17: Beyond The Equal Exchange with Bob Sager

Chad:               Welcome back to the show. You’re going to love today’s conversation with Bob Sager because you’re going to reenter your life after watching this episode with huge Aha realizations and what could be holding you back from creating the career and life that you want. A Bob is the founder of spear points solutions. It’s a. it’s a personal and professional development and training company and he’s the creator of innovative thinking, training, and you’ll learn more about what innovative thinking is and later in this episode and how you can activate your creativity so that you can find more success so that you can achieve your goals and use that creativity to solve problems. Bob is also the author of the personal achievement roadmap book and also living a wealthy life and a new book coming out soon and you’ll hear more about later and you can always find links to those resources and books in the show notes.

Chad:               Bob is a master connector and I wanted him on this show for that reason because he knows how to add a lot of value to people’s lives and thus create really strong relationships with people that then turn around and produce success in his own life. He really cares and he discusses how to approach forming relationships, how to approach business transactions, how to approach business and careers in general in a way where you’re always adding value to people and they’re not so concerned about just making it even and producing an equal exchange. You’re just concerned about adding a lot of value to somebody’s life and in return that does help you out and he’ll help you get what you want. When you are, when you, when you make it your mission to help others get what they want, you’ll always have what you want. And so we’re also going to discuss in today’s episode the role of the self image and the core reasons why you are sabotaging your success.

Chad:               Because of the way you view yourself and because of what you believe about yourself and what you believe you’re capable of and what you believe you deserve. We’re also going to talk about the importance of not just giving, but receiving that is all part of the same cycle and if you’re self employed, we’re also going to discuss when and whether to discount your rates and how to just how to stay out of the scar city mentality when it comes to business, because we always think about it as competition. How do I stand out above the competition? How do I beat out the competition we’re going to discuss today that it’s not about competing with others, other businesses. It’s not about competing with other people. Even if you’re applying to a certain job, get out of that scarcity mentality. There’s room for everyone to have success.

Chad:               There was room for everyone. The only person you should be competing with is yourself, and we’re going to talk more about that in today’s episode. You’re also gonna. Learn just overall how to create your own life through what you believe and what you believe you deserve and how you talk about it, how you talk about your life. And before I welcome Bob to our show, I want to announce my new class. It’s called the Soloprenuer Journey. It’s an online class. It’s an hour long and it’s most Wednesdays around two PM, uh, but to get specific dates and times for the next class, make sure to go to arrowlight.tv/workshops/freeclass and you can register there for the class and you’ll be able to access it from any device and join us online for that class if you are a freelancer, if you’re self employed, a solopreneur, you’re out there just creating your own career. You’re gonna benefit from this class because if we’re going to discuss the foundations to finding success as a solopreneur and what you can do to communicate your way into a, a, a customized career that you’re satisfied, that you’re satisfied with. With that said, I welcome to the show, Bob Sager.

Bob:                 Hey, great to be with you, Chad.

Chad:               I’m glad to have you because you are a master connector. And on this show we learn all about connection. We learned about how to connect our way to a successful career, how to connect our way to a more successful life. And so I’m really excited to learn from you how to connect better with people and how to make relationships are top priority so that we can just be happier and overall have the success that we want as we create our own life. And so I wanted to ask you what’s a bit about your background, your story, what led you to, what you’re doing today in your career and what do you, what are you most passionate about?

Bob:                 Well, that’s at the long and winding road, Chad. But you know, what, if you talked to any successful person, uh, it’s almost never a straight Arrow, right? There’s always twists and turns. And so, uh, you know, I spent four years in the residential real estate business, was really kind of my first foray into self employment. And then, uh, after a brief stop over for about a year selling per orkin pest control, I embarked on a career in the financial services industry. I spent 17 years doing that. And one of the things that I discovered there was I would see both clients, uh, that I work with and reps that I hired and trained with my company sabotaging their financial success and it, and the more I saw it, frankly, the more bothered me. And, uh, so it, it. But, but fortunately, I guess, uh, that led me to a multiyear study on what makes people do the things that they do, what makes them not do the things that they don’t do.

Bob:                 And um, and I learned a lot about human psychology of human action and inaction and, and had a and how to make changes, significant changes in that. And frankly, a lot of that helped me in my, in my personal life and career. And so I knew that that would help a lot of people. And uh, and I. So I ended up for four months, spear point solutions mostly to do that. And, uh, and we do a wide range of things now with helping people realize their full potential and that’s certainly part of it, but it’s um, that’s actually only part of it now, but it underlies what I learned there, underlies everything that we do really. And so that’s a little bit of a long and winding road like I said, but that’s Kinda how I ended up here, where I am now.

Chad:               Not sure what, what are some things you noticed about how people sabotage their financial success? Like what, what are some common things that got in the way?

Bob:                 Well, one of the things that I, I’ll give you the symptoms and then I’ll tell you what the core reason is. The symptoms are. I’ll give you a, um, from a representative standpoint, you know, in the financial services industry, it’s kind of a top business because you’re dealing with people and you’re dealing with people’s money and both are tough subjects, right? A very emotional. And so a lot of people just frankly just don’t make it. I mean, they, they liked the idea of being in the industry, like the professionalism they want to help people, but you know, there’s a lot to, a lot to deal with there. And so a, so a lot of people just kind of wash out of the industry once they figured it out, you know, it’s not as easy as they might’ve believed it was, but I would have people that were on the verge of success, right?

Bob:                 Uh, they went through, they got their licensing, they were, you know, there’s a learning curve with everything and they were starting to have some success starting to pick up some clients and then, you know, they would start a rescheduling appointments or being late for appointments or not returning phone calls in a timely fashion. All those kinds of things that in the aggregate lead to failure. And, and I would see that over and over and over and it just frustrated me and we’ll look the core of that. The core reason is, is because people have a, a self image what they believe to be true about themselves, what they believe to be true about their potential. And it acts that self image, what they, what people believe about themselves, acts as a Thermostat, a thermostat in your house. And if you have your thermostat set at 70 degrees, if it gets to 68 or 69, it’s going to kick on and kick on the furnace and it’s gonna warm it up.

Bob:                 But on the other hand, if it gets to 71 that’s uncomfortable, one, it’s going to turn on the air conditioning and you cool it down. So I’ll give you an example of some of the people I’ve worked with. I remember working with several salespeople. This is the case that in the first six months of a calendar year, they’re achieving 90 percent of what they’re used to making income wise for the year. Ninety percent killing it, right? Everything went right. Well in the second six months of the year, nothing went right. The middle name became Murphy, right? Everything that could go wrong did go wrong, and they’d earned about 10 percent of what they were used to make it annually. So that by the end of the year, they were exactly where they believed they belong.

Chad:               Exactly where they believed they belong. I think that really sums it up. Um, I, it’s, it’s almost like it. We have this, this self image and it, and it puts this threshold on us and, and, and that we are so interested in the examples you brought up because I experienced that many times where I’ve always been self employed and uh, I would have months where I had a threshold of, of a certain income that I believe I deserved and that a certain income that I believed I could get and, and I’d have months where I, uh, if you were to multiply that month by 12, I’d come out much higher than my threshold, but then the following month I dipped much as I was, I might bring in $6,000 in the next month. Then all of a sudden it’s 2000 than averages back out to what my threshold is. And I kept seeing that happening and what you’re saying. And so I’ve experienced that in my own life as well. But it’s, it’s so interesting that you bring that up because it’s, it is, it is, it is a widespread issue that we, that we sabotage our own success based on way that we view ourself

Bob:                 without a doubt and, and you have an experience that you can completely relate to what I’m saying and I guarantee you the people that are watching this, they’ll relate to that too because they’ve seen it in their own life

Chad:               and it’s important than and, and, and, and that’s that first step is to become aware of that because we don’t even realize it’s happening. And then we look back in the last year and then we’re like, Oh wow, I’m, I earned the exact same amount of the previous year. I earned even less. And uh, but once we recognize that we just need to adjust our self image than we can get out of that kind of rapid cycle.

Bob:                 Okay. Do you mind if I add a point on that? Now? It’s not just related to income either. It’s related to relationships, right? Whatever you expect and believe or relationship is supposed to be. If you believe a relationship is always supposed to have ups and downs, guess what? Going to have ups and downs. If you believe a relationship can be rewarding and guess what, it will be a rewarding and and, and the way that you approach things changes based on your expectation and belief.

Chad:               Yeah, that’s a, that’s about as true as it gets. And it reminds me of A. I can’t remember the source. It’s just kind of a like a wise tale of somebody moves to a new city and they asked this wise man, so what are the people like here? And they’re like, oh, they’re a oh well, what were the people like your last time? Oh, they were mean and horrible. Okay, well that’s what the people are like here. And it’s, it’s you, you find what you’re looking for and, and you, you literally based on what you believe in, what you’re looking for, that’s what you find. Then if somebody keeps getting divorced again and again and again, it’s because they believe that that’s how relationships are supposed to be in the not supposed to last forever, and so they keep experiencing the same problems over and over, and

Bob:                 I, I, I heard it said this way, that we don’t get what we want. We get what we are. Yeah. Okay. That’s powerful. What different things. Guess what’s got to change? Yeah. Not, not other people. Nope. Right? You don’t have to look any further than in the mirror to find out what needs to change. That’s a hard truth, right? There’s an old saying that the truth will set you free in the park. They leave off his first. We’ll make you mad. Right? Not at others. It’ll make you mad at yourself because you really. Once you realize though, here’s the, here’s the great part about that. Once you realize it’s up to you and you’re free, right? You’re, that’s so freeing. Once you are willing to accept 100 percent responsibility, then you’re free. When the world is yours, right? Your Life.

Chad:               It’s completely true and we’re so resistant to that because we’re resistant to change and we don’t want to hear that, oh, we’re the ones that have to change, but if you just take a second to realize that it does for you, it just logically makes sense. If everything is in your control, that should be the least stressful way of approaching your life, not the most stressful. You should. You should be glad that that you are creating your life and you’re creating your problems, and if you take 100 percent responsibility for it, then you can also get out of your problems and you can create a better life and

Bob:                 totally free. Let’s jump back the relationships for just a second. Imagine that you wanted your spouse to care more, to love you more, to treat you better. Well, what if it started with you? Right? Well, what if, what if you started loving your spouse more? What have you started carrying? What did you started listening? What have you started loving more? What do you think the reaction would be?

Chad:               I get it back,

Bob:                 right? No doubt about it. Uh, I would recommend for anybody who’s having any difficulty in a relationship cry that, right? And that’s not just a marital relationships, right? Just the same way in business, right? Whatever you want to be the catalyst, right? You’d be the starter.

Chad:               Yeah. That’s an important thing to remember. Thanks for sharing that. Is there. What other tips do you have for improving our relationships and especially in business and, and, and being able to connect better with people so that we have a strong network that allows us to create what we’re wanting to create in our career.

Bob:                 It’s counter intuitive. And when I say it’s counterintuitive, there’s a great, there’s a lot of bugs in today’s world about a personal branding, right? And when people say personal branding, they think that that’s all about pitching right? And look at me, it’s all about me. Well, that’s the exact opposite approach. If you really want to gain traction in relationships, business relationships, connections, it’s got to be about others. Right now I think you ought to be clear about what you want, right? Let’s say you have a goal of making whatever your income, whatever you think of good income is this year. Let’s say it’s $100,000 that might be low for some people, maybe it’s 250,000, whatever it is, be clear on that, right, and then once you’re clear on what you want, you got to set that aside and start focusing on what can I do for others?

Bob:                 In what ways can I add value to other people that will result in me earning that money where if you want, if you want more connections, if you want people to be more engaged with you, guess what? It goes back to what I said before. You’d be the catalyst, right? It all starts with you so it’s not about you, right? Once you. Once you set that aside, which is like I said, counterintuitive and go, what can I do for others that will help them increase their life, that will boost them up? You’ll, you’ll discover that it’s a. it’s a circular pod. The line that everything that you do for others, every bit of value that you add to others. Guess what, it ends up coming back to you in the long run, but there are two caveats on that. Do you mind if I tell what the two caveats are, the two caveats or this one, you cannot add value to other people with a quid pro quo mindset.

Bob:                 In other words, you’re not keeping score. You do something for somebody else and in the back of your mind, and this is how most people do it, and frankly this is how I used to do it, right? So I learned that. Well, one way to learn how to do things right is to screw them up a lot, right? So message, I’m encouraging people, don’t do that, right? Learn from my foibles. Uh, so every bit of value that you add to others coming back to you, if you add that value without keeping score, without saying, oh, I did this for you, so now you owe me, right? Here’s the key, is a lot of times the value that you add to other people, it’s coming back to you, although often it doesn’t come back to you from the person that you added value to. You and just filling your pipeline. It’s like a circular pipeline that every bit of value put in one ear and comes out the other end, which is right back to you. So, but here’s the, here’s the second key. You have to be open to receiving and, and frankly, as hard as that first one is Chad, best. Second one is, is even harder for a lot of people. Pause. They have been told and led to believe it’s better to give than receive.

Bob:                 Well, what if it’s not right? What if they’re both part of the same cycle and if you’re not open to receive, who are you to decide that it’s not okay for somebody to give to you? Right?

Chad:               And if we imagine ourself trying to give to somebody else and they’re not receiving that, that’s it’s, it’s uncomfortable and it’s hard to like when we want to give to somebody, but they push away. I’m a really interferes with the relationship. And, uh, so if we can imagine us on that flip side, then we can think, okay, well I can imagine what, how I make others feel when I push away, when I can’t receive. And um, I know for me, I used to still trying to work on a receiving because I, I, for a long time I didn’t believe that I deserved to receive anything, you know, that I do deserve to receive certain income or a certain success. And um, because I, you know, I was telling myself a story and the story was I need to financially struggle for about 30 years. Um, and I to, and this is the story that might my aunt, you know, my, my, my parents and my grandparents have been playing out.

Chad:               And so that’s why I was playing out the story. And then once I’m about in my 50, somewhere in there, I finally deserve to have more money than I need to just pay my bills. And now I can finally retire. And I can have a good retirement. And Luckily in the store that I’ve been playing has been to always have a job. And my faith and my family, we’ve always had jobs, but we’ve always just brought in just enough and I’m trying to work on getting rid of that story. I’m like, I don’t have to replay that story. I don’t have to live that store that I have to struggle with my career for 30 years and then finally get a footing in it, you know, so I’m trying to, trying to figure that out. But it comes back to being open to receiving that. And

Bob:                 you know, in the, in the, there’s a great book, the people listening to this or watching this haven’t read. They should. It’s called the go giver by Bob Burg and John David Mann. They’re the two co authors of it and it is an amazing book. And in there it talks about receiving one of the. It’s written as a parable and, and one of the main character says to the other main character tried this. Probably taking in a really deep breath and only breathe out for 30 seconds. I’m not allowed to breathe back in, right? Just read out for 30 full seconds. Well, I’d recommend people try that exercise. And so imagine what your life would be like if you could only breathe out right now. Further, imagine this. Imagine somebody else has breathe in and you’re preventing them from exhaling when you’re not open to receive. That’s essentially what you’re doing. Hmm. That’s a great. That’s kind of enlightening, isn’t it?

Chad:               That’s a great image. Thanks for sharing that. I’m going to have to check out that the go giver

Bob:                 the go giver. Excellent. Three. In fact, it’s a must read for anybody who wants to succeed beyond the average.

Chad:               That’s really great. Thanks for. Thanks for giving us that book. Um, where, uh, I like, like when you’re bringing up the whole cycle, I think it’s an interesting thing because it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s hard to, to try to figure out what that, what that balance is between focusing on the goals that we have and the things that we want and the things that we’re trying to create and the things that we want in our life and that motivating us to go out and give to people. Um, how, how do we find that balance between, uh, focusing on. Because it sounds like basically what you’re saying is if you, if you just make it your life’s mission to help others get what they want, you’ll always have what you want, you know, that it kind of will come full circle and it might not be directly from that person, but eventually down the pipeline at all, it all kind of comes back.

Chad:               Um, so how have you found a balance as far as putting your attention on the goals that you have and the things that you’re wanting to create in your life, but also putting your focus on helping others, getting what they want because, you know, we, if we just forget about our goals entirely and all in that boat where were just looking for opportunities to give, but were then, like you said, if we’re unsure of what we want because we’re not thinking about it at all, then uh, we can almost lose track and be like, wait a second. What does it actually do? I want my own life. Like how do you manage that dance, you know?

Bob:                 Okay. That’s a great question. Let me clarify a little bit. I think you always ought to stay focused on what your goals are. The the conundrum comes in with most people thinking, well, how can I get? How can I get that? Well, when you realize that the only way you’re going to get anything is by helping others get things. Then you say, okay, this is what I want. How do I get it? Well, how you get it is you go add value in the lives of others. Think about it this way. It’s possible. I had a very enlightening conversation with somebody yesterday because she was thinking about business as something that was selfish and I told her, I said, listen, it’s possible to give in business. She’s like, what? I never heard that before. I said, think about it this way. Imagine, imagine that I gave you $50. If I. Every time I gave you $50, would you be okay with giving me $20 back?

Bob:                 I mean ask yourself, Chad, if I gave you $50 now, would you give me 20 back? So in business it, that’s a no brainer, isn’t it? I mean, how many times a day would you do that as the receiver, right? That’s the condition. You get 50. I get 20. Well, in business, if you focus on not just making it an even exchange where somebody’s paying you $50, you’re giving them $50 worth of value, but they’re paying you 20 and you’re giving them $50 worth of value. Now, how good would you feel about doing business if that were the case? See, most people, uh, most businesses, excuse me, most businesses and most business people are focused on, you know, how can I sort of make it even right? A Win Win, right? Let’s say win, win, but what they really mean is even right, even steven, well that’s no way to succeed in business beyond that, you know, psychologists have studied and they have figured out that in order for a business transaction to take place, the person spending the money, they’ve got to feel like they’re getting at a minimum one point two times as much in value as their spending and money.

Bob:                 So, and if they don’t, the transaction won’t take place. So that’s a minimum, right? That’s a minimum psychological standard, but if you aim for minimum is you’re probably going to get minimum results will you need to do if you really want to be super successful because you’ve got to say, all right, how can I exceed that? That one point two x threshold and enormous amount, right? How can I add so much value to this person, that doing business with me is a no brainer that you can feel good about doing business that way and the bonuses. That’s the key to being really successful because think about it, think about it from a buyer standpoint. If you go into, let’s say you were going out to buy a new shirt and you’re thinking, I’m going to pay 35 or $40 for a new shirt and you go into whatever your favorite shirt then is, right? You go in there and you’re expecting to pay for $3 and they’re on sale for 25. How much better do you feel about making that purchase,

Chad:               Ben?

Bob:                 Because the value that you’re getting in your mind just went up exponentially, right? When you walk out of that sort of, that feeling of thrusting your fists up in the air like you. Yes. All right. So that if you can give that feeling to the people that are, are doing transactions with you, regardless of your industry, that’s the feeling that you want to give your customers or clients or whatever your situation is best. The feeling you want to give them. Not Know. This was just, this was just a trade, right? Like they got a wind so much bigger than you do and you, it’s almost like you’d feel philanthropic, right? In business. And think about how people, when they donate money to charity, think about how good they feel when they do that, right? Because they know that they’ve made somebody better off. Would you can have that same feeling doing business.

Chad:               Hm?

Bob:                 Uh, how, how great of a way is that to go through life?

Chad:               That’s interesting. It’s like you’re describing how somehow,

Chad:               uh,

Chad:               and, and it’s like, it’s almost like physics can’t quite explain it, but somehow if you give more in value than what you’re receiving in the money. So in a sense, you’re almost giving a portion of that away, um, so that, that other person walks away feeling like they gotten more than they even gave and the money they gave you and the business exchange. Then somehow you will also get more back than you feel like you invested. And it’s just both people walk away even bigger winners than they were when they, it’s like,

Chad:               uh,

Chad:               yeah, it’s this odd thing where it doesn’t, where both or where it’s not like somebody walks away feeling like they got ripped off or they got taken advantage of. Even the person on the business end full circle, they still, they become successful and they, and they still receive much more than they even felt like they give. And somehow everyone walks away just really happy.

Bob:                 Exactly. And, and, and how successful you look at the most successful businesses in the world, that’s the way they operate. So that’s um, well, it’s, it’s, it’s an amazing transformation and it is a transformation for most people because they’d been led to believe that, you know, businesses just cold and hard and right. And it can be right, a lot of businesses operate that way, but just because everybody else does something doesn’t mean you have to do it that way. What if there’s a better way? And I’m telling you, there is

Chad:               definitely along with that, I want to, I want to play off of that a little bit. Um, with being a self employed, I want to talk a little bit about that as being self employed. You’re setting your own prices or rates or setting your own income essentially and uh, and you have a lot more control over that, but it can also cause a lot of, uh, a lot of stress trying to decide, well, what do I deserve? Is My rate or what do I deserve for this service and providing this person. Do you see, what do you suggest regarding discounting things and discounts? Because there’s a lot of debate on this, whether to that. Sometimes if you discount something, then it kind of undermines the value of it. But other times it feels like then the person feels that they’re getting a good deal. Um, so because there’s two ways of going about it, either you say this is the normal price and, but here’s what I’m offering to you, um, or you just add more value. You say here’s the price, but then you make sure you add more value than that price. I’m like, what do you suggest regarding how to, how to handle that being self employed in setting rates for services and different things like that.

Bob:                 Well, that’s a good question. And, and there are times where, you know, you’ll get sort of an intuitive notion that you ought to do something differently. I’ll give you an example of that. You know, as we’re recording this, uh, we’re, I’m in the middle of doing something that, when I first thought of it, I thought that’s completely insane. Bear with me a second. I’ll see if I can fully explain. I have a new book that’s coming out in a few weeks. It’s called a 101 freaking brilliant business ideas and 10 ways you can create your own. So I think that number a hundred and one stuck in my mind, right? And, uh, I just sorta had a little voice tell me you should help 101 businesses or nonprofits come up with because a lot of things that I do in my consulting work isn’t just, you know, personal achievement, it’s about developing strategies for companies to help companies and nonprofits to help them increase cash flow.

Bob:                 And so that notion popped into my mind that you should help 101 businesses or nonprofits with strategies to increase cash flow and do it at no charge. Now when that notion first popped into my mind, I said, that’s insane. Why would I do that if people pay me great money to do exactly that, right? And, uh, so I dismissed it at four, but frankly it just wouldn’t go away. That thought, that idea, that prompting wouldn’t go away. I said, okay, I’m obviously supposed to do this. And so, you know, so that’s a time where, you know, we’re still in the middle of that. I, there’s probably 50 of those spots left available depending on when people are watching this. We’re recording it. And uh, you know, in October of 2018. So when you’re watching this or listening to this, that may or may not still be available, but I can tell you that that’s been so rewarding, but generally that’s not going to be appropriate for everybody, right?

Bob:                 But generally you don’t need to discount things. You don’t need to, um, look at your competitors’ pricing and price for less back that thing. That kind of strategy is a downward death spiral because if you say, oh, well they’re there at this price, well I’ll do it for five percent last set, same thing mostly, but for five percent less. And then they come along and if you gain any traction with that strategy, then they say, oh, well we’ll do it for three or four percent less than him. That’s not a very good strategy. And frankly, how well are you going to serve your clients if you keep doing that? What are you not going to do? Right? So a better strategy is to ask yourself, this is an important, excellent question. In what ways can I add more value to this same transaction? That’s a better question to ask asked because it forces you to do things in a way that other companies or other individuals that are competitors of yours don’t do and they ought to be listened. Chad, they don’t even have to be huge thing is either, but what they have to be is unexpected value for the customer. Right? That when they find out, not only are they getting what they were expecting, but they’re also getting this and go, wow, you do that. So little things that cause a while reaction in your customer. That’s the things that you can do that add value and guess what, as a result of doing things in that way, your margins are going to be bigger.

Chad:               Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that. That it’s interesting that you bring up with looking at competitors prices and then trying to just pick a lower. Because um, it’s something I’ve been realizing as I’ve been building my business is that there’s, at first I was approaching it as a, okay, how do I stand out above the competition? And then I kept thinking about the competition. I was trying to research the competition. Then I realized that there’s no such thing as competition because there’s room for everyone and the problem with getting so focused on just trying to beat out the competition is that it forces you to have this scarcity mentality towards business where you don’t feel that anyone that wants to have a successful business can, that there’s room for them that, that at the end of the day, even if you’re selling a similar product or a service, it’s still going to come out different because you created it versus him creating it. And uh, and that, that way when we approach it in that way, it, um, yeah, when we’re focused on just how can I add more value to this transaction as opposed to how can I beat out the competitor or how can I make a lower price than his, it. It gets rid of that scarcity mentality.

Bob:                 Yeah. And look, that affect a lot of decision, a lot of decisions that people make. If you’re focused on, if you believe that the world is an abundant place versus being a scarce place, like you just said it, it, it affects your decision making as long as you’re treating every person, whether they’re a yes or a no, you’re treating them the same, then that’s okay because the ones that are, the timing is right for them to become clients. They will and the ones that aren’t, they won’t. And that’s okay because that look, that’s their world. You can’t control anybody except you. So you know, just respect that decision and go on.

Chad:               Yeah. And then, and then also it makes sense because I’ve had times where a then I thought, oh, it was a waste of time to even start talking to that person because it didn’t turn into a client. Then of course, it comes back to just seeing in that selfish way where the is my only reasoning for talking to people’s because it will end up in some business transaction that I’m not in the right mindset and uh, that it’s important to see that as still a valuable conversation. We had a couple of conversations. It didn’t lead to a business transaction, but it was still worth both of our time because we got to interact and we probably learned something from each other and it’s just. And to not get stuck in that thinking of, Oh, what a waste of time that was.

Bob:                 Yeah. Know, it’s the, it’s the mindset of, you know, every, every engagement is going to either be a success or a learning experience, right? Because, because if you didn’t succeed, you can ask yourself what, what is the takeaway, what’s the lesson I can learn from this, that will help me get better in the future. And by the way, that’s the competition. You need to have your cell phone yesterday, right now, my better today than I was yesterday. That I improved a little bit through my experiences, my activity yesterday. And uh, and you don’t have a quantum leaps, right? Those comes sometimes, right? But if you just get a little bit better each day, imagine if you improve one percent every day over the course of a year, three years or five years over time. That’s massive.

Chad:               Definitely. Definitely. Thanks for bringing that up. It’s only we only compete with ourself and we should only compare ourselves with ourselves because we, it’s easy to get so stuck in that comparison of looking at everyone else and trying to compare us either above or below them and both can kind of just pull us off track so that. So how do you do that? How do you compare yourself with yourself? Do you, do you, do you keep track through some kind of journaling? Like how do you keep track of your own personal development? I guess?

Bob:                 Well there are a few different methods to do that, but frankly I reflect at the end of each day, you know, what did I do well? And I tell myself do more of that, right? What did I do not so well, and once the lesson that I can take away so that I can do more of the things that work tomorrow, what can I, what can I be more efficient on? Where did I maybe lose focus? I’m that kind of stuff.

Chad:               That’s helpful. Definitely that’s helpful. At the end of each day, make sure you reflect and ask yourself those questions and have a little interview with yourself about where you can improve and what’s working and not working. And it’s a very simple thing. It can only take a few minutes, but it really makes it, makes that one percent improvement possible. Absolutely. What are some, uh, you talk about innovative thinking and I want to kind of a close up this conversation by talking about w w, what does that mean to you? Innovative thinking and what are a couple of innovative thinking strategies?

Bob:                 Innovative thinking is thinking about things in a way that others aren’t. So there are a few different methodologies. Let me give you one. Um, there’s a, a creative thinking, innovative thinking method called combinatory play. Now, that sounds complicated, but it’s not. Um, people think in pictures. They don’t think in words. So if I say the word dog to you, the letters d o, n, g don’t pop up in your mind. A picture of a dog pops into your mind, right? So if I say the word table, a picture of a table into your mind. Now when you start, here’s the interesting thing, when you start combining words to get, if I combine dog and table four, table and dog, the new images start conform and what that process does is it begins to reactivate that natural creative, imaginative being that we were born as, but most people haven’t used, haven’t accessed since they were about five years old.

Chad:               Hmm.

Bob:                 Because that’s not in today’s world. That’s not encouraged and fostered and formal education that we have currently.

Chad:               Hmm.

Bob:                 But look, here’s the, here’s the issue that kind of thinking, think about things and see solutions and having methods to do that with an accessing that innovative, imaginative, creative part of our ourselves is so critical going forward from here in the 21st century to success and not just a to surviving, to thriving. I mean in a world of, in a world of automation where you read all kinds of different statistics, right? Where it’s so many millions of jobs that are currently being done by people are going to be done by machines over the course of the next five to 10 years. Well, if that’s the case, then you can look at that one of two ways. You can look at it and say, well, that’s not right. That’s not fair, or that’s not whatever, but that’s not gonna. Change it. Right? So the other way that you could look at it is it’s an incredible opportunity. Just like every other technological revolution down through history.

Bob:                 It’s an incredible opportunity. Now, look, it’s temporarily terrible for the person that loses their job. That’s now been done by a machine, but what it does is it frees that person up to do work that’s higher level, more meaningful, probably it’s more fun probably, and frankly probably pays better, adds more value. And so those people that acquire the skill sets that are necessary to thrive in an age of automation or the ones that are really going to, they’re the ones that are going to thrive. The thing I like about what we’re doing on training people on those kinds of innovative thinking methods is that bad is going to be one of the chief skillsets because machines can’t imagine. All right? They can learn, right? But like Einstein said, imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge only tells you what currently exists imagination. And we have to preview with the future, right?

Bob:                 So you can see human beings can come up with that, that elegant solution that machines never will. I mean, look, look at a preschooler. All they do all day long is they learn new things and they imagine new possibilities and they have fun all day long. Right? So imagine your world could be like that. That’s what that’s like. Right? And, and I believe that, I believe that for people that, um, people to take that approach, they’re going to develop a much more collaborative relationship. Even even if they work for someone else, it’s going to be a much more collaborative, more of a partner in relationship between employer and employees. Just a lot. The just a lot better way to approach life.

Chad:               Definitely. Definitely. I, uh, yesterday I just got home from a 10 hour drive from Oregon. I was taking a trip with my family. I have a two and a half year old son and there was a long drive, but uh, I was just watching him during some of the drive, sitting in his car seat. He has his little toy cars and he’s sitting there just imagining and, and putting images together and saying he says this, he says a lot of two words, sentences. So it’s funny that you bring up dog table, you know, he does that. He’ll, he’ll put two words together, but it puts an image in his mind and he’s sitting there and I’m like, he’s just entertaining themself with something that I wouldn’t even think in a million years would entertain me to, to pass the time. And he’s just using his imagination and it’s really cool to watch him just so naturally being an innovative thinker. And, and, and so it’s, it’s. Yeah.

Bob:                 Well, and look, and when you couldn’t combine, when you combine the, the question that I tell people, this is the question that drives all of my activity and that is in what ways can I add more value to more people? When you combine that question with thinking innovatively, then that’s, that’s a super winning combination because it, it puts the onus on you to add value to others and then once you’re competent that you can create that in your life changes. It just opens up such a new world of vast possibilities. And uh, you know, it’s almost like it, it clears away new. There’s a sort of a storm clouds hanging over. A lot of people were, I call them the storm clouds are sort of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. You know, their fear, doubt, discouragement, and well, what if you can, if you can clear those away out of your life, then you can see the abundance that’s really there that you can’t see because those storm clouds are or hanging over top of you.

Bob:                 You’re not even aware of it. So you’re not looking for it. Right? Well, why don’t you clear those away and life can be that way and that’s exciting, right? I mean if you, if you, if you could get rid of fear, if you could get rid of your doubt, if you could get rid of discouragement and conflict and you realized, look, I don’t have to compete with other people, right? All I have to do is compete with me. I got to get better every day and I’m committed to adding value to others and I’m figuring out ways to do it and I’m being human. If especially if you get empowered and shorten your learning curve through some, some good training and that’s a, that’s a much better way to go about life. Then you know, I have a relative of mine who, uh, when I asked him how things are going, he says ssdd only he doesn’t say it with those initials. Right? Same stuff. Different Day. Well, what kind of life is that?

Chad:               Definitely the way you talk about your life as the way that it is. Thanks for thanks for all the wonderful wisdom you share with us today. I feel like I learned so much about how to just activate a more successful life and successful, not just meaning money, successful, meaning just overall satisfaction with life and choosing to enjoy it and choosing to create it and take responsibility for it. Where can we learn more from you about innovative thinking and about things you’re doing with spirit point solutions? How can we connect with you and your business?

Bob:                 The best way for people to connect up with me is on linkedin. Uh, that platform is, uh, I, I love linkedin. It’s a, it’s like a, a massive worldwide business networking party. And, uh, so people can find me there. I might not be the only Bob Sager on there, but, uh, you know, maybe in your show notes you can include a link to my profile there. That is the best place to find me, the best place to hook up with me. I’m, I publish a lot of articles. I publish a post daily, you know, that. Uh, and I knew Chad, I do the same thing when I, before I post anything, I asked myself, does this add value? Right? Does this add value to other? So, um, you know, I, I think if you want to be, I’m inspired and you want to be a, you’re the kind of person that’s decided you’re ready to live up to your full potential, you know, it might be a good person to hook up with.

Chad:               Great. Well thanks so much. Do you want to, you said you had a book coming out in a few weeks. Where can we find out about.

Bob:                 Well, it, it, it will be available on Amazon. Uh, I have two books I have on Amazon already, uh, one is called discovering your greatness and that is a subtitled, a higher level thinking and action guide. Some of the principles we talked about earlier in this conversation are covered in that book. And then the other one is, it’s a book our company published, um, and um, uh, I’m one of 39 offers. It’s called living a wealthy life and has almost nothing to do with money really. Um, it covers their five forms of wealth, money, time, satisfaction, relationships and health. And each one of those stories talks about the transition that the people that wrote, they’re all true stories by the way, and the people wrote the stories about having a lack of and then gaining an abundance in one or more of those five forms of wealth. And uh, so like I said, living a wealthy life and the subtitle is stories of gaining an abundance in all forms of wealth. And those are both available at Amazon.

Chad:               Great. Perfect. Well, those links will definitely be in the show notes, so all of you can check those out and learn more from Bob. Thanks for being on our show today. I’m really excited you’re able to come on.

Bob:                 Chad. It was a lot of fun. I appreciate being on.