this mistake when you have a producing rep, but he thinks he doesn't need to show up to anything.
00:13:18
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He thinks he can talk negative.
00:13:20
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Maybe you should let that rep go, but don't be in the middle.
00:13:23
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Maybe it's deciding to invest in real estate or investing in yourself, whatever it may be.
00:13:31
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So this principle, practice it in all these different areas, not only in solar, but also in your life.
00:13:38
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So that's the lesson of today.
00:13:39
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That is the podcast.
00:13:40
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I hope it helps.
00:13:41
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Send this to someone that is being indecisive in their solar cells and start to make conscious decisions and not just be in the middle, not be indecisive.
00:13:50
Speaker
I hope that helps.
00:13:51
Speaker
We've got some exciting episodes coming up.
00:13:54
Speaker
Make sure you're tuning in every Tuesday and Friday.
00:13:56
Speaker
We've got some powerful guests coming on as well.
00:13:59
Speaker
Thank you for tuning in the show and we'll see you on the next one.
00:14:02
Speaker
Peace out.
Top 10 Solarpreneur Episodes Cheat Sheet
00:14:04
Speaker
What's up, Solopreneurs?
00:14:05
Speaker
Hope you enjoyed the episode.
00:14:07
Speaker
Before you run out and start selling more solar yourself, wanted to let you know about an exciting new cheat sheet we created specifically for you in mind.
00:14:17
Speaker
One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook, by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start?
00:14:24
Speaker
What episodes should I listen to in the podcast?
00:14:27
Speaker
You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
00:14:32
Speaker
So what we've done, we created the top 10 most downloaded, most listened to, and I would say widely accepted, most useful podcasts that we've done here on Solarpreneur.
00:14:45
Speaker
We put them together all in one sheet so you can go, you can hit the ground running, especially if you're new, you do not want to not have this sheet.
00:14:54
Speaker
So go download it right now.
00:14:56
Speaker
It's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com.
00:15:00
Speaker
Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com.
00:15:05
Speaker
Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs.
00:15:07
Speaker
We will have that in the show notes.
00:15:09
Speaker
Go download it right now.
00:15:11
Speaker
And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them.
00:15:16
Speaker
That's going to show you how.
00:15:18
Speaker
So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.