Success is 80% MINDSET, 20% SKILL [Friday Bullpen Sessions Episode 38]

Hey. Hey. Welcome back. It's Friday. You know what that means? It is time for Friday Bullpen Sessions. My name is Andy Neary, and this is episode 38. This episode excites me. Today we're going to talk about the most important 8020 rule for your career. If you're sitting there right now, much like I was for most of my career going, you know, I'm just as talented as my competition, as my peers, I feel like I have all the skills they have, yet I don't feel like I'm having the success they're having. I feel like everybody's advancing while I'm stalled. And you just, you're out of words. You don't know where to turn. This episode's for you because I'm going to show you where you might be focusing on the wrong areas and I'm going to help you focus on what matters most. That is the the topic we are going to dive into today, the most important 8020 rule of your career. Because at the end of the day, I'm hoping you want to take your career to the next level. Even if you're already having success today, you want to take it to the next level, but you don't know what it's going to take to get there. This episode's for you. In fact, this episode is brought to you by the Complete Game Mastermind. So if you are in that position where you are having success, you're a producer, you're a sales professional, you own a business, and you want to take it to the next level. And you know what got you here won't get you there. I want you to go check out the Complete Game Mastermind. Now, just this week, I had to make a big pivot to the Mastermind because I had this beautiful three day retreat here in Fort Collins, Colorado planned. Unfortunately, the reality is the reality. We're just not going to be traveling and having retreats anytime soon. So I have had to pivot and make this thing 100% virtual. But with subtraction comes addition. I have added some amazing things to this mastermind. This is a virtual mastermind unlike anything you have ever been a part of. So do yourself a favor. I've put a link in the notes below. Go check it out. Apply. Let's jump on a call. Let's see if Complete Game is a fit for you. All right, let's dive into the episode.

Shift your mindset. So let's talk about this 8020 rule. What am I talking about? Well, let me take a step back and let's level set. Who am I talking to today? If you are sitting there not having the success you want to have, or maybe the success you were once having.

Just before COVID and you feel like sales are a little slower, growth in your business is a little slower than it's been. And you're actually watching peers and some of your competition grow, have success, and you're frustrated, you're defeated, and you're trying to figure out what they have that you don't. This episode's for you because I want to talk about this 8020 rule. Now, you know and have heard of the 8020 rule, right? I mean, we all know it as Pareto's principle. 80% of your results come from 20% of your actions. And that number, that statistic holds true in so many places in life, right? When it comes to diet, if you stick to the 8020 rule and 20% of the time you cheat, but 80% of the time you hold tight to a diet, you'll have success. You look at sales numbers within an organization, 20% of the producers create 80% of the sales. This rule applies in most things in our life. But that's not really where I'm going to go with this 8020 rule. It's a little different twist to where I want you to spend 80% of your time.

And limit the other part to just 20%. What am I talking about? I'm talking about mindset over skill. You see for most people right now, when it's looking to create growth within your career, you spend the majority of your time on trying to obtain new skills. Let me give you a personal experience from my perspective. In fact, I'm going to go back to my short tenure in professional baseball to make this point. For me to get the chance to play in professional baseball, I had to have the skill. You're not getting drafted, you're not getting signed as a free agent to play the professional ranks without having skill. In fact, I realized this when I got to professional baseball. I come from a Mid Major Division 1 program, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. And when I got to the Helena Brewers, I had guys on my team who played at the University of Texas, lsu, Minnesota, you know, big time Division one programs. And one thing that I actually noticed pretty quickly was, man, I fit in. I can play with these guys. And it was so weird to think about that because when I was a senior in high school, just four or five years earlier, those schools would have never looked at me. Minnesota, Texas, lsu, right? But here I am now playing with guys that come from those schools. And I feel like I fit in from a talent and skill perspective. But why did my career only last a couple years when some of them went on to spend a few more years in minor league baseball? Some even made it all the way to. To the top, to the big leagues. What separated them from me, hands down, it was mindset. If you talk to any professional athlete right now, what it takes to be successful in professional sports, whether you play baseball, hockey, football, soccer, I don't care. They will tell you it's 80% mindset, 20% skill. Yet here's what's so interesting in sports. Think about this. What's practice? We spend the entirety of a practice working on our skill. And if the 8020 rule holds true, for every hour we spend practicing on our skill in sports, shouldn't we spend four hours working on our mindset? Yet so few do that. Right? And that's where most athletes fail. It's not their skill, it's their mindset. In baseball, when a pitcher gets into a slump or a batter gets into a slump, it is at least 80% mindset. It's not their skill. They know how to swing a bat, they know how to throw a fastball. It's all in between the 6 inches between their ears. That's it.

And the same is true in business. The same is true in your career if you're in a little rut right now. Let's face it, many are in a rut right now. Covid. The lockdown slowed down sales and business growth everywhere. Yeah, there are a few people having tremendous success right now, and kudos to them. But for most, sales have slowed down. And if you're not having the success you had just three months ago, a year ago, your tendency is to want to acquire more skill again. I'll give you another personal perspective on this. I have spent the majority of my career in the health insurance industry. And there are those who will argue with you that what we do is mostly logic and, and not emotion. It's mostly skill, not mindset. So what happens when producers, those that are selling health insurance products, agents and brokers, is they will spend the majority of their time trying to acquire skills, new products, new strategies. I'd argue a lot of them are trying to chase that silver bullet that is supposedly gonna change the trajectory of their agency. But what they're failing to work on is their mindset.

So what they do is they surround their entire. Their entire environment is surrounded by skill insurance. Every podcast they listen to is a Health insurance podcast. Every book they read is tied to the healthcare system or the health insurance industry. And they don't really put in the work on their mind because they're so busy trying to acquire new skills. And when you're in that sales rut, when you're in that rut and you're not selling as much insurance as you want, or I don't care if it's outside the insurance industry, here's what you tend to do. You sign up for more conferences, you sign up for more webinars, you pursue newer products. You surround yourself with other people who might give you that one tip, that one strategy, that one silver bullet that's going to change it. And you spend all your time on skill. But.

Three months, six months down the road, you're still not having success. Trust me, I've been there. It was just five, six years ago that I thought it was all about knowledge and all about this skill I needed to have to grow my business. And yes, there's a part of it that is about skill. But at the end of the day, the majority of your success is going to come from your mindset. So my ask of you today is if you're not happy, if you've watched your sales slow down, if you've watched your production, your business growth slow down, stop trying to acquire new skills right now, Pause and start working on your mindset. Start reading the books that can help impact your mindset. Listen to podcasts that focus on improving your mindset. Yes, they call it self development, professional development, whatever you want to call it. But I promise you, if you start working on your mindset.

Much more over working on your skill, you're going to be able to course correct and get back to the success that you're used to. I've had to do that. My career changed when I stopped being so damn focused on acquiring that new product, searching for that new strategy. And I said, hold on, it's me. I'm the problem. The space between my ears is the problem. I've got all the skill, I've got all the talent in the world. But when I go into sales meetings and I'm already worried about the fact I might not win the sale, I might not get the new client, I'm done. It's over. When I focus on negative thoughts versus what could be, it's over. When I have that limiting mindset and I'm focused on lack, the fear of losing versus the opportunity of gain, it's over. I'm done. And I'm telling You. It's the same for you right now. Focus on your mindset. If there is a time in our life that you need to focus more on your mindset, it is right now. Right? There is so much negativity going on outside of your career that could easily have an impact on your career. Your business success Negative. Now is the time to over index on course correcting your mindset to have success.

So how can you do it? What are some things you can do today to start changing your future? Start changing your perspective? Here's some advice. Number one, take control of your mornings. I know I've talked about this at length before. Start your day in a positive frame of mind. How do you do that? Well, number one, start reading books based on mindset. Start reading books based on positivity on how to control your emotions, control your mindset. Try meditating. I know that sounds hokey for some of you, a little too woo woo for you, that's fine. But try it. Meditating can be nothing more than five minutes of closing your eyes, visualizing your perfect day. What would it mean today if it went easy and was completely free of stress? How would today look? How about putting it on paper? Take time to journal. What are you grateful for? What do you want today to look like? And what would the perfect 24 hours look like for you?

If you want to sign up for a course, a class, look for those classes on personal development working on you so you can be your best to bring your best to everybody else. But my first tip is to take control of your mornings. Turn off the news, close the inbox and start going to work on your mind. If you start the day in a positive frame of mind, you will be blown away by by the success you have when that day is over. And then you repeat that day after day after day. And those wins, those successes compound. Man, the sky's the limit for you. So number one, take control of your mornings. Number two.

As the day progresses, you're going to deal with fires. You're going to deal with problems. The ability of negativity to seep into your day is going to become very, very easy. Don't let it happen.

It's all about your perspective. Focus on your mindset. Focus on how can I create a positive outcome in this situation? It might be an angry client, it might be a co worker who's irritating you. You may have a business opportunity, a proposal that's coming up that afternoon. How can you put your mindset in a positive state so you can bring your best whether it's the best outcome or whether it's the best win that you can have. That day, I talked to so many sales professionals out there that are trying to control outcomes. And that is an easy, easy path to unhappiness. If you're trying to win a new piece of business and what is going to make you happy is actually winning that piece of business, that's your goal, man, it might be a tough goal for you because you can't control the outcome. You can never control the outcome. But if your goal can be to be as prepared as you can be for that meeting so you can bring your best, and at the end of the day, if you brought your best and you still didn't get it, hey, in my book, that's a win because you controlled what you could control. You cannot control the outcome. Focus your mindset on the preparation. Focus your mindset on being in a positive state in that meeting, bringing your best. That's what you can control. You can't control the outcome. And the last tip for you today in how to put your mindset, how to go to work on your mindset is how are you reflecting on your day.

When the day is over? Are you bringing your losses home with you? Are you letting the negativity of what might have impacted your day, those losses, those coworkers, those pain prospects who don't get it, are you letting that seep into your family life.

Where instead you could end your day by looking back on your day and celebrating the wins.

Celebrate what went right again. Maybe you didn't win that new piece of business, but you crushed the proposal. That's a win. Maybe you had a argument with a co worker, but it came to. It came with a positive outcome. Hey, hey, that's a win. Focus on the wins. So if you start your mornings putting yourself in a positive state of mind, you control your mindset throughout the day, no matter what happens. And then you take time to reflect back on your day and focus on the wins.

That is how you start controlling your mind. And you spend 80% of your time on your mindset and not so much damn time on attaining new skill. Yes, sign up for the courses, go to the conferences, look for new strategies. That's all important to your business. But do me a favor, spend 80% of your time working on your mindset. The other 20 can be reserved for the skill. It's what Michael Jordan did. It's what Kobe Bryant did. It's what LeBron James did. Any athlete in professional sports has succeeded at the highest level spends the majority of their time on their mindset. You do the same and your success, your skills, and most importantly, your happiness will follow. That's it for today folks. Go to work on your mindset and I promise you, everything else will follow. 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 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 you.