PRIDE is Keeping You From Business Success!
Mike Andes says pride stops you from learning, and learning is what makes you better at sales and dealing with people. He breaks down concrete skills: eye contact, reading someone by touching their arm, handshake distance, how to talk someone down when they're angry. All learnable.
Chapters
I was gonna say a couple things. So I know last week and the week before we did peer reviews and then he talked with Liz. And based upon my discussion with Liz afterwards, a lot of us have had on our reviews in terms of like improving in terms of listening to Audible audiobooks, stuff like that. So I wanted to kind of go over a couple things. Like, I really feel like the main reason why most people won't reach their kind of full potential is really like at the end of the day, if you actually tear it down, it's pride. And I think they know more what an author or anybody can share with them and really give to them. And they feel like, oh, I know everything. I don't need to listen to audio books, I don't need to listen to podcasts. And I don't think like some people don't listen for other reasons. But my experience is the people who, whether it be listen to podcasts, listen to other people learning from other individuals. The main reason people don't get ahead in life is because they are proud and because they just, it limits their potential. Because there is so much for us to learn from other people, whether it be on an audiobook, on podcast, each other, church, family, whatever it might be, and the person that blocks themselves off to that blocks them off from so much that they could learn. And so for someone to be like, I don't need to improve myself, you're basically saying that I'm better than every other person on this planet in every single category of life. And the people who do good things in this world, people get ahead or break out of their families where they've always been are the people who deadly themselves to learning from other people. It's like hands down, if you look at people who break out of poverty, if you look at people whose family has never gone to school and they go out and get a PhD, it's the people who decided that they were going to listen to other people and they were going to be humble enough. And it takes a level of humility to learn. And so a lot of the things that, like when I went back on our peer reviews that we need to improve on is all stuff that can be taught. It's not like this is a God given talent to become more professional. You can do things to become more professional. It just takes humility to be like, yeah, I can improve in an area and I'm gonna make decided steps to get there. It's not like some people take a massive pride hit when someone's like, oh, you should have better eye contact, or you should shake someone's hand better or speak better in public. Those are all negative things. But you can learn all of those things, whether it be books, whether it be courses, whatever it is. And so all of these things can be taught for some of you. It said talking with the customer. There's things you can lear. I'll do a quick example here. Here, I'll do this for you, because I'm gonna do it on you. Okay. This is something that a lot of you who are here. A couple years ago, I actually did an example on this, and that is just like, a couple years ago, I realized that if I'm gonna start selling a lot of stuff, that I have to get better at selling. And so we got tons of books in the audible for selling, and a lot of that has to do with that. A few years ago, I was like, I have to get better at this. And one of the things to do when you're in person is the way you interact with that human being. And whether it be eye contact, whether it be the way that you touch them, the words that you. And so I'll show you one of the things I learned, and I know I shared this a couple years ago, but when you're talking to somebody, when you look at their arm, the degree at which you are comfortable with an individual, the closer you can get to their hand without them pulling away. If I go to a random, strange. Put your hands up, and I went like this, they'd be like. They'd pull back right away, right? And so you can gauge.
How close you are to somebody in terms of how comfortable they are just by where you touch them on their arm. I know with COVID this makes things a little difficult, but, like, especially with clients, if they were mad, this is a great. Like, if someone's mad or you're trying to sell them something, this is a great tactic to use. So first things first, you look at like, you aren't asking me as much, but when I shake his hand, I go like this, right? That is a much closer connection than this, both in proximity as well as the feeling he gets when I'm like this. Right now we're talking, and he's mad about something. Now I might go like this, and my touch is elbow, right? I'm closer, and I'm watching to see if he pulls away. If he pulls away, I need to reestablish the fact that he's not comfortable right now. Right. The next thing is. But don't worry, Lee. I'm make sure I take care of that. Like, his hand will be out of his pocket.
But don't worry about it, right? If I'm like trying to de escalate a customer, I'm going to start here, I'm going to work here. They don't even know what you're doing, right? So it's like, hey, Lee, good to meet you. The office said that you were super mad about something. I just wanted to come back. I'm really, really sorry about that. And I promise you, like, we're going to come back, we'll take care of it, we'll go through the property again. And that was my bad. I'm really sorry that. And so please forgive me. Let me make it right. That is going to very quickly de escalate and you can monitor where they're at. And so he was very open to, like, me obviously, being here because we know each other, but I'm looking for a flinch back or someone pulling back and be like, okay, I need to re establish where I'm at. But that all can be learned, right? And so whether you look at somebody who's like, on a stage, whether you look at somebody who's on a field and they're like, oh, they're so great, everything they did was learn, whether it be from a coach, whether it be from a course, whether it be from some way of learning. And so if there's something you want more in life, you just gotta be humble enough to realize, I don't know what it is, like, I don't know what to do and I'm gonna go learn, right? And so for someone to be so proud to say, like, I do not need to listen, I do not need to hear from other people or educate myself is like absolute fallacy. Most of you know, I think the education system is pretty messed up, but education itself is extremely important. Like, I don't think the educational system that we currently have in the United States is that great. But I promise, you listen to audiobooks, listen podcasts, listen to each other. Trying to just absorb information is so valuable. And that's what's going to get you out of, like, whatever you want to get out of. If you want to get out of a financial situation, it's just in learning, it's just in knowing things. It's in proving yourself right. If you don't do that, like, you talk, you listen to people who always think they know everything. They never get anywhere in life. Like, if they think they know everything, you talk to them. Today, five years from today they're still in the same spot, same job, making the same amount of money, same relationships. They haven't improved whatsoever. Why? Because they think they know everything. And so I really encourage you, like even if you think you're good at something, like be humble enough to realize you're not the best and that you can learn and you can improve, it's the only way to become better. And so if there's things that were on your peer review like oh, I need to improve at that, that's like the first step to realize hey, I need to improve in the area and just be really humble and just realize like I gotta go learn and get make myself better. Like I think I'm really good at selling things but like every sing day I'm listening to books and trying to improve still because I don't think I'm like half as the potential of what I could be. And so I hate to see potential in somebody and not being further maximized. And a lot of times it has to do with just pride, like pride and not being willing to learn from other people even if they are not as good as you. And so I just want to throw that out there. Any thoughts on that?
Other people usually like to talk it.
