How to Close more Deals with a Strategic CSRA

But I'm really excited to talk to you guys a little bit about mindset. Now, one of the things that I have really worked on my last, I started in business. If you've ever seen me speak, I talk about this pretty regularly on a quarter quarterly basis or on YouTube and all this other stuff. I started my business adventure in 2000, and I've always been this guy that doesn't care what people think about me, which is a really important piece. But that doesn't mean I don't struggle. And I'm gonna talk a little bit through my entire presentation today on some of the struggles that I have and some of the things that we can put together for you to help you get to that next level. Okay, so almost every MSP owner I know, and I want you to think about this. How many of you started as a solopreneur? And I'm gonna raise my hand. We got most people in the room, right? How many of you struggle with head trash? Cindy coined that phrase with our group, and I absolutely love it so much. Head trash is a real thing, right? It's hard. We have all these things that happen. That is a mindset challenge. And most of it comes from either how we are raised or maybe. And I don't know if anybody ever take a sociology class in college or high school. I took sociology, and one of the things that sociology talked about seemed like a bullshit class actually. But one of the things I actually learned from it was culture is learned. And it also think about the habits that we have. Everything that we take with us onto the stage, onto into client meetings, into supporting our clients as entrepreneurs. Everything that we have, we have learned from somewhere. There's no instinct in humans. Humans have evolved past instinct, I think if you think about that. So all this stuff that we're stuck with, we have evolved into over time. Now, that seems like it's sometimes a challenge, but I want you to think about this. If we learned how to do it, what can we also do? We can unlearn it, right? We can get out of that. But it takes conscious decisions to make those things happen. And the idea of starting your own business and running it from the ground up is totally an amazing thing. It's one of the biggest blessings I think that we could ever have. If you think about life and you think about all the different things that we have, we have people from all over the world with us right now in person. We have people from all over the world watching all combined from all these different walks of life, with all These things that we've learned to come together to start this business. But the big problem that we have as business owners, the big problem that we have as entrepreneurs, as people, as marketers, as I want to say, public figures, as experts, especially those of us that started as solopreneurs, is that solopreneur mindset creates a massive amount of bad habits if you let it. Now, I want to take a second and I want to talk about with you guys, and I want you to get a little vulnerable with me. What kind of bad habits? And I'll pick a decision and go to the mic if you want. What kind of bad habits have you started as an entrepreneur, As a solopreneur. And I'm going to tell you a couple that I have that I've had to fight through. But anybody want to be vulnerable with me right now and say a bad habit that you picked up, Come to the mic, Fred. I love it. Fred's got a question. Anybody else want to volunteer some bad habits that you have, some things that you've struggled with that are mindset issues, some head trash that you have. Brett, go to the mic, man. You guys can line up and go to the mic. See, that's what happens when you yell at him. It works. Maria. Maria was about to run. Fred, go ahead. Helping out. Too many friends or friends of friends, like referrals. So being a nice guy. Being a nice guy and so the price isn't right, and you have 10 or 15 of those, and you have revenue coming in. You're covering your cost, but you don't have the margin to hire people and grow your team. So. So I'd say you're struggling, and I appreciate you being vulnerable with me, but you're struggling with embracing your. No, I would say it sounds like. Right. Probably. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's key. Fred also said. Didn't say no to me when I said, hey, can we go to the waste management open? Get me some free tickets. And he did. So it worked. That was back in January, wasn't it? February. February, yeah. It was awesome. All right, thank you, Fred. Let's give Fred a hand. Thank you, Fred. Brett, what do you got, buddy? Couple people pleasing and not doing the investments back in my business when I know I should. Investing in a new person when I had the resources and just being. I would call it the staller. So who struggles with people pleasing? It's a big one, right? A lot of us have that. I also. Thank you, Brett. I love that. What else you got? Just general head Trash. And I'm constantly working on it. But like, I, I want to be perfect. And sometimes, like, even. Even when I spoke at an event for pharmacies, I was saying to myself, imposter syndrome. What the hell do I know? And I said that to myself. Then I got up and I. I realized I knew more than 99% in the room. But you still, you still. We still struggle with that. So that's. That's the truth. How many of you struggle with imposter syndrome? It's a real thing, right? Important. Thank you, bro. Let's give Brett a hand. Thank you, Luggs. What you got, my friend? Yeah, I'll do one. And still something I struggle with. A little closer to the mic, please. I can't hear you. Honestly, tying too much of my self worth and doing stuff in my business, like doing the work instead of delegating it to other people. Like, hey, that head trash that you were talking about, hey, what am I doing here? Everyone else is doing the work. What's my role? Right. Really messing and like, because I'm not working on in the business. What's my self worth? That's a bad habit I picked up. Yeah, I think that's key. You're going to hear Dan martell Talk tomorrow. 80% that somebody else is doing is freaking awesome is what he's going to say. If you saw that in the book, it's also in the audiobook. How many of you struggle with self worth tied to how much work you put in your business? Personally love it. Let's give Logan a hand. Anybody else have anything you want to share? Ruben, Reuben, welcome back, by the way. It's good to see you, my friend. Buddy. Appreciate it. I think one of the ones I struggle with the absolute most and I've been through a lot of what you guys have said is holding on to the belief in the people when I hire people, holding on to the belief that they're going to eventually attain what I want them and believe them capable of doing, as opposed to upgrading my staff based on the needs of the business. So I spend so much time investing into people, hoping you're going to arrive, you're going to get there, you're going to get rid of all that nonsense in your life, and we're all going to get where we got to go, only to find out that I should have upgraded that person a long time ago. And it's held my business back and it's held everybody who's in the business from also receiving the full potential. Let's Give Ruben a hand. Thank you for that. Another challenge. And if anybody else has any, any vulnerabilities you want to share, now's the time. Because this is a great opportunity to do this. This is a non roasting community. But one of the other challenges that I really see a lot of people do is they feel that they need to hire close to home and they have a business. So they hire a family member that they probably wouldn't normally hire. And that's a challenge. Like, I hired my brother. One of my very first hires was I hired my brother. My brother and I are back to being really good now. But probably one of my biggest mistakes I ever made in my business was hiring him because it was just like a constant back. This goes literally. He was, I think, employee, one of my ever, my first ever company because I just was like, oh, he needs a job. He's close to home. He's smart. I'll do that. Sophia's trying to get out of the business. Atta girl. I think she's firing herself soon. Right? She said she's getting fired soon, but I love that. I think it's important to also understand those types of things as well, Tom. It may come as part of being the nice guy thing, but I let customers manage their expectations rather than my own, and I end up doing things I probably shouldn't be doing, running around like crazy. People pleasing as well. Yeah, that's 100% people pleasing. I love that. Let's give Tom a hand. So I want you to think about all that stuff. Now. None of this stuff is unfixable. Right? Every one of those things is. But the first step is like saying, I have limitations. I have to work on this stuff. These are things that I need to change in my life. These are things that I need to change as a business owner. Because I will tell you as you if you want. You heard me talk about that ceiling earlier. Like, you have to hire people. You're going to hear Dan talk a lot of it about this tomorrow. You have to hire people. Before I even read Dan's book, I talked about buying your time back. And it's just crazy because it's the same damn principle. I love it so much. He built an entire system around it because it's all about scale. But. But where the scale thing comes in is you have to change this before you can even think about it. Because if you don't change this, think about going down Ruben's path. You hire these C and D and maybe F players because they're cheaper or it's easy to hire them or because we don't have limitations and we're not thinking good enough about ourselves. So we hire the wrong staff. And it's really important. So I remember my solopreneur launch and I got a little bit lucky when I was starting out. You've heard me mention that I was lazy and I wasn't necessarily lazy the way you like to see it. But I don't want to be the guy. I think it's a matter of I was not really a control freak. That's another big issue that I see the engineer mindset have. It's the. Would you go, what personality type would you say? It's not like type A. I use the disc scale a lot. So I see the MSP as like the high s. See mostly that dominance, influence, steadiness and compliance is what the disk scale is, if you guys haven't seen that. And the MSP is usually very steady and very compliant. But the challenge, because they're engineers, right? Usually by core. But then they get this dynamic that gets learned into them of okay, I'm gotta be the salesperson. I have to be the one that runs the business. So I got to show the whole. So all of a sudden you got this big, big pot that's stirring of personality types and it's like conflicting. But most MSPs are like, nobody can do it. I had a guy tell me a couple weeks ago, this is total. Actually, this is a friend of mine, Lindsay, if you're in the room, this is Blake. You met Blake a couple weeks ago. My friend Blake. Blake is a. I think he's the number three sales guy for IBM in the United States. Lives in Austin. Good friend of mine, he told me, I was talking, he just got married, he got a house, he got all this other stuff. And this shows you how much it applies. Cause he's an engineer and he's turned into a sales guy. So oddly, what's happened in msp, it's the same shit, right? It's the same deal. And he told me so he called me and he's like, hey, I'm really struggling. Keep in mind, dude makes 800 grand a year selling at IBM. Hates his life. I'm like, what are you struggling with? You're making all this money, man. He's like, my life sucks. I'm working 20 hour days like, okay, when are you gonna scale? I made him buy Dan's book. Actually sent him the Amazon link. So when are you gonna scale? He's like, I can't scale. Like, dude, you look at, you work at IBM, don't tell me you can't scale. Do you have budget for an assistant? They gave me $200,000 budget for a team. Okay. Are you gonna hire a team? Nope. No one can do it as me. Right. So he is getting his job done, but what's the sacrifice? He hates his life. He's a year married, year and a half married. His wife's about ready to kill him because all he does is work and he's a miserable human to be around. And it just shows you how impactful that control freak mindset can be if you let it dominate your life. So coming back to my keynote here, I got lucky because I was a lazy guy. And I don't call it really a lazy guy, but I don't want to be in the trenches. There is a lot of MSPs, and you can see where this, the Blake story ties into reality in my keynote here because a lot of MSPs are saying I can't hire staff because no one can install this server as well as me. Nobody can do all this stuff as well as I can do it. So I can't hire people. So let's go back to Dan Martell and what you're going to learn tomorrow. 80% of not me is what? Freaking awesome, right? Freaking awesome. Dan's gonna say this a lot tomorrow. 80% of not me is freaking awesome. So I want you to think that as you're. And this doesn't mean this lazy that I put on the screen doesn't mean that I'm lazy or dumb or bad. It means that I don't have to control it now. There's certain things in my life that I definitely control. Somebody came who? Somebody came up to me today and asked me, like, how do you handle dealing with that? Well, that was actually on the question on stage here. How do you. Was that Amir? I think that was you, right? Yeah. Asked me how do you handle giving away that control? I have systems and I have to understand that 80% of not me is freaking awesome. So that means 20% of the time, it's probably gonna suck. Deal with it. Is it better than doing it myself? Think about how much is your time worth? That is your time worth. Is there anything worth more in your life than your time? Think about that. The seconds you just spent with me, the last 30 seconds, are you ever gonna get them back? They're gone. Sorry. But I want you to think about that. It is really, really critical. So if you're dealing with this stuff yourself, you're hitting that ceiling. You can't scale out of it. So you have to have a mindset shift around. I am going to scale myself out of it because 80% of not me is freaking awesome. You have to remember that. And it's really key. But my scale mindset that I had early now, this is completely accidental, and I think it's from my childhood. I don't really know where it really came from. But I've never been somebody that has to be a control freak. But I had other bad habits. I'm going to talk a little bit about that. And I did have. I was really good at this whole scale mindset thing. So I hired people quickly. I hire people well, I have a pretty good read on what makes them a good human being. And my goal, actually, I'll say my North Star of hiring is, are you a good human being? That's like my personal North Star. So I make them get on a video call with me now, or I make them. Actually, I did this for a long, long time with staff. And I'll tell you what, if you want to get into somebody's how good they are mindset, take them and their spouse to dinner. I did that early. I did that a lot. I took the person and their spouse or their partner, whoever they spend their time with. And if you're. How long have you been in a relationship? If you're ever single, you're probably a little freaking weird. So I don't know that I want you on my team. Because if you can't love, how much empathy do you have? Like, that's just the things that I have that keep me in that place. So the challenge that most MSPs have, and you hear me say this on this slide, it kept me away from the typical MSP island or maybe even the Solopreneur island, because that Solopreneur island is. Nobody can do it better than me. And even Blake, who works for IBM, not Lenovo, mind you. He works for IBM, like big IBM with a $200,000 budget to hire some staff. He can't hire anybody because nobody can do. So he's basically a solopreneur working in a business unit all by himself. Can't scale that, period. No matter what you do, you can't scale that. So in my case, I didn't have the MSP island problem. But I did, however, fall victim to another mindset trap. And this is the stuff that I dealt with my Entire life. I'm slightly add, if you guys haven't figured that out. It took me actually. This is funny. I ripped and replaced my slide deck last night at midnight. Yeah, real healthy guys don't do that. Staff's looking at me like Maria's like, where's your damn slides? Sorry, bro. I'm finishing up my lunch today. But it is what it is. It's better now. But I did. So that's the stuff that I battle constantly. I let a lot of bad habits run my life. Early number one, I grew up as the late kid. My parents allowed me to be late all the time. I was late for everything. I was late for school every day. Nobody policed me. I didn't have any. And I don't know. I don't know if you'd prefer to have the do it yourself thing or the gestapo parents thing. I don't really know. I didn't grow up in a religious family or any of that stuff. But my mom's like, do whatever you want, bro. So it was that. But the problem I ran into is I grew up as the late kid and procrastination dominated me. Now I'm pretty damn good at this. Now I still struggle with. I had my slides done like two weeks ago, but the obsession with being great for you guys makes me want it to be better all the time. And Cindy actually said something to me yesterday that was cool. And she's like, this is why you have built what you build, because you always are trying to make it better for your clients and your staff. So that's pretty cool. I didn't think about it that way, but my entire life, I was the late kid. Procrastination dominated me and I was always late for everything. And I'll ask my staff now, what am I now? Ryan Lindsey? I don't know who else is. I'm always the early guy. So I've made a mindset shift over the last, I'm going to say 20 years. If I look at 22,004 to now. I went from being late for business meetings to always being behind on everything to now. Everything is on schedule, Everything's on time. Notice when we start this show. Anybody notice what time the lights go off this morning? Right at 9 o' clock on the nuts. And that's by design. And if that doesn't happen, that's when Chris gets pissed. Cause I want that on time and I want it structured now. You're always gonna have things that happen. Like, we had some slide deck issues today, but whatever you make that stuff happen. But my point is that procrastination and all that stuff dominated my life. And it wasn't until I decided to make major changes in my life that I started to see real success. So I. What's really important about this is I saw. I became self. Aware. How many people in your life do you know that are completely oblivious to their stupidity? Most. Right, Most. That's not even a joke. You guys aren't helping by the coward. They're literally eject the idiots. I don't know. But it's really, really important that you take these things and become self aware of. Here's what my especially as a Think about you as a parent, think about you as a spouse. Think about you as a business owner. Think about you. If you're not self aware, what happens to whatever is around you? Does it improve or does it get worse? It goes to shit. Right? John just said that it goes to shit. So you have to be very, very conscious of this. But what I will tell you is those changes you make as you become self aware, they totally define who you are as a person, who you are as a spouse, a parent, a business owner. Do you think any of this is an accident? This is all very, very purposeful and it is because I make a conscious decision to be better and I'm always gonna focus on it and I'm never gonna be the late kid because I was the late kid my whole damn life. And you know what it feels like when you're walking into school and everybody's sitting down and you walk in like an idiot. Now take about that and multiply it to your entire livelihood is dependent on being the late kid for something. I missed a deal. I missed a call. I did this. We know when we're lazy and everybody gets a break. I understand, but we know when we're lazy, we know when we're stupid. We know when we do these things that we shouldn't do. But how many times do we not admit it to ourselves or others? Think about that. So I gotta give you guys that came to the microphone a lot of gratitude for showing some vulnerability and saying here's what I'm struggling with. Let's give them a hand, all those guys. And I want you guys all to go back and what are you going to work on? I'm going to give you some other things to work on. What things can you work on in yourself? To become self aware of what you struggle with. Or maybe you don't even realize that you're struggling with It. And this is making you realize it. It's okay. It's life. Cause if we don't improve it, it just gets worse, right? At least just sits there. So this whole event that we're doing today, tomorrow, Thursday, is all about a mindset reset. This is your chance. If you've done nothing, and especially we got some young people in the room. Brett, I know you brought your son. Mike Roybal, I know you got Skylar here. We got some other people here. Amir, you brought your son as well. I love it that you guys are bringing them and surrounding us with your community. Guys that are younger, the same stuff you're struggling with as teenagers or as young 20s, men and women, we all struggle with the same stuff, but you're 20, 30 years ahead of us. So you got this opportunity to change yourself and realizing that. And one of the things that I was. I don't want to say I was a stubborn kid, but I was pretty like, I guess, don't tell me what to do as a stubborn kid. But I was a little bit. Don't tell me what to do. But I think most youth goes through that, so think about those things as you're here. This is all life education, and it's really important. And you can see that your parents are furthering their education by learning and growing. So take that and learn it as well. This whole event is about mindset reset. Let's define what that means. So. So what is mindset to you? Anybody want to volunteer? What mindset is to you? Anyone want to go to the mic for me? Ryan, you going to go to the mic or you going to hold the mic? I was going to run the mic. I think you should say something. What's mindset to Ryan? Ooh. Oh, on the hot seat. I guess what I'll do is I'll just go back to what I was talking about this morning. I think it's really important to understand what value that you have and be mindful of it. Enjoy your successes, understand your achievements. You need to take pride in that kind of thing sometimes. We're moving so damn fast with all the stuff that we're working on. We don't take a stop, stop and take a second to appreciate the achievements that we've actually made. Yeah. Anyone want to volunteer what mindset is to you? Liam, go ahead and stand up, please. There's a mic right behind you, dude. That's all right. That's an Australian for you guys. I love it. Travel all the way from Australia. All right, you can set out. Nah, she'd be right. She'd be right. So. So mindset, I think, to me, is the ability to approach a situation that is difficult with a different mindset. Obviously, being able to change your thoughts, to allow you to do something different than what you've tried before and approach a situation differently. Because we all know if we do the same thing over and over again, it's insanity. Yeah, well, if you're expecting different results. Right. That's key. Grab mic up here. You're going to keep all the mics. Liam, you guys swap mics back there. Go ahead. All right, thank you. I would say that the mindset for me is to have a laser focus and going at it. Okay, I like that. Ruben. I think mindset is all about believing what you're capable of doing and really being comfortable with what it is you believe you're capable of doing and making that happen. Yeah, I like that. Luis, I've been thinking about this one. For me, mindset is the set of rules, set of beliefs, all the ideas that manifest in the way that you live and you present yourself. Yeah, I love that. That's almost exactly what I think of it. So to me, mindset is. Is the internal belief that you surround yourself with. But the way that I handle it is my internal belief. And this is really important because there's nothing that I think the word I can't does not exist to me. I choose to do what I want, and you know what? I can. So what you think, whether it's I can, I can't, I won't, I don't want to, that's what's gonna happen to you. And I want you to think we got so much, so many distractions, and all the stuff around us constantly, but think about how important those two words are. Either I can or I can't. Now, in my world, this is how Kris lives. I can. That's literally it. That's how I run my life. It's how I run my business. It's how I run everything I do. There's no one that can tell me different. So I want you to think about how powerful that is to me and the world that I live in. That is my mindset choice. So not only that, I can, and this is what's really, really key, but when I fall off the wagon. Not if. Because we all fall off the wagon. Right? Stuff always happens to where we fall off. And I'll give you a great example of this. You guys have been a witness of my little weight loss journey that I've been on some of you guys haven't seen me in a while. But I lost 45 pounds in the last year and change. Don't worry. Borat, Mankini, tomorrow night, you'll all see. Very nice. I like it. I'm joking about the Mankini figure. People are going to not show up like. No, I'm joking about that. It's worse than that. No, but do you think there's days in there have I worked out every day like. And my typical workout regimen is I lift Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. I have a personal trainer that comes to my house. So what am I doing this week? Okay, a couple of you are in the gym with me on Monday morning here at the hotel in the shitty ass gym they have like two weights. It's ridiculous. But what did I do today? I didn't lift today. It's a lot of energy, it's a lot of getting up, it's a lot of workout. I still don't Ryan's like you because you ripped and replaced your deck at midnight. No, the thing is I never lift on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday of live week because I only got so much brain power and I am allowing myself a little bit of grace. But think about what a lot of people live in. They live in this world of absolutes. If you fall off, what happens? Where do they go? Off the fricking wagon, down the hill, into the chasm or into the abyss. So for me, I allow myself to fall off the wagon because I can, but I get back on quickly. So I will go home on Friday morning. I'm going to drive home. I'm probably not going to lift Friday morning. But you know what I'm going to do? I told the trainer, be at my house at 6am on Saturday and we'll get back on the wedding. So it's not necessarily that I can't fall off the wagon. I allow myself that grace because we're all gonna make are we all human, right? Actually, Liam, maybe not, but we're all human. So we can allow ourself a little bit of grace or ourselves a little bit of grace. But it's not when you make the mistake, it's how quickly you take pick yourself up. You ever see that Muhammad Ali deal where he's like standing over? I think it was who was the Joe, Joe Frazier. And he's like, it's not how many times you get knocked out, it's whether or not they're knocked down. It's how many times you get back up. That Picture. So think about how important that is. So let's go back really quick. One slide, two slides, three slides. Mindset for me is my internal belief that I can. That's it. And when, not if, when I fall off the wagon, I choose to get back on really quickly. That is a control that I personally control now. Late kid didn't do that. And the thing that I see in a lot of people is they're like, ok, if I screw up, I'm never going to do it again. I'll talk about that in a couple minutes. But if I screw up here. Oh, that didn't work. Do you lose £45 with that mindset? Nope. And I didn't just lose like, ozempic weight, guys. It was like in the gym for two, two years straight. And for a year of that wasn't a whole lot of change. And then all of a sudden my body caught up and there was a lot of change. Everybody's like, oh, you look so skinny. Actually, I very similar weight to what I was six months ago, but it came out of my face now. So it's just like, people notice. People notice that and they see it. So it's really, really important. So thinking about all of that stuff, how many of you guys struggle overall with that belief that I can't. How many struggle with mindset? If you're not raising your hand, you're crazy. Because we all struggle with it, guys. Everybody in this room is struggling with this. How many struggle with getting going, doing something new? Right? That's a struggle. How about maybe staying with it? I'm not going to quit. I'm going to quit early. It's a struggle, right? Because success in life, actually good question, is this is like, what's success? And a lot of people talk asking me about this especially, I get a lot of random DMs from, like, weird stuff. I got like six today, by the way. Just random DMs from people sending me messages, mostly on Facebook, saying, like, they're actively watching our stuff. And it's cool because they send me a question and they're asking me, somebody asked me this morning, how do you determine whether you're successful or not? That's an internal barometer, honestly, I'll tell you that, because I think everybody's version of success is a little bit different. You were mentioning this morning that you're a family man and that's very successful. You heard me mention that I've been going through a divorce for nine months. That's hard. It's not Fun. But I still consider myself successful, even though I'm going through that. It's just part of life. It's stuff that happens sometimes. So success in life, success in business is not necessarily about luck. Last quarter, if you guys were not here, go back and watch my keynote last quarter because I did a really good exercise and we had a nice cool worksheet that's included on the dashboard for how you can control levels of your own luck. A lot of people talk about luck in sports, luck in life. I don't believe in luck, really. Yes, there's blind luck, which is pretty damn rare. But you know What? I'd say 95% of luck is pretty controlled because it's preparation, timing and opportunity. But for the most part, if we do the right things around mindset, we get there. So we can't necessarily control. Not about luck, not about fortune, not about comfort, not about simplicity. Life for me is about I can. And life for me is all about discipline. Lindsay, you told me this a couple weeks ago. Lindsay and I talk like every day on business level stuff and personal stuff, all kinds of stuff going on. And she told me that, and this is probably one of the best compliments I've ever received. She said, you're the most disciplined person I've ever seen. And that was like a huge compliment to me because I will tell you, the late kid never would have ever thought that about myself. Nobody had ever called me disciplined. My whole life, I literally, my whole childhood, from kindergarten through high school, I never did homework, ever. Cause I could just do shit. And it just was. I was good at it. Like it's just how it worked. But that also breeds so much to that late kid. And you get so undisciplined because you're good at everything. And I'm not bragging. It's just like I was good at sports, I was good at school, I was good at. I wasn't good at dating. I'll say that you're supposed to laugh at that, but at least you laugh at those non joke. So much of it for me was easy. And it created this world of I'm gonna be the late kid and procrastination and all this stuff. So for someone to tell me that I'm the most disciplined person they know means that my mindset shift that I really have been actively working on for the last 20 years has come into reality. Now. Is that accidental or is that a choice? Anyone? That is a choice. That is a decision that I made and I would not be standing on this stage with a room of people and a ton of people on the Internet in this huge, amazing community. If not for that choice in that discipline, it's about having the right mindset, being strong enough mentally to get up off that mat. That Muhammad Ali mindset when you get knocked down because there's no one in this room, there's no one that's watching online, there's no one that's gonna watch this on the recording. There's no one ever that has not gotten knocked down a couple pegs. Even if you've coasted through life as the guy was pretty good at everything. But it bred this mindset of late. Procrastination, lazy. So you have to make a conscious choice that you're going to change. But you have to be self aware enough to do that and allow yourself that grace to do that. Because problem one, and I will tell you, and there's two types of people that I see. Problem one that I see especially with our community is I'm not comfortable with this, whatever this is. So I'm just gonna avoid doing that. Now I will tell you most of what MSPs struggle with. I'm gonna give you a couple of them that I identify. Public speaking, right? I don't want to get on the stage. Now think about this. I am not comfortable with public speaking. So what am I gonna do? I'm not going on a stage. Guys, you can. I've had a guy tell me, I. I had a guy tell me on the phone, there's no way in the world I will ever get on a stage. So if you think that's what it's gonna be, you can take your program and shove it up your ass. All right, that's not my choice, man. That is your choice. But I'm gonna tell you what's the fastest way to get people to trust you. Get on a stage, you can't be a business owner, you can't be a marketer, you can't be a leader, you can't be a salesperson, you can't be a period, an MSP owner. If you do not get on a stage now, you probably could pull it off, but what are you going to hit that ceiling constantly, right? So public speaking is one of them. Maybe working out. It is really uncomfortable for a lot of people to work out. Liam, it's your first time in the States. A lot of unhealthy people in America, I'll tell you that. There's unhealthy people everywhere, but they usually have a lot of bad habits that go along with that. So working out is one of those things. And Jodi, you said something to our group today that was really cool. Jody's our brand new marketing manager. She's been here like six months. It's her first show. Can I say what you said? Is that okay? Jody said y' all are a fit bunch. I'm not gonna say that you can say that. But she said y' all are a fit bunch because our team actively works out. And I have really tried to set an example for our team by doing this stuff. And I provide personal training for our team and a bunch of other stuff. And it's really cool. So I try and help them get past that mindset block. But think about also sales. Who here's uncomfortable to sell? Right. Lot of people. Now, what we do by giving you structure and process and a system is to help you get past that. Now, this room is totally different. This online community, this, everything that we have is totally different. Because you think about who's met peers outside of this room in the MSP industry lot, how good are they at sales compared to this room? Way different, Way worse. So system and process really helps with that, I'll tell you that. But also think about marketing. Think about you as an msp. Think about you as a engineer mindset, as a solopreneur on the MSP island. Think about all of that stuff and think about the things that are uncomfortable. And let's go back to what that actually was. Oops. I am not uncomfortable with any of those things. And think about whatever you have in there. So I'm just going to avoid it. That's problem number one that I see. Can you identify that in yourself and use this talk or this week to eliminate something that's really key problem number two that I see. If I don't crush it or hit a home run or knock it out of the park, I will just quit what it is and I will go back to doing what I was doing before because at least that got me to this point. I only had referrals and I grew my business to this point and I didn't have 40 people on my webinar and 10 didn't sign up for FTAs and, and sign stuff right now. So that clearly doesn't work. Consistency builds machines. So think about that one. Let's go back to what that is. If I don't crush it the first time, if I don't crush my webinar the first time, who's done a webinar in this room. How many have done a webinar to? 0 people. Me, too. I did probably my first 10 to myself. So think about a webinar. Think about maybe doing a live video. Think about, more importantly, hosting an event, speaking. Think about that. So let's go back to what that one was. If I don't crush that thing the first time. Now, usually in MSP land, it's marketing or sales. I didn't get my first three nos to sign. So your program sucks. Wiser had that. Okay, you're not going to always win deals because there's a lot of variables out there. Namely, the biggest variable is how hard you study. And I promise you, if you go into our entire program with I can't, you know what? You won't. It's that simple. But what's cool about our community and all the wins that we have, and you guys that are new, you've seen so many. Like, I put a post up, I think, two days ago about how pumped I am because we had so many wins in the last couple weeks. So much stuff. You can see the market shifting, even though it's election time and it's a pain in the ass. And the market's hard right now because all America wants to do is focus on who's the bigger idiot. That's really the reality of it, right? So you think about all that stuff. Consistency builds machines. It's really, really important. So think about all those things. So why do we do these problems to ourselves? Because the fear of failure absolutely overwhelms almost everyone. If I just stay here, my habits have gotten me to this point. If I just stay here, I'll be fine. I'll be fine. I'll just keep going. But then you know what happens? Oh, I lost a client here. Because you're gonna lose clients. Guys, it's going to happen. You're going to lose whales. Ryan, how often do we talk to people that. Every single time. And I will tell you this. And what? For new people, we define a whale as your big client. Right? I lost a whale. Okay. Did you run the play? No. Didn't want to run the play on them because I didn't want to lose them. But, yeah, they went to a competitor. You're going to lose clients. Guys, run the play. I promise you, it works. And you know what? At least you're going to have yourself insulated. Even if you leave them exactly where they're at, you can have yourself insulated. Every raise your hand in the room. Everybody raise your hand. In the room who can prevent all hacks. Yeah, Howard's got his hand up, but we know you're not a good engineer, so we're good. Yep. That's good. So I want you to think about that. Your clients are going to leave. You're going to lose your whales. That fear of failure is going to happen just because it happens. That's fail. That's life. So you have to get yourself to a place where the desire for the result is so great that it just destroys the fear. And for me, like, I'm so used to saying I can that it doesn't even. And my team, you guys can really relate to this, I think, because you spend so much time with me. But I don't even go to maybe or no. I go to I will. It's like, I can, I will. That's my natural path is I just go those two spots is I can and I will. And my will is just deciding whether it's a good venture or not. Like, is this the right thing to do? Yes or no, I can do it. Do I want to take that path? That is a choice. That is a mindset decision. That is a choice. So the amount of people that come up to us and actively talk about, I can't do this in my market versus Brett Galant in New Brunswick, Canada. 18,000 person town, 5x mrr at a $235 Canadian. And that's like $12American. I understand, but. But $235 average, up from $30 average. If he can do that. Liam Benson in Melbourne, Australia. If you can do it, there's nobody. These are two phenomenal examples of members that have crushed this because they. What they can. They knew they could and they did. And the thing that I see in you two guys, I love it that you're sitting by each other. The thing that I've watched in you two guys and Liam has messaged me, I don't know, 50 times, man, probably 100 times. A lot of times. There was about. I still remember I was standing in my bathroom and you messaged me. Actually, I think I was sitting in my bathroom, if you get where I'm going. But I still remember you messaged me and you're like, I'm done, man. Like, it was. I don't remember the exact conversation, but it was like, massive frustration and just. I think you had lost a client and you were just like. I could tell you were very spent. And we had a conversation. It was just over Facebook messenger, but we had a conversation. And you picked yourself off the mat. And now you do a post in our group two weeks ago that says, I can't believe it. I'm coming to America on this international business trip that I paid for with points that I never thought I would ever do in my entire. Actually, I think you said I had it planned for 2028. Didn't you say that? Right? 2028. And now you're here because. Because you can. So props to both of you guys. So both of them have said. And I just know their stuff, so that's why I'm talking about them. Because we have 100 other case studies in this community, and I love it so much. It just. That's what makes me tick, guys. I love it. But we have so many cases of that happening. And what you guys have done is you said, nope, I'm gonna do this because I can. And that desire let me go back one slide. That desire for the result was so great that it destroyed the fear of failure. And it's a really great lesson for the rest of you guys. If you're battling against something, if you're worried about something, if you're saying, I can't do this, I'm here to tell you the mindset shift. And the mindset reset says, let's say it all out loud. I can One more time. I can. And you will. I love it. Let's give everybody a hand on that. I love it. So I have my top 10 things to do if you're struggling with ways to do this to help reset your mindset. Now, I'm going to go through this kind of quick. If anybody has any comments, go to the mic and we'll talk about it. This is just casual Chris stuff that came out of my brain, so it's probably a mess. This is 3am Shit, by the way, first of all, revisit your why. We heard a lot of talk this morning about your why. I think Lindsey talked about your why. Ryan talked about his why. What's your why? Now, when I talk about your why for new people here, why are you in business? Why are you doing this? It's not just like felt like being an IT company owner today. It's a lot easier to go get a job like it is. Like, it's easy. It's pretty damn easy. And you think about all the people in our lives that we have that surround us that just get up, go to work, and go home and watch Netflix. Like, there's a lot of people that do that. Most of the people I Grew up in very rural southern southeastern Wisconsin. I grew up in a 530 person town. I don't think I, I never had a sleepover my entire childhood. That's why I'm a little messed up, I think. I don't know, but that's like I grew up with nobody around me. So my why is I want. Especially as I came out of my IT company and all the different things, I felt a little landlocked with my IT company. I was like stuck in a. In a single spot. Now times have changed. You can do a lot of things remotely now. But I actively made a decision that I wanted a remote company, that I could do whatever I want, whenever I want. That's my definition of wealth. So that's my why. Whatever yours is, is yours. But revisit it and think about it. What does it mean to you here? Why do you do what you do? Second thing you heard me mention consistency builds. Now consistency builds machines and it's really important. You're going to fall off your wagon. What does it take to get back on? The faster you get back on didn't matter. So I'm gonna like, I'm not lifting this whole week. My body's not gonna fall apart. I'll go home on Saturday and I'll get right back in my routine. I travel a lot. I was in the gym, in the hotel on Monday. Shitty gym. Oh well, I did the best I could. I allowed myself some grace with that. It's okay. I want to get back on the wagon, pick myself up off the mat. So consistency builds machines, but execution shapes them. Now I talk a lot about execution and how important this is. Last quarter I talked about dreams and goals. You know what a goal is without execution? Dream. That's it. So execution is my defining factor in my life. A lot. I have a lot of ideas and we go, I go really fast. Great. Case in point, Laura. Laura got brought. Lindsay referred her to me. How long did it take me to hire Laura Lindsey? Less than a week now. That doesn't mean that I like jumped into something. I looked into her background, checked her. Haha, you didn't know that one, did you? I didn't really background check you, but I looked and made sure that she wasn't a psycho. Jury's out, jury's out. We'll see. But I wanted to make sure she was a culture fit is what I want. And she came as a referral from one of my high end A players. So we moved it execute and we deal with the mistake. If we have to. But I'm not going to let the mistake paralyze me into inaction. So think about that next thing. This is really, really important. What is your circle? Think about the people that you surround yourself with. Lindsay, you heard me mention yesterday that I fired a friend of mine from Milwaukee. Do you remember me saying that? And I said, he just wasn't. He didn't grow fast enough. He didn't grow with me, So I eliminated him. Probably makes me a little bit of an asshole. Whatever. He's still doing exactly what he was doing five years ago, and I'm doing a lot of different stuff. Rethink your circle. It's really important. Who do you surround yourself with? Who do you spend your time with? Who do you give your friend? Who do you give your friends and family discounts to and your time to? Right. I want you to think about that next. This is also really important. Embrace failure. I fail a lot. I fail really fast. I don't care at all. We make mistakes. We move on. That's human nature. If you're so afraid of failure that it handcuffs you and handicaps you into not even taking action, what's worse to me, not taking action and never doing it is way worse. Discipline is key. You heard me mention that I got one of the best compliments of my life this last couple weeks. That I'm the most disciplined person. Nobody's ever told me that, Lindsey. Ever. Nobody's ever, ever told me that, That I was disciplined, that I was key. That I was the most disciplined person they've ever met. That means the late kid is gone. Late kid's dead, I think. Yeah. Big fan of that. So discipline is key. And, hey, you can fall off the wagon. Doesn't mean that I have to do it every single day, perfectly. But 1% better every day. That's. Still think about that. If I do 1% better every day, even if I have a 10% drop, still a 200% gain on the year. If I miss 160 days, still a 200% gain on THE year, I can do better. I'll always do better. And in fact, I will say this. I say this to a lot of people every single time you see me and you guys that have known me for a long time, I will be doing better than the last time you saw me. Think about how many of you know me for a long time. Ron Trotto, you know me how long? Sheila, you know me, how long? Long time. You didn't know me 20 years. But we've been doing Sheila hired me for an auto task to zenith conversion in 2008. 2007. Yeah. Flew down a rock wall. I still remember that. Yes, hilarious. But it's been a long time. But am I doing better every time you see me? That is a conscious decision. Also surround yourself with good strong people. That's very similar to rethink your circle, but it's not the same. You have to surround yourself with a players, the best players. Now that means you got to start from scratch. It's really hard to fire staff. What's even harder firing friends and even harder than that firing family. It's really hard. I have a pretty conscious active rule that I don't hire friends and I don't hire family anymore as a conscious decision because it's either the best decision ever or like the polar opposite worst decision ever. My mom worked with me for a while. She was awesome. My mom was great. It was so much fun. We had so much and we had such a good relationship. She just didn't want to work anymore for a while. She's like, okay, I'm done. That was great. It was a great decision. But I still have made a conscious decision since then. I do not hire friends and family because now if I become friends with somebody after they work for me and I know their work ethic, okay, that's fine, that is what it is. But that's also a conscious choice. So I make a decision to surround myself with a players. And in my personal circle, it's pretty small. I don't surround myself. I spend casual time with a lot of people. But my tight knit group is about five. That's it. Because most people in life, especially the people that go, go to work every day and go home and watch Netflix, are they happy for you or jealous? Usually jealous, I will tell you. And it comes out not when they're talking to you, but when they're talking to other people about you. And I don't care. So I just eliminate them from my life. So surround yourself with a players and be careful with your circle. Number seven, focus on growth. If you're constantly focused on growing now, this isn't just revenue, this isn't just sales. This isn't just money. This is focus on personal growth, personal evolution. I'm always what did I say? I can and I make a point to be better every time you see me. So every time, Chris, I'm gonna be in a better spot than I was even. Do I have shit happen? I just told you, I'm going through a divorce since March 1st. Shitty. But you know what? I don't let it define me. I'm better than I was and I've actually made a conscious decision, give you guys some inside information. I went to personal therapy for seven months. Conscious decision I made that decision wasn't enforced by anybody. I made myself do it. I have surrounded myself with better people. I've actively worked on my body, I've actively worked on my health because these are decisions that I personally make to make sure that I'm better because I can and I focus on growth. It's really important. Number eight, visualize success. Who has a vision board in this room? Everyone's hand should go up. I don't care what's on your vision board. So it matters to you. I have things that I've always wanted on my vision board. I have other things on my vision board. Sometimes it's taking a vacation, sometimes it's buying a watch, sometimes it's buying a car, sometimes it's buying a boat. Sometimes it's, I just want to have a baby sometimes. Like there's all these different things. What's on your. What do you want? Revisit your why and visualize your success. What's going to get you there? So when you have to have that mindset shift that you're struggling with, how do we go back and say here's what I want to do to drive me there. If you have nothing that you're driving to and I will tell you there's something to be said. I know we always have this stuff in our head about like, okay, I had this vision, blah blah blah. Something to be said for putting it on a wall or putting it on a piece of paper or putting it on a digital built bulletin board, something like, shit, get a Pinterest page or something. I don't know, like you do whatever you want but have yourself something that you can visualize and make real. It really, really works. Manifesting. Anybody believe in that? Manifesting stuff? Right? I'm a great case in point. Everybody ever listen to the Secret? The book. The Secret, right. Hokey, weird, but checks in the mail. I listened to that book for the first time in like 20, I don't know, 20, 2012, maybe 2011. I'm sitting here. Pretty case in point that I'm not saying like magically shows up, but if you're constantly working on these things, working on growth, working on. I can. Working on belief, working on mindset. Good things magically happen. I wouldn't say magic either. Number nine, work on pushing through your imposter syndrome. I have it, too, guys. We all have it. There's days where I wake up and I'm like, I don't want to do this. This isn't fun. But you got to pull. How fast you pull yourself off the mat is what matters. We all get hit in the face, in the teeth, in the head, whatever. Pick yourself up. Pick yourself up off the mat. Work on your imposter syndrome execution. I can mindset. These things all make a difference in your life. And I said it earlier. If you believe that you can or you believe that you can't, you will. One or the other. It's a choice. It's an active choice. And number 10, you heard me say this a few times. Please give yourself some grace. Forgive yourself. It's okay to make mistakes. It's okay to have some failures here and there. How fast you recover from the failures is what defines who you are as a person. What defines who you are as a business owner. And the true key to unlocking your business success. I'm going to tell you this is very, very important. It's not the next shiny MSP tool, even though I just gave you one. It's not the next shiny MSP tool, because this. I like playing with toys, too, guys. I love playing with new stuff. I love looking at new RMMs. Cash flow solves all your problems. And the key to cash flow is your mindset and the success and all this stuff. The key is transforming how you think, act, and most importantly, believe in yourself. Really key. All right, guys. Thank you. My name's Chris. Let's have some fun tonight. Thank you. Thank you.