Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] It's Olympic time and I am totally and completely obsessed. I say obsessed with the Olympics.
[00:00:07] Anybody else out there, you know? And I'll tell you what I love about the Olympics. And it happens to me every single two years. It doesn't matter if it's winter or summer Olympics. I get totally enamored with people's ability to work for four years behind the scenes scenes, no applause. Very often in the early morning and late at night, practicing, practicing, practicing with the intention to win something four years out and sometimes something that's only like two minutes long.
[00:00:51] Two minutes long.
[00:00:53] That, my friend, is definitely worth studying. And we're going to break that down today on Fix this. Grow fast. If you're a business owner, you are going to want to join this conversation. My name is Genv Evskori. I am a former C suite executive of a multi hundred million dollar brand.
[00:01:12] And I was in charge of the executive sales strategy as well as the sales training and enablement. And, and now I teach women like you how to, how to sell and love it without the fuss and the hype and the spammy grossness.
[00:01:28] All of those things. You know what I'm talking about? So pull up a chair. You are welcome here if you want to improve your business one subject at a time. And today we are improving our desire to be busy versus making progress.
[00:01:43] That's what we're talking about today.
[00:01:45] So if you're joining us today and you have a busy calendar and you feel like you've been putting in the effort, but you're not getting the results, but you're always busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy in your even, maybe even a little confused by your busyness.
[00:02:01] This whole episode is for you. I have been there too, and I am coaching women off the ledge every single week who are so tired of being busy and not getting results. And we are all into Olympic season, so we're going to break this down and we're going to compare it to Olympians. So is that okay? I hope it's okay. Here we go.
[00:02:30] So, one thing I know for sure about Olympians and, and I will tell you, because I am glued to all these interviews, is that Olympians are doing one thing very different than, than most entrepreneurs and that is that they are training to win.
[00:02:51] They're training to win. Olympians never, ever confuse being busy with training to win. And I think there's a lot of people out there and I don't know if it's social media or. We've entered an age where everybody coaches and, and Nobody really has any coaching experience to speak of. I mean, I was listening to one thing the other day and someone said, oh, you just need to be one step ahead of the people you coach.
[00:03:19] Really? Come on.
[00:03:22] That's not. That's not coaching.
[00:03:25] That's. That's babysitting. That is. That is not coaching.
[00:03:30] But when I look at Olympians and I think these are people that for four years have been singularly focused on one performance, in many cases, one routine that they're going to practice over and over and over again strategically behind the scenes. Like, this is the work that doesn't hit the highlight reel. This isn't the work that people talk about on social media. Nobody goes, oh, here's my little highlight reel of all Those mornings at 5 o' clock in the morning or those late nights where I was out there doing the things. And just for the record, no Olympian trains to just be busy. Like, they're not hiring a coach to keep them accountable. They're already accountable. They're not hiring a coach to motivate them to win or. Or to show up. They already want those things. They aren't hiring a coach to unload their emotional baggage.
[00:04:39] They have made a decision. It's. It's not an if or a when. It's not a hey, let's see how it goes. It's like repetition without applause. Boring, unglamorous, repetitive.
[00:04:54] Practice and training.
[00:04:57] That's the decision that they're making for one result.
[00:05:01] And it's mastery.
[00:05:04] It's mastery, y'. All. I remember when I was first in sales in general, let alone having my own business, I could have cared less about mastery. But, and I'll tell you, I couldn't have hated it more.
[00:05:19] There was nothing I really liked about my job and except my pay and even that I wasn't really getting a great amount of money. There was never a. And I went. I went to the training classes. I had to go to the training classes, but I never went with the intention of winning. I never went with the intentional of mastery. I wanted to just keep showing up and doing the things that I was doing and somehow magically expecting to things to get better.
[00:05:52] It doesn't work that way.
[00:05:55] And I remember feeling like, oh, I was so busy. And I will tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to share some secrets here.
[00:06:03] I have coached so many very competent women that tell me repeatedly, I have been doing this for like 8 years, 10 years, 7 years, and I'm not getting the results. I'm looking for or the results I am looking for come and go. And it's so irregular. I don't know what's happening. And you know what they tell me?
[00:06:33] They tell me how busy they are, and they are. These aren't women that aren't doing the work.
[00:06:41] Maybe like you, they're showing up, their calendars are full, they have appointments, they're talking to people. But here's what you don't understand. Here's what you don't understand.
[00:06:53] If you have not made the decision to actually master your work, then you may be stuck in the busyness trap, because busyness does feel responsible.
[00:07:07] Busyness does feel like, you know, we're doing the thing.
[00:07:12] But the secret is that busyness is actually avoidance in disguise.
[00:07:21] It is, y'. All. I mean, I'm. I'm sorry if I'm the first person to tell you that, but I want you to know if you have been super, super busy and you're not getting results, chances are very good. There's parts of your business that you need to take a look at, and you're avoiding it, and you're using your busyness as the way to ignore it, to not see it, to hide from the parts of the business that you need to work on. And. And the busyness has created an illusion of progress.
[00:07:59] And I. I am going to drop this little goodie here. The second thing that I hear from so many women is that they don't have their spouses. They don't have their spouse's support.
[00:08:12] And do you know why I believe that is because I think the spouse sees before the. The entrepreneur sees that they're literally just being busy.
[00:08:25] And I got to tell you, nobody wants to be attached to and have to compensate for a spouse who's being inconveniently busy and making promises that this is what I'm working toward. But there's never any real movement in that direction.
[00:08:48] You know, that you're just being busy. And if you aren't paying attention to any sort of numbers, like, busy people are too busy to evaluate logically. They don't look at their numbers. They don't have any major metrics, and they don't even have any standards. Now, I remember creating a training program and talking to some leaders in the industry and saying, like, this needs to be the standard. People need to do X in order to get recognized or to feel like at the. This is like the base level of work that needs to get done.
[00:09:31] And in every other business, that is totally okay.
[00:09:35] But it was really interesting That I occasionally, not occasionally regularly, would run into sales leaders who are like, I don't want you to set standards. We don't want standards. You'll. You'll scare people off with standards.
[00:09:53] Well, the truth is, people are either going to quit and leave because they're not getting the results they're looking for, or worse yet, they're going to quit and stay.
[00:10:05] So when we avoid standards and we replace standards with busyness, nothing gets better. You just have this hamster wheel of busyness that doesn't create mastery. So let's talk about.
[00:10:22] How do you get out of busyness? Well, the first thing is, is you have to put in the reps, but you have to know what it is you should be practicing.
[00:10:32] So let me ask you a question. If you're in the Olympics and you want to win a gold medal in, let's say, skating, figure skating, one of my favorites, and you hire a coach, what do you want that coach to do? Do you want them to coddle you?
[00:10:49] Do you want to pay someone a lot of money to coach you to make you feel good about the work you're doing that's not producing results?
[00:10:57] Or do you want someone to go, aha, I know exactly what your problem is, even if it's going to hurt your feelings a little bit. Like, even if they're going to say, listen, Sally, you in danger, girl? And this is why your triple jump, whatever that jump happens to be called, it just sucks. And we need to work on that.
[00:11:18] Now, if you're addicted to your busyness, you will go into justification mode. You will actually defend your calendar, your reason for spending a bunch of time on things you're already really, really good at.
[00:11:34] And you are going to reinforce and want them to reinforce the things that you're comfortable with.
[00:11:42] Olympians don't repeat what's familiar.
[00:11:48] They repeat what's hard.
[00:11:51] You ever watch the practice? Do you ever watch the practice? So right before the skaters go out onto the rink, there's always this practice that happens, and very few of them practice, like, a single jump.
[00:12:08] Most of them are practicing their harder jumps. And if you go and watch someone during their practice time, do you know what they're practicing? The thing that matters the most, and typically, the thing that matters the most is not the thing that they're the best at.
[00:12:30] So are we committed to our effort, or are we committed to our outcomes?
[00:12:37] You see athletes train based on results, and when they don't get the results they're looking for, they figure out what components need to be Broken down. So we're going to look at what we're doing, and we're going to only practice. We're only going to work on the things that we're not good at. So next practice is going to be the triple jump. We're not practicing the single. You got that down? You got that down. Now, would it be easier to practice a single? Would you feel better practicing the single every day? Would you pat yourself on the back every day? Yes. But if your goal was to win the Olympic medal, you have to practice the hard things. And busy entrepreneurs protect their routines instead of correcting them. And the difference here is loyalty to effort versus the loyalty to the outcome.
[00:13:37] So let's talk about coaching. Because this day and age, everybody's coaching. Everybody's coaching. And I get that. I mean, I actually work with women who coach their, their sales teams. And one of the things I ask them very often is, are you willing to tell them the hard things? Are you willing to tell them the things that you are afraid might actually break them if it meant that if they adopted that behavior, they would have a breakthrough?
[00:14:10] And some are willing to do it, but most aren't. To be honest, most people think that coaching is about motivation and, and it's about accountability and it's about cheerleading. And my least favorite, it's about emotional processing, y'. All. What's in there in those in that list is a little bit of therapy and a little bit of babysitting. But that's not coaching.
[00:14:37] If you hire a coach, you are asking someone to correct behaviors that are not where they should be before you get comfortable with the familiar.
[00:14:55] A coach doesn't let you hide. A coach doesn't let you justify the work you're doing.
[00:15:01] A coach doesn't pretend that you're going to get where you want to go by doing the familiar things you already do really, really well. Like, I love listening in my field to people that talk about, like, oh, you don't want to do this, and you've been told to do that, and, and, and they're, they're just going to go back to. And I know exactly what it is. Like, I, you know, what they're teaching, they're teaching feel good, they're teaching feel good. So basically what, what they're being paid to do is to validate work that doesn't actually work. And very often that steeped in, like, sometimes it's training, sometimes it's most of the time, honestly, I believe it's just people that are well meaning but have a hard time getting people to understand the real work that needs to be done. And I'm not saying, by the way, that everyone needs a coach, but I am saying that, that if you're serious about improvement, that you eventually reach a point where you understand that you've outgrown your own self interpretation or even your bestie's self interpretation and her interpretation. Because a lot of times we're attracted to people that have the exact same issues that we do. So sometimes your bestie isn't the person that should be coaching you.
[00:16:30] Busy, busy schedules protect familiar strengths. I want you to repeat that. Busy schedules protect familiar strengths.
[00:16:40] And familiar strengths stop growth.
[00:16:44] And a coach, a coach is there to interrupt those behaviors. They're there to figure out and help you figure out how to, how to create momentum from the things you're not seeing about yourself. This is why when you watch the Olympics, all of the Olympians have a coach.
[00:17:08] And I, and I can tell you they're not paying those people to coddle them. They're paying those people to help them execute the things that they're not great at. So if you're in business and you're terrible at getting sales, you need a sales coach that isn't going to coddle you. You need a sales coach that's going to tell you, this is how you start the conversation. You need a sales coach who's going to say, like, listen, if you don't start conversations, you'll never close conversations.
[00:17:39] You need a sales coach that'll help you find your voice when you don't want to find your voice. You need a coach who refuses to let you confuse effort with excellence.
[00:17:56] When you work with a coach, you're going to find that you're going to be asked for standards. If you are coaching with someone that is not requiring you to set standards. And by standards, I mean you will reach out to this many people a day.
[00:18:10] You will close this many people a month.
[00:18:14] You will, and we will measure that activity. Or you have a busy partner, but you do not have a coach.
[00:18:25] Standards, by the way, so many people are afraid of standards. But when you set standards, when you set clear and measurable standards, you will not only increase your results, but you actually will decrease the activity required to, to get the work done. Because you are sifting through the noise, you're sifting through the things you're comfortable doing, but that do not produce results for you. You'll have fewer, you'll have fewer priorities and you'll have higher standards. You'll have shorter to do lists, but you'll have sharper focus.
[00:19:03] Real training looks simpler, but creates huge, huge results.
[00:19:09] Busyness will always keep you occupied, but training, training to win definitely changes what you are capable of being. And that is the point.
[00:19:24] Now, before we sign off, let's talk a little bit about one thing I haven't talked about, and that is that not everybody's coachable.
[00:19:33] And that's not a criticism. I just want to save some of you some money and I hope to create a little bit of self awareness.
[00:19:41] Coachable people are asking to be evaluated.
[00:19:47] They are asking you to help them repeat what they are not good at. So if somebody asks you to coach them or you've got to ask them a couple of questions, you've got to ask them, are you willing to have your work evaluated?
[00:20:06] If you're being coached, you have to ask yourself, am I willing to have my work evaluated?
[00:20:13] You have to ask yourself, am I willing to be asked to do the things that I probably don't like to do because I'm not great at them?
[00:20:23] If somebody asks you to coach them, you've got to ask them the question, are you willing to do things that you're not really good at?
[00:20:32] Because I'm going to tell you, you're going to find out. You're going to find out who's coachable and who's not. Because uncoachable people protect their efforts like their life defend depends on it. They will defend their calendar and they will explain things away instead of making adjustments.
[00:20:53] And that choice, that choice of explaining instead of adjusting, decides whether you're going to stay busy or whether you're going to get coaching that works for you.
[00:21:05] The Olympians remind us of this very simple thing, that excellence is not accidental, but it's definitely not about being busy.
[00:21:18] Olympians remind us that training has standards, and standards require feedback. And feedback is good because we can leverage that feedback and decide what we need to work on in our next training.
[00:21:31] And I have to tell you, this is the single reason people don't stay in training, because when it gets too close to the truth, they will opt out.
[00:21:42] And now the choice is yours.
[00:21:44] You have to decide, is it about effort or is it about progress?
[00:21:49] Is it about doing the same thing, or is it about doing those new things that are really hard but create results?
[00:21:56] It's about what you're willing to be measured by.
[00:22:01] That's what creates the results, and that's the decision you have to make. That's the choice that is open to you.
[00:22:11] And as we wrap up today. I know that some of this, some of this is new to you. I know that many of you have been coached by people that didn't ask you to do the hard work and there's a lot of reasons for that. But I want you to know that if you're ready to take that next step, if this really resonates with you, if you are tired of working without getting results, it is time for you to, to look for a coach that is going to work with you in a way that creates a willingness to do the hard things on an ongoing basis. And in the coaching schools that I operate, there are three levels of coaching. One of them is very community based and the other two are very closed and focused on you and your, your results all on your own.
[00:23:03] If any of that sounds like something you'd like to dig into, definitely check out the show notes. Schedule a one on one appointment. Let's break it down. Let's test your coachability. Let's test it. Let's see if there's a fit there and let's grow instead of being busy.
