82. Let Go of Your Damn Expectations

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Hey. Hey. It is Friday. It is time for Friday Bullpen Sessions. My name is Andy Neary. Each week I deconstruct my journey, my struggles through professional baseball to help unpack yours so you can live a life on purpose. I take the lessons I learned in baseball and help you apply them in business and in life. So if you're ready to join me, grab your glove, grab a ball. Get ready to take the mound. And get ready. Bear down to strike out the limiting beliefs in your life. All right, here we go. Hey, hey. Welcome back to Friday Bullpen Sessions. My name is Andy Neary, and this is episode 82. Today, I'm going to share a really big problem with you, something that has plagued my business career for far too long, up until recently when I made a big shift. And that's when everything shifted for me. What is that problem, you ask? It is my desire to want to control the outcome, my desire to have all these big expectations, and if they're not met, I'm pissed off. I look at it as a failure, and I just continue leading a life of unfulfillment because I'm not hitting my expectations, and I'm just trying to control every single outcome in my life. All right, let's dive into it.

So here we are, it's Friday, December 18th. And if 2020 has taught us one thing as we wrap it up and kiss its ass goodbye, it's this. We can't have any expectations anymore. Every outcome you wanted to achieve this year probably got altered in a way, didn't it? It probably got twisted, turned, or even eliminated altogether. And, you know, I look back at the 20 years I've been in the business world, and I realized for how many. How many of them I've been plagued by my desire to want to control the outcome. I've been plagued by having these expectations, and if I don't meet them, I look at it as a failure. And all that did is lead me to a business career of unhappiness, unfulfillment and stress and pressure and wanting and needing every single win in my life. Now, here's what's interesting. I'm going to take this back to.

A different career that I had where that wasn't the problem. You know, when I was playing baseball, I never once focused on the outcome. I never once focused on the expectation. I just got really good at mastering the daily habits, the daily grind, and that's what ultimately led to my success. If you ask me what is one of the main reasons, or maybe the main reason you were I was able to play professional baseball in the Milwaukee brewers organization was this. I mastered the daily habits. I mastered the things I had to do every single day that allowed me to have that success on the field, you know, so let me, let me share what I mean, let me go deep into the story for you a little bit. As most of you know, I played college baseball at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. And here's what. When I think back, I haven't shared this story before, but when I think back of to all those winter practices before the season started, it just brings back so many memories because at UWM, we were not a big time Division 1 baseball program. We were a smaller mid major and we had to share the same gym every winter with the, the basketball teams and the track and field teams. And because their seasons were much closer to starting than ours, we took back burner when it came to the calendar. So when we would crank up our winter practices after coming back from winter break, we would practice every night in the Klotchy center, the gym on campus, at 10pm Think about that. If you're, by the way, if you're a college baseball player listening in and your practices, you were fortunate enough to have your own facility or have practice priority. You know, you're having practice at 2, 3pm in the afternoon. Consider yourself lucky, man. We practiced at 10pm from 10pm to midnight every night until the season started when we would head south and go play a bunch of teams that had been outside for two, three months and get our ass kicked for a couple weeks. But I look back at those winter practices and here's what's so interesting. You know, you show up at practice when most people are going to bed and you have to be on, you have to have your A game, right? And you have to get laser focused. So most practices you'd start with taking a few laps around the indoor track. You'd stretch out, you get warmed up, play a little long toss, and then it was two hours of boredom. Meaning when I say boredom, it was working on the day to day shit you had to work on to get really good on the field. And I look back at those practices and you know, at least for the second half of my career at uwm.

That'S all I focused on, that's all I cared about, that's all I wanted to master was every night I showed up at practice, I wanted to get really good at mastering my mechanics. I wanted to get really good at locating my pitches. Not once did I think, man, you know, in about three weeks we're about to play Oklahoma State or we're about to play New Orleans down in Louisiana, and I better win that game or I have this expectations that this work better lead to a victory on the mound. No, I didn't think about that at all. I just went to work putting in the daily grind every night, the nightly grind in this case. And it was my mechanics, working on my pitches, getting in my bullpen sessions. You know, there's a reason I call the podcast Bullpen sessions. It's every week. It was my chance to get my one on one time with my pitching coach to get really good at my mechanics, get good at my pitch location, and be more than happy to fail because there wasn't a batter in the batter's box and get the mentorship from the coach I needed. And then it was hitting the weight room. You know, every day, hitting the weight room was something that I had to master. It got to a point at uwm, I didn't even think about it. It's something I'm still very proud of Today at age 43, working out is just ingrained in my life. I wake up every day, I don't have to convince myself that I need to be to exercise or hit the gym. Just what I do. It's a part of me. And it was the same way at uwm. And it was that mastering of the habits, exercising, hitting the weight room, taking care of my body, putting the right food in my body, and then working on my mechanics, working on my pitch location, everything I needed to do to be the best pitcher I could be is what allowed me to have such massive success in my baseball career again. Not once during that process did I say I must become first team all conference this year, otherwise I won't be happy. Or I must sign this free agent contract with the Milwaukee brewers or my whole baseball career is a failure. No, it just naturally happened because I got really damn good at the daily habits. But here's what's interesting. When I made the shift to my business career, I let go of that. I wanted to control the outcome. I had to expect that expectation of winning this sale. Otherwise it would be a failure and I would be devastated. I look back early in my sales career, whether I was selling financial services or insurance, and it just blows me away how much pressure I put on every sale. If I didn't win that sale, I'd be devastated for days. I had to have that sale. It's the only way I'M going to measure myself is the success. And I completely got away from enjoying the process, the daily grind of practicing my proposals, practicing what I was going to say, putting in the work of picking up the damn phone and calling prospects. No, I didn't like that stuff. I tried to avoid it. I just wanted to win. I had that expectation, man, I have to sell $200,000 of insurance this year, otherwise I flat out sucked. So I ask you that same question today. Where are you? Are you struggling? Because you have that expectation that you have to win every sale opportunity you have, otherwise you're a failure. Are you forgetting that it requires a hell of a lot of boring practice off the field for you to perfect that proposal, for you to perfect the strategy of going out and grabbing the attention of your prospects and winning the business?

You see, it's so easy to take what I've learned from athletics and apply it to my sales career now, my coaching career. And that's why so many athletes are.

Very good in the business world, especially in sales, because they're able to apply what, what made them so good on the field to their sales career. And that's what elevates them above everybody else. I did not do that. You see, everything that made me very, very good on the baseball field, what allowed me, a 5 foot 9, 165 pound pitcher to play professional baseball, I completely forgot to apply in the business world. And I put pressure on every outcome. I put pressure on every expectation and it sucked. It led to a lot of frustration, a lot of anxiety and a lot of losses and then devastation after those losses. So if I can give you any advice today, as we have two weeks to go on 2020, as we about to kiss its ass goodbye, because I know we all want to kiss its ass goodbye, I want you to think about that. Are you putting too much pressure on the outcomes you're trying to achieve or you have that expectation, you must hit a quarter million dollars in sales or whatever your goal is in your career, otherwise you're a failure. I'm here to tell you to let go of that shit. Just get really good at focusing on the daily habits that you need to instill. And if you master those habits, the outcome is a byproduct. You don't need to have the expectation, it's just going to happen.

And as you sit down right now and start Planning out your 2021 goals, I want you to create lofty goals, big ones, stretch things that make you uncomfortable. But then when those goals are written and they're on paper. Toss that paper in the garbage. Forget about the goal and just figure out what you need to do every day that will lead to that goal becoming the byproduct where you don't have to have the expectation that you must achieve that goal, otherwise you're a failure. No, no, no, no. Get good at mastering the daily habits and everything else will take care of itself. Remember, 2020 has taught us one thing. It's we need to let go of our desire to control an outcome and especially our desire to have these expectations. We have to let go of expectations right now. And I'm asking you to do the same thing. But don't let go of the habits that create the outcome you want. That is, if you need to focus on that next year. If there's one thing you're going to focus on, master the habits. Master the daily grind. I know it's a cliche phrase. Master the monotonous, boring shit it's going to take for you to win. You do that next year, you'll be blown away by where you are one year from now, three years from now, five years from now. The reason my coaching business has had the success it has had in the first 18 months of its life is because I don't care about hitting a certain revenue goal. I don't care about trying to make sure I have a certain number of clients by the end of the year. No, no, no. I just wake up every day making sure I do the right things, work on the right priorities, master the right habits and bring as much value as I can. Because I know if I do that the outcome, the result will take care of itself. You need to do the same thing. So as we wrap up the year, I wish you nothing but the best for a safe and healthy holidays. I hope you get a chance to spend some time with your family. But most importantly, do me a favor. As we as 2020 turns 21, make next year the year you stop having huge expectations. Make next year the year you stop focusing on the outcome. And make it the year you get really damn good at mastering your daily habits. Because if you do and you create that clarity and that confidence, you know what happens, my friend? Massive action happens. So go make it happen today.

Hey, thank you for taking the time to listen to this Friday Bullpen session. If you are enjoying these episodes, please do me a favor, go over to Apple, subscribe, give it a five star rating and if you know of anybody in your life, whether it's in your family, personal life, your friends, business, colleagues that you think would find benefit in listening to these episodes as well. Do me a favor. Please share the bullpen sessions with them. I'd be extremely grateful if you did. And again, go out and make it happen today. Thank.

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