[EDITOR’S NOTE: VITAL recently began holding its CI Business Mastery Classes. Each month, an important CI business topic will be addressed via a webinar, with each class being supported by an industry brand. VITAL has agreed to share some of the information from these classes with a monthly column of highlights from its most recent webinar. The first CI Business Mastery Class was on Growth Mindset, and it was supported by D-Tools.]
Many integrators probably don’t wake up each day thinking about mindset, but the reason we’re starting with it is because mindset has everything to do with your success over the journey we’re going to take together in the next 12 months of CI Business Mastery Classes.
Early on, when I was coaching integrator clients, I came across a scenario with a client where he continued to tell me about how stuck he was at this revenue range and that he just could not break through. He allowed me to challenge him to reprogram his mindset, so we focused on replacing those negative commentaries of being stuck with what could be. We replaced the thoughts of failures with the thoughts of successes, and he was able to break that barrier by a large margin within a year.
Change is so hard because it feels unsafe to what the unconscious mind knows about who you are. You must reprogram the unconscious mind to know you as who you want to be, not who you were.
One of the best ways to do this is to adopt an abundance mindset versus a scarcity one. Our unconscious mind is programmed to keep us alive, so it adopts a scarcity mindset by default. You’ve heard the phrase, “Everything you want is on the other side of fear” before, right? That’s because fear is a subconscious reaction. It’s time to lean into those things and reframe these problems as opportunities.
The first step is to create clarity around why, what, when, and other questions that need to be answered to figure out your personal vision. Carve out some time, sit with yourself, and create a personal mission statement. What are your core values? What are you all about? Why are you on this Earth? What’s your purpose? Discover what is the impact you want to make every single day and make that a part of your agenda.
The next step is to create a commitment. This is tough because we’ve all experienced stating a commitment, but we have a hard time sticking with it. Our actions that are driven by our subconscious aren’t really in parallel with the commitment we created with our conscious mind. Get real with those commitments and begin to train your subconscious through external and internal dialogs. That’s how you train the subconscious to know that this commitment is real and you’re going to move forward with it.
Just Do It
We use perfection as an excuse to not get things done. Stop letting perfection get in the way of progress. Imperfect action today is often better than perfect action a month from now.
Many people struggle with decisions because they want to be sure they are making the right one. There really is no such thing as the right decision — decide and then make it right. Make the best decision you can with the information you have at that time, then put in the work necessary to make it work out in the best way possible.
Oftentimes, we make a decent decision a bad one because we’re unwilling to move forward in making it the best. What we thought in that moment in time was the best decision ended up not working out, and we use all that negative energy to program our subconscious and put ourselves at a disadvantage. Indecision is what keeps people and businesses stuck in the same place, not bad decisions.
Of course, not everything that you do is going to work, but don’t sweat the small stuff. The small stuff is what’s allowing you to program that negative energy into your subconscious. Just let it roll off, move on, and maintain focus on things that matter and maintain momentum.
Make decisions, act, measure your action, and reward yourself for action even if it doesn’t produce success. Why would we reward failure? Because without action, we’re not going to know if it’s success or failure.
Coming Soon: Keeping Score
The sheer number of stats in professional sports is mindboggling. Why do they bother measuring all that stuff? To compare one team to the next or one player to the next, but also the players, coaches, and staff are interested in these stats. That is how they measure success. Without being able to measure something, it’s tough to know if you succeeded or failed.
The next CI Business Mastery Classes is going to cover keeping score or, as we call it in our business, accounting.
Each month, a different CI Business Mastery subject will be addressed. Participants will receive a CI Mastery Business Class Certificate at the end of the 12-month series. Dealers can register for live and recorded sessions at https://growwithvital.com/
Matt Bernath is a CE veteran with more than two decades in retail, wholesale, CI, and business coaching. In 2021, Matt and a group of partners acquired VITAL, and Matt now serves as the company’s president/CEO.
