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Can You Sell a Lot and Be "Balanced" in Solar? image

Can You Sell a Lot and Be "Balanced" in Solar?

E152 ยท The Solarpreneur
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70 Plays4 years ago

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Speaker 1 (00:00:03):

Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and 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 fail. online teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask 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. What's up Solarpreneurs. Taylor Armstrong

Speaker 2 (00:00:42):

And we're back here with another episode, and we're doing a little bit different format. If you heard the previous one, we've got a special guests back on the show. So let us know what you think of these kind of debate style topics. Um, so we've got James back on what's up, James? Thanks for coming back on the show with us. Oh yeah. It was a blast a couple of days ago. I do want to say this though. We are going to get better at this format. So we're learning a lot already from the last episode I watched it again last night, I was like, all right, I got to shut up more. I've got to ask Taylor some more interesting questions and not try to jump on everything. Like I like to. So I'm going to try to chill back a little bit. And then one of the things I think we wanted to implement was a kind of more formalized questions, like a real deal debate, where we each get a chance to respond on specific topics.

Speaker 2 (00:01:39):

I think we both liked it. And one of my favorite debates was the, was the Trump debates. Did you watch back bowls back in 2016? I've studied the crap out of those man. Yeah. That's a masterclass in persuasion, man. That was good stuff. And for me it was just more the entertainment factor. Cause I love Trump just ripping Hillary apart and a corner and nasty women and all that, even though I kind of felt bad. Well, that's why he's a master at it, dude. It's like it's comedy plus insulting. The other party it's like dangerous, but I know, but what I thought was interesting too is Trump. Um, they went back and analyzed this debate in Trump. If you watch him, he uses like very simple language. He's not using sophisticated words. So I was reading study over and over basically the point in very simple language. What was it like? Uh, he always had like demeaning ones, like crooked Hillary. Was that it? Yeah. And then he had lion, Ted remember lion Ted for Ted Cruz. So you would get like they're like, Lion Ted came up like nicknames for him. Like that's all they say it's yeah. Anyway, we're not doing that. We're not gonna take shots at each other, but who knows crooked James right crooked James lion lion.

Speaker 2 (00:03:01):

So, no, we're probably won't get that hardcore. Um, I'm probably gonna not attack James personally or anything like that, but we we'll try to give our interests shoot for it, dude. This one's going to be spicy though. I think today is a spicy topic because last time both you and I, it wasn't a real debate. I mean, come on. We agreed way too much on the last one. It was like, Hey, get good at offline then do online. If you want to this one though, this is a different, this is a different animal. Yeah. One. I'm curious to hear what you have to say on this one. Because on the last show we did, I pretty much knew what your side of the story was, what your take, but this one I'm a little bit more in the dark. So I'm curious to know what y

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Transcript

Introduction and Podcast Format

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
Speaker
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
Speaker
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
Speaker
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.
00:00:41
Speaker
What's up, solopreneurs?
00:00:43
Speaker
Taylor Armstrong back here with another episode.
00:00:46
Speaker
And we're doing a little bit different format.
00:00:48
Speaker
If you heard the previous one, we've got a special guest back on the show.
00:00:53
Speaker
So let us know what you think of these kind of debate style topics.
00:00:57
Speaker
So we got James back on.
00:00:59
Speaker
What's up, James?
00:00:59
Speaker
Thanks for coming back on the show with us.
00:01:02
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:01:02
Speaker
It was a blast a couple days ago.
00:01:04
Speaker
I do want to say this, though.
00:01:06
Speaker
We are going to get better at this format.
00:01:09
Speaker
So we're learning a lot already from the last episode.
00:01:12
Speaker
I watched it again last night.
00:01:14
Speaker
I was like, all right, I got to shut up more.
00:01:17
Speaker
I've got to ask Taylor some more interesting questions and not...
00:01:21
Speaker
Try to jump on everything like I'd like to.
00:01:23
Speaker
So I'm going to try to chill back a little bit.

Debate Style and Influence

00:01:26
Speaker
And then one of the things I think we wanted to implement was kind of more formalized questions, like a real deal debate where we each get a chance to respond on specific topics.
00:01:38
Speaker
Yeah, I think we're learning a lot and we both liked it.
00:01:42
Speaker
And one of my favorite debates was the Trump debates.
00:01:45
Speaker
Did you watch back bowls back in 2016?
00:01:47
Speaker
I've studied the crap out of those, man.
00:01:49
Speaker
Yeah, that's a master class in persuasion, man.
00:01:52
Speaker
Yeah, that was good stuff.
00:01:54
Speaker
And for me, it was just more the entertainment factor because I love Trump just ripping Hillary apart.
00:02:00
Speaker
and a coloner and nasty woman and all that, even though I kind of felt bad.
00:02:03
Speaker
Well, that's why he's a master at it, dude.
00:02:06
Speaker
It's like, it's comedy plus insulting the other party.
00:02:09
Speaker
It's like,
00:02:11
Speaker
It's dangerous.
00:02:12
Speaker
I know.
00:02:12
Speaker
But what I thought was interesting too is Trump, they went back and analyzed his debate.
00:02:18
Speaker
And Trump, if you watch him, he uses like very simple language.
00:02:21
Speaker
He's not using sophisticated words.
00:02:24
Speaker
So I was reading some study.
00:02:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:26
Speaker
And just repeat it over and over.
00:02:27
Speaker
Basically the point in very simple language.
00:02:30
Speaker
What was it like?
00:02:31
Speaker
He always had like demeaning ones like crooked Hillary.
00:02:34
Speaker
Was that it?
00:02:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:36
Speaker
And then he had Lion Ted.
00:02:38
Speaker
Remember Lion Ted for Ted Cruz?
00:02:39
Speaker
So you would get like, they're like Lion Ted.
00:02:44
Speaker
He came up with like nicknames for him.
00:02:45
Speaker
Like that's all they say.
00:02:47
Speaker
It's yeah.
00:02:48
Speaker
Anyway, we're not doing that.
00:02:50
Speaker
We're not going to take shots at each other, but who knows?
00:02:54
Speaker
Crooked James.
00:02:56
Speaker
Crooked James.
00:02:57
Speaker
Lion Taylor.
00:02:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:01
Speaker
So no, we probably won't get that hardcore.
00:03:03
Speaker
I'm probably going to not attack James personally or anything like that, but we'll try to

Is Work-Life Balance Possible?

00:03:08
Speaker
give our interest.
00:03:08
Speaker
Hey, shoot for it, dude.
00:03:10
Speaker
This one's going to be spicy though.
00:03:13
Speaker
I think today is a spicy topic because last time both you and I, it wasn't a real debate.
00:03:18
Speaker
I mean, come on.
00:03:19
Speaker
We agreed way too much on the last one.
00:03:21
Speaker
It was like, hey, get good at offline, then do online if you want to.
00:03:27
Speaker
This one though, this is a different, this is a different animal.
00:03:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:31
Speaker
Well, I'm curious to hear what you have to say on this one, because on the last show we did, I pretty much knew what your side of the story was, what your take.
00:03:38
Speaker
But this one, I'm a little bit more in the dark, so I'm curious to know what you have to say.
00:03:42
Speaker
What are we talking about?
00:03:46
Speaker
The debate today, we're talking about work-life balance.
00:03:50
Speaker
Can it exist?
00:03:52
Speaker
Can it be attained?
00:03:53
Speaker
Should you even have balance?
00:03:56
Speaker
We got some juicy questions we're going to go over.
00:03:59
Speaker
I think we're just going to go with the questions.
00:04:01
Speaker
I'm going to say my side, what I think.
00:04:04
Speaker
James, I'm sure you'll challenge me.
00:04:05
Speaker
I'm sure I'll have some stuff to say about what you're throwing down.
00:04:09
Speaker
So yeah, that's what we're going through.
00:04:11
Speaker
So should we jump into the questions or anything?
00:04:13
Speaker
Let's review what the topics are.
00:04:15
Speaker
So question number one, what is the belief about work-life balance that you have within solar?
00:04:22
Speaker
And then what principles do you adopt for it?
00:04:24
Speaker
So that's question one.
00:04:26
Speaker
Question two, what do you think is required to have success in the industry, right?
00:04:31
Speaker
For most people, general statement.
00:04:33
Speaker
And then three, what would you advise to someone who is struggling with work-life balance?
00:04:39
Speaker
Solar reps, managers, CEOs, all of the above.
00:04:42
Speaker
So that's going to be more tactic-based.
00:04:44
Speaker
Like how would you actually improve your work ethic?
00:04:46
Speaker
Things like that.
00:04:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:48
Speaker
Okay.
00:04:49
Speaker
Good stuff.
00:04:50
Speaker
So yeah, I'm excited to hear what your take is on all these things.
00:04:54
Speaker
So what do you think?
00:04:54
Speaker
So are you up first?
00:04:55
Speaker
It's your podcast, Taylor.
00:04:57
Speaker
Question one, man.
00:04:58
Speaker
What is your belief about work-life balance and principles that you adopt with solar?
00:05:04
Speaker
All right, okay, let's jump into it.
00:05:07
Speaker
So here's my take on this.
00:05:11
Speaker
Basically, what I've seen in solar is you gotta have seasons.
00:05:15
Speaker
And what I mean by seasons is there's gonna be ups and downs.
00:05:18
Speaker
There's gonna be times where you're pushing super hard, and there's gonna be times where you're taking breaks, where you're not pushing as hard.
00:05:25
Speaker
And I think it's a little bit different than these summer cells, guys.
00:05:28
Speaker
Everyone's heard the summer cells.
00:05:30
Speaker
You go out, you do pest control, you do alarms.
00:05:33
Speaker
But solar, as a lot of us are, it's year-round.
00:05:36
Speaker
We're doing this 12 months out of the year.
00:05:39
Speaker
It's a full-time thing.
00:05:41
Speaker
So when I see the top guys in the industry, they're not โ€“ I mean, we're not all knocking โ€“
00:05:47
Speaker
12 hour days, like these alarm guys, um, we're, you know, we're coming out of more strategic.
00:05:53
Speaker
I'm knocking usually anywhere from, you know, four to six hours just depends.
00:05:58
Speaker
So, um, I say seasons because you look at these big companies like the Vivint Solars, the Sunruns, the, all these big ones.
00:06:07
Speaker
These guys, they're being super consistent, but they're having ups and downs.
00:06:12
Speaker
I see these top guys, they're taking time off.
00:06:14
Speaker
Like, for example, Vivint Solar, they have their, I think it's every six months, every three months, something like that.
00:06:21
Speaker
They have their huge competitions and they have their guys go insanely hard for, I don't know, a month, six weeks, whatever it may be.
00:06:31
Speaker
They're all pushing each other as a team.
00:06:32
Speaker
They're all going out there.
00:06:34
Speaker
Maybe they're working 12-hour days for that six weeks or for that month.
00:06:39
Speaker
They're pushing super hard.
00:06:41
Speaker
But then even the top guys after that, they've got to have a cool-down period.
00:06:45
Speaker
It's like you're pushing so hard.
00:06:47
Speaker
They're...
00:06:49
Speaker
you know, working way harder than they normally would.
00:06:51
Speaker
They're getting a ton of results and then they're going on a trip after or they're cooling down.
00:06:56
Speaker
And I even talked to some of them.
00:06:58
Speaker
A lot of them, once these big competitions start, they go to their wives and they're like, hey, honey, I'm gearing up for this competition.
00:07:05
Speaker
Do I have your permission to throw it down super hard?
00:07:08
Speaker
Because they know that for the next month or whatever, they're not going to see much of their wife.
00:07:13
Speaker
So they literally have to go get permission from their wives and their girlfriends or whatever to not see them.
00:07:19
Speaker
So that's the way I look at it.
00:07:20
Speaker
It's just like solar, you got to have the seasons with it.
00:07:24
Speaker
And also it depends on, you know, kind of your goals.
00:07:27
Speaker
Are you trying to be just, you know, make tons of money?
00:07:30
Speaker
Maybe you don't even have wife, kids or anything like that yet.
00:07:34
Speaker
So also I think it depends on all our, on your goals.
00:07:37
Speaker
What are you trying to achieve?
00:07:38
Speaker
And I'm sure you'll get into this.
00:07:40
Speaker
But for me, it's all about having those seasons.
00:07:43
Speaker
I know that, yeah, there's going to be times maybe a month I'm going to go insanely hard.
00:07:47
Speaker
I'm going to close a lot of deals, but then I got to have my balance back for a little bit.
00:07:51
Speaker
And then maybe it's going to shift towards more of my family because I got to catch back up.
00:07:56
Speaker
And yeah, I really respect a lot of entrepreneurs like Russell Branson.
00:08:01
Speaker
A lot of these big entrepreneurs, I think they preach a lot of the same things when they're launching books, when they're launching big projects coming out.
00:08:08
Speaker
Same thing, they're working, you know, 15 hour days and just going extremely hard, but then they're going on trips and taking...
00:08:16
Speaker
vacation, stuff like that after.
00:08:18
Speaker
So how would you, I have a question on your thing.
00:08:20
Speaker
So how would you summarize your work, work, life balance belief in like one

Challenging Work-Life Balance

00:08:25
Speaker
sentence?
00:08:25
Speaker
Is it sprinting and then rest, refuel, sprint, refuel?
00:08:32
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's sprint and then
00:08:36
Speaker
I don't want to say rest because unless you have like a trip or something planned, I don't think you're like, I mean, you're not going to like rest always, but I think it's sprints and then trots maybe.
00:08:48
Speaker
So it's like sprint and then cool down, sprint and then cool down.
00:08:52
Speaker
So not like completely off is what you're saying for a rest period.
00:08:57
Speaker
It's you're still kind of on.
00:08:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:59
Speaker
I mean, I think, yeah, plan trips and stuff like that.
00:09:02
Speaker
So if you're going extremely hard, I think it is a good idea.
00:09:04
Speaker
Plan like a trip or something after.
00:09:06
Speaker
Go get away for a weekend.
00:09:08
Speaker
So in that case, yeah, rest.
00:09:09
Speaker
But maybe you're doing like a mini sprint for a week.
00:09:12
Speaker
And then maybe it's, you know, you're only knocking three, four hours a day the next week.
00:09:18
Speaker
You're going to a trot.
00:09:21
Speaker
So, yeah, I think be consistent, whatever you're doing and plan the trips, plan the vacations.
00:09:26
Speaker
I mean, yeah, plan your schedule.
00:09:28
Speaker
If you know you want to have the date night with the wife, there's something we just had a guest on the podcast, Ashton Buswell, and he said his biggest like,
00:09:38
Speaker
One of his biggest accomplishments he's helped other people achieve in solar is he's taught them to schedule out like a date night every Friday with their wife.
00:09:46
Speaker
I just literally listened to his interview before our thing today.
00:09:50
Speaker
That's freaking hilarious.
00:09:51
Speaker
I listened to him because he's a work horse.
00:09:54
Speaker
So I was curious what his opinion was.
00:09:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:57
Speaker
So yeah, I respect guys like that.
00:09:58
Speaker
I mean, he's pushing insanely hard sometimes, but he says like no matter what, he's always having what's important to him also scheduled out in advance.
00:10:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:07
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's like that.
00:10:09
Speaker
Sprints, know when your sprints are, know when your risks are.
00:10:13
Speaker
But yeah, should always be planned and then have those times where you're pushing hard.
00:10:17
Speaker
It shouldn't be always just, you know, doing the minimum work to get minimum results.
00:10:23
Speaker
If you're just closing one deal week after week, you shouldn't be happy with that.
00:10:27
Speaker
But I think plan for some sprints and plan to get extreme results too.
00:10:31
Speaker
And that's going to bring you fulfillment.
00:10:34
Speaker
So that's my take on it.
00:10:37
Speaker
Fair.
00:10:37
Speaker
Solid.
00:10:38
Speaker
We're not 100% off on those, to be honest.
00:10:41
Speaker
No, that was a surprising answer.
00:10:43
Speaker
I was expecting more Tim Ferriss four-hour workweek answer.
00:10:48
Speaker
No, that's good.
00:10:50
Speaker
I agree with the sprints thing for sure.
00:10:53
Speaker
It's funny.
00:10:53
Speaker
I think of you as the Tim Ferriss four-hour workweek just because you've talked about the book a lot.
00:10:58
Speaker
But what you actually practice is not necessarily the stigma of
00:11:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:05
Speaker
Well, no, I do like that too.
00:11:06
Speaker
And you, we've talked a lot off camera.
00:11:08
Speaker
That's why I hire like an assistant and everything.
00:11:11
Speaker
Cause yeah, yeah.
00:11:12
Speaker
Trust me at the end of the day, I want to work, you know, usually as little as possible and get the max results, but I enjoy what I do too.
00:11:19
Speaker
I like being on the podcast.
00:11:21
Speaker
So cool.
00:11:22
Speaker
So you want to answer the question?
00:11:24
Speaker
You wrapped up.
00:11:24
Speaker
You want me to go?
00:11:25
Speaker
No, you got to say.
00:11:26
Speaker
So my, my take on this work-life balance is I'm not going to attack the
00:11:31
Speaker
Should you be working all the time?
00:11:33
Speaker
Should you be balancing all the time?
00:11:37
Speaker
If that's a thing, whatever the heck you call it.
00:11:39
Speaker
I'm going to attack the concept and the idea of work-life balance and why I think it's flawed.
00:11:44
Speaker
I actually think the idea of, oh, I'm trying to live a more balanced, wholesome life, right?
00:11:50
Speaker
I'm trying to be balanced in all these areas, right?
00:11:53
Speaker
I think that's flawed and it's the number one killer of people's success, especially in solar.
00:11:59
Speaker
So,
00:12:00
Speaker
I'm not against what Taylor's saying necessarily.
00:12:03
Speaker
I'm against the idea of work-life balance that we have in our society today, right?
00:12:09
Speaker
I think our society, we can all agree with this, right?
00:12:12
Speaker
Society has gotten a lot more soft, PC, people getting banned on social media for talking about stuff.
00:12:19
Speaker
Trump gets banned for six months on Twitter for talking about things, right?
00:12:23
Speaker
Like worlds change and getting pretty weird with stuff, right?
00:12:26
Speaker
And in general, like people have become a lot more,
00:12:32
Speaker
Whatever.
00:12:32
Speaker
I'm going to use the term weak-willed.
00:12:34
Speaker
Okay.
00:12:36
Speaker
I was listening to another podcast the other day, a value attainment podcast.
00:12:41
Speaker
One of my mentors, Patrick Bet-David, is the host of that.
00:12:45
Speaker
And he was talking about how the military is adopting a new concept.
00:12:50
Speaker
And I can't remember what it's called, but basically they're taking away the tools and strategies they would use to basically toughen up soldiers, get them used to rejection and pressure.
00:13:01
Speaker
where the drill sergeants will literally go in and anybody who's been in the military and has stories about that knows anybody who's been in there, right?
00:13:09
Speaker
You literally day one boots on the ground.
00:13:11
Speaker
The drill sergeants are just demeaning, right?
00:13:14
Speaker
Just swearing at you, just going off on you, right?
00:13:17
Speaker
Just hard, just trying to like break you down, right?
00:13:20
Speaker
So the military is literally getting rid of this as we speak right now with soldiers, which I completely think is a terrible idea.
00:13:28
Speaker
Um,
00:13:29
Speaker
I have quite a few family members who served as well.
00:13:32
Speaker
And they're just like, dude, that goes against everything.
00:13:36
Speaker
Because what are we incentivizing?
00:13:38
Speaker
We're incentivizing soft, weak type of culture.
00:13:41
Speaker
And I think in general right now, the reason we have so many problems with anxiety, substance abuse, alcoholism, porn addiction,
00:13:53
Speaker
you freaking name it, right?
00:13:55
Speaker
Anxiety is at an all-time high.
00:13:56
Speaker
And if I look at the stat here, I look this up.
00:13:58
Speaker
So 40 million adults in the US ages 18 or older, and over 18% of the population is diagnosed with some sort of common mental illness like anxiety.
00:14:11
Speaker
And these stats, this was not existent 40, 50, 60 years ago, right?
00:14:16
Speaker
Back in the 40s and 50s when our grandparents lived.
00:14:19
Speaker
And-
00:14:20
Speaker
Taylor, how old are your grandparents alive still?
00:14:23
Speaker
Yeah, they're still kicking.
00:14:25
Speaker
Yeah, I think they're late 70s.
00:14:29
Speaker
What did your grandparents do for a living, like your grandpa?
00:14:34
Speaker
One grandpa was a music professor, Utah State.
00:14:39
Speaker
Go Aggies.
00:14:39
Speaker
And then the other one was a dentist.
00:14:43
Speaker
Dentist, yeah.
00:14:45
Speaker
So I don't know if the conversations you've had with them โ€“
00:14:50
Speaker
what they go like, but I could tell you with both of my grandparents.
00:14:53
Speaker
So one grandparent, he was an entrepreneur, very successful, owned a couple of eight figure companies.
00:14:59
Speaker
One was an electrician.
00:15:01
Speaker
And talking to both of them, these guys worked like a hundred hours a week, like their entire life until they retired in their seventies.
00:15:09
Speaker
Right.
00:15:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:11
Speaker
That's the kind of culture I grew up with.
00:15:13
Speaker
And my dad adopted the same thing.
00:15:15
Speaker
I grew up watching my dad be out the door working at 6 a.m.
00:15:20
Speaker
and get back at 8 p.m.
00:15:22
Speaker
six days a week, right?
00:15:24
Speaker
So it's like, that's kind of how I grew up.
00:15:27
Speaker
That's what I'm used to.
00:15:28
Speaker
So when I come from that background, like obviously that experience is familiar to me, right?
00:15:34
Speaker
So yeah.
00:15:35
Speaker
I think the concept of like the 40-hour work week, the work-life balance is more of a cop-out and an excuse to not put in the effort to realize your fullest potential.
00:15:47
Speaker
And I believe...
00:15:49
Speaker
And my theory is that most mental illnesses, um, unhappiness, anxiety, depression, divorce, things like that are all caused because people are not realizing their fullest potential.
00:16:01
Speaker
And this 40 hour work week type of setup is to blame.
00:16:05
Speaker
So that's my big idea on this.
00:16:08
Speaker
Um, what do you think about that?
00:16:09
Speaker
What do you think about?
00:16:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:11
Speaker
I think I think I agree with that, but like for someone in the solar industry, let's say someone starting out, um,
00:16:19
Speaker
Like, would you tell them if they're thinking of doing this like full-time career or whatever, would you tell them, hey, go out and work like 40-hour weeks?
00:16:29
Speaker
Or would you have them, I don't know, maybe go easy and like just do like a 20-hour week?
00:16:36
Speaker
What would you tell a new guy starting out?
00:16:38
Speaker
Like, do you think someone's going to get burned out by doing 40-hour weeks in solar?
00:16:42
Speaker
Say they're hitting doors hard doing...
00:16:44
Speaker
you know, going out and doing the prospecting.
00:16:46
Speaker
Quite the opposite, quite the opposite.
00:16:49
Speaker
Here's the problem I see and why people are not successful in solar.
00:16:51
Speaker
I've coached several hundred directly one-on-one solar reps too, whether it's under my own company, whether it's people at solopreneurs.
00:16:59
Speaker
So I've done this quite a bit.
00:17:00
Speaker
I could tell you that the reason solar reps are unsuccessful is not because they burn out.
00:17:05
Speaker
It's almost never going to be because they work too hard.
00:17:09
Speaker
Okay.
00:17:10
Speaker
Can we both agree on that?
00:17:11
Speaker
That sales reps are not going to fail because they work too hard.
00:17:15
Speaker
Have you ever seen this?
00:17:16
Speaker
Yeah, that's true.
00:17:17
Speaker
I've never seen this.
00:17:18
Speaker
There's some lazy reps, man.
00:17:20
Speaker
There's some lazy reps.
00:17:22
Speaker
Right.
00:17:22
Speaker
But it's like, dude, nobody, it's such a small percentage of people that end up burning out.
00:17:30
Speaker
I hate the term burnout.
00:17:31
Speaker
I'll never use it except for on this podcast for this example.
00:17:34
Speaker
But anytime you see someone searching like,
00:17:37
Speaker
oh, what if I get burnt out?
00:17:40
Speaker
Or aren't you afraid of burnt out?
00:17:42
Speaker
I would say like one out of 10 people actually experience burnout.
00:17:46
Speaker
And the other ones, they just need a quick two, three hour refresh break, get back in the game, get re-energized on their goals.
00:17:54
Speaker
What are they doing things for?
00:17:56
Speaker
My case for the sales rep thing to get back to this,
00:17:59
Speaker
I think every person who is new to sales, working on a commission basis, they need to get a little bit of a taste and glimpse of what they're really capable of as a human being.
00:18:13
Speaker
We're living in such a fraction of our potential as humans.
00:18:18
Speaker
I don't know.
00:18:19
Speaker
You know how we only use like 40% of our brain, right?
00:18:22
Speaker
We've heard this study.
00:18:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:24
Speaker
Something like that.
00:18:25
Speaker
I think that applies to everything.
00:18:27
Speaker
Tim Grover, right?
00:18:28
Speaker
Relentless guy.
00:18:29
Speaker
He talks about how, and no, it's David Goggins.
00:18:32
Speaker
Sorry.
00:18:33
Speaker
He talks about how, when you think you're done and your brain's telling you you're tired to throw in the towel, you're only 40% of your capacity.
00:18:40
Speaker
40%.
00:18:40
Speaker
Okay.
00:18:41
Speaker
That story we tell ourselves of, ah, I should just take it easy.
00:18:46
Speaker
Maybe I should just go call it a day.
00:18:48
Speaker
It's five o'clock on a Friday.
00:18:50
Speaker
Today's Friday.
00:18:51
Speaker
We're recording this.
00:18:52
Speaker
It's five o'clock on a Friday.
00:18:53
Speaker
Maybe I shouldn't knock doors or maybe I should take Saturday off because it's, you know, we're good to go.
00:19:00
Speaker
That's cool.
00:19:01
Speaker
If that's what makes you happy,
00:19:03
Speaker
But if you're just accepting that belief because that's what mom and dad told you, that's what society has told you at the 40-hour work week, you're never going to get to see what you're capable of.
00:19:14
Speaker
So my advice to the rep, the diagnosis from Dr. James here is to...

Personal Stories of Hard Work

00:19:21
Speaker
Go and give everything you possibly can for a time period.
00:19:26
Speaker
Set a week, set a month.
00:19:29
Speaker
I don't care what it is.
00:19:30
Speaker
And go balls to the walls.
00:19:32
Speaker
I'm talking as hard as you freaking can.
00:19:35
Speaker
Literally push yourself to the brink of failure.
00:19:37
Speaker
Okay?
00:19:39
Speaker
And that is when you're going to recalibrate what you're actually capable of.
00:19:43
Speaker
What is your work ethic actually capable of?
00:19:45
Speaker
First time I did this was...
00:19:48
Speaker
I believe in high school.
00:19:49
Speaker
Right.
00:19:49
Speaker
So again, grew up with a super hard work ethic to begin with, but I played trumpet in high school, did a lot of competitions.
00:19:56
Speaker
And I remember my dad literally sat me down and he said, Hey, like he had this talk with me about work ethic.
00:20:03
Speaker
He talked about capabilities.
00:20:05
Speaker
Like what is your actual capability as a person?
00:20:08
Speaker
And he challenged me to do this like for a month to get into a, it was like a statewide competition thing.
00:20:13
Speaker
Right.
00:20:14
Speaker
I didn't believe I could.
00:20:15
Speaker
I was uncomfortable with it.
00:20:17
Speaker
He said, just go with it until the competition and see if you can do it.
00:20:20
Speaker
Just go all out.
00:20:21
Speaker
So I did.
00:20:22
Speaker
And I remember, and again, it's not
00:20:25
Speaker
People will disagree with this, right?
00:20:27
Speaker
But I literally took two weeks off of school, ditched all of my classes, and practiced trumpet all day for two weeks.
00:20:36
Speaker
And yeah, I failed like a bunch of tests and stuff like that.
00:20:39
Speaker
And I was like 14 at the time, right?
00:20:41
Speaker
My mom wanted to kill me.
00:20:42
Speaker
Like all this stuff, right?
00:20:43
Speaker
She wanted to kill my dad in particular, right?
00:20:46
Speaker
That's funny.
00:20:48
Speaker
I did this.
00:20:50
Speaker
Wasn't your dad a principal?
00:20:51
Speaker
He is now.
00:20:52
Speaker
He was in music education, though, for like 25 years.
00:20:55
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:20:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:56
Speaker
He didn't say skip school.
00:20:57
Speaker
That was me who decided to do that.
00:21:00
Speaker
He said just work really hard.
00:21:02
Speaker
So I did, and...
00:21:05
Speaker
I got a taste very early of, holy crap.
00:21:09
Speaker
Like I got into the competition shortcut, right?
00:21:12
Speaker
Instantly became top of the class.
00:21:15
Speaker
I was failing earlier.
00:21:16
Speaker
I was like, that was just two weeks.
00:21:18
Speaker
I was able to accomplish this, right?
00:21:21
Speaker
So ever since then, that mentality has been baked in.
00:21:23
Speaker
And that's what I did immediately off the bat with solar when I got in the industry when I was 19.
00:21:27
Speaker
I just came in and my first week, I blew in 65 hours at a mall kiosk talking to people.
00:21:35
Speaker
People are like, dude, what the hell is wrong with this kid?
00:21:37
Speaker
Like what's going on?
00:21:38
Speaker
I knew that if I put in the work, the work will take care of me.
00:21:43
Speaker
On that trumpet note, there's a trumpet lesson I got from a famous jazz musician.
00:21:47
Speaker
His name's Roy Hargrove.
00:21:49
Speaker
And he gave this advice to everybody.
00:21:51
Speaker
He always says, if you take care of the music, the music will take care of you, right?
00:21:55
Speaker
I apply the same thing with work.
00:21:56
Speaker
Take care of the work.
00:21:57
Speaker
The work takes care of you every time.
00:21:59
Speaker
I've never seen it fail.
00:22:01
Speaker
So that's good.
00:22:03
Speaker
Well, man, I think we kind of agree because on the same stuff.
00:22:06
Speaker
So maybe this isn't as much of a debate as we thought, because I think I pretty much agree with most of that.
00:22:13
Speaker
But there's nothing to disagree with.
00:22:15
Speaker
I mean, we'll get into it more.
00:22:17
Speaker
If you know what you want in life, which we have not touched on is a big part of this.
00:22:22
Speaker
If you know what you want with exact clarity and you know what makes you happy,
00:22:27
Speaker
You'll do whatever it takes to get that.
00:22:29
Speaker
It's the people who don't know what they want that make up the excuses to work-life balance.
00:22:33
Speaker
I'm going to take this day off, this day off, stuff like that.
00:22:36
Speaker
Yeah, I agree.
00:22:38
Speaker
Interesting side note on David Goggins, speaking of him.
00:22:42
Speaker
I think I might have told this story a few episodes back at Sam Taggart, but he was supposed to speak at the Door-to-DoorCon events last time.
00:22:51
Speaker
But I guess he didn't show up because of COVID when all the other speakers did.
00:22:55
Speaker
really david goggins was uh spooked didn't want to show up because of covid i'm like well what is isn't he supposed to be the baddest mother ever on the planet does it mentally will off covid i'm incapable of catching it that's what i was thinking then john yeah john maxwell who's 80 years old shows up but which is kind of yeah
00:23:19
Speaker
Yeah, Goggins of all people.
00:23:20
Speaker
Yeah, he's going to, yeah, whatever.
00:23:22
Speaker
Yeah, spending too much time in California maybe.
00:23:27
Speaker
Yikes, get out.
00:23:28
Speaker
But yeah, but no, good stuff, man.
00:23:31
Speaker
So yeah, the only thing I'd add to that, and maybe we'll get into this too, but you kind of touched on it there just barely.
00:23:36
Speaker
I think it depends on what are your goals in the industry?
00:23:38
Speaker
What are you trying to achieve?
00:23:41
Speaker
Speaking of that, I was just listening to podcasts the other day.
00:23:46
Speaker
John Lee Dumas, he does the...
00:23:48
Speaker
entrepreneurs on fire podcast.
00:23:51
Speaker
And this guy has been making, um, doing 2 million revenue for like the past eight years.
00:23:57
Speaker
Um, so super successful podcast, but he hasn't grown in like eight years.
00:24:01
Speaker
Just been 2 million a year, too many a year.
00:24:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:04
Speaker
So in this interview I listened to, he says, people ask him like, why don't you like, why haven't you scaled it?
00:24:11
Speaker
Why are you just, why do you just keep doing 2 million?
00:24:13
Speaker
Don't want to, don't you want to increase, increase by 5% a year or something?
00:24:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:17
Speaker
And his answer is no, that's not really my goal.
00:24:20
Speaker
I'm fine.
00:24:20
Speaker
I only work five days a month right now.
00:24:23
Speaker
I have 25 days off.
00:24:25
Speaker
Those five days I go extremely hard.
00:24:27
Speaker
I'm working like, you know, 16 hour days for five days, but then I have 25 days off.
00:24:33
Speaker
I have a team of like six people.
00:24:35
Speaker
So yeah, I'm happy where it's at.
00:24:37
Speaker
And that's, that's my goal is that I can just do whatever I want.
00:24:40
Speaker
I have the freedom to be who I, who I want to be with, where I want to be.
00:24:45
Speaker
and then have a business that I love doing that gets me excited to work those five days in a month.
00:24:51
Speaker
So I think it comes down to, or like, what are your goals?
00:24:53
Speaker
Are you trying to achieve that freedom?
00:24:55
Speaker
And I think I lean more towards that, which is maybe where we agree less.
00:25:00
Speaker
That's why I like the whole four hour work week stuff.
00:25:02
Speaker
Cause, cause I'm the same as John Lee Duhm.
00:25:05
Speaker
I want to do whatever I want.
00:25:06
Speaker
And like when I have my kids, I want to put them in sports and all that, just be able to go to their games whenever I can.
00:25:12
Speaker
And,
00:25:13
Speaker
not have to be tied down to the work so that's my goal but maybe for the guy getting into it again are you a new rep maybe you don't have a family maybe your goal is to just make as much money as possible and um your iron wills maybe you're gonna knock eight hours a day for the next um two months even those guys i think they still need to have their seasons and you know go harder during other times and
00:25:37
Speaker
But yeah, I think that's another important factor in this.
00:25:40
Speaker
What are your goals?
00:25:41
Speaker
What are you trying to achieve?
00:25:42
Speaker
Is it make as much money as possible?
00:25:44
Speaker
Or is it, you know, have time to have that freedom and go where you want to go, take days off when you want to take days off.
00:25:52
Speaker
So that's my other side of that.
00:25:54
Speaker
Let me respond on this.
00:25:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:55
Speaker
I have an interesting perspective on this one.
00:25:57
Speaker
So I believe that if you're truly, I don't believe people are
00:26:02
Speaker
Seeking freedom.
00:26:03
Speaker
That's where I'm going to disagree.
00:26:05
Speaker
I don't think the biggest thing people are seeking freedom.
00:26:07
Speaker
I think they're seeking happiness and someone's happiness.
00:26:12
Speaker
Can we agree on that?
00:26:13
Speaker
That people want to be happy.
00:26:15
Speaker
It's not because you can be free and unhappy.
00:26:17
Speaker
Can you agree with that?
00:26:18
Speaker
Yeah, that's true.
00:26:19
Speaker
Okay.
00:26:20
Speaker
So happiness is what we're really after as people, right?
00:26:23
Speaker
If you're truly happy and content with where you're at, you've succeeded at the highest level, in my opinion.
00:26:31
Speaker
right?
00:26:31
Speaker
You have made it.
00:26:33
Speaker
That is success.
00:26:34
Speaker
Success doesn't have to be the fancy cars, the contests at your company, the vacations.
00:26:41
Speaker
It doesn't have to be that if you're happy without them.
00:26:43
Speaker
Okay.
00:26:44
Speaker
But
00:26:46
Speaker
My problem is, and you see it all the time, the very exact moment that you end up desiring something else that you don't have.
00:26:56
Speaker
Maybe you get jealous that someone else is more successful in one area.
00:27:01
Speaker
Maybe you're jealous that some guy's outperforming you at your company for a minute and you compare yourself a little bit and you say, man, I wish I could do that.
00:27:10
Speaker
And then you make an excuse on why you can't do that.
00:27:13
Speaker
That's my problem.
00:27:14
Speaker
And I would say that person is not truly 100% happy because they see that person, they see a part of themselves in that person often case.
00:27:23
Speaker
They'll say, hey, maybe I could do that.
00:27:26
Speaker
I think I could if I actually did what this guy did.
00:27:29
Speaker
I think I could accomplish that.
00:27:31
Speaker
But what do they do?
00:27:32
Speaker
They say they're not willing to put in the work to do that.
00:27:36
Speaker
It's not worth the sacrifices to make that happen.
00:27:39
Speaker
So
00:27:40
Speaker
If that's you and you say, hey, it would be nice to make, I don't know, 500 grand a year selling solar, but I'm not willing to work the hours that is required, then you need to do one of two things.
00:27:52
Speaker
One, examine your work ethic and adjust to be in line with what you want.
00:27:58
Speaker
Or two,
00:28:00
Speaker
step down and say, I would be okay without having that thing.
00:28:03
Speaker
And if that makes you happy, then cool.
00:28:06
Speaker
But if it doesn't, and you say, I don't want to have to tolerate that, right?
00:28:11
Speaker
That's when you know you got to change something.
00:28:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:15
Speaker
No, I think there's a ton of excuses in the industry too.
00:28:17
Speaker
I've had tons of reps on my teams, um, where basically they sell themselves out of a competition before it's even started.
00:28:25
Speaker
Oh, dude, that's the worst of competitions.
00:28:28
Speaker
They don't even try to give up.
00:28:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:30
Speaker
Yep.
00:28:31
Speaker
Like, no, I'm not willing to, you know, push hard.
00:28:33
Speaker
So,
00:28:34
Speaker
Yeah, I don't really care.
00:28:36
Speaker
I just want to be happy.
00:28:38
Speaker
You just want to like put in.
00:28:39
Speaker
So that's the other.
00:28:40
Speaker
I don't think that person's happy.
00:28:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:43
Speaker
I don't think they are.
00:28:44
Speaker
It's an excuse.
00:28:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:46
Speaker
So they're complacent.
00:28:47
Speaker
So I say all this stuff, but honestly, I think it is pretty dangerous for sole reps because a lot of people are telling themselves right now.
00:28:54
Speaker
Yeah, I'm fine just making 100 grand a year.
00:28:58
Speaker
And because I want to I want to go on my trips.
00:29:01
Speaker
I want to do my vacations and.
00:29:03
Speaker
I want to do me and maybe, yeah, maybe those people are only working like three hours a week, right?
00:29:08
Speaker
You know, three hours a day.
00:29:10
Speaker
We'll get into that about tactics.
00:29:13
Speaker
People don't work as hard as they think they work.
00:29:15
Speaker
That's the other side of this.
00:29:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:17
Speaker
Cause I think it comes back to what you're saying.
00:29:19
Speaker
At the end of the day, we can do way more than what we tell ourselves we can.
00:29:23
Speaker
Yeah, you're only using 40% of the brain or whatever.
00:29:25
Speaker
You can push way harder.
00:29:26
Speaker
That's why David Goggins, that's pretty much his whole basis of his book, Can't Hurt Me.
00:29:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:32
Speaker
You can do way more than you think you can.
00:29:34
Speaker
You just got to be pushed to those levels.
00:29:36
Speaker
That's why he ran and he went through boot camp or whatever with, I think it was a broken leg.
00:29:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:42
Speaker
He ran, what was it, like 100 miles while he's puking blood.
00:29:47
Speaker
He's done all of it.
00:29:48
Speaker
Yeah, he's like bleeding.
00:29:50
Speaker
He's peeing blood, throwing up, dehydrated, broken everything.
00:29:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:57
Speaker
Can I give you a formula on this that I use?
00:30:00
Speaker
So I have a formula I use when I'm coaching people for this stuff.
00:30:04
Speaker
And just so you know, like behind the scenes, I'm coaching a sales rep.
00:30:08
Speaker
I've coached sales reps from zero to 500K in their first year.

Formula for Happiness

00:30:12
Speaker
I have one student who made a million bucks in a year.
00:30:15
Speaker
All of it is mindset.
00:30:16
Speaker
Taylor and I could agree.
00:30:17
Speaker
Like it's all freaking mindset.
00:30:20
Speaker
There's not that many tactics you need to know to make it
00:30:23
Speaker
I remember the interview I said I was reviewing with Ashton Buswell, right?
00:30:28
Speaker
He literally said, he's like, I'm not the best sales guy in the world, but I just work my guts out.
00:30:32
Speaker
That's the secret, right?
00:30:34
Speaker
I've experienced the same thing.
00:30:35
Speaker
I'm not really good at anything.
00:30:37
Speaker
I'm just good at working pretty much.
00:30:39
Speaker
And that's the advantage.
00:30:41
Speaker
But there is this formula I use, this three-step formula on how I can basically help someone be aligned and figure out where they want to be.
00:30:50
Speaker
So,
00:30:51
Speaker
This is what it is.
00:30:52
Speaker
This is the happiness formula.
00:30:54
Speaker
And this isn't my proprietary thing.
00:30:56
Speaker
I've gotten this from a lot of mentors.
00:30:57
Speaker
But one is you got to know what you want out of life and exact clarity, right?
00:31:02
Speaker
Not just, oh, I want to have financial independence.
00:31:05
Speaker
That's not specific.
00:31:07
Speaker
How are you going to make your money is more important than if you actually make it, okay?
00:31:11
Speaker
So how are you going to make your money?
00:31:14
Speaker
What's your house going to be like, right?
00:31:15
Speaker
What kind of cars are you going to drive?
00:31:17
Speaker
And the reason you get specific about all of these things is because
00:31:21
Speaker
The next time you see someone driving a fancy car and you're like a little jealous of it, you should have already determined in your mind pre-advance what kind of car you want to drive and you're happy and content with, right?
00:31:33
Speaker
If you don't go all out and really paint a picture of what your entire life looks like, you're going to face problems with this.
00:31:39
Speaker
The person who is exactly clear on what they want is the most dangerous.
00:31:44
Speaker
A second is you've got to get real about your capacities, abilities, and talents as a person as well.
00:31:51
Speaker
Thank you.
00:31:51
Speaker
So for example, let's say I wanted to go play basketball.
00:31:56
Speaker
I'm not LeBron James.
00:31:57
Speaker
Okay.
00:31:58
Speaker
I'm a skinny white kid who is not tall.
00:32:02
Speaker
He's not strong.
00:32:03
Speaker
I can't freaking dunk.
00:32:05
Speaker
I can't shoot free throws.
00:32:06
Speaker
Right.
00:32:07
Speaker
My coordination is so freaking bad.
00:32:10
Speaker
Anytime someone plays like a, so Joseph Taylor knows Joseph, right?
00:32:14
Speaker
My old business partner.
00:32:16
Speaker
I remember one time he came out to San Diego and we played like a foosball or air hockey.
00:32:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:21
Speaker
This guy beats me 15 to zero.
00:32:24
Speaker
I literally lose every game, 15 games in a row.
00:32:27
Speaker
Like I have the worst coordination ever, dude.
00:32:29
Speaker
It's terrible.
00:32:31
Speaker
So I can't be a top level sports player.
00:32:35
Speaker
It's not in the cards for me.
00:32:37
Speaker
Zero chance.
00:32:38
Speaker
Right?
00:32:39
Speaker
So this is another thing I really hate too, is our culture is all, everybody's equal, right?
00:32:46
Speaker
Everybody could do whatever they want.
00:32:49
Speaker
No, they freaking can't.
00:32:50
Speaker
There's no way, dude.
00:32:51
Speaker
It's like follow your passion, go work in what you love, follow your business out of it.
00:32:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:57
Speaker
Oh, the business thing's the worst, right?
00:33:00
Speaker
Everybody's trying to pop up a business, right?
00:33:03
Speaker
And I used to think that I was one of these guys too that maybe shouldn't be in business.
00:33:08
Speaker
And I'm here five years later and I'm still doing well with it.
00:33:11
Speaker
And I'm like, okay, that is in the cards for me.
00:33:13
Speaker
But since I was a kid, I was also hustling like business.
00:33:17
Speaker
doing shoveling people's driveways and stuff like that since I was like eight years old, right?
00:33:22
Speaker
Mowing lawns for people, right?
00:33:24
Speaker
So it's like, that's been in the cards since I was a young age and I enjoy doing that.
00:33:28
Speaker
So I know my abilities and my gifts and talents that goes into my capacity, right?
00:33:34
Speaker
So you have to understand that if you're not a great communicator and you're not great at selling people necessarily, right?
00:33:41
Speaker
Look at another facet of the solar industry.
00:33:44
Speaker
There's a lot of ways to make money.
00:33:46
Speaker
My partner, Joseph, old partner, right?
00:33:48
Speaker
He's not great at sales, but he's really good at marketing and systems.
00:33:52
Speaker
He's really good at people and coaching, right?
00:33:55
Speaker
There's a spot everywhere.
00:33:56
Speaker
Maybe you're better at mentoring team members, right?
00:34:00
Speaker
Maybe you'd be a better manager in solar, right?
00:34:03
Speaker
So that's aspect two.
00:34:05
Speaker
And then three is, what is the amount of effort you're willing to give, okay?
00:34:10
Speaker
So sometimes people say, I want all the crazy stuff.
00:34:15
Speaker
I am super gifted and talented.
00:34:17
Speaker
I have all these persuasive skills.
00:34:19
Speaker
I'm great with people, but I'm not willing to work 60 to 80 hours a week to get it.
00:34:25
Speaker
Well, we've got to readjust something because guess what happens when someone's not aligned, Taylor?
00:34:31
Speaker
All of the problems we talked about, addictions, anxiety, depression.
00:34:36
Speaker
Taylor was watching my old video yesterday about like my personal story coming up in solar, right?
00:34:44
Speaker
I used to have anxiety attacks a lot.
00:34:47
Speaker
And in the main story I talked about, I talked about the first time I had it, I was coming back from an appointment.
00:34:52
Speaker
I'm driving home.
00:34:53
Speaker
And all of a sudden, my arm starts going numb.
00:34:55
Speaker
My neck's going numb.
00:34:56
Speaker
I'm like freaking seizing up the right half of my body.
00:34:59
Speaker
So I had to pull over.
00:35:00
Speaker
I'm freaking out.
00:35:01
Speaker
I'm like, what the?
00:35:02
Speaker
dude, like visions getting blurry.
00:35:05
Speaker
I'm like, dude, this is like a heart attack.
00:35:06
Speaker
I'm like, what is this?
00:35:07
Speaker
Right.
00:35:08
Speaker
So I ended up getting in the back of an ambulance, heading off to the ER.
00:35:13
Speaker
Right.
00:35:13
Speaker
And the guy's just like, dude, what the heck kind of stress do you have going on?
00:35:17
Speaker
He's like, it's not a heart attack.
00:35:18
Speaker
He's like, you just have an anxiety attack.
00:35:20
Speaker
I'm like, what the, and the cause of that was very simple.
00:35:26
Speaker
My aspirations were here.
00:35:29
Speaker
I wanted to be one of the best solar reps in the entire planet, right?
00:35:32
Speaker
Just number one guy, right?
00:35:35
Speaker
My work ethic down here.
00:35:38
Speaker
I was working pretty hard, but I was not living up to my highest potential.
00:35:42
Speaker
I was not asking for the help, getting the mentors I needed when I knew I should be.
00:35:46
Speaker
I wasn't living up to that potential.
00:35:48
Speaker
I wasn't putting the fuel in the tank.
00:35:49
Speaker
There was that misalignment and that's what caused all the problems.
00:35:53
Speaker
So in summary, you got to figure out what you want.
00:35:55
Speaker
What are your capabilities and talents?
00:35:57
Speaker
Be honest about it.
00:35:58
Speaker
Ask others around you.
00:36:00
Speaker
Everybody has them.
00:36:01
Speaker
Okay.
00:36:02
Speaker
Like it's not like there's, I don't believe anybody is born without a special unique ability or talent.
00:36:07
Speaker
You just got to find it and then get the right amount of effort with your aspirations.
00:36:12
Speaker
If you want to make a million bucks a year in solar,
00:36:15
Speaker
Newsflash, you're not going to do it working 30 to 40 hours a week.
00:36:19
Speaker
You're not.
00:36:20
Speaker
Maybe you can 10 years

Success in Solar Industry

00:36:22
Speaker
from now.
00:36:22
Speaker
I know guys who do it, who have been in it for a decade, but the next decade, you better be willing to work 80 hours a week, right?
00:36:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:30
Speaker
Talk with your wife, talk with your family and say, hey, the next five, 10 years, it's going to be, it's going to be intense, but this is why I'm doing it.
00:36:37
Speaker
This is important.
00:36:38
Speaker
Get on the same page.
00:36:39
Speaker
So yeah, I'm good.
00:36:41
Speaker
Boom.
00:36:42
Speaker
Love it.
00:36:42
Speaker
There we go.
00:36:43
Speaker
Yeah, I think another big myth, man, and you probably agree, so many people are just like, follow your passion, follow your dreams.
00:36:49
Speaker
If you don't love it, don't do it.
00:36:51
Speaker
But yeah, I've come to rise.
00:36:53
Speaker
I'm like against that, man, because so many people, they come in and they don't love solar.
00:36:57
Speaker
They don't love a few things and they quit.
00:37:00
Speaker
So I think the millennials, I don't know if it's millennials or what, but like...
00:37:05
Speaker
It is millennials and earlier.
00:37:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:08
Speaker
It's the, it's the, it's the same, it's the same reason, same cause of why we have the PC culture, dude.
00:37:14
Speaker
It's the same thing.
00:37:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:16
Speaker
It's like, yeah, you're not going to love everything you do about what your job is, but yeah.
00:37:21
Speaker
Like go out and work, go out and grind and go out and yeah.
00:37:25
Speaker
So that's, you know, you got the Gary V side of things.
00:37:28
Speaker
Gary V is just like, you know, work, work, work, grind, grind, grind.
00:37:31
Speaker
Gary V is the same thing we're talking about right here.
00:37:34
Speaker
Like if you really listen to what Gary is saying, he's not work, work, work.
00:37:38
Speaker
It's self-awareness.
00:37:40
Speaker
It's what do you want?
00:37:42
Speaker
And you say you want that.
00:37:44
Speaker
This is what you need to sacrifice.
00:37:46
Speaker
Like, are you willing to sacrifice?
00:37:48
Speaker
Yes or no?
00:37:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:50
Speaker
Yeah, anyways, but yeah, that's a big problem, especially here in San Diego.
00:37:54
Speaker
All these new people we try to hire drives me nuts, man.
00:37:57
Speaker
Dude.
00:37:58
Speaker
So many people just like quit.
00:37:59
Speaker
There I go.
00:38:00
Speaker
I don't, yeah, I want to make a ton of money.
00:38:02
Speaker
That's my biggest gripe about West Coast.
00:38:05
Speaker
That's my biggest gripe about West Coast since I moved back.
00:38:08
Speaker
So I moved back to Utah, right?
00:38:09
Speaker
I was out in San Diego for a couple years, LA, right?
00:38:14
Speaker
West Coast, my gosh, dude.
00:38:16
Speaker
Like if you want to be surrounded by people who go after it, it's not the place to be, man.
00:38:22
Speaker
It's difficult to find running mates, people who are willing to really go after it and don't want to just chill and smoke weed all day.
00:38:31
Speaker
Exactly.
00:38:34
Speaker
Yeah, it's tough.
00:38:36
Speaker
But anyways, so yeah.
00:38:37
Speaker
Question two, let's get to more tactical.
00:38:38
Speaker
We spent a lot of time on question one.
00:38:39
Speaker
Yeah, should we jump to question two?
00:38:42
Speaker
Yeah, go ahead.
00:38:43
Speaker
Your turn.
00:38:43
Speaker
All right.
00:38:44
Speaker
So question two is, what do you think is required to have success in the industry?
00:38:49
Speaker
It's a good question.
00:38:52
Speaker
Is this for newbies or just overall?
00:38:55
Speaker
What are we thinking here?
00:38:56
Speaker
Is this like for the new guy?
00:38:57
Speaker
We kind of talked about that.
00:39:00
Speaker
For me, I think it's pretty much whether you're new or old.
00:39:03
Speaker
For me, it's pretty much the same answer, I think.
00:39:06
Speaker
But do you want to start that one out?
00:39:07
Speaker
Why don't we define some levels of success?
00:39:10
Speaker
Because we just barely got off a rant on why you need to be defining what success is.
00:39:16
Speaker
So let's start with like, what's like the first level of success in solar, would you say?
00:39:23
Speaker
Um...
00:39:24
Speaker
I would say depending on the market, and this is a tough one because if we're talking about it, depending on the market.
00:39:32
Speaker
I mean, I've got a buddy that's out in North Carolina.
00:39:35
Speaker
He has a pest control company.
00:39:37
Speaker
He's making $60,000, $70,000 a year or something like that, super happy.
00:39:43
Speaker
That's enough money for him to pretty much do whatever he wants over there.
00:39:46
Speaker
So paying the bills is level one.
00:39:49
Speaker
You've replaced your job with a solar income.
00:39:51
Speaker
Okay.
00:39:52
Speaker
What is required to do that, Taylor?
00:39:57
Speaker
Well, I think anyone starting out new in the industry, I think it's going to require, no matter how you do it, if you're new in the industry, you're going to have to work extremely hard even to hit that level, in my opinion.
00:40:08
Speaker
The amount of people that fell in this, it's pretty astounding.
00:40:12
Speaker
We bring on dozens and dozens of new guys every few months.
00:40:17
Speaker
And if they're new to the industry, haven't done any sales, it's a steep learning curve for them.
00:40:23
Speaker
Cause they've never knocked doors.
00:40:25
Speaker
They've never like had to be their own boss and had to dig up the motivation to go out there, hit doors.
00:40:31
Speaker
How long, how long did it take you to start making a stable income in solar?
00:40:38
Speaker
Yeah, for me, I would say probably like two years, honestly.
00:40:42
Speaker
So I was out here, but I came out single just living with the dudes in like a company house.
00:40:47
Speaker
So for me, I paid.
00:40:49
Speaker
I had, you know, barely any expenses.
00:40:51
Speaker
So it's pretty, pretty quick to get to that point.
00:40:54
Speaker
But if it's someone that's coming with a family that's never done solar and never has a lot of expenses to pay, I think they're going to have to push extremely hard.
00:41:03
Speaker
And we've had guys that came in, realized this pretty quick, that they're going to have to treat it like a full-time job and actually work 40-hour weeks to pay all their bills and get to that level.
00:41:13
Speaker
They weren't willing to do it.
00:41:15
Speaker
Like, I thought I could just go out and knock like an hour, then show up to some appointments, make tons of money.
00:41:21
Speaker
But yeah, news.
00:41:21
Speaker
It's 40 hours if you're actually working though.
00:41:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:26
Speaker
I mean, that's why I think the target shouldn't even be 40.
00:41:29
Speaker
It should be like 60 at least.
00:41:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:32
Speaker
Because most people, they're not calibrated on what work actually is.
00:41:35
Speaker
We'll get into that tactics, but that's a good point.
00:41:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:39
Speaker
So yeah, but yeah, no, I think to get to that level as a new rep, you got to put in some extremely hard effort.
00:41:44
Speaker
And again, seasons once you're, you know, know how to do all these things, know to knock the doors, know to close the appointments, which took me like two years, I would say to get to that point.
00:41:55
Speaker
Now, yeah, I can, I'm pretty confident saying I could, I could go out and work probably three, four hour days and have enough money to pay my bills.
00:42:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:04
Speaker
Enough money to save on top of that.
00:42:06
Speaker
It's not going to get me way ahead, but yeah, I'm confident now that four years into this, I could spend four hours a day and be just fine, save up some money.
00:42:16
Speaker
But yeah, anyone I think is going to need to put in a ton of efforts to even get to that level.
00:42:21
Speaker
Unless you're like a natural born salesman.
00:42:23
Speaker
You hear though, Jordan Belfort, he talks about that, how he's a natural born salesman and he can do things way easier.
00:42:29
Speaker
Capacity and ability is higher, right?
00:42:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:33
Speaker
That doesn't mean you could look at a guy like Jordan and say, oh, he's, he's, cause
00:42:39
Speaker
Take Jordan, for example, right?
00:42:40
Speaker
He could go and sell and put in very little effort and still do better than the guy who sucks at sales and grinds his butt off, right?
00:42:48
Speaker
Jordan can still beat that guy just like LeBron James could beat me at basketball without trying, right?
00:42:55
Speaker
And I could be sweating my butt off just going hard, right?
00:42:59
Speaker
I could go and train for the next six months and it'll still be the same thing, right?
00:43:03
Speaker
Because his capacity is higher.
00:43:05
Speaker
But does that make Jordan happier because he's playing at a low level?
00:43:09
Speaker
Absolutely not.
00:43:10
Speaker
Jordan still has to realize his fullest potential, putting the work to reach his highest potential as well.
00:43:16
Speaker
So when you see guys like that, natural born sales guys, and they're just winging it, they're just as unhappy.
00:43:23
Speaker
Yeah, I agree.
00:43:25
Speaker
I mean, that's why you got, like, Conor McGregor, for example, about winning fights lately.
00:43:31
Speaker
And I think it's for him.
00:43:32
Speaker
He's achieved the money, the success.
00:43:34
Speaker
I think he's lost motivation, personally.
00:43:37
Speaker
He's dangerous.
00:43:38
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think he does.
00:43:39
Speaker
That is tough.
00:43:40
Speaker
That is rare to find a guy who starts...
00:43:43
Speaker
but the cutoff point I've seen where like 99% of sales reps start throwing in the towels, about 250 grand a year, about a quarter million a year.
00:43:51
Speaker
That's when they say, I'm good.
00:43:54
Speaker
I'm good.
00:43:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:57
Speaker
I know people get complacent.
00:44:00
Speaker
So yeah, no, it's a big problem.
00:44:02
Speaker
Um,
00:44:04
Speaker
But yeah, what do you think?
00:44:05
Speaker
I don't even know if we got to the question really, but- We did.
00:44:09
Speaker
So we just talked about the entry level, 60, 70 grand a year payer bills.
00:44:16
Speaker
Right, so above that, I think the next level on that, I'll just add into this too to contribute to, we won't trade off on it because we've kind of been going with it, but I'd say the next level is like that quarter million a year, right?
00:44:29
Speaker
That is, you're in the top-
00:44:31
Speaker
You're in the top 1% of the world income earners, top 10% in the US if you make a quarter million a year, right?
00:44:38
Speaker
It's enough where you pay your taxes, you could drive the cars you want, you could go to the events you want, you could take care of a family, right?
00:44:44
Speaker
It's fairly comfortable.
00:44:45
Speaker
You can invest some money into Bitcoin, whatever the heck you want.

Passion vs. Hard Work

00:44:49
Speaker
Quarter million, right?
00:44:51
Speaker
That kind of level...
00:44:53
Speaker
I agree with Taylor.
00:44:54
Speaker
When you're starting out, basically you should just work as much as you possibly can when you're starting out.
00:44:59
Speaker
Um, full blown, like well above 40 hours a week.
00:45:03
Speaker
You want to make that learning curve as quick as possible.
00:45:05
Speaker
You want to build that momentum.
00:45:07
Speaker
I think after you hit that point, um, it's a standard, I would say 40 to 50, man, 40 to 50.
00:45:15
Speaker
If you've been at it for a few years, you could do the two 50, uh,
00:45:21
Speaker
I would even say five years.
00:45:22
Speaker
Honestly, I would say it probably takes five years of that to get to where you can work a normal full-time hours, 40 hours a week at 250.
00:45:30
Speaker
Well, it depends on the market.
00:45:32
Speaker
If you want to reach it sooner.
00:45:33
Speaker
Yep.
00:45:34
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:45:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:35
Speaker
If you want to reach it sooner, I'd say double it.
00:45:38
Speaker
80.
00:45:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:40
Speaker
If you want to hit 250, I've seen guys.
00:45:42
Speaker
So I've coached guys.
00:45:44
Speaker
A guy, his name is Devin Koretsky.
00:45:46
Speaker
He's in Texas.
00:45:47
Speaker
He hit 500 grand his first year, right?
00:45:50
Speaker
Guy works 80 hours a week.
00:45:52
Speaker
Wow.
00:45:53
Speaker
Like straight up.
00:45:54
Speaker
That's how you do it.
00:45:56
Speaker
And like a real 80 hours a week.
00:45:58
Speaker
Wow.
00:45:59
Speaker
So.
00:46:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:01
Speaker
And no, I mean, it's, again, it's relative to like 250 grand in California.
00:46:06
Speaker
That's still good money, but like, I mean, you got taxes.
00:46:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:12
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:46:12
Speaker
That's like a hundred grand in Utah or Texas.
00:46:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:16
Speaker
So yeah, if you're in one of these other.
00:46:18
Speaker
The next level.
00:46:20
Speaker
The next level above that, that's going to fall more into your CEO category.
00:46:25
Speaker
That's seven figures plus.
00:46:27
Speaker
So if you want to pull down a million bucks, I get this a lot, right?
00:46:30
Speaker
So I was the big preacher back in the day.
00:46:33
Speaker
If you listen to my podcast, I talk about all the time, the million dollar income, like top, top, top tier, right?
00:46:39
Speaker
The truth is,
00:46:41
Speaker
It's so freaking rare to find a guy who is willing to, one, has the abilities to get there, willing to put in the work ethic to get there, right, and sacrifices to get there, that I don't even talk about it anymore because โ€“
00:46:56
Speaker
Nobody freaking makes it.
00:46:58
Speaker
And nobody should.
00:47:00
Speaker
I agree that most people shouldn't want to make that much money because reality is you don't need all of the crap that you could buy with a million bucks a year.
00:47:08
Speaker
Most people don't.
00:47:09
Speaker
They really just want to impress other people.
00:47:11
Speaker
They want to look cool with this, this, this, right?
00:47:14
Speaker
And it doesn't really make them happy.
00:47:15
Speaker
There are a few small percent where it does make them happy being able to contribute, take care of other people, donate,
00:47:22
Speaker
to their church or their foundations and stuff like that, that kind of person.
00:47:26
Speaker
And that does make them happy.
00:47:28
Speaker
They have to work and live an entirely different lifestyle.
00:47:32
Speaker
There's no such thing as weekends.
00:47:34
Speaker
There's no, I'm going to be at home having dinner with my wife every night at six o'clock.
00:47:40
Speaker
Right.
00:47:40
Speaker
It doesn't happen.
00:47:41
Speaker
You talk to your wife and you say, Hey, I'm not going to be able to make it to dinner every night.
00:47:45
Speaker
Right.
00:47:45
Speaker
Are you okay with that?
00:47:46
Speaker
It's that communication going on.
00:47:48
Speaker
Um,
00:47:49
Speaker
So yeah, that is just a complete level.
00:47:53
Speaker
Like your mindset is not, your mindset switches from what's the least amount I could do to put into this to what's the most I'm able to tolerate.
00:48:04
Speaker
It's not like, hey, how many hours can I just put in and get my, it's like, how much am I willing to go to the breaking point?
00:48:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:13
Speaker
And yeah, again, I think that's why it's important to have like a rush where you have a month where you go extremely hard, see what that level is, see what you had to give up to actually hit that.
00:48:23
Speaker
Yep.
00:48:24
Speaker
Maybe for some people.
00:48:25
Speaker
You did that.
00:48:26
Speaker
Right?
00:48:27
Speaker
Yeah, I knew that.
00:48:28
Speaker
And so for some people, maybe it's like, oh, I actually had to give up a lot less than I thought to achieve this level.
00:48:34
Speaker
Because a lot of guys, again, are just telling themselves, oh, I'm not going to have that level of success.
00:48:39
Speaker
It's going to require me to cut out everything.
00:48:42
Speaker
I'm going to be unhappy.
00:48:43
Speaker
I'm going to have to spend way less time with my kids, my wife, husband.
00:48:49
Speaker
where if you do this big push, maybe it's way better than you thought.
00:48:55
Speaker
And another principle that I think we've talked about before is the, I think it's the Parkinson's effect or whatever.
00:49:00
Speaker
It's like- Parkinson's law, yeah.
00:49:02
Speaker
Yeah, Parkinson's law.
00:49:04
Speaker
Whatever amount of time you have, you'll get what you need to done in that level of time.
00:49:09
Speaker
A lot of guys, they're spending time on tasks.
00:49:13
Speaker
They're spending like three hours on stuff that they could possibly do in like an hour.
00:49:18
Speaker
So it's that side of the coin too.
00:49:21
Speaker
Like, are you do that big rush and maybe things that are taking you four hours right now, maybe just the fact that you're working harder, have more appointments stacked on top of each other, stuff like that.
00:49:30
Speaker
Maybe you'll get those same things done in an hour.
00:49:33
Speaker
How about like bills?
00:49:35
Speaker
That's a good perspective on as guys will say, oh, I've got till this time in the month to get money for my rent, basically.
00:49:43
Speaker
That's a common one.
00:49:44
Speaker
I see where Parkinson's law is in real effect.
00:49:47
Speaker
Here's a cool exercise for you guys that are in that boat, like just month to month bills, paying the thing.

Meeting Deadlines with Commitment

00:49:52
Speaker
Really set a deadline with yourself.
00:49:54
Speaker
Let's see, we're almost at tomorrow's May 1st, right?
00:49:58
Speaker
Go and say, I need to make
00:50:00
Speaker
all of my bills for the month by the end of the first week of May and pretend like it's the last week of May.
00:50:07
Speaker
Right.
00:50:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:08
Speaker
And guess what freaking happens, dude.
00:50:10
Speaker
Everybody really does this.
00:50:11
Speaker
It's just like, boom, they make it happen.
00:50:15
Speaker
It's like, what, what happened?
00:50:16
Speaker
Right.
00:50:17
Speaker
Same thing.
00:50:19
Speaker
I know.
00:50:19
Speaker
I remember it takes me back to my college days.
00:50:21
Speaker
I would spend like weeks on a report on like a paper I had to write.
00:50:26
Speaker
And I would not get anything done.
00:50:28
Speaker
And then somehow magically the night before the due date, I knew I had to get done.
00:50:33
Speaker
So I'd stay up and get it all done in like a night when I was working on it before that.
00:50:38
Speaker
But I just didn't have the push to get it done.
00:50:40
Speaker
So it's like, and I think you told me, didn't you have times where you, you had to pay your employees, make payroll and stuff and money to pay them.
00:50:49
Speaker
And then you just pulled cells out of your butt the day before payroll was due.
00:50:53
Speaker
I've done that my entire life, basically.
00:50:57
Speaker
Anybody who started a company and just went through the grind of learning how to manage a company, hire people, pay for payroll, stuff like that.
00:51:06
Speaker
And maybe they're not as great as at finances.
00:51:08
Speaker
They're good at making it, but they're not good at managing it like me.
00:51:12
Speaker
I've had to do that so many times where it's like, I've got to make payroll next week for all of my people.
00:51:17
Speaker
What am I going to do?
00:51:18
Speaker
Something went down, a bunch of deals didn't go through or something like that.
00:51:21
Speaker
Where am I going to come up with this cash?
00:51:23
Speaker
And it's just the commitment level on that, right?
00:51:26
Speaker
And just doing whatever it takes to get there.
00:51:28
Speaker
And it happens, man.
00:51:30
Speaker
If you stay open to things and you take control of your mind and you stay positive, stuff comes your way like every time.
00:51:37
Speaker
If you're aligned, putting in the effort, doing all that stuff we talked about.
00:51:41
Speaker
Yeah, it's good stuff.
00:51:43
Speaker
Okay, let's get to tactics.
00:51:45
Speaker
Yeah, should we jump to number three and then wrap this baby up?
00:51:49
Speaker
You're up.
00:51:51
Speaker
All right.
00:51:52
Speaker
So number three is what would you advise to someone who is struggling with work-life balance tactics?
00:52:00
Speaker
Okay.
00:52:00
Speaker
So here's what I would advise.
00:52:01
Speaker
It's something I actually just barely got through doing.
00:52:05
Speaker
And it's a 75 hard, which I did actually a podcast episode.
00:52:10
Speaker
So you can go back and listen to that episode.
00:52:12
Speaker
It's kind of what I learned from it.
00:52:14
Speaker
But the reason I'm saying this is because 75 Heart, it forces you to be consistent on things in your life.
00:52:20
Speaker
And we're probably going to create one actually geared towards solar, thinking that'd be a good idea.
00:52:26
Speaker
But it forces you to just do these little tasks every day.
00:52:30
Speaker
Do two 45-minute workouts, drink a gallon of water, read your 10 pages, and
00:52:36
Speaker
take a progress picture.
00:52:37
Speaker
You have to do them for 75 days straight.
00:52:40
Speaker
And I think that's the single biggest thing that's holding this industry back is guys just aren't consistent.
00:52:46
Speaker
And even if you just worked, I don't know, five hours a day, whatever, just kind of the minimum, it's going to make you probably six figures or whatever.
00:52:57
Speaker
If you do that, you're going to at least achieve success.
00:53:00
Speaker
But the reason why so many people are failing in this industry is they're not doing those things.
00:53:05
Speaker
They get one sell on the week and then guess what?
00:53:08
Speaker
They're dropping down to maybe two hours the next day or they're not pushing as hard.
00:53:13
Speaker
where if you just were consistent, you're gonna achieve way better results.
00:53:17
Speaker
It kind of reminds me of like the stock market.
00:53:19
Speaker
I read this tactic on like the stock market.
00:53:23
Speaker
where guys try to like play the curve.
00:53:25
Speaker
They'll try to invest when it's low and then have it go high.
00:53:28
Speaker
So dump a bunch of money in guys will lose money and everything.
00:53:32
Speaker
But a big tactic that people do in the stock market is just put in a consistent amount of money every month, whether it's high, whether it's low and you're almost guaranteed to see returns on that.
00:53:43
Speaker
Cause you're just putting in consistent money.
00:53:44
Speaker
It's consistently going to grow.
00:53:46
Speaker
It's compound effect.
00:53:48
Speaker
So that's my thing is for something tactical, go out and do like a challenge like 75 hard and then just figure out what you're going to commit to.
00:53:57
Speaker
Michael Donald, who everyone, probably the number one solar cells guy, this is his big thing too, is just doing those mini habits.
00:54:05
Speaker
So figure out what small things you're going to commit to.
00:54:08
Speaker
For him, it's like between appointments, he's going to knock until he gets at least one no between every appointment.
00:54:14
Speaker
So that's what he's committing to, and that's what he's being consistent with.
00:54:18
Speaker
And, yeah, he saw huge results.
00:54:20
Speaker
So that's what I think is something tactical.
00:54:22
Speaker
Go out and do a challenge and then figure out what you can commit to.
00:54:26
Speaker
That's what I think.
00:54:27
Speaker
What about you, James?
00:54:29
Speaker
I agree with the challenge.
00:54:31
Speaker
So number one, I have five short tactics.
00:54:33
Speaker
So recalibrate your definition of work-life balance.
00:54:36
Speaker
We've talked about it a bit.
00:54:37
Speaker
See what you're actually capable of.
00:54:39
Speaker
Do an event, do a challenge.
00:54:40
Speaker
I bet you 75 hard showed you what you're capable of mentally, right?
00:54:45
Speaker
Like, oh, I...
00:54:47
Speaker
It felt impossible at day 15.
00:54:49
Speaker
Here I am day 75.
00:54:51
Speaker
I'm still rocking, right?
00:54:53
Speaker
Get one of those moments where you just go all out.
00:54:55
Speaker
Like I'm talking about, you sacrifice every single thing in your life for that one thing.
00:55:00
Speaker
While it may not be what you want to be,
00:55:02
Speaker
Long-term, you need to see what you're capable of as a person.
00:55:05
Speaker
That's my belief there.
00:55:07
Speaker
Number two is determine who you want to really be, who you actually want to be, not what other people want you to be.
00:55:15
Speaker
There's a big misconception on that.
00:55:17
Speaker
Do you actually want the things you're talking about?
00:55:20
Speaker
And if that's true, you'd be willing to sacrifice things to get there, which we'll get to.
00:55:25
Speaker
Point number three is prioritize actions, not time.
00:55:29
Speaker
So this is the employee mindset versus the entrepreneur mindset, the solopreneur mindset.

Eliminating Distractions

00:55:34
Speaker
If you're in sales, you work on a commission, you need to have an entrepreneur mindset, not the employee mindset.
00:55:40
Speaker
The employee mindset is it takes X amount of time to do X, okay?
00:55:45
Speaker
Completely wrong.
00:55:46
Speaker
You need to switch out of that and focus on action.
00:55:48
Speaker
So don't focus on...
00:55:50
Speaker
working 40, 60 hours a week like we're talking about, focus on hitting four appointments a day, six appointments a day.
00:55:57
Speaker
Whatever that level is to break down your goal, hit that.
00:56:00
Speaker
If it's one appointment a day, do it.
00:56:02
Speaker
Knocking 100 doors a day, do it.
00:56:04
Speaker
You need to have those measurable KPIs.
00:56:07
Speaker
And if you break it down and really say,
00:56:10
Speaker
okay, it takes me two hours to knock 30 doors, 35 doors, something like that, right?
00:56:17
Speaker
I don't know what the stats are there, okay?
00:56:19
Speaker
You could break that down and say, that's actually two hours of work.
00:56:23
Speaker
But what if you were able to cut it down to 90 minutes?
00:56:26
Speaker
I've seen guys who ride around like an electric scooter in between doors and stuff like that.
00:56:32
Speaker
Segway, I've even seen.
00:56:33
Speaker
I've had a student who rides a Segway.
00:56:35
Speaker
He cuts...
00:56:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:37
Speaker
He timed himself.
00:56:38
Speaker
He cut off 30 minutes a day for writing that segue and was able to get an extra 30 minutes of knocking it.
00:56:44
Speaker
Okay.
00:56:45
Speaker
And if you can knock five doors in that and set one extra appointment, that one extra appointment a day compounded over six days a week, six appointments a week, 6, 12, 18, 24 appointments extra a month, close one in five.
00:56:58
Speaker
That's five deals, dude.
00:57:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:00
Speaker
From writing a freaking segue.
00:57:02
Speaker
See what I'm saying?
00:57:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:03
Speaker
So the top pro guy, he focuses on actions and shaving off that fluff stuff.
00:57:09
Speaker
The next one is never sacrificing the urgent for the important.
00:57:14
Speaker
So a lot of guys mismanage their time because something comes up.
00:57:19
Speaker
A delivery shows up.
00:57:20
Speaker
I'm terrible at this.
00:57:22
Speaker
Like I love Amazon packages, right?
00:57:24
Speaker
I get Amazon packages like almost daily and I want to just go to the mailbox and check them out in the middle of the day, right?
00:57:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:31
Speaker
or set something up that I got.
00:57:33
Speaker
And then there goes the rest of my freaking afternoon getting distracted by some dumb Amazon thing when I could have just batched it on one day a week and made it my Amazon day, right?
00:57:45
Speaker
That's sacrificing the urgent, quote unquote, for the important.
00:57:49
Speaker
Another one I've had with guys who are married as well is they take family calls throughout the day.
00:57:55
Speaker
So they're working, right?
00:57:57
Speaker
And they should be at work like grinding hard at 11 to 3 p.m.
00:58:01
Speaker
Their wife just calls them here and there.
00:58:03
Speaker
And nothing wrong with communicating with your spouse.
00:58:06
Speaker
And you should, right?
00:58:08
Speaker
But when your spouse is, because I'm not married, but I know it happens with these conversations.
00:58:14
Speaker
It's like, oh, little Johnny did this.
00:58:16
Speaker
Little Johnny did this.
00:58:17
Speaker
There's this problem.
00:58:18
Speaker
Can you believe whoever said this?
00:58:20
Speaker
That's planting distractions in your mind.
00:58:23
Speaker
You can't get that focus back.
00:58:25
Speaker
So have that conversation with your spouse and say, hey, look, like we're both on the same page with this goal, this lifestyle we want to create.
00:58:33
Speaker
This is what's got to happen.
00:58:34
Speaker
Get honest about it.
00:58:35
Speaker
Clear that stuff.
00:58:37
Speaker
Next one is you said this great place.
00:58:41
Speaker
The important things first.
00:58:43
Speaker
So date night with your wife, that's important.
00:58:45
Speaker
Do it first.
00:58:46
Speaker
All of my mentors who are happily married men, they've got four or five kids, right?
00:58:51
Speaker
They've been married 25 years.
00:58:53
Speaker
They say this time and time again.
00:58:54
Speaker
That's what I'm going to apply to when I get married as well is,
00:58:58
Speaker
date night, I'll put it in, boom, lock it in the calendar.
00:59:01
Speaker
It's an appointment with your wife.
00:59:03
Speaker
Some of the guys I know literally set it up on Calendly with a scheduling tool with their wife and have the wife book it in.
00:59:10
Speaker
Like if she wants to talk to them, book it on a calendar.
00:59:13
Speaker
It's a serious appointment, right?
00:59:15
Speaker
If that's important to you, do it.
00:59:17
Speaker
If the gym, Taylor just got back from the gym, right?
00:59:21
Speaker
That's important.
00:59:22
Speaker
Block that baby in.
00:59:23
Speaker
If I don't block in the gym, I'm never going to the gym, right?
00:59:26
Speaker
I'll forget about it.
00:59:26
Speaker
It has to be scheduled.
00:59:29
Speaker
Last thing, and it's my biggest one of all, is once you know all of the above, you know what you want, you know what you're capable of, you've got to be ruthless in cutting out everything that is not moving you towards that.
00:59:42
Speaker
This is the stuff you are screaming inside because you don't want to cut.
00:59:46
Speaker
This is the video games.
00:59:48
Speaker
This is the junk food.
00:59:50
Speaker
This is the distractions.
00:59:51
Speaker
This is the tough conversations with your spouse.
00:59:53
Speaker
This is the social media scrolling.
00:59:55
Speaker
This is checking the Amazon packages.
00:59:59
Speaker
This is the sleeping in.
01:00:00
Speaker
This is the not working out when you know you should be taking care of your health.
01:00:04
Speaker
This is the eating the fast food.
01:00:06
Speaker
Realize that though these things seem small and menial,
01:00:13
Speaker
they make up the entire difference.
01:00:15
Speaker
Because when you compound these little bad choices over time, like Taylor says, if you're consistently doing these little

Episode Wrap-Up and Community Invitation

01:00:23
Speaker
things, good or bad, they will completely make or break your entire life and your happiness.
01:00:29
Speaker
I made this firm decision this last year that I was going to get like really serious about cutting out distractions like YouTube.
01:00:37
Speaker
I love scrolling around watching freaking YouTube videos, right?
01:00:42
Speaker
Another one I cut to was video games.
01:00:44
Speaker
This last year, I went off the walls and played video games like super hard for like a month, right?
01:00:50
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:51
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
01:00:51
Speaker
It was toxic for me.
01:00:54
Speaker
Like, dude, so I love FIFA, right?
01:00:56
Speaker
I'm a huge FIFA guy, right?
01:00:58
Speaker
I played FIFA 21 when it came out for like an entire week straight 12 hours a day.
01:01:02
Speaker
This is what happens when I have video games around me.
01:01:05
Speaker
It's like, okay, I can't even work if this stuff's here.
01:01:09
Speaker
So what did I do?
01:01:10
Speaker
I freaking literally sold my gaming laptop, sold all the freaking controllers, got rid of all of the stuff out of the house.
01:01:17
Speaker
It's not available.
01:01:19
Speaker
And I committed, I'm like, this is not me.
01:01:21
Speaker
This is not my potential.
01:01:23
Speaker
This stuff does not belong in my life.
01:01:25
Speaker
It's not what I want.
01:01:26
Speaker
It's not what makes me happy.
01:01:27
Speaker
It's gone.
01:01:28
Speaker
I've done the same thing with alcohol, pornography, junk food, all of that crap.
01:01:35
Speaker
So if you want to keep on, keep hold of those things, just realize it's going to cost you everything if it's not in the line with your goals.
01:01:43
Speaker
So there we go.
01:01:46
Speaker
Mike dropped.
01:01:46
Speaker
Love it.
01:01:47
Speaker
Nuggets.
01:01:47
Speaker
Freaking nuggets right there.
01:01:50
Speaker
So I love it.
01:01:51
Speaker
We've covered a lot and longer episodes.
01:01:54
Speaker
Let us know what you thought, guys.
01:01:55
Speaker
We covered a ton of material in there.
01:01:58
Speaker
So hopefully you took some notes because that is a ton of stuff to cover.
01:02:03
Speaker
But James, actually, speaking of appointments, I actually got to head to one here.
01:02:07
Speaker
I'm going to close up someone here.
01:02:11
Speaker
here in about 45 minutes so better wrap this up but um let us know if you like these kind of debate style and i guess this one wasn't as much of a debate because i think we actually saw eye to eye on pretty much everything but by end of the day i don't think they're ever gonna be a debate yeah but i don't think there's anything really to debate there bro because like like i mean it's just principles this is what is going to get you success so i think this one it's pretty uh white and black for me like pretty clearly these things are going to cause success these things aren't
01:02:41
Speaker
So James, thanks for coming on the show.
01:02:43
Speaker
Any last words before we wrap up here?
01:02:46
Speaker
That's it.
01:02:47
Speaker
That's it.
01:02:48
Speaker
All right, guys, we'll see you on the next show.
01:02:50
Speaker
And thanks again.
01:02:51
Speaker
Peace.
01:02:53
Speaker
Hey, solar printers, quick question.
01:02:55
Speaker
What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day.
01:03:04
Speaker
For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite solar professionals and
01:03:10
Speaker
and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level.
01:03:16
Speaker
That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new solar learning community exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with the top performers in the industry.
01:03:27
Speaker
And it's called Sol Society.
01:03:29
Speaker
This learning community was designed from the ground up to level the playing field and give Solar Pros access to proven mentors who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry's brightest minds for, are you ready for it?
01:03:44
Speaker
Less than $3.45 a day.
01:03:48
Speaker
Currently Soul Society is closed to the public and membership is by invitation only.
01:03:52
Speaker
But solopreneurs can go to soulciety.co to learn more and have the option to join a waitlist when a membership becomes available in your area.
01:04:01
Speaker
Again, this is exclusively for Solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to www.solciety.co to join the waitlist and learn more now.
01:04:14
Speaker
Thanks again for listening.
01:04:15
Speaker
We'll catch you again in the next episode.