Dealing With Anxiety As A Service Advisor

Foreign.

Welcome to your Friday drive by where we answer your questions.

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Why would you say it's garbage?

Cuz it doesn't fit and that's the swag's fault. Look at this. So could you describe for people what this is? This parts hold hat looks like on me?

Like you beat up a six year old and stole their hat.

So who's in charge of ordering hats around here? Do we think that parts managers are oddly small? It's ultimately for toddlers. We think that parts managers are toddlers. When we ordered the. Did we order polo shirts or T shirts?

T shirts.

Are they all extra small? Because I'm telling you, parts managers are XL double X. There's probably not very many parts managers that are mediums. You could just probably order large XL.

And double double X. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. The hat looks a little small.

Yeah.

It would fit me though.

Are the notepads gonna be like miniature?

Oh, they're post it notes. Yeah, they're gonna be great.

I'm the one sticking up for parts.

Yeah. Everyone wants a parts hold.

Let's go to this week's question.

Hi, my name is Misha. I'm calling from Provo, Utah. I recently started doing the customer service advisor position.

My question was really just about how to deal with the anxiety of that. Since I'm pretty new to the position, I've noticed that there's just a lot of kind of social anxiety and general nervousness.

So I try my best to appear confident but.

Inside I just feel like.

You know, it's not there, it's kind of fake. So I'm just wondering what, what are some tips on how to deal with that anxiety?

I should probably start off by saying like I'm not a psychologist. Christian certainly isn't a psychologist. Not even close. So the things that we are going to.

Say are from our personal experience that worked for us. But I don't know, you know, I don't know where, where you, where you're at mentally and I don't know what sort of help you, you need. I can only speak from my point of reference and what, what I have, you know, gone through as a human.

Right.

The first thing that I would say is.

Most of the time. What I see is anxiety is caused by focusing on yourself. And I'll give you. I'll give you an example. When I was younger, I was very.

Very, very, very, very, very, very, very afraid of public speaking. I would get. I believe that I would get.

Like, I just wouldn't do it.

I was gonna ask if you froze.

I. I would. I just wouldn't do it. I would be like, you know, and I had some. I had a big job, too, that required me to go speak at charity things, and I would find a reason not to do it or get somebody else to do it. I was just mortified of it. And then I remember.

One time, my buddy Mike, who's one of. One of my best friends in the world, and he's one of the few people that, like, will tell me the truth. Like, we can tell each other the truth, right? And I remember we were in this little. We met in a little mastermind. And the.

Meeting was starting, and everybody's congratulating him on this.

Presentation he'd done somewhere. And he had done the presentation on an advertising technique called tear sheets. And I said to him, I go, why are you. I sat across the table from him in all the meetings, and I said, why are you doing that? That's not your industry. And he goes, oh, I was just practicing public speaking. And I said, oh, man. I go, I'm deathly afraid of public speaking. And he leaned into me and he goes.

You better get over that, because I don't know anybody who's successful, who's made any difference in the world that isn't good at it.

So now that ramps up my. My, you know, stress, right? Like, now I'm. Now I'm stressed even more because I'm like, yeah, but that doesn't change that I panic or whatever. And so.

I started making myself do it no matter what. Like, I would say, like, you're not gonna die. People say like, oh, imagine everybody naked. That didn't work. None of that goofy stuff worked for me.

But I noticed when I did training with advisors or service managers or whatever, that I was. That wasn't public speaking. And I made a connection. That. The reason why I wasn't nervous in those situations, because it wasn't about me, it was about them. And the reason why I was nervous when I would do public speaking is because I was making it about me. I was afraid of how I appeared. I was afraid of how people were gonna see me and judgment and all that. And as soon as it was, like, night and Day, black and white. Like, as soon as I made it about the audience and not about me, I wasn't nervous anymore when you were.

So to me, that's always been fascinating. And we've talked about this before, so your responses in the tear sheet story is not new. But one of the things that always amazed me about you is that you could drum in front of 30,000 people, and I don't think it bothered you as much as public speaking.

I'm behind a drum set.

Oh. Yeah.

So if I was the singer, I would. It might have been much different.

Like, the singers got a harder gig.

Yeah. But you were probably just thinking about keeping time.

The other thing that I would say is when you're in a band, it's like a gang.

When you're public speaking, it's like boxing. It's you against the world. It's a. It's a solo act. You don't have to kind of like, we talk about stand up comedy being like one of the purest art forms because you don't have. You don't have anywhere to throw ball.

Yep. There's no net.

I think that the. And I was nervous when we would play bigger shows and all that, but you're a gang and, like, you're doing it for your brothers kind of a thing.

Yeah. Not about you.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I never made that connection. But you're right, it's not about me. It's about kind of like how they talk about in the military. Right. Like people that fight or people in special ops. They're. We would love to think they're doing it for the country, but they're really doing it for their brother.

And they don't execute on their job. It could. It could be the gravest of consequences for them.

And that, that loyalty and the, the tightness in a lot of studies is closer than the relationship they have with their wife or kids.

They share things with it with that team that they wouldn't share with their wife and kids for sure. So my thought was that's amazing. And then to kind of echo that a little bit, but take a different route. Misha. I think the first thing is one, don't underestimate that this job that you've taken is an amazing career. I think that I'm super grateful for everything that I learned when I was a service advisor, but I learned really quickly that the rewards came at an expense.

And.

And the. The thing that I experienced as an advisor was when I went back.

I thought I kind of had the imposter Syndrome because I don't know anything about fixing cars. So I was always worried about people figuring out that I didn't know how to fix cars. And then there was just one day that I realized that that wasn't my role. And my role was just to make people happy. And I think that if you accept that as an advisor, your job is to make people happy and then as a new advisor doing it, find ways to give yourselves little wins throughout and you'll build up your confidence because the thing that every really, really good advisor has is confidence. So I think with the elevated level of confidence will come the reduced level of anxiety and you'll be on your way. That's probably the thing that I would say is that that's, you have to generate little wins.

I always think that like, so he said, he said he's trying to appear confident. I don't think, once again, that's like you worried about what other people think. Like you're trying to appear to be something in, in the service of.

Others judgment. Right? Yeah. Just yourself. Yeah. And I think if the one thing that I, that I was really good at when I was an advisor is if I didn't know, I didn't pretend like I did, I would say like, hey, I'm, I'm new at this, or I don't know, but let me ask and I'll get back to you. And then I would, I would go ask somebody, but you know, being.

And I would say the way that I looked at it wasn't making customers happy as much as connecting with them. Because being an advisor, sometimes you got to tell people the truth. Like, it's not your vehicle, it's theirs. And you got to, you got to subtly let them know that it's theirs. You're just there to, you know, be the conduit for some sort of repair, whatever it is. Right. Then the, the other thing that I would say is there's this trend out there and in this, this, this is a deeper thing. And once, once again, I'm telling you this from my experience, a lot of people aren't, aren't going to agree, especially not people that are in the, you know, in the business of this. But I think you, you do yourself a disservice by giving a title to the feeling. Right. So when I was younger, we didn't call it anxiety. I was stressed out, I had panic attacks and all that. But I didn't, I didn't have this external thing that was a name that was worshiped in a sense, like how many times I hear people say, oh, I have anxiety.

Gives the anxiety now all of a sudden, because you've given it a name, has power because it's this external thing with a name. And I would be careful. Like we, we love to give things name and titles and we love to categorize people. I don't, I don't know that. I don't know that that's a fair. Like it's normal to be nervous when you don't know something. Yeah, it's normal to have to practice and get good at something. So I think that the giving the, the title anxiety to the way you're feeling makes it bigger than you. And it's not bigger than you. It's the thing that you're experiencing. And you, you should have a little different expectation that when you're new at something, it's going to be hard, you're going to make mistakes, you're going to learn, you're going to try some things that don't work and don't expect yourself to be amazing. Day one, put in the work. Like, I remember, I remember Christian.

Doing a couple kind of speaking things, one remotely in Florida and the one here at an event, and they didn't go very well. And you could have easily said you had anxiety, you had whatever, right? But what you did is you just went to work. Like, I remember the next day you were in the office at 5:30 or whatever it was, and you were practicing with your presentation and you were just going through it and you just practiced and it got over time. Like, people now assume that you and I are good at this thing. Like even the, even doing this podcast, like there was a learning curve and there was a nervousness and what did, what did I tell you in the beginning? I said it takes, it just takes saddle time. You gotta just put in the work because you're gonna watch yourself and you're gonna hate it. You're, you know, there's just certain things. And so I think that Misha. The thing is to have realistic expectations for yourself, like, and put in the work. There's no magic pill. There's no shortcuts to things. And so when we, when we say, oh, we have anxiety, that in a sense is, can, can be a scapegoat for putting in the work and paying the price. Like, nothing comes easy.

Nope. Yeah, you have to, you have to do your dues and it's okay. And no one expects you to be perfect.

Yeah. And I think too, when you have an unrealistic expectation, it Affects your self esteem because you're, you're holding yourself to the standard where you're faking it and you don't feel like you belong and what. Just make friends with people and do your best and be, you know, genuinely, try genuinely learn. You know, everybody learns in a different way, but I learned by taking notes, by role playing in my head when I'm laying my head down on the pillow at night and going through the scenarios over and over again and then trying them again. And you know, I have my own system because I know myself. You can create a system because you know yourself. You know what your strengths are and your weaknesses and you can overcome those by putting in the work and giving yourself some slack. Be a little more kind to yourself because if your self esteem is low and you're beating yourself up and you have an unrealistic expectation you're going to be in fight or flight and then you're just always kind of, you know, this, this bundle of nerves. So, you know, give yourself some slack. And I would guess to you like a lot of times when we're that way and I've, I've been in those situations before, is we, we aren't, we aren't being kind to ourself. Like we'll treat others better than we treat ourself. So treat yourself with, with the same sort of respect that you want the outcome to be of whatever you're doing, the conversations you have, the expectations you have. And there's just no shortcut for hard work. There's no shortcut for showing up early, staying late, asking more questions than anybody else, reading more. There just aren't like the amount. If like I remember one year I spent $200,000 on training in different scenarios. And you can attest how, how much do I spend read on improving myself in different areas?

Way more.

You couldn't even keep track.

Nope.

Yeah.

You got to put in the work, you got to learn, you know, and so no shortcuts. Yeah, those are best advice. Great question, man. And hey, keep us posted and if you know we're rooting for you.

It'S, it's just work. Cut yourself some slack. But thank you so much. We'll, we'll send you some swag and hopefully some follow up too. Thanks, Misha. We'll see you guys next time on Service Drive Revolution. Thanks for watching this week's Drive By. I hope we gave you something to think about over the weekend. We're uploading new stuff every day, so make sure you subscribe and click the Bell icon so you don't miss out. If you have a question you'd like us to answer on the show, call 8333 Ask SDR and we'll answer your question on the show. That's 8333 Ask SDR. For special deals on our books and training, head over to offers.chriscollinsinc.com now that's offers.chriscollinsInc.com I'm Chris Collins, and I'll see you in the next video.