Mindset Beats Fear - Are you an Ostrich or an Eagle?

Hey, everybody, it's Jim Johnston here, the head coach at Contractor Coach Pro, with this week's episode of Contractor Radio. And this week, we're all dealing with something that we were not expecting to be dealing with situationally just a week ago. As many of you know, we are dealing with this coronavirus issue. A lot of uncertainty, a lot of fear, a lot of misinformation, a lot of just like, hey, what's going to go on and how is this going to happen and how is it going to work out? And so today I thought I would come to you guys and talk to you a little bit about fear and mindset, these two things that battle each other all the time. And so, first off, I want everybody to understand what fear is. Fear is a lack of understanding or an absence of knowledge. When you don't know something, it causes fear. You can use the example of the folks that are scared of the dark or swimming in a dark river or even swimming in an ocean. You don't know what's there. It's the unknown, and you can't see it, so you're scared of it. And we're dealing with much the same situation with this COVID 19 Coronavirus, threat to our health, our family, our friends, our nation in general. And I want to help you guys hopefully get through that fear and understand maybe how to get through that a little bit better. So if we know that fear is a lack of knowledge or understanding, what do we got to do? Well, we got to go and educate ourselves. So that's step one to go out and get some really good education on what it is that you're facing, having an understanding of it and a feeling of preparedness, so you can now take action. Action is the thing that flies in the face of fear. And so I get educated. I start to feel a couple of things. I start to feel a little bit more confidence, like now I kind of know what I'm dealing with. And the one thing that we don't know at this point in time and over history, as people listen to this podcast, they'll know the answer to that. But how long is it? Two weeks? Is it a month? Is it two, three months, six months that we're going to be dealing with this, to this level of fear and anxiety and worry. And so knowing that. That. That is an issue we have to educate ourselves on what do we do in those particular situations? What do we do if it's this way or that way? What am I going to do as a person? You start to educate yourself on how you might be able to resolve those issues and you start to feel a little confident, like, hey, I've got a bit of a plan. I wore you guys that are listening to this can't see it, but the ones that are watching it on YouTube video, you can see I've got my strategy shirt on today. And I'm a big believer in strategy. Any obstacle that gets in my way, I have this kind of opportunity, mindset. I look at it as this challenge or this puzzle, maybe a game like chess, and there's an answer for it. I just haven't figured it out yet. And so when this all hit, we coach contractors, we help contractors believe in themselves to believe in us and hopefully believe that there's a higher power out there with a plan. When all this hit, we decided to get to work. We went hard to work and we started doing research, we started getting educated, we started learning what's going on, we started thinking about what's going to happen in the future. And a lot of the what ifs and what do we do if this happens? And we put together a plan. We put together a plan for our business. We put together a plan for a lot of contractors, businesses to help them through this, to make this transition into being a virtual contractor instead of the face to face type contractor that we have been for so long. And by doing that and getting a little bit of a strategy and a plan to it and starting to take some actions towards it, to be honest with you, my mind hasn't been too much on the could haves and the maybes and the what ifs. Right. I can only worry about the thing that I know, and if I don't know, I'm going to wake up every day and I'm going to get to work and I'm going to take another step forward. A lot of people, you know, look at this as the situation of a battle. Okay, we have this battle, there's an enemy attacking us. And who are you going to be in this? Are you going to be the person that runs from the battle or are you going to run into the battle and defend? And I'm a big believer in running into the battle. You also hear that same analogy with the fire, right? Who runs from the fire and who runs into the fire to save somebody? And I think as human beings, we tend to be in smaller situations, the people that will run from, but in bigger situations, our backbone stiffens. We band together, we work hard together, and we're awful creative. And so when you're faced with something like this, your mindset becomes extremely important. It's actually the thing I'm most worried about in this whole entire situation. I am not worried about catching the coronavirus or the flu or any of that kind of stuff. I'm not really worried about getting sick. I'm worried about my own mindset as well as many other people. I have pretty good fortitude when it comes to mindset. I'm inherently a positive person. But there are things that are creeping in and there are things that, you know, you've got a business and you got people to pay and family to take care of. And I'm sure all of you, even those of you are saying, I'm not worried about any of that stuff secretly in the back of your mind, those things are there. And so how do we shift that mindset and not let it take hold of us? One of those things I strongly believe in is faith spiritually. And I spend time in prayer, spend time reading the word. And that gives me confidence. I educate myself that, hey, it's all going to be okay no matter which way it turns out. I look at it as like, hey, either way, I'm good. And so that gives me faith, that gives me confidence, and it gives me belief. And that's really the order in which you take care of this fear situation. The first thing I got to do, as we said, was to educate ourselves, get some education, understand what you're dealing with, prepare for possibly what the worst case scenarios are, but take another step forward and go to that battle every day. The second part of it is, once I get some education, now I have some knowledge, and now that I have that knowledge, I start to gain some confidence. When I start to gain some confidence, I start to believe. And that's what we've got to do as individuals, human beings, business owners, leaders, stewards of an industry. Whatever your role is out there in this wide world of ours, you have a choice. You have a choice that you can be the person that people look to in times like these, or you can be the person that, you know, crawls behind a rock and hides. Put your head in the sand like an ostrich. I'd rather be an eagle. That's really kind of the attitude I'm taking with this. And I hope that this unusual contractor radio podcast is going to help you with this. This thing of fear. Many of us have it. I was very fortunate. I don't know why I am wired the way that I am, because most of my is not. But I've had Very little sense of fear in my life. I think it has a lot to do with my faith, but it also has to just do with who I am and how I'm wired as a person. So I want to speak to you guys that maybe have a little bit more fear, and you're not necessarily wired that way. That I believe in you. I believe in the fact that you can stand up. I believe that you can take that step forward and then another, and then another, and then another. You think about it, if everybody that listens to this podcast, as they download it and listen to it, comes out with that attitude and starts to spread, that it too will become viral. You, too, can show people that you can adapt and overcome. As the Marines would say, necessity. It's the mother of invention. And we've got some necessity right now, and we're going to have to get really creative. When we get creative, one of the things that we need to really consider is curiosity. Be curious, like, can you solve this puzzle? And if I did, how would I go about doing it? Put myself in the shoes of whoever it is you interact with. Us as contractors, we interact with two main people. Normally we deal with either a homeowner or a property owner on the commercial side. So put yourself in their shoes. Understand where they're coming from. They're really in four different places. They're scared to death. That's one. They're like, literally like self quarantine. I want to be around anybody. And then there's kind of like what I call stage two. There is worry there and concern, but not necessarily fear, because they've started to educate themselves. But they're still there, right? They still have some of that concern. Then you have the third group. And this third group is what I call the oblivious group. They're like, whatever, America, we're going to be fine. And I'm, you know, it's my life. I'm going to live it, and I'm not having anybody tell me how to live it. Well, folks, that's taking risks that really are pretty unnecessary right now. There's this concept of flatten the curve or flatten the hockey stick. And if we don't act responsibly and if we don't do things that we should do based on the guidance from people that know a lot more than we do, our medical system will be taxed extremely in a very short period of time. This is very contagious. It moves pretty fast, and it will tax our medical system. If our medical system crashes, the next thing to Crash is our economy. If that crashes, we're going to have a really tough time coming back from it. So keep your heads calmer. Heads prevail, they just do. And so keep your heads, understand your social distancing, being responsible. Stay away from people that are older. You guys have heard a lot of this already, but don't be irrational and don't be scared and don't be fearful. I'm actually like, hey, I'm going to get outside a little bit. I'm going to go fishing. That's a singular sport. I can go play some golf, I can go hiking and spend some time in nature and I can do some things and hear some things that I may not have been listening to before because my head was too far down and my focus was too focused on business and what is going on there. So maybe this is a little bit of a wake up call. Maybe this is a situation where we need to take time for ourselves and we're getting that message loud and clear to engage, engage with our families, engage with our friends, engage with our loved ones, engage with ourselves and really listen. When you do that, you're going to find that the fear just ebbs away really quickly and you can get back to doing what it is that you do. Great. And as contractors, we help homeowners and property owners get their lives back to the way they want, redo their homes, provide value, solve problems that we are the answer for. We can't just stop doing that. Those problems are still going to exist. Roofs are going to leak, windows are going to break, gutters are gonna fall down. All of those things are gonna still happen. Those of you that do insurance work, the claims are still gonna be made and hailstorms are gonna happen and tornadoes and hurricanes and we can't just crawl in a hole and leave those people without any help. So we have a responsibility as good stewards of our industry to step up. And in order to do so, we're gonna have to adapt. We're gonna have to learn new ways to generate business from a digital and marketing aspect and the get really creative there because that's the key. Like we got to be really creative on that side and then we've got to understand how to communicate because not everybody communicates the same way. And some people like text, some like email, some like phone calls, some are technically savvy enough to do a zoom call or go to meeting or something like that. Others like FaceTime and Skype. And we got to educate ourselves on all of those things so we can make it easy for them to talk to us. We got to meet them where they are. I mentioned the three categories. I'll mention the fourth category right now of fear or the groups that I see out there. The last one is the conspiracy theorist. And to be honest with you, I'm not a big believer in that stuff. There is a part of me that goes, man, maybe that could be true, but I'll meet you where you are. You know, if that's the way you feel and you see it that way, I understand why you might. I can see how some of that might be believable and at least in the information that you have or believe that you have. And so I'll meet you there and we'll talk and we'll have a conversation. But if I dismiss people and where they're at in those four different areas, I remove the ability to not only make a sale, if that's what you're after, but I remove the ability to help another fellow human being, which is really what it's all about, you know, reaching out and being great. It's that simple. Just be great. I wish I could just, like, get everybody to listen to this all at one time and go, hey, we're going to be great. We're going to be champions. That's one of the concepts we talk about here, that we have another podcast about this. But not just a champion that wins, but a champion of something. And we need to champion right now confidence, creativity, and the ability to adapt in the face of adversity. I know you guys can do it. I believe in you. I believe in us. And I do believe that there's a higher power that's guiding all this and saying, hey, listen up, folks. You need to pay attention. So I felt a need today to hop on and talk about fear. I'm going to do a few more of these. I think as we all go through this together, we're going to talk a little bit deeper about mindset. But the one thing I will say about mindset today is don't look at this as an obstacle or a terrible thing or something that's going to ruin your life or any of that kind of stuff. Look at it as an opportunity. Many of the biggest businesses, you know, Microsoft, Google, Apple, cnn, Disney, all started in a recession. They all saw opportunity where everybody else saw failure. You have that opportunity to sit in front of you right now. I don't know what your situation is. You may have lost your job. You may not have any clients. You may be totally word of mouth and nobody wants to have a word with you right now. I don't know where those things are for you, but I know there's an answer. I know there's an answer. If you'll just take the time to think a little bit that you can come up and resolve the problems that are facing you. If you need help with that, you can certainly reach out to myself. You can email me@Head CoachOntractor, Coach Pro, and I'll step up and help you in any way I can. We can also help you to become that virtual contractor that you're looking to be. Like I said, we've been working really, really, really hard the last two weeks, and we unveiled our Contractor Evolve program yesterday. And this program, you just go to contractorevolve.com it'll tell you all about it. There's a couple of different videos on there. There's an explanation about everything. There's a contact form if you need to talk to us more. There's also a button to go ahead and get signed up. We're doing this at an incredibly affordable rate. Our coaching is usually quite expensive, but this is much more affordable for you because we want to be there by your side to get you through this. We do not want to be looked at as opportunist. We want to be looked at as somebody that, in the face of adversity, stepped up, and that's what we're doing. We can only have 100, so first hundred in, that's where it's going to be. When somebody drops, we'll add somebody from the waiting list. We look forward to walking this journey with you guys. I look at it as a challenge. I look at it as something that's going to be a puzzle and in a chess match, and we're going to win. I got no doubt. And so are those that are alongside with us. So thank you for hanging out with us today. Thank you for taking time to listen to this podcast. Thank you for being a fan of Contractor Radio and Contractor Coach Pro and what we do. We love you guys. We believe in you, and I hope I helped you with your mindset today that this is not an obstacle. This is not a do or die situation. It's an opportunity. Start thinking, open your eyes, take the blinders off, start studying, researching, and we'll all get through this together because we're great. Have a good day. We'll talk to you later. That's this week's episode of Contractor Radio.