652. Master Your Craft By Shortening Your Feedback Loop 🔁

And from a creator's point of view, it can get kind of depressing. Man, when you, pour your everything into an episode and you publish it the day you publish it is like bliss. You're like, yes, and you have all day to kind of enjoy that. But as the day where's on it's kind of like knowing on a Sunday, you got to work on Monday. So you have, 22 hours to enjoy that published episode. And then the realization kicks in that you got another episode that's six days away and you're like, oh crap, what am I going to write about? So I can get the creator's point of view where it's like, man, again, but the feedback loops are really a blessing man. The time the right to book, the next book is right after I published the last book, get right on it because the shortens the feedback loop and you get that rhythm, that cadence going. 3, 2, 1. You know, I never know how to start these episodes cause I never know how to transition. All right, TSL, let's get it. Welcome to another episode of the sales life and a sales life is just not for those in the sales profession. It's for those who are building the life skills of selling, because we're all selling our way to through and from something and dude you just never know who's watching, who's listening. And so I'm saying in the service department today, uh, running a customer's credit card for down payment and there's two younger men in there. One of them is 18 years old. And one of the guys says, you know, I realize that everybody's a sales person. You know, the, the, the, the, the store you go to and you're looking for clothes, the guy's trying to sell you the direct TV guy that the guy was trying to say. And the 18 year old, uh, looked at the other guy, and he said, everybody is selling. He said, one thing that I've learned is everywhere we're selling our way through life. And he said, I heard that somewhere and dude, I never told them I had a podcast, but he kind of winked at me and smiled. And then he just walked off. I don't even know if he listens to the podcast or not the reaction that he gave me, I guess he does, but there was no other conversation. And I was like, okay, I love that. I love that somebody gets. Because we are I and the other guy stood there for clarification. I said, dude, think about everything that you've accomplished in life. You got it because it was due to selling. You sold your way there. You sold your way to get the job that you were in today. When you were a baby, it was a different kind of selling skill, but you sold your parents to give you another snack and everything that you have not accomplished in life. Due to a lack of selling because you. Because you didn't know how to sell. So this is what the sales life is all about. It's not just lip service for those in the sales profession. It is for those who are building the life skills of selling. So with that, let me pivot. So. My thing is, is always have trouble making the turn on welcoming you to the sales life. And then here's what today's episode is going to be about. And one reason why I love a podcast is the information I can get in such a short amount of time. One thing I love about doing podcasts. Is I get to share that information in such a short amount of time and Austin Kleon, one of my favorite authors, um, those of you who have rocked with me for a long time, I have no idea which episode I think it was in the four hundreds. Um, I talked about, uh, be the, noun not the verb. Be the verb, not the noun. Sorry. I said that backwards. Um, so being the verb or do you ever do the verb? Not don't be the noun and. You know, it's, it's about the noun is the job title. The verb is just taking action all the time and not being so proud of your title and not working to protect your title, but man, just taking risks, taking steps out there. And so that comes from Austin Kleon's book that I talked about. And so he was on Jay Clouse's podcasts. I really liked Jay Couse. Clouse and I wrote this on his. His review is five star review. I gave him on his podcast is I, I feel like I'm riding one of those gondolas in Italy and I'm just like laying back, looking at the Italy's blue skies and listening to his voice. He's got such a great voice, man. And I just, I just love the way he, and he interacts with his guests. Um, I'm more of an intense. High pressure kind of guy. And he's just really kind of that soothing guy that, gets some great information out there. So anyway, Austin Kleon was on Jay Clouse's, uh, podcast, and it was toward the end. It was like five minutes left. I was on my way home and I was really tired today. Mentally. I, it was, it was one of those days where I really didn't feel like. Listening to anything else you ever had those days, man? Where are you just like, and you just kind of run a ride in silence, but for some reason I just pushed play and um, Austin said, he said, you know, if I think about it, he said the best time to start writing. My next book is as soon as I publish the last one, he said, but I don't do that. He said, because I can really see how authors lose themselves because the feedback loop is so long, not only to get a book written, but many times coming off of writing that book and letting it just kind of sit out there. He said many times authors lose their way because the feedback loop is so long. And he said, it's not like stand up comedy, stand up. Comedy has a short feedback loop. You get on stage, you do your set. People laugh, people don't laugh. People applause don't applause. And he said, that's a short feedback loop. So you get instant feedback and you can make the necessary. And I remember Steven Pressfield talking about this, when he wrote the legend of bagger Vance and when it was turned into a movie and it didn't get good box office reviews. And he said, I didn't give a shit. He said, cause I was onto the next book. So when it came out to not so great applause is, I didn't care. I was already writing another book and it got me to think, man, because, and I even tweeted about this one. Is, I have fallen in love with a lot of my episodes. And from a creator's point of view, it can get kind of depressing. Man, when you, when you pour your everything into an episode and you publish it the day you publish it is like bliss. You're like, yes, But, and you have all day to kind of enjoy that. But as the day where's on it's kind of like knowing on a Sunday, you got to work on Monday. So you have, I don't know, 22 hours to enjoy that published episode. And then the realization kicks in that you got another episode that's six days away and you're like, oh crap, what am I going to write about? So I can get the creator's point of view where it's like, man, again, I just, I just poured everything I had into it, but the feedback loops are really a blessing man. And when Austin brought this up, he said the time the right to book, the next book is right after I published the last book, get right on it because the shortens the feedback loop and you get that rhythm, that cadence going. And it spawned so much more. And that's what I want to talk about , you can fall in love with your work, but don't fall in love with the one episode. If it's a blog, you write same thing. If it's a video that you create, it's the same thing. And if you can shorten that feedback loop and focus on it, it's just a short feedback loop because you got to go onto the next thing. You're not. Amazingly proud of what you put out there. You're on to the next thing. It keeps you growing. It keeps you creative. It keeps you elevating because you're putting in the reps because you're getting the experience Being focused on that one episode or that one creative with a long feedback loop is almost like a receiver making a brilliant catch, but it's the only catch. And all he does is he watches the replay for the rest of the game. When the rest of the game needs to be played. And many times that's what we do with our creatives. When I produce a podcast, I can't be so proud of the one catch I made. That was an episode move on to the next thing it creates and shortens that feedback loop , because when you shorten the feedback loop, it causes you to stop, start, stretch, stop, start, stretch, stretch, stretch, get frustrated, walk away from it, come back to it, stop start. And then you have that choice to make do I, uh, I mean the previous episode was just like, Do you, you have the choice to make, do I continue to press on and get this out? Cause I know I have something that is worthwhile sharing or does it just die on the vine and you put it on the shelf and you go on to another idea because dude, you have an episode coming out in just a few days. So the feedback loops are blessings because what it does is it creates more capacity for creativity. And because it's such a short feedback loop because I have another episode that is only just a few days away and you better come up with something because you're on a schedule. Then what that causes me to do is it causes me to constantly be aware, watching, and listening for material that I can apply to the Sales Life. So let's take sales. For example, the feedback loop for a real estate agent is a lot different than the feedback loop for a car salesman. Totally different. They're both in sales, but it's totally different. The feedback loop, if he may, may, it may take a customer 60 days to decide whether or not they're going to buy the house. But for in-car sales, it may take a customer 60 minutes to decide on buying the car and because the feedback loop is so much shorter, it compresses everything where the salesperson not only gets the reps, he gets the experience. , and he has to reapply that material over and over again. With the reps, he has more customers and it causes him to rapidly elevate his game if you apply it the right way. And so all of that is coming in. It's the feedback loop is so short and that's why I say a lot of times, some of your best salespeople, car salesmen and your best salesmen are often waiters. And the reason being is short feedback loop. They have to wait on the customer, the experience things go wrong, have to be creative. You got multiple things going on at once. Right? And so all of these plates are spinning multiple feedback loops going on at once. But guess what? The know-how they get out of this, the reps, the experience, and can all be reapplied. So embrace the feedback loop, man. I'm learning to love that. Embrace the feedback loop. Um, I want to bang out another episode and just a day or two go, if I can bang out another one, I've done one day podcast. I've done them daily. Uh, I've done them every few days. I've done them weekly, whatever, but a short feedback loop is a blessing. So a couple of things I want to, I want to drop on you that I want you to really think about. If you, if you have a self-imposed schedule like I do for the sales life, see what you can do to shorten that feedback loop. So there are times if my schedule allows. Then instead of me coming out with one every seven days, I may come out with one, every two or three days. I may come out with one every day for a while. Because it's my own show. I can do it when I want to. I will definitely be there once a week, but I may be here even more. But if I shorten that feedback loop, because I come back with more and more episodes, then the reps that I put in, I get better at it,I better. Um, it centralizes my thoughts and it creates more creativity because I know I have something else coming out, so I better be listening and I better be watching because I got another episode coming. So if you have a self-imposed schedule, see what you can do to tighten that feedback loop and put in maybe one. If you can do it every now and then it doesn't have to be every single week, but see what you can do to throw an extra episode in there. And what it'll do is you'll, you'll get some extra experience he did, right? Kobe did that in basketball. He shortened the feedback loop. So when he, it was training where most of the NBA players, they were practicing two times a day. He was practicing four times a day. And it calls him. He said by the time many of the people caught on to what he was doing, he was so far down the road five years ahead. They couldn't even catch it. Even if they emulated the same thing he did, they couldn't catch up. They couldn't keep up. He was too far down the road, shortening the feedback loop also if you, um, work in a profession that is fast paced, that has a shorter feedback loop, that is a blessing embrace. That. That's a great thing, because what you're going to do is you're able to. Rapidly amplify your game. Just understand that you've got to get something out of it. If I'm going to be compressed in such a short amount of time, and I'm taking all these reps, then I've got. Reapply that experience. I got to take these reps and then I don't take it personal either. It's a part of the growth, right? And I'm onto the next thing. It gets me out of that scarcity mindset. I'm not looking to hang my hat on this one. Hit movie. There's one hit episode is one hit book. I'm onto the next thing like Pressfield said. And then the third thing is, is how can I implement shorter feedback loops. So say for instance, if you don't do a podcast, uh, or anything creative, you just have a normal job. Let's say you're a real estate agent. What are some different areas within that field that I can actually shorten the feedback loop, meaning that I can self-impose those things and get a tighter schedule on it. And so that way. I can actually get ahead. So if it's something that, you know, I don't want to be stuck in this job for the rest of my life. Well, what are you doing to shorten that feedback loop? I don't want to do this position for the rest of my life. I want to move up. Then what areas within that profession that you're in right now, I understand that just there may be some time that you just need any way, but just because it took one guy 10 years to get there, it could take you 10 months. But what are the areas that you could actually find that you could without telling anybody or asking permission? Where, what are they areas that I can. Shorten the feedback loop and gain some incremental experience. And what's, what's crazy is you didn't make any announcements. They don't know what you're doing. You're just finding different areas that you can actually gain some more expertise and some experience and some reps, and it keeps you busy and makes you more valuable. And lo and behold, they create a new position for you. And lo and behold, that new position opens up to something else. And then lo and behold, someone sees you on LinkedIn and says, you know what, you caught my eye or an offer you something. And it totally blows out of the water, the traditional path that everybody else was following that you thought you had to follow. That ain't the case. No more. Booboo I'm gone. I'm on a new level. All right. So keep that in mind. Hey, before you go, here is a clip from an episode that you may have missed. think about all kinds of different moments that come up in your life and how you don't practice. Assuming positive intent. The boss calls you Saturday night at seven o'clock you ain't assuming positive intent. Where's where's your mind? Or someone cancels a meeting on you or you can't get a customer on the phone. Most times we don't even practice assuming positive intent. We always think the negative. We always think we know what's really going on. When in fact you don't and assuming positive intent means that you walk into every encounter, whether it's a text, whether it's a phone call with his social media posts, whether it's a person, whatever. You walk in with respect, with optimism and with curiosity, Remember the greatest sale that you will ever make is to sell you on you, because you're more than enough. Be sure to. Subscribe to the sales life, if you haven't already done. So. Share this episode with someone else, you know, you can go to overcast, download the overcast app, download the sales life on overcast app and right hand corner. You can actually clip out a part of the show and share it onto your socials. What's your favorite parts of, uh, of this episode? Clip it out, share it on your social tag me in it, man. So I could show you some love on it also, if you would man rate and review the show, I can't stress this enough. Your vote absolutely counts. So if you would leave a quick rating, the stars that helps because people are looking at the ratings, just like when you go eat food somewhere, they look at the ratings, they look at the stars, they don't feel like reading. They're just going to look at the stars. So if this episode or any of these episodes help you, man, show your support right there, man. And if you have , 60 seconds. Then leave a review , it helps tell other people. What sales life is all about, and they need to know, not just for me, they need to know from you that this helped me in my sales career. This helped me in my personal life. And if it did, man, if you would give that feedback, it would, uh, it would help so much. So that way we can get these messages out to so many other people just got it from an 18 year old man. So it's one of those God winks that was like, Keep bringing the message. And I am going to keep bringing the message, even if I didn't even see that today, I would still be bringing this message. So with that say amazing, never settle. Keep selling your way through life. No matter what, stay in the sales life.