Ep 187 - Winners Are Made in the Middle

Hello, hello, hello and welcome back to another episode of Electricpreneur Secrets, the electricians podcast. This is episode 187. Winners are made in the middle, with your host, clay Neumeier, and, of course, my esteemed co-host, joseph. The sales bot, luke Annie. We're showing up here with you five days a week to help you master sales, simplify pricing and deliver premium level electrical service. And surprise, we're early this day on this, I know right. We've been talking so much about the 75 e-hard. I guess maybe it's because we woke up a bit earlier, joe, or did?

you. I did, actually. So the best thing is is that I'm actually going to be setting my alarm even earlier. Normally, I get up every morning at five, but recently the girls have been deciding to say they don't want me working out in the morning, so I'm going to be raising the bar and I'm going to start getting up at 4.30. Oh, and I'm just going to keep raising it, and raising it, and raising it until eventually I'm able to do the full challenge the way it's supposed to be done.

When's your bedtime, then it's got to be even earlier.

It gets earlier and earlier. Realistically I need about eight hours, so I'm trying to get the sleep in between nine and 10. But if I need to get up earlier, then so be it. I got up earlier.

Is what it is. Well, you are a strong dude. You're committed, you're focused. We know that. You've proven it. In fact, to tie it directly into what we're talking about today, how important do you feel it is actually to train for the middle of the race, as our topic is? Winners are made in the middle of what we're really digging at. There's like it's easy to start actually we talk about for some, it isn't. You don't have to be great to start, but you do have to start to be great.

Right, agreed, agreed 100%.

And it's easy to focus on the finish line and just think, well, when I finished, this will be fantastic. But what's not easy is actually to bear down and grit through the middle of the race. Can you speak to this at all, joe?

Yes, so it's also a philosophy thing in life as well, if you think about it. Have you ever heard the expression I'll be happy when I do this, I'll be happy when I get that, when I get that promotion, when my kids get older, when the car is paid off? Whatever it is it's, you're delaying your gratification to something else.

Admittedly you have said that, unfortunately, many times.

I've done that too. I don't blame it. I mean it's sometimes the way that we've conditioned ourselves. Yeah, the problem is is that if you realize all you're doing is you're the horse with a carrot in front of you and the carrot never gets closer, never, never gets closer. You can run on the treadmill trying to chase something and it doesn't get anywhere. The reason being is because the mark always moves. Like if I were to say Clay 15 years ago, would you expect it that you would be here right now in the situation with the blessings you have.

No, I can say as a caveat that generally many parts of my vision have unlocked and become available to me in ways that almost seem crazy to reflect on, but when you really truly think, well, I did think about that, I did ask for that in some ways, and now I've created that.

Correct, and I love that. The point I'm trying to get to is this is that when we're trying to train for the race, if we only go for the end goal, the bulk of the race isn't being enjoyed. There's a start that everyone enjoys, when the gunfire is off, and then the 90% in the middle gets completely blacked out. So people just want to see where they started and immediately jump to where they've ended.

You know what what's? Up no I don't want to interrupt, Please if you're on a roll go.

So continuing on with that, I've always interpreted the middle as training for the times when it's less fun, training for slow season in a way, if you really wanted to get into it.

We did talk about that.

Okay. The reason why I consider the middle the slow season is because it's the unfun part. It's the part where your discipline actually matters. It's the part where you getting up and you gritting your teeth and saying I'm getting this done regardless actually puts those coins into the finished jar.

Yes, yes, and as you talk about this, I can't help but be brought back to this. This expression I've used many times is that losers are focused on the scoreboard, in other words, the finish line. Mm-hmm, they're focused on the start and the finish, but winning happens in the middle. Winning happens in running the play consistently. Winning happens and keeps showing up no matter what. You're feeling Correct. That's kind of the discipline that this whole week's been really built around.

It has, and I have a good quote for it.

Can we condition ourselves to continually show up? Yes, thanks for letting me fit that.

No, no worries, I actually have a quote specifically for that. All right, so, granted, this shows what I'm watching with my kids. But yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift, and that's why it's called the present. You can appreciate what you have right now because that's really the only moment that's actually real. The past is always going to be affected by your thoughts of it. Your future is always going to be broken down by your projections of it, but the only real, tangible thing you have is this living moment right now, this breath connected to the next breath. If you can find joy in that space, then it doesn't matter how long away that goal is, because you'll notice, it just goes by. Wow, because you're counting day by day. You're saying I'm not counting 20 years, I'm counting 20 hours.

Yeah, I want to relate this to a bigger picture and then narrow back down to even our program. Sure, 80% of businesses on average small businesses do fail, and it tends to be within three to five years. And even in our program we've seen the ability to accelerate businesses at an extreme pace, like Eric and Mandy last week, who've been at it for a while, for sure, but that growth is so fast. We've had other people like Dorian, join us and within a couple months make 120K, where others take years to make that 120K, or maybe the first year goes by to make the 120K. That's an incredible feat. But what it does not change is this middle of the race syndrome, that is, do I have the intestinal fortitude to continue to run the play, even through the off season? Off season, joe, and I think that's where there's still a struggle, and we kind of have to be in this together and just absorb it, because growth is not linear. It might be linear for a period and at times even exponential. But even the people who are saying look, my business doubled year after year, after a year and now I'm at a million bucks a year, that was not linear. They face challenges in that too, and it's not even so easy to reflect on them today, because years have passed, just like it's not so easy to reflect on the winds of last week. That won't hold you up in the middle. That's where the training counts, isn't it?

Correct. You need to have something that almost is like an anchor to you, like. This is my rock, this is what I'm clinging to, this is the play that I run. I go to my calls, I run this play. I have this mindset. I own this creed. This is the way.

Really powerful, really powerful. And that reminds me of you know, let's go Simon Sinek here to pull reference and another guru into the space. Simon Sinek, start with why? Ever heard of that book, joe? Yeah, there's a nice little diagram that I actually love in it and I reference it a lot. I do, maybe not on the podcast, but in my mind, in my thinking, in my strategy. Start with why, to me, is those three egg shapes and they're growing, and why is in the middle, and Simon said this in that book and around that topic. Most know what they do, many know how they do it. Few know why, and that speaks to electricians on a whole different level, doesn't it?

It really really, really does.

Most electricians are in this space as electric printers, still thinking that it's about electron flow, that it's about the romance between the studs, that it's about the staple spacing as per any C or CEC. A little shout out to the end, before the C there, which are my initials, by the way, c-n. If you didn't make that connection, sweet Gosh, my brain works in funny ways. The point is, that's not actually what helps you succeed in business, and that's just such a small piece of the how and the what. Does that make sense?

It really does. I really feel like, for the most part, if you don't know the why, you struggle, and I think that's one of the reasons why our program is so effective, because for every single word that I added, in every single part of the process, there's a why attached to every single thing. Some people will say like well, why do I say it this way? And we can break it down and be like well, this is what you're trying to get as a response. If you remove one word, does that change the inflection? It's like oh, it does. Okay, so now that you know the why, the why helps you get the how.

And we've all heard of stories of like car stalls on a train track, kids in the back seat, a parent gets out and moves the car by physical force, personally right, and that person could be injured. Or a small female person, or like. We've heard these crazy stories in moments of I've got to do this. That why is so powerful that nothing could stop me short of my limbs falling off and me literally catching fire. It's crazy to think what we're really capable of when that why is cemented. So my first challenge on this podcast is do you actually know your why? I feel like it's incredibly important to what we're talking about, joe. Is it cemented and do you go over it almost daily for yourself and for your staff, for your team? Are you serving the why in that mission? Go ahead, brother.

I feel like there's a way that we can even enhance this further, and that is when people say they don't know their why. Right, I would say, for those of you that question whether your why is what it is, I want you to sit with it. The reason why I say that is this like for me, my why was my kids and my family. Like I wanted to be with them, I wanted to serve, I wanted to do everything I could to be the father that I and the husband I know they deserve. So my why I see every day, I wake up to my why. I spend time with them, I go to sleep with my why every single day. They're close and in my life. But if you didn't have your why, that close, how can you possibly draw strength from it? Where does your inspiration come from if it's an ambiguous thought, a future thought that's not really real? How can you get closer to your likely?

That's really important and a good idea. There's many things like you know what? I've given this advice before Mental movies. Ever heard of that, yeah.

I think it's super helpful.

I mean, obviously you're gonna see your kids every morning, every night, during the day, when you're done. So you've got that constant reminder and I'm not gonna make that joke I was gonna say and maybe sometimes a reminder why you should quit. No, kids are wonderful men I love mine too but but it's there, it's there with you and you get to see that and continue to imagine that and their growth and your family's growth. So that's really powerful. But what about when it's not your kids? Maybe for someone listening it's not that tangible, maybe it's just not right there, maybe your. Why is a future accomplishment something that you're aiming for? And what I could say to that is, as much as winners Are made in the middle, losers are too. Losers are made in the middle, and it happens with this Q word called quit. Right, the moment you quit and let's just reframe what that looks like for a moment From that pivotal moment it feels like a fork in the road. You're tired, you're beat up, you're fucking frustrated, and it's as simple as a light switch Maybe even a decor, a light switch to just go. I don't need to do this anymore. We can end the suffering right now if I just push this button. If I just flick this switch off, it's all over and it's smooth sailing from there. Intel regret, intel regret, whereas winning, on the other hand, means continuing to take accountability, continuing to face this challenge, continuing to acknowledge that I put myself here and continuing to acknowledge that I'm in a valley right now and there's a fucking climb ahead. It's not done for a while. It's gonna suck, it's gonna hurt, but there's going to be peaks there where you're gonna get a view like you never had before. That makes sense, joe it really, really does.

And there was something I wanted to speak to you because you you made a phrase called mental movies and I'm not sure if everyone fully understands what that means. So I wanted to just give a personal example of how that directly is helping me and ways that people can implement in their own lives.

Is that fair?

Yeah, okay, so I don't know how much everyone knows about me in my as far as my past, but when I was in high school I was actually on the track team and I end up getting scholarships into college for throwing the discus and I absolutely loved it. The reason why I loved it wasn't because I was the biggest and the strongest. I was actually, you know, pretty average size for the average guy, but I Really understood the technique. I studied the technique and I learned everything that was required to do it, not just physically but on paper. I knew where my feet were supposed to be. I knew exactly if I held the discus in one hand, I can turn, I can feel the weight difference. There were days when I would just set up and I would just hold it and throw it in my hand Just to understand the weight and mentally manage it. And before every track meet, I Would literally condition myself to in my head, visualize what the perfect throw looked like, felt like, sounded, like, the feeling of the air leaving my chest as I would throw, the relief. I would picture myself landing and like having like a roar of triumph, and I would play that every single time in my head, night after night after night. And the funny thing was my brain didn't know the difference after a while Now and I would constantly get gold or silver in every meet that we went to. And it was just due to process. So for anyone who wants to figure out, how can you do these things, it's that the same reason why I'm talking about the discus applies to business. When I did it right, it didn't feel like I had done anything at all. I. But what didn't feel like anything at all was all the culmination of all the practice in the discipline action day in and day out. You may say I want to be a better salesperson. Okay, great, I believe you and I'm for that. But when you know you're a good salesperson is when you show up to a call common cool and you get the sale without feeling like you really tried to get it. It wasn't because you just winged it, it was because you could slip into autopilot because of all the mental movies you'd given yourself. That's how you get past it.

Massive man. You just reminded me again. I know we talked about this the other day. I don't think it was on the podcast. I watched this snippet Maybe it was a YouTube short of this neurologist and she was talking about how they put people through a study where they were able to sit on a weight bench and imagine lifting weights on repeat, using the same amount of time and maybe even a bit less, and just focusing on muscle contraction and the imagination, imagining a mental movie about lifting weights. Over that period of time they actually experienced a 13% increase average across that group of people in muscle mass development from imagining and playing a mental movie. It's amazing. It's amazing. It's going to look great. My mentor, he said to me once with the act, as if he said look, we've got this expression. If you can't put it in a wheelbarrow, it doesn't exist. I've got a question right there with things like that, if you can create that level of development before ever actually having done the activity, to me that does exist. Acting as if is a superpower and it can and will get you through the middle of this race. So long as you can focus, have dedicated focus on that wide, that mental movie and everything you need that's on the other side of the finish line, for you to keep pushing towards it and not flick that switch, because that switch is right there with regret, as we mentioned.

Isn't that crazy, how like. If you think about like let's almost cartoon it and find it in a way, when people say that switch that off, switch, it's right there, but it's also right next to the go button, they're literally within one hand spanned away from each other. I could either stop right now and go back to sleep or I can hit the go button and do it right now. You'll find that the doing of the thing like I've never woken up and gone to the gym and then wished I had gone back to sleep. But I have gone back to sleep and wished I had gone up and gone to the gym. I don't ever regret not doing something, but I do regret not doing something because when you get to the finish line and you look back and you see all the piles of crumbs you left behind all these success hills that you mowed through because you wanted the easy way, and you're like, wait a second, I'm only a little bit better off than when I started. Yeah, because your discipline wasn't strong. Discipline is being willing to climb the mountain to raise your elevation. I mean, think about it. I mean even if you want to go even further. Can I make an offshoot example Please?

Go ahead.

For those who are familiar with the Gurga, which is a Nepali type of soldier, their elevation in the Himalayas is so high that it actually requires you to develop your long strength to deal with less oxygen and thinner air in order to survive, to do anything, to climb the mountains of the Himalayas organically. Naturally, you need to have a conditioned body. But if you took that same person and you brought them to a lower elevation, you'll find they can run for hours. But if you did the inverse we took one of us and put it at the higher elevation we're not ready. Why? The difference is the condition of our environment, but also the environment we put ourselves in. If you're willing to say I am willing to go in a place where the breathing is hard because I believe in what will end up my result when I'm done, you're not complaining about how hard it is to breathe. You're like you know what. This is going to be worth it. This is not going to be hard, and every time it gets easier. Suddenly it's like you know what. I'm a little bit better. I'm a little bit better, a little bit better, a little bit better. That's the point we're trying to get to. I'd rather stay with the air is thin, but I know the climb is worth it.

Deep stuff, man, deep stuff. The only other insight I can offer to that is what we recognize is you cross the finishing, the finish line from from not looking around and focus on what others are doing. It's just a wholesome central focus, like you've got to focus on you. You've got to get across this, and so what we don't notice along the path is all the people that drop off, and what tends to happen next is you arrive somewhere that's blissful, it's emotional and, honestly, fewer the ones that reach it. It's a less crowded place, and what you learn in that experience is that you yourself can go from A to B, that you do have control over it and there's an empowerment within that. That only the people who have done challenges like we put up this week, only the people that are able to truly control themselves and and ride that discipline through those waves, the peaks and the valleys to accomplish something truly difficult, which in almost every case at this day and age to. To get you know some from what Mel said earlier, we live in a culture addicted to the dopamine rush of new and fast things.

This day and age that's the difference.

Winners are made in the middle and you'll be able to recognize the people that are also in the middle there with you and people that are able to come through that and you could see it. It's like X ray vision for people that have that intestinal fortitude. You can just see it. I think I really want to actually end up, joe, and that was having that mental movie having that, that Y, what do you think for adding to that, with an all star here and finishing us off for this week, I can do that.

So right now we're doing the 75 E hard challenge and a lot of us may say that it's a little hard to do. Right, I can't figure out how to do the steps I would say with the all star action. I'm going to go a little bit further with your mental movie All right. And I want you to not only just visualize the doing. I want you to visualize the satisfaction after the doing, so like let me give you an example. We're supposed to work out for 45 to 60 minutes every morning. Right, getting up 45 minutes early sounds terrible, but if you can mentally envision yourself after it, okay, 545,. I put down the weights, I'm ready. I've added almost two hours worth of energy to my day. I'm able to be up before the girls get up. I'm able to start the day. I'm able to be more successful on my first call. I'm able to power through for it. Just visualize what it does for you Starting day in gratitude, midday gratitude, end day gratitude. What would that person look like? You can, even for the All Star Action, go even further and say, even if you don't wanna make it, you say what would this person look like? Who did this activity every day? Get them into a box, figure it out and then, once you do, say how would that person feel after they completed it. If you can already mentally attach the dopamine rush, you're getting the rush, a taste of it before you even have to pick up the weight. And that makes it that much easier because you already know you're being trained for the rush, you're not being trained for the activity.

Really powerful stuff. I actually even presented that to a client. We agreed on that as an action item. To get more schedule control was even just spending a few minutes in the morning, calm in silence, look at your schedule, know what you've got to do and then just focus on the mental movie of accomplishing those and checking those things off. At least then, when that reactive catalyst comes into your day, you've got some anchor to what needs to be done, still to hold to that schedule and to stay in the right quadrant of that urgent, important matrix. Joe, I gotta thank you. Today was another heavy hitter man. We've been getting some really good feedback from some great electricians, electric printers and all sorts of people out there who are just trying to improve themselves and reach their next level. Guys, if you stick to this, if you stick it out in the middle, if you gain some intestinal fortitude, really hold that resilience down and you too can cross the finish line. The brighter days are ahead. I hope everyone listening gets a taste of that. I mean that's it right. This has been another episode of Electric Pinner Secrets, number 187. I think that's also a bad code I'm not gonna reference. But winners are made in the middle. Guys. We're here with you five days a week. Help you master sales, simplify pricing and deliver premium level electrical service. Joe, have a wonderful weekend, listeners have a wonderful weekend and everyone engaging with us on Facebook have a wonderful weekend. Come and get the 75e hard and join the challenge. Let's move. Can't wait to see you do it with us. Cheers.