How can we learn to choose our thoughts consciously? In this Expert Insight Interview, Joanna Kleinman discusses battling inner criticism in entrepreneurship. Joanna Kleinman is a licensed psychotherapist, motivational speaker, and author of the book Dethroning Your Inner Critic: The Four-Step Journey from Self-Doubt to Self-Empowerment.

The interview discusses:

• Confronting and overcoming the inner critic
• The MIND method of recognizing and changing your thoughts
• Choosing the dream life

Confront and Overcome the Inner Critic

Our inner critic has always been with us, and it always will be. However, we can learn how to dethrone it from our minds. We are the most powerful when we can distinguish what our inner critic says and why. People have around 50,000 thoughts per day, and the majority of them are automatic. The key is to become so familiar with the inner critic to spot it when it happens. Then, we can intentionally direct our thoughts to be in alignment with the life that we design.

The MIND Method

The acronym MIND explains the method of recognizing and changing our thoughts. M stands for meeting our inner circle. We should take a moment to examine those automatic thoughts that we have in our minds. Usually, they keep us in our comfort zone or make us think that we are good enough only if we achieve our goals. That is why we see so many successful people who achieved their goals but are still miserable. We think that after we accomplish our goals, we will be happy. Instead, we should strive to be content while we are trying to achieve our goals.

Letter I in the MIND method stands for investigating the indication signs. Those are the emotions, body sensations, and behaviors we have when we experience our inner critic. When something unpleasant happens, we start creating a story in our heads right away. Thus, we have to realize that circumstances do not influence how we feel, but our thoughts about those circumstances influence our feelings. When we understand that, we will be able to take responsibility for our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.

Furthermore, we have the same thoughts repeatedly. Thus, N stands for neutralizing those never-ending messages. And lastly, D stands for designing our lives. Creating new thoughts influences emotions that align with the life that we want for ourselves.

Choose Your Dream Life

Changing our thoughts does not happen at once. It is a commitment from moment to moment. It might create a feeling of discomfort sometimes, but it is better to feel uncomfortable while changing your life for the better than feeling discomfort from not doing anything about creating the life of your dreams.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

In this Expert Insight Interview, Anne Grady discusses how to deal with stress through resilience, mindfulness, and training your mind to focus on the positive things in life. Anne Grady is a best-selling author, entrepreneur, and two-time TEDx speaker. She has spent the last couple of decades working with Fortune 500 companies and various other organizations to help teach resilience. Her new book entitled Mind Over Moment: Harness the Power of Resilience came out on September 3rd, 2020.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

• How to build resilience through consistent practice
• The power of keeping a positive mindset
• The importance of trying not to put yourself down

Mindfulness

Resilience is a set of skills, habits, and behaviors that you can cultivate, practice, and hone. Whether we like it or not, life gives us plenty of chances to practice it. Even though we have so many ways to deal with our stress, through books, seminars and classes focusing on it, we end up reacting our way through life.

If we can be more deliberate, we can step out of that reactivity and create a life that we’re excited about. This can be done by making small, subtle, mindful choices throughout the day.

Focusing on the Positive

When you try not to stress, you inevitably end up stressing yourself out even more. Instead of trying to lessen the amount of stress we feel, perhaps we should focus on trying to generate more positive emotions.

This can be done by figuring out what brings us joy, makes us laugh, makes us feel grateful, allows us to be connected with people socially, doing good for others etc. These emotions are very powerful in canceling out our stress. So, the goal shouldn’t be to stop stress; the goal should be to offset it by training your brain to focus on the positive things in life.

Being Kind to Oneself

Humans are amazing at gathering the smallest pieces of evidence that prove the negative. We’re capable of completely blowing past all the huge signs pointing to how we did something right, but we’re experts when it comes to putting ourselves down.

If you wouldn’t say it to a friend, don’t say it to yourself. We believe what we tell ourselves, and confirmation bias means that we start actively seeking out all the evidence for our negative thoughts. The bottom line is that the way we think about stress is more important than the stress itself.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

In this Expert Insight Interview, Chris Prefontaine discusses buying and selling real estate on terms. Chris Prefontaine is the founder and CEO of smartrealestatecoach.com, host of the Smart Real Estate Coach Podcast, and author of Real Estate on Your Terms.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

• What it means to buy real estate on terms
• How and why people are getting involved in this niche
• Being prepared for major financial crises

Real Estate on Terms

Buying and selling real estate on terms can mean different things. Chris and his family company buy homes and other properties on either owner financing, lease purchase, or subject to existing financing, meaning it stays in the seller’s name even though they buy the property.

Neither of these options requires banks or the buyer signing personally, pledging assets. This means that Chris and his associates need never have a loan in their name. This route is beneficial for sellers who don’t need the cash right away because they will net more this way.

Changing Priorities

People today are less and less inclined to commit themselves to a company because they know that the next financial crisis could see them out the door, stuck with a big mortgage. Due to this, people are more open to other types of opportunities, such as working remotely in real estate.

A few of Chris’s employees were very successful in their fields but found themselves spending way too much time away. This motivated them to transition into the real estate business, allowing them to spend much more time with their families without sacrificing their incomes.

Expect the Unexpected

The COVID-19 crisis is unprecedented in many ways, but it is not the first financial crisis we’ve had in the last few decades. In fact, no matter how far into the past you look, you’re always going to find unexpected events shaking up the economy. This means we all have to be more discerning in where we choose to invest our money and energy.

Because of the interconnected nature of our world, today and the technology that we have, the appetites that people have for doing something special have never been greater. Many people out there want to be entrepreneurs, but just don’t know where to start, so the model outlined in this interview could be an excellent opportunity for them.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Employees taking accountability for their work is a contributing factor to the company’s success. Hence, in this Expert Insight Interview, Kristie Jones discusses creating an accountability culture in sales. Kristie Jones is the Principal at Sales Acceleration Group, and she helps small and medium-size companies to grow their revenues.

The interview discusses:

• Leaders as role models
• Involvement with the company’s goals
• Well-functioning accountability culture

The Role Models

For accountability to be established and accepted among sales teams, sales leaders need to demonstrate it themselves. Three key things sales leaders need to role model to employees are building trust, keeping their word, and being transparent. By doing what they promised, leaders build trust with their employees and show that they keep their promises. Also, it is more beneficial to share important financial information with the employees instead of hiding it. When leaders are transparent, employees understand and accept business decisions better since they are familiar with the financial implications.

Involvement with the Company Goals

Furthermore, sales teams need to get more connected and involved in achieving the company’s ultimate goal. Almost always, sales teams only get their targets without explaining the bigger story behind hitting those numbers. Every decision and initiative within the company needs to be consistent with achieving the company’s ultimate goal. Another thing that can make it easier for everyone in the organization to start taking accountability is to set up clear expectations. Sales leaders need to know their employees’ strengths and weaknesses. Some salespeople excel at closing small deals, while others are better at closing deals that are more complex and require a certain amount of strategizing. Not everyone is the same, so setting up the same plan for everyone means setting up many people for failure.

Well-functioning Accountability Culture

It is easy to notice people who do not have a behavioral trait of taking accountability. For example, ask people why they failed to meet their last quota. Their answer to that question reveals whether they can take themselves accountable for the failure or blame the circumstances for it.

In a well-functioning company, employees can hold each other accountable professionally without anyone feeling offended. The culture of taking accountability builds over time by hiring the right people, setting clear expectations, making everyone work for the same goal, and making everyone understand possible consequences. It creates teamwork and an employee bond throughout the whole organization. And last but not least, it is the discipline. People can make great plans, but those plans are worth nothing if there is a lack of discipline to work on them.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

In this Expert Insight Interview, John Dabrowski discusses gratitude, keeping a positive mindset, and the five pillars of mental resilience. John Dabrowski is a mental resilience expert and former professional basketball player. He is the author of two books — Off the Wall: How to Develop World-Class Mental Resilience and 100 Days to Mental Resilience.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

• What mental resilience actually is
• The power of gratitude
• Five pillars of mental resilience

Positive Mindset

According to Mr. Dabrowski, mental resilience has to do with a person’s ability to respond to pressure situations. So, how does one start building their mental resilience, especially at a time when it has been tested to the full?

The conscious mind can only think about one thing at a time, and what you think about is what you feel. If you’re thinking about a negative situation, you’ll soon be finding yourself in a spiral of negativity, so you must shift to a positive mindset.

Gratitude

A great technique to use when you find yourself in a negative spiral is to take a minute and list all the things in your life that you’re grateful for. Gratitude is massively helpful in getting over negative thoughts.

You can find things to be grateful for everywhere you look, so a key principle of mental resilience has to do with learning to look for those things and keep them in the forefront of your mind. Even the most negative situations can yield a positive result if you actively look for it.

5 Pillars of Mental Resilience

Most people understand that mindfulness, gratitude and shifting to a positive mindset can be helpful, but find themselves unable to sustain these practices for a long time. John Dabrowski’s answer to this problem is reflected in his five pillars of mental resilience:

• Commitment
• Control
• Self-belief
• Focus
• Motivation

John believes that putting these principles together and sticking to them creates consistency, and consistency is the key to success in anything.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

In this Expert Insight Interview, Dave Sanderson discusses life lessons, perspective, and surviving one of the most famous aviation incidents in history. Dave Sanderson is an author, motivational speaker, and CEO of Dave Sanderson Speaks International. He was one of the last passengers of the plane that crashed into the Hudson River, in an event known as the “Miracle of the Hudson.”

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

• The positive side of traumatic and otherwise monumental events
• The role of mentor figures in our lives
• Attaining perspective despite the overwhelming nature of the world

Mentor Figures and Traumatic Events

Upon surviving the unimaginably traumatic event that was the most successful plane ditching in history, Dave’s initial reaction was one of gratitude. He also felt overwhelmed by the situation and the media attention surrounding it, finding it particularly difficult to juggle reconcile his everyday activities with this newfound fame. Ultimately, Dave says, he felt blessed to be alive.
People come into our lives with a reason. Lots of people just don’t see the things going on around them, and we tend to miss the lessons given to us by the people in our lives, such as our parents or friends. Sometimes it takes a mentor-figure to reveal the lessons in a way that makes them not only palatable but also understandable.
There’s a lot of inherited wisdom that we possess, but don’t necessarily recognize. We tend to ignore this wisdom until it is knocked into the forefront of our minds by a traumatic, or otherwise monumental, occasion in our lives.

Importance of Perspective

It is sometimes necessary to step out of the moment and look at it in broader terms in order to understand what lesson the moment is teaching you and how you should react to it. We have a habit of being consumed by the feeling that nothing is going our way, which puts us into an overly introspective state of mind.

Thanks in part to social media, we live in a world where perspective is skewed and we lose it quite easily. Therefore, it is very easy for us to focus on feeling inadequate instead of looking for blessings. The reality for a lot of us is that, compared to the rest of the world, we live very full and rich lives that we probably don’t appreciate.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Good leaders are not born but made. They need someone to teach them how to become good leaders. In this Expert Insight Interview, Tom Connally discusses why every leader needs a coach. Tom Connally is a coach, speaker, author, and leader with more than 30 years of experience in US marine leadership.

The interview discusses:

• Leadership as apprenticeship
• The value of coaching
• The first steps in developing leadership

Apprentice Mindset

Many people still do not understand the importance of having a leadership mentor. You can read all the books in the world about leadership, but again, you will need someone to teach you in practice. Every decision you make as a leader is a new experience, so you have to possess the humility of an apprentice while leading. To be a good leader means to teach and learn something every day.

Young people get promoted to managerial positions based on their competence, but they do not get the proper training to manage people. And then, they stand up in front of others who used to be their peers and realize that they know less about managing than what they thought. Even if you get promoted for your competence, still find someone to lead you in finding your managerial style.

The Value of Coaching

Since coaching might not be the direct income-producing expenditure, people sometimes do not see its real value. But, having a coach can help you to create a culture of performance. Also, investing in leaders’ coaching is the same as investing in employees with a lower rank. A leader who is willing to share that he has a leadership coach shows a higher level of confidence, self-awareness, and honestly. Having a leadership coach is not a weakness but a strength.

The First Steps

People who want to become leaders should first determine their highest values in life. And then, when they identify what they value the most, they should bring their performance in alignment with those values. If you want to be great at something, you have to be aware that there are sacrifices and compromises to be made. Being a leader takes an everyday commitment. That is why you have to choose to be great at something that you value highly in life.

Nowadays, we tend to think that the definition of success is moving up within the company and getting the opportunity to manage others. However, that is not everyone’s dream, and in that case, it is more honest and less painful to say no to being a leader. Leadership positions can be a lonely and confusing place, and that is why you need someone externally to be able to talk about it.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

In this Expert Insight Interview, Eric Reed discusses the outdated approach we have to manage, getting the most out of your team and the effects of the COVID-19 epidemic on the way we do business. Eric Reed is the founder and CEO of Reed5group, and host of the Rethink Marketing podcast.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

• The role of the sales manager in the post-COVID world
• Effective ways to get the most out of your sales team
• Advantages and difficulties of working from home

COVID and the Evolution of the Sales Manager

We seem to march in the same line and follow the same rules without rethinking things as much as we should. The post-COVID world, with its many challenges, provides the perfect opportunity to rethink some aspects of how we view sales and management in general.

The sales manager role isn’t that well defined, to begin with. Sales managers in different organizations operate in different ways and have different priorities. With more and more people working from home, today’s sales managers are in danger of becoming observers, rather than leaders.

So, in what ways does the role of the sales manager need to evolve?

Playing to the Strengths of Your Team

Many people are unconsciously competent and don’t really understand what makes them good at their jobs. We need to begin embracing people for what they’re capable of achieving, and let them become a valued asset on the team.

Since nobody is the same, a competent sales manager should be capable of stepping back and allowing his team to develop. It might be more difficult to leverage each person’s strengths to create a cohesive team, but it will undeniably lead to more effective results in the long run.

Zoom vs Personal Interaction

A lot of sales nowadays are done virtually, out of necessity, which has proved to require a different skillset in salespeople. The people who are great at working a room don’t always have the same level of presence when communicating through Zoom, and vice-versa.

If you’re a “relationship seller,” it’s all about the human contact, the laughs, and the physical presence, this “work from home” market is going to be extremely difficult, but it could make us all better salespeople.

Lasting Change

Even when the coronavirus pandemic is over, it’s unlikely that we will go back to “business as usual.” Companies have now seen the potential of online meetings in terms of productivity and savings, and are going to be reluctant to return to past habits.

This is the time for the sales manager to be more intentional in reaching out to each individual within the team, since the opportunity to walk the floor and organically catch-up with your team members is no longer there.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.