Latest / The Growth Project / Episode 346: How Do You Actually Get Better?

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Episode 346: How Do You Actually Get Better? · The Growth Project

• 0:00
  You.
• 0:03
  Welcome to the Growth Project, a podcast brought to you by amylose. Doctor Drew Brannon here, joined by Doctor Schaffer. And we are happy to be coming at you in our new office.
• 0:17
  How's that feel over there, doc? Getting used to it, man. It'll take some time. Probably have to tweak the setup a few times, so if you are somebody who tunes in and watches this on YouTube, I have a feeling you might see us in some different session backdrops, over the next few weeks. Yeah. And look, we are getting settled.
• 0:34
  I think all of our listeners have made at least one move at somewhere in their life, whether it be for their personal purposes or maybe through their their work situation, wherever that might be. So yeah, we got it takes a little bit of time. We're going to, hang in there. Right? Yeah, we'll be all right. We'll take some time, but we'll get there.
• 0:53
  And, in the meantime, we're going to be making it work and happy to be back on the growth project. So today, Cory, we are going to get into a topic that I hope as people hear and listen are immediately thinking, well, this applies to me, because the reason that's so vital is everybody should be thinking about this.
• 1:16
  So we're talking about how do you actually get better? So let's start with the fundamental here. Why should everyone be asking that question?
• 1:25
  the simple reality is if you're not getting better, then you're probably in some form of stagnation or complacency. And that the reality is there are plenty of people around you who probably are getting better.
• 1:39
  Yeah. And so, you know, if you look at it very simply in that way, at some point you're sort of getting left behind. That would be one reason at least that immediately jumps out for me. Yeah, it could be just that. Right? That somebody is kind of stagnant. And this is, I guess, the thing my, the place my mind goes to and it's really just kind of a different form of why that happens is it's not uncommon at all for people to be just reacting to everything in life, like they're going fast.
• 2:10
  They feel like the burdens of the demands on their lives are significant. And so it's more about, can I find a way to just keep my head above the water line and not let too many balls drop, which we've all been there. You know, certainly for a day, a week or maybe even longer. But the problem with that is you're not getting better.
• 2:30
  You're just you're just maybe maintaining, sustaining that type of thing. So that's not how we want to live. No, no, I don't think that's any way to live. I don't think that's, the way you get the most out of, certainly your career. I don't think you probably get the most out of yourself, away from the workspace and just personally, probably not getting the most out of your, you know, your relationships.
• 2:54
  I mean, I think that list probably goes on, but it's pretty simple. Yeah. So today is really going to be focused on, for those who are working on this of like, hey, I want to get better. You know, unfortunately, the path to doing that isn't always just completely clear. And so we're talking about five keys to getting better today.
• 3:16
  And we're going to kind of walk through this sequence or walk through this process and give you some very concrete, actionable places to go in your pursuit of getting better. And as we talk about and use that, that language kind of loosely today, really the framework we're going to discuss applies to any example of that, whether it be the industry you're in, the skill set, you're focused on, the weakness that you're trying to kind of get your hands around and maybe a new way, all of that works here.
• 3:47
  All of that works. Yeah. Yeah. Where do we start?
• 3:49
  okay so let's dive in. And the place we need to start in kind of this whole sequence is when you're thinking about getting better.
• 3:58
  Doesn't matter how you're trying to get better. You gotta begin by admitting you can't do this on your own. This is not a solo job. So. So work that through for us a little bit over there. I mean, I'm sure there are plenty of cases where that could be the case, but there are certainly plenty others in which,
• 4:16
  Yeah, you just need help. Yeah. Right. So I think that can be challenging because it requires, a level of humility. It requires us to, to sort of drop our ego and maybe, as you use the word, admit, sort of admit that, hey, I don't have it all figured out, or maybe I don't know what the next step is.
• 4:36
  For example, that vulnerability is uncomfortable. And I think that's probably immediately just enough friction for people to not take the necessary first step. That's a great word. That's a great word in that situation. Right. There is that friction there of, gosh, like I can kind of see this thing. But if I were to go to the next step with that thing, that would mean I had to kind of like raise my hand and admit and ask somebody to help me.
• 5:05
  Yeah. And I think maybe even what precedes this is, is some action has been taken. And very quickly sort of learning that, maybe that wasn't the right action. Maybe I don't know what I'm doing. You know what I mean? Like, I can imagine somebody who's saying, like, well, I want to get in shape, so I'm going to start exercising, and then they go into the gym and then realize how little they know about, you know, what to do in the gym or, you know, they get hurt, you know, or they don't get the gym, but they get shin splints in a week or so.
• 5:37
  I'm like, yeah, whatever it is. I just think it's like, hey, I think probably plenty of people, if we're honest. What precedes this step is I'm, I'm going to try to figure it out on my on my own. Yeah. And because that usually doesn't or usually they're often, let's say doesn't lead to the type of growth or the improvement that I'm looking for.
• 5:59
  Maybe then and only then, unfortunately, do I come to this realization, like, all right, I actually do need help. Yeah. And you know, one way to frame this too, that I think can be helpful to get people over that threshold of actually reaching out and asking for the help is, for most of us, the things in life that matter the most to us don't.
• 6:19
  We normally ask for help in those areas, you know, like you don't give yourself an annual physical, you know, if you have heart concerns, you don't try to figure that out on yourself. I'm gonna I'm going to pause there. I feel like, unfortunately, people do. They're kind of like, well, I'm all right. I'm doing all right. I'm still kickin.
• 6:36
  So like, I'm just going to not go to the doctor. Well, that's different from trying to do it yourself. Yeah. You know, you're not like, true. That is very true. But I think we don't we don't try to, like, solve our own medical problems. Right. We don't we don't do that. We we typically are willing to, consult with whoever the expert might be in areas that we really care about.
• 7:00
  You know, that's just what we do. So I don't know what areas more important than, like, getting better at things and, you know, so, so could that be a helpful little bit kind of framework there to get you over the threshold of asking for help. Yeah
• 7:14
  okay. So we start there. We we got to ask for help.
• 7:16
  What comes next. Yeah I think it can be helpful. And this may not necessarily be the next direct step, but a step that can be taken. Or something that can be useful is just to find an example. You can expand on that. And this is delicate here. Okay. This is you need to be sure you do this.
• 7:34
  The right. Why not the wrong way. Because what can be counterproductive when we begin to think about examples is you cherry pick that person, whomever it might be, and then you just create this this like compare and contrast where you then think worse of yourself and you create a little bit this, kind of this inferiority, inferiority versus superiority thing of like, gosh, like if I could just be more like this person, if I could just perform this skill more like this person, and it gets into the comparison game, comparison game thinking doesn't help us.
• 8:12
  It tends to be more demotivating than motivating. Although there maybe could be a small element here of of a motivating factor. However, we tend to do more of like kind of incriminating the self with it. Yeah. I think, you know, as this relates to the first one and asking for help there certainly requires that same vulnerability. This requires a little bit of courage.
• 8:36
  And this isn't even necessarily like this person doesn't know, maybe even that you're using them as an. Yeah, true. I think what's important here, and it's related to what you mentioned to a degree, but I think what people will unfortunately do is just see what, you know, person X does like, man, I really like that. I want to do that to.
• 8:59
  And they just try to replicate essentially exactly what person X is doing. Yeah that's right.
• 9:04
  it requires more let's say experimentation than that. Right. And sort of an appreciation that well maybe this is the 10th iteration. Yeah. Right. Thing is for person X right. They work. They finally landed on this whatever it is. And so to just assume that we can kind of copy and paste somebody else's process for, for getting better or whatever skill we're talking about.
• 9:28
  And that is just going to perfectly apply to me, to my skill set, to my situation. It's it's sort of naive. And I think, unfortunately, again, this is probably where for plenty of people, kind of getting better will stop is because they'll try to just do that copy paste thing like, well, that didn't quite work for me.
• 9:48
  Like it seems to work for so and so. Yeah. And now there's now there's like a real sense of, well, maybe I'm not cut out for this or I failed at this or whatever it is, because now that comparison is like, well, they can do it, but I guess I can't. We're jumping to conclusions at that point. So yeah.
• 10:07
  So we're we're highlighting here what we don't mean when we say find an example. And those are great. Like there's a lot of destructive things you can do to yourself there by just comparing yourself to other people. And so how do you do it? Well, is you identify that person you're talking about, Cory. And then and yet you go into it with curiosity of like, okay, let's do a concrete example here of I'm in a sales role of some type.
• 10:36
  And every, every morning we get up in my inbox, I have a scoreboard, essentially, so that I know exactly where I rank and exactly where others rank. And there's this one person who, with consistency, is near the top, always near the top of the scoreboard. A great move on my part would be to develop a relationship with this person in and ask good questions and learn about, gosh, how have you really honed your process?
• 11:05
  What have you done over the years, as you said, to iterate the way you go about your business to produce consistent results? That's what we mean when it says, find an example of like, what can you learn from that person? Yeah, I think in the world of sports, you see this, you talk to, let's say like a young athlete, freshman, college athlete.
• 11:23
  And I'm always encouraging, you know, people in those like, hey, look, to some of the seniors, you're more experienced players, right? Kind of right. Take note of how they do things. But what I'm not telling them is just like, do exactly what they do. And I think unfortunately, that's what they hear. Yeah. And so they'll like follow around the senior, you know, like for the first few weeks and just essentially adopt like they're pre practice routine their pre-game routine.
• 11:48
  It's like well that's great. But again they've they've spent four years sort of refining what this looks like for them. Yeah. And maybe some of this stuff is very specific for you know their body or injuries. They've had this and that. Why are you trying to do the same exact thing. Yeah. So it's can you take note of sort of the spirit of it maybe you do cherry pick some specific, you know, activities or actions that they're taking, but it should be more of like, all right, this is providing a loose blueprint or framework for me to start from.
• 12:18
  I need to now sort of sift this through, like, what does this mean to me? How can I put this into practice? How can I tweaking, adjust it for what makes sense in my situation? Yeah. Right. Yeah. That's that's a great way to work through it there. And there's there are fantastic examples out there that can be highly educational and informative for us, but you got to have the ability to look for it, and then you've got to have the discipline to not just compare yourself.
• 12:46
  Okay. So as we work through this, we're talking about ask for help, find an example. What's next, Doctor Schaefer
• 12:54
  accepting coaching. So maybe now you've actually you found this example. Great. Maybe there's there's plenty that can be learned just from observing and paying attention to that person. But now let's say you actually are seeking out, deliberately this whether it's from this person or somebody else, sort of in your orbit, you're getting coached like they're actually providing advice or pointing you in the right direction.
• 13:19
  You actually have to accept, coaching. Right? Which means what? You tell me, the coaching element. The coaching element. So,
• 13:29
  that begins by receiving the feedback, receiving the information, and not then very quickly jumping to excuse, making blaming and defensiveness. Yeah, but you don't understand. Yeah, but I tried that already. Yeah, but it would never work.
• 13:49
  Right. That's just deflect deflect deflect that. So those are just various ways a person is doing something other than saying, that's an interesting idea, I should try that or I hadn't thought about that yet. Or you know what? Now that I'm thinking about that, you're making a very good point there. I do tend to repeat myself when I get into my sales presentations.
• 14:13
  I should try to work on that. And there's a million other examples of that. So yeah, it's it's having a spirit of humility and a willingness to really, genuinely consider what is this person saying.
• 14:24
  it's important at this point, if you've engaged, especially if this is intentional on your part to engage somebody like you want coaching from them, then when they give it, I think it's really important to just adopt the right mindset going in and very, very intentionally.
• 14:42
  Maybe reminding yourself, like, just come in with an open mind and to listen first and foremost, right? Maybe. Yes, maybe take some notes. But out of the gate, I think when you're getting that coaching is just like, just try to soak it in, give yourself time to process it, to think through it. You know, come at it from different angles.
• 15:05
  And then if you have questions, follow up with the questions. Right? Right. But the questions should be for clarification. Or hey, tell me more about this. What would that actually look like? Can you show me an example of that. Like those types of things. Before you then sort of I guess put that into practice. But in the moment, like you said, to sort of just push back and get defensive and, you know, go through the the list of reasons why that will not apply or work for me.
• 15:33
  You know what? I'm giving it a chance, right? You want to be the scientist. You don't want to be the either the prosecutor or the defense attorney. Right. You are listening. You're focused on objective information. You're trying to get to the truth of the matter. Right? That's what it means to be coachable. And, like, I don't care what industry you're in or what ladder you're trying to climb.
• 15:54
  One of the more common misconception misconceptions I feel like this out there is that the way you do that is to be like, confident and bold and have charisma and all these things, and it's like, well, okay, those things can be good and they're in their proper place. But if you are not coachable, good luck, right
• 16:13
  okay. Next.
• 16:14
  Yeah. Number four set a goal. Why does this matter? I always love setting a goal. That's what matters. All right, I don't know, I guess. So, why do you why do you set a goal? There's there's a ton of reasons. I think the one that I would start with is because there's something very interesting that happens when some type of goal or aspiration that we have that initially lives in our mind only then begins to have a life somewhere else, whether that be on a piece of paper, whether that's that, in transferring it.
• 16:51
  As I communicate that to you through through verbal language, whether I send it in a text or an email, but the moment it lives anywhere other than simply in my head, that's a big shift that's occurred because I've now put that out there and I've made it known that, hey, this is this thing that I really, really want.
• 17:10
  I have a goal related to my my attempt to get better. So I think, why do we need them? It's extremely safe to keep it to yourself. Yeah. And if you have some type of vision or desire to get better in whatever the area is, you keeping that to yourself is slowing you down. Yeah. I think it's also important just to, define like what?
• 17:38
  What is progress going to look like here? How do I know that I'm getting better now? I will I would argue the, the caveat to this is not just setting the goal, but also maybe setting some parameters around like, hey, I'm going to reassess in a month. Yeah. You know, I think that's important because it's like, all right, I, I try this new thing that I learned, I got coached on this, I did it for a week and I didn't automatically, you know, become the best salesman in the company, right.
• 18:11
  Or. Well, I fixed my diet. I did it for a week. I don't know why I'm not down 15 pounds, but but I went to the Y and shot hoops. But I'm not LeBron James or you're right, whatever it is, I think there's a point is like, can you have enough patience to stick with it, especially again, if like you're going about this as we've described it, you, you know, admit that you need some help, you find a good example, you get some coaching, hopefully those are all very deliberate, intentional things.
• 18:39
  Well, I don't think this person wants me to fail. Right. So they're kind of nudging me in this direction. I'm going to take their advice. I'm going to try it. But as I said I'm gonna be open to maybe that'll pivot and I'll need to adjust it over time for what makes sense and what works for me.
• 18:53
  But first and foremost, it's like, I gotta give it a little time. Yeah. Doing anything, you know, once, twice, just a handful of times. If you assume that's going to move the needle in a very significant way, you probably are setting yourself up to fail. Right. So having enough patience to stick with something to get enough data, once you set that goal I think really matters.
• 19:13
  But that's how you ultimately then again, you have to give yourself the time to experience progress. Agreed. And this is also a place where a couple of these, categories that we've been talking about also kind of converge. And the specifically I'll speak to set a goal and be open to someone helping you. You need to share your goals with someone else for a couple reasons.
• 19:36
  One, as we said a minute ago, to put it out there. But secondly, someone needs to kind of cosign on these goals in the sense of, hey, yeah, this this seems appropriate, both high and low, because it doesn't do you any good to kind of throw this thing out there. That is wildly unrealistic. That doesn't do you any good.
• 19:58
  You know, for the company that did, just make it up $1 million of revenue last year, and it's like, you know what, guys? We're going to 10 million this year. I hope you got a great product. And if you do, good for you. And that's fantastic. I would love to see someone go from one 9 to 10 million a year.
• 20:14
  And I'm sure there's examples of that, but there probably aren't many. Like that would be maybe pretty tough. So be sure that your goal is reasonable. And in the same goes to. Also, don't aim to low. You know, if you've been the top salesperson in the company three years running, don't aim to be in the top ten.
• 20:34
  You know, aim higher than that. Yeah. So you need someone to help calibrate your goal in a way that serves you well, challenges you, but doesn't set you up to fail. Even the the I guess the suggested timeframe, is about a quarterly system is usually a good time frame. So 90 days. Right. So once you do have kind of a good plan in place and you put it together, that's a suggested time frame.
• 21:02
  For where it's short enough, that you can make some progress, but not so long that you completely lose sight of it, or it's so far in the distance that you can kind of delay in getting going. So that time frame might be helpful. Or even if it's, it is like, hey, this year long goal, chunk it up into some smaller segments and measure measures and progress that way.
• 21:26
  Yeah. Great point. A year's too long. If I'm not gonna get any feedback or data on how I'm doing it, or 12 months later. Yeah, well, I remind people that all the time, right. Like if if you're going to go set a goal in January and then look at it in December. I mean, if you take 1 or 2 steps off course over time, how far from your target do you think you're going to be.
• 21:47
  But if I'm checking in on a relatively regular basis just to make sure that I'm still on the right track and on the right path, it's it's pretty difficult to get too far off track. Yeah. Right. So imagine if I am checking in on a quarterly basis. Well, that's a whole lot better than 12 months. Even better.
• 22:04
  Like, hey, let's just check in once a month and kind of see where I'm at. Am I still on track the way that, I intended to be when I set out for this thing? If yes, then great. You know, great point. Okay, so we're working through our system here. Or maybe we need help. Find an example, accept coaching, set a goal.
• 22:25
  And then you know this last one we're going to get into Corey. Although it might seem obvious to our listeners, those of us that work in the psychology space, as you and I do, this doesn't always happen. So what's number five? Yeah, at some point you just got to get going to start. Right. And and again, I think unfortunately a lot of people are sort of waiting on the ideal or perfect circumstances in order to get started.
• 22:53
  Yeah. And I mean, all the research would point to like that. That's not necessarily what's most important in the early stages. You just need to get started, get moving. You need to sort of develop some momentum before you worry about, like the intensity of it or having the perfect strategy or whatever. At some point you kind of just need to get the ball rolling.
• 23:14
  Yes, in the right direction, right in the product development space. The term probably most people are familiar with is that MVP, right? A minimum viable product. Like just get something out there. Yeah. Get it, get it, get something into motion that you can then learn from and react to. And you got to get going. Well. And again if you combine this with the last one.
• 23:33
  So now I've set a goal I have a plan. I have a process. I know though that hey, maybe what this thing looks like day one, maybe very different day 90 or yeah, at the end of the year. But that's okay. Again, it's kind of baked into the process, right? I'm just going to get started and I'm going to sort of get some momentum going.
• 23:52
  And then after, you know, four weeks, I'm going to just kind of check in and take assessment of like, all right, how's this going? What do I like about the process? What do I not like? What can I tweak, what can I just what if I learned even in just that first month, there's probably some really valuable lessons learned.
• 24:07
  Yeah. And now I tweak and I adjust going into months two and so on. It kind of iterates from there. But yeah, I think so many people think they need to have this perfect plan and blueprint in place before they ever take the first step. And I would argue that's just slowing the process down. Detail. Let's give you some language to listen for there too.
• 24:27
  So here are some common phrases to pay attention to that would be, that would indicate you aren't doing this quite yet. It would sound things like this, but I've just got so much going on right now or beginning next month, or I just got to get to the next quarter. Right? Or, once we get to the summer or, you know, there's just there's so many of those.
• 24:51
  Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And ultimately that that sounds great. Sort of in your, in your own mind. Right. Is you're justifying why you can't get started right now. And yeah there there's truth to, there's probably never an ideal perfect time but that's the point. Yeah. Right. Because once you get through that next quarter you know something else.
• 25:13
  Something else comes up. Right. There's another reason why you can't start now or get moving. So yeah, I think once you sort of decide on this, whenever this is, you know, you get some good direction again, you've kind of followed this process like just start. Yeah, just keep going, though, as you said, does not have to look perfect and won't look perfect.
• 25:34
  No, I think again, like the this idea of getting better and improving and whatever it is like, it's not a beauty pageant, so to speak, unless I suppose you're training or something. Well, you could be. Are you? Are you got to tell us mean. But I think you know what I mean. Big announcement coming. You're not going to get points for style, right?
• 25:55
  Right. Like that. That's it's probably going to be messy and that's okay. And so because it is just accept the fact that it might not be perfect. Get going. And then I would argue like adjusting along the way is more important. I, I read recently actually, and like this idea of sailing. Okay. What sailors do, like, if there's a strong headwind, right, is they don't try to just sail directly into the headwind.
• 26:27
  Okay? So what they do is this almost like zig zag pattern and kind of back and forth, left and right. And it just helps kind of cut through the wind and is, on the surface that seems inefficient and is probably frustrating. Right. But it's actually the the best path forward. And I think if you approach kind of this process in a similar way, right, and kind of embracing the adjustments along the way, you're probably going to get more out of it as opposed to just thinking, you know, point A to point B, everything has to be so linear.
• 26:58
  Yeah, that's a great example too, because it's it's obviously it's you're staying active in your you're you're not just doing like a straight line. And so but you're making progress. You're advancing that stuff even even again from the start. To be clear, you may think I have a really good plan in place, right? You may think it feels very linear.
• 27:17
  Only over time are you going to recognize like, oh, this is a little more of a zig zag than I thought, right? Because after month one or month two, I kind of adjust and I pivot a little bit. Just doing that over time again, I think is the right way, because that's exactly what you're going to be working into and what it's going to feel like, this idea of getting better is like, you're kind of working into a headwind.
• 27:36
  Yeah, totally. Okay, so one last group I want to speak to here before we wrap up, with this episode, is maybe you're hearing this and if you're honest with yourself, kind of the reaction you're having is, yeah, I'm not really focused on getting better in any area right now. I'm just kind of like doing my thing. And we would just acknowledge that that is extremely normal.
• 28:00
  Extremely normal. So what we would not want anyone to do would be to then feel this like sudden rush of inertia or energy or something like that. We're going to say, hey, these ten things or like I'm about to get real busy on these ten things. That would be, a less than ideal plan. That would be counterproductive.
• 28:21
  Yeah, exactly, exactly. So, we would challenge you instead to start real small. Start real small. Pick one area, start small, pick one area, and then the other. Possible audience is hearing this and thinking like, I'm really not that motivated to focus on anything right now. And that's extremely normal as well. But we would just kind of push on that and challenge you to to take a step back in and think about why might that be, why might you feel, pretty content comfortable?
• 28:57
  Uninterested in getting getting better and that you could you could if you go through it healthy exercise there, find some, some information, some realizations that could be real healthy for you. Yeah, I completely agree. Okay. So final thoughts from you over there, doc?
• 29:12
  No, I think kind of hit it, right. I, I don't want people to hear this and think they need to try to do five things at once.
• 29:18
  In fact, I would I would encourage you to really just prioritize just one thing, one area, set that as your focus or your intent on where you want to get better and improve. Maybe the main thing. Yeah. Okay. So we hope, as always, that this conversation has been resourceful to you and your your attempts to pursue better in your life.
• 29:42
  We are, always grateful to our listeners. Please give us a review, whether it be on Apple Podcast or Spotify, and we look forward to our next conversation. On the Growth Project. Thanks so much.