From Comparison to Connection: Business Success with a Mental Health Focus

In this episode, we dive into a unique and insightful discussion with John D. Allen, founder of Allen Small Business Coaching, about how falling in love with client problems—not solutions—can radically shift your business approach. We explore the idea of trust as the new currency in business and how understanding client challenges on a deeper level helps forge lasting relationships. Alongside business insights, we venture into the mental health side of entrepreneurship, discussing why comparisons can hold you back and how mindset influences both personal and professional success.

John shares strategies for balancing problem-solving with client empathy, while Nikki, the host, integrates mental health topics that support growth in all areas of life. Don’t miss this powerful conversation on the intersection of business and mental well-being.

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John D Allen's Episode

Speaker 2: [00:00:00] Hi, my name is John D. Allen, Allen Small Business Coaching. What I want to share with your visitors and your people today is something very, very unique, special and Controversial to a lot of people called fall in love with your prospects problem, not your solution or program.

What I mean by this is there's so many people out there that, I talk to people all the time and they tell me, well, you know, I'm really interested in people and their problems. I don't push my program or anything like that. So I'm going to say, well, what do you do? Well, I'm an attorney.

I'm a financial planner. I'm coach on this set or the other thing. And I do blah, blah, blah. So I said, You're pushing what they do. Where do you fit in to finding out what their problem is? Well, you know, they tell me something and I give them a solution. Okay? That's one of your [00:01:00] biggest problems right there.

Because what happens to so many people is they hear One little problem. They give the best presentation ever, and when they get all done, the person looks at them straight in the eye and says, I'll think about it, or I'll call you. And you and I both know the odds of that ever happening are slim and none.

Slim's out of town. What causes this is when you go in, people are talking problems. You're talking solutions. You're not on the same plane. People buy when they feel understood. They don't buy when they understand you. So now what happens is you have to go in there. You have to be able to create trust.

Trust is the new currency. We've all heard about, you know, you got to build know, like, and trust, and you go in there and you're, you give this great grant, a wonderful deal, and you get to know the [00:02:00] person and all this stuff. That's a load of crap. And the reason I say that is. When you're talking to that person, they're not looking for a new best friend.

They're looking to see, can you solve my problem? That is the biggest thing on their mind. What I suggest to people is rather than going in with your solution and program, go in and find out what their real problem is. And once you know what the real problem is, they have to own it. Because if they don't own that problem, They're never going to do business with you.

The other part of this is, the know and like, becomes after they become a client. You can't build know and like, in an hour, a half hour. It takes time. But initially, you have to build trust. Now, how do you build trust? You build trust by asking better questions.

And, I'll [00:03:00] pick on financial planners here for a minute. One of the big things that they do, and they all tell me, they're different. There's, I think, 450, 000 or something in North America. Some astronomical number. 99. 9 percent of them are all identical. They all come in there, and they all want to sit down and say.

You know, gee, what's your house worth? How much money you got in the bank? When do you want to retire? And all this stuff. Really, you just met this person. Do you even want to share that information with them, especially with all the stuff that's happening out there on, you know, the scans and everything else?

To back this up, I was talking to a gentleman this morning in that industry and he said, The first agency that he ever went to work with as a financial planner, the [00:04:00] guy that owned it got thrown in jail because he was skimming money out of the people's funds. And I'm thinking that's a great company to be invested with.

And he said the second guy that he went to work for, he got arrested because he figured out he could scam the government. Better than he could scam his own the people out there and I'm thinking this is saying a lot for financial planners here And it's not sounding good But the other thing he did say was that when they receive any training and he said a lot of Organizations don't give you any it's go find the people And sell them something.

All we're interested in is the money you bring in. So what I suggested to them instead of that, if you go in and you say to somebody, for example, if it was you and I [00:05:00] talking, it'd be, let's take a step back for a minute. Tell me about your business, your career, how you got started, what your financial goals are and what challenges you're having.

Is that okay? Now, of course, then the person starts talking and they're going through and they're telling you, everything about them. And then you simply say, that's interesting. Tell me more about that. Tell me more. Or what do you mean by that? What happens is you want to keep the ball in their court so that they're doing at least 80 percent of the talking and you're doing 20.

And with them doing all the talking now, what happens? is this is building trust between the two of you because you aren't coming across trying to sell them something. What you're doing is just asking questions. This is building comfortable conversations. So now as they go through, [00:06:00] instead of you trying to lead the person down the path to make a sale, all you're doing is exploring to see if they even have a problem that you can help them with.

They might come to the end and you realize they don't have a problem you can help with, or maybe they got a problem you can help with, but for whatever reason, they don't fit into your ideal client, or maybe they do fit in. And when they do fit in, it'd be simply a case of, Is this your ideal prospect? Is this your ideal problem?

 Is this your biggest problem? Yep. Do you want to solve it right away? Or do you want to live with it for six months to a year? I'm okay either way. I want to solve it right away. Great. May I show you a roadmap that other clients have used to solve their financial problems just like you've got.

If [00:07:00] they say yes, this is where your process comes in. It's not your product or solution. It's the process. So you walk them through your road map and then you say, you know, do you understand this? Yeah, so now if they come back with I've got to think about it And by the way, there's only four steps on the road map and each one has a maximum of four Bullet points underneath it.

So they if they say well, I got to think about well Which part of the road map do you want to think about and now your first part for example is your initial? You Get together where you go through and you find out what their goals are what the plans are the second part phase two is Put the plan together.

Phase three is implementation. So they get out there, they're starting to work on it and they're starting to do their thing and what have you. Phase four is the pot of gold. This is the result you [00:08:00] want. And that's what really happens with people. Now, if somebody was to walk you through that very basic thing, would that make sense to you?

Speaker: Yes, that would make sense if it's very basic. I get a lot of the times, like today I did a training for, demo, a software for one of my roofers and the guy was like, very quickly just clicking on everything. And 1, I can follow pretty quick, but he was going really fast, even for me.

And I was just kind of like, okay, cool. I like the software. Not sure how much I like you. You know what I mean? I can do it very quickly. But there's just a, when you're showing somebody something and you're like a roadmap or new software that you're trying to get somebody to buy, maybe going at Mach 10 isn't the way to go.

Even if you are working with somebody who is techie, like, I totally get it. I [00:09:00] get the way we want to go. Yeah, I know where to go. Go click, click, click, click. Wait, I didn't see what you just did.

How's that make you feel?

Feels like I'm just something he's trying to get through so he can go do the next thing. I'm not important to his day. There's nothing important about what we're doing to him. It was just about the sale.

Speaker 2: Yeah. I want to make a sale. Give me your money and run, and that's the unfortunate part with so many people, they say, they tell me they don't push it, but yet they want to lead you down that path to make that sale.

And the other thing is, as well as I do, A lot of people, they don't listen to what you say. They listen to respond so that, I got to get my two cents worth in before you say something else because I might miss out on my little turn to talk. And this is what happens when you're [00:10:00] taking people down through what I described.

They get to do all the talking. Now they feel like, wow, you really listened to me. You understand me. You know what my problems are. This builds trust. And like I said before, if they don't trust you, they're not going to do business with you. You know, coming back to that roofer, would you ever do business with him?

Speaker: Yeah, he's not the roofer. My roofers are good. This was software for the roofer to be able to do what they do. And, no, I don't really want to work with him.

Speaker 2: Because, you know, he's not, like you said, he's not interested in you. All he's interested in is, give me your credit card, give me your wallet, and next.

And that's, unfortunately, what so many people do, whether it's financial planning, coaches, whatever business you're in, I don't care. There's so many people that all they want to do is give me your money. [00:11:00] Gimme, gimme, gimme, and as when we were growing up as kids, gimme, gimme, gimme, never gets.

Speaker 4: And

Speaker 2: these people can't figure out why people don't want to do business with them.

It's the whole atmosphere they cause. They put it out that, like you said it, I'm not important. All he wants to do is, get my money and run. And they wonder why they're not making sales, or if they do make sales, why they got a high return rate. Speaking on that, years ago, I worked with a coach and there was a guy who was in a video sales letter when it first came out.

He put together an incredible package. He bragged about how much money he made every time he ran one of these webinars or what have you. The part that he didn't tell people about was 80 percent of the people that bought his product returned it [00:12:00] out. Not most of them were never opened. And what he did was he did a great job of selling it on the webinar.

It was going to be the greatest, grandest, most wonderful things sliced bread. When they got the program, because it was basically a high pressure deal, they bought and then boom. And when I went to work with them, the coaching group I was working with got his return rate down to 50%. He was really happy about that.

I'm thinking that still sucks. You got

Speaker 2: a 50 percent return rate still, you're not doing so good PR because now you get to keep 30 percent more of the money, but your return rate is still rotten. So when you fall in love with your prospects problem, now what happens is again, they feel like they've been listened to, they feel [00:13:00] like they've been heard and lo and behold.

You care about them getting the right answer. You're not there just to make money. You're there for them. And when you adopt this idea and what have you, people say, wow, they think the world of me. It's like, if you're ever at a party and you meet somebody and you do all the talking and they're saying, wow, tell me more, whatever you leave and say, wow, that John, he's a great conversationalist.

Might not have said 10 words to you, but because you were interested in them, that makes you a great conversationalist. And the other part is, it makes, it takes, people like to buy, they hate to be sold. So when you concentrate on their problems and what have you, You come across like, wow, I made the buying decision.

You didn't twist my arm [00:14:00] and say, you got to buy this thing. And it's only X number of dollars and blah, blah, blah. It's wow. Here it is. And we would go, I tell people, you have to qualify to work with me. I don't qualify to work with you. And had a couple of people say, well, what do you mean?

I said, just because you've got a pulse in a wallet. Doesn't mean you qualify to work with me. You have to, you know, show me you're interested in there. And again, as well as I do, it's never going to be their fault that the program didn't work. It's yours. They might not have done it, might not have done anything right, but gee, that rotten program I got from you, it didn't work.

All you did was steal my money and blah, blah, blah. They're never to blame. So the whole concept comes down to make sure these people are going to be serious, that they're going to do the work, they want the results, and they're going to be accountable [00:15:00] to you. That's another thing that a lot of people don't hold their clients accountable.

They're, well, they paid me the money, so now. That's it. When you hold people accountable, that helps them get the results. The other part it does, it makes you look, A, a lot better, and B, it really cuts back on your refunds. Because people are getting the results they want, they may not be the exact results, but they come in and they're getting results close to, or sometimes a lot better than what you promised.

Now, again, you're the greatest thing since sliced bread. So that's another great part about doing it. The other thing that a lot of businesses need to take a look at is. Everybody says, I want more leads. I want more leads. Maybe their conversion rate isn't the best, but if I get more leads, I'm better off.[00:16:00]

Well, if you look at it, if you had 100 leads, and you're converting 10, you got a 10 percent conversion rate, which is a Has been average now if you go out and get 200 leads and you get 20 you're still at the same 10 percent the other part is Look at all the money you're leaving laying on the table because for most businesses especially coaching Financial planners a lot of business you're in a low volume high margin You don't need a gazillion clients to make a good living.

What you need to do is pick up your conversion rate. And for example, I talked to financial planner and I said, what is the average client worth to you in a year? He said, 20 grand. So I said, the last 90 days, [00:17:00] how many clients or how many ideal prospects did you have that you didn't close? He said, about 10.

I said, okay. So, I said, my math's not very good, but 10 times 200 grand you left laying on the table. Now, if you could recover even half of that, what would that do for you? Oh, gosh, that'd be great. I said, and that's before you ever get a new client. You don't need more leads. You need to be able to talk to the ones you've got.

So I said to him, basically right now, if all you did was pick up an extra client or two a month, what would that do for you? Oh, he said, well, you know, that's not much. I said, well, 24 clients in a year, that's just about half a million bucks. What would you do with an extra half a million dollars? [00:18:00] Stopped and looked, he said, I never thought of it that way.

I said, you don't need, like I said, a ton of new clients. What you need to do. Is convert more of the leads you got the and another thing with a lot of these people these, lead gen places Their whole thing is you need more leads. If you're not converting the ones you got you need more leads You need more leads.

Well, the only one that makes any money out of that deal is the lead gen company and You as the person buying them Money's going out the door. It's not coming in. So, again, you need to get better at conversion. This is where, when you fall in love with your prospect's problem, not your solution or program, this is where that greatly improves.

Does this make sense to you?

Speaker: Yes, I think I inadvertently do that anyway, because everybody I work with has different [00:19:00] problems in different areas and different needs. So I work with somebody in social media, but another person I do newsletters for, or another person I do their video editing. So, I work with the people.

And I figure out, you know, what they need help with and then go from there. And I do, I have seen where people are just like, oh, no, I have this perfect thing that if you come listen to this and you watch this, you'll, you'll make 10 grand more a month. Okay, me sitting down and watching a video is not going to make me money.

It's gonna lose me money because now I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing. You know, there's that shiny object syndrome where we all want to keep moving on to the next person who says they have the magic button. Remember staples commercials with that button?

Speaker 2: Yeah, the big easy button.

Speaker: Yeah, there is no big easy button to social media to fixing whatever your problems are.

There's no big easy button. [00:20:00] But there are a lot of people out there who will say that they have that button. And here you go, just hit the button and everything will be fixed. And then when it's not, everybody's angry at them. And I'm like, oh, how did you not see that one coming?

Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Talking of that, I was working with a doctor and an engineer.

And these guys had a program they were trying to sell. But a lead guy had come to the doctor and he said, I can 10 times your revenue in 90 days. So I said to the doc, here's what I want you to do. You and your brother, the doc's name was John, by the way, I said, you get on a call with this guy and you tell him, great.

My revenue was a million dollars. I'm looking forward to it being 10 million dollars in 90 days. Let's go. And I said, and watch the guy's eyeballs because he just went, Oh,[00:21:00]

You know, now I get, I open my mouth. Now how are you gonna generate an additional $9 million? Mm-Hmm. in 90 days. I said, just watch the look on his face. He's the one that said he could 10 times your business in 90 days. So in 90 days you're gonna have $10 million worth of business. Let's do it.

The guy didn't get out. I can

Speaker: imagine how White Ghost pale that person is going to be.

Speaker 2: Well, yeah. Realized that. A, he never even looked at the person he sent this message to. And now somebody's basically calling his bluff. Doc said, okay, I'll hire you. You guarantee me the 10 million. You know, you guarantee 10 times my revenue.

Great. I did a million dollars. [00:22:00] So you're going to generate me 10 million in 90 days. Go for it.

The pucker factor must've been pretty good.

Speaker: For real, you

Speaker 2: know, it just, it's little things like that, that people make these remarks, but they never investigate who they're sending this material to. And the other one with these people, and I'm sure you get them all the time about lead gen and all the rest of it, right?

They don't even ask you whether lead gen is your problem. You know, I can just get you 30, Qualified people in the neck on your calendar and everything else. Do I need 30 people on my calendar? What's my problem? Well, you need these. Do I? Why don't you try asking the person [00:23:00] first?  You

Speaker 2: You know, and then they all sound the same.

One of the things I used to do years ago was, when they had the yellow pages out, if you work with plumbers, for example, take all the plumbers ads, cut the names and the phone numbers off. Cause everybody's at that point was black and white. So they couldn't go by their colors, put them on the table and have a bunch of plumbers there and mix them all up and say, which has yours, they all look the same, but I thought you were different.

Show me where you're different and they can't do it another one day one of my mentors He's actually the one that showed me about this, you know a fall in love. He said he was doing a live presentation There was about a hundred and fifty two hundred top Financial planners there and he said with a show of hands show [00:24:00] me how you know If you're different, raise your hand.

And he said, about 75 people raised their hand. And he said, all of a sudden, these people are looking around like, uh, I'm different. Here's 75 more people with their hand up. Right. And he said, and those of you that didn't raise your hand, I'll bet you think you're different, but you're scared to put your hand up.

So, he said, there's 150, 200 of you here in this room. You're all the same. You all say the same thing. I'll say everybody's different. The other thing that happens with this is courtesy of the Internet today, you know, you can go to 5 or whatever you could get virtually a website built. For next to nothing and shows that you're different you're saying exactly the same thing as everybody else How are people supposed to know whether you're [00:25:00] different or not and you could legitimately be different They don't know that until after they work with you.

So the whole concept is you have to create this trust Before they'll even consider giving you the business. That is one of the biggest things that A lot of companies don't do, again, they're sit down and you talk about the kids, the grandkids, where he went on vacation and everything else. What happens there is the client leading the conversation.

You are not. So you have to lead it to get, obviously to get, to find out where they even are. I tell people to work with a doctor patient relationship. Have you been to a doctor recently? Yes, when you go in there, they say, hi, how you doing? Basically, where do you hurt? Right? That's the limit of their [00:26:00] small talk.

And you say, well, gee, my shoulder hurts. Doc says, well, let me see. Push on your shoulder. Oh, okay. Let's take an x ray. They take the x ray, they put it up there in the screen and say, you see this big black spot. That's where your actual problem is and all these red and flamed areas, they're all contributing to it and you look at it and say, wow, doc, geez, thanks for pointing that out.

I never knew that. And doc says, well, you know, we can fix it. Here's the process. I'll give you a prescription to operate or whatever they're going to do. Right? Now, if the doc writes you out a prescription, do they tell you what's in the prescription? Do they even care whether you buy it or use it? Yeah.

Nope. Doctors don't do coffee and they don't do follow ups. So the whole thing with having a doctor patient is you go in there as the authority figure. And, you know, doctors have the [00:27:00] authority figure because of that PhD after their name, right? So, you automatically think they know what they're doing.

Speaker: We hope for doctors and nurses and other medical staff that know what they're doing.

Speaker 2: Yeah, but, you know, they've got a perceived. Authority. So when you go in basically with the way I've been describing with just a small talk of, hi, it's really great to see you. I'm glad you're in here today. Let's take a step back.

Tell me about your problems, blah, blah, and you go through it. Right? Now, what happens is this person says, wow, you know, Hey, they're interested in me. I don't care whether, you know, where I went from my vacation or all the rest of it, talking a small talk that all the other ones do, they want to find out what my problem is.

That's where you are become different. You really [00:28:00] stand out. And this makes, again, all the difference in the world when you're dealing with that person. They look at it and say, wow, she really cares about me and it's not the dollars. It's caring about me little. It's things like that, that I know this is contrarian to what a lot of people have taught myself too.

I was in sales for years and when I learned this, my skull was a little thicker than others took me longer to catch on, but. You know, I was always under the deal of the ABCs, the old always be closing, that part worked before the scamdemic, before that people really wanted and really valued when he gave them a bunch of stuff and what have you.

During the scamdemic, when everybody had lots of time, that's when they got online and started looking. And now with AI and all the other stuff [00:29:00] that's out there, they know more about the business than you or I do when we get there. Now they may not know how to take out what's good or bad, but they have more information than we have.

So now it's up to us to find out what their real problem is and find out if they really want to solve it.

Speaker: So here's a question. When you're talking to people, the problem they think they have at the beginning. Does that change as you get to know them and you find out if you're asking those questions sometimes or

Speaker 2: what happens?

There's a lot of times as you ask him questions. Well, what do you mean by that? Or tell me more about that? Then they end up going deeper and they say, wow, I never even realized that's where it comes like the doctor patient because, you know, they might say, well, gee, my solar, sir. Well, if I [00:30:00] touch it here, that's the source.

But maybe the cause of it is farther over. It might be on your back or something. So what they instead of just. The symptoms. You get right to the problem. And again, that's where you come down to and say, is this your real problem? Yes. Do you want to solve it once and for all? Or do you want to live with it for a while?

And again, if they want to live with it, put them on your email list because they're not going to do anything anyways. And if you go out there and tell them, oh, geez, you got to buy this because, it's the greatest, grandest thing since sliced bread. No, they're not going to buy it. All they're going to think is you're a pain in the ass salesperson, and you're just trying to sell me something.

Another thing that a lot of people don't realize, the sales, a lot of sales are lost at hello. They're not lost at the other end. They're lost at hello. What I mean by that [00:31:00] is why I called you up and said, hi, my name's John. I'm with Allen small business coaching and I do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What's your first thought?

Sure. Cool. Business person, right? A call calling another frigging salesman. Get them off the phone. Right. Click.

Speaker: Yeah. And I'm the, like, I am the first line of defense for my roofers because I have a phone for them. And so I get people all the time who call and are like, are you the owner? Nope. Like, no, I don't have time for that, you know, and I, the other people who are like, oh, yeah, I spoke with Dave yesterday.

Um, in in Maryland. Oh, now you don't even know where he is. No, you're batting for 0 on that 1.

Speaker 2: Well, what I suggest to people is call up and say, you know, if it was you and I, Hi, [00:32:00] could you help me for a minute, please? What's your response going to be to that? 99 percent of the people? Sure. You and I have never met. My name's John. I'm seeing if you're open to looking at X, Y, Z problem from a different perspective, would that be of interest to you?

If it is, that's great. If it isn't, that's fine, right? The call's over. But what you said was, A, are you looking at some, at a problem, that industry has, that business from a different perspective. Well, yeah, maybe I am, right? Like the roofers, if there's something they could do to improve their business.

Yeah, I'll talk to you for a couple of minutes, and then you get into it. But again, is when you do that again, then you're right back to those problems. You're not getting into, I'm the greatest, grandest thing since sliced bread and all the rest of it, because, [00:33:00] hey, that puts you right back in the sales category.

The other thing, though, now. You might say, would you have a couple of minutes to discuss it and keep it short and sweet,

Speaker 4: not

Speaker 2: there to have a half hour, hour talk. It's yes. Now, would you be open to scheduling another appointment where we could discuss it more and you do it or if they say, well, you know, well, who's this?

Hi, my name's John with Allen Small Business Coaching, are you interested in a different perspective on X, Y, Z problems? Go right back to what the problem is. And then that way, again, you're not the salesperson coming across saying, you know, what's it going to take during your business or, what are you unhappy with your thing?

I don't know you from a hill of peace. Why are they going to tell you this? And, even if they are unhappy, [00:34:00] you're not going to tell you.

Speaker: And you just called me randomly. I'm trying to do 17 different things. There's just been a storm in the area where my roofer is. Why are you calling me right now? I don't have time for this kind of thing. And now you want to take an hour of my time. I don't have that.

Speaker 2: And this is where you also use permission based.

We take two minutes. And again, be respective of that time. You're again, it's not, the, I'll give you a quick call a half an hour later, an hour later, looking at the phones and, you know, I got to go click if you get the, I got to go or just to click.

And that happens with so many people and they can't figure out why.

Well, they're not [00:35:00] respecting the other person's time. You have no idea they could be right in the middle of something very important and you're being a pain in the arse just from the phone ring. So it's little things like this that when people do it makes all the difference in the world to their business.

You know, and it's the same. I said to you, would you be open to different perspective on? And this is where you have 3 problems. The industry has been

Speaker 2: discussing these from a different perspective. If they say, yes, you talk, if they say, no, it's over. So what? You know, there's only 8Billion people in this world.

I'm sure you can find 1 more out of that.

Speaker: I got to stick to the people who can speak English. Me too.

Speaker 2: So, do you have any [00:36:00] questions?

Speaker: I think that you laid what you said out very, well, and I do not have any questions.

Speaker 5: Hey everyone, thanks for sticking with us. Before we dive into our next topic, I just want to take a quick moment to remind you to like this video, subscribe to our channel, and hit that notification bell. That way, you'll always be the first to know when a new episode drops. And we want to hear from you.

What topics are you most excited about? Drop your thoughts in the comments below. Your feedback helps us create content that you love. We've got some exciting stuff coming your way, so don't miss out. Now, let's switch gears and jump into our next discussion.

Speaker: so, now we're going to switch gears and we're going to go into the mental health side of business, because, mental health is a crazy topic that a lot of people talk about lately. Everybody has their views on what mental health problems are and how to [00:37:00] fix them. And we didn't have them in my day and, that kind of thing.

And I am not 1 of those people who is like, here is a problem with mental health. You have that that's perfectly okay. You don't have to do any work on that. It's just a thing. I am completely in the side of if you have a mental health problem, there is work to be done. And I do that myself, because I have mental health problems.

I am not a normal person. I do the things that I need to do. To work in my way and to get things done and, that viewpoint has led me to having this podcast because I have business tips and I have mental health stuff and being able to share both in the same space where most people separate it is just kind of is, you know, something that I am a fan of

Speaker 2: makes you different and unique.

Speaker: I am a very unique butterfly. [00:38:00] Okay. So today we're going to be talking about comparison. How, everybody compares themselves to somebody, right? If you're a son, maybe you're like, I want to be just like my dad or good God, I do not want to be just like my dad, you know, the same for daughters with their moms and things like that.

So, Some of those comparisons can be good, you know, taking the good parts of your dad and saying you want to be like that. That is great. Taking the bad parts of your dad and saying you want to be that is maybe not so great. We do want to grow and learn and not do the bad things. You want to try to not do the bad things.

 But there was a topic that was raised in a group discussion. I was in a couple months ago and I made the comment that, you know, we all compare ourselves to others and we need to knock it [00:39:00] off because it is not doing us any good. We see on social media, the best parts of people's lives, the pretty, pretty princess side of life, right?

You're seeing the celebration and all the great fun they had. You don't see how long it took them to clean their house after that celebration was done, especially with those people who put glitter on everything, their house is full of that glitter. Going there, , I do not like glitter, but we compare ourselves to them in their best moments when we're at our worst and we go, oh, I'll never be that good.

I'll never have that big of a celebration. I don't even know that many people, you know, and poor, poor, pitiful me that I can't do that. Right. And we need to take a step back and realize that they have those days, they have those minutes, hours. Just like you do [00:40:00] they're looking at somebody else's post on Facebook.

Maybe even one of yours where you're having a great time at a party and they're like, I will never have that. I have 10 kids. I will never be able to go out and have a drink on a Saturday night. I'm not. I'm still young. That kind of thing. You're everybody's comparing themselves to the best snapshot of everybody else.

And all that does is make you feel like you can't. Yeah. And that's not a good feeling. So we compare. Oh, I love her hair. Her hair is so thick and mine is so thin or her hair is so long and I can't grow mine past my ears. She's so skinny and I'm huge, you know, there are so many different ways we do it.

And then when we come to business, we still do it. Oh, that roofing company over there. They're doing 10Billion dollars a month and I can't get 3 roofs a year. Okay, [00:41:00] seriously, you really now to look at your numbers again, because I doubt you're only doing 3 roofs a year. If you're still in business, that other company probably is not doing 10Billion dollars a month either.

So, like, let's get realistic with how we're looking at things. Nobody posts the mistakes, right? Nobody says, oh, yeah, my contractor put a toilet through the floor today. We have to redo a ceiling, a floor installation, all this other stuff going to cost us more than the job was to begin with because we were only going to put a 25 dollar toilet in a house.

And now we have to replace all these things, right? And so nobody tells you that part. They just tell you that they, oh yeah, we got the chance to renovate this house. They put that special spin on it. Even if we walked out of our house, right? And we saw a poor person, okay? There's a homeless person and they're sitting on the [00:42:00] corner somewhere and they're asking for money.

We compare ourselves to them going, I am so glad that my life has not led me down that road. I am way better than them and I'm happy for that because we do that. We see people at different times of the day and we go, oh, wow, they're so unfortunate. We're seeing them in their worst moment while you're doing good.

And of course, like, I'm puffed up and I'm better than that person. And I, that's so great. That is not any better for your mental health than the opposite was true. Because guess what happens when that homeless person a week from now, a month from now is on that corner with a sign that says, thank you. I have my own apartment now.

I have a full time job. Thank you for all the help. You've given me and you go past and you see that just as you've lost your job.

Now, the homeless person is doing better than you. That's going to take your feel goods right down [00:43:00] through into the, like, burning core of the earth and you're going to be like dust in a 2nd. Right? Because how dare the poor person be doing better than you? Right? But that poor person isn't comparing himself to anybody.

He's like, yeah, I got myself a job. I'm in my own apartment. I'm doing good right now. Yeah. They're happy about that. They don't care that you're not happy that they're doing good. They don't even know who you are. They don't care that you exist. And so they're just going along with their happy moment. You know, you see that birthday of a 10 year old, and they got a big, huge birthday for their 10th birthday.

And when you were a kid, you didn't get a, you didn't get any. Birthday, so for whatever reasons, maybe you were too poor or religious. Really religious reasons that you don't follow anymore and so. That doesn't mean that that 10 year olds are doing anything wrong. [00:44:00] He's doing his life. You're doing yours.

You have to come to terms with what happened in your past, just like he will once he's an adult, because I'm quite sure that 10 year old isn't going to grow up and be like, everything in my life was perfect because my 10th birthday was great. It's not how life works. I know from myself that my brain naturally was all my different problems that I have my brain naturally.

Remembers the bad things that happened a heck of a lot more clearly than the good things. I know I had good moments in my life. I couldn't point half of them out to you. I couldn't point out 1 3rd of them or, you know, 1 18th of them, but. Like, we still need to keep moving, right? We can't let ourselves be tanked by a viewpoint that nobody else sees, but it's just something we see because of [00:45:00] where we're standing at that moment.

That will change in 10 minutes as soon as you're like, oh yeah, but my cousin has a business and he's willing to give me a job. I'll be fine in like 10 minutes. It's fine. Never mind. I'm good. You know what I mean? Where like, you just have to take that second and reroute your brain and believe me. Some days it's hard.

I have my days when I'm like, holy crap. I can't do anything right. Never going to get anything done. And then I have like 20 people call me and they make it worse because now they want me to do 20 things on top of the 80. I already told myself I had to get done today. So now I've got like 100 things to do.

And there is so many hours in a day, and, you know, we always want the fun times after work, you know, working for yourself. You have less of those off than you expect, but if we take the time and go, yeah, today's been busy. Some of this can be [00:46:00] scheduled for tomorrow because I don't have anything tomorrow.

And some of it I can get done in like a 10 minutes free, you know, then you're looking better than you just thought you were 10 minutes ago. So, you just got to take that minute, take that breath and then, okay, stop comparing myself to Susie down the road who can do 20, 000 things at the same time because I'm me and I'm going to do it my way.

Every single now, I'm not going to be 1 of those people that everybody's different in their own way. You kind of are everybody has a way they do things, you know, what order they do things in and.

That's a good thing, right? If I'm hiring somebody to do my taxes, I'm sure it's crap. Do not want them to have the problems I have with [00:47:00] math.

My brain completely fuzzes with static as soon as somebody starts bringing math into the equation, right? Like. Totally not okay with that. So, instead of being, oh, I can't do that thing. Okay. Do you have a friend who can? You have somebody who can talk you through it. Do you have somebody you can vent to and then after venting you can go, Oh, wait, that's how I can do it.

Believe me, I walked into a lot of situations to go. I don't want to. I don't want to do this. I don't want to have to change how I do things. This is no fair. I don't want to do it. And I'd go and I'd then I'd come back and get back to work because I will do it. I just have to complain about it first.

Speaker 2: One of the things a good friend of mine shared quite a while ago with me, he said, when you're talking with other people, you know, your opinion of me is [00:48:00] none of my business. And. What somebody else thinks about you, that's your problem, not yours. And if you're going to run around worrying about what other people are going to think about you, all you're doing is taking up valuable head space.

Because as we're both well aware, they don't give a damn about us. They're most important person is themselves. And they're not thinking about you. Now the other thing is when you were comparing people. I had two cousins. They were both from a different aunt and uncle. My one cousin was an albino.

She ended up becoming the vice president of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind. But her whole thing was, growing up, she was just treated as one of the regular kids. You know, us other kids, we all knew she had a challenge while it's going for her, but she was just treated as one Any other kid.

[00:49:00] Another cousin of mine, he was challenged and his mom and dad, they virtually, even as an adult, tried to keep him in the basement because they didn't want anybody to know they had a, a retard, and that was what his dad called him, a retard for a kid. And this, this young man suffered throughout his life.

Both of them have passed, but he wasn't given a break at all. There was, well, you're stupid, you're this, you're that. Had nothing to do with that. Yes, he had some challenges, but so what? Nobody's perfect. I said to somebody, the only guy I know came through here perfect 2, 000 years ago, and he got nailed to a cross.

I don't know about you. I don't know any hands, nails going through my hands, feet, hanging around on a cross. That's not my idea going out in style. So, you know, accept people for what they are. [00:50:00] Another one I dealt with, I was dealing with a doctor and I said to her, doctors, a lot of doctors have a God complex.

I said, you're very intelligent in what you specialize in. A lot of ya. When you get out of that specialized area, you're dumber than a bag of hammers. You don't know what the heck you're doing. And she said, well What do you mean? I said, how do you put a roof on a steel building?

I don't know anything about it. I said, so I can put a roof on a steel building. Does that make me dumber than you? Does that make me better than you? Just because I specialize in one area, you specialize in another, we're both the same. And she said, well, I've got a PhD. I said, you know what PhD means, don't you?

She said, no. I said, Piled High and Deep.

That wasn't the answer she was looking for. [00:51:00] And I said, you know, the unforeseen part with a lot of doctors is you have a God complex in some areas. That's a good idea. You know, when you're going in to operate on somebody, but when you're talking to the regular people or you're talking to the family, lose the God complex, be a real person.

That's

Speaker: the other part of comparison is because nobody's better than anybody else. Nobody is above anybody else. You might have started off with more money in your pocket because your parents had more money, but that doesn't make you better than anybody who's poor. It just means you had more money.

You're at a different place in your life than they are in there. You're doing things at a faster rate because you started at a different spot. They're starting the race five miles back when you get to start it, you know, it's a one mile race and you're starting at a half mile in. There are different [00:52:00] ways of living.

There are different ways of thinking. There were different ways of doing. And the more somebody says, I am more important because I am a doctor. I'm a neurosurgeon. I'm a NASA astronaut. You know, I can go to the space station. I think that's crazy. Then people got stuck. Are they even back on earth yet?

Like I don't remember But like they're you know bad things happen to smart people just as much as they happen to stupid people or as much as they happen to You know, there's that thing that says hurt people hurt people It is people who are trying to live their life Sometimes offend somebody else gotta get over it.

Speaker 2: Are you familiar with dan kennedy?

Speaker: I think so. I've heard that name before.

Speaker 2: He's one of the [00:53:00] highest paid copywriters in the world. He charges 100, 000 to write you a sales letter and he wants 10 percent royalty for as long as you use it. Anyways, one of Kennedy's deals is if I haven't pissed somebody off by noon, I'm not doing my job right.

And his whole thing when he's writing these letters is He's just appealing to your ideal prospects. His deal is to let her appeal to your ideal prospects and to repel the ones that aren't. And when you look at people in general, you know, we want to attract the people like us and we want to repel the ones that are against us.

And it's the same in any situation in life. You're not there to please everybody. And when you try to please everybody, when you're a people pleaser, you got a real big problem because now. Hey, it's not going to happen and that's going [00:54:00] to get your nose out of joint because oh, no, Mary doesn't like me.

What am I going to do? Well? Mary, pardon my English but

Speaker: There I am in I'm in a bunch of Facebook groups, but I think I'm active in like three of them, but Because I'm an admin in two of them. So kind of have to be that active in those , so somebody posted a question about nobody likes you all the time and I went, you can only please half the people half of the time, but if you say the right thing, you can piss everybody off

Speaker 2: and really do you want to please everybody all the time?

I know I don't because, like I say, people have to qualify that work with me. I don't qualify to work with them and that's to get the funniest look on your face when you tell him that. [00:55:00] Well, I don't. Just because you got a pulse and a wallet doesn't mean you qualify. If your values and mine don't line up, we're not working together.

Speaker: Yeah,

Speaker 2: I had, for example, I had a, an architect that we were working together and he wouldn't do any homework. He wouldn't do anything. So I said to him 1 day, I said, you need me more than I need you. And if I don't see your homework by next week. We're done. The next week comes, I don't have any homework. So we're doing a zoom call.

And for whatever reason, the volume wasn't working. So we got, we're on the phone and the camera on a computer. I said to him, I didn't see any of your homework this week. Well, blah, blah, blah. And he sees me go click, hang up the phone. And then I disconnected on the computer screen. Calls up and he says, we got disconnected.

I said, no, we didn't. I told you last week, I don't see anything. We're done. And I hung up on him again. He was [00:56:00] actually a referral from another client. This other client was a graphic artist and she was doing some work for him as well. And I told her what I was going to do before we actually became good friends and still are.

I told her what was going to happen. He calls her up and says, do you know what John just did? She said, yeah, click. She hangs up on him. He calls her back. He says, we got disconnected. No, we didn't. You don't give me the material you're supposed to give me. You're fired and hung up on him again. In a 15 minute period, he got fired by two of the people that he was supposedly working with.

Now he's gone back to work with her and she said, I don't get the material. No, your only thing you're going to hear is click. And he's really good at getting yourself now because, gee, just because you're an architect [00:57:00] didn't mean you were anybody special.

Speaker: I fired a guy I was working with who decided that yelling at me was something he could do.

I don't particularly appreciate being yelled at when the fault wasn't even mine, either of the two times he was yelling at me. He just wasn't listening to me.

Speaker 2: Even if the fault is yours, there's no reason to yell at

Speaker: him.

Speaker 2: And

Speaker: my roofer, I have known him since 2010 and, there's always those growing pains when you're working with somebody and you're friends with them.

There can be crossover sometimes, and this will show you I don't like being yelled at. It upsets me and I don't need that kind of stuff I don't do well with it and I shut down And he is santa claus my roofer. He is the happiest guy until Like somebody has really tried to get under his skin [00:58:00] and has finally managed to do it And then he's coming at me And he would call me and he would be agitated from all that And he would start yelling at me or demanding things one right after another.

And he'd, this, this, this, this, and this. And I'd need it all done in a da da da da da da. No. No. And I'd hang up on him. And then he'd try to call back about 5, 000 times. And I wasn't answering the phone until I figured he had calmed down. Because I wasn't, I'm not doing it. Did I just say TV? Anyway, I wasn't answering the phone.

Until He had calmed down because there, there was no reason for me to. I'm not going to get myself upset. And I respected him enough that I know my mouth. I was raised by a sailor who turned into a trucker. Like, we do not mince words, okay? You tick me off enough, we're going to see a whole different color of the rainbow.

And he's [00:59:00] not somebody who cusses at all. So, like, I know me, I have to hang up because I'm not cussing him out. I'm not getting Santa Claus to come after me like that. Like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Right now. It's not my fault, except I hung up on him, but we got through that. And I've still, I still work with him and we have a great working relationship.

But even now, he'll sometimes get agitated and take that step to come at me and he knows. Sometimes he'll call me later in the day and he'll go, I almost called you while I was upset, but now I'm not. So let's talk. Or he'll call me upset and I'll hang up and he won't try to call back for an hour. And then he'll call me back.

He goes, Yep, I got it. It was good. I understand what I did. And now let's get past it because we need to do some work. And we'll do the thing. I have no problems working with anybody. I will work, however, with the people I need to work with to get things done, but I will not stand for people yelling at me.

I have had one too many people [01:00:00] yell at me in my life and I'm just not in the mood to deal with it anymore.

Speaker 2: I tell people the words are going to get short and I will have more than four letters. You'll have no problem understanding what I'm saying. And it's kind of like, Oh,

Speaker: I just point out, remember, I was raised by a sailor who turned into a trucker.

Do you really want to go there? Okay, maybe not.

Speaker 2: I tell people I used to be a cop. I can turn into the interrogator real quick. And, oh, and that, that training comes in handy sometimes. I don't tell people that was 50 years ago, but that's beside the point. You know.

Speaker: Well, I'm quite certain they knew it wasn't last month, but you were a cop, um, at this age, but, you know.

But, you know, the [01:01:00] retirement age for the cops here is 60. So, and a lot of people don't realize I'm 73. So, they look and say, well, maybe you just retired as a cop type thing, or it hasn't been all that long ago. Yeah. Nobody has to take that crap. You know, 50 years ago, yeah, you had to put up with it. That was accepted and everything else.

Now, no, I didn't like it. I think

Speaker: with my personality, the way it is, I wouldn't have put up with it 50 years ago either. But that's just because my personality, like I seriously, I've dealt like growing up in a house with a sailor, you get yelled at, right? And then there's just life that I've been yelled at quite enough.

I do my own yelling to, you know, that Italian and the cussing comes in handy. Sometimes I don't know any [01:02:00] Italian words, but you get loud enough and everybody thinks you're speaking it. He said that are demonic, but, it gets to a point where you have to know yourself and how you're going to react to the people you're working with if certain things happen.

And now my roofer knows that he could be Santa Claus with me all day long and I won't have a problem with it. The 2nd, he turns to agitate a dude. I don't want nothing to do with and he will check himself and or he'll realize after he's done it what he's done and he won't try to like, do that 500 fall thing where he's like, no, no, no, you're going to pick up right now.

Because no, I'm not. I'm ignoring you until I think you've calmed down and you're on timeout right now. Go sit down.

Speaker 2: I'll pick up the phone when I'm ready.

Speaker: Yeah, pretty much. , So to bring that around, if you are working with, coaching people, or you're the admin [01:03:00] for somebody or anything, like, first of all, you can't.

Compare your position with theirs. I have, I was the office manager for a different roofing company and one of the guys there thought because I was the office manager that I was below him and he could yell at me again with the yelling or and then talk at me like he, you know. You could disrespect me, basically, and he just thought he could do that.

And I went to the owner and was like, he calls me like this again. I'm hanging up on him. So maybe you want to talk to him because he's your problem. And he's about to have a problem

and they talked to him and was like, knock it off. Don't do not don't do that. But as soon as you start comparing yourself to others. Whether it's, oh, I'm a project manager in a company and the office people are below me [01:04:00] or it's, you know, you're in your car and there's somebody walking along the street.

You don't know why he's walking. Maybe he's going to pick up his Lexus and that's a better car than yours. You don't know. I don't know why he's walking, but maybe it's only a couple blocks from his house and he decided to get some air. I am personally allergic to air, so there's that. I'm literally allergic to grass, so I don't spend too much time outside.

But people do walk places still, especially in cities or Okay, so I live in Arkansas and I don't think that there are any cities in Arkansas because I think Little Rock is the biggest 1 and it's not even half the size of like DC and I've lived in Maryland. I've lived in Boston. I've lived in New York, you know, where cities are cities.

So I keep getting told there's cities here, but I [01:05:00] haven't seen any of them yet.

No matter where you are, or like, if you're in a city, people walk places, because duh, there's like a hundred billion, gajillion people, if they were all in cars, you'd be even more ticked off at traffic time. Traffic's bad enough wherever you go. You don't need to make it work by wanting people to stop walking.

 But the more we compare ourselves to others. The worse we make it for ourselves, because. There is a thing, and I'm going to talk about it in a different episode called toxic positivity. And that's where you, like, completely reject anything bad in your life.

There's like, toxic positivity where you delusionally disregard every bad thing and only concentrate on the good. Like, [01:06:00] how is that doing yourself any favor or you could be more like me. Okay, don't be like me, but where my brain goes directly to that, you know, to the bad. Like, the 1st thought is, oh, this is going to be the worst thing on the planet.

This is going to suck. Oh, my God, why am I doing this? You know, that kind of reaction 1st, like I say, I said, it's my 1st reaction because I do get over myself. And go and do, but some people get stuck on the negative and they can't go any further than that. So we have to stop it

Speaker 2: when you were talking about getting stuck on the negative. What's the 1st word? A baby learns.

Speaker: No,

Speaker 2: and by the time we're 5 years old, they've heard a gazillion times. So, when you look at it, that's why so many people's brains go to the negative, because you're brought up with, don't touch this, don't do that, don't do this.[01:07:00]

And we as parents are saying it to protect the child, but all the child hears is, that's bad, that's bad, that's bad, that's bad. They don't hear the good part.

Speaker 4: You know, they're

Speaker 2: learning how to walk, they fall over, you don't say, oh, geez, that's great. You know, oh, did you hurt yourself or whatever.

The kid wants to learn how to walk. They're going to fall down. Guaranteed.

Speaker: Oh, I did learn, watching kids fall that if you're like, Oh my God, are you okay? They're going to start crying and you're going to have to calm them down for the next 25 years. But if you kind of like make sure they're not bleeding.

Obviously, you don't want it to be a real problem and you're laughing at them, but, then you just kind of start laughing and then they'll start laughing and they're perfectly fine. And you have avoided the whole crying situation.

Speaker 2: When I was small, I had my first bicycle and I was [01:08:00] riding it and something happened anyways, fell off the bike, they ended up, I think, bent the front wheel or something and I ripped my jeans.

I got home and I'm in tears. My dad looks at me and he says, your genes will heal. You'll heal, your genes won't. I'm thinking so much for that sympathy.

Speaker: I flipped butt over tea kettle. On a bike, I was going down a big hill and my shoelace came undone and wrapped around the, the, whatever thing and it stopped the bike and I was and because I can't do anything without embarrassing myself.

There was a car keeping pace with me as I'm going down the hill. He saw me go ass over tea kettle and he gets out of his car and is like, are you okay? I'm telling you, nobody in my family knew about that bike accident. Nobody, because I wasn't saying crap. I had gotten embarrassed enough. Thank you very [01:09:00] much.

Speaker 2: This deal I guess. And then I was told I had to buy my own wheel cause rim got bent. Insult, insult and all the rest of it. So it

Speaker 4: was,

Speaker 2: it was a case of, I learned real quick. Don't go home crying because you got a scratch of your ripped jeans because the jeans won't heal. I will

hmm Yeah, you're you're right though.

We all compare ourselves Like I said, we compare ourselves to the good when we're looking at everything that went wrong in our life

The other one I get the kick out of, I mentor a young man. He's actually from Columbus, Ohio. He lives in Germany. He was going to Germany to get his international MBA. And he was telling me, you know, when I get a job out of university, I'm going to get a job. I'm going to start at the top. I said, life doesn't owe you anything, but an opportunity to prove what you can do.

I said, if you really want a job starting at the top, [01:10:00] go be a gravedigger. You start at the top, when you get to the bottom of the hole, you're done.

Speaker 4: Mm hmm.

Speaker 2: And he kind of looked at me like, really? Well, yeah. That's the way you start at the top. Be a ditch digger. Start at the top, when you get to the bottom, you're done.

That's all, that's all there is to it. If you want to be

Speaker: the head of a company, start your own business. It's not going to be given to you any other way, and that's not giving it to you because I can tell you as a business owner, there's a lot of work to be done. It's all on you.

Speaker 2: Yep, there's so many people, they think education entitles them to all these great, grand, wonderful things.

Education doesn't entitle you to anything, except maybe this same young man talked to a friend of mine who used to be the top, vice president of a big international company, went all over the world. He said, the kid was going for his MBA. He said, [01:11:00] the only thing your MBA is going to get you is your one rung up on the ladder when you start.

That's the only thing it does for you.

This young man was a little disillusioned that this MBA was going to give him everything.

Speaker: There are people with multiple PhDs out there who can't even get a job. A

Speaker 2: lot of kids that are going through university don't get jobs or whatever they got their degree in.

Speaker: Oh, that's because they're getting an underwater basket weaving.

That's not going to help you get a job.

Speaker 2: Well, when they get the arts and science around here, they call it the artsy farts degree.

Speaker: All right.  Okay, well, we finished this faster than I was expecting unless you have more you want to talk about?

Speaker 2: I appreciate the opportunity and thank you.

Speaker: Thank you for coming, and recording with me.