S2Ep9: Mental Toughness Mindset – Tips on how to create an unbeatable mind

In this episode, Allan welcomes mental toughness coach Chris Pierce. Chris is an expert on teaching performance enhancement skills to professional surfers.  Chris discusses his life experiences, and how his path led him to be a mental toughness coach for soldiers and salesmen.  He also explains how mental toughness is unique to each individual. Allan and Chris discuss that everyone has their own specific challenges, which is why the key to mental toughness is not comparing yourself to others.  This is an episode you don’t want to miss.

 

Allan has started and grown several multi million dollar businesses, his mission is to help
you do the same. Welcome to the Business Growth Pod, building the future, one
entrepreneur at a time.
You know, for me talking about my own weaknesses, numbers have never been a big
friend of mine. And so, you know, accounting, if I were to do something along that lines,
like, I would really struggle, and I accept and acknowledge that. And so I would agree with
you that Yeah, we all have different strengths and different weaknesses. And one of the
big things with mental toughness is to not compare yourself to others, because
comparison often deteriorates your ability to perform rather than enhances it.
Hey, everyone, welcome to the show. I’m Allan. I’m a family man and attorney and an
entrepreneur. Each week, we provide resources and advice to help build your business. Are
you ready? Then? Let’s go.
Everyone, welcome to the show today. We have with us today Chris Pierce. I’m excited to
chat with this gentleman. So he spent the last 10 years training mental toughness to
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professional surfers, special ops soldiers and Army Rangers. He’s kind of pivoted a little bit
transitioned into the business world a little more, but I’m excited to see what he has in
store for us today. So welcome to the show, Chris.
Thank you so much. I’m excited to be here.
So I love hearing about people’s stories. And I love asking just really vague and general
questions, because I’m interested to know what people think I mean, when I asked
something like that, and so do you mind just sharing your story with us? Sure.
Where to start? I think that, you know, I’m here talking about mental toughness. And so I
studied sports psychology, I got my master’s from Cal State Fullerton. When I started
school there, I had no idea what I wanted to study, my undergrad was in exercise science.
And so I just kind of took a bunch of classes and happened to stumble across a class
called philosophy of movement, taught by Ken ravizza, who’s kind of like a godfather in
applied sport psychology. So he kind of just talked all about, like, who cares about the
research, let’s do what helps people. And so I took that class, not really knowing what it
was. And I just fell in love with the idea of helping people to leverage their mind to
enhance their sport, enhance their performance, whatever it is that they’re doing. And so I
decided at that moment, like, it was really the first class that I took in his class that I was
like, This is what I want to do. And so from there, I really just, I grew up surfing. I love
surfing. That’s why I live in Hawaii. So I just went down to the beach in California during a
contest. I was like, I’m just going to start talking to people like, and so I did and ended up
meeting a guy named Kevin Dean, who’s a strength and conditioning coach for a whole
handful of pro surfers. And so that started me down the road of like, Oh, this can actually
become something. And so I did that for about three years, and met a lot of awesome
people helped a lot of people have seen a lot of people gain success in their endeavors in
surfing. And then we moved back out to Hawaii, had an opportunity Mehta, another
person that kind of led me down the road of the military. And so, really found out about
that and ended up in North Carolina, training special ops soldiers. I don’t know how many
times I had to pinch myself, because I was in places that nobody gets to see. And I just it
blew my own mind. You know, some of the things that those guys go through, and how
much that they put themselves through. Anyway, so I was in North Carolina for about a
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year and a half. And then there is another opening back out in Hawaii. And so took that.
I’ve got three kids, and they were all born out in Hawaii. And so Hawaii was home. So
spent about the last six years training soldiers out in Hawaii and just live in it up out there.
So then just at the beginning of 2020, I had a friend who was visiting out in Hawaii, who we
just hadn’t talked in years. And, you know, so we’re just having dinner catching up. And he
said, he was like, you need to do this with salesman, like, you could help so many people.
And so he’s like, why don’t we do a trial run. And so we did, and ended up helping the
some guys double their sales. And this is door to door sales. So knocking doors, you know,
really hard work. And so, not only did that happen, but I also kind of fell in love with it, I
realized these are highly motivated people, you know, they’re young, and just want to
make a difference in their own lives, they want to make a difference, you know, in the lives
that are families, and they want to push themselves and really push the limits of what
they’re able to do. And so I kind of just fell into this role of training, mental toughness for
salespeople, you know, without necessarily planning on it. But things have changed where
I’m doing this full time now. And just really, really enjoying it.
It’s funny that we’re kind of talking about cells, individuals in the same context as soldiers,
you know, Special Ops, you know, but it’s kind of true, right? I think there’s, you know,
varying levels of importance there. But, you know, and I think of, you know, mental
toughness is especially, and I don’t know so much about the military, but in terms of just
being a business owner, you know, door to door salesman, doing things that, you know,
where rejection is very commonplace happens a lot more frequently than the actual
success or closing of the sell. A lot of people think, Well, you know, either you have mental
toughness or you don’t, but I’ve gone through this process of seeing, like, think of it as
more of an evolution, right, that people start with whatever they start with, and they get
to choose. That’s the good news, folks, is that you get to choose this a little bit. Would you
agree with that? Oh,
completely? Well, it’s really funny, because when you look at like the research on
resilience, where they actually went and studied people, what they found is well, so funny
thing is they initially called it like, invincible and invulnerable, like people with mental
toughness are invincible, nothing can touch them, you know, they can do no wrong. And
after they did, you know, the research for a long time, what they found out is, it’s not that
they were invincible. It’s not that they were invulnerable, a lot of bad stuff happened to
these people. And so it wasn’t that they had life handed to them on a silver platter. And so
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they switch that term and started calling it ordinary magic. Because if you think about like
how a magician works, once you know how they do it, it’s not that exciting, because it’s
usually pretty simple things that they’re doing. You just don’t see it. And so people who
have mental toughness, it’s the same thing. It’s ordinary things, simple things that they’re
applying to the difficult things that are happening in their lives.
So have you. I’ve talked about him before, but if you ever heard of the iron cowboy,
I have a recently heard him speak at the door to door conference.
Okay, I think that’s where I heard him speak for the first time also. He’s such an interesting
guy. And I got to know him just a little bit, not very much, but read his book. And he just for
the listeners, this guy did 50 Ironman triathlons in 50 days in 50 different states. And, I
mean, I just bought, you know, that just boggles my mind, you know, for me to do. One
would be, you know, absolutely crazy. But in learning about his story, so he talks about
how he realized that he had this mental toughness, because he did this competition,
where I think he’s from Canada, he tried to stay on a ferris wheel for a certain amount of
time and whoever stayed on the Ferris wheel the longest one some type of price who a
radio show or something. And it was at that point, he won and realize it wasn’t that
difficult for him. Even though the weather was bad elements, people quit, you know, and
he was the one that ended up lasting the longest. And so he kind of developed his life you
know, the, the trajectory of his life after this, you know, what can I do with this mental
toughness and he’s done some amazing things. Obviously, but there’s some other aspects
of his life that he talks about in his book. And he talks about when he does public
speaking, that he’s not so mentally tough. And there were some things that not directly
comparable but very similar to my life, things that I’ve been able to accomplish that he
couldn’t write the entire time, I’m sitting here listening to all these things that he can do.
And it’s just blowing my mind. And I’m like, I can never do that. I can never do that. I can
never do that. And then he mentioned one thing that he didn’t necessarily finish that I
had. And I was like,
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What?
And so is this concept of mental toughness? Is this like a blanket concept? Or are there
things that people are really mentally tough with? and things that they’re not so mentally
tough with?
Yeah, I think that we all, you know, come into this world with different strengths and
different weaknesses, you know, and a lot of times mental toughness is associated with
physical toughness. You know, for me talking about my own weaknesses, numbers have
never been a big friend of mine. And so, you know, accounting, if I were to do something
along that lines, like, I would really struggle, and I accept and acknowledge that. And so I
would agree with you that Yeah, we all have different strengths and different weaknesses.
And one of the big things with mental toughness is to not compare yourself to others.
Because comparison often deteriorates your ability to perform rather than enhances it.
So I love that point. And I’ve talked before about how there’s, I want to delve into that.
And I want to kind of pick your brain about that. But I’ve talked before on this show about
how there’s good and bad comparison, right? Bad is the motivational bad is look at what
that guy’s doing. I can’t do that kind of what I was just saying about me in the iron
cowboy, right, that I was going down the wrong path. On the flip side of that there is man
look at what that guy is doing. If that guy can do something like that, then what’s my
limit? Right? Just not necessarily. And I think there’s a distinction there between
comparing and just seeing what’s possible, right? I think it’s really good to surround
yourself with people that do amazing things and have really big ideas. Because it opens
up our minds, right? I’m from a small town, 2000 people in Idaho, and my world was so
small when I was growing up. And as I left, and as I met new people, and as I lived in South
America, and all these different places, I was able to see, man, the world is big, there’s a
lot that someone can accomplish. And so I think that, you know, but I think you’re right, I
think that’s not necessarily comparing yourself to somebody else. It’s more of just seeing
what’s possible. And, you know, expanding your proverbial horizons, like,
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there are good and bad comparisons, you think about like, I don’t know, when with the the
mile being run under? What was it under four minutes. And then all of a sudden, like that
records broken, like, you know, I don’t know, a bunch of times, you know, in that same
year, and how a lot of times when records are broken, they’re broken, you know, quickly
thereafter. And I think that, it’s just important to note that there are some people that fall
in that category, where they get motivated, and they see what’s possible in there. So
they’re built up, and they’re like, Yes, I can do this, and they’re empowered. But there’s also
those who go the opposite way. And they have a tendency to look at that comparison as
like that space is taken. And so now I can’t do it. You know, it’s like this scarcity versus
abundance mindset.
Don’t you feel like, to some extent, all human beings do that? On some level where we
look at somebody in completely different circumstances, and we don’t necessarily, you
know, we don’t have all the information that helps us understand why that person is in
that situation that we feel as superior to us at that moment. But don’t you feel like we all
do it or even the people that have overcome it, to some extent that that’s kind of a knee
jerk reaction or a tendency?
Yeah, I think that, you know, the different aspects of our lives like there are some physical
people, I guess, like you talked about the iron cowboy, and how he is able to do these
very, very physically demanding feats. But he has other weaknesses, you know, things that
he can’t be necessarily as mentally tough on. And I think all of us are that way. Like we
have our strengths. And we have our weaknesses. And I mean, that’s one of the biggest
things that I do with clients is helping them understand which ones to leverage because I
mean, If you’re gonna just gonna focus all your time on building a weakness, you know,
you take it from a three to a five, you know, that might not make that big of a difference.
But if you work on a strength and you take it from an eight to a 10, now all of a sudden
your performance skyrockets, you know, that’s going to give you a lot better outcomes.
And so, my perspective is, I completely agree with you. But at the end of the day, my job is
simply to help people get results. And so it kind of doesn’t matter which aspect, they’re
weak or strong on, it’s, we’re gonna work on the one that’s going to get them the results.
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So what are some of your methodologies, especially if we can kind of frame it in terms of
business or in sales? What are you know, and I can imagine that there’s, you know,
specifics come into play very heavily here, but just generally speaking, you know, with the
law of averages, what are we talking about, like, you know, is this a, hey, go knock more
doors, or go get more rejection? Or is this a, hey, let’s use mental toughness to improve
our, you know, not just our effort, but our skill level?
Yeah, so I focus less on the actual sales techniques and things like that. And, and my focus
is more on the individual and on the person, and helping them to understand how they
function, what their habits are both good and bad, and how those habits either produce
results, or obstacles in their way of getting those results. And so it’s different depending on
the person. And so I see a lot of different things, you know, is a huge spectrum on, really
on, on the way that people go. But at the heart of everything that I do is simply that it’s
your mental toughness, it’s not mine, like this is not about me, this is about the individual.
And so the hardest part that people seem to have, is looking at themselves in the mirror.
And, like, understanding that maybe the way I’m doing things isn’t the best. And so I need
to make some changes, or maybe these habits that I have, are, you know, producing huge
obstacles. And so helping them understand themselves and how they function is really my
primary focus.
I think, I mean, that makes a lot of sense. because change is so hard for us. Right? I mean,
the links that we go to, to fight and discourage change in our lives is, you know, can be
pretty extreme. So it seems like that first hurdle for you, especially is, Hey, I have to get,
you know, these clients in a position where they’re going to allow me to or allow
themselves to change.
Yeah, and well, it’s funny, because so for every habit that you want to create, you typically
have at least two habits, that you’ve got a break. You know, like, there are other habits
that you’re doing that are stopping you from the one habit. And a lot of times, people just,
they struggle to see that, I guess, and, but helping them to see that is usually pretty eye
opening. Because often the obstacles that are in their way, there’s very few of them. It’s
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usually like pretty simple. At least for these super motivated and driven salesmen. It’s
usually that there are one or two simple things that are causing, you know, 80 to 90% of
the problems.
So how do you get to the honesty in this right? You just mentioned that there’s one or two,
you know, simple things that are causing the majority of these problems. How do you with
a client? What are you doing to kind of break them down and find out what the root of
those issues are? As opposed to just I feel like that would be a pretty hard and very
significant step?
Yeah. And I think it takes time, you know, it’s not like, oh, here’s the magic pill, take this,
and you’re, you’ll have all your dreams will come true. It’s a process. And one thing that,
like everybody’s got to acknowledge is that what works today might not work tomorrow.
So and what works right now might not work in five or 10 minutes. And so, understanding
that we dive into helping them understand that like, when you do science, right, you
change one variable at a time, otherwise you don’t know what’s causing the result. And so
we work the same by changing one variable at a time. And we address one thing at a
time. And sometimes they make those changes, and they don’t see huge results. And so
we understand now, okay, that might be a good habit, but maybe that’s not specifically
giving you the results that you need. Or maybe that’s not the specific obstacle that we
need to get out of the way. Let’s try something else. And so then we’ll move on, and they
should maintain that new helpful habit, but then also move on to trying something new.
And so it’s not like I know all the answers, because this is a person, this is a functioning
human who has a past and has experiences that they bring along with them. And so as far
as trusting me goes, I think it just comes down to like, it’s not about me, you know, this is
about them. And we’re gonna push and try to work on what gets results, you know, and
what we do. Sometimes it doesn’t, you know, and we’ll acknowledge that, and hopefully
learn from it, and then we’ll move on to the next thing.
It seems like it might be pretty commonplace for people that are trying to change
something in their life to, you know, get to a point where they, this time, they’re actually
going to lose weight, or this time, they’re actually going to, you know, give their job,
everything they’ve got or their relationship, everything they’ve got. I feel like, a lot of times,
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individuals already know the answer, maybe not all the time, maybe they don’t always
know what they need to do. But when you’re losing weight, it’s not rocket science, right?
Stop eating so much. hit the gym a little more, with your relationship, apologize every
once a while, in your business partnerships. Recognize all the work that your partner is
doing, you know, give them a high five every once a while. Do you agree with that, that a
lot of times, it’s not necessarily that the individual doesn’t know what they need to do, it’s
that they just don’t want to do it.
Yeah, so there’s a big push, like, I don’t know, like, people talk about their why, right? Like,
it’s a big thing, not just in the sales world, but in motivation, and, and all of that if having a
purpose having a meaning having your y. And the biggest thing that I have found with
people is everyone has a y like, okay, maybe not everyone, but most people and everyone
that I work with has a y they have a reason they have what the reasons why they’re
they’re doing what they do. And that’s not the problem. The problem is they don’t have a
way to consistently connect to that, why. And so they live their lives in a way that when
their why or their purpose comes up, that it motivates them, and they get all excited, or
they see something, you know, on YouTube, and they’re like, yeah, and they really get
going. But the problem is that takes an external factor to influence them. And so if you’re
able to and so going back to your question, I think those who struggle with being able to
do what they know that they should do, and it’s because they don’t have a system in
place for connecting to their why.
So and I’m 100% on board with this. I’m a huge fan of Simon Sinek, right, he came up with
the Golden Circle, one of the most popular YouTube kind of motivational videos ever wrote
a book called start with why I’m a huge Simon Sinek fanboy, top to bottom. But are you
saying that those individuals in the hypothetical that I gave you are they’re having a
tough time connecting their why to the specific action that they know they need to do? Is
that what you’re saying?
Yeah, because the actions that they’re doing, are probably going against their habits, it’s
probably difficult for them, you know, they probably haven’t changed their environment to
help them. And so there are a lot of things like the odds are stacked against them. But
odds are stacked against people all the time, who are still able to overcome. And, I mean,
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I don’t know, I’ll share a personal experience. I’m getting into 2020, my eight year old son,
his name is Griff, he had some medical issues when he was four, he suffered from a stroke.
And he lost you know, most of the use of you know, the right side of his body and had to
relearn how to walk and just had a lot of medical issues. And then February 29, he went
unconscious. At the end of the day. It was actually a lot The day like we spend the whole
day at the beach. And I actually had left to go to a concert with a friend. And my wife
called when I was at the concert and said that, you know, Griff was unconscious that she
was taking him to the hospital. Now, for us, that wasn’t like, the craziest thing that had
happened. Yes, it was scary. Yes, there was urgency were rushing, but things like that, you
know, weren’t uncommon for him. So I, you know, I met her at the hospital, and he didn’t
wake up. And on March 4, he ended up passing away. And I share this with you, because
this was the start of, really why I’m working with salesmen. But also in my own journey,
because we’ve been talking a little bit about weight. And I spent the next several months,
you know, doing the opposite of everything that I teach. And being lazy, and COVID made
that really easy. And it wasn’t until his birthday, on July 5, that I have this experience
where I lit one of those lanterns and let it float up to the sky, my family was here in Idaho.
And so it was just me, and having this special moment with my son. And it, you know,
floated up and probably got maybe 100 200 feet in the air, and a big gust of wind hit it
and the thing topples over the whole thing lights on fire. So there’s like this four foot ball
of fire, you know, falling from the sky, and I’m running to make sure it doesn’t burn down
my neighbor’s house. And I could hear my son laughing at me. You know, he had a very
contagious laugh. It just, I could hear him telling me to not take things so serious. And to
make something of my life. Not that I hadn’t up to that point. But to like, get out and go,
do you know, help people. And so I made the decision, you know, I’d put on 20 pounds.
And I’d already been, you know, sitting at 200 before that. And so I decided to make a
change. And there were days that it was hard because I didn’t want to, you know, eat the
cucumbers, I wanted to eat the meat and, you know, and the sweets and all that stuff that
I had been eating. But because of him and the connection that I had with my son, and the
reasons that I was doing it made all the difference, you know, and come December, you
know, I had lost 60 pounds, you know, and now it’s you know, a few months later, and I’ve
been able to maintain that.
That’s incredible, man, congratulations.
That’s but impressed. Oh, well, thank you. But I feel like it’s a big accomplishment for
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myself. But I feel like it’s also a testament to using the skills that I teach, I guess. But it also
it sucks that it took the death of my son to get there.
You know, we’ve been talking about ROI. Right. And it didn’t occur to me that one of the
things that will trip us up a lot in life is not only not having a wife or you know, trying to
accomplish difficult things. But when something like this unimaginable happens, you
know, I don’t know about you, and I don’t know what I would do. But my guess is that I
would ask why. But not why in a good way. Like why in a bad way? Right. And I think
there’s some listeners out there that have gone through some tough things that have gone
through some challenges, especially 2020, you know, with everything that was going on.
And it’s so tough to compare our trials and challenges with somebody else. And I honestly
think that I mean, this is, you know, for me, I’m yeah, I don’t know what I would do. I don’t
know how I could handle something like that. But did you go through something like that?
Where you were like Why? Why is the Why this? Why not some other challenge? Why not
something else?
Yeah, I think I still do. In fact, my wife and I were just talking earlier today about, you know,
how different life would look if our son was still with us. And you know, I think that’s
natural. And I think that it’s okay, because a big part of mental toughness is allowing for
space to grieve. Allowing for space to, to acknowledge that things can be terrible. But it’s
also about, I don’t know, keeping control of that space, I
guess. So what is it that that somebody in a situation like yours or, you know, whatever
issues my listeners may be going through? What is it that I feel like this is a fork in the
road, I feel like when stuff especially at that level, when that happens, you either Throw
your hands up. And so, you know, what difference does it make what I do, right? What
difference does it make if I lose this 60 pounds? Or, hey, I’m going to allow this to change
me. And I know that’s not a light switch decision. I know that it’s probably a back and
forth situation where it’s like, one day, it’s like, you know what, I don’t give a damn. And
then the next day, you do, you know, but what is it? What, how do you get to that point
where this motivates you, as opposed to doing the opposite?
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Yeah, I think that you have to be intentional about it. You know, you have to be
intentional. And, you know, it’s like the power of now, like being like making, what you’re
doing means something. And I think part of it, at least for me, a big part of it was
acknowledging that those moments where, right now, I don’t want to do anything. And so
I’m not going to do anything right now. But when this time ends, I am going to get up, I am
going to, you know, make dinner for my kids, I am going to go on a bike ride or whatever it
was that I was going to do. I just needed to allow myself the freedom to not do anything
when I wanted to. And so I think, again, everyone functions differently. But there’s you
know, and we’ve all heard of like PTSD, right? But not as many of us have heard of post
traumatic growth, although we see a lot. And a lot of the stories out there. And a lot of the
mentors and the people that we look up to their experiences, in their growth started with
a terrible thing happening. And so I think that it’s easy, and we can justify and rationalize
and excuse all day long. The people that have bad things happen to them. And I think
there’s a space for that. But I also think it’s up to us to like, at least for me, my life now. I
want to be a representation of my son, rather than being a victim of what happened to
me. If that makes sense. Isn’t that the difference between people that are successful in life
and
people that aren’t just this? Yeah, they get to this point, where they’re like, Look it, it’s up
to me. Crap has happened to me. I’ve had challenges that nobody else has had with the
specifics and circumstances that I’ve had to face. And I feel like, like a lot of times,
especially in the current political climate, and with a lot of things that are going on in the
world, we feel like we’re out of control. And the successful people that I’ve been able to
surround myself with, I know that the world thinks that somehow they just woke up and
everything was given to them. But they’ve had trials and challenges and they’ve gone
through things just like everybody else. But the difference is when they get to that fork in
the road, and it’s a back and forth thing. It’s a some days, I want to do it. And some days I
don’t. But eventually they find a way to get it done. Chris, I always say that. And I’ve heard
this, it’s almost a cliche at this point. But if the world through their problems into a pile,
that we would all pull out the ones that we already have. Would you agree with that?
Yeah, I mean, we’re all people. We all have similarities. And you know, I think, yeah, I
mean, this life is hard. And I don’t know that. It’s easy for anybody. I think that yes, there
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are some people that have a lot harder things to go through. You know, but I think that we
all have the ability to choose, you know, you mentioned you know, living in a world of
chaos. And even when things are chaotic, there’s always at least one thing that you can
do you know, whether it’s being optimistic and filling your head full of, you know, cheerful
thoughts, or helping someone else, you know, there is always something that you can do.
It might not be easy. And some people might not say that it’s worth it. But you at least you
have a choice
in terms of, you know, longevity long term success, how much difference is that choice
make? How much difference does it make between somebody that’s like, you know, what,
I have control over my life. Although at times, it feels like I don’t, I’m going to do
something about my current condition. How much difference does just that one decision
make?
I think it makes a huge difference, as long as that person can maintain it. Because I think
everybody has that. Everybody has the, at least in one moment of their life, they’ve
experienced, you know, I can do something about this. The problem is that people don’t
maintain it, and people lose it. And I think about my son, yesterday, we’re at the skate
park, who my he just turned 12, my 12 year old is such a good example to me, of I can write
when he was eight years old, he wanted to go over the stairs in like this skate pool. And so
he fell hundreds of times trying it, and this is an eight year old. It’s not like a, like a
teenager, this is like a little kid. And he just fell and fell and fell for days and days, you
know, it’s like a week worth every day out there. And he did it. And he’s done it again. And
he said it, you know, and taking it to the next level. And he’s 12 now, and yesterday, I saw
him fall at the skate park and I posted a video of it, you know, because he fell and
immediately just sprinted out through his board and jumped back on. And that was for
him. One of the elements of control is Yeah, I felt I can get back on. Let’s do it again. You
know, and it was freezing cold. You know, because we’re currently in Georgia, and used to
the Hawaii weather. And so I think that it’s huge, and it can make all the difference. The
problem that people have is simply that they forget, or they stop
using that control, do the mentally tough get to the point where they’re so used to the
cycle, they know that you have to fall for days at a time before you were able to to land
Chris Pierce Page 13 of 17 Transcribed by https://otter.ai
the trick or to reach the next level or to achieve that level of success that they’re after, do
the really mentally tough get to a point where they’re they’re almost enjoying the process
of falling and making mistakes, because they know what’s inevitably going to come. Yeah,
and I think that things that come easy, aren’t as enjoyable. And so they recognize that as
well. That like when you’ve worked so hard to accomplish something, the elation that
comes from that is significantly more than something that you tried and did the first time.
You know, there’s all these companies that you hear about how they were down to their
last dollar. And they magically got saved, right? Zappos is one of those. Tony Shea passed
away this year, one of my mentors, one of my, you know, somebody that I looked up to, I
loved his vision. He’s so creative in business. And you know, and his story is not unique,
right? There’s almost all companies that are successful now at varying levels of success. At
some point, their leaders, their founders, their CEOs, their, you know, boards of directors,
whatever the case is, at some point they were brought to their knees. And that somehow
it’s almost like this magical recipe for success right? Now, there’s a bunch of companies
that we’ve never heard of that the same thing happened. And we don’t know about them,
or they failed, or whatever someone gave up. And I think part of you know, and I think
sometimes business owners, they don’t get a fair shake in the mental toughness world,
right? And the larger you get, I think the more targets you have on your back. And as
you’re coaching these door to door sales personnel, are you talking to them about vision?
Are you talking to them about their core values about you know, long term goals about
looking into the future or are the things that you want them to focus on, you know, in the
closer present
We talked both I think that sometimes, like, I’m sure you’ve heard, but you got to dig deep,
right? Where when things get really tough, you know, the tough get tougher kind of thing.
And what that means is that people connect with their why, sometimes your why is not
going to help you though. Sometimes it’s incentives. Sometimes it’s other things. And so I
guess, to answer your question, yes, we do both, you know, I help them dig deep,
understand their why understand their vision, you know, the long term. But I also want
them to understand that sometimes digging deeper is not what you need to do,
sometimes you need to dig in a different place. And, you know, if the place that you’re
digging is the wrong spot, then it’s not gonna get you anywhere. And so, yes, you can
have the biggest why and the greatest motivation, but sometimes you need something
more short term. And for me the answer, as far as like, what’s the best motivation is the
one that gets the job done. And so if someone’s struggling, and they’re like, well, I
connected to my why, you know, and they just didn’t care, then let’s connect with
something else. So it’s not just about like, beating on this one thing over and over, you
know, a lot of reasons why those big companies, you know, almost die, and then they, you
Chris Pierce Page 14 of 17 Transcribed by https://otter.ai
know, get brought back to life and beyond, that isn’t necessarily because they just did one
thing over and over. It’s because they made changes. And so I think it’s tricky, because it
you know, it depends on the situation, whether whether you’re going to focus on what
you’ve been doing, or you’re going to shift. And
so a lot of my listeners are business owners, with teams of people, whether they’re office
personnel, or sales force, what’s the process for finding out you mentioned how the most
important thing is, you know, the most important motivator is what actually gets the job
done? What’s the process for them to figure out? Hey, how do I motivate my people? Man,
I feel like my company’s in a little bit of a rut. Do you start with the key personnel? Do you
start with the leaders of the company? Do you start with the boots on the ground? What
are some tips that you can give them to kind of at least start that process of finding out
what types of motivation their teams need?
Yeah, I think that the first thing is to recognize that like, I can’t motivate anyone. I mean,
sure, I can inspire and I can, you know, get people pumped up, but that’s not really
motivation. And so I like to start on the ground. Because if that’s who you want to
motivate, then that’s who you’ve got to talk to. And so, and I think that there’s not
necessarily like, a, okay, you know, ask him these questions, I think it’s Get to know your
people, I think it’s understand what they do, you know, and understand where they come
from. Because just because those people have the same job, doesn’t mean they’re gonna
have the same motivation. And so, if you truly want to understand what motivates your
people, and then you want to leverage that, then you’ve got to go and talk to them, you
know, you’ve got to talk to them in a way that they’re going to trust. What’s important to
them with you? Because otherwise, they’re just going to tell you what you want to hear, as
opposed to, you know, what you need to hear?
If you found that motivation, is typically better performed with a spontaneous direction,
where you’re surprising people with, whether it’s incentives or compliments, words of
affirmation, anything like that, or do you feel like motivation is better done, just generally
speaking, on a consistent level, like with the door to door salesman? Is it better to you
know, they’re in the middle of their day, hey, next sell XYZ or, hey, these are the incentives
for the entire summer.
Chris Pierce Page 15 of 17 Transcribed by https://otter.ai
I think it depends on the person, but I think that both are good. And, you know, if they’re
going to, and I’m trying to like work this out. I think that spontaneous motivation is easier
motivation, those who are going to maintain motivation long term, I need to have more of
like a system for maintaining that motivation. But you know, if I want to just motivate
Have a group of people and I can throw a reward out, you know, and then they go and do
a task real quick. And then it got the job done. So I think it really yeah, depends on the
team, it depends where they’re at, you know, if it’s a team that’s working together a lot,
then I think then it can become more competitive. And you can leverage the competitive
nature of people. Whereas if it’s more of like, you know, have like an office type job, where
it’s not so competitive, that maybe you’ve got to leverage more of the People’s, like,
internal motivation.
Yeah, it makes sense. Well, Chris, we’re gonna be wrapping up here in a couple of minutes.
I kind of wanted to get your closing thoughts, if you had anything else to add anything
else to? If you wanted to summarize anything, or what you kind of wanted to wrap up
with?
Yeah, I suppose I just like to say that mental toughness comes from you. And you have all
of the tools that you need. Currently, you might not know where they are, you know, some
people’s garage or workshop is a little messy. And so if it is, you know, then you can get
things cleaned up. But there’s not a secret, like, don’t go searching for like the answer,
because the answer is going to change all the time. The answer lies within yourself. And
so, you know, start to recognize, how do I function? What are the habits in my life that are
helping me? And what are the habits that are getting in my way? Do I acknowledge them?
Do I get rid of them? What changes do I need to make and then just make one small
change at a time? And that’s, I think, a good starting place.
I love it. Yeah, makes sense to, to kind of start small, celebrate those small wins early on.
And, you know, it’s, it just makes something a lot more manageable, daunting task a lot
more manageable when you kind of chop it up into small pieces. Chris, I love having you
on the show, man. This is been fantastic. And clearly, I think there’s little doubt after this. If
Chris Pierce Page 16 of 17 Transcribed by https://otter.ai
there’s somebody that is a master of mental toughness, it it just happens to be Chris peers.
So yeah, man, thanks for joining us. How do people connect with you?
Yeah, I’m on Instagram, Chris underscore Pierce. If you’re really wanting to do the like
mental toughness, Instagram is sales resilience. You can shoot me a DM, but my website
sales, resilience x.com. But Instagrams easy, just hit me up. And yeah, even if you just have
questions. I think a lot of times people think that there’s like, I don’t know, like a barrier
between being able to reach out to you. Just send me a message. I’ll respond personally.
I love it. All right, Chris. Well, thanks for your time today. We’ve loved having you. Yeah,
looking forward to connecting with you in the future.
Thank you. It’s been awesome. I appreciate your time.
If you’ve enjoyed today’s podcast, please leave us a rating and for daily inspiration and
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