HVAC Full Blast

Welcome to HVAC Full Blast, where you get industry inputs for real results. Today, we're diving into a topic that affects every professional, no matter where you are in your career, belief systems, self confidence, and becoming the best version of yourself at work. Join Mary Carter from Trane and Stephen Ross from Sandler as they share their lessons learned and discuss how your mindset impacts your role. Let's get started.

Welcome back. I'm Mary Carter.

I'm Steven Ross.

And we are back with some more discussions on what we're seeing out there. What what is happening in the market? What's important?

And really, you know, something we wanna talk about today, believing in yourself and how you get to being the best version of you out there when you're doing your role.

Yeah. I think, you know, the the pop psychology of the nineties was really kind of embodied in Chris Farley. So I grew up as a kinda Chris Farley fan.

But there's some truth in there. I mean, it's he did a nice job of making fun of pop psychology.

And some of that's just junk psychology entirely, but some of it, there's some truth to. So let's talk about, like, that, you know, what do you what do you pull out of of psychology and how how can that actually make you more money? I think that's, you know, like the ROI on psychology, maybe.

Definitely. So I mean, big expansive space. Right? So drilling that down into, you know, how we think about ourselves and what we do, what we say.

I think, you know, the first word that comes to or or maybe the first phrase that comes to mind is belief system. Right? What's your belief system? What at your core you know, why do you do what you do every day? Why do you surround yourself with the people that you're with every day?

Steven, really curious on your thoughts on, you know, just belief system in general.

Yeah. I mean, it's it's it's really interesting thinking about, how everybody looks at the world. And we we think sometimes even our best friends, like, they look at the world the same way we do. And every now and then, you're having a conversation with somebody and you realize, oh my gosh. Like, they're they're viewing things completely differently.

And and how did we get to the point where I am? And how did they get to the point where they are, where we're looking at the same thing, but we're describing things differently? And a lot of times, that's what psychologists would call your family of origin. Like, where did you grow up? How did you grow up? What kind of stories did you learn growing up, you know, about different topics?

You know, like, one of the the frequent ones is, you know, if you're in a room full of people and you say, hey. Money doesn't grow on Everybody knows the answer to that, right? So you say, trees. Yeah. And so how many of you learned that as a little kid?

And so what's the result of that? How do you treat money a little differently now that you're an adult, if that was one of the mantras that you learned growing up? So, yeah, your belief systems have a huge impact.

The what you started with, and then what you had today, those have huge impacts on how successful are you gonna be in various roles, for sure.

How about growing up? Like, what are some of the you you said your dad was a sales guy growing up. Yeah. So you maybe you had a pretty good belief system in terms of going into a sales career. Are there some things you learned from your dad that you're like, hey. I'm really glad I learned that from my dad.

Definitely. I mean, my dad was, or is, I should say. He still is this way.

He's a clean person. Like, he really values, like, a place for everything and everything that's placed. Now, it might not necessarily be the place where somebody else wants it, but he he knows where his things are. He was very organized.

Anytime he was traveling, you know, he he knew how to be prepared and be on the road, really at at, like, the drop of a hat. And I I always thought that that was so interesting that, you know, whether he was doing a call with a customer in his backyard or he had to get on a plane the next morning, he was ready. And the readiness of just being able to handle whatever's coming at you was something that I really was picking up on. It it just watching him go through his career.

And, and the other part of that too was he was so good at small talk. I mean, he could really just talk to anybody, get them to open up about something that was important to them, and run with that topic. And I I've heard someone say, you know, how do you get better at small talk? Well, you just become a more interesting person.

And it's true. I mean, my dad was so open person. And it's true. I mean, my dad was so open to trying things and and exploring foods and traveling.

And, I I really picked up on, you know, what seems like a maybe just like a personal preference really paid off for him in his career because it made him interesting and relatable to lots of people who had, different experiences. One thing about my dad's career too is, he worked for a manufacturer that made their products overseas. And so he got to work a lot with, international people very often. And that was also just like, again, like another notch in that intrigue of, you know, now I need to be able to be relatable to another culture.

And that was something to me that just left a big impression of like, wow. The world is not just my high school. Right? Like, the world has the potential to be bigger than this.

And, I I think in what I brought from that into my career is just the openness to be able to try new things, go see new places, and, not be afraid to just just put myself out there. I think my friends call me like them. I'm like the queen of the one zero one class. Sign me up for a one zero one.

You might not catch me at two zero one, but I've tried a lot of things. Yeah.

Nice. Nice.

Yeah.

What what about, what about you? What have you seen and and what have you carried through that made you just sort of say, yeah, that that's who I am?

Yeah. There's I mean, I think there's good things that come out of your belief system and there's bad things. Some of the good ones growing up, I mean, my parents had a very large emphasis on helping people growing up. Right? And and kind of looking out for those, less fortunate.

And so I think that really carried through my adulthood as well.

One of my first sales jobs I had, I took a, personality profile test, and it was right when I started. In fact, it was it was called a preemployment personality profile, but they didn't give it to me till after they hired me.

Oh, interesting.

And it was it was to to kinda gauge the motivation for salespeople. Like, what what motivates you? And the two things that they were looking for, one is they wanted very, very competitive salespeople. So, you know, did you play sports in high school?

I did that, but I didn't play in college. And, you know, was I competitive? Sure. At, like, a high school athlete level, not a d one or professional athlete level.

Like, I I'm not ultra competitive.

I certainly am not wired like Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant or somebody like that. You know?

And then two, they were like, well, how money motivated are you? Well, again, kinda growing up, my dad, highly educated PhD, but didn't make a ton of money. And that wasn't a big emphasis in his career. And so, you know, money motivation, that wasn't real high in me.

And so what came back as the highest motivation for me really was helping people. And what's interesting is that company then turned around and fired me. They're like, oh, we screwed up. We shouldn't hire you.

You're not super competitive, and you're not super money motivated, and that's what you need to be in sales.

And so I went away. I was like, oh, maybe I'm not cut out for sales. But, you know, my sales coach at Sandler later was like, hey. It's it's fine. You just gotta think through when you go visit a customer, you know, how does that impact that sales call? And so for me, I train myself to walk in the door and sit down with a customer and think, like, can I help these people?

And if I don't close this sale, what happens to them? Well, a lot of times what happened to them is they went with another heating and air company that maybe didn't do as good a job as we would do, or they went with a product that was cheaper that really didn't address their needs. And then they're stuck with that for the next ten or fifteen years. And so I really started to view my job as a sales guy as helping people.

And, hey, if I can help somebody make a really good decision right now, it could save them some consequences down the road that that they might had if they made a bad decision. And so by reframing a sales call in my head as here's what I'm doing. I'm here to help these people. If I don't if I can't close the sale, I can't help them.

Somebody else might help them just as good as I would. But I can't guarantee that. I know I'm gonna help them. And so that's really what I kinda hung my hat on as a sales guy once I really kind of decided I need to get a lot better was I need to take it seriously, my role in helping people.

So that was a belief system that, again, not super competitive, not super money motivated.

But but I I I'm very motivated to help people. So that I had to I kinda kinda had to feed on that a little bit.

I I like those three tenants, because I know for myself, not very competitive. I love I love being a fan, you know. I'm I, I was an Irish step dancer growing up. Okay?

So pretty pretty cool sport, if I do say so myself. But, I got to a point with dance even where I I didn't really wanna compete. I I just liked doing it. I liked my friends.

It was fun.

Yeah. I liked the music. I mean, I don't know what that says about me, but, you know, a lot of bagpipes. But I just wasn't really trying to compete.

And then at the studio, it actually said to my mom, she can't dance here. She doesn't compete. This is a competitive studio. You you have to compete.

So I did and did did pretty well. You know? I got got to a a nice level there. But it it was never, like, my dream to pursue things in Ireland or or go really anywhere with it.

So, not very competitive, but very money driven. I was very offended when, a large institution that encourages the sale of cookies through young adults did not cut me a check for a commission.

And, and my mom had to explain to me that that's not really how that works. And I I just I was I was gobsmacked by that. I could not believe the dedication I gave to that project, and it it yielded to me, a a badge, to, you know, put on clothes. And, that for me was unacceptable. So it you know, very, very money driven.

And and that's when I actually learned to, like, you know, understand the parameters of a contract.

Yeah.

So they kept the money. They gave you a badge, and that was you learned very early on. That didn't motivate you.

No. I did not elect to, do another year. And again, once again, my parents are like, you know, really? Like, you know, there's more to this.

I I couldn't see it. All I could see was how wrapped I was. So, that you know, not very not very competitive, very money driven, and and love helping people. Really, truly just there there is definitely a lot of that within my belief system as well.

But, but the money money in within my family script has definitely influenced where I wanted to go in terms of next jumps in my career and how could I get there. And even when I was doing really, really fun and exciting jobs, you know, I wasn't filling maybe perhaps the economy bucket of my life. And I had to make choices, you know, what what's important to me? Is it having the fun job that, you know, people are like, oh, wow.

Married to something cool. Or is it being able to support myself and do fun things with my friends? And, ultimately, I decided to go that way. So it it took I mean, the way my belief system influenced what I ended up doing as a career.

And now with, you know, more reach and in a sales role, I that's where I feel good. I like being able to help people, and I like those targets.

How about negative belief systems? Did you have or do you have one that is a struggle? I mean, sometimes we have a belief system. We go, hey. This is kinda holding me back or this somehow, I'm I I butt heads with myself on is there anything that you can think of there?

Yeah. I I I think maybe the most relatable one that I can certainly, tap into is, am I good enough? Do do I deserve to be here? Have I done the right things to be here, or is this a fluke?

And, you know, did I just apply on the right day that starts with t? You know? Like and, that one can come up a little every once in a while. What I've learned through a lot of sales trainings and leadership trainings is that, yes, I do belong here. I I absolutely have earned a seat and a right to, you know, speak my thoughts and opinions and be confident in those.

But it's it's a little green monster that can kinda, like, creep up sometimes and just sort of give you a bugaboo of like, woah. Like, I'm being asked to do something that maybe is out of my comfort zone. Like, am I the right person for that?

Why are they thinking of me in that way? And, you know, just it can definitely challenge maybe how good of a result I could have had had that thought never happened at all.

Yeah. Yeah. That's a good that's a good one. Yeah.

That we can circle around.

One of the ones that I there were two, I had two or three bad belief systems that when I hired a sales coach, she started kind of asking me why did I do the things that I did.

There were two that really were holding me back. One was just my money concept in general.

And, you know, I when I got out of college, my first year out of college, I had a sales job, and I had a twenty four thousand dollar base salary, which is two thousand dollars a month. And then in commission that year, I earned, I think, like, another fourteen thousand dollars in commission. So I made thirty eight for the year, and, that was two thousand. That was, like, first year kind of big boy job.

Thirty eight wasn't bad.

Kinda on par with my peers.

My next year, I made fifty eight.

The company I was with cut my salary from twenty four thousand down to twelve, but they raised my commission percentage And I sold more and I got my feet under me. So I went from thirty eight to fifty eight. And then the next year made seventy two. I was roughly twenty five years old, two thousand and two, making seventy five thousand a year.

Pretty good. Not bad. And then I just plateaued there for the next five years. And, you know, looking back on that, it was kind of interesting.

You know, my dad completely different career path. I mentioned he's got a PhD, but probably ballpark making about seventy five thousand a year.

And, and, you know, I lived in the same, house built by the same builder that built my dad's house. And my dad drove Chevrolet. So there's some things like that where you go, okay, well, that's you know, but that was kinda my comfort zone. So my belief system was, hey, seventy five thousand is pretty good. That's not a bad place to be. And so that part of my One of the things I had to unlearn was I had to kinda rewire my brain to go, hey, that's not good enough.

Having more kids solve that problem for me.

But the other thing is, you know, I remember my first year in sales, or maybe it was kinda the beginning of my second year in sales. So I had made thirty eight thousand dollars that first year. And I remember giving a proposal to a homeowner for thirty eight thousand dollars And I remember looking that thinking, I worked all of last year to make that amount of money. And so, you know, the way I presented that proposal, knees shaking, palm sweating, you know, vomit on my sweater, mom's spaghetti, like, to quote him and him. Like, I was I was having a little panic attack, you know.

But I but, you know, that's money weakness. That's just your money concept isn't strong or it's not strong enough to support what I was selling at the time. And so I had to beef up my my money belief system there. That was that was one.

The other one that really held me back was, again, growing up with not a lot of money, Every purchase was a big decision. And so, you know, you gotta think about it. Is this something you really want? Is this the right amount of money?

And I remember hiring my Sandler sales coach. And he said, hey, tell me about a purchase that you made recently. And I just bought a TV. And he was like, how long did it take you to make that purchase?

I was like, you know, three or four months. He's like, three or four months. Like, how expensive was the TV? You know?

I don't know. It was like nine hundred dollars or something. Right? He's like, what were you debating?

And I was like, well, you know, like, the fifty five inch was, like, eight hundred dollars, and the sixty inch was, like, nine hundred dollars. I was trying to decide, should I spend the extra hundred dollars? He's like, it took you four months to decide, is it worth spending extra hundred dollars? I was like, yeah.

Pretty much. Right? And that's just, again, my upbringing. We don't have a lot of extra money.

You gotta save wherever you can save.

There's no need to to spend and and waste money.

The the problem with that is that when a customer says to me, hey, Steven, we're gonna think it over. My brain goes, yeah. I'd think it over too, especially if it's a big purchase. Right?

I mean, if it's a fifteen, twenty, twenty five thousand dollar heating and air system, and they're like, hey. We'll think about it. Get back to you. I go, my god.

I'd think about that for, like, six months. Right? And so that's a belief system that I had to unlearn in order to be a better salesperson.

So That's that is so valuable to be able to really do that introspective look at why your buying habits or or the way you approach things is hindering you maybe in career.

Right? You know, I know we challenge dealerships to do that when we talk about financing. Right? You know, maybe you have a core belief that financing is not for you.

Right? But that doesn't mean that your customer couldn't use financing to help them along with that kind of system. Right? So very, very similar.

I kinda like that we're sharing some personal stories here because it it it helps kind of tell the story of how we go about thinking these things. But, you know, as you were talking, I was kinda thinking about to a one belief that I it kinda stems from, you know, do I belong here?

But the first job that I had out of college, it was a minimum wage job, which for, you know, a young graduate with a degree is not all that impressive.

But it was with, a sports team that had a big name in the area. And one of the pieces of advice my dad actually had given me at the time was, you know what? Take the job because that job will probably get you every job you have after that. And if if he wasn't right, I mean, it has turned into a talking point on my resume that shines.

And it it was an incredible experience. You know, besides all the other amazing skills I got out of it, it's a big name. And and that was that was fun to have. But what I noticed out of that cohort was, you know, some of the people that got promoted along a little further than I did, I I I was just noticing sort of, like, nepotism around me.

Right? Maybe their parents had a connection or they had season tickets. Well, my parents live in a market that's six hundred miles away. They're not buying season tickets to this group.

And, you know, maybe similar to you, my parents really aren't, you know, buying season tickets to anything because they've got another kid in college, and they've got other goals that they've got. So that wasn't, that wasn't gonna be our story. And so then that would feed this, you know, well, am I ever gonna get ahead, because I don't have the right, you know, lot cast in front of me to get to the next level. And what that does to you going to work every single day, it's it's not a good thing.

It doesn't really propel you for the next level. And, what it did for me was it kinda turned me into a little bit of a job jumper. And on the one hand, you do that too much, and you don't have the the history building up on your resume. It can it can be kind of a hindrance in in some people's eyes.

But what it did allow me to do very quickly at a young age is also negotiate my worth very quickly.

And every time my job jumped, the only time I ever went for a pay cut was to get health insurance. Because at that point, I had, I had aged out of health insurance with my parents, and and that all of a sudden became a very big value to me. Very, like, overnight, I was like, oh, wow.

This is all of a sudden a big deal and something that I hadn't been taken into consideration. So, yeah, it's, it it was kind of interesting that that was how my resume ended up getting the notches on it was, you know, like this this bad belief system.

But it now that I've done a little bit of that introspective work, you know, I've been able to find a company where I have my footing, and I feel like I can be my authentic self every day. And you know what? It doesn't matter that, like, my parents' names are on the buildings.

I'm here because of my name. Like, I've I've learned to appreciate that more fully, you know, as I've matured a little bit.

Yeah. So here's a question. So you had two belief systems, or you you've talked about two different ones that maybe conflict a little bit. One is you had to learn your worth, and you had to negotiate for your worth because you are money motivated.

But then the other thing you said is, hey, every now and then, it's like, hey, am I good enough to be here? Am I in the right seat? Did I just get lucky to get here? How do those two things reconcile with each other?

Or how do you how do you navigate that?

Well, how much time do we have now?

Well, I think it's I think it's I think that's true of all of us. Right? I think every single person on one hand, like, we're we're proud of ourselves. We feel like, hey, I'm worth the money.

Somebody should invest in me. I'm worth it. On the other hand, we know we're not perfect. We see our own flaws better than anybody else sees our flaws.

And so that is the struggle that I think almost every human being on the planet has. So you articulated it very well, but it's it's, it applies to everybody.

Yeah, it does. And, I think what's unique about the environment that I'm in right now is that I'm working with a company culture that really values development and invests time to learn about who I am as a person and what's gonna help Mary do well.

And anytime, you know, you can get that alignment with career and personal, I mean, all of the lessons that you'll learn in any kind of development really can go to both buckets. It makes me a better spouse. It makes me, you know, a better family member, and it makes me, you know, hope hopefully, my boss is listening out there, a really good employee. You know?

And, that's that's a really key element to this is, I didn't I didn't just all of a sudden change my belief system and find a career path that was wonderful. And, you know, now I'm on rainbows and hitting targets and everything's great. You know, it really took, the hunt to find a good fit for me that was mutual, and we both benefit from it. Right?

You know, Trane gets benefit from me, and I get to benefit from them. And, we we love that kind of a relationship. So I I really think the hunting piece, of finding that fit is important. And, actually, it's interesting to hear you talk about a sales coach because I hired a career coach.

And it was yeah. And it was one of the best investments that I ever had. I was in a rut. I was in a manufacturing job that, unfortunately, during the pandemic, made it so that you couldn't see customers.

And at the time, the product that I was selling, that was you know, it was a part within a part. So that was gonna make selling really tough because conceptually, it was it was just a little bit more challenging to explain. This is also kinda like before the advent of teams and whatnot. So, I think, honestly, nowadays, it'd be a little bit more improved, but I was in a rut.

I was not hitting my numbers, which made my money situation not my favorite.

And I needed I needed some inspiration, and I ultimately got it through, this career coach who she really challenged me to think about my next. And she kinda left that question very vague and very open. It didn't necessarily even have to be my next career. But what do I want my life to look like?

What what do I want my days to look like? How do I wanna show up for my partner? Like, what's that gonna be? And then I found the company that made sense for me.

Yeah. I think it's, you know, it's interesting because when I coach salespeople I mean, now, you know, I had a coach. Now I am the coach. And so I'm wearing the other hat. And it's, you know, the challenge, again, somewhat universal, is everybody's performance is based on their view of themselves. And so when they come for specifically with sales coaching is they wanna improve their performance.

And so the challenge though is, well, if your performance is just a reflection of your view of yourself, how do we raise your view of yourself so that your performance goes up? Because that's ultimately the crux of the issue.

And and so techniques part of that, I mean, closing techniques and prospecting techniques and so on. But it's really the confidence that comes from those techniques. If you can execute the technique well, and you've got a high degree of confidence, your belief in yourself goes up. That's where you see the results go. And so it's it's it's a challenge. It's a it's a challenge for everybody.

You know, my coach, you know, on on top of maybe these childhood belief systems or childhood, world views that we kinda bring with us, then you have, like, what you've learned as an adult.

Mhmm.

And I would say one of the other challenges that I found affected my sales career was a few years ago. I I had every year for probably ten, eleven years in a row, my income went up. And then a few years ago, I had a pretty good drop. And it had nothing to do with, did I forget how to sell? Did I forget how to prospect? Did I forget a closing technique?

What happened was I got divorced. And so your self esteem to some extent is gonna take a hit no matter what.

It's gonna, you know, you didn't get married to get divorced. So at some point in time, you thought, hey, this is gonna last forever, and then it doesn't. So there's maybe a sense of failure that comes in. And so, like, it it's completely an emotional response, but your belief system takes that hit.

And so then your performance takes a hit. So it's not just, you know, your childhood affecting your sales results. It's your adulthood and the circumstances around you. And I see that all day every day with with salespeople who are struggling with divorce, death in the family, illness, chronic illness could be theirs, could be their child's, could be their parents.

And sometimes the mental drain that comes from that. And, and so this this idea of okay, well, how do you how do you worry about your quarterly numbers when you've got this major life crisis going on? That's another skill set that I had to learn was to say, okay, well, but I can't just stop making money just to deal with this crisis. So both of these things have to continue to move on.

So that's a trick too.

That's a tough one. And I'll throw one in there that you might not think of as a crisis.

But I got married last year, and I've got an amazing mom. So if my mom ever hears this because she's awesome and supportive, mom, I love you so much.

But I had a mom. I have a mom with, with expectations of what that event should look like. And, yeah. How do I manage, you know, a very full plate with, you know, pretty aggressive strategies going on and plan, you know, a beautiful event, you know, to satisfy, you know, roughly, I think we ended up, you know, like a hundred and twenty family members. Like, whoop. Not not a crisis in the sense of a negative connotation, but certainly a hot button that, did not evade me for a long time.

So Yeah.

Yeah. But but yeah. I mean, I I but but on that note too of what you were saying, yeah. I mean, I've I've definitely had personal, demons, if you will, pop up, you know, during during my adulthood.

And all of a sudden, you know, you you know, one day you're living with somebody, and the next day you're not. And what does that look like? And I still gotta be a good human and show up for work. And, you know, one of the things that, I've really owned in my adulthood and I really recommend you know, I think if everyone could just do it and and keep sharpening that edge, we'd all be better off as a society.

But just be honest around the people around you about what's going on. And I'm really lucky when I was going through a bit of a a relationship change.

I had some amazing coworkers that I really could just say, I'm not myself today, and I don't need to give you the nitty gritty, but this is what's going on at a high level. You know? You take that where you want to. But just being honest and just saying, you know, I'm not myself today, and I really could use some coverage and some help.

You'd be amazed what people are really willing to to give when they know what's going on. It's when we're cryptic and smoke and mirrors and, you know, I, you know, I can't talk about it. And Yeah. And people start to say, like, well, you're just lazy.

Like, come on. Let's get motivated. Let's go. And, I think talking about sort of what's happening can can help get through that, a little bit, you know, with ease.

It's not easy, but it can it can help lessen maybe the severity.

Yeah. I end up hiring a performance psychologist, which is essentially a sports psychologist. And almost all of his clients are actually athletes. And it's interesting because he's not coaching them on the physical aspect of their sport. He's coaching them on the mental toughness aspect of their sport. And I decided that's what I needed to get out of my rut. So I hired a sports psychologist to get back in the game for sales.

And it was enormously helpful for me. And, I I don't know that I learned anything new. A lot of the concepts that he taught me are probably new.

But I think, like, a lot of times in life, it just comes down to execution. And so having somebody say, hey. Here's what we're gonna do.

Let's execute on this, and that helps provide a little external motivation to get things done and get some momentum going. That was enormously helpful. I think my my takeaway from all of that there were one takeaway, which is maybe obvious, and then the other takeaway is not so obvious. But, you know, we talk a lot about goal setting in corporate America.

And, you know, I and now I think of goal setting as a little a little differently. And so where I used to say, hey. My goal is to sell hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of heating and air this month. That's not a goal anymore. And the way I've separated that mentally is I say, well, goals are for my personal life.

The the plan, how I'm going to get there, that's my work life. So if I wanna go on a vacation, if I wanna pay off credit card, if I wanna buy a car, if I've got something over here, that's the goal. How am I going to go on that vacation? Well, the way I'm gonna achieve that is I'm gonna sell a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a air conditioning. That's that's the plan.

Oh. And so the, that was very helpful for me to separate out terminology. Goals go with your personal life. Work life is just the plan on how to get what you want out of your personal life.

And that and that is exactly what my career coach was doing for me. You know? She was saying, what kind of life do you wanna have? Okay. Now what job fits that lifestyle?

And all of a sudden, I was like, oh, it's not about just going to find remote working jobs. It's about finding a job that lets me live in this area and have these experiences because that's the kind of life I wanna have. So I I told that's it's amazing. Like, sports psychology, career coaching.

Amazing. Yeah.

A lot of overlap. I I think it's interesting too when I talk to salespeople. They'll say things like, well, you know, I want work life balance.

And my question to them was, you know, well, if you suck at work and you suck at home, is that balanced? I mean, is that work life balance? Is that what you want? Because I think what we really want when we say we want work life balance, what we mean is I don't wanna be a workaholic.

I still wanna see my family. Yeah. But the downside of that is those two things don't have to be mutually exclusive. You can be excellent at work and have a great life.

Those two things don't they're not mutually exclusive. So that that for me was a good concept to go, okay. Work life balance doesn't mean I'm gonna suck at work so that I can be good at home. Because those two things don't happen.

If you suck at work, you're probably gonna suck at home. You're not gonna be able to pay your bills. You're gonna be cranky. You're tired.

You know, your kids are gonna be like, dad, what's up? But if you're great at work, you can be great at home. I mean, those that that helped me enormously.

Then the other concept that I think really helped was okay. So if my belief in myself, for instance, you know, I made seventy five thousand dollars a year for about five or six years in a row. And so when I go see my sales coach, he says, what do you wanna do? Why why are you coming to get coaching?

I said, well, I need to make at least a hundred grand. And so he says, are you worth a hundred grand? And I say, yes. I say yes.

He says, you don't believe that?

And I was a little offended. I'm like, what do you mean I don't believe that? Because, well, look, I mean, if if you felt you were worth a hundred grand a year and you were only making seventy five grand a year for five years in a row, you would have done something different. Either you would have figured out how to make a hundred grand a year in your current role, or you would have gone and gotten another role.

So the problem isn't that you're making seventy five and you need to make a hundred. The problem is you're making seventy five, and that's all you really think you're worth because if you thought you were worth more, you would have done more. You would have done something. So we're gonna have to change that belief system in order for you to make a hundred grand a year, you gotta believe you're worth it.

Well, what's worth it? So goal setting for me, again, the plan is what you do at work, goals are what you do at home. But goal setting was then, okay, if you set a goal and you hit a goal, your belief in yourself goes up a little bit. And so if you just kind of repeat that over time, and maybe you start with small goals, but you set small goals, you hit it, then you build up.

Over time, your belief in yourself raises, and then you're able to raise your performance at work. That was a really good concept, and I really like that. The the flip side of that was maybe what surprised me, which is if you say you're gonna do something and then you don't do it. Right?

You set a goal and you don't do it. Or even just you tell your friend, hey, I'll call you Friday, and you don't call on Friday. When you say you're gonna do something and you don't do it, one ramification is other people don't believe you. The bigger drawback is you don't believe you.

Your belief in yourself takes the hit. The goal setting in that sense is really dangerous. Because once you say you're gonna do something, your belief in yourself is either going up or down, but it's not gonna stay neutral. And so you gotta be very careful with your goal setting.

Don't say you're gonna do something and then not do it because now you're in your head. You're like, yeah, when I say I'm gonna do something, sometimes I do it, sometimes I don't. And that is not the top performance mentality.

So it that was a real interesting piece for me to learn was goal setting is dangerous.

It's not something just to be done willy nilly. Don't you know, sometimes you hear some people say, why set these really high goals? And then if I don't hit them, like, at least it came close or, you know, you aim for the stars. And if you miss, you're still in the sky or something.

And my performance psychologist would say, no. No. No. No. No. No. Like, hey. If you say you're gonna do it, you gotta do it.

And so don't set a goal and not do it.

I think you're looking for a shoot for the moon. If you miss, you land on the stars.

Yeah. Some crap like that. That's what that is.

Yeah. No. I but I but I think it's true. And, it's, it is dangerous. It's, you know, great power comes great responsibility. And with great goals come great expectations. Right?

And that is, and expectations of what what is it?

Unspoken expectations can lead to very realized disappointments. Right? And if if you're putting that goal down there, but you know you've got that voice in your head saying, like, I don't know if we're gonna do it, and I don't know if we're gonna get there. Like, is that really the goal, or is there something deeper in that that maybe you gotta do first and then you get to that goal? Or or is it a a role shift of, you know, where where does that goal live? And, I mean, that's that's so true, so relatable.

And, I I think that's I think I think that's really, like, the, maybe the enlightenment part of this. When when you can do that, you really can find peace within I feel good about this. This is who I am. This is why I make these decisions.

And the more confidently I can speak about that, the the more confident I am in myself. Right? Because all of a sudden now, when someone asks me what I like about my job, I know exactly what I like about my job. I I wanted to be here because Yeah.

It affords me the ability to be a really good spouse and provide for my family and also, you know, have the flexibility to do the fun things that I like to do. Like, that's what that's what I wanted my life to be, and it's fun. Now does that mean, like, it couldn't, you know, evolve and grow? No.

I think that's one thing that we always have to kinda consider too is goal can change. You know, dreams can change. And you might I I might find an another hobby that all of a sudden I'm like, wow. That's the goal.

You know? So it's, it's okay to always be evolving and expanding on that, but, but just reframing maybe where that goal lives and what it's driving motivating.

It's really, really interesting.

I, I love learning about people. I I love forming genuine connections.

And my biggest encouragement to anyone who's listening to this that's kind of thinking through maybe what their belief system is is, you know, start up a conversation with someone just like Steven and I are doing. Like, to even just learn about your belief system and what's you know, where you came from, why you do what you do, and who you are, what you are. Like, that that's what's so cool about this human experience, you know, is that we can do that with one another. And if you're really sitting there thinking like, man, I wish I could do that too.

You know, call somebody up and have a conversation and just say, hey. This might be feeling like it's coming out of left field, but I I wanna I wanna learn about you. And I think that can be a really powerful, you know, way to enter into how do I look at my own belief system.

Yeah. I, funny story for you, Mary. A few years ago, I, you know, I was learning these concepts and managing a sales team.

And so we started talking we started having some of these conversations in our sales meetings. And what I realized is, holy crap, are these guys messed up, myself included.

And, and so I made the offer. I was like, hey. If you guys turn in therapy sessions on your expense report, I'll approve it. And about half the sales team took me up on it.

So they would go to therapy. They would turn in their receipts. I would expense it out of my marketing budget. And, and our sales went up thirty percent that year.

So there you go. Wow. Coincidence? Coincidence? I don't know.

Wow. And and, you know, it's worth looking into with, you know, folks who maybe carry like major medical insurance, right?

You know, that's Yeah.

But that's become like a a new kind of kind of a new check mark for, for some big major plans, you know, it's like talk therapy and and mental health and making sure that that muscle's working too. Right?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

That's awesome. I love that you did that for your group. I think that's amazing. I think it's, just another kinda, you know, a very small drop in a drop in a big bucket of culture that's really important. And, we certainly love to hear when people are taking care of people in that way.

I'm sure that somewhere there's an auditor going, I don't think this belongs in the marketing bucket. But you know what? It worked.

Fair fair enough.

Hey. As long as you, you know, didn't do anything weird with taxes, I bet you're okay.

No. No. Yeah. Yeah. Plug it.

Oh, well, great. Well, always good to learn more about you, Steven. I'm pumped that we, we can just kinda keep keep figuring out what it is, what it is that's gonna keep us going and make us excited about what's coming next.

Heating and air is a great industry, and it's so interesting how all these little layers impact how successful you could be in it. So I appreciated the conversation.

You bet. Alright. Well, until next time.

See you next time.

See you soon. Hey, this is Mary.

Hi, Hi. This is Steven.

And thanks for tuning in to HVAC Full Blast. We are gonna be bringing these episodes to you about every two weeks.

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