703. "You don't have to BE the best to DO your best." | Evolve & never grow complacent.

Today on the sales life, what's it mean to do your best? When I hear the phrase, do your best. It kind of has a wondering generality to it. Doesn't it? I immediately go back to my childhood days and when I was walking out onto the Peewee league field and my parents were just urging me to just do my best. I mean, if we won, does that mean I did my best if we lost. Does it mean I didn't do my best? What does do your best specifically mean? And today we're gonna put some backstops on what it's gonna take to specifically do your best. But before we roll out with today's episode, let me introduce myself. My name is Marsh Buice and I am the host of The Sales Life Podcast. A top 3% podcast in the world. We just moved up from 5% to 3% the world. And it's all thanks to you. I created the sales life because I believe the number one skill that you need in life is the ability to sell. But you don't have to be in sales to learn how to sell. I'll take the skills that I've learned in the sales profession. And I'll show you how you can apply these to every area of your life. To embrace uncertainty, handle the criticism, be ready for anything and never settle again. These five skills. Communication curiosity, creativity, continuous learning in action and productive confrontation. These are skills that you already have within now. I'm going to help you develop 'em so you'll never go without, so if you're trying to get back up after life has slapped you down, are you trying to move. Because you feel like your life is kind of stalled out. If you wanna have more, do more, be more, then you're gonna have to learn to sell more. Welcome to the sales life. Let's roll out with today's episode for my new listeners out there. Welcome a board. We're gonna get you in, get you out and get you own with your life. For those who have been here a time or 10. Thank you so much for being back and being a part of sales life, Bear Grylls from national geographic. He's got a TV show called running wild with bear grills is fond of saying you don't have to be the best to do your best. That's because doing your best has nothing to do with how you rank in comparison to others. And it's got everything to do with how you rank with yourself. Hip hop, legend, Rakim from Erik B and Rakim lives by the mantra. Always be better than yourself. He went into the studio to improve from the day before when he went on his next performance was gauged in comparison to the previous performance. Trying to be the best can crap you out because it forces you on a timeline. And if it doesn't look like that, you're gonna be the best on this date. You end up quitting. dominate your sport, if you wanna dominate your field, if you wanna dominate your industry. Good. There's opportunity there. I'm all for it, but it's what you do is what's gonna get you there. When it shows up and how it's gonna show up, who knows. And that's why I like doing the best versus just solely trying to be the best. It's a work ethic. It's an ethos because how, and when it shapes out, when you don't put limits on it and compare it to someone else. I promise you, if you just do your best, you're gonna be very happy with how your life is. What I love about doing your best is it's an evolution. See being the best, what happens then think about this, if you're the best then what. If, if someone is so far distant down the road from you, your next competition is nowhere in sight. Even in your mind, you're gonna grow complacent, see doing your best is an evolution. It's something that you constantly you're, you're a chemist, you're in the lab, you're trying new things. And that's specifically what I wanna talk about what it means to do your best. The first. To do your best is to do news flash. But seriously, if, if you want to improve as a player, if you wanna improve as a manager, as a podcaster, as a writer, as a salesperson, as a real estate agent, as a bodybuilder, whatever it is that you wanna improve on, that means that you have to do better player manager, podcaster writer, salesperson, bodybuilder, real estate things. See, it's not just gonna come to you. Alan Stein is fond of saying if nothing changes, nothing changes. and that's so true, dude. You gotta do, even when you don't feel like it, ATF acting, feel actions come. First feelings always come last. You can't rise. If you don't repeatedly do, don't be common. Everyone wants the result, but few want to do what it takes to achieve those results. The second thing that doing your best requires fiction and friction. I love this one. It requires fiction sometimes doing your best means that you've just gotta tell yourself a different story than whatever the current results. That means sometimes you have to explain things differently than how you see it right now than how you feel it right now, the best salespeople in the world are the best storytellers not to others is the story they tell to themselves. Think about the bad sales people, bad sales people. They explain to everyone and everybody how bad things. How mother luck is not kissing them on the forehead. That's the bad sales people. Good sales people always feel like they're in the game. They always feel like they're one customer, one phone call one action away from breaking through. So doing your best requires fiction but it also requires friction as well. It makes me think back to when I was a kid and in the living room, if you're my age, you remember the living room was for guests. Nobody ever sat in that living room. it was like a museum in there. And in the corner of the room was a Sterling silver serving set. I don't know who the hell we were supposed to serve out of that serving set. I guess we were waiting for queen Elizabeth to one day come but it just sat over there in the corner. And over time that silver would tarnish and lose. It's illustrious and become dull. And every so often I would have to apply friction to that serving set and bring that beauty, that shininess back out. And here's the thing that Sterling silver serving set would never tarnish if I applied friction to it every day. And in the same way, if you apply friction to your life every single day in doing your best, you'll never become broke. Your relationships will flourish. You'll never gain weight and you'll achieve. Everything that you wanna achieve in life simply because you choose hard simply because you apply friction to it every single day. You have to visit discomfort every single. I'm not talking all day, I'm talking 30 or 45 minutes. You just not always feeling it, the thing that sometimes drains you It's that radical incrementalism. I was just talking about on a previous episode just in a finite window, you're bringing some intensity. Boom, boom, boom. And then you walk away from it. Now, also you can do your best in five seconds or less. that's right. I just finished Mel Robbins book. The five second rule. Absolutely love the book. And here's the book in a nutshell. Before your mind has a chance to enter into negotiations and talk you out of the thing that you're stutter, stepping about that you're hesitating about that. You're about to sit there and create doubt about in five seconds or less. Boom. Do the thing count down, not up 5, 4, 3, 2 1, boom, should I ask for the manager? Should I fill out the application? Should I ask the customer to buy? Should I ask her for her number 3, 2, 1 go. And you do it. See, it's important that you count down, not up, because if you count up, you'll do 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, uh, 6, 7, 8, 9, and then you'll talk yourself out of it. But if it's five to one, before you even have a chance to even talk yourself out of it, you do it. I do this all the time. When a customer has repeatedly told me no. And I feel that little hesitation in my mind, I ask one more approach. One more way of thinking food for thought. Boom. I just ask because I would rather know than assume doing your best also means that you do what you cannot do. That's what I want you to do this week. Choose something that you haven't done before. When's the last time you did something for the first time. Do what you can't do. This means that I don't know, try reading on a subject. You don't know anything about, you're kind of interested in it. You've heard of AI. You understand it's the future. You don't have to read the whole book. Just choose a chapter. You don't only have to buy the book, go to the bookstore and stand in the, in the aisle and read one chapter, try new exercise that you've never done before. Yeah. It's gonna come out bad. Do what you can do. Reach out to your favorite, somebody on social media, your favorite author and tell 'em something that you like about 'em at work. Take on a new technology, that thing that you should have been getting around to go ahead and do it, take it on all of these things, doing what you can't do. You're gonna look foolish. It's not gonna come out. Right. But when you repeatedly do this, you're gonna get better. You gotta remember this as a pro, you've gotta be willing. To let go of old methods, old techniques, old tools, old ways of doing things you've gotta be willing to let go of those things. And embrace a momentary pocket of incompetence in order to develop new ways, new techniques, new technologies. There's that chasm in between. You can protect your ego. You can make it look like that. You have it going on yet. You're incredibly terrified because they're bringing someone else in the office and they're interviewing them. I wonder if they're coming for my job one day, that's gonna happen. Because if you sit there and you protect your ego and you're not trying new things and doing what you cannot do, it's gonna happen. Doing your best is also a rinse and repeat reps, reps, reps, reps. You're gonna hear me say this over and over again, doing your best. I didn't say did your best. I said, doing your best. Remember, it's an evolution. It's something you're doing over and over again in his book. Shift your mind author, Brian Levison teaches be humble in preparation and arrogant in performance. I love this. Be humble in preparation and arrogant in performance. Humble means be pliable, moldable. You're not rigid. You're teachable. You're coachable. Be humble in the preparation. Let people pour into you. Let people shape you. Let people instruct you, ask for help. Be humble in preparation, but be arrogant in performance, not arrogant toward others. It's arrogant with an intensity, knowing that you've prepared for this moment, you don't second. Guess yourself, you don't walk with doubt. And . When you make a mistake, you just adjust along the way and you keep going. You don't have to be the best to do your best. You're already number one, because the only one that you're comparing yourself to is you. Let's get outta here for more on the sales life. Go to marsh b.com. That's M a R S H B U I C E. And there you will find thousands of free resources from videos to blogs to of course, podcast episodes. Also while you're there hit the review tab, leave a review on what this episode or previous episodes have meant to you. There are millions of podcasts out there. In your ratings in review could be the thing that makes someone check out the sales life. Also, if you'd like for me to speak at your next event, need some one on one coaching or feel like I'd be a good fit. For your podcast, let's talk. You can leave me a message right there on marshbuice.com in the bottom, right. Is a mic from you to me, let me know what's going on in your world and how I can help. I'm no hair, but I'm all ears. With that. Remember the greatest sale that you will ever make is to sell you on you because you're more than enough. Stay amazing. Stay in the sales life.