Ep6 Shatter Your Mental Limits For Massive Growth

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;12;21
Joe Blackburn
Conservation and keeping things tight and small and not taking risk. Keeps us like this in our business. And if you can just take that part away, it's pretty limitless.

00;00;12;23 - 00;00;18;15
Jason Croft
Welcome to Sales Assassins, the podcast that unveils the lost art of word of mouth marketing.

00;00;18;15 - 00;00;18;20
Joe Blackburn
For.

00;00;18;20 - 00;00;45;00
Jason Croft
Professionals. Just like you. We cover everything from building relationships and nurturing connections to overcoming the challenges of modern marketing. You'll learn how to stand out in a crowded market, charge confidently for your services, and create an army of people recommending you without hesitation. Now let's dive in and make you deadly effective at sales.

00;00;45;03 - 00;00;52;07
Jason Croft
Welcome all you current and would be sales assassins out there, Joe. How's it going in Alabama land?

00;00;52;09 - 00;00;54;22
Joe Blackburn
It's good here. It's good here.

00;00;54;24 - 00;01;16;29
Jason Croft
We're fantastic. Something that I saw, I think, from a video of yours. Eagle, way back. Even before we started this show. Really? I just loved the concept of it, and it's. It's this idea of really leaning into being as big as you can be. Right. And and and I'm assuming we don't mean by weight, you know. So don't.

00;01;17;01 - 00;01;18;29
Jason Croft
I'm just eating.

00;01;19;02 - 00;01;20;19
Joe Blackburn
That.

00;01;20;21 - 00;01;43;20
Jason Croft
But we were talking about this concept and I think we all need it. We all need the reminder of there's there's more more potential in you be bigger out in the world, do more and not just accumulate more and blah, blah, blah and all that stuff. But really to to be that person because we have that little voice.

00;01;43;22 - 00;02;01;01
Jason Croft
For those of us who are on this path, we have that little voice that's, you could you could be doing a little bit better, a little bit better. Dig into this concept with me on what what inspired even that that idea of know what you can do more. Let's push. Let's go. Well, where.

00;02;01;02 - 00;02;20;02
Joe Blackburn
Do they come from? And I, I've had several what I would call inflection points throughout my life where I was thinking where I was was all I could be. And then we made a, you know, a change or a different view or had some outside input, and it allowed us to see something bigger. And it wasn't that major change, by the way.

00;02;20;02 - 00;02;39;02
Joe Blackburn
And then when I, you know, I, I started doing this individual coaching and then we started our Inner Circle mastermind. The one thing that I noticed with almost everyone, and I think this is common for everyone, is most people see them a limit around what they're capable of or what they're able to do within their business or their life.

00;02;39;10 - 00;02;59;21
Joe Blackburn
Like they feel like this is it. This is how big I can be. And what I noticed was when we started doing goal setting and I started pressing into what would be called a stretch goal, or to make it bigger than they could ever imagine or whatever, you know, whatever they would tell us, especially in the mastermind, everyone would then try to expand that.

00;02;59;24 - 00;03;21;11
Joe Blackburn
And what was interesting is kind of like the four minute mile. Once one of them kind of broke through, it was like, well, wait, I'm not limited by that. And I think it just takes someone else looking at it and saying it. It actually could be this. And I would say almost all of our clients are doing way more than they ever thought they could.

00;03;21;14 - 00;03;37;01
Joe Blackburn
And you kind of hit the nail on the head. You have that. I call it the inner litigator. You've got a litigator on the on your shoulder at all times saying, now that person is not going to say, yes, that's too much, that's unkind. You know, it's like talking you out of what it is you really could be doing.

00;03;37;06 - 00;04;06;24
Joe Blackburn
And that's a survival mechanism. It's because at one point you had to actually try and stay alive. So going and doing things that had risks attached to them were, you know, could cost you your life. So we're in eight with what would be almost scarcity. So that scarcity and we're all raised with I mean, if you're raised in the United States, someone somewhere in your lineage, the depression happened and then the boomers that raise you were raised by people that were came out of the actual depression.

00;04;06;24 - 00;04;33;25
Joe Blackburn
So it's like conservation and keeping things tight and small and not taking risk keeps us like this in our business. And if you can just take that part away, it's pretty limitless. I mean, it's really you're only constrained by your what's in your mind. There's a great book out there. It's called release Release Your Breaks. And it's very interesting about the psychology of how you're conditioned to do that and then how to break through that.

00;04;33;25 - 00;04;43;17
Joe Blackburn
I actually ask all of our people to, especially in our inner circle, to check that out and read it and start to think differently. So that's that's where it came from. And it's all.

00;04;43;17 - 00;04;55;13
Jason Croft
Psychological. Yeah. And and I think those limits do come from looking around us. Right. We we that's where we look first. Like if you look left to right we look around in our eyes. But we also just.

00;04;55;15 - 00;04;56;05
Joe Blackburn
Like.

00;04;56;07 - 00;05;18;16
Jason Croft
Yeah, we look around at the, the industry like, well this is all they're doing and it's okay. But that doesn't mean that's all anyone in the world is doing. And it does take that outside perspective. And I yeah, I think it's okay also to kind of drop that, I don't know, maybe guilt about, oh, I should have figured this out on my own.

00;05;18;16 - 00;05;41;26
Jason Croft
I should have, you know, thought bigger on my own. And now we all need that at whatever level we are at. We need that outside perspective. That's not just rah rah, you can do it, but actual concrete. No, you can do more. Here's how you can do more. And here are the steps to do it. You just need to believe it first.

00;05;41;28 - 00;05;55;09
Jason Croft
Let that in that it's even possible. And then you can start taking that action towards it. Go take it through some of those that you mentioned, the inflection points that happen. What walk me through those, those those examples.

00;05;55;09 - 00;06;13;18
Joe Blackburn
We about and I want to I will I want to touch on one thing you said I've rarely seen on coach greatness. I mean, I look around like, please point out to me, someone that's completely on coach, no mentor, no one, you know, see you in their blind spots. That's truly great. I've I've yet to see it. Maybe some of the savants in our world, but.

00;06;13;20 - 00;06;16;03
Jason Croft
It I mean besides me. I understand what you mean. Like the. Yeah.

00;06;16;04 - 00;06;19;08
Joe Blackburn
I mean, you were I mean, I said, Simmons, you were in my top four, Eli.

00;06;19;13 - 00;06;21;16
Jason Croft
I mean, I was born perfect, so.

00;06;21;18 - 00;06;45;08
Joe Blackburn
Yeah. But yeah, I, I think when it and then in retrospect, it really polarize to me. I mean the first, the first one that kind of was eye opening. And I think it's probably good for people that are thinking about assassins or in assassins is maybe when you're in that earlier stages, you only you know, you only think you can do this amount or this much.

00;06;45;08 - 00;07;07;00
Joe Blackburn
So we talk a lot about even just minimums and targets and things like that. But what you know, when I was going door to door at Edward Jones 100 years ago, my mentor at the time, I was wine and of course, about how little money I was making. And and he said to me something that was kind of trivial or just elementary on how to describe it.

00;07;07;00 - 00;07;29;03
Joe Blackburn
But, you know, I'd be on someone's doorstep asking for 100 shares of stock or a $5,000 bond, he said. Just add a zero. And that was that's the only that was the change. Just so a thousand versus 150,000 versus 5000. Now, I didn't always get the thousand, but then I would get 500. And I didn't always get 50,000 in a bond trade, but I'd get 30.

00;07;29;06 - 00;08;03;16
Joe Blackburn
And so if you think about it, when you're doing what you're doing, the time it takes to do that and the skill set are all the same. The only difference was the zero. And that was mind boggling to me at the time. But it's so elementary now. Like, just ask for something bigger, like make the ask. And you know, I made a transition then to advisory and Merrill Lynch and it became kind of the thing in the industry to put client minimums in place.

00;08;03;18 - 00;08;24;02
Joe Blackburn
And, you know, at first we were told, you know, anyone and follow them here, and then you've got all these accounts all over the place. And they, you know, at organizationally, they really started looking at account minimums. And we started just incrementally raising those. And then at some point, you know, and I was doing different jobs within Merrill and running my book or whatever.

00;08;24;02 - 00;08;45;13
Joe Blackburn
But, you know, we put in like if I was going to be there, it had to be $2 million. Not that I'm great. It's just time wise. And then you start every so like incrementally everyone moves up. So like even in assassins we'll talk about, well what's your floor and what's your ideal. Well, if my floor is, you know, the ground.

00;08;45;13 - 00;09;17;13
Joe Blackburn
Am my ideals 100. Well then how big I, I'm limited. But if I start raising that, that's where I can get so much bigger than I ever thought. And it's all here. It's not a outside environment constraint or anything like that. It's all in your head. So just making that little change can dramatically change your life. I mean, and then when I, you know, my kind of the last one that's we're in, we're living right now is when I was doing a lot of one on one and I started the mastermind.

00;09;17;15 - 00;09;46;27
Joe Blackburn
You know what? We were charging, for our services. I just started making that higher and delivering more. But one thing that came out of that was our our immersion. And that's $120,000. And I'm like, I was bookending my pricing essentially, like what it is to get in here. And then the high end and I'm thinking, well, this, you know, people are going to do this, and this is our highest close rate by a lot, which is and then it's lower volume.

00;09;46;27 - 00;10;12;17
Joe Blackburn
But what then it showed me was like, okay, so again you're just limiting in what you're thinking. People actually do want that value. And and then looking at what we were doing in Assassin's, you know, we're thinking, oh, we can have 20, 30 people in there. And then it's like, well, why couldn't we just have an assassin's call every day so you can go, so like, we have a habit of thinking we're confined.

00;10;12;19 - 00;10;34;02
Joe Blackburn
And if you can just take that step and say, okay, let's try this, you'll be shocked at what happens. Because most of the constrained, if not all, is not on the other side of the table. It's in here. And that's what I, you know, I preach and teach and walk. I mean, we just keep trying to expand what we're able to do.

00;10;34;02 - 00;10;52;02
Joe Blackburn
And there's, you know, I we're online right now. I mean, go online. There are people there that, you know, they don't have as much conscious and they're on it and they have no fear. And they put stuff out there and they make millions of dollars and they're not even that good. It's just they don't. Their belief system is I can do that there.

00;10;52;09 - 00;11;16;12
Joe Blackburn
I mean, there's proof in the pudding. You you probably know people in your community that you don't think are, you know, brilliant, but they're crushing it. And it's because it's all it's what limits I put here. So breaking that is critical. Critical mass and even in assassins the first thing we do is mindset. And that's why. And it's the most neglected thing because, you know, it's not me being reactive during the day.

00;11;16;12 - 00;11;20;05
Joe Blackburn
I have to actually sit down and do something for my brain. But that's where that came from.

00;11;20;08 - 00;11;53;21
Jason Croft
Going back to when you learned that concept of adding a zero, you know, just ask for more because for yourself as well. Ask more of yourself. And that's that's back into that mindset piece. And it's so important. Where are what you talk about devoting that time? Where can the person out there who's just there. They're letting this in a little bit.

00;11;53;21 - 00;12;08;27
Jason Croft
They've never done it. Is is it a daily thing? Is it a certain increments in their business or where they, they, they should sit there and go, hang on. I'm really limiting myself as a just it at times of feeling the stress.

00;12;08;27 - 00;12;32;28
Joe Blackburn
Well, in times of stress you'll constrict the most. So if you're highly stressed, you're going to try to preserve as much as possible. So when it talks about releasing your brakes is just no matter how you feel or what the environment is, have no limit in your mind. That's the starting point. But from a timing aspect, you may have existing business that you are responsible to deliver for to the client because you gave that commitment.

00;12;33;01 - 00;12;57;03
Joe Blackburn
What you need to start doing then is looking at, okay, what's the average? And then set the baseline there. Because even ethically, if I have, you know, let's say I have a $2 million account and a $250,000 account. Well, if I'm giving them equal, is that ethical? If they're getting the exact same thing, it's it's technically I mean, everybody does it, but it's technically not.

00;12;57;03 - 00;13;18;21
Joe Blackburn
So you want to kind of have it start raising your average first on what you're doing. And and I always look at it this way. If you raise your floor where you won't go below, and that naturally should raise your ideal and you just incrementally do this, that's how you can do it. Or you can just rip the Band-Aid off.

00;13;18;21 - 00;13;45;26
Joe Blackburn
I mean, there's two thought trains of thought, but most people will will do better with just that incremental step in what they're doing. And you can make I mean, it's not written in stone. You can make a business decision, you know, if you've got someone who has potential or that is, you know, 4 or 5 years down the road going to be, you know, the biggest opportunity you have, you have to make a business decision on what it is, and you have to know your what service you're committing to.

00;13;45;28 - 00;14;05;20
Joe Blackburn
You know, for for us, we want to maintain the integrity of everything we deliver because we're obsessed with our clients results. So when we test the limits we're looking at, does it sacrifice their results? Because that's all that matters in my business. Do my clients get the results? We talk about and hit the goals we talk about and have the experience we talk about.

00;14;05;24 - 00;14;24;27
Joe Blackburn
That's it. If we don't have those things, we're out of business. So when we deliver, it's like, okay, maybe I don't have to do this. Maybe it can be delivered by someone else. And that's the other thing is you get constrained by I'm the only one who can do this. I'm the only one who can give this wisdom.

00;14;24;29 - 00;14;44;27
Joe Blackburn
And we all know that's not true. So so you got to expand in a lot of ways, not only are my targets bigger, but also can I allow others to do things that they can do or should do and let go a little bit with. I will tell you one of the biggest struggles, especially in the in the inner circle, is the letting go.

00;14;44;29 - 00;15;02;00
Joe Blackburn
Because it's my baby and I don't. I don't want to, but if you're ever going to get as big as you dream about, you have to do that. You know, that's a must. And I and I'm, I battle that. I mean, I think I'm the greatest on the planet, but there's other greatness out there.

00;15;02;00 - 00;15;28;28
Jason Croft
Ironically weird. Well, crazy. Yeah. But that but that only comes. Maybe it's side by side, though. I was going to say that only comes after letting this in. That. Okay, I can't get bigger. I can get to that next level. And then I think that falls into the next actions. Right? So okay, you believe me now that next action is what can you let go of how this is how that happens.

00;15;28;28 - 00;15;39;15
Jason Croft
And it kind of falls into that category. But again, back to the mindset. It's got to start with first that it's even possible. And I can expand and and grow.

00;15;39;17 - 00;16;01;17
Joe Blackburn
And that comes that comes. You don't just tell yourself it's possible that you have to condition your mind. The litigator doesn't just shut up. It doesn't. So I mean, we have a whole process. I mean, again, when you get started, there's a whole process of looking ten years into the future and putting that dream on paper. And people may think that's silly, but if it's not on paper, it's not even close to real.

00;16;01;17 - 00;16;18;28
Joe Blackburn
So what does my life look like ten years from now? Across the spectrum? Life, health, family, reward, and however it rewards all of that. And then bringing that back to, okay, if that's what my dream is, what do I got to do this year? And making that actually measurable and then dialing that down in what do I gotta do right now?

00;16;18;28 - 00;16;38;02
Joe Blackburn
And then through repetition of, I mean, if you're not writing your goals down, you know, we're still neural. There's much technology as there is in the planet. We are still linked to our hand in writing. If I write on a piece of paper, it is linked to my cortex. You should be writing your goals down, and if you really want to put gas on that fire.

00;16;38;06 - 00;16;59;14
Joe Blackburn
And I thought these were silly at first I, I was like, this is ridiculous. We have a process around affirmations. I mean, what you say to yourself on a regular basis is critical. The person who talks to you, the most is you. So if the if you're saying you're not good enough and you're too small and you're and all that loop, you can change that.

00;16;59;16 - 00;17;19;00
Joe Blackburn
I mean, that's a, you know, something that you could actually do and we encourage it. I will tell you, I very few people are consistent on it, but the ones that are there, there's the ones that are breaking through every barrier because of the way they talk to themselves and what they program into their mind. Isn't is a mean program by someone else.

00;17;19;06 - 00;17;26;13
Joe Blackburn
And I don't know if you've caught this. If you let someone else program you, they're not going to program you with success and positivity.

00;17;26;16 - 00;17;29;20
Jason Croft
I mean, it's certainly not in your best interest.

00;17;29;22 - 00;17;48;25
Joe Blackburn
Correct? Yeah. They're going to propagate you and what they want you to do. So I just I built my belief around it is this whatever it is you are looking at and believe you can do. And I say that in that video, look at it like this. And then just take it and go like this. That's like step one.

00;17;48;27 - 00;18;08;10
Joe Blackburn
You know, we have a fun exercise. And it's in that in our inner circle where new people share their ten year dream, like, I haven't do it, but then they share it. And like when other people hear the big it's it's a powerful thing. When I've got a big dream and you've got a big dream and we all have big dreams and we're all doing this together.

00;18;08;13 - 00;18;20;13
Joe Blackburn
Those actually didn't get even bigger. So that's what I love about it. And we've had we have some big dreamers and some big people, you know, people doing big things. So I know it's possible.

00;18;20;15 - 00;18;46;20
Jason Croft
Well and that's it. And that's what's so critical about getting in the right rooms and being around the folks who are thinking this way. Because even business owners at your level aren't necessarily thinking this way, thinking bigger, thinking about what's possible. So you may be playing golf with four dudes who, if you said your big ten year goal, they'd be, what are you even talking about?

00;18;46;23 - 00;19;08;00
Jason Croft
And yeah, that just feeds that little litigator, right? And it's just like, oh yeah, yeah. What was like. But when you have that support and and again, it's also then the tangible. Yeah. As possible. And here's what we do. Or you know, it's not like you know go to sleep tonight and tomorrow. Are you going to wake up in that, you know, with $40 million extra?

00;19;08;07 - 00;19;31;08
Jason Croft
We're not saying to that. It's the steps. What are we need to do with it. And I think, I think the, the other aspect of that, hey, ten years down the road, what your ideal life is, what does that person look like? How do they walk, how do they talk to their family? How do they interact? Identifying that and like those are things you can start now.

00;19;31;10 - 00;19;34;26
Jason Croft
Oh yeah okay. It's an identity change.

00;19;34;29 - 00;19;56;15
Joe Blackburn
Well, and you know that the first key to success is self ideal. How I see myself, my self-image and what I see myself becoming. That's like in any case, you have to see yourself becoming. And a lot of people only see, you know, like the problems that jump into their lap, like what you're saying was. And yes, all of us deal with this.

00;19;56;15 - 00;20;15;16
Joe Blackburn
We're reactionary. So we get now we get tunnel vision on the problem at hand, and you should focus. However, at times it's kind of like zoom and zoom out. Eye on that ten year dream. I say when it's the toughest day you're having, get it out and treat it to. Stress is a stress reliever because whatever you think is a big deal today, ten years from now, you'll laugh about.

00;20;15;18 - 00;20;41;16
Joe Blackburn
I mean, I'm not the first person said that, but it's true. Like you'll look back and be like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I was worried about that. Like, that was not that was a nothing burger. And I didn't sleep for three nights over it. So to have that ten year vision or dream and allows the things of today my problems today to be smaller and that gets me to get through them faster because I'm not doting on them and looping in my mind how bad it's going to be.

00;20;41;16 - 00;21;01;07
Joe Blackburn
Because if you look back ten years ago from where you are today and took stock of all the changes and where you were and what you were doing and how you are now, I guarantee you ten years ago you had no concept of where you are. And so I like having that dream out there because now I'm working towards that.

00;21;01;07 - 00;21;21;28
Joe Blackburn
I have to hold myself to a standard, I have to hit targets. It's all the levers of performance to hit something big. And it's not a ten year plan, by the way. It's a ten year dream. So it's not like sit down and do a business plan around it. It's what I'm going to dream for a minute. The other interesting thing that we do is we have them do an obituary.

00;21;22;01 - 00;21;40;22
Joe Blackburn
And that's how you're going to be remembered. And if so, those in tandem are pretty powerful because now whoever's going to read my eulogy might be you, Jason. I've got I'm it's like a lottery, but whoever reads it like what I want said about me when I'm gone now, I got to live to that standard. And I have a dream.

00;21;40;22 - 00;22;07;14
Joe Blackburn
And that in In tandem is like, okay, now I got something to hold myself to and something to aspire to. It's pretty powerful. And it takes your brain and makes it like, you know, a different animal, because what you were focused on in much focus on now, that's what I witnessed. I would like to see more discipline in my own life and everyone else's that I'm involved with, because it's the easiest thing to neglect, because sometimes I just get up and get to work, or I just go to bed because I'm exhausted.

00;22;07;14 - 00;22;10;16
Joe Blackburn
But consistency. Not every day. But consistency is key.

00;22;10;18 - 00;22;35;08
Jason Croft
Yeah, because that is the the piece. And it's sometimes it does. It comes into scheduling that in your day. You know. And I think it's, it's that and it's instead of oh my gosh I'm white I'm going to that. I just need to think about nothing right now. And I need to, you know, flip on Netflix. And you know, I understand that feeling.

00;22;35;10 - 00;23;00;02
Jason Croft
But when you can fight through that feeling and instead, okay, fine, I'll let myself do that. But in 30 minutes, because for the next 30 minutes, first I'm going to I'm going to dig into this, this ten years and this and visualize that what. And I promise you, you go through that in this little fight in the beginning, but then you don't end up turning on Netflix and you can go to bed if you're that exhausted or you go, yeah, correct.

00;23;00;05 - 00;23;25;15
Jason Croft
And, and when you can shift your identity, there's just something amazing that that can happen when you just it's happened recently for me, negative stuff going on and man it I flipped a switch and it is there's no decision. Oh am I going to do this and make it. You know it's amazing what happens when when you do flip that.

00;23;25;17 - 00;23;36;25
Joe Blackburn
Agreed. And that's the people that exceed that go above mediocre. It's the ones that do it when they don't feel like it. So that's I'm doing more. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome.

00;23;36;27 - 00;23;42;07
Jason Croft
Fantastic. I hope we, we shaken some people loose and but hopefully they get a little bigger.

00;23;42;10 - 00;23;44;18
Joe Blackburn
That's right. But I can say. All right, man.

00;23;44;21 - 00;23;48;28
Jason Croft
Perfect. All right. We'll see you all next time.

00;23;49;00 - 00;24;09;14
Jason Croft
In a sea of endless digital noise, your ability to connect and generate authentic word of mouth is your deadliest weapon. Whether you're just starting out or you're looking to break through to the next level. The principles we discuss here are your blueprint for success. It's all about being the most trusted and valued in your network. To maximize what you've learned today.

00;24;09;14 - 00;24;44;24
Jason Croft
Visit Join Sales assassins.com to see how you can become a true sales assassin in your industry. Until next time, keep sharpening your skills, expanding your network. And remember, in the world of sales, the true assassins strike silently but effectively by doing what nobody sees coming. Building genuine connections and powerful relationships. Stay deadly. Stay authentic. It will see you on the next episode of Sales Assassins.

00;24;44;26 - 00;26;19;07
Joe Blackburn
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