Develop an API Mindset: Assume Positive Intent featuring Scott O'Neil

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, Alright, TSL. Let's get it. Welcome to another episode of the sales life and the sales life is just not for those in the sales profession. It is for those who are building the life skills of selling. Man, I love today's episode as well. We're all selling our way to through and from something in life. I've got a quick to jump into today's episode cause I really. I really liked this, this mindset. And it comes from Scott O'Neill's book, "Be Where Your Feet Are." And I heard O'Neill who is an executive for a couple of professional franchises, NHL and NBA teams. And he was all in the Chris Lockheed's podcast. I love the concept. Those of you who have played sports, you've heard that analogy before. Play where your feet are be, where your feet are, meaning that you play present, that you're not playing in the past. And that you're not playing in the future. You're playing right here and that's it. There's all sorts of grounding principles all throughout his book. And O'Neil has proven that you can be successful both personally and professionally and his personal life. Bled onto his professional life. And so he takes all these grounding principles, great, great principles, and he applies these into his professional life as well. And his professional life comes back into his personal life. It goes back and forth. I think that's the best part. And this is why I call it the sales life, because there are so many things that you can learn by profession and apply these to your life. And so many things that you can learn in life and apply. To your profession as well, whether you're in the sales profession or whatever profession that it is, life is the greatest teachers. Sales is a great teacher and there's these grounding principles that he takes. And one of the grounding principles is what he has an acronym called API assume positive intent and assuming positive intent means that you walk in unencumbered in, in every situation. So you suspend your judgment, you suspend any sort of thought or ideas that you have, and you walk in to these situations, moments encounters with an openness to learn with a willingness to share, to teach, to be inspired and also be a source of inspiration. And I was reading this and I'm like, dude, how simply said this is, are you assuming positive intent in every situation? or are you just, you just approach situations with guns, loaded thinking that you have all the answers and the other person doesn't know what they're talking about. Or you had these assumptions that, you know what this person. Is thinking about are coming from, or what's going on in their life. You don't it just because you've dealt with this person before or similar situations before you suspend all of that. And I think about when I, when I was reading this, I think about how much stress we put on our own lives. How many burdens do we layer in our lives? Because we don't practice API. We don't lead with assuming positive intent and the core principle of assuming positive intent, O'Neil writes is believing that people are good. And that people by and large have the best intentions and they just want what is right. And if you will approach every situation with API, when you and I part we're both going to leave here more productive, better for it. Well, that's a different way of looking at things. I mean, it's such an, I got you mentality. We have, and we're always looking for the cracks and the landmines and things that'll go wrong. And we just, I mean, you 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, how simple is that assume positive intent. So when you feel your blood pressure starting to kind of boil up, am I practicing API with his customer? Am I assuming positive intent with my spouse, with my daughter, with the person who just cut me off with the store clerk? I don't have the receipt. She's having a bad day assume positive intent. And so don't take these strands of situations from one to the next. And that's what we do, man. We just connect these things from one thing to the next, but see, the problem is, is these things start off as cobwebs, but then they become cables over time and we're get so locked in. That it's no wonder that you can't get anything going. It's no wonder that you've alienated people around you, that people don't want to be around you. It's no wonder that you can't find any opportunities or possibilities because you assume the worst in every situation. And I'm not a doom and gloom kind of guy. I'm not the kind of guy that, you know, I believe the worst in people. I don't, I really don't, but there are many situations I can get these random phone, phone calls. And I can assume the negative. Oh, what, what if the phone rings? And I assume positive intent. It's a different way of looking at things. Isn't it? Because it's impossible to have a burden free life, but you can have less burden, free moments. You really can if you just practice assuming positive intent. And so you don't get rigid and locked in and with these preconceived notions and you're not out to get anybody and you don't believe anybody's out to get you. And it's not that you get mowed over. It's just that you approach it with a different philosophy in life. And if you assume positive. Then because you walk into these situations with respect, with optimism, with curiosity, you can learn. It's an ability to share. It's an openness to be inspired. How many times do we don't live our lives, asking questions anymore with no curiosity, they're just all statements. Right? Think about how many statements you make in your. You have no question, marks you live your life on periods and you're just making statements I knew it. I knew how this was gonna go., we do it in sales all the time, let me, let me show you how wicked this can get. I have looked at customer's driver's license. I've looked at their job employment. I've looked at their income and assume that they weren't going to buy anything. Just by the way they look, I've walked across them, before I brought them into the office and I look at him and be like, ah, they're not going to buy anything. I've done that. Then that time and time again, salespeople do it all the time. We can't get a customer back on the phone. They were there just a couple of days ago and now we can't get them on the phone soon. Assume the worst are bought. What, if you just work the phones, assuming positive intent. What if you worked with every customer assuming positive intent, you don't even many times do we don't give the situation a chance. It's, it's a lot, like I was, I was having a dinner with a colleague recently and he ordered an expensive bottle of wine. And so he poured the bottle. I'll have a palette like he did. And so he poured the wine out and he slashed it around and he sniffed it and then he drank it and he's like, this wine needs more air. And so they brought in this, I guess it's called a decanter or something like that. And so it's this big vase looking thing. And they poured the whole bottle of wine through this cylinder, into this decanter. So it could breathe. Yeah, cause it was large. And so it could take in more air, it needed a chance to breathe. That's the same thing we got to do in our lives, in the encounters that we have with other people. We don't, we don't give this the moments time to breathe because we don't walk in with respect, with curiosity, with optimism. We don't, we're quick to put the cork back on the bottle and say, I have the answers. I know how this goes. We're not going to share a drink together. That's what we do. But just like that bottle of wine, what if you poured it out and initially it doesn't have that aroma that you wanted. It doesn't taste like you want it to the moments, but what if you gave it a chance to breathe? Sloshing around and you move it. I want to learn. I know I don't see things the way that you see it. So it's an ability to gain an understanding. It's an opportunity for you to learn. You don't have all the answers. There's more what you don't know, then what you do know. This is a moment for me to be inspired. And walk away from this with a source of inspiration that the, I I've walked away from this moment better because I learned something. I had no idea because you were open to it in many times, man, we Rob ourselves of a rich purpose filled full of possibility life because we assume the worst. We assume that we have all the answers. We don't give other people and other situations a chance. Give it a chance when you feel. your pressure starting to build up. You, you feel the redness come into your face, three letters, API, API, assume positive intent. This is a moment I suspend all of the other moments that I've ever had. This is just a moment for me to learn. To be inspired to get some understanding. It doesn't mean that you just get mowed over. It doesn't mean that situations don't need to be handled. They do. But as O'Neil writes, he said, there are situations that have gone horribly wrong in my front offices, that boneheaded mistakes. And he said, I could have walked into these meetings saying, what were you thinking. He said, but I lead with assuming positive intent. I lead with API. I assumed that they had the best intentions. I assume that they just want what is right. I assume that they're just trying to do a good job and they messed up. So leading with API, he said, I set some expectations. We put in some processes, we address what needs to be addressed. And he said also in the course of that, Because I'm open to learning and understanding what is it they were thinking about not in an accusatory manner, not to sentence them to life in prison, but more so just to what was going on during that time. Ah, you know what? We didn't have a process in place and because there was a dialogue going back and forth. They were willing to share with me. They felt safe enough to share. I was open to learn, and now we put some processes in place and we'll be more productive moving forward. Give people a break. You want people to give you a break yet? We're unwilling to give other people. It's funny how that works, man. I was just having a bad day, man. I'm sorry. You don't practice that same principle with someone else and I'm telling you, man, if you want to lighten the load in your life, assume positive intent API moment, you feel it kind of bubbling up API. I'm just going to walk in with a blank slate, an open mind and. No preconceived notions. I've dealt with this person before I've dealt with similar situations like this before, but I'm open. I don't have the answer. I'm going to suspend all judgment and I'm just going to let it breathe and I'm, uh, approach it with respect and with curiosity and with optimism. And through that, I have more productive outcome. You're going to think more clearly. You're going to have a richer life and gonna have less burdens. You know why? Because you didn't put them there. All right. Remember, never settle. Keep selling your way through life no matter what be sure and share today's episode with someone else. The only way, man, we can get the sales life out there and global. Did you share it on your socials? 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.