Turning Trials into Triumphs with Paul Gencarella Jr

Are you thinking about how to grow your business with near and offshore staffing, but you're also wanting to make sure that it's reliable, cost effective and really well done. I think docsa talent is the way to go. Here's why. They don't just fill your jobs. They bring integrity, top talent, and a people first approach that's hard to find. I've known the people at Doxa talent for over 20 years now and I say that you can count on them. I have talent to Doxa talent and you won't be disappointed. Go to doxatant.com Bill G Again, that's doxatant.com BillG One more time. Doxatalent.com Bill G Check it out today. Well, I sure hope that you're not in the middle of adversity crisis challenge right now, but you could be. And if you're not now, at some point we all are. We all will be. If you pass through one, undoubtedly in life, you live long enough, you're going to encounter another one. This conversation today is really about turning these moments into triumph opportunities, right? Not just surviving, but thriving in the face of it. Turning trials into triumphs is the topic of our conversation today. So if you're in the middle of something, you'll find this particularly helpful. But even if not, this is fundamental to some thriving and navigating all of it as a leader. Hey all, my name is Bill Gallagher. I'm the scaling coach and host of our Scaling Up Business podcast. Our show comes to you every week with something to do with growing, scaling your company and everything that's required to get you through all of that. You'll find more than 550 shows now, a whole back catalog on everything to do with your leadership, people, strategy, execution, cash, everything about growing your business over time. @scalingcoach.com we also do workshop at least once a month in mastering the mindset and the particular mindset and the tools around growing your business. And we've got something about the stages that we go through. We see the same stages that companies go through. What are the big stages that we see that companies navigate and how do you move from one to the next. We've got a free course that you can take and get and and go through at your own pace and think about where am I as much as you need to and how do I navigate on from here, from where I am now, into the future. So all that and more@scalingcoach.com. All right, I'm joined now by Paul Gar Carella, right?

Did I say that? Those Italian names are tough to pronounce, let me tell you. Jen Carella.

Yeah. Paul Giancarella. I like. I should have checked it before we talked. We checked so many things. So, guys, Paul is a speaker and a business coach in particular around mindset work, and he's navigated some significant challenges and has something to share with us today. He's got a lot to share on it. We'll get into his story and more in just a minute. But, Paul, welcome to the show.

It's great to be here. Bill, thank you for your introduction and excited to have a conversation with you.

I'm always fascinated how we, like, manage to connect with people all over the world. We were just talking with somebody in Canada earlier today. Yesterday. Somebody in another part of the world talking to you on the East Coast. I'm on the West Coast. Christella producers in the middle somewhere. Right. Like, we managed to connect. And yet through all of that, across cultures, across places, is like humanity. Right. That connects us. Let's talk about this. How did you become a mindset coach? Why did you get into that world? Tell us maybe the longer version of your personal story.

Sure, yeah. The. The version's relatively simple. I, you know, was a traditional American living in the Northeast United States, went to college, graduated college with a marketing degree. Didn't really know what I wanted to do, but I ended up getting into the life insurance business with Northwestern Mutual. And I, you know, I figured, okay, I'll. I'll try a hundred percent commission business for my first job out of college. And it was a challenge. It was a challenge, but with encouragement, mentors around me, and a mentor that was like a father figure. I was in it for 25 years and maybe 20 years or 23 years into the business, he was going to sell me the business, and it was for something that I didn't really want to pay the price he was offering. And we were just not even at all, you know, So I said to him, basically, why don't we merge with a bigger, bigger outfit? So we did, and that bigger outfit allowed me to get more clients, different clients. I was in the PNC business at that time, selling to landscapers, contractors, restaurants, and I was able to really do well with that. But your question to me was, you know, how did I get into the mindset business? Well, being in a sales job, Bill, we all have the Zig Ziglars, the Jim Rohns, the Bob Proctors, the Tony Robbins. We all were kind of familiar with that. As far as motiv, motivational type of things. I just never really truly embraced it until I found myself living in a psychiatric institution, if you will, in 2018. I had some psychiatric problems, which was just around the time of this, this merge. And I wanted things to get back to the way they were. And so for that whole year I worked to get them back to the way they were. The problem with that, Bill, is doing the things that you were doing are only going to lead to the same results. So I found myself living in a psychiatric institution again a second year in a row. So at that point, I think the people we merged with probably scratched their heads and said, you know, we probably got bad goods here. You know what I mean? What's going on? This guy's in a psychiatric institution two years in a row. And I was terminated. I was fired among being clinically depressed, which I was never depressed ever in my life prior to 2018. You know, depressed as in sad. Yes, but the fact that you want to die or want to really not live never entered my mind until then. And that was a tough two years that I was in from 2018-20.

So you didn't have mental health issues growing up or that kind of thing that you're aware of? This just hit you out of the blue?

None of that, you know, and not that I was aware of. Yeah, of course, you know, I mean, because I was aware, right? I didn't have any mental. But looking back, Bill, you can always see things. Okay, yeah, that, that's, I, I, that probably was an issue. This was probably an issue, you know, but I was just so healthy physically and mentally that it probably compensated. So, yeah, when, when I was terminated, I went to an online business. And one of the things in that online business, it was affiliate marketing. It was a stepping stone. But I got into personal development on a more serious level, where I embraced it and I started studying it and I fell into a relationship with Bob Proctor. Not personally, but he's one of the founding fathers, if you will, of the self help industry. And I really embraced it and I started studying it every day, and it started changing me. So I was taking psychiatric medication, and I still do to this day, but it's less. And the psychiatric medication bill treats the symptoms, but the study of personal growth and development treats the cause. So now I become a better person here, and now outside has gotten better. So you live from the inside out, not the outside in. How many people are dictated by what's happening around them? Car accidents, crime scenes, you know, car daughter carving A car accident, son, getting arrested, whatever it may be, they. They let the dick. They let the outside world dictate to them and I no longer do that as much. Don't get me wrong. God did. A loved one dies, you're not going to be steal, but you're going to be able to bounce back much quicker. And as you said, you hope you're not facing adversity as far as your audience is concerned. The audience that will listen, that are listening to us now, best time to treat that is when you're feeling good and when things are going well, that's.

When you build up anything then. Right. You want you. When you. As you start to share this first story, one, thank you for talking about dealing with a mental health issue because mostly, like, there's a massive stigma around mental health and nobody wants to talk about their dark side or their troubles or that kind of thing. That, like. Oh, that's very. Like, that's, that's absolutely rail. Like that's danger zone.

So thank you, Bill. Think about it. If you had a heart attack, a heart condition, you may be guarding that, but you. You'd say, yeah, I had a heart condition or I had cancer.

I'm managing this, right? Yeah, yeah. Mental.

I'm not mentally stable. I have a mental illness. You know what I mean? Come on, how does that sit?

Right. Yeah.

You know what I mean? And I kind of say it as a, as a sticker shock, but yeah.

Get it right out there. Yeah. And, and be open about it. Because we all deal with different kinds of things. Just like we deal with other, you know, a whole range of issues. We all struggle with different psychological and mental things. The other thing I. That strike me in that story is you talked about after the first episode, you wanted to get back to the way things were. Yeah.

You know, way it was before. Yeah.

And I think very often we saw this a lot in the pandemic and it really changed. It was the deciding factor between the companies that thrived and the companies that failed. The people that wanted things to get back to the way they were. The people that want to mostly don't have businesses today. Right. Or they're a fraction of what they were because there's never going back. Like, you can't get back. Like, there's, you know, there's some saying about no man ever crosses the same river twice because neither the river nor the man are the same. Right. Like, there's a. There's this thing of, like, it's always a new normal. Right. It's There's a, there's periods of greater stability and instability. The common denominator is instability. Right. But there is always a new normal. And the people that leaned into, okay, what's happening now and how do I be relevant now, how do I create value now is the same thing, I think with us around mental health and our well being and that kind of thing, it's like, where am I at right now? We've talked before, we had a conversation with John Ratliff about this in the past about mental health. And a great deal of our strong leaders struggle with stuff, whether they recognize it or not. Right. Of mental health issues, depression, there's bipolar, there's adhd, add, we have all of that. Like whatever, like affliction makes you want to say, step to the front and I'm going to run that business. Often there's some, like, there's some problematic parts of your psychology that might be going on there as well.

Yeah.

It's useful to be able to look at it like with wide eyes in a time when you're high functioning. My, I, I lost my dad. Sorry. To suicide. And yeah. Many years ago now. Right. It's 2008.

Okay.

And we don't. I talk about it sometimes. Right. And I started dealing with it like in the forefront in 2005 when I got a call from the emergency room that he tried to kill himself. And now I was in something we call here a 5150 hold. Right. Like. And you know, growing up, my dad was a larger than life character. He was brilliant. He was a PhD published author, a best selling author, a speaker, a college professor. He was my hero. It's hard. But he was also bipolar and you know, as a younger man and early on that was less obvious. He'd never been diagnosed. That we didn't know. I didn't even know what that meant and I didn't know that term until much later in life. Right. But he went through that and as life wore on and stuff like that, he also became an alcoholic. Right. And, and a mental health issue with substance abuse. Like his life unraveled over some years until, you know, 2005. And I got that call and it.

Gave me chills because it just brings back these, these issues because what we know now is not what we knew then. And if we only knew these certain things, things would be so much different. But, but we still can move forward and change things and make things better for ourselves and for everybody.

In, in my dad's case, I don't think he really Like, I. He didn't want to be sober, and he didn't like the treatment, and he didn't. He's just like my ancestors, my family, extended family had alcohol. Like, I just. I just would like, a Dr. Feel much better, you know, like, and. But. But he could. He was long, long past that, and. And he reached that point. He just, He. He eventually was successful, and it took a long time to, you know, find my peace with that and navigate what happened and, like, be able to integrate it. Of course, I still, you know, love him and miss him and. But I can see him as a whole human being today. Right. Like, the things that I loved about him as a kid and what he went through, you know, as he. As he declined and.

And you. I think you really hit the nail on the head with so many of us. And it's not just the older generation. We resign ourselves to what our condition is, whether it's chemical dependency or the fact that we're making $30,000 a year or whatever it may be. We're, you know, we're not where we want to be, but we just resign ourselves and we live in that box and we don't have to do that. Yeah, we don't. Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, and that's what people have to understand, is that there's. There's. There's tools, strategies, mechanisms out there, simple. That can help us accomplish whatever we want and build a problem. On top of that is if you. If you pull, like, 10 people, you know, eight of them won't know exactly what they want. They won't have their goals and where I'm going to be and what I want to do. You know, I mean, that's just probably would be nine out of 10, you know, and that's what we have to do. You know, I mean, that's what your audience needs to. To. To impress upon others as well, is that we need to find what we truly want. Don't chase the mighty dollar, because the dollar will chase us once we find what we love.

Well, there's what you love, what you're great at. Right. And what you find satisfying, what you're actually rewarding, where you want to spend your time, what's f for you. There's a whole world of. Of that, and then there's what you think everybody wants you to be and do.

Right? Absolutely. Yeah. I gotta live up to expectations or whatever.

It's very hard, like, to separate. Like, we don't have the freedom to go. You know what? I don't really want that. Crap like that's what my mom kept pushing on me. That's not for me.

Yeah, no, right, right. I have a friend that, that his parents were in waste management and in high school we used to bust his shops all the time, you know, teasing him. This, that and the other thing. And, and he says, I'm never going to go into that business. Well, not only did he go into that business, he grew it by multi. Millions of dollars, you know what I mean? Now we're calling him Wayne Isenga, the, the CEO of Waste Management, you know, but, you know, that's the thing, you know what I mean? You don't know. Sometimes you don't know what you want to do until you try something that you don't want to do.

I have a very dear friend with a waste management company and he's got a great business. He loves it, provides a valuable service for the community and that kind of thing. But you know, we like to joke. He's the garbage guy, right?

Exactly, exactly. But he's laughing all the way to the bank, right? You know what I mean?

He's had a good. He's. Yeah. I mean, he's late in his career now, but yeah, he grew.

What you love. And Bob Proctor is famous for saying, you know, I mean, the worst way to make money is to work to work for it. You know, you want to do truly what you love and, and the money will follow. You know, I mean, people may say in social service that that's very hard to do. It's not. Because once you're happy, truly happy, everything else gets better for you. But it's not a facade. Happiness can't just be a facade. It has to be sometimes to get yourself to that happiness. But it's a decision. For me, it's not so much an emotion, Bill. When I wake up in the morning, I'm not always happy. But I make a decision on my way to the gym and talking to the people at the gym that I'm very happy. And that helps them in a certain respect. Some people, they would probably want to strangle me because I'm so upbeat at 5:00am, you know what I mean? But the point is, it's a decision. Love my spouse, you know, I mean, do I always love my spouse? No. But I decide to love her, she decides to love me. You know what I mean? It's a decision. And that's what we need to do in life is we need to decide do I go on Facebook for 25 minutes or do I do something productive in my job as an entrepreneur, you know, that's, that's the key. It's. It all relates, you know.

You'Ve encountered and dealt with many things, and we're going to share some of the experiences with your clients as well as some other family things. But I'd love for you to talk about the executive at the Northeast Printing Business. You talked about somebody there, I don't.

Know who's an owner. He was an executive and he's worked his way up, but he was an executive in this company. And the reason I got to know him was he was a friend of a friend type thing. And we got to talking at a party once and he said, oh, geez, I'd love to sit down with you as far as the mindset. And you mentioned a lot of good things. I'd love to know how to better things. Because his challenge really wasn't making money. It wasn't getting things implemented. It was the people around him. You know, the culture in that company was, was a bit difficult. And what we tended to realize was it wasn't so much them in the company, but it was him. You know, I mean, how am I responding or am I reacting to things? You know what I mean? And am I being so am I putting myself in, in a, in a bad situation by not answering someone in a tactful way or a negative sarcastic manner? And then things just kind of, you know, gruffle and they. People go to their desks and work. And now with, with talking with myself and introducing him to this scientific philosophy, if you will, because that's what this, this information that we've been talking about is. It's a scientific philosophy. It's. It, it's science in the sense that it's like a one plus one equals two. But it's also a philosophy that you have to believe, you have to buy into. You have to practice. We have to practice our philosophies. So this individual started really learning about everybody around him and what they wanted. And it wasn't so much what he wanted as the boss or as the executive. And now he found out that by me talking to other people and finding out what they wanted and what they wanted to do for their vacations and things. He developed relationships with these people. And that's really where, when the friendship forms, that's when we can start to make things gel. And again, this doesn't happen overnight. It doesn't, but it can happen as quick as two weeks or two years. But the point is move in that right direction when I try to better myself, Bill. Everything around me, I said, gets better. But I need to believe that and I need to know that. And when I know that and I believe that, I'm going to continue to do the positive things. And I'm not saying compliment others from a flattery standpoint. I'm saying truly compliment others on something that they do well. You know what I mean? Everybody has creativity, everybody does things well and, and really find out what people do well and harness that. Use that. So, you know, I mean, don't make the person that's, that's, that's analytical. Do something that's more creative. You know, I mean, find things for them to do that's in their strengths. It's like the baseball pitcher that was working his way up to the majors, you know, he had a phenomenal fastball. But his coach said to him, listen, this is what I want you to do. He's like, I know I got to work on my change up my curveball. He's like, no, we got to work on your fastball. He's like, I'm a fastball pitcher. He's like, yeah, we got to make you better at that. And he became a phenomenal closer in the majors. So you see what I'm saying? Sometimes we worry about what we're not good at and try to get everything all lumped. Do well at what you're good at and then everything else we can, can work on, you know, there's, there's not going to be that, you know, totally 100 best at everything, you know, and that's sweet.

We recently had a guru session with Dean Jones. We've talked to Dean Jones at the Gallup Organization before about the CliftonStrengths tools. There you might look for a past episode with Dean Jones. We've done a couple of them and lean into more of this idea of how do we discover and develop strengths with people as a leader and then. And with ourselves as well. Like, you know, if you asked, if you ask a very person early in their career what they want to do and you're interviewing them or, and they're like, I can do anything, like just point me and whatever, and I'm a communicating hard working team player, like that kind of thing. Fast starter, like they're good at everything and they're ready to go and they don't really know yet. They don't, like, they don't fully know themselves and they, and, and so they're just looking for everything. But then if you ask me at this age right. 40 years on I'm like, yeah, if you have me run your operations, I'll probably bankrupt your company. If you have me in, in your human leadership, in your strategy. If you have me evangelizing for the company, like if you have me around those kinds of things, I'm going to be awesome. So I'm like really good at this and not really good at that. So like team cohesion and that kind of thing. I'm terrible at it. Like I have such bad like interpersonal skills a lot of the time and like.

But that's not your focus either should.

Right, but I know that at this age. And so, so how do you figure out what it is and lean into that? Right. That's a useful thing to do that you're pointing to anyway.

Well, right, but you know, I mean what you were just saying right there is pointing out something that you're not good at. Like everyone says, oh, I have such a bad memory or I'm not good with names. Well, what are you just reinforcing that behavior? If you want to get better at remembering people's names, you know, do exercises that are going to help you with your mind. If you want to be better at intrapreneur, intra, intrapersonal personal skills and that's something that you really want to try to do, you can do it. It's just, it's just the mindset. But.

Right.

Don't try to do something you're going.

To approach it in a different way and maybe you don't even want to. Like, you know, there's aspects of operations I really, I just don't want to be bothered with. I don't like it, I'm not interested in it. Right. So yeah, maybe could work on it, but it's not a thing. I am interested in the design of the organization, the design of the operations. Love that. But the day to day executing them, not for me.

Right, exactly. You know what I mean? And again, a 20 year old, I say 20 year old. Someone in their 20s can develop this career.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know what I mean? They can develop this. You know what I mean? Sometimes you and I have learned this later on in our careers.

Perhaps.

But the point is knowing what we know now, obviously we would be better if we're using it to our advantage. Yeah, but these are things for, for anybody. Like believe it or not, I talked to a guy that's 75, still looking to get better. That's how Bob Proctor was. He died at 80, 87. You know, he was always constantly trying to get better. And that's how we all should be. But we need to try to chase our passion. If we're not passionate about it and emotionally connected to it, it's so much harder. It really is, you know.

Well, I think to the topic of our show today, we have things that we're pursuing that we're interested in, and then stuff happens, right? Then life happens. As we got ready for the show, you talked about cancer going through your family and your son and yourself. Talk to us about that and how you navigated that and how that went.

Yeah, 2009. My son's five. At the time, he was, you know, waiting for his first day of kindergarten, playing on a back porch, backwards on the chair, and it was rocking and rolling, and he went off the edge of deck, three steps down, smashed his head on the concrete, you know, scrape, and it was blood. My wife's like, oh, geez. Took him to the pediatrician, the pediatrician, rest assured, say he's fine, his eyes, fine. There's no sight issues. You know, send him off to school. And she did. You know, two days later, he's woke up and, you know, getting ready for school. And he said, I just peed blood in the toilet. Like, oh, gee. So my wife and I immediately thought, okay, yeah, well, you know, he fell two days ago. It's probably a contusion of some sort. So we took him to the local hospital, and, you know, he was kind of a bit irate because of needles and stuff and blood. So they sent us up to Hasbro, where they treat children much better up there. That's the reason why we were going, I thought, because of that. So we get up to Hasbro, and they show us in the nurse's station, the computer screen. He's like, well, this is his healthy kidney right here. And on the right, his right kidney. That's the infected kidney. I said, okay. I didn't. I'm not thinking anything of it. I said. I said, all right. Can you play soccer tomorrow? And they said, well, let's. Let's go in this room over here. So they got, you know, escorted us into a room, and we were there for a couple minutes. I said, betty, things aren't good. She's. What are you talking about? I said, there's Kleenex boxes, comfortable furniture. I said, this. This isn't good. So they came in, the doctors, they sat down. I said, so my son has cancer. They said, whoa, slow down, slow. I said, listen, I'm not gonna flip out. Where we're secure and he said, well, yes, he does. He has a stage 1 Wilms tumor on his kidney. It is treatable. We are thankful that he did fall because that's traditional. When you have a Wilms tumor on your kidney, blood does go to your urine, but it could spread to the lung. It could spread to wherever we feel as though it's contained. So at that point, my wife and I are like, are you kidding me? We just, our five year old son, we have a older child and a younger child, he's got cancer. Holy. So we handled it subconsciously, Bill. Well, you know why? Probably because it was so bananas, it was so nuts that it's not like you're stuck in traffic or you're on hold or something. You know what I mean? You were just like, holy cow, we have to, you know, deal with this. And from that point forward, my wife and I even non communicatively would be on each other's page. We talked about cancer in front of him. He was in the, he was getting ready to get it operated on. We talked about that. We weren't hush hush about anything. So he, he was, he was a trooper. But a month later, I was just in such disbelief about it all.

Yeah.

I said, how did he get this? Like, how did he, how did this happen? You know, I checked myself and I found out that I had testicular cancer, you know, which was just bananas. And I, and I attribute him saving my life because maybe I would never have checked myself, you know what I mean, in that respect. Maybe you would have grown and expanded or whatever, have you. So he, he, when I saw him in the hospital or when he was going for treatments, I said to him, I said, JP, your cancer has a 91% survival rate. I said, mine has 98%, so I'm better than you. My mother was like, are you kidding me right now? And I said, I'm joking. And he knew I was joking. So that's kind of how we treated each other in a certain respect, that we would joke around like that. And, and it really brought consolation to him because he's like, hey, now dad and I have cancer. You know what I mean? I had two doses of chemo, he had 37, you know what I mean? Or whatever it was. And, and it was, it was just a, a nice bonding moment, you know, I mean, and my, my wife kept it all together with everything, you know, I mean, so thank God for that. So that too is a form in an example of, you know, how we can turn trials and triumphs into, into, excuse Me trials and tribulations into triumphs because the community came and supported us. We got, you know, cards and gift certificates and things. It was, it was really heartwarming. And having a son that's alive, you know, he's 20 years old right now. So, you know, we've been very blessed in that respect. But people said to me, more than one person says, listen, I just want you to know, you know, I've had a child that died from cancer and you're being too positive. And I said, I respect that and I apologize and I understand where you're coming from, but don't tell me that I'm being too positive when I've already eulogized my son. I'm not going to change my Persona at all. I've decided to be upbeat and positive and whatever comes our way, we'll handle it. Okay, I respect that too. She said, so I just want you to be blindsided. And I said, no, I appreciate that. So we didn't bury our heads in the sand, you know, we took our heads out of the sand and just looked in a different direction. Like those folks you mentioned about COVID they just decided now they had to these restaurants, they decided to have people outside in a bubble now. So now it's the novelty of sitting in a bubble in 20 degree weather in Rhode island, you know, in a restaurant with heaters and stuff.

Or better in some places than others, right? Yeah. You know, there's a movie, it's really old now, I don't know remember what year it is. There's a old movie, falling down, Michael Douglas, and it's about a guy like an engineer, like an aerospace engineer who loses job and then he moves home and his relationship collapses. And so he's going through like a life transition where his whole identity, a great deal of stress and personal identity loss. And then he, in the middle of all that, he encounters a bunch of these like everyday frustrations and annoyances. He's stuck in traffic and he's hassled by someone in a retail environment. Anyway, he loses his crap and he goes on a murdering spree. And it's a very dark, dark thing, but it's, it's a fabulously well done dark thing movie of its time.

And.

But I think there's something really interesting about it. Like we, we have different stresses. Right. Like you dealt with it pretty well, but when you, when your son had his thing, like that's terrifying on a parent. Even if it's a good survival chance. Like, that's stressful. Nobody wants their 5 year old to go through an illness of any kind, let alone a possibly life threatening one. Nobody wants their 5 year old to come, say they got blood in their urine. Right? You don't want your 80 year old to say that. You sure don't want your five year old. Right, right. But in the middle of all that, then there's the everyday things of life, right? So we're going through these stresses and then we get stuck in traffic, somebody cuts us off, somebody's rude to us, we're stuck on hold, we like. And then we can get so triggered. I mean fairly minor things, but in the context, like they can cause us to completely lose it and not be able to manage them well and not know how to step back and say, okay, wait a minute, I need to breathe, I need to talk to somebody else. And, or we can spool up in our own head like going crazy with internal talk. That's not working in your favor, right?

Yeah, that's, that's part of the, the, the whole Persona of it all is it's, it starts with a thought. It truly starts with a thought. And when I go into situation where I am curt or short with someone or anything, it's because I didn't prepare myself for that and I didn't allow myself to, to be. And I kick myself now being the guy that I am now, you know, because my wife calls me on the carpet all the time. You didn't sound too self help on the phone with that customer service person. You're right, I didn't, I didn't. You know, and that's the thing, it's, it's leaving the impression of increase, leaving people better off than when you first engage with them, you know, and that's what the focus of mine has been. Am I having a charismatic attitude to someone? Someone, you know, I mean, am I being uplifting to someone? And, and you have to constantly be on guard for that and be, be ready.

Well, you know, I remember when September 11, 2001 happened, right. The first thing that, that happened, right, Is you know, there the attack on the towers and, and the plane crash and crashes and the Pentagon and um, and I remember like waking up and going, oh, everything just changed, right? I'm like, I have no idea, like the ramifications, long term thing, but everything just changed in a moment, in a day, right? Like, and of course, you know, today you can't just go way to the gate with your friends or meet them or whatever. Like you know, you get cavity search to get on an airplane to the neighboring city. Right. Like, so everything. Everything did change in so many enduring ways in that moment. But I remember in the middle of it, and, like, at the time, I was. I was a pretty active private pilot, and, like, I couldn't fly anymore. And, like, I was denied something that I really loved. And. And, you know, everything, like, everything slowed down for a minute, and we were in a state of shock about it. And I remember that I. Looking out my window, as I do every morning, and then taking a walk around the neighborhood, looking at the trees and thinking, well, the trees are still here. The sun still rises and sets, still comes up and down. The birds are still tweeting. The grass is growing like the wind is blowing. Like life didn't end. It's just like some way that we look at the way things operate shifted, and we're in the middle of a crisis right now. But, like, just looking up into the trees gave me perspective. And then, of course, then the economy changed dramatically, and our company was on the ropes. And then I dealt with that over the coming years, and again I found, like, change my perspective. Get out of my own head. Go look at the trees. Look. Notice nature and people and smiles and that, like, not everybody is as dark as I am right now. Look at that little kid. He's delighted, right? Get out of my own head and get out into the world around me. I shared recently with a teen family member who was going through something. I'm like, look around you. What's going on? And he was deep in his own mind about stuff, and he's like, oh, yeah. And then a couple of years later, he's like, that conversation about noticing the sounds, the colors, the light, the trees, nature, like, did more for me than lots of things in that time. Like, isn't that funny? I didn't really think about it that much, but it helped me. It helped him. Like, it. I think about it now all the time, right? Like, get out of your own head. If the conversation in your head isn't helpful or friendly, talk to somebody else.

Look outside, bill. We got 60 to 90,000 thoughts a day in our. In our minds, right?

Yes.

80% of them are negative. 80%. You know what I mean? So you need to force yourself to. To replace a negative thought with a positive one or another. Negative one's going to go in, is my point, you know, and that's what we have to truly understand. But you were on to something in. About the trees and everything. Every single day of my life, in my journal, one through ten Things that I'm grateful for, you know, and it could be as simple as an electric toothbrush or indoor plumbing or, or my cell phone for, for whatever matter, you know what I mean? You know, things that I can get emotionalized with, not just writing them down, but getting emotional like, oh yeah, I do love that. That's, that's great. You know, and, and I always say to people when we complain about what's going on in this country, we should all have a 30 day pilgrimage to like Haiti, every one of us, and see how they live and then come back here. How much appreciative it'd be like Scrooge, you know what I mean? Getting visited by three ghosts. You'll be a different man, you know, and it's.

Yeah, you know, I don't think we often realize you turn on, you turn the faucet and clean, potable, well, depending on where you live, clean, potable water, drinkable water comes out. And if you turn the other faucet, hot water comes out. That's a flipping miracle. But we like take it for granted. We flip on the light, we flip on the switch and a light comes on. That's amazing. That's a miracle, right? My great, great, great grandfather that I'm named after, when he was first living on the east coast, they didn't have electrical stuff yet. It was just still coming. And he actually had a gas distribution and they had gas lights, right. Which create as well, you think, electrical problems, pump gas all around the. And as much as they did, like his big issue there. And then he came and built the first power grid on the west coast, electric power grid. And you know, lights, electric lights were a brand new thing going on then. Like just, it's a flipping miracle. Like a life changing thing. Like finding being grateful on the regular can help break a funk. I have, I don't journal it, but I have now just one daily appointment or reminder to be grateful. And you know, I just reflect sometimes. I might say thank you to somebody, but a lot of times I just think, what is it that I'm grateful for right now? Noticing things in the world and thinking, yeah, there's a lot that I have to be grateful. Because you jump on social media, especially if you love Instagram like I do and you could just feel bad about, oh, he's in a private jet. Oh, they're in a great beach resort. Oh, like you could just, oh, they look better than I do. Oh, look at his stomach. Like that looks good. And you could just feel terrible about yourself right like, or you could go, you know what? I have a great house, I have a great life, I have a great family and I'm dealing with stuff always, right?

And it's going to get better, you know what I mean? Because there's, there's times when I write things that I'm currently grateful for and then six through 10 things that I'm grateful for that will be happening, whether it be an income, a vocation, whatever.

Relationships are wishing for, are wanting, intending, working on in the future, being grateful.

For it, you know, so that's manifesting it then in and of itself. So it's not so much going after things, it's really attracting things to us, you know. Why does this always happen to me? Well, because you're, that's what you're attracted. That's a universal law of cause and effect. The thoughts that I think, the things that I say, the actions that I do, if they're in a negative manner, guess what? They're going to come back to me in some way, shape or form negative. But if you do it in a positive, genuine way, it's going to come back positive. It's impossible for it not to. It's like the law of gravity, you know, you drop four.

Before we run out of time, I'm going to have you tell one more story about a business applied on the sales side of things. But let me just remind our listeners, viewers that our own website, scalingcoach.com has all these back shows on all these topics and more. So there's lots of resources. You can find a little nugget about almost anything that you're grabbing, grappling with by searching that@scalingcoach.com and then we do a workshop every month on growth mindset for the business and the tools, all the scaling up tools so that work on particular around the organizational growth different from what we're talking about is allscalingcoach.com so tell us about the online watch business and how that shifted in the work that you did there.

There. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, to, to stem off real quick of what you just said, the biggest investment all of us can make is in ourselves. Right. You know, so that's what people just poo poo. So my client in the, in the online business, he started selling used watches, then he started selling new watches and then he started selling both, you know, new and used. And he, and he felt that he hit a wall and he was stuck. Yeah, at, at, at just, you know, he, I think he was just over, you know, 100,000 bucks a year or whatever. You know, he was, wasn't on, on, on, on dire, dire need of anything, but he wanted to really, you know, excel. And you know, I had a conversation with him and said, listen, if you truly want to turn your annual income into your monthly income, just make the decision. He's like, yeah, I just don't, I, I don't understand what you're talking about from concept, though. I said, well, first of all, you have to become one with your decision vision. Once you decide that you're going to do it, you need to, you need to focus on it. And he's like, all right, well, help me out. I said, okay, well, you need to know two things about being successful in life. From a financial standpoint especially. You need to know where you are and where you're going. So you want to go in that up direction.

Right. Okay.

When you, when you see where you are, you may not be happy with those results. Fine. Don't get, get emotional about your debts, your bills, your, your relationships or things that are not going right. Just be neutral about it. Just think of it as matter of fact. And I said, in where you're going.

You mean accept it, allow for it? Yeah. Don't obsess over.

That's what it is. Just don't become emotional. Just, just, you know. Okay. Like someone won't get emotional about something that happens to me that I'm emotional about. They'll, they'll, they'll see it, you know, and they may be a little bit. But the point is they'll be able to handle it, you know, from a, from a non emotional standpoint. Just be neutral. I'm not saying be dead, but just be neutral about where you are and where you're going is your future self. Become emotional about that. How are you going to see it? What are you going to see when you're there at that goal? What are you going to taste? What are you going to feel? How are you going to be, how are you going to act? What, what are some of the things you're going to do and let that bleed into you and manifest into your imagination. That's a higher mental faculty of ours. So once you do that, you're well, two thirds beyond the way there to making your income your annual to your monthly. And what I mean by this, Bill, is that most people don't understand that concept that I'm talking about. They're too emotional about where they are and they're not emotional at all about where they're going. They're neutral about where they're going, you know, so it's reversed. And then never. You're never gonna get out of focus.

The passion is misplaced in that case.

Big time, you know, and again, you don't need to be bananas like me and very energetic and everything, but just be emotional in your mind about really where you want to go and not where you are. And That's. That's number one. And then two, mind success is 95 mindset. 95% mindset and 5% strategy and such. But we tend to reverse that as well. Maybe 5% mindset and 95% strategy. And it's not that way at all.

The same thing.

So. So with him, it was more or less trying to show him how the mind works and how the. The fact of the matter is you want to change your annual income into your mind. And I have to be transparent with you. I'm. I still work with him, but I have to be transparent with you. He's. He's not making $100,000 a month, but he's making $50,000 a month, which he. $600,000 a year. You know, people would be like, what? No, but that's how. He's only halfway there. You know what I'm saying? But he's understanding the concepts now, Bill.

Well, you move significantly from where he was.

Of course he did. And you can have quantum leaps. Once you do these little, little changes, you make huge steps. You know what I mean? And that's. That's the thing. It's just changing ourselves. We don't need everything.

That's a great place to lead it. Keep focusing on where your mind is at, where your attention, where your passion and emotion live, and you'll make all the difference. Paul, Jen Carrella Jr. Amen. Thanks for today. We'll put your. We'll put your email address on the screen here and in the show notes there so you can find. Reach out to Paul and say, hey, and how are you working and what are you doing? And that kind of thing. I've so apprec. Appreciated and you sharing your stories so openly with us today. Big thanks and shout out to my friend and mentor, Vern Harnish, who created the whole scaling up framework that we use. And to the folks at Storion who get our show ready and done every week. Christelle, Seth, Cameron, Tom and team, thanks again, everyone for watching, for listening until we talk to you. Next time, keep scaling. Are you ready to turn your goals into daily wins? You should check out our scoreboard software Powered by Align, it's the official software for scaling up. With Scoreboard, you'll get an AI driven coach for priorities and KPIs and it'll help keep your team focused on what matters most. With Align, you can track your goals in real time and you'll even see results on the go with their mobile app. App, you can rest easy knowing that line has world class onboarding and support to set your team up for success. This is really more than just software, it's what I actually use to manage growth in our scaling up client teams. Unlock clarity and results with Scoreboard by Aligned. To try it now, go to aligntoday.com Bill G One more time. Aligntoday.com Bill G that's aligntoday.com Bill G Check it out and try it now.