← The Art of Sales with Art Sobczak
The Art of Sales with Art Sobczak
305 GUEST: How to Easily Make "Happy" and "Positive" Your Default Modes, with MK Mueller
00:47:54
MK Mueller has changed lives worldwide with her "8 to Great" simple methodology for having a positive attutude, ALL of the time. As salespeople, we know that our attitude has more of an effect on our results, and income, than any sales process...
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You are listening to the Art of Sales. Everyone sells every day and this is.
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Your source for conversational real world sales.
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And prospecting methods that you are comfortable.
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Using and that get results you'll help.
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People buy instead of pushing them into being sold.
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Here's your host, Art Sopcich as we release this episode during Thanksgiving week, many in the US Will give thanks and show gratitude. And here's an idea to enrich the lives of others and yourself. How about not limiting it to just this one day? Why not make it a daily habit? Gratitude isn't just a fleeting emotion or a trendy buzzword. It's a mindset, a discipline, and often a lifeline. In fact, let me share a story that truly exemplifies the power of gratitude in the most extraordinary circumstances. So during the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Monique Dupont was trapped under the rubble of her collapsed home for nearly three days. With no food, water or certainty of rescue, Monique could have easily given up. Instead, she focused on what she was grateful for in that moment, which was her ability to breathe, the sound of rescuers nearby, and even the sunlight peeking through the debris. When Monique was finally pulled from the wreckage alive, her first words weren't complaints about her injuries or anger. Instead, she whispered, thank you God. Thank you for life. Her gratitude, even after being buried alive and not knowing if she would survive, inspired everyone around her, rescuers, doctors and her family. Monique's story is a reminder that gratitude doesn't erase hardship, but it empowers us to endure it. It shifts our focus from what's missing to what remains. And that shift can give us strength that we didn't even know we had. And that's why I'm thrilled about today's guest. She's an expert in cultivating habits that lead to a positive outlook and a healthier life. And one of our eight principles is having gratitude for the present and today we're going to explore a number of areas that will benefit your sales and your life. Especially how practicing gratitude can help us not just endure life's challenges that we have all the time, especially in sales, right? But also uncover meaning and resilience within them. MK Mueller is an internationally respected authority on empowerment, purpose, communication and leadership. She is a TEDx presenter and the author of several award winning books including eight to Great the Powerful Process for Positive Change and Taking Care of Me the Habits of happiness. Today, her eight to great success skills process is taught by over 4,000 certified trainers and biz business coaches around the world. Meanwhile, she's been named a Heartland Hero for her service to at risk families. And these days she shares her life transforming material through her keynotes books K through 12 school curriculum and her 8 to great life coach certification training. On a personal note, MK and I go way back.
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Way back.
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It was actually my journalism teacher when I was the feature editor of our high school newspaper. And thinking back, she couldn't have been much older than we were. I don't know if you graduated like in a year and a half from college or what. And I wonder how it is that I age since then and she hasn't. If you've been a customer of mine for a long time, you might also recognize her voice and her face. Even though this is not video, you'll see her face when you look her up on the website. And she did voiceover work and some acting in one of my very first training videos. Not sure if you remember that.
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A
Right. This room. Okay. Welcome. Great to be here. Okay, I get to tell the story on you. As parents, we're not supposed to have favorite kids and we really don't. Right. But as teachers, we do. And I've always said I had two favorite students. You were one of those two. And I'm going to let any of my former students who are listening guess that they are the other one. But you were absolutely one of them. You were exceptional. Just character. It wasn't just work ethic. You were patient with me because I never taught journalism before. And you remember that I said, okay, teach me how to do headlines. And it was such a fun growth year for, I think, for both of us. So thank you so much and I love what you're doing now. Thank you for all that too.
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B
Well, thank you for that. I didn't know that. And I have to say that even though you didn't know what you were doing with adrenaline, you certainly acted like you did and you were inspiring because I went on to have a 30 year run with a newsletter that I published every month. All right, hey, people out there are going, okay, well, nice chat you guys are having here. Let's talk about, let's talk about the meat of this stuff. And we've got so much to cover here today. Of course we're going to talk about gratitude, but there's a few other areas that I want to ask about. So give us a brief summary of your fascinating background because I know you did some things after you taught journalism. So what brought you to where you are today, helping so many people around the world?
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A
First of all, what got me out of teaching, which I just love with a passion, was ending up in the shelter for domestic violence. And that summer after my 10th year of teaching, I was told that if I didn't quit my job and just stay home with our 3 year old daughter that he would divorce me. And I said, oh, okay, so I'll quit this thing that I love so much. And that's unfortunately one of the patterns of abuse is isolation. So it was during that time that the physical abuse started and I took her and we went to a shelter and they taught me these amazing skills. Now at the time I had won awards as a teacher, I'd won awards as a singer, I'd won awards as a composer, and I'd won awards as an actress. In other words, externally I looked like I had the cat's life by the tail, but, but internally, very, very codependent. So when they taught me these important things about you can't change him, the only person you can change is you. And if you don't change you, you'll find another him. And I found out all these amazing things of what I could do differently. And at the end of that month I was crying, thanking them and I said, how can I ever thank you? And they said, someday you will be the teacher. And I thought, oh yeah. But I. Because they didn't have a follow up program, I had to create my own. So my very first one was called Building Bridges to a Better you. And people stayed away by the thousands. So I tried a new title and I called it Taking Care of Me the Habits of Happiness. And six neighbors came, three of whom I'd never met. And they weren't in domestic violence relationships. They just were taking better care of other people than they were of themselves, which is the litmus test I give to people. And so I helped them. I, I love to teach. And so I was breaking down all the books I was reading and the podcast. I was working at the time with the guru of self esteem, Nathaniel Brandon, who actually gave me a, a one on one interview in California. And it was just, I was learning from the best and I broke it down into very simple steps and people started saying, you need to write a book. So eventually I wrote Taking Care of Me and it exploded and took me to become not only a national keynoter, but an international keynoter for things like the florist convention and the Rotary convention and the optimist convention and, and the JCS traveled the world. And then 911 happened. And right before 911 and all my flights being canceled, actually I, I taught every week at a homeless shelter. And one of the gentlemen came up after class and said, ma'am, these are really good ingredients, but I need the recipe. So during that year off I said, I, I wonder if there is an order that these go in. And if you read self help books, they're all the ingredients, right? Do a little of this, a little of that. But nobody really, except the 12 steps of AA tell you what to do in what order. And so I started doing that research and sure enough, I found there wasn't order. So we are one of the very few process programs out there. I love 7 Habits. I love so many of these books. But again, they're not the step by step. So I think what people appreciate so much about ours is start here and move through these eight steps and they will get you where you want to go. So that's the nut in a nutshell. And I'm so grateful for 4,000 coaches around the world that are taking this to, from fifth graders to CEOs and cruise ships to homeless shelters. And it's just, I'm so proud of them.
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Wow, what, what an impact that you're making. We're, we're going to get to 8 to great here in a second. But let's go back and talk about taking care of me. I actually have my copy in my hand that you're coming out with a new edition, but I think you gave this to me when it came out in 1996. I pulled it off the shelf yesterday and there is a page that is marked. And this struck me back then and it still does now. And I think it's going to resonate with a lot of people as well. So the specific packet passage here is in life, pain is required, suffering is optional. So could you explain what you mean by that?
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My life has really borne that out and I believe all of ours are, if we look at it through a certain perspective. Let's take a look at domestic violence, right? I was suffering the pain of getting up and leaving home. Not knowing, literally not knowing anything. Not knowing because he usually by then has threatened your life and where will you go and what will I do? And again, by, by then, many women have quit their jobs to that. So that was an example of, and I tell women all the time, you have to embrace the pain in order to end the suffering. But I'm going to use a more recent one and that is I'm living here in Venice, Florida, loving it so much. And it's a sweet little town, about 35,000 until the snowbirds come, then we're about 50, 60,000 people. And it's just a wonderful community. But I really, all of my friends were around the country more so than right here. And so somebody invited me to a networking group and art, I don't know if you know this about me, I'm an introvert. A lot of people in our business are, right, Sales or acting or music, whatever. And so I can only be with people for so long and then I have to go be by myself. I'm always the first one to leave a party. I can, I love the party, but then I get to go. So the idea of networking and needing to do what I thought would be small talk just gave me. I'd rather speak and I have in front of 5,000 people than go to a networking event. So I said, oh, let me think about it. One of the formulas we teach in eight to grade is if you had no fear, what would you do? And so I said, okay, what if you get to lose mk? And so I went to the networking group and I got to tell you, I got to tell you, 25, 30 women and it wasn't small talk at all. They would ask me and be very interested in what I did and tell me more. And then I gave a little 10 minute talk and that just butted into things. I'd give away a book every week, but I got to know people. And I have to say now some of those women are my best friends in Venice. But meanwhile, six of those women have not only read my book, but become one of those certified trainers who is now taking it to different, different venues. It was extremely beneficial from a business point, but I have to say again, it was a huge risk personally. But whatever it is that you're saying, really, what have you got to lose other than discomfort? Right. And feeling uncomfortable is temporary.
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And, and I know you've talked about this in, in other places and it's something that I talk about quite a bit as well as it relates to sales. So often when salespeople get a no or get some resistance, they call it, they're telling self a story, they call it rejection. And then they let that linger. So if I could apply that quote, the pain is required, suffering is optional. The nos are required, but the rejection is optional only if you allow yourself to qualify.
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I love it. I love it. And I'm one of those. It's not no, it's not yet and not now. Can I tell you a quick story about that one?
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Of course.
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So this was a risk That I took with a principal. And I originally only spoke to businesses and then school started to get interested. I wrote the curriculum and so I was doing some of both. And there was one school I really wanted, it was the second largest in Nebraska. And Steve was the. Steve Morton was the principal and such a great guy and I knew a lot about him, but he wouldn't take my calls. And so I was, started leaving messages and, and it, and I just got out of the risk factor. I said all he has to say is don't call me back. That's all he has to say. And I said that. So I say Steve, hi, it's MK and you know, I called the other day and here's the deal. All you have to do is tell your secretary to call me to stop calling. And I will because no is my second favorite word. But if you're interested that somebody has the best life skills program out there and if you're wondering if I might be that person, then just give me a call. We'll set up a 20 minute, I'll drive out to Grand Island. I'd love to. So every time I'd leave these little messages, it was the seventh message in I think four weeks that he responded and he was laughing. Now of course these don't all turn out that way, but the fact that I wasn't going to take it personally, I just, but it's like, what have I got to lose? It's just it, it, it was, it was just playful and I love and, and you bring this out so well. Sam's is just about people. It's just person to person. Hey Steve, you're doing such a great job. I'd love to work with your school, but hey, if I'm not a fit, then just let me know, just let me know. And we got into the school, we did an all faculty in service and then we trained 20 of their, of their teachers and thousands of students of course, because of that. And yeah, I just, I'm just so grateful for learning, learning about sales and not being afraid of them because certainly again, for an introvert, it took some getting over fear.
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B
That's an amazing story and it's so true with too many salespeople. They become a different person when they get on the phone or they get in front of someone and they get salesperson voice as opposed to what you just did there. I could. You probably spoke that same way that you just spoke to our audience on the front. And so you mentioned risk and that's one of your highways. In. In eight to. Great. A little spoiler alert here. The high is H I G H Highways. And as I was going through the book, it reminded me of a personal story here. There was a quote in the Risk section, and I'm going to talk about. You mentioned a principal, so your old boss at Gross High School, where you taught and where I went, Father Dave Paul, used the same quote by John F. Kennedy that you used. And it is only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly. And I credit that for inspiring me to, to run for and win a spot on student council my senior year. And that really changed my life. So talk a little bit more about the importance of taking risk. Not, not in a dangerous way, but in, in a growth way, both in sales and in life.
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A
Absolutely. In life. There's just not a day that we don't have a chance to. It just is not whether it's walking up to someone. One of the things, we've been through some hurricanes this year, and I just love walking up to people who are working on anything. They're working on removing debris or they're working on the electricity or rebuilding a roof or something and stopping to thank them. I just, I just love just taking risk. What's the worst thing that can happen? Yeah, I, I really think risk is. Is huge for just keeping us young, alive, vibrant, growing. My daughter came home from third grade and said, mom, I found out how you can tell if a aunt's alive. And I said, how, sweetheart? She goes, if it's growing. And I said, that's how you can tell if a person's alive. Right? And so risk is just. I think you and I have very large comfort zones, Art, but even you and I have things that are outside our comfort zone. Right? So it's just again, continuing to risk. And I'd love to tell one more story about one of my favorite risk stories from my seminars. I always, as I'm going through teaching the Highways at a workshop, I say, okay, we're going to do a little activity. I have a risk chair up here, and I'd love some folks to come up and share a risk they've taken that they're glad they did. And often the CEO will be the first one up because they're usually. They're the most successful. They're usually the biggest risk taker. So sure enough, this gentleman, and we'll call him, Jim, came up and shared the most amazing story. He said, I started here as a salesperson, and when I was given my territory, my boss said, yeah, this is your territory, but skip this company because his brother in law is our top competitor. So don't waste your time on that one. He was very successful, but he was just intrigued by this brother in law story. So he went over and tried to get an appointment. Sat in the waiting room for a couple of mornings. No, never even saw the guy, and said, wait a minute, where is he? I've been here for four hours, he hasn't come or gone. And so he figured out that he was going in another door. So sure enough, he went very early the next morning, found the guy going in a side door, and decided, oh, I'm gonna be there tomorrow when he goes in the side door to check with him again. Risk, right? But the next day was a huge snowstorm, and so he went anyway, thinking he would show up, which he did. And. But this Jim, the sales guy, had been making snowballs behind his car. And so when the CEO got out, he started pummeling him with snowball, to which the CEO is going, whoa, whoa, stop. What do you want? What do you want? And he goes, I want 20 minutes of your time to share something with you. He goes, okay. And he got contract. Of course he became CEO, but I hear that all the time. The people at the top did not get there by sliding in. It took something. It took a lot of courage. And I love the fact that the word courage comes from the word cur, which is heart in French. And you've got to put your heart into it and not play it safe. And again, bottom, you got to lose. So that traditional, oh, just make 20 phone calls thing, that. That's. You gotta do. You gotta think out of the box.
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That certainly was. I'm. I'm not sure if I recommend assault. Possible assault. That's a way to get attention. But I appreciate the risk.
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I did not approve my stories before this podcast.
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So again, we're still talking about the book eight to Great. And I highly encourage you to get it. You get it on Amazon and It's the numeral 8, 8, T, O. Eight to great. And in it you talk about something you call the power pyramid. And I love this. And you have the concepts of Fire 5 and 95. So explain what those are and how we all can use.
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Yeah, it's my. It's one of my favorite things to teach. I would like everybody to imagine a pyramid, which is the power pyramid. And at the top is where we wake up every morning. We wake up fully empowered, fully positive. Really, if you've had a decent night's sleep. I call it dolphin energy or puppy dog energy. But then we do this thing that gives our power away and that's we. We choose thoughts that don't feel good. Whether that's regret or doubt or judgment or fear or what. All of those thoughts that don't feel good, that just drain us. And if we only have 5% of our thoughts that feel good, we are down at the bottom of the power pyramid fiving, unfortunately, because what goes around comes around and birds of a feather flock together and misery loves company. That's what we're going to attract all day are people who are also fiving phone calls or what, whatever. And, and of course that's not where we want to be. If we want to hang out with 95ers where 95% of their thoughts feel good, we of course have to join them up there. So how do you do that? My thoughts don't feel good. MK if you think, oh, you gotta think happy thoughts, which I really bothers me the reputation that motivational speakers get. But there is something that we always have access to. So just gave a talk yesterday and I, I asked the women, did anyone walk in with something you could blame and complain about today? And of course every hand went up. And I said, did anyone walk in with something you could be grateful for today? And every hand went up. It doesn't matter where you are. I sing funerals. I love funerals. They're so full of gratitude and beautiful, loving stories. There's always things we can be gratitude grateful for now on our hardest days. I say sometimes they're grittitudes rather than gratitudes. So again, one of my stories is getting rejected from this huge grant where I thought we were going to be able to serve all these schools. And we were rejected. And I sat down with the pen. I said, okay, I'm not going to let this mood ruin my day. And I said, I'm going to write 88 gratitudes. And they started out with, I'm grateful for this pen. I'm grateful for this paper. I'm grateful for this table, this chair. I'm grateful for the roof over my head, refrigerator, food, gas in my car. It started there, but slowly it was, oh, my gosh, my friends, my healthy children. It just grew and grew. So by the time you get to 88 guys, they say, and it's proven in a million studies, we, we rewire our brain. You are constantly telling the brain whether to attract. I call it spiraling down or spiraling up. And if you're Doing gratitude, you. You are absolutely spiraling up. Because gratitude is one of the highest highs as far as energy, love, joy, gratitude are at the top. So as you get even one gratitude. Oh, I'm sorry. One more story. Sure. I have too many. And this was of a woman who'd just gone through the coaching, and she didn't get along with her father at all. They. They argued at every turn. So when they got together once a month as a family, she had five brothers and sisters. They just avoided each other. One day she was out for her morning walk, and sue decided to pick up the phone and call her dad. He answered the phone, he goes, yeah. And she said, yeah, dad, it's Sue. I. I'm just curious. What's one thing you're grateful for? Dad. What? Dad, just give me one thing you're grateful for, please. I suppose that I'm alive. Okay, great. I'm going to call you tomorrow for another one. Bye. She did it every morning. He. Every morning he had a new one. About two weeks in, something happened. She didn't go for a morning walk. And he called out her that afternoon and said, you didn't call? And she said, no, Dad, I forgot. I just didn't do my walk. He goes, don't forget. Okay, today it's asparagus. So this goes on. And about a month in, he says, how come you never share yours? And she said, because you never asked, dad. And he goes, I'm asking. So they went back and forth every morning. And by the time they would get together at the end of the month, their closeness continued. And when he passed a year and a half later, they were very close. I just love the power of gratitude to lift us up.
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Scientifically proven that gratitude has so many benefits. And there are a lot of people out there that operate at the 5 level. And there are people that feel like down on their luck, everything's against them. Why me? What would you say to those folks who aren't quite on board yet as far as buying into gratitude and they don't feel like they have a whole lot to be grateful for? What would you say to them?
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A
I love that question. Okay, so here's the deal. When you're choosing thoughts that feel good, you feel what? Okay, that's just a fact again, I did this with the audience yesterday. When we choose thoughts that feel good, we feel good. When we feel good, we have more. What would you play this game with me, Art? Just. We'll go back and forth. When you feel good, you have more energy. Wonderful. You have more power, you have more fun, you have more patience. Yeah. What comes to mind? When we feel good, we have more motivation, courage, confidence, love. It's just an. It's a ridiculously long answer. And when I spoke at the national conference of Bankers in Marco island, what did they yell out first? When we feel good, we have more money, we have more success, we have more productivity, we have more of everything. So what I told the audience yesterday was, okay, let's look at this list. There are 250 that I've come up with. In other words, everything you've ever wanted would be on this list. And what did it all come from? Two words. Feeling good. That's not easy to do. I say, no, it's not. So go back up to the original five words. Choose thoughts that feel good. I call that my high five. Choose thoughts that feel good. How long does it take to work this process? Your next thought, if it feels good, savor it, share it, post it, journal about it. If it doesn't feel good, replace it. So every time I have a worry, I can immediately be grateful. I caught myself worrying, oh, good, now I get to shift it. And in right there, I have had a gratitude thought. And I can look at the tree outside my window and go, whoa, that is a palm tree. And I think they are such amazing creatures. Just love their resilience and their beauty and their grace. It, it just does not take a long time to come up with something you're grateful for. But it's a discipline. You have to catch yourself choosing that thought that doesn't feel good and say, okay, I can sit here and stew in this as long as I want to and it'll create more thoughts just like it. And just for quick example, like your beautiful Haiti example, the hurricanes, what we know in Florida is they bring us closer together, get together, we help each other. Now, obviously some people who are living on the beach move away, fine. But those of us that have decided to, this is our home. It really we know the other side of the story is an incredible, incredibly close and loving community that we live in.
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Amazing stories. And going back to what you said about our choices, we. One thing that we control is the meaning that we give to anything.
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True.
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And one of my mind mentors is Jim Fortin. I'm not sure if you're familiar with him. What he has said is nothing has meaning until I give it meaning. Nothing in and of itself is good or bad. Right. Until you attach a story to it.
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A
That's beautiful.
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And you, you, you Always control the story. So if you control the story, why not tell yourself a better story?
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I love it.
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Let's expand on that a little bit more. So what can we do to have gratitude become part of our identity, not just something we do occasionally when we hear a great person speaking on a podcast.
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A
I love it. I love it. Okay, so I'm going to teach this skill. It's takes 30 seconds will change your life. But first of all, I found some quotes that I want to share with our audience. Here we go. Oprah said, if you're feeling off balance, I guarantee you that keeping a gratitude journal will change your life. Ellie Wiesel, POW Survivor. When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in their humanity. We are defined by our attitude toward gratitude. Willie Nelson. Once I started counting my. Counting my blessings, my whole life turned around. And I love Albert Schweitzer. Success is not the key to happiness is the key to success. So we know. Actually it was Zig Ziglar that said you've never met a grateful person who was unhappy, nor have you ever met an ungrateful person who was happy. Okay? So we know it's important, but it's so simple. And that is three a day, no repeats. So if you're grateful for the sunshine tomorrow, you're done with sunshine for life. And what it does is it shifts our focus. So I always did mine at the end of the day and wrote them down for the next day. Because I want my sleep patterns to not be focusing on what I didn't do or what I didn't get or what happened. That was kafluy I wanna focus on. Oh, but right. So from the talk I gave yesterday, I certainly could. And I used to beat myself up that I forgot that joke or that story or whatever. Right? But instead I focused on that comment from the woman afterwards or the hug from someone or the light in their eyes when they understood it because of. So again, exactly like you said, you choose your story. Um, one of my teachers says there's two ends to every stick, and which end you focus on is what you're going to get more of. So the homework. I say, okay, here's 30 seconds of homework every day for the rest of your life. But only do it on the days you want to feel good. Don't do it on the other days. Usually gets a little chuckle. And then I say, okay, share three things you're grateful for from the past 24 hours. No repeats. Now, Shawn Achor is the Harvard researcher, a C H O r If you want to watch his TED Talk, it's. I think it's one of the top 10 most viewed and it's on happiness in the workplace. Again, Shawn S H A W N acor at any rate, he. Somebody called me one day and they said, did he read your book? And I said, no, but successful people all know the same things. He. While I was doing my little research, he was doing his in 43 countries. And he found out that one of the three keys to happiness and success were three new gratitudes a day. Except he tells you to write them in a book. And my research has shown that'll only last two or three months and then you'll forget and then you'll beat yourself up for forgetting and then you'll stop. But if you have a partner, just like sue had her dad, even though they weren't both doing it, it worked in my. When my son was growing up, emotional guy, just a. A type A and kind of a highly sensitive personality, if you know that personality. And so I said, sweetheart, I'm going to try this new thing. Would you do three gratitudes with me? So every day on the way to school, I'd say, do you want to go first or do you want me to? And he always had me go first until the day after the girl, his first girlfriend, broke up with him at 15. And he was devastated, of course. And I said, oh, sweetheart, we don't have to do gratitudes today. And he said, mom, today is the most important day. The wisdom of 15 year olds. And I said, yes, it is, Zach. And he goes, and I'll go first. I said, okay. He said, I'm grateful to have learned at a young age not to date the prettiest girl in school. He took that skill, became boys state representative that goes to college. Oh, in my book, I think I talk about got a $40,000 scholarship he didn't even apply for. I was grateful for that because he took incredible risks in his interview, not because of his test scores. And then he, he became president of his dorm and had the whole dorm doing it because they just found out. It felt so good. And certainly. And Sean Achor says this about Harvard University. He said, they come so excited that they got in, but they get depressed very quickly because of the competition. And he said, but gratitude turns them around. So it's so simple. So write those down, but then share them. So I have a group of 11 women I've been doing this with for 17 years. We usually do not take off weekends. Why would we? And we're simply on a thread of sharing three gratitudes. No, not do we all do it every day? No. But after 17 years we are going strong. And of course you start sharing gratitudes with someone, you will get very close to them. I had a woman come up to me once from a very small town in Nebraska. She said, I don't know anybody to ask to be on partner. I said I'll be your partner. And I said, so call me. This is pre email. I said, call me every morning at this time. I may answer, I may not. It doesn't matter. We are not going to chat about the day. We are going to only share gratitudes and then say thank you and hang it. And if I don't get you then I'll call you back and leave a message on your phone with mine. But I may answer. I mean it doesn't matter. We did it for I think four years only five days a week, that one. And. And then she said, I'm moving to California. It's a different time zone but I'll find a partner there. And you've been wonderful. And she said it changed her life. She was in severe depression when I met her and everything started changing with just that simple practice again. Just asking someone to be your partner, even if they're not going to do them with you. Could I please. It could be post it notes on the mirror. It could be at dinner time, at breakfast time, driving the kids to school. As I said, it could be at work. I know some workplaces have an email that they share, right? So that's, you can use one of those platforms but as long as there are three new ones a day and you're sharing them with someone, I guarantee it'll change your life.
- [34:52]
B
And this kind of goes back to taking the risk that you had mentioned before because I know a lot of people are going to look at this and go, oh, I'm not sure I can do that. But you can just do it and you'll realize how much of an effect that it does have on you. So a lot of people probably wondering the same thing I am after 17 years, how hard is it to come up with something new every day that you don't repeat? Pete.
- [35:15]
A
Oh my gosh. Yesterday, oh my gosh. This talk I gave and I, I met Jane and I met Nancy and my neighbor who's never been to my talks, I said would you be my assistant? And she and I now are closer because she really gets what I do. And I'm also grateful. I was supposed to have a surgery two weeks ago, and I would have had a bandage that I would have had to wear, and it got canceled and until next week. And so I was extremely grateful that I didn't have any bandage when I got to wear my really pretty outfit. So it. It's. It's impossible. Once you get gratitude eyes, it's impossible not to be able to come up with at least three. So it. It's. It. But it is a habit. Oh, well, I'm gonna tell one more quick story. All right. This is so powerful. The young man was up for a felony. His name was Ryan. And his mom set him to me for coaching. And we sat down for our first night, explained what I do, and I said, you can always opt out. And I said, ryan, could we just start with three things you're grateful for? And I sat and doodled for three minutes, and he could not come. He said, I can't come up with anything. I want a dog. My mom will let me have a dog. I. I don't have a job. I'm up for a felony. And I said, that's okay. And I walked him to the door, and I said, if you had to be grateful for that tree right there in my front yard, you had to. And he came up with three beautiful gratitudes. And I said, okay, three new ones a day. No repeats. I'll see you next week. So I cut it really short, and he goes, three new ones? No way. I said, your shoes right there. Are you grateful for those shoes, or can I have them? Oh, no. Okay. All right. You can do this, Ryan. A year later, he came back and had them. A year later, I had him speak with me because I was the keynote for the Nebraska Coaches association, having never even played a sport in high school. But I was the. But they knew what happened. When people use my program, they did better in sports. So they brought me in, and I asked Ryan to speak first. And he got up and he said, a year ago, this woman asked me for three things I was grateful for, and I'm embarrassed to say I could not think of one. I stand before you today unable to think of something in my life I am not grateful for. Gratitude changed my life. It changed my felony to a misdemeanor. I'm now a very successful coach of a middle school basketball team, and I'm back in college. And it was all because of gratitude.
- [37:49]
B
Actually, I already knew the answer to the question when I asked you, how do you come up with something new that you don't repeat? And I got it out of your book because you said that if somebody says, hey, what's new? Like we get that question every day. Your answer is now, now, now. Everything's new.
- [38:10]
A
Right?
- [38:11]
B
I love that. I'm going to start. I'm going to steal that. So you mentioned to me that you have just developed a series of gratitude games that people can use in any group and certainly Thanksgiving coming up here, it's a natural. But also any type of group, business teams and certainly sales teams. So could you just share one of those with us and then maybe help people could get access to the product or whatever it is you're releasing?
- [38:37]
A
Well, yeah. And so it is part of our, both our business curriculum and our student curriculum. But there's also 40 gratitude games right on our website. Go to eight to great.com at the bottom of the homepage it'll Say download the 40 gratitude games here. So probably the most popular is called the gratitude drill and it can be used in business schools on a trip where you're all in the SUV together and let's say the trip. So you're got some cranky kiss in the back and you say gratitude drill. So what you're going to do is the first person's going to have three seconds to come up with something they're grateful for. And then you just keep going around the circle. No repeats. Okay. So you're not saying the. I'm grateful for you three seconds to simply say the thing, whatever that is. And if you can't think of something new, you're out. Or if you repeat what you or someone else has said, you're out. It's, it's just really an amazing thing. Kind of gets people going and it, it gets people laughing. I remember one business. Someone said my garden and the next one said grass and the next one said weed and everybody's laughing. So it, it, it's just, it's, it's just such a feel good. And it works every time. And, and often the students when I'm in a school will say, can we please do the gratitude drill again? And it, it's something that's very easy to do, but you can also do a very short, small one, a one on one where you just turn to the person next to you and you share three things. You're great before and the third one is about them. That's another fun one that changes, it changes things because you may have never told that person. You, you, you think they know it, but they don't. And having them hear the words Mom, I'm just so grateful that goes away.
- [40:23]
B
Yeah, I could see that would be great. Families, teams, sports teams, business teams, sales teams. Awesome.
- [40:32]
A
Yes. A quote, a coach said that every time they got down, she'd say gratitude drill. So when they got in their huddle, she didn't tell them plays. She said gratitude drill because they were usually infighting, like blaming each other for not making the pass. And so she'd have them do great gratitudes for each other. Isn't that fun? I love it. Yeah.
- [40:51]
B
Serves the purpose of having a game and instead of just some mindless, stupid game, it's serving a purpose and it's fun. So I can see us doing this here at Thanksgiving. My son is a stand up comedy and improv, so he'll probably win. All right, wow, time is flying. Let's wrap up with this. So if listeners who are normally mostly sales professionals, but I already know this show is going to get shared and recommended. But if anybody was going to take away one big concept, and this is going to be tough to narrow it down to one, from all the great ideas that you shared or you didn't share yet, what would you want that one big takeaway to be?
- [41:27]
A
Often people say, what is your favorite of the eight highways? And I have a beautiful one. The one I talk about in my TED Talk is the positive attitude formula. Forgive the past, be grateful for the present, have hope for the future. And truly that covers every thought you'll ever have. It's either about the past or present or the future. And when you think about positive attitude, the most positive person which could be yourself is forgiving and grateful and hopeful. And take a look at that person going through a negative phase of their life and you be able to easily see they're either unforgiving, ungrateful, or hopeless. So I know it's cheating that I'm doing all three, but really we're the hardest person to forgive, of course. And so often you have to release the past in order to get back to the present moment gratitudes. So if you haven't done a forgiveness letter to yourself or other people, which of course you're gonna burn, you're not gonna send that to anybody. You just burn it and just release that and say, hey, I'm gonna start fresh today, right? The fresh now. And then get into those gratitudes. That. That to me is probably the most transforming thing I've seen in all my years of coaching this.
- [42:40]
B
Wow, that is great. And I would highly encourage all of you out there to get the book where There are three chapters on those. And what MK Adjustments almost called you Mary Kay. When did you change?
- [42:56]
A
How many times do I have to sit here? So do you drive a pink Cadillac? Here's the really reason men would not buy my book. Mary Kay branded that name so profoundly that men thought it would be about cosmetics.
- [43:11]
B
Oh, wow.
- [43:12]
A
Isn't that crazy? So mk, they're not even sure I am a woman and it just got me in more doors. So it was what my best friends called me. Anyway, I said, and I'm going to change it to mk.
- [43:24]
B
All right, you already shared a lot of quotes here today, but to everybody listeners of the show, you know what time it is. That's right. It's time for the quote of the day. So, mk, one of our regular features is the quote of the day. And I know you shared a bunch already and you have a million in your books, but how about sharing one that is especially meaningful?
- [43:56]
A
Wonderful. And if I can just also mention our website is the same as the book. It's just eight to great.com and you can email me at info@eight to great.com and I'd love any comments or questions after today. But yes, my favorite quote, Gosh, these days is by Mike Dooley. I love Mike. I get only one email I get five days a week, and that's Mike Dooley's. It's www.tut.com. and Mike actually was gracious enough to write the preview, the forward to my eight to Great book. And he gave me some very high praise in doing so, and I was just so grateful for that. But his. One of his latest quotes really struck me. So here we go. Mike Dooley's quote. Want your life to change for the better. Focus on gratitude and joy throughout your day, but only if you're in a hurry. Isn't that great?
- [44:54]
B
Yeah, unpack that a little bit.
- [44:57]
A
You can change your life in lots of ways, but the absolute fastest, most efficient is not to start with the exterior, but to start with the interior. Right? As Schweitzer said, success doesn't lead to happiness, leads to success. I can choose right now in my next thought. And you say, okay, when can I expect the stuff to come? Not only will it come, but it will come in ways you can't even imagine. But again, impatience. When you want to be impatient, say, it's not here yet. It's not here yet. Be grateful that you know it's on the way. It's already out for delivery and. But you have to be, as I say, on the 95th floor of the hotel in order to accept the helicopter coming in to do the delivery. So stay as positive as you can, keep going and hanging on to those grateful thoughts and you actually will get to where you want to go faster.
- [46:01]
B
I love it. I guess a good follow up quote to that could be in a hurry to be happy.
- [46:05]
A
Oh, I love it. And one of my, one of my new favorites is feel good first. Don't wait for things to change to feel good. That's giving your power away. Feel good first.
- [46:16]
B
Oh, I can't imagine how anybody who just listened to this entire podcast could not be happy right now and start practicing all the things that, that you have shared. This has been amazing. Time is fly. This is probably one of the longest podcasts I've ever done. It feels like we just started and I definitely want to do this again at some point because I know you have so much to offer, so many other things that, that you can share, but we are going to end up right now. So mk, if you would again share your. Your website again, it's the numeral 8 to. Great. I remember back to my gross high education. Numeral would be written out, right? Is that.
- [46:55]
A
Yeah, I love the number eight because on its side it's infinity, right? Is that flow? I just love the number 8. Yeah, 8 T O G-R-E-A T.com and again, email info@8 to great.com and I just, I can't thank you enough. I just, I just am so grateful for you being in my life and for all the lives you're touching through this and the fact that we're both in such a happy, healthy place right now.
- [47:19]
B
I am grateful for you being on this podcast and I'm grateful for the fact that we are going to be a affecting thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousands of lives of people who, who are going to listen to this amazing. That's what I'm going to leave with. So thank you again so much for sharing today. It's been unbelievable. And everybody else, thank you. I'm grateful for you as well. Thank you so much for investing your valuable sales time with us today. Until next time, go out and make it your best sales day ever. I'm art subject.