Closing Down the Excuse Factory with Motivational speaker Ryan Dohrn

Hey friends, thanks so much for having me. Appreciate that, appreciate that. All right, let's have some fun together today. My goal is really, really simple. I want to help you, empower you to take your personal lives, more importantly, your professional lives, to places that you never dreamed possible. All right, pop quiz for you. Here we go. Here's some clues, okay? They are everywhere. What we're talking about today, they are everywhere. They're there when you wake up in the morning. They're there when you need to get back to work after eating lunch. They're there when it's time to end your workday. They are literally around every corner. Here really is kind of the funny thing. They've been around since the first man walked the earth. Even funnier, despite the progress of technology across our vast worlds, they're going to still be here, friends, when the lights go out. No matter what you believe, when the lights go out, they will still be here too. Amen. Now, by now you might maybe have an idea of what it is that I'm talking about. What do you think? Cockroaches. Cockroaches? No. Who said cockroaches? No. Here we go. 7 letters. The word we're talking about starts with the letter E, ends with the letter S. You probably read about it. Okay, there we go. Excuses. You're right. Is it— what is it, in your book? Okay, it's in your program. All right, excuses. Excuses, they are everywhere, friends. They're there when you wake up in the morning. Oh man, I'm late. My USB charger wasn't plugged into the wall. Excuses. They're there when you need to get back to work after lunch. Oh man, I'm sorry, boss. Sorry about that. It took forever to order our lunch. Oh, I'm so sorry. They're there when it's time to end the workday. Oh man, you know, I'll just wait until tomorrow. Excuses are literally, friends, around every corner. Here's the funny thing. They've been around since the first man and woman walked the earth. Typical man, right? It's not my fault. Eve, you told me not to eat that apple. Even, even funnier, despite the progress of technology, Across our vast world, excuses are still going to be here, friends, when the lights go out. Oh man, I, I— did you not set that light bill to autopay? No matter what you believe, when the lights go out, they will still be here. Excuses. Benjamin Franklin said, he that is good for making excuses is seldom good. for anything else. The Wolf of Wall Street, you know him, Jordan Belfort, said the only thing standing between you and your goal is that baloney story you keep telling yourself as to why you can't achieve it. My wife, who lost over 100 pounds, she said once you lose your excuses, that is when you'll find the results that you truly desire. The crazy part about this conversation, friends, is that excuses are such a common occurrence in life, in love, and at work, it almost seems like giving an excuse is just a part of normal life. Some people, friends, are so good at giving excuses that they themselves believe the excuses as being true, or they'll call them the new normal. I mean, that phrase just gets me going. It's like new normal. It's when you can't change something, you call it the new normal and you use these dumb air quotes. It's a new normal. Come on, friends, we're better than that. It's not it is what it is, it is what you make it. How about this? Excuses are the lies that we tell ourselves so that it doesn't have to be our fault. That's right. If we're really being honest with ourselves, excuses are just well-planned lies that stop us from achieving all that we are meant to achieve. We can be bigger than we've ever thought before. Excuses, they stop our teams from realizing the results that we all know we can undoubtedly obtain. Excuses, friends, they stop our companies from being all they can be. They stop you from being all you can be. So here's the real question of the day: how do we break an unbreakable cycle that's been around literally since the beginning of time? I think it's easy— stop lying. Now, even I admit it's going to be harder than that. But if we pay attention today, we sink in deep and really look for things we can do to be successful, we can really take our lives to places we never dreamed possible. Friends, the first step is to realize as a person, as a team, or as a company, we've got a problem on our hands. Let's just admit it. We've got people on the excuse bus. That bus rolls up to the front door of our office every day. The problem might be bad enough that we're actually managing an excuse factory, a finely tuned excuse-making machine. Friends, it cranks out excuses at a rate so high, even you are surprised when things get done on time and on budget. We have to admit that we let this situation get to where it is Friends, it really is up to us, all of us, to fix it. My thought today is 6 different ways, 6 different ways that we can shut down the excuse factory and attain all that we desire from ourselves, our teams, and our companies. Grab a pen. Here we go. I'm going to give you 6 ideas I think that you're going to love that you can sink your teeth into. You ready? Yes. Idea number 1, jot it down: identifying repeatable patterns of success and then repeating those patterns. Identifying repeatable patterns of success and then repeating those patterns. Some of you knew that I grew up in the Midwest and worked in Chicago and spent my college years in Chicago. I've been— boy, I've been a diehard sports fan and Chicago fan since I was just a small kid. In Chicago, though, friends, it's only been recently that we've had a lot to talk about. But one thing most Chicago fans share in common is really our blatant disdain for the former Patriots quarterback, now with the Buccaneers, Mr. Tom Brady. Now, is it his GQ good looks? Not for me. It is his ability to identify what is working And repeat it. It wasn't that long ago we saw the Buccaneers put 23 points on the scoreboard, and I think the Buccaneer fans were pretty excited. What did he do? He brought talent, friends, but he also brought repeatable patterns of success. I mean, the guy has enough Super Bowl rings to make the boys at Pawn Stars envious. When things work out, we all need to identify those things and we need to repeat them, the things that work. I know it sounds so obvious, yet most people just don't keep track. Jot it down, friends. You have to identify things that work, repeatable patterns of success, and then you've got to repeat those patterns. This is by far the best way, in my opinion, to reduce excuses. 45 to 50%. Always be looking for things that work. Repeat those and share those in life, in love, at work. I bring my wife home flowers, what do I get? A smile, maybe even a kiss. It works. Repeatable pattern of success. Whatever. Who's laughing over there? Repeatable pattern of success, sir. I was recently working with a salesperson. He said, Ryan, I've tried some of your ideas and, you know, I just want to tell you, man, I'm just not happy with the results. And that always kind of surprises me when I hear that from people. He said, I'll be honest with you, Ryan, I'm done trying. I asked him for a little more detail because I was a little surprised. He said, Ryan, I'm calling on people like you said at 11 AM. I gave him this advice because I try to call on people at 11 and 4. Most people don't book meetings at 11 o'clock because they don't want to interrupt going to lunch. Most people don't book meetings at 4 4 o'clock because they don't want to interrupt going to happy hour or going home. I said, okay, good. That's great. So I said, what's the problem? He said, only 8 people called me back. I'm like, wow, out of 25 people? No, he said, out of 10. I was like, huh? That's an 80% response rate. I mean, that's unreal. Did you tell the rest of your team? Well, no. I thought I needed to be at 100%. Hello? This guy was being totally serious. Even when obvious patterns present themselves, we often overlook them. Since you can't be everywhere, you and your entire team need to be looking everywhere for things that are working every day and then sharing, because the rising of the tide should bring up all ships. Even ships with a couple of holes will eventually still rise up with the tide. Then you want to be sharing those things with each other. So here's my question for you. Whether you're in sales or marketing, whatever the circumstance is, do you have a mechanism in place for sharing success within your organization? Now I'm not talking about the CEO sharing success. I'm talking about everybody from the bottom to the top. Is there a place where success stories are shared? If the answer is no, Jot this down, take it back, you might just be a hero. Get one in place. Jot it down, friends. Identifying repeatable patterns of success and repeating them. A lot of times it's the obvious things that will make the biggest difference in your life. All right, idea 2 of 6. Now we've identified things that are working. Now let's identify repeatable patterns of failure. And then make a plan to fix them. All right, jot that down. Identifying repeatable patterns of failure, then making a plan to fix or remove those things from your life. All right, pause for a second. I want everybody to think about 2 things that are currently happening in your life at work or at home or whatever. Identify those 2 things, and then I want you to jot down a little subscript. What are you going to do to try to change that pattern, to get on a different frequency or whatever it is? All right, you heard me right. I coach over 300 people every year. I've personally trained over 20,000 professionals in 7 countries, and I see it all the time— people repeating patterns of things that fail. When I tell them to identify repeatable patterns of failure and make plans to remove these things from their life, You'd think that I'd ask them to walk up and slap a stranger. When an excuse is presented, the gut response should always be, okay, what can I or what can we do different to not have that happen again? I mean, honestly, do people actually repeat things that don't work? The answer is— You got it. Yes, they do. Like capital Y-E-S. Yes. The reason for this, pretty simple. I'm gonna be real with you guys today. Your mom, your dad, your grandmother, they lied to you. Okay, maybe, maybe lying's— maybe lying's a little strong. They may have misled you a little bit. Sorry if I'm breaking your heart today. I'm here to be real with you today. Since birth, you've probably been taught 4 primary life lessons, or at least I hope you, you did. Glad you're here. How many of you were taught since birth to brush your teeth morning and night and shower daily? Raise your hands. Not everybody's raising their hands. Okay, and they're sitting next to you, sir. Just see, maybe pass them a Tic Tac, just saying. Okay. Life lesson number 2, you probably learned the Golden Rule. Repeat it with me. You Y'all know it. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. All right. Some of you don't know the Golden Rule. Okay. All right. All right. Lesson number 3, don't talk to strangers. Was everybody in the room taught don't talk to strangers? Okay. We all know that one. My parents were really worried about me because I had this tendency to always talk to strangers. I love strangers. That's why I'm in the sales business. All right. Life lesson number 4, you were probably taught. If you put your mind to it and work really hard at it, you can be anything that you want to be. Well, I mean, sort of. When I was young, I had visions of being an NFL running back like Walter Payton for the Chicago Bears. I mean, man, I tried and tried, and I just— it just wasn't going to happen for me. I mean, I really tried. It's not a lie per se, it's just a little misguided. Excuses are often born from people that keep doing something over and over, and they feel in their heart of hearts if they just work harder at it, they're going to make it happen. All the time people will say things to me like, you know, Ryan, I'll tell you what, man, I'm looking to work smarter and not harder. Hey, as we live here, friends, in a post-COVID world, I'm telling you right now, boy, you can be really smart, but if you're not willing to put in the reps If you're not willing to do the work, I'm telling you right now, you're going to have to work harder now than ever before if you're going to get over that hump. When they are failing, they're like, I'm just not trying hard enough. Listen for that on your team. Sure, in some cases, people do need to work a lot harder. But it's really kind of like telling a joke, and at the end of the joke, nobody laughs. If you tell a joke or a story, And nobody laughs at the end, and you find yourself saying, well, I guess that you had to be there, it's really not a very good joke, not a very funny story. If you find yourself in the same situation day in and day out, are you there for lack of trying or because something in that situation is just out of sync? Jot it down, friends. Identifying repeatable patterns of failure. Failure, and then setting up a mini plan to fix those things and get them out of your life. Your eyes have to really be open. You've got to really be looking for these things on a daily basis. Going back to that guy that was only closing 80%, get real with yourself or a member of your team. Identify what's not working, drill in on the problem, drill in on the Focus on the excuse. Be realistic about what's occurring. Is there a pattern? Is there a pattern that you can follow? Is it good? Is it bad? Focus on the 3 things to change. What's the issue? How are we going to remove it? And then why in the world are we even doing this? What's the issue? How will we remove it or fix it? And why are we doing this? Don't forget the why. The why is an important part. Just like identifying good patterns, we need to work hard to identify bad patterns as well.