Episode 29: The Hidden Power of Negative Streaks | Dealership War Room Podcast

Everyone talks about their winning streaks, but no one talks about their losing streaks. And that's exactly why they keep losing, because it's not missing one day that ruins your momentum. It's what happens the day after the difference between a badass and a burnout. One day, one decision, and one moment when you say, not today, not again. Hi, I'm Chris, and welcome to the dealership war room. Today we're going to dive into negative streaks. See, everybody understands positive streaks. Today we're going to look at negative streaks, how to understand them, how to use them, and what you need to do to absolutely level up your productivity. So let's create some leadership fire elite performers. They don't fear failure. What they fear, and they should fear, is failure stacking up. See, one day off, you're human. Two days, it's a little bit off. Three days, it's a habit. Four days, and you've lost it. See, what research shows is that no matter what you've done, if you miss something four days in a row, it's as if you never had that habit. Let that sink in for a minute, that it's not about failure and it's not about missing. But one of the most important things that you could measure after your positive streaks is your negative streaks. Everybody knows how compelling it is when you're on a streak, and you've got 15, 20, 30 days in a row. And even though you don't feel like doing it, you still go try to do it, because it feels good to keep the streak alive. You don't want to lose the streak. But once I had the streak, I didn't want to give it up. In my journaling, I would actually write that down, and I still do to this day. I always have at least three streaks that I'm working on. Right now, I'm getting ready to go back to Paris to teach my class. And so I'm doing my French streak. I had 90 days out. I. I try to make sure that I do my French every single day for at least five minutes. And I write down, how long is the positive streak going? We all have streaks that we want to keep alive. And last year, I did a caffeine streak for, like, little over nine months. And every day, I'd write down how many days. Once you have 68 days, caffeine free, man, you'll suck it up and get through anything. So positive streaks are incredibly powerful. But I think most of us understand that. We know how to use that. What I want to talk to you about is Negative streaks. How do you use negative streaks to make that same kind of forward momentum and create that same type of get yourself to take action even when you don't feel like doing it. You skip four days in a row. It's as if the habit never happened. So you win the war of procrastination on day two. See, day one is being human. But elite performers never let failure stack up. And once you get to the point where you've missed one day, it doesn't matter what else happens. Elite performers adjust. Correct. There's a glitch and boom, you just pull it right back and you put it in. You go two days, Ms. A day. Again, no problem, you're right back. Go one day, miss a day. One day, miss a day. One day, miss a day. Five days, miss a day. You are always moving forward. But see, so many people get caught up in their perfectionism. They get caught up in their image. They just get caught up in not knowing how to be resilient. And so one day turns into two, two turns into five, five turns into three months, and three months turns into 10 years. That's the power of negative streaks. It's not just the behavior that you lose. It's the identity, it's the integrity, it's the resilience, it's the grit. If you really want to build more grit and resilience, then one of the things I beg you to do is adopt my strategy. Whatever early morning strategy you do adopt, literally write down every single day positive streaks that you want to commit. Maybe you want to be able to look at someone that you love and care about and tell them every single day, I love you. Not, hey, I love you, but you're going to stop. And for three, five, eight seconds, you look at them in the eye and hold that presence and say, I love you. Can you imagine if you had a 387 day streak like that with the person that you love and care about? For some of you, it might be stopping something. Like I giving up caffeine, might be giving up sweet carbs, might. There might be something for you, but there's power in creating this positive streak and tracking it. Now, once you start tracking a positive streak, now we've got to introduce negative streaks. So here you might do five days of committing that love and then fall off a day. You might do three days of no carbs and then fall off that day. So what? Welcome to the club. This is about making small incremental improvement over time. But if you never have more than one negative Day, you will always achieve every goal you set. If you never have a negative streak more than one day, you will always get to every single goal that you're wanting. Because here's what happens. You build resilience, you build grit. But you build an identity of someone that can get themselves to do what they need to do, when they need to do it, whether they feel like it or not. See, your commitment to no negative streaks is just strong enough to overcome the inability to get it done, the desire to slack off, the desire to take a day off, the desire to let it go. Because once you start letting it go, you start giving yourself permission to let it go in other areas too. Have you noticed that? Have you ever noticed that? That when you back off of one area or back off of a goal in one area of your life, you start to do that in other areas? Because positive and negative streaks are not just about the behavior you're looking at. Positive and negative streaks are about the identity that you're creating about who you are, how you show up, and what's the level of trust that you have in yourself. Remember, trust is comes from the Greek words confidere, con meaning with, and fidere, meaning an intense sense of trust. Confidence is trust in yourself. It's that sense that you know that when you're in a great, solid, centered state and you make a commitment to something, that you can carry out that commitment after the emotion of making that decision has passed. See, that's integrity and that's trust. And your ability to build that within yourself comes directly from building positive and negative streaks. So for today, my challenge for you is very simple. I'm going to ask you to sit down and look at your life and what is one or two positive streaks that you want to create? You know, this would make a difference. I want you to think about your relationships, the people that you care most about. And I want you to think about your work, those projects, those outcomes, those goals that are most important to you. Now let's narrow it down to one tiny behavior, one simple behavior, and then let's start working on your positive streak. Number two, Part B is make a commitment to no negative streaks. Miss a day, no problem. No two day streaks. But you know what? You're going to have one. How do I know that? Because I've worked with about 10,000 people over the last 30 years in 42 countries, and it always happens. So you know what? We're not going to have three negative days. That's the key. I have to tell you, almost anyone I've ever coached. When we really dive into and work on this and they get it, and they're committed to no negative streaks, some of them still have two, none of them have three. And with that, you can win absolutely anything. This is the key that will make sure that you will be able to dream anything you want to dream. Write down any goal you want to write down, and have absolute knowledge and certainty that you can achieve it. It is understanding and mastering positive and negative strengths. With that, go out, get it done, have some fun, play with this, and I will see you tomorrow in the dealership war room.