Latest / The Daily Writer / It’s Business, Not Personal

Transcript

It’s Business, Not Personal · The Daily Writer

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hey friends, this is Kent Sanders from Inkwell Ghostwriting.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to episode 148 of the Smart Business Writing Podcast.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is the show that helps you grow your business, amplify your authority, and increase your impact through the power of writing.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for joining me on this episode.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: One of the most important concepts that every writer today must embrace is the idea of a personal brand business.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: But what does it mean to have a personal brand?
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it comes down to the fact that your brand equals you.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: What you do and say in your business is a reflection of who you are personally.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And when people think of your brand, they think of you.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: And when they think of you, they think of your brand.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: This can be a challenging concept because the lines can get blurry at times.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a personal brand, as I do, and as you probably do as well, you care about your clients or customers on a deep personal level.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: You're emotionally involved in your business at a deep level.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: You spend a lot of time thinking about your business and working on it.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, it can be a challenge sometimes to keep your business and your personal life separate.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: In a world of personal brand business and increased transparency on social media, it might even be close to impossible.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: But we still have to remember that at the end of the day, we're running a business and not a hobby.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a huge movie buff.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I love movies and storytelling so much that I actually teach several college courses related to movies and storytelling.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Movies and stories are a great lens into human nature and psychology.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And one of my very favorite movies of all time is The Godfather from 1972.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: It is a classic movie with so many great quotes and scenes.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And even though it's a great piece of entertainment, there are a lot of business lessons that we can learn from The Godfather.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's a good reason that a lot of men talk about The Godfather as their favorite movie ever.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason is because it has a lot to teach us about business, manhood, fatherhood, family, and so much else.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now, notice I didn't say that all of the lessons in The Godfather were actually positive.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we can learn from negative examples as well.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite scenes from The Godfather happens close to halfway through the movie, but let me give you a little bit of context first.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: The story of The Godfather centers around a mafia family who is facing off against several other crime families in New York in the 1940s.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: The father of the family, Vito Corleone, was shot by a rival family because he refused to enter the drug business, which he regards as being too dangerous.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the mafia man who orchestrated the drug business proposal is Virgil Salazzo, who wanted his revenge since he needed the Corleone family's cash and political influence to get his drug business off the ground.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: So are you with me so far?
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you are, great.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: And if not, that's okay.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh go and watch The Godfather, and then you'll have some context for this story.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, while Vito Corleone is in the hospital recovering, his youngest son, Michael, comes to visit him and he discovers that the rival family is planning to kill his father.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And he stands in front of the hospital and he manages to ward off the assassins who had come to kill his father, but the police show up.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: And remember that in the world of The Godfather, in that story setting, the police are corrupt, so the police are actually part of the bad guys in this movie.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, then again, I guess they're all technically bad guys since they're all doing drugs, or they're all most of them are in the drug trade and they're all in the mafia and all doing bad things, but that's beside the point.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: In the world of The Godfather, the Corleone family is primarily the good guys, and the police are part of the bad guys.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, the police captain, when he comes to the hospital, he's angry with Michael because his plans are messed up, and he proceeds to kind of rough up Michael and actually punches him.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this angers Vito's oldest son, who is named Sonny, and he's kind of a hothead in the story.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: And Sonny orders a hit on the rival family in the middle of the night.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: And as a result of all this, the rival family wants to have a meeting with the Corleone family so they can reach an agreement before things really start to get out of hand and there's an all-out mafia war in New York.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And this brings us to the scene that I mentioned earlier.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: So the next day, after all this stuff happens, all of Vito's sons have a meeting, and Sonny, the hothead, and the oldest one, he's thrilled because he has put his rivals in a corner.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Sonny has the upper hand.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: He has a bad temper and he wants to totally destroy them.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: And he's responding to the situation emotionally, and he insists on starting an all-out war with his rivals.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: He wants to take everybody out, no matter what the cost.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, one of the other sons of Vito, his name is Tom, he has a different response.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: He is the family conciliary, which is an advisory role.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: And he's looking at the situation with logic and reason.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: And as Sonny is insisting on an all-out war, Tom says, Sonny, it's business, not personal.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now I want you to think about that phrase very carefully.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's business, not personal.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: What does that mean and how does it apply to our business as writers?
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it means that even though we may have friendships with clients or prospective clients, even though we want to maintain great relationships, even though we may offer great services or products, even though sometimes people don't rise up to our expectations, we must remember that at the end of the day, what we have is a business.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard sometimes not to take things personally, but it's vital to keep that perspective if we want to stay emotionally healthy and if we want to have a long-term business.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: I can think of many times, even in the last few months, when I have personally liked a client or I've personally liked a potential client, but I've been disappointed in a result.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: For example, just recently, I sent a proposal to a potential client who had indicated that he was very interested in working with me.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I had even done some sample work for this prospective client to prove that I was valuable and could really help their business.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: And this client or this prospective client raved about my work to other people.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: However, when I sent their proposal, they decided not to follow through with it.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, I was disappointed and I wanted the work in addition to all that, but it really had nothing to do with me personally.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: It was simply a business decision on that prospective client's part.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's easy to take rejection personally.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes people don't answer our emails, sometimes they don't reciprocate, or sometimes they don't express appreciation when we promote their stuff on social media or whenever we do something nice for them.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we make a proposal or we pitch an idea and we don't get the response that we would like.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you want to have a real business, you're going to get rejected.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's just part of the game of business.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, that's how I have started to think of this whole thing as just a giant game.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: I love games, and thinking of business as a sort of game helps take the emotion out of it.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Also, it's helpful to look at this from the other point of view as well.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: How many times has someone proposed something to you, but you didn't accept it?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, for example, we seem to constantly have people in our neighborhood who are selling sighting, they're selling lawn services, uh, and other kinds of stuff.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it's rare that I say yes to those people who go around in the neighborhood selling stuff because most of the time what they're selling is not something I want or I need at the moment.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it's nothing personal, it's just simply a money decision, it's simply a business decision.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: So this is a challenge to you and to me as well to not take things personally when things don't go our way.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Remember that every rejection gets you closer to the next yes.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do you deal with rejection or disappointment in your business?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: How do you avoid taking things personally?
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to hear your thoughts.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can shoot me a message on Twitter at Kent Sanders, or you can also find me on Facebook at Kent Sanders.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, you can find lots more resources for business and writing at KentSanders.net.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this episode.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, remember that your writing has the power to change people's lives.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'll see you in the next episode.