Episode 12: Act as if you had chosen it!

Every dealership is a battlefield. Every day you're fighting for customers, for margins, for control over your floor. And if you don't have the right strategy, you're losing. That's why you're here. Welcome to the Dealership War Room, the only podcast built for those who refuse to play small. In under nine minutes, I'll give you the insights, strategies, and real world moves you need to dominate your market. Because in this game, there's only two types of leaders. The ones who adapt and the ones who get left behind. So let's go. The hard truth that no one tells you about leadership. If you only take one thing from this episode, let it be this. The best leaders don't just react to circumstances. They decide how the story ends. Let's be real. Leadership is messy, right? The deal you counted on falls apart at the last minute. The team you've been coaching still not executing at the level that you need. The market is always throwing you curveballs, left, right, in between. An average leader complains, blames, and resists reality. You see, when you fight against reality, you lose, but only 100% of the time, as Byron Katie always says. But the elite. The elite, they do something different. They act as if they had chosen it. I want you to let that phrase sink in for a minute. They act as if they had chosen it not because they like the challenge, but because when you own the obstacle, you control the outcome. That mindset shift is the difference between staying stuck and becoming unstoppable. Over the years, when I have a chance to reconnect with former clients, 4, 5, 10, 15 years down the road, we're at a conference or at an airport or who knows where we're at, and they'll come up to me and they'll catch up and share with me their wins and how they progressed in their career and become general managers or they own their own dealership. One of the things that almost always comes up is they will go back to this principal said, remember when we talked about, I gotta tell you, that changed my life, because this mindset really is the difference between staying stuck and becoming unstoppable. So today, let's break this down a little bit. Why the best leaders take ownership of every challenge before it owns them. And then I also want to help you. How can you start looking at your world like a movie producer and literally rewrite your leadership scripts so that setbacks become actual fuel for your success? And then I want to share with you three power moves that will transform frustration into forward momentum every single time. So let's get to work. This unspoken leadership challenge that changes everything. The biggest mistake average leaders make, they fight reality. They waste hours, days, even months stuck in frustration, waiting for someone else to fix the problem, make the call, or worse yet, change circumstances, waiting for the market to come back, waiting for it be easier to buy used cars, waiting for better incentives to come out. Here's the truth. No one tells you you don't get to control what happens. You don't. You never have, and you never will. But you always control your response. And elite leaders just accept reality. They own it, like they designed the challenges themselves. Because the moment you act as if you had chosen it, the excuses disappear. There's no more waiting. There's no more blaming, and there's more feeling. Like a victim, you shift from reacting to creating. And I have to tell you, of all the shifts you can make, one of the most powerful shifts you can make is move from reacting like a victim to creating like a powerful elite leader. So let's take a look then, at the three power moves that elite leaders use. Power move number one, they own the obstacle before it owns you. Every challenge you're facing right now, think about right now. I want you to think about one or two top challenges you're facing that are really affecting you and your business. And you have two choices. One, complain about it and stay stuck. Two, own it completely and change the game. Because what you own, you can improve. What you blame, you stay stuck in. Ponder that for a minute. If you're taking notes, write that down. What you own, you can improve. What you blame, you stay stuck in. If the team isn't executing, don't wish they were better, become a better leader. If the market's shifting, don't complain. Adjust faster than all of the competition. If the deal fell through, don't get bitter, get better. At closing, as a matter of fact, you just put that on your note for today. Don't get bitter, get better. When reality kicks you in the ass and you have to see it as it really is, make the choice to get better and not get bitter. Because I got to tell you, there are a ton of people out there that are bitter because they made the choice not to get better. Remember this. Ownership equals power. So with that power move number two, rewrite the script. Think about the best leaders that you've ever seen. They have something most people don't. They see every challenge as a necessary chapter in their success story. They ask themselves, this moment was written into my journey on purpose. How would I respond? That Mindset shift transforms setbacks into training grounds. Missed your sales target? Maybe this is the season where you level up your skills, lose a key employee. Maybe this is a moment you build a stronger and more committed team and get better at developing people struggling with motivation. Maybe this is where you prove to yourself that discipline beats feelings every single time. Every challenge that you're going to face is an invitation. Become a better version of yourself, but only if you accept the script rewrite. You are the author of your own story, and in every hero story, there are obstacles, challenges and problems. It isn't a good story unless things go wrong. And if you think, hey, wait a minute, I'm the hero of my own story, I can write the script myself, you would have written the obstacle in because that's what makes it a great story. Own the script. Rewrite as if you had chosen it. Power move number three. Turn obstacles into training grounds. Your toughest problems are building the very skills you need to dominate in the future. Top performers aren't top performers because things came easy to them. Top performers are top performers because they learn to use resistance as fuel. Bruce Lee used to always say, don't wish that you had an easy life, wish that you were stronger to handle the life that is obstacles. Don't block the path. They are the path. That's what Ryan Holiday's book the Obstacle is the Way is all about. It's the essence of stoic philosophy. So if your team is struggling, that's your training ground to become a better coach. Better at connecting, better at motivating, better at driving, better at moving. If the market is down or you're in a tough market right now, that's your training ground for elite prospecting, elite flexibility. If you're not closing enough, this is your training ground for sharpening your negotiation skills and getting so much better at it. You can handle any market. See, average leaders will always see obstacles as excuses to slow down and sometimes to even give up. Whereas elite leaders see obstacles as the reason that they'll win. When the market gets harder, when the market gets more difficult, that's when they're like, cool. Because you know everyone else is going to fold and they are going to win. Here's where I'd like you to look at your leadership power move. Right now, there's something in your business that's frustrating you. Something you wish was different, something that's holding you back from the next breakthrough, from the next level. What would change if you accepted it as if you had chosen it? How would you respond differently what actions would you take today? How would this momentum turn into a win instead of a setback? So look at today. We have to accept reality as it is. And once we accept reality as it is, the obstacle becomes the way. So for you today, what can you do? What one challenge can. You start running through this mindset and begin day by day, week by week, month by month, to get better and better and better and more stronger at being able to be an elite performer. Because every day, when you hit the obstacle, get better or you can get bitter. And that's your choice. That's today's mission from the dealership war room. But here's the deal. You're at a crossroads right now. You just heard the strategy, the blueprint, the path to dominating this industry. The question is, the hell are you going to do with it? Because, let's be real. Most managers, they hear something like this, they nod along, then they walk right back to the same excuses, the same weak culture, the same old problems. But you, you didn't get this far by playing small. You didn't step into leadership to stay stuck. You came here to win. So here's the oath. If you're serious about leveling up, if you refuse to be average, share this podcast with someone who needs to hear it and get back here tomorrow. And let's keep building, day by day, week by week, month by month.