In this episode, we discuss how you need to have high standards and high confidence in yourself so that people trust doing business with you. And how this mentality can help you in relationships as well.
Full Transcripts
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, with your host Joe Bautista. In this podcast, my goal is to give you quick lessons on how to grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually so you can have better careers, better relationships, and better personal finances.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones. I’m also the founder of Grow With Joe, where I combine self-development coaching and financial planning for Latino Professionals.
In today’s episode, we’re are going to talk about living by the motto, “The best thing for you is me.” I got this saying from Michael Port’s book “Book Yourself Solid” In order to move up the ladder at work or to create a business where you attract clients. You need to act like the best thing for your co-workers and your clients is yourself. That nobody else will do a good enough job than you.
Obviously you can’t do everything as a person so you have to know the role you’re playing. For the past four years trying to run my own financial planning business and seeing other people run theirs, a big common trait that I see is that people have a lot of confidence in their ability to do a great job. Sometimes the technical skills are not there for what I saw, but they believed that they could get the job done.
And that is what people are looking for, is that you get the job done. Whatever the job requires, you at least get the minimum requirements done. I think it only makes sense to go above and beyond a job if that work does two things. It gives you more skills or that extra work can be leveraged into other opportunities. We don’t have all the time in the world, so we have to make sure we are using our time correctly. And if you live by the motto, “The best thing for you, is me.” Then you’ll spend more time in action than sitting on the sidelines.
When I first got started as a personal trainer and financial advisor, I had to go out and find clients and I sucked at the beginning because I was unsure about my skills. I remember doing a complimentary workout for prospective clients as a personal trainer and it was just too easy for her. I didn’t sign her up as a client but I learned that I needed to go back to the drawing board, see what I did wrong and improve my skills for the next prospect. I did this with financial planning as well. I want to make sure that when I sit down with clients, that the best thing for them is me. I usually fumble though when I’m implementing new stuff. For financial planning, I went to a conference and I sign-up up for this computer software call Loan Buddy, which helps financial advisors get a breakdown of the different repayment plans for student loans.
On my first attempt at using the software, there were a lot of issues, but because I’ve in this situation before where technology was not working correctly. I just told the prospect, let’s meet at another time because I was having issues. Before the meeting, I told him that I wanted to use this new software to do an analysis so the expectation was there in terms that this would be a learning experience. If you’re new to the business, let people know that so they can have the right expectations. You might have to do some work for free or at a discount, but what matters is your attitude and that the client can count on you to be reliable with open communication and trust.
I think one of the best things I learned in the Marines was that anytime you didn’t know the answer, instead of trying to fake the funk, you just said, “I’m not sure of that answer right now, but I will research it and get back to you.” Then you had to make sure you followed up on that statement or else you would lose all credibility. I’ve used this statement a lot of times since I got out of the military and people just want to hear the best answer and if it takes a little bit longer then that’s okay. There are other times though that you should know the information though.
If I present something to a client, I want to make sure that I review the document first and I can explain everything on that document. When I first started getting into financial planning and I would look at Morningstar reports, there were a lot of things that I didn’t understand, so I took the time to understand those things in the report. I didn’t want to be in a situation where a client or prospect said something and I didn’t know the answer. It fine not to know the answer if it’s not completely related to the subject. In financial planning there a lot of nuances that one person can’t know everything and it’s a good practice to ask yourself, can we actually do that? In financial planning, you can make a simple mistake that can result in a big-money loss if the wrong advice is given or not given.
If you have this type of thirst for being right and learning, you will definitely be the best thing for your client. Once you have the knowledge though, you just need the confidence. Things won’t play out 100% of the way you planned out though. You can pretty much plan up to 80% of a situation and the other 20% will be up to luck. To compensate for that luck though, you need to be prepared for uncertainty and you just need to have confidence. If you act to feel, then you’ll feel to act. If something goes wrong, you don’t get flustered, you just say oh well, what the next thing I have to focus on and then you do it. While everyone else flustered, you’re cool as a cucumber and that’s what the situation needs. This is going to require training, learning, and having high standards for yourself, but if you can have all three of these things working together, then you’ll be unstoppable with your confidence. We don’t rise to our expectations, we fall to the level of our training and to have the confidence to be good at your job, you just have to do a lot of little things to get there. Once you reach the level of “The best thing for you, is me.” Then that is when you start to have more control over your life and start living life on your terms.
That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, you need to reach the level of the best thing for you is me in all aspects of your life. With your friends, family, community, and career. This is going to require having high standards for yourself and having the discipline to maintain those high standards. Then once you maintain this level, you’ll be a professional in life and the world needs more professionals and fewer amateurs. Professionals change the world for the better and live more fulfilling lives. We only get one chance at this life, might as well see what we can do with it.
To get a free copy of my book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to get better every day” just go to my website growwithjoe.me/book and just pay for shipping and handling.
I have a quiz on my website that grades your inner circle, so if you want to find out if your inner circle is an A, B, C, D, or F, you can take that quiz at growwithjoe.me/quiz
I’m also trying to do a feedback Friday episode, so if you have a question that you would like to have my answer on the air, just e-mail me at [email protected]
I’m also on Instagram at Grow With Joe and Facebook just look up Grow With Joe
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Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
*Music outro
