Ep 185 - #75EHard The Electric Growth Challenge

Hello and welcome back, happy Wednesday. This is another episode of Electric Pinner Secrets, the Electricians podcast. I'm your host, clay Neumeier, as you can see below, the pleasant peasant all the way from up here north of the border in Canada. I'm so polite, I'll open the door and thank you for walking through, joe With me. As always, my esteem, I went the wrong way. Esteem, co-host Joseph, the salesbot Lucani. And this week we're going through something really incredible this idea of the 75 hard journey where it came from, how it could serve electricians specifically today, as we've created our own action item, something to help you get devoted to your cause, your growth, your control of your life, your better loving home and all the things that come with that, to improve your sales and take your shot at becoming a salesbot, just like Joe, as we continue to help you guys, five days a week, master your sales, simplify your pricing and deliver premium level electrical service. Would it be wrong of us to pose this challenge, joe? No, sir.

It would not. And I gotta admit, I love when you're on cadence. It's just like one of those things that just really just tickles the air. It's like that, that, that, that.

Boom. I love it. Gets it started right. Gets it started right. Hey, if you're with us in the Electric Pinner Secrets Facebook group, let us know. I know there was a post going around. Have you done anything like 75 hard? When's the last time you challenged yourself? Give us some feedback on that.

while we go into a bit of the details on this big action piece today, joe, without going directly in, can I just ask how are you doing today, brother, today's a great day, and the reason being is not that it's been an easy day, but have you ever had a day that you just ground down to the like, all the way down to the dust? But when you look back at what you've built, you're like man that was good. Oh, yeah, oh definitely. That's where I'm at today. It's one of those days where I really never even got up from the desk. I've been to use the bathroom, but it really felt like I have so much left in the tank. So I feel really, really good, despite doing what we're doing.

Yeah, I love that and I love having a partner that has that level of dedication and commitment. Just as a disclaimer, let me say that prior to this podcast I did say to Joe maybe you should take a stretch, maybe you should take an extended lunch. Today he's just so committed to something we're going to talk about the family and the family time afterwards. He just doesn't want to risk having to go over or having to come back later, so he's going to put the work in as like a true 75 E hard fashion here To get it done and move forward with the family time later. I wanted to acknowledge that and congratulate you on your dedication to your health, family and business job.

Well, thank you, man. Honestly, I'm lucky to have a partner like you as well.

Awesome, brother, Awesome. So really today I mean yesterday we planned to get more into it. We couldn't because we were so caught up in, like, just this beautiful conversation about fear, heading right for it, the paths, the journey, and the mental toughness, fortitude it takes to combat that stuff. But today I really want to get deeper on some of the stuff you did and some of the things that are in this challenge that people will be able to utilize here this week. So, in that growth. What would you say were some of the pillars that really are going to be found in this challenge to help others realize their best selves, their sales records, their healthy, happy homes?

So the funny thing is is that when people are listening to this, they're probably going to be like oh, what new mysterious secrets is he pulling out of the spectrum, land to tell us and deliver? But really, what I'm going to be telling you are core facts that almost every one of us already knows and so few of us have prioritized. So the very first thing that I had in mind was that you cannot drive a race car on an empty tank. You just cannot do it, no matter how good you are. Have you ever tried? I'm sure you've dealt with it. Well, clay, when you try putting in the midnight hours and you're like I'm just going to do it, I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it and you can sustain yourself for a while, yeah, but eventually what ends up happening?

Burnout, brother. Burnout and even burn up is another expression we've used to describe what really the chaos that ensues.

Yeah, it's one of those things where you're not going to be able to be successful at the highest level. Yeah, so the very first thing we did is recognize either are we eating right and are we sleeping right? I would even prioritize sleep over eating if given one or the other. So that's why sleep is the first thing we're going to talk about, and you actually had a quote for this.

Yes, a Ben Franklin quote of all people, yep.

So my father taught me a lot of quotes. Quotes is really how a lot, of, a lot of life lessons were communicated, and this one was early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise. What that means is that if you can guarantee that you get a good night's sleep and wake up early, it's not just getting eight hours and waking up at nine o'clock in the morning, it's getting eight hours and being up early in the morning will allow you to be not only healthier and leads to wealth and will increase your wisdom. Now this is how we do it. Now, I always made it a point to say five AM is the wake up. No matter what, no condition five AM. The reason why I chose five, I'm sure you'd be like. Why is that such an arbitrary?

name I was I was Okay.

So the reason is, if you think of when the typical electrician starts, normally we're at our shops at seven AM, right? Yep? So you're at seven, seven, thirty at the latest, and then you're usually dispatched by eight o'clock. So work yourself backwards If you knew. Let's say you're 30 minutes away from the shop typical commute for an average person, right? Yeah, Some are longer, some are shorter, but 30 minutes is a good average. That would mean that you could theoretically leave the house at 630 in beyond time. Some people then would say well, I'm gonna get up at six, I'm gonna wolf down something quick or not eat it all, or I'll get up at six, 15, rush out the door and I'll start waking up, have my morning coffee on the road. Now, it's a huge issue with that because, though you're present physically, you're not present mentally. And you need that mental sharpness in order to cut things. And what I mean by cut, I mean, like you need to be able to survive in what you're doing. So you need to cut through the fog of confusion.

I'm thinking of a classic problem here and this is just a situation in my head, I mean, at this time here especially, it's darker later in the morning. So this vision I have is people waking up kind of reactively. Maybe they hit snooze a bunch of times, they missed the gym time, not gonna make it there. Realistically, we're gonna show up at the office or the shop with 10, 15 minutes or maybe even five, 10 minutes late God forbid and then everything's reactive from there. You hit one too many red lights on the way right.

Hit the school bus behind you or what's in front of you.

You realize, oh shit, I don't have fuel in the tank literally not in my body, but in the gas tank to get there. So now you've got to stop for fuel. You're seeing the minutes go by. You're hitting the red lights, someone cuts you off. Your whole fucking day is ruined. Right you ever been there? I mean, we haven't even got to the lunch and the eating part yet. Exactly, hygiene, what you smell like. I mean that person is not showing up at their best. We must all agree on that.

Yeah, 100%. And the thing is is I'm gonna give everyone a cheat code to figure out exactly who this person is. There is something that you'll be able to do. The next day you go to your shop and know exactly who this kind of person is. It's gonna be so sorry for the TMI, but here's what it is. When you're getting ready to dispatch to your first call, there is going to be technicians who need to use the bathroom before they leave. They're gonna be the ones that are like hey, the morning coffee's hitting, I gotta go now, before we get there.

Yeah, and you probably see this on the wall in the cubicle where you're using the bathroom. How does that go? You make a dollar, I make a dime and that's why I shit when I come in. Yep, oh my God.

So the reason is Great attitude for life.

by the way, if I could just throw, that out, naturally. That's how you get ahead.

Naturally right? Yeah Well, if you think about it, coffee has a window of 45 minutes. It takes 45 minutes for you to have digestion, which means that this person left their shop 30 minutes and they'd only been awake and had their morning coffee within 15 minutes of them leaving.

Yeah, that's the crazy part.

That means their morning meeting is usually not as productive because they're thinking about how they got to run. They're mentally focused. Usually they haven't eaten anything. Their hydration is low. So not only Clay, were you not in the mental place from the road to traffic and the school bus and not having gas? But now you're not focused because you're already thinking that you got to run to the bathroom and you're not. You're in a fog because you haven't eaten anything. Right, what that?

feeling is. I can feel that switch because I've felt this myself. At times it's like, well, it's just another day, all I got to do is the same thing I did yesterday I just got to show up, run the play, everything will be fine, I'll be done by four. But then, even when the finish time has changed, all of a sudden that person has an attitude problem. Right, exactly. Just saying like I've been there too, joe, I'm sure you've been there too and realized very quickly this isn't a productive place to live.

It's not. And the thing is is that I was also with the person who kind of like punched in and did try doing my job. But it's hard to do that when you're the boss. You know, like if you're not going to do it I mean you can't always lean on your partner for things You've got to sometimes do things for yourself. And if you're not the right person, you're also not the right kind of leader because, as we mentioned earlier, your business is a reflection of you. It's the mirror. So if you accept that, how can you say your employees can't accept that? Why wouldn't you accept when they do it? So we need to be leaders, so we need to set the standard. So let's reverse engineer this. The reason why I said five was I can tell you the exact routine that we did in order to guarantee that when we showed up at seven, we were an absolute machine. So the first thing you would do in the morning is you're going to get up at five and you're going to count eight hours back from there. Whatever that is, usually it's nine, 10 o'clock at night. You need to be asleep at those hours, non-negotiable Grant.

Fair disclaimer. Some people actually do operate fine on seven. I challenge anything earlier than that. I know there's this super overworked mentality that say well, no, I can do it on five. That to me is a crash and burn philosophy. I don't see how anyone could be at their best, but maybe I just don't understand it. To me it's a seven to eight hour window. Like me, personally, I feel really good at seven to seven and a half hours.

Correct and to put out the disclaimer here. We're not trying to say this is a gruel pace. This is meant to be a lifestyle pace. You build your life around this and you don't have to just do it for 75 days. This is just your way of being. I've lived this way for so many years and the benefit is is that once you're consistent with it, you'll need to change. Your body starts to be its own alarm clock so you recognize that melatonin production, which is the chemical that is responsible for sleep, starts to happen right around when you recognize that twilight happens, so your body is already naturally preparing to go to sleep. You turn off your phone, you stop with the blue light, you're not playing video games before bed. You're not scrolling in bed. Read something, Take quiet time with your family, Do a hobby that you enjoy, Whatever it is, get yourself in the mindset of sleep. Eight hours go by, 5 am starts. Now I'd like to continue the next step from here, because it builds from 5 am forward. Is that okay if I do that?

I'm actually reminded and I think I could set you up for this, as we were talking about kind of recognizing that right staff, the right person in the shop in the morning reminded me of the higher for attitude, trained for skill and a great attitude component might be to look for would be that attitude of gratitude because, as Jim Rohn said and many others, your attitude equals your altitude. And so if you've, got this building attitude, which I think is where you were headed next. Am I right? Yep, you and I are in the 100% same page. If you've got that right attitude, then you're going to be in the right space. And even if I'm reflecting back on the shop gathering before dispatch and there's the guys that just trying to finish their 7-Eleven coffee and hit the toilet as soon as the next one, and I think that's okay, that's gross and I hate that lineup for the one.

Yeah, it's never a fun thing, especially when you know like there's always one guy in that lineup. They're like, oh fuck, I'm behind this guy, I'm done. I might as well just go. I'll go to the shop across the street.

It's not worth it With the attitude and with the stuff where it's coming up in this list. It's just a vastly different person who's entirely prepared for the day in ways that the others are not, and so the performance trajectory is just massive. Please take the mic away. Go ahead, Joe.

I don't know. It's okay. So the next is being in a place of gratitude. So I've walked many different paths. I've studied almost every religion that I could get my hands on, and there was a period of time when I was actually very devout and planning on being a pastor, and there was also times when I became a devout atheist. The regardless, the concept remained the same, and the same was gratitude. There was a public speaker by the name of Dr Wayne Dyer that I followed religiously. I loved everything he put out and anything he did. I would want to read it and the way he would start his day was he would say regardless of what or who you believe in thank that power or the universe Simply just say thank you, thank you, thank you. The moment you wake up, it has to be like an active alarm every time that very not using the bathroom, not rubbing your eyes the first words out of your mouth should be thank you. The reason being is that we're trying to condition ourselves to focus on what really matters and sometimes remember how some people say you wake up on the wrong side of the bed. Imagine if you could program your brain to say, the moment it wakes up I am so grateful for the ability of waking up this morning. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to serve. I am so grateful to be a person of faith. I am so grateful to do these things. Wouldn't that shift the rest of the day from there?

100% it's an attitude, a standpoint of praise. Exactly that's really powerful, because you've got a lot of people to praise in your day, especially if you're in electrical sales. There's actually a lot to be grateful for and we're all just looking right past it. We all seek so much in our lives and the next big goal and it's like having stuff was never enough in the first place it's the human drive to just always be looking for more, and so, just in reflection from that point, doesn't it make sense to just pause, have some mindfulness and some grace in your life? Ritualistic grace to a fault. I do not start without grace. I believe in that 1000% job.

Yep. So, regardless of whatever denomination you find yourself in, being in place of gratitude is only going to benefit you. So, now that we're in a place we've woken up, we had our grace wash your face, use the bathroom, get yourself clean, get yourself started cold water whatever you got to do get yourself cleaned up. After leaving the bathroom, I would always have my entire clothing everything socks, boxers, pants, shirt, uniform anything was all there, and right next to it was my gym bag. My gym bag was ready, packed and good. I would take all that go downstairs. My lunch was also packed, done and good. So you've got everything you need to leave the house effectively. The first thing that we would do from there is my partner and I would drop. Good, sorry, I want to call a timeout?

Sure, because I think it would be a mistake to just kind of cruise past that, and I know that we won't get it all out today, but we do have a couple of podcasts left. So I really want to highlight that. If you just heard what Joe said and you rolled your eyes at all, if you excuse that thought in your mind at all, I feel like you're making a mistake, because people do this. But I can tell you some powerful, powerful names in our world that we all know Steve Jobs, right as one, warren Buffett, I mean. These are power players that do this same habit in proper preparation for the next day Darren Hardy, jim Rohns, the Tony Robbins, everyone on the planet that we know as like an uber successful superstar, has taken advantage of this. And it's to minimize decision fatigue, exactly Because the last thing you need to do when you get up in the morning is have any excuse to miss the 5am, to miss the grace, to miss any of the habits or what you're going into with even physical fitness. Any excuse that gets that off your plate is a fucking train wreck and it can't be acceptable. So by preparing yourself for the next day, just to double underline, bold, italicized highlight, add some exclamation marks and throw it through the fucking window. If you're prepared, you've got no excuse.

It's true, and a lot of times what I found was that if you weren't prepared and you said I'm going to power through it anyway by show of hands, how many of us have ever gone to the gym and forgot your gym shoes? Or you forgot to change your clothes, or you realized I'm now in yesterday's gym clothes. You had the bag, but you forgot to pack it. Excuse, excuse. So the thing is, you said I'm going to be there and you showed up but you're not at your best, and now you smell, or now you're not looking the best, or now you're not feeling comfortable because you put on old clothes. So like, even even further, like people taking their keys and putting them in the fridge next to their lunchbox so that they can't leave without their lunch. Yeah, those are other practices you can do to make sure that you've guaranteed preparation. Now, I know we're running a little short. Can I touch on one more and we'll give some access assignments.

Yeah, man, we're gonna one more. I want to tease one and we'll get more into it tomorrow, I think, in the review of what we send out.

No worries. So the next step was why we decided to work out. Why in the morning? Why was it so big? Why not wait till the evening? Why not do a midday? Have you ever noticed that your 12 o'clock or your 11 o'clock almost always feels better than your eight o'clock, like if you were on a service call? Like a lot of times, the first morning call, the day was never a fun one if you weren't well rested. But I found that if you were up and you got your heart rate up and you were exercising, you were more alert and prepared to serve the day and actually gave you like. To give you perspective, it gives you more hours of heads up compared to the person who needs that time to prime. So where they botched their 8am call because they're not mentally sharp, you're on point, which gives you a distinct advantage over your competition and your coworkers. Yeah, so the benefit was is that you're getting your heart rate up, you're prepared for your call, but you're often also releasing endorphins. When you work out and you release endorphins, you're finding that your body naturally has its own high going on. You're happier. Naturally, your energy goes up, your metabolized food better. Everything you do becomes better once you have the endorphin rush, but even further. Sorry, but I didn't mean to step on your toes. Do you want to add anything?

I was going to add to it if you didn't have another one, but it's a simple, this concept of like okay if you can't control your thoughts, control your breathing, and the real underlying truth there is to lead with activity. And in almost everything, especially the things we don't want to do, just leading with activity, just starting, is often enough to get us going to a point where we don't want to stop until it's done right. And so the gym is one of those things, like the physical exercise itself doesn't seem all that important, I guess, to miss one to you know, to have these spurts, ups and downs and been there, been there, been there right over and over. This happens through life, but it's also the quality of your leading growth. With activity, you're physically improving yourself and your brain is about to follow, and that leads right into our next one. And I just want to drop the teaser and come up with some action items today, leave it for tomorrow. If you led with activity and you got yourself into the growth mindset, then the next time you're in the van, what would you have on the speakers?

Well, the next thing you'd have would be your training material. The thing is, if you're going to be a better tech, you're listening to better installation pathets. If you're going to be a better service technician or a better salesperson, you've got sales material in the background. It could be you know what. I'm not even going to tease what it could be, because that's what's going to be tomorrow.

Make the van a university. What a powerful episode. I know we're getting another one out of this too. This challenge is just beginning. It's going to go a long ways for anyone who takes the challenge. It's going to help anyone who's struggling with consistent sales, consistent home life, consistent self self-discipline control. Put it this way if you literally know where B is for you and you're at A and you just can't seem to get there, this is the challenge for you. It's a base action. Replay this episode again, listen to it again, but put your hand up on our Facebook post where you can get your copy of the challenge and take your shot at these 75 hard days for an electrical growth initiative so that you can be your best self in a much sooner period of time.

I love that Nice to talk.

All-star action.

I do have one.

All right, hit it.

The all-star action is actually a mental reframe. The reason being is that when people say 75 hard, it implies that it's something genuinely hard to do. As a result, people shy away from things that are hard. Rather, I'd rather someone focus on this. Is 75 essential? This is things that you need to do and that could be 75E for electricians or 75E essentials. I love that Good twist, but the benefit is is that if you can look at this and say I'm not doing this to be a better salesperson, I'm doing this to be a better person and, as a result, will become a better salesperson, love it. People work with people. If you're a better person, people will see that. Taking care of your health, taking care of your sleep, taking care of your diet, taking care of your exercise, investing in mental exercise, investing in learning and continuing education that's just the few things we do. We haven't even gotten half a little list. These are essential things to help build better people.

I know that we're going to end this and I appreciate what you said. I think this could really change some lives, or we wouldn't do it. That's why we do this whole thing. But there's a key difference I think we'd be mistaken not to mention here we discussed it already One of the fallacies with the original 75 hard challenge is having to start over. I believe that too. What I was trying to promote is mental toughness and really dialing in your self-discipline. In this case, we acknowledge that every day spent on the right path is growth of that path. We want to keep you going down that path as much as possible. You can expect some difference to the challenge in that department. Joe, I want to thank you for your shares on some things that clearly made you an absolute all-star in a sales bot, if nothing else. Man. I want to thank everyone who joined us today for episode 185 of Electric Printer Secrets, the Electricians podcast, where we keep showing up to help you master your sales, simplify your pricing and deliver premium-level electrical service. Can't wait to see your best self. Keep on trucking with us. We'll see you again tomorrow, look forward to seeing you then.

Thank you,