The Bounce Rate Podcast

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You did it you kicked ass and

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took names children want to be you adults want

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to marry you you know what works what doesn’t

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and you’ve got the confidence that comes from experience but

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here’s the unsettling question what if this moment is the moment you quietly

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stop growing what if confidence replaces curiosity the real danger in life isn’t

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failure it’s the subtle comfort of believing you’ve already figured yourself out.

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In this episode, we’re digging into the hidden plateau that can sneak into anyone’s life.

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We’ll explore how comfort and routine can quietly replace curiosity,

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why success can actually make growth harder, and the psychological trap of expert beginner.

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Ever heard that term, expert beginner? I have.

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Today I read it. You read the blog post? No, I read your notes.

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Does anyone have a knack for something like, like just early on you were like,

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oh, I’ve got a knack for this.

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Yeah, I think I actually, I’m fairly athletic, even though my physical,

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my cardio does not match and my stamina does not match my athleticism.

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Well, you did cartwheels into the room this morning.

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I did. I did with the breakdancing. It was crazy. Well, I remember we went,

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early on, we went to lunch at Freddy’s or somewhere down the street,

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and you just decided out of nowhere just to jump the railing.

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I was like, dude. Was that real? Yeah, he did. He was like, whoa,

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he can do that. So early on, you were athletic.

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Yeah. No, I still am athletic. Like for minor physical feats that last a very

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short period of time and require no strong cardio or stamina.

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So like darts, bowling, stuff like that, I pick it up fairly quickly.

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And I’m better than the average person picking that stuff up. Yeah.

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And then I completely plateau out because I don’t practice. Sure.

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James, what about you? I mean, you kind of stole my thing. I mean,

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I’ve always been athletic.

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Oh, my God. We’ve got a couple of athletes here. I’ve played,

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like, I can play almost all sports at a decent level, right?

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But I’m not, like, great at any of them.

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Well, maybe because it was the practice thing.

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Yeah. Like, there’s only so much time in the world. So if we gave you all enough

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time, we could call the NBA and get you a- Well, I have a limitation there with my height.

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That’s a really interesting thing that you point out there, and it kind of goes

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back to, So there was this blog post for developers called The Expert Beginner,

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and he talks about when there’s a programmer and they start figuring things

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out and they haven’t had formal training and so forth, as a lot of programmers do,

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they get to a point where they’re like, hey, I can hack anything.

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I can do everything with this programming language, and I can make websites, and I can do all this.

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And they are like, wow, I’m master of the hacking domain.

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I am a ruler of the world here.

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They don’t know what real hackers, real people that have, you know,

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that how good they really are and how minimal what they’re doing.

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Not that it’s not important, but it just doesn’t compare to what the best people do.

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Like, but when you go back to when you talk about sports, we know what the ultimate

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absolute best people look like.

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Yeah. I can watch them every whatever Saturday night, Friday,

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whenever I watch a game, be it baseball, basketball, football.

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I know that’s the ultimate.

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And we even had the Olympics recently, right? So we really know what the top

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of the top look like in a lot of different sports.

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Well, what’s funny too is even though, like, say, go back to the NBA,

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you can see what they look like.

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You can see them, but a lot of people still think that they’re that level because

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they actually haven’t been there, right?

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Does that make sense? Like, they’re like, oh, yeah, I could do that.

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But do they really think that? Young people? Young people?

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Probably young people. Okay. just to clarify if you’re talking about

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people like in high school going into college for sure there’s still

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a lot of them that are like yeah this is a possibility if you’re talking about

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people in this room oh yeah no no no no be athletic

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no no i’m like ultimate athlete in your world you’re the king right because

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you’re really good and you might perceive that you can go play because you actually

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haven’t played against that level right right you know i mean but i think that’s

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what you were saying is like in my world i’m i’m the best there is which because

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Because I haven’t bumped into this ever.

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Because my world is a lot smaller than the real world that’s out there. Yeah.

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As you said, the term is local maximum. Local maximum. Local maximum.

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So you’re local. What’s the maximum? Yeah. And if you just look out a little

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bit in any direction, you’re like, hey, I’m at the top of the hill.

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But you’re not even seeing Everest out there.

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Yeah. I will admit, I am not…

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Not coordinated enough to do sports, which sucked because I was kind of a tall

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kid and they were like, well, I’ll put this kid in sports.

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And they’re like, I pick Roger. You’re like, no, no, no, no, no.

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That was exactly what happened. I said, please do not pick me.

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I am not coordinated enough to do this.

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But what I did kind of have a knack for as a kid was music.

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And it was a, With music, it was tricky because I had a really good ear for

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like rhythm and pitches.

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And when I was in high school, I had just kind of skated by in just looking

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at music and kind of figuring out what it, I didn’t know what the notes were

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called. I didn’t know anything. And I was like, this is fine.

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I’m going to rely on my ear and I’m not really going to put any effort into

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learning notes and like what they’re called and rhythm and stuff.

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And then I remember whenever like the regional stuff happened,

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I was like, oh, these people have that and more.

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They have the ear and they’ve learned all the technical stuff about it.

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And that was like my first time where I was like, oh, wait a second.

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Like, and I don’t know, it’s a lot of people say the big fish in a small pond

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situation where then you get to a bigger pond and you see everyone’s bigger than you.

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And then the question is, what do you do in that moment? Do you like shrink?

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Do you go up? You know what? Let me go back to this pond. Or do you start eating

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fish? Do you start trying to consume your way to the top?

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Yeah, that’s a really common experience for when I look at my life.

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When I look at the people we’ve talked to and helped at Indoor Media,

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the customers that we’ve had.

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There’s so many people, they don’t, they actually don’t go to the big pond or

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they don’t look around the big pond. And honestly, that’s fine.

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There’s nothing wrong with doing something as long as it’s actually working

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for you and making your goals.

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I think there’s kind of a process to that. So the first thing is you start having

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some success because if you’re not having success at all, if you’re not making

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enough money to pay the bills, you’re like, OK, I got to change.

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And that’s going to be forced upon you when you declare bankruptcy.

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When you, if you get past that and you’re making a living and I,

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and James, I think we, we’ve had a, because we both started with our web company and it was,

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we were partners for those of you in the audience that don’t know,

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James and I are partners. We’re holding hands.

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Every episode. Every episode. It’s really just a comfort thing.

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It’s not that kind of thing. Anyway, so we were partners and what had happened

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is we had started working together a little bit and we decided,

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hey, let’s make this formal. So we did.

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And it was, I don’t remember exactly how long it was.

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It was not long after we signed like a document kind of saying,

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hey, we’re going to be partners and so forth.

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And we had said, this is our minimum amount of money that we have to each make.

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And I, and like we made one month and I was below that. And I was like,

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I’m out. And James was like, what?

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And I said, I can’t keep going at 90% of my minimum. I just can’t do it anymore. Yeah.

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And you’d been doing it before. Yeah. We both have been, right?

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We’ve both been doing businesses.

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And so, you know, for, if you get to that level, it forces you out.

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It makes you decide, okay, I can’t do this. I’m done.

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My wife wants nicer clothes. That was not the problem at all.

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My wife wants the mortgage to be paid.

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So it was very easy. But James continued on in that,

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business. And James, maybe talk a little bit about that.

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Like, do you feel like there were times where you had success and you’re like,

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well, I’ll just keep doing this.

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And that really wasn’t what you needed to move forward?

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For sure. I mean, it definitely was a roller coaster, right?

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So it’s hard to look back and know exactly what I was thinking at moments.

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But yeah, there was definitely moments where you’d get some success and you’re

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like, okay, this is it, Right. Like let’s, let’s stick here.

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Let’s not change anything up too much. Right.

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And then there was moments where you get inspirational or maybe that stopped

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working and you really dig it in and experiment and try to find,

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you know, it was, it was actually a pretty good mix.

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You know, it’s there, it’s a natural filter when you do get to that point.

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As I remember whenever, after COVID was starting to get under control, I realized.

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A group of friends, we decided to play volleyball every Friday.

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And it was just like a fun game. It was just like, all right,

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we’re just going to have a fun, friendly volleyball game.

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And so we would play every Friday. And it was very interesting because we reached

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a point to where those of us who were okay with being adult beginners and just

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playing for fun, played for fun.

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And then a certain people said, I don’t, I’m not having fun playing,

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playing just whatever anymore.

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I like, I want to get good at this.

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And it was, you know, it wasn’t like resentful thing, but it was like,

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they had a different goal at that point. Right. They were eyeing something else.

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I think Roger, you’ve got a really interesting story too.

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So for those of you in the audience that don’t know, Roger is one of the owners

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of a local theater called Station. So local.

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Yeah. So not so local, just it was so far. So I’m going to condense your history

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just a little bit to get to the to get to the point. Right. So there was the station theater.

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They were doing well, gaining some notoriety.

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I’ll say a regional level. Yeah. And and really having a lot of success packing the house. Bam.

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COVID hits. Yeah. Right. Shuts it down there. You can’t you know,

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you’re not going to have those kind of even even after they loosened up on the rules.

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People didn’t want to go sit in a packed theater with

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a bunch of other cough sickly people yeah so so

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kind of sets you back to square one if

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not negative one roger and his partner do some great work rebounding they they

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make the moves that they had to make so like when i got my when i when i made

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90 of my minimum you did i did what i had to do so roger did exactly what he

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had to do to make that happen. They got a smaller theater.

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They’re now have regrown it and they’ve gotten back to a larger theater.

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They’re getting that same, that a lot of buzz going on. Here’s my question, Roger. Yeah.

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When you think about the theater and you think about its growth and what it’s

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going to do to succeed, do you hearken back to what it was before COVID?

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Or are you really saying, you know what, it’s a new thing. I’ve got to really

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experiment and try now and see what’s going to succeed or fail.

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Or do you really lean on your experience from before COVID? For me,

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it is 90% the latter, is what’s new and what’s the new vision.

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What’s going on now. What’s going on now. And I’ll give an example of this is that the meta…

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System it like social media does

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not behave the way today that it did in

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2017 in 2017 there’d be

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a situation where you could tweet or

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x as celebrities and get people to interact with you if you posted something

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on facebook you could guarantee a certain amount of organic interactions well

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it would actually go to people that were following you know do what it’s supposed

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to do Yeah, your followers would see it.

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And the social media landscape today is very much different.

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Facebook can be kind of a graveyard as far as content.

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Instagram, slightly more consistent, but not always.

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And also Instagram, you have to, Instagram really likes you to use their in-program editing tools.

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If you just throw something up on Instagram without adding music or text,

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it typically doesn’t do as good.

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And so these are things that were not the case in 2017.

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If we had said, you know what, let’s get back into it. Let’s do our weekly Facebook Instagram thing.

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It’s not going to work. We have to go to where the new audience is,

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and we also have to model what other people are doing, even if it isn’t necessarily in a theater.

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We have to see, all right, who is growing right now, and how can we model after that success?

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I think that’s a, I’m going to say it’s a very healthy perspective to not take

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it for granted because there are a lot of times there are some great signs when

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I find, when I’m talking to business owners, when I’m talking to our sales reps,

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employees, I can see that they’re stuck.

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They may not even know that they’re stuck, but I will say there’s three things

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that really tell me you’re stuck.

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One is you keep talking about past success.

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I hear this all the time. boy, is it something big with the salespeople too.

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Our sales team, God bless them.

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Doing the Lord’s work, right? Going out, finding customers, bringing down from

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Mount Sinai the 10 commandments that are indoor media of how to help your local business and market.

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But if I hear one more time about how back in 2008 you did X,

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Y, or Z or accomplish this, I’m like, it’s just not relevant anymore.

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You can’t keep living off that.

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If I don’t hear something that’s happening, working now, you’re not changing.

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You’re not motivating. You’re not moving on. So talking about past successes,

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especially the older they get, it’s a huge red flag for me.

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If you repeat the same habits over and over, if you come and say,

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I have a problem and I say, well, what are you doing?

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And that person tells me they’re going to do the same thing they were doing before.

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Well, I’m going to do it more. I’m going to work harder.

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That’s not a formula for success. So you can’t just keep doing the same thing.

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And this goes hand in hand. the more you avoid discomfort the more it tells

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me you’re at a plateau i think that final one is,

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the telltale sign right like if you don’t feel miss if you don’t feel uncomfortable,

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it’s too easy does it make sense like i mean that is how you know you’re growing

00:15:30.627 –> 00:15:36.587
and it’s so natural So it’s so natural to avoid discomfort.

00:15:36.927 –> 00:15:43.887
Yeah. It is so natural. I personally love discomfort. I think never let a crisis go to waste.

00:15:44.127 –> 00:15:48.007
I think if you’re not changing things up, you’re not adding value.

00:15:48.127 –> 00:15:49.487
But that’s just from my perspective.

00:15:49.647 –> 00:15:53.367
There are so many people that it’s hard to accept change after change after

00:15:53.367 –> 00:15:57.247
change. And that really gets them down. Do you have you run across people like that? Oh, yeah.

00:15:57.547 –> 00:16:00.487
Do you have a story about them? Because we’re into storytelling.

00:16:01.587 –> 00:16:04.987
About people who don’t want to change? Or somebody that did change all the time

00:16:04.987 –> 00:16:09.567
and how that worked out for him. What I will say is like from… I can remember…

00:16:10.591 –> 00:16:18.011
Whenever you do see someone in another league, it is a little bit exciting because

00:16:18.011 –> 00:16:24.191
it’s like, oh, here’s the next, here’s the next, I’m at the next point.

00:16:24.391 –> 00:16:28.631
So it kind of forces you, like, just, it’s not a story, but just from my experience,

00:16:28.851 –> 00:16:35.711
whenever I reach that point of this is the best at playing the banjo that I can be without,

00:16:35.711 –> 00:16:38.891
you know doing this or that that means that

00:16:38.891 –> 00:16:42.591
i have level i’ve literally leveled up and so i

00:16:42.591 –> 00:16:47.871
i don’t know for me that that is a big contributor to say i can actually see

00:16:47.871 –> 00:16:53.211
the growth and i can see the next the next phase i don’t think everybody’s like

00:16:53.211 –> 00:16:59.231
that though some people you know they see that level up and it scares them yeah

00:16:59.231 –> 00:17:01.731
you know i mean and they want to backtrack.

00:17:02.011 –> 00:17:07.831
When I was in college, I worked in restaurants right out of high school through

00:17:07.831 –> 00:17:10.951
college, even some after college, right? Cause I really liked it.

00:17:11.231 –> 00:17:15.871
But, and I worked in Houston. I worked for two different restaurants for many

00:17:15.871 –> 00:17:18.791
years and they’re very different restaurants, right?

00:17:19.271 –> 00:17:24.371
One of the restaurants, the owner really backed away from any challenges and any friction,

00:17:24.371 –> 00:17:27.411
right and every the menu stayed the same

00:17:27.411 –> 00:17:30.171
nothing changed and now look they’re still

00:17:30.171 –> 00:17:33.911
around so that’s that’s something that’s good but they really have barely been

00:17:33.911 –> 00:17:39.631
making it you know the other restaurant i worked at was constantly trying new

00:17:39.631 –> 00:17:43.651
things and they were kicking butt they were opening new types of restaurants

00:17:43.651 –> 00:17:48.891
like they’re really growing right but they were constantly in that.

00:17:49.598 –> 00:17:52.378
I, you know, what can I do next? You know, what can I learn?

00:17:52.458 –> 00:17:57.138
What am I, you know, so it was really interesting to see the two different restaurants.

00:17:57.198 –> 00:18:03.278
And I mean, both the owners were nice people, but just how much of an impact

00:18:03.278 –> 00:18:04.218
it had on their business.

00:18:05.058 –> 00:18:09.218
So there is this corporate book that’s been out.

00:18:09.398 –> 00:18:14.258
It’s a motivation. It’s like a 35 minute read that’s called Who Moved My Cheese.

00:18:14.458 –> 00:18:16.178
Have you guys heard of this book? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

00:18:17.158 –> 00:18:22.658
And I read it. It came out in 98. I was at Shell, early 2000s,

00:18:22.758 –> 00:18:26.818
and so they wanted me to read this book. So I read this book.

00:18:27.058 –> 00:18:32.238
And it’s about these two mice and these two little miniature people.

00:18:32.858 –> 00:18:36.658
And they’re in a maze. And every day, they put on their track suits,

00:18:36.658 –> 00:18:40.178
they put on their little tennis shoes, and they go running out into the maze

00:18:40.178 –> 00:18:42.818
to find cheese, and then they run back to their little homes.

00:18:43.638 –> 00:18:48.038
And the story goes that they’re doing this day after day, and they’re doing

00:18:48.038 –> 00:18:48.918
okay, they’re doing fine.

00:18:49.478 –> 00:18:54.138
Well, one day they come across the motherlode of cheese, more cheese than they’ve

00:18:54.138 –> 00:18:55.758
ever seen in their entire lives.

00:18:55.798 –> 00:18:58.678
And basically, everybody sets up camp.

00:18:59.158 –> 00:19:02.398
Well, no, I just take that back. The humans set up camp. They’re like,

00:19:02.498 –> 00:19:05.878
hey, we’ll just every day, we’ll just go here, get some cheese, come back.

00:19:06.078 –> 00:19:10.118
The little mice suit up in the track suits, get their little tennis shoes on,

00:19:10.338 –> 00:19:14.118
go out, get some from the big cheese, and then, hey, they’re done early,

00:19:14.238 –> 00:19:16.058
but they keep that same pattern.

00:19:16.778 –> 00:19:21.158
Although the massive amount of cheese dwindles, eventually disappears.

00:19:21.818 –> 00:19:26.238
And the moral of the story is that the mice, because they’ve had their track

00:19:26.238 –> 00:19:28.898
suits on, they just keep doing the same thing they were doing every day.

00:19:29.058 –> 00:19:30.618
Go out, and they’re doing fine.

00:19:31.038 –> 00:19:37.998
The two humans have this whole philosophical argument and discussion about one

00:19:37.998 –> 00:19:41.438
of them goes through like the five stages of grief. Is this fair? Blah, blah, blah.

00:19:42.108 –> 00:19:47.348
And one of the humans is like, you know, I’m fat from the cheese.

00:19:47.808 –> 00:19:52.668
I’m tired. I’m exhausted. I don’t have stamina, but I got to put my tracksuit on.

00:19:52.828 –> 00:19:56.628
And so he does. And that’s the end of the book is he’s going out and putting

00:19:56.628 –> 00:19:58.788
a track. I hate that book.

00:20:00.148 –> 00:20:06.308
I absolutely hate that book. I thought that was the worst conceived notion.

00:20:06.728 –> 00:20:10.988
Hey, just go back to your old habits that always worked before.

00:20:10.988 –> 00:20:13.388
And I’ll do it. So I wrote an alternate ending.

00:20:13.928 –> 00:20:19.188
Okay. Okay. So the two little guys, one’s Hem, one’s Ha. Oh, how clever.

00:20:19.628 –> 00:20:24.688
And, and I don’t remember which one. Ha runs, he’s the tracksuit. So he starts leaving.

00:20:25.488 –> 00:20:31.068
Hem’s sitting around and he’s like, you know what? This isn’t fair. Why am I even in a maze?

00:20:31.588 –> 00:20:35.948
Screw that. I’m going to burn this whole thing down.

00:20:36.588 –> 00:20:39.528
And so he’s, he just lights the maze on fire

00:20:39.528 –> 00:20:42.308
and starts burning the whole thing well first thing he

00:20:42.308 –> 00:20:46.828
finds out is that their starting point was literally one wall over so they didn’t

00:20:46.828 –> 00:20:51.408
have to run for miles to get to the great cheese all the way back to the home

00:20:51.408 –> 00:20:56.608
because it was right there if they had just gone through the wall then as the

00:20:56.608 –> 00:21:00.408
maze continues to burn he smells something new.

00:21:02.398 –> 00:21:06.918
Cooked fresh cheese. Yeah, like a grill. It’s the best smell in the world.

00:21:07.098 –> 00:21:12.198
Because he found the next pile from the fire. It cooked the cheese.

00:21:12.338 –> 00:21:16.138
He got the whiff. He walks right over to it. Direct line this time.

00:21:16.318 –> 00:21:20.378
No maze. And has a new life. That’s my alternate. I like it. No, I like that.

00:21:20.618 –> 00:21:23.378
Wait, are you saying be negative?

00:21:24.738 –> 00:21:28.338
I’m saying don’t accept where you are. Yeah. Question.

00:21:29.758 –> 00:21:34.538
Question, grow, learn, experiment. You might fail. I’m sure in my story,

00:21:34.578 –> 00:21:37.138
it would be really good if I had written this. I’m not sure that I did.

00:21:37.358 –> 00:21:40.978
But that his fur got a little singed here. Well, it’s a guy,

00:21:41.118 –> 00:21:41.798
so his mustache or whatever.

00:21:41.818 –> 00:21:44.718
Well, the first thing he smelled was the singe of fresh meat.

00:21:44.958 –> 00:21:46.238
Yeah, from the dead rats.

00:21:46.498 –> 00:21:48.518
Dead rats. Yeah. Taking it a little dark there.

00:21:49.098 –> 00:21:52.958
Well, if you have questions, the two mice from that story, we actually have

00:21:52.958 –> 00:21:54.438
them as guests next week.

00:21:54.598 –> 00:21:57.898
So if anyone has any questions for them and how that made the situation work.

00:21:57.898 –> 00:22:01.058
Submit them send them to us and i

00:22:01.058 –> 00:22:03.758
i do like your ending a lot namely because i’ve ever

00:22:03.758 –> 00:22:06.998
been to fogo de chow and they bring out the fried cheese

00:22:06.998 –> 00:22:10.658
yes the yeah the roast the flamiato and

00:22:10.658 –> 00:22:14.918
for many mexican restaurant is amazing yes see that’s and that’s my point is

00:22:14.918 –> 00:22:19.878
like you’re never going to get there so you have you do have it’s difficult

00:22:19.878 –> 00:22:24.118
today because you look around if you if you expand your view if you’re trying

00:22:24.118 –> 00:22:28.238
not to be the local minimum and you expand your view we have this thing called the internet.

00:22:28.858 –> 00:22:34.198
And there is always somebody better on the internet doing something.

00:22:34.418 –> 00:22:38.618
Now, you don’t really realize when you’re watching that, that they were better for six seconds.

00:22:39.418 –> 00:22:43.018
That’s all they were better at it. Whatever it is, if you’re juggling,

00:22:43.258 –> 00:22:49.338
skiing, running a business, whatever, they were better at it for six seconds to put that onto a clip.

00:22:49.578 –> 00:22:51.558
And that’s what you watch. You know, my God, they’re amazing.

00:22:51.958 –> 00:22:55.478
But you can’t condense an entire life. So one thing that happens,

00:22:55.578 –> 00:22:59.898
I think what you’re talking about in terms of the discouragement is social media is a killer for…

00:23:01.382 –> 00:23:06.362
It can be. Yeah. Yeah. Now, if you look at it in terms of, hey,

00:23:06.522 –> 00:23:08.362
this is a model for me. Yeah.

00:23:08.522 –> 00:23:14.062
And in my world, in the people that I’m serving, the community that I’m in,

00:23:14.182 –> 00:23:18.082
in real life, not the internet, but the actual real life people,

00:23:18.242 –> 00:23:23.342
if I can up my game a little, right, there’s something really for me.

00:23:24.462 –> 00:23:28.922
A great example of this is magicians. Sure. Yeah. Explain.

00:23:29.742 –> 00:23:33.782
Oh, just like seeing magicians on the social media? Well, seeing them on…

00:23:33.782 –> 00:23:34.682
So what’s the difference?

00:23:34.902 –> 00:23:39.922
So if you look at David Blaine, David Copperfield… Mm-hmm.

00:23:40.668 –> 00:23:43.248
Are there any other Davids? That would have been really cool if I had a triumvirate

00:23:43.248 –> 00:23:48.288
of Davids. I can’t think of another David magician. Anyway, David Magic Man. Yeah.

00:23:49.048 –> 00:23:52.908
If you watch them, unbelievable, right? You don’t even know how they do it.

00:23:53.008 –> 00:23:56.128
They’re street magic. You see the street magic videos, all that stuff.

00:23:56.648 –> 00:24:01.528
Does that mean that me learning a little trick is not valuable at all?

00:24:02.028 –> 00:24:06.208
No. In fact, if you did learn a little trick and you just walked around the

00:24:06.208 –> 00:24:09.528
office or the olive garden showing it off, you might make people’s day.

00:24:09.988 –> 00:24:14.348
That’s it. That’s it, right? In your own world, you don’t have to be as good

00:24:14.348 –> 00:24:18.108
as that other person, but I can emulate and model them without being intimidated.

00:24:18.388 –> 00:24:23.988
I don’t have to be David Blaine and stand in a block of ice for 36 hours.

00:24:24.488 –> 00:24:27.868
I can do small trick. If they don’t work, it’s okay.

00:24:28.308 –> 00:24:32.788
That actually resonates really well with me because I know I did that a lot

00:24:32.788 –> 00:24:37.448
with the agency where I would see somebody doing something and I would,

00:24:37.568 –> 00:24:39.288
you know, I didn’t necessarily,

00:24:39.588 –> 00:24:44.228
it wasn’t them, but I could take a piece of that and bring it in and do that, right?

00:24:44.328 –> 00:24:48.688
Like that, that, that was real. I did that, you know? Yeah.

00:24:49.048 –> 00:24:53.128
And especially when you start talking about local businesses or things that

00:24:53.128 –> 00:24:59.208
are kind of repeated, do you have to, we can watch top chef and see somebody

00:24:59.208 –> 00:25:02.428
spin the knife, do all that, make this amazing thing, whatever.

00:25:02.848 –> 00:25:06.868
But that’s not getting a hamburger today at 1230.

00:25:07.348 –> 00:25:11.708
And so somebody serving me a hamburger today is more valuable than the very

00:25:11.708 –> 00:25:15.008
best chef out in the world because they ain’t feeding me. I have an example.

00:25:15.328 –> 00:25:18.848
So, you know, I had proposals that I would send out to customers and,

00:25:18.868 –> 00:25:19.548
you know, they were all right.

00:25:19.668 –> 00:25:24.088
But then I see this other proposal and I’m like, wow, this is an amazing proposal.

00:25:24.288 –> 00:25:27.848
Guess what? I go and I don’t copy it line item for line item,

00:25:28.068 –> 00:25:31.088
but I take that inspiration and I recreate mine.

00:25:31.288 –> 00:25:33.988
I just leveled up, right? In my world.

00:25:35.222 –> 00:25:40.202
So here are some bounce rate sanctioned takeaways from this episode.

00:25:40.362 –> 00:25:45.422
The first one is don’t be afraid to model someone who is ahead of you.

00:25:45.562 –> 00:25:52.382
If you see a big fish doing stuff, the amazing Dave, and you see him doing the

00:25:52.382 –> 00:25:57.282
tricks, it’s absolutely cool to say, all right, let me copy that.

00:25:57.382 –> 00:26:03.822
Let me try that because your attempts at trying it are going to turn into something probably original.

00:26:03.822 –> 00:26:09.542
And I think if you’re ever going to, if you literally want to get down to,

00:26:09.802 –> 00:26:14.782
I want to beat my competition, this applies personally or on a business scale

00:26:14.782 –> 00:26:16.442
or whatever scale you’re looking at.

00:26:16.482 –> 00:26:20.082
If you’re going to beat your competition, you have to catch up to them. Yeah.

00:26:20.342 –> 00:26:24.142
So being where you are, you’re not going to beat your competition if they’re

00:26:24.142 –> 00:26:25.782
ahead of you. That’s very true.

00:26:26.262 –> 00:26:31.202
Our other sanction tip is to put yourself in beginner mode, which is hard.

00:26:31.202 –> 00:26:35.782
If you have experienced a level of success, it’s hard to humble yourself and

00:26:35.782 –> 00:26:38.782
say, all right, I’m a beginner. But the truth is, we’re all beginners.

00:26:39.062 –> 00:26:42.862
Like we said about COVID, COVID changed the way everything works,

00:26:43.082 –> 00:26:47.902
which means that we all kind of found ourselves in a reset mode.

00:26:48.262 –> 00:26:53.442
Great. That means we’re all learning. That means we’re all developing. It is okay.

00:26:55.402 –> 00:27:00.402
I might even say advantageous to mentally put yourself in a beginner mode. Yeah.

00:27:00.969 –> 00:27:05.609
And our final takeaway is- Are we waiting for commentary? I don’t know.

00:27:05.909 –> 00:27:08.449
I can never tell. I had some, but I was like, is this the time?

00:27:08.569 –> 00:27:12.109
Go ahead. Yeah, feel free to interrupt me. Absolutely.

00:27:12.789 –> 00:27:17.829
I forgot what I was going to say. Oh, God. The last takeaway is change your

00:27:17.829 –> 00:27:22.209
definition of success. We know that life is a journey, means ups and downs,

00:27:22.389 –> 00:27:27.269
but the truth is what worked before won’t necessarily work again.

00:27:27.489 –> 00:27:30.329
And I see that every day.

00:27:30.329 –> 00:27:33.169
Well and especially in marketing where in

00:27:33.169 –> 00:27:36.269
marketing you’ll try something and it’ll be really successful

00:27:36.269 –> 00:27:39.189
and then you’ll try it the month later and then

00:27:39.189 –> 00:27:42.629
it won’t be as successful and then you have to average the two together and

00:27:42.629 –> 00:27:46.809
then it’s a it’s a whole thing and then and then in a year you go back to the

00:27:46.809 –> 00:27:51.269
original thing that didn’t work and it works yeah it’s unbelievable my comment

00:27:51.269 –> 00:27:55.469
was on you know putting yourself in beginner mode i think that’s really hard

00:27:55.469 –> 00:27:58.629
for once you reach success, right? Like it’s a challenge.

00:27:58.789 –> 00:28:02.769
And so I share a little bit about my sports life, right?

00:28:02.889 –> 00:28:07.109
So I grew up and I got into surfing and I couldn’t get enough,

00:28:07.229 –> 00:28:08.509
man. I watched every video.

00:28:08.709 –> 00:28:13.589
I’d go to the store and get Surfer Magazine. Like I just was infatuated with it.

00:28:13.629 –> 00:28:16.989
I just consumed it and I just got better and better and better.

00:28:17.089 –> 00:28:20.069
And I got to a pretty good level, right? I traveled around, I surfed all over,

00:28:20.209 –> 00:28:23.489
but then I kind of plateaued and my interest

00:28:23.489 –> 00:28:26.609
wasn’t there quite as much right and and so

00:28:26.609 –> 00:28:29.529
my i’ve been the same level for a long time

00:28:29.529 –> 00:28:32.369
i still like to do it but i don’t have that interest

00:28:32.369 –> 00:28:36.909
well come along about a year ago i got into a new sport pickleball and all of

00:28:36.909 –> 00:28:40.429
a sudden i start to get really excited about it and i’m watching videos and

00:28:40.429 –> 00:28:44.789
i’m learning i’m back in that learning stage so i guess the moral is you know

00:28:44.789 –> 00:28:49.549
how do you put yourself in beginning stage there you know like because it’s

00:28:49.549 –> 00:28:51.029
you have to hack it you have to hack it,

00:28:51.149 –> 00:28:53.629
I think, after you’ve been doing something for a long time. Yeah.

00:28:54.730 –> 00:29:01.270
If you, if I, I think the way, the way I think about that is if you feel like

00:29:01.270 –> 00:29:03.810
you have all the answers, you’re in trouble.

00:29:04.170 –> 00:29:07.850
That’s it. That’s it. So I watched F1 with Brad Pitt. Is that good?

00:29:08.310 –> 00:29:13.350
It was, it was, it’s not a bad team movie. It’s like, I keep, it’s a little too long.

00:29:13.810 –> 00:29:15.290
I keep almost watching it. I know, that’s kind of how I felt too.

00:29:15.490 –> 00:29:19.290
But it’s got a lot of team, you know, building and stuff. And I do love Brad Pitt.

00:29:19.370 –> 00:29:22.870
I think Brad Pitt’s just one of the best, talking about a model.

00:29:23.750 –> 00:29:30.170
But the whole thing in that movie is, as you’re watching this team at the very

00:29:30.170 –> 00:29:33.850
pinnacle of performance, they are the top of the top, right?

00:29:34.230 –> 00:29:38.990
F1 cars go faster than any racing car on the planet.

00:29:38.990 –> 00:29:46.630
And it is, in many ways, can be kind of objectively considered the ultimate

00:29:46.630 –> 00:29:53.870
race car driving, you know, technology, methodology, performance, everything about it.

00:29:54.610 –> 00:30:02.970
And here is this incredible, amazing, of the top, you know, 1% of 1% of 1% in

00:30:02.970 –> 00:30:05.750
terms of performance, in terms of what this team’s doing and so forth.

00:30:05.750 –> 00:30:10.030
And every single day they wake up and they say, how can we do better?

00:30:10.270 –> 00:30:14.630
How can we shave another hundredth of a second off of our time? How can we do?

00:30:14.830 –> 00:30:20.570
If you’re not in that mode and you’re sitting, you know, I’ve got this.

00:30:20.830 –> 00:30:25.290
And I talk to customers that say this, that’ll say, well, I don’t need advertising.

00:30:25.430 –> 00:30:28.670
Everything’s going fine. I’m like, well, is that going to be true in six months?

00:30:28.670 –> 00:30:32.750
I talk to sales reps all the time to say, you know, I’ve got I know how to do this job.

00:30:32.930 –> 00:30:35.650
Like, well, if you’re doing this job, you’ve maxed out.

00:30:36.110 –> 00:30:38.910
You’re at a local minimum or local maximum.

00:30:39.630 –> 00:30:44.790
You’re not climbing anymore. And I guarantee there is somebody that is crushing

00:30:44.790 –> 00:30:47.030
it. And you probably could be crushing it more, too.

00:30:48.987 –> 00:30:52.167
I like that. Oh, Roger, did I tell you I like your glasses today?

00:30:52.507 –> 00:30:56.827
Thank you. Well, today is- You’re inspiring me. Today is St. Patrick’s Day.

00:30:57.067 –> 00:31:00.147
Oh, yes. And I realized I didn’t have a green shirt. Love it.

00:31:00.287 –> 00:31:02.007
So I needed to grab something green.

00:31:02.787 –> 00:31:10.347
Love it. Hopefully, these listeners will see later in a- It borderlines bright yellow to green.

00:31:10.527 –> 00:31:13.267
Yeah, don’t start questioning it. Because people will say, oh,

00:31:13.307 –> 00:31:16.647
that’s not green, and then they’ll pinch me. So let’s just say that it’s neon green.

00:31:16.827 –> 00:31:20.967
You desperately want to be pinched. So here’s the question to sit with after

00:31:20.967 –> 00:31:26.107
this episode, where in your life have you quietly decided you’re already good enough?

00:31:26.327 –> 00:31:32.787
Who are you learning from right now and who might be further ahead than you’ve actually admitted?

00:31:33.527 –> 00:31:39.107
If growth only happens when we step back into uncertainty, what would it look

00:31:39.107 –> 00:31:41.107
like to become a beginner again?

00:31:41.327 –> 00:31:43.307
Because the real risk isn’t failing.

00:31:43.547 –> 00:31:47.147
It’s deciding too early that you’ve already arrived.