Mastering the Inner Game with Anthony Natoli

I think of it in three simple words. It's awareness, acceptance and courage. So you have to have the awareness that there's area of your life that is not up to standard. And then you need to be okay with saying, hey, I do have this problem that you need to have courage to ask for help. And so then I started reading the books. But I wouldn't just read the books, I would talk about it with people and I would get perspective on, hey, what does this mean? And then I would implement it right in my life.

When did it really click for you that the inner game was actually winning, where you had to focus more versus just the external Go, go, go, go, go. Like when did that switch for you?

Yeah, so I think early on in my sales career I was very focused on like making a ton of money, being a top of the leaderboard. And those external end outcomes were really driving how I felt about myself as a person. And it actually dictated how I showed up with prospects. And it forced me to like grind my way to the top. And as a result, I, I didn't feel great outside of work. And a lot of things spilled over into my personal life and I started to, you know, execute on very self sabotaging behaviors. And I got to a point at 26 where my life was just completely unmanageable. I was seeing success at work, but my personal life was complete, utter chaos. You know, I was 60 pounds overweight, I was six figures in debt, so I was making good money, but I was spending it all, you know, gambling and partying and all this stuff. And I had this narrative about myself that if I didn't perform well at work, then I wasn't good enough. And so, you know, I got to a point of like this rock bottom where, you know, I lost a couple of deals. And I realized that the way that I was showing up with prospects was super needy. I was insecure. I would get those emails that would be negative and I would, you know, I would react in a way that was from a scarcity mindset. And so that moment for me was really when my life outside of work was just complete and utter chaos. And I realized that I had to think and live in a, in a different way. It just wasn't sustainable for me anymore.

Was it a rock bottom moment or a light bulb moment? Like, did you hit bottom? And it was like, oh, should I have to change things? Or did you like hear something that made you go, oh, like this is a better way to approach things? Like, what was that trigger?

Yeah, it Was definitely a rock bottom moment for me. That was the catalyst for the light bulb to go off. I kind of sat there and said, wow, I had no idea how crazy that my life had gotten. And I knew that I needed to take the steps in order to think and live a different way. And so I viewed it as like, I had two choices, right? I could go down the path that I had been going down and get the same results, or I can go down that uncomfortable route that I had always, you know, removed myself from and actually take that first step to, you know, making change. So I, I think of it in three simple words. It's awareness, acceptance, and courage. So you have to have the awareness that there's a area of your life that is not up to standard. And then you need to be okay with saying, hey, I do have this problem. Then you have, you need to have courage to ask for help. And so then I started reading the books. But I wouldn't just read the books. I would talk about it with people and I would get perspective on, hey, what does this mean? And then I would implement it right in my life, whether it's, you know, in therapy with a family, family member, with a friend, you know, is not only reading the books or, you know, going to therapy, but actually doing the work and taking action, which is where.

I wanted to take this next.

Right.

So it's like, okay, so you have, have the moment, you have the realization, you start to leave. Like, let's talk about some of the action steps you took then to start to turn things around to actually, again, work on that inner game. Because it's one of those things that I do. It just gets talked about a lot, which is great. But then it's kind of like this vague, like, okay, but now what? So let's talk about the different things that you did take action on that you felt really helped craft that inner game for you.

Yeah. So I think for anyone that is going through anything or has made it out the other side of adversity, you start to have this different perspective and this gratitude about where you're at because you don't want to go back to where you were. So for me, what I did is I literally wrote down how I felt and the characteristics of myself at the time when my life wasn't up to standard. And I wrote all those things out, right? And then I wrote down what is kind of like my year, my five year, my ten year plan, and who is that version of Anthony? What, what characteristics does he embody? How does he show up with his family, how does he show up on prospect and customer calls? And who is that person? Like, what drives him? And then I started to, little by little, try to embody that future version of myself every single day. So that was the first thing, you know, meditation that I'm huge on because I wasn't comfortable sitting with my own thoughts. And I think a lot of times we push down those thoughts and those feelings and those emotions, and then we tend to explode. So I have become really big on getting comfortable with my feelings and going deeper on what they actually mean. And so, for example, like, two weeks ago, I had this comparison nightmare, right? I was comparing. Comparing myself to other people as. As I've been ramping up at Lattice. And instead of letting that dictate how I showed up with my manager, my teammates, on calls, being super needy, and letting. Letting that dictate how I showed up, I took a step back and I really tried to understand, like, hey, is this just a story that I'm telling myself or is this reality? And so I think the meditation helps with that mindfulness every single day. And then I. I journal every. Every morning. And so what I do is I take personal. I call it personal inventory, right? What happened yesterday, what am I focused on today? And then all of those days for me add up into weeks. And then I can reflect on the weeks, and then I can reflect on the months. So I think those are three takeaways that, you know, really helped me start. And, and how I continue to show up with that, with that inner game first.

And then let's flip it real quick for people. Listening is like, then when this happened, what did happen externally, right? So, okay, so you started working on this. You start doing your journal, you start doing meditation. Did you notice a change in your results or were the results the same, but you were just better as a person? Like, what happened then externally?

Yeah, so what happened was my relationships with others got better. The results ended up really just taking care of themselves. So I. I thought about it like this. It's like I had been so focused on trying to control the end result that I was ignoring the things that would actually get me there, right? And so I, I reversed it. I started focusing on the controllable inputs and, and letting go of the outcome. Because I realized from my experience that I can't control if a deal is going to close. I can't control if someone's going to be rude to me on a call. I can't control if I'm going to get an Email that says we're not moving forward. What I can control is how I respond. And so what happened was not only did I feel more calm and more at peace and more serene in how I showed up every day, I got on discovery calls, and now I wasn't so focused on, like, this needs to move to a demo or my manager is going to think I'm going to suck. I was focused on, hey, is this person even the right fit? What's going on in their world, and how can I actually be here to serve them rather than serve myself? So it flipped from me worrying about what mattered to me and what problems I needed to solve and versus what problems can I help others solve? Right. And that changed the game for me completely.

Got it.

Yeah.

Because I think that's the key in this too, is, like, they're definitely connected. Right. You know, one leads to the other. And so, like, talk. Talk about the relationship side because I think it's important that people understand this. When you say, like, your relationships got better, what does that mean?

Yeah. So I was known for being very chippy, right? I took things super personal, and I. I was not pleasant to be around because I was so insecure with who I was as a person. And I seeked validation from others constantly because at my core, I had childhood trauma that led me to believe this narrative about myself that I just wasn't good enough. And so I needed energy from people, and I drained it from them to give me that validation. And so when I say my relationships got better, I all of a sudden realized that take all the external out of the picture. I'm good enough at my core. Right. And so that completely changed how I showed up with my family, my loved ones, my friends, my prospects, my customers, because I wasn't showing up in that needy, insecure way. I was just comfortable with who I was. And people feel that energy they feel when someone's comfortable with who they are, and they want to be surrounded by those type of people. So that's really what changed for me.