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- [00:03]
A
Are you ready for next level growth in your business? Welcome to the Lindsay Anderson show where we pull back the curtain on the exact strategies, tools and mindsets that build million dollar empires. If you're hungry for more time, more freedom and a whole lot more impact, you've come to the right place. Buckle up because we're about to ignite your business journey. Now here's Lindsay.
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B
This episode is brought to you by the BAM Agency. Done for you social media that actually drives results. Not just likes, but high ticket sales. If you're ready to turn your content into a client generating machine, grab a free strategy session call by heading over to Lindsay a.com apply. Paul Coo is a National Geographic Explorer bestselling author and founder of Tributary Coaching. His work blends extreme sports coaching with mindset performance training for business leaders. He's helped CEOs, celebrities and entrepreneurs confront fear and tell a truer story. Paul, welcome to the show. Can you tell us a little bit about how facing fears and self image really came up for you? How did you become so passionate about this?
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C
Yeah, yeah. Well, I appreciate it. Thanks so much for the opportunity to join you today. And thanks for the great question. I found a passion in helping people face fear and sort of be at that nexus moment for them. Originally in paddle sports and when I was coaching athletes on the water, my whole first career was that of a professional kayaker and paddle sports coach and trainer of other coaches and guides. And this would come up all of the time. People would always learn the best way to teach this stroke or learn how to teach people how to roll or all these physical, technical aspects of the sport. But very little time and attention was spent on the mental aspects of the sport. And there's a lot of fear associated with water sports in general, but especially running that first waterfall or surfing that first big wave, it can be overwhelming and it can be the thing that really holds back all of your other performances, whether that's in the boardroom or in the boat. And so that fear is really just a culmination or a result of the story that we're telling ourselves in our mind. And so that was originally what got me so fascinated with story. And facing fear was really just helping people perform at their best when it mattered most on the water.
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B
And so this is all about fear. I feel like you're cuddling up to fear a little bit. How do you feel towards it?
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C
Yeah, well, that was the first reframe that I think I ever experienced was kayaking around with my uncle and my dad and Family, friends, and we took our first kayaking class, and we realized that actually fear was the most important thing to bring with us on the water because it kept us sharp, it kept us paying attention, avoid complacency. It really helped us be at our best as long as we could control it and keep it within a certain range. And so really, reframing that and deciding that, you know what, fear's a good thing was something I learned as a little guy. And now that I get to teach that to other people, it becomes transformational.
- [03:18]
B
A lot of folks, interesting, but usually when we're young and we feel that fear, we go and hide. Or this is where the flight or fawn thing comes from. You pick these up, and now you're saying, hey, body. When I feel this feeling, whether it's that tightening in my chest or whatever you're feeling physically, be like, it's not this. It's actually be excited about it or be grateful for it, because it can actually help you get to the other side.
- [03:42]
C
It can be. It can be even just naming it, just saying. I remember sharing with the group in my early days, paddling. It was the first time that I saw grown men expressing and being honest about their fear. Standing there at the side of a rapid and saying, I'm scared right now. That's the cool thing about the river community, is that's not only accepted, but celebrated. And acknowledging that is the first step. Just feeling that feeling, identifying it, saying it, but then also saying, I'm also really excited. Right? That same feeling, those same physiological cues, the quickening, the heart rate, the shallowing of the breath, the sweaty pal. All of that also happens when we're really excited and our brains don't always know the difference. But if we can harness that truth and tell it the right story, intentionally do things physiologically, like slowing down our breaths and smiling and saying out loud, I'm excited about this right now. I'm scared, too. But I'm also really excited. Has a profound impact on our brains and our lived experience, and therefore our results.
- [04:43]
B
Okay, so let's pull that into client acquisition. Sales is people's biggest fear, right? So paint the picture for me, Paul. Make me feel like I'm excited to get in the sales kayak.
- [04:53]
C
Oh, my gosh. Right? There's so many things to be afraid of there. It's a form of public speaking, which people are terrified of. That's like, statistically, most people would rather be in the casket than deliver. The eulogy is the old joke. So there's that you're also confrontational in that space. Often a lot of times, people will feel salesy or they feel like they're bumping up against an objection, and they have to confront that. And that can be uncomfortable for people. And so when you're really thinking about this in a sales perspective, there can be a few points in that interaction or in that customer acquisition journey that can bring these sort of things up, and they can cause us to be afraid, whether that's the first intro call or reviewing that proposal and saying, it's decision time, let's move forward together or not. There's fear of rejection in there.
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B
Fears keep piling up here, Paul. I'm sweating already. I gotta turn off my heater, but keep going.
- [05:42]
C
And so there's all of those things that we can start to hijack our story in our mind. And so the first thing I can say is we need to embody the correct role in the story such that we can avoid some of these fears and some of these issues, because a lot of that stuff is about us. And a sales acquisition moment is really about the customer, right? We talk a lot about, in storybrand land being guides in our customer's hero journey and their story. And we need to really figure out, okay, am I afraid? Because I'm actually positioning myself in the wrong role of the story, Meaning I'm making myself the hero of the story right now. And don't get me wrong, we all wake up as the hero of the story in the beginning of the day. We're the protagonist, right? The world's revolving around us. We have our favorite theme song soundtrack as we walk and get up out of bed and move through the day. But often in a sales customer acquisition and leadership scenario, we need to shift roles. And for centuries, storytellers have been introducing other characters in the story other than the hero and the. And the victim and the villain. There's always a guide in the story. And so if we can start to remember that this interaction isn't about us, we're not the ones with the problem we're solving. They are the hero of the story. They're the ones facing adversity. And we need to be that guide. And when we can step alongside that hero and stop being confrontational and stop thinking of it as us coming in and saving the day, suddenly we don't have to think of our customers in such a scary way, right? These interactions can feel more natural. You're helping them really solve a problem. And so you're serving and you're guiding them. And it starts to feel a lot less yucky and a lot less scary and a lot more natural to take on that different role. But it doesn't just happen naturally because we have to actually think about stepping out of our normal typical hero role in the story and into one of those other ones. And if we fail to do that, we actually push our customer or potential customer into one of the other roles of the story. Victim. No, thanks. Villain. Gosh, I hope not. We really need to make them the hero. Put ourselves as guide, and let that relieve some of that fear.
- [07:47]
B
I love that. Because all that's like, what's blaring in my head right now, you know, because you always try to tell your customers, try to approach sales of service, and that answers all of your problems, all your problems, like the way that you really broke it down, that there's only a certain amount of roles in play. And so if you pick up the wrong role, that puts your customers in a really weird position. So pick the right role and then you won't feel, yeah, you're not the center of that story. I love that.
- [08:12]
C
Takes all the pressure off. Right. Suddenly you get to be that special person that can step alongside them and help them win the day, because it's about them. They have all of the challenges that you're helping them face. And that can be so much more fulfilling for us as providers of whatever that service is, but also a lot less scary.
- [08:30]
B
I love that. Okay, my next question is about this side of fear that is hidden, Right? So it is this logic piece. My fear can sometimes pull out, like some PowerPoint presentations and be like, these are the reasons why you should not do this. And it looks so good and it's so logical, but come to find out, it's freaking fear acting like me. Is that accurate?
- [08:54]
C
Somewhat. So there's a lot of this that is existing in a neuroscience space, which we won't get into too many technical terms, but we have those three levels of brain. That center of our brain where our fears and our emotions really live is called that limbic brain system. It's where our amygdala is. It's where we have our sort of instant reactions. And the thing that makes our palms sweat involuntarily, all of that's happening there. But in reality, we make our decisions. And as modern humans, we have this neocortex, this higher level brain system that we get to use. And often they're at odds. Your limbic brain system is saying, this is risky. You might get rejected, you might make an enemy out of this person. Who knows what could happen. You could have a terrible time. And so it's trying to protect you from yourself. Quite often at the same level it would be in its ancient role right when it was protecting you from the saber tooth tiger. It's going to fire off all the same feelings, all the same physiological stuff because it doesn't really differentiate our higher level brain, our neocortex, our logical part does. And it can start to say, hey, this is actually not that scary. I can handle this. What is the hard part is the limbic brain system's hardwired and it's made to be quicker and made to be a faster highway for those neurotransmitter signals to keep us alive. Because if you get it wrong about the saber tooth tiger, you're done. And you don't have time to really analyze it with this higher level, more logical brain. And so it's actually made to override that neocortex. And so we need to have practice tapping into that higher level brain and differentiating between the two. And so you do, you have almost feels like multiple brains talking to each other. And that limbic one's got a lot louder voice quite often.
- [10:34]
B
I had a client recently say to me, lindsay, I've never had leads come to me like this before. That's the difference between posting randomly and using a real strategy. At the BAM agency, we turn content into conversations and those conversations into clients. If you want a social media system that actually works, apply for a free social media strategy session. Call by heading over to Lindsaya.com apply. Thank you for adding some clarity there. That is so fascinating. So let's break it down. Let's bring it down here to something that the listeners can really walk away with. So some of our biggest fears are like raising prices or going on social media and like facing these sort of things. So how can I transform when I do not want to do those things? Paul, what do I do?
- [11:27]
C
Well, first off, we're not going to feel like it all the time. You are probably going to have to do things you don't feel like doing and you're going to have to take action despite the fear, do things scared. I talked to my boys. They're 7 years old and 10 years old and there's a lot of things that they're afraid of. They'll run like river, whitewater rivers in their little kayaks, but they're afraid to go upstairs in the middle of the day if no one's upstairs, because interesting Sometimes we just have to do things afraid. And that is a muscle, that muscle of doing the thing even though you don't feel like it or even though you feel afraid. That becomes easier and easier and easier as you practice it. So there is that. It's practice doing things you don't want to do. And think of it like you're training that muscle and it can give you a little bit more motivation to do it even when you're scared. So there's that. The other thing that we can really focus on doing is taking the time to really think about our situation in the framework of story, because our brains are made to engage with story. And we can start training our brains and telling ourselves the right story that we need that'll help spur on the actions. And so there's a little of a thought chain or thought model that is often talked about where we have this circumstance and then we have a subconscious thought about it which evokes a feeling. And we then take action based on the feeling that provides our result, which is a new circumstance. And it goes round and round and round again. And so taking a moment, a little bit of a gap between circumstance and thought and installing the right story is the magic key. And that's true for performance and athletics. That's true for going in that sales meeting. That's true for doing any of those actions that you want to have driven by that higher level brain. And so practicing the pause and reframing that story and thinking about what can you do or what can you think about, that gives you the feeling you need to take the action you actually want rather than just white knuckling it.
- [13:20]
B
Good. Practice the pause, guys. Practice. Okay, now I know you have a good story. Paul, tell me about somebody who transformed their fear. I'm ready. I got popcorn. Tell me.
- [13:30]
C
Yeah, well, you're right. I don't want to make it all about me, but I had a recent example of this. Just last week I was invited down to Tucson, Arizona to facilitate a full team meeting. It's sort of their meeting of the year. It's their retreat. They were going to take their whole team of therapists, actually therapists and physical trainers and wellness practitioners down for a full day retreat to get unified with their story and get comfortable with each other and being out of the work context and really forming, forming a tighter bond. And so I'm in there facilitating the outline building. We're planning out the day and the leadership team brings up that they're ride horses. And I don't know if anybody out there has fears of horses. But oh my gosh, not only are they giant with those weird big long faces and big teeth, but they just do what they want. I know you're supposed to say, you can drive on this little leather string and make this multiple thousand pound beast go left and right and stop right. They can do what they want. I was faced with the idea of leading a group all day through some pretty big important stuff, which normally would make most people nervous. I was fine with that. This horseback riding part in the middle of the day, though, I can feel my palm starting to sweat just thinking about it. For me, the moment of transformation was leaning into the idea of being uncomfortable and that actually being the best way to guide this group. So again, like, making it not about me, making it about how can I show up in a way that encourages them to do whatever makes them uncomfortable. Some of them have been riding horses forever and they just were giggling at me, but how can I show up and walk that walk? And so I think that a lot of the transformation comes when we actually remove ourselves from the story in a different way or shift what it's really about for us. And then facing that there's real transformation, but in a business context and making this around something other than horseback riding. I would say one of my favorite stories was somebody who found herself really at the center of the COVID madness. Running a tutoring company down in the Scottsdale, Arizona area. She had a real opportunity to help tutor, educate, and keep kids engaged with their learning during what was probably the hardest time in schools in modern history. At the same time, that meant she had to step into her role as a leader and not just be a tutor and an educator anymore, but be a leader of other educators and to run her team of tutors. And that makes some hard decisions. It's hard to not be one of the gals or feel like you're everyone's friend or feel like not everybody likes you all the time. When you're the leader and you have to make hard decisions, Especially in times that are uncertain like that. By framing her story in a different way and having her realize she was no longer sort of the hero of the story, she's now guiding all of these other hero teachers huge. It made all the difference, and it made saying no easier because she knew that it wasn't just about any one of those one individual teachers coming to her with needs. It was about keeping this whole program running and it being a provider for all of those heroes in that story. That was one of My favorite things. And she continues to grow it, but took that from a handful of tutors to dozens affecting hundreds of students across the area. And growing, built out a new company, rebranded, did a bunch of great things including buying or building. But it, it all starts with showing up in that way that you need to as that character in the story.
- [16:55]
B
I love it. I love it. All right, how does AI help us with this fear situation? Or what's your experience there? Tell me.
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C
Yeah, gosh. AI and fear. Well, there's a lot of opportunities. AI can help us with a lot of things. And I think a lot of people get worried about the dehumanization or the, or taking the emotion out. One of the things I have seen Be Powerful is an exercise I have each and every one of my clients and leaders do is to write a impactful future based first person goal story. A narrative that is really the picture and the embodiment of what they want to see happen in their world. There's a way to go about this and it draws from visualizing the outcome that you're wanting and the effort to get there as athletic performance. Right. If you're shooting a file shot in a basketball game, you're going to envision how that shot's going to go maybe even from different perspectives and slow motion and how's it going to feel coming out of your hand. All these mental visualization techniques you can use. And that is something that is going to really help you be there. And in that story, that goal story is something that can help you do it despite the fear and help you run the neuro connections and run the pathways ahead of time. When you hit that hard part or when you hit that fearful moment, you could lean on that goal story and really remember what it's all about and have that give you the intrinsic motivation to go ahead and do it even though you're scared of it or you're worried about it. I love that.
- [18:21]
B
I love that you're running the scenarios. It's not as scary the second time. It's so good.
- [18:26]
C
What's scary for people about doing that is writing it themselves quite often. Right? Yeah. Having the creative. I'm not a creative writer. I don't know. Now we can literally plug in what are your goals, what are the timeline, what are some key sensory elements, what's it smell like in the future, whatever. So AI write me an impactful goal.
- [18:44]
B
Story that, I mean that manifestation scripting right there. Paul.
- [18:49]
C
Yeah. And you would tap. AI is writing your story. Does it really work the Engagement your brain goes through in creating the prompt and then reading that thing back out loud to yourself or to a loved one when you need it. Most stories are powerful. It's actually the most powerful force one can wield to affect human behavior. So why not use it to power our goals? I've created some prompts and we do workshops where we actually have people write their goal story using AI and when they read that back, get the tissues out because most of the time they can't get through it. Is that moving for themselves? And then you're sharing your goals. Right? What happens when we share our goals, we have accountability is what everyone always thinks about and gets a little nervous about calling your friends. But you also get a ton of support. You're opening a story loop now. Everybody wants to contribute to that story happening. It's that like we're going to go to the moon and back moment. Right? Leaders are able to inspire action from a large group of people when they're able to cast a vision of the future that's really powerful and appealing. And when you can do that with your own story, you become unstoppable.
- [19:52]
B
So good. Oh, what a great note to end on, Paul. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise, your stories, everything. We really appreciate having you on the show. Tell everybody where to find you and anything else you want the audience to know.
- [20:05]
C
Oh, I'd love to give a gift. You can go to tributarycoaching.com There's a free resources section there. Tributary like a side river feeding the flow of your life and business. Tributary coaching.com head to the resources center there you'll see a couple of different things that can really help. One is the guide on how to write your own goal story. How to use power. Yep. So you can get your own goal story on. I'd love to hear your goal story if you could send it to me, email me whatever send it. Put it in the contact form on the site. That'd be amazing. I love reading those stories. The other thing that really is the kind of the breakdown on those stories becoming real is how we deal with time. And I'm a big believer that work life balance is a cruel myth. And instead we really in the modern work world have work life integration and flow. And how those things flow together really depends on how you're using your time and being intentional about that. You'll see a free time planning time flow resource sheet there that you can also check out in the resources section. That's totally free. Both those are free things that you can go and write your goal story and then break down your time such that it actually becomes true.
- [21:11]
B
I love it. Paul, thanks for being a guest on the show. It's been a real pleasure.
- [21:15]
C
Thanks for the invite. It's so fun to be able to speak with another local professional and powerhouse like yourself. I've seen your podcast episodes and I always enjoy them.
- [21:27]
A
That's a wrap for today's episode of the Lindsay Anderson Show. If you loved this episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and share how you're leveling up your business. Want more? Connect with Lindsay Anderson and get the tools you need to crush your goals@lindsaya.com until next time, keep pushing, keep growing and turn those business dreams into reality.
- [21:57]
B
Thank you for tuning in. If you got value from this episode, share it with a friend and hit subscribe. And if you're ready to stop posting and praying and actually generate revenue, let's talk. Book your free strategy session by going to lindsay a.com apply.