SW 212 – DECIDE, The Ultimate Success Trigger with Jim Palmer

Jim Palmer is the founder of the Dream Biz Academy and Dream Business Coaching and Mastermind Program. He is a coach, speaker, and business-building expert. Jim recently wrote the book DECIDE:The Ultimate Success Trigger and talks to Jason on some of the key things you can learn in the book. On the episode, Jim talks on the importance of delegating your work, cleaning out your headtrash, and pushing through criticism.

Key Takeaways:

[2:20] Highly successful entrepreneurs make a decision and move forward with it.

[5:11] If you wait too long and stay in ‘squishyville’, you will miss the opportunity.

[7:55] How did Jim clear his headtrash?

[12:15] Everybody has headtrash.

[18:20] People will always criticize you. Brush it off and keep moving forward.

[20:55] When is it a good time to get help?

[22:45] Start small, hire a virtual assistant for ten hours a week.

Mentioned In This Episode:

http://www.decideforsuccessbook.com/

Tweetables:

If you feel the need for everybody to like you, that’s going to slow you down.

The critics are always the ones who, you know, they are too busy being critics to do anything for themselves.

Paying clients are really about the only people you need to be listening to, because everybody will criticize.

Transcript

Jason Hartman:

It’s my pleasure to welcome a returning guest to the show and that is my friend Jim Palmer who is out with a new book that’s doing great. It’s entitled, DECIDE: The Ultimate Success Trigger. I have not read it yet, but looking through the table of contents I love some of stuff he’s talking about here in terms of how important it is to just make a decision about things that we’re going to talk about during the interview and stick with him and Jim, welcome, how are you doing?

Jim Palmer:

Jason, it’s awesome to see you again. We saw each other just recently in San Diego at the Traffic & Conversion Summit.

Jason:

That’s right, that’s right. Give our listeners a sense of geography, where are you located?

Jim:

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area.

Jason:

Good stuff. So, DECIDE, this just seems like one of these deceptively simple, but incredibly effective ways to become successful, doesn’t it?

Jim:

I’m going to have to start using – I really liked the way you said that, but you know, as I started writing this book, sometimes what I’ll do, Jason, I’ll have the idea, I start writing, I’ll come back and then kind of write what I think people got out of it. As I was thinking about it, I mean, as I mentioned kind of before we went on live here. I didn’t want to call it just a mindset book, because there’s a lot of mindset books, but I really like figuring out what is the impediment for most entrepreneurs, the small business owners, and all the ones that I’ve studied so far, what it’s come down to is that highly successful entrepreneurs, Jason, I’m sure you know this; they have an uncanny ability to assess a situation, to spot opportunity, but then, most importantly, to decide. To decide yes or no. This is going to work, this won’t work, and then they move forward. Yes or no is good, I’ll think about it is not good, because that puts you in a place I call squishyville where opportunities go to die. Nothing ever happens in squishyville.

Jason:

Yeah, I love that. Squishyville, that’s an awesome way to put it. The reason it’s so important to decide is because without the decision, it gives you definiteness of purpose, right? Even if you don’t know ow you’re going to get there, it’s just making a commitment, making a decision and really that’s what the late John F. Kennedy did in the early 60s. I mean, he decided that by the end of the decade, we’re going to go to the moon. The Hollywood studios ramped up and designed sets that looked like the moon and we stayed a fake moon landing – I’m joking, of course, but some people still think that, maybe they’re right, I don’t know, but back on track here. That is what’s really important, isn’t it? Making a decision.

Jim:

Yeah, you know what’s interesting is what I think helps grow a business faster is momentum. Every successful business that’s growing has momentum and the more momentum, the faster you grow. What stops momentum or at least slows it down, so like, you’re trying to run through quicksand is when you have too much indecision.

Now, the interesting thing about getting comfortable with risk, getting comfortable with speed, getting comfortable, making decisions and moving forward is not every decision is going to be a good one and it’s going to work out great .quite to the contrary, but what I have found and my 14th year in business is you really get to learn and trust your gut.

You get to, again, you quickly see what’s going to work, what’s not, and sometimes you’re wrong, but what happens is when you’re growing a business, momentum is kicking in and things are happening, you can absorb an occasional whiff at bat, so to speak, and you just course correct as you go, but if you never decide, if you just can’t even decide what I’m going to have for lunch today, I can not decide. That’s so many decisions in a life of an entrepreneur and so you really have to become comfortable with making a decision.

Jason:

Yeah, no question about it. So, how does one become comfortable with making a decision? I mean, I have met people who just struggle and struggle through life. They can’t even decide when they’re gong to meet you for a cup of coffee. It’s like every decision is just, it’s all squishyville, like their whole life is squishyville.

Jim:

It’s true.

Jason:

I mean, listen, I’ve spent my share of time in squishyville too and I still do it, we just got to minimize the time we spend there, right?

Jim:

You’re right. Sometimes – I don’t mean to say I’m going to buy a house or I’m going to buy an on-going business for a couple of million dollars or whatever. I don’t make that decision lightly, but I don’t also let it take six months, because that opportunity might go away, which is another thing. Just our whole way of doing business, if you think about the internet and social media – in fact, I was talking to a person about this and he goes, “You know Jim, I was going to do something in a certain platform in social media a couple of years ago and he goes, I admit, I’ve been in squishyville and now I think I want to go forward and things have moved so much that’s no longer the hot property, so to speak.” So, time can play a factor.

I want to answer your question. I think, Jason, the ability to decide in large part comes from confidence and confidence in my view comes from success and that comes from being inaction. So, before successful, if someone is just starting out, confidence I think happens when you first decide, for example, that enough is enough. Sometimes in the book I describe this as a 3am holy crap moment.

So, you can envision it. It’s 3 o’clock in the morning, your bedroom is pitch dark, your eyes are wide open, you’re looking up at the black ceiling and you’re thinking, holy crap, how am I going to make payroll? Holy crap, I haven’t paid myself in 60 days and I own this darn business. Holy crap, my girls want to get married. Holy crap! And there’s so many holy crap moments and what happens, hopefully, is that you get real with yourself. You know, my great friend Melanie Benson Strick says, “You stop being the impediment to your own growth.”

Jason:

So many quotes and sayings and philosophies are coming up for me as you’re talking about this stuff, Jim. One of them is the Jack Parr quote that i love. I think it was Jack Paar, the attribution could be wrong. It basically says, “My life is one long obstacle course with me as the chief obstacle.” I think we all have to face that, don’t we?

Jim:

It really is and when I started looking and doing some research for the book and going back even over my own journey of even just really the last 6-7-8 years. What I found out is that there were certain things that I knew entrepreneurs that kind of operate my space, kind of the online world, starting a coaching program and things like that. I named some of them in the book. I get really very transparent and kind of vulnerable. I felt like I was on my therapist’s couch righting this book, but I knew I should be a speaker. I should go out and speak. I knew that I should start writing books. I knew videos. You know, six years ago, videos became very popular. I resisted at first.

Probably the most recent piece of headtrash that I’ve kicked to the curb is doing my own live events. Jason, you know as well as anybody doing your own seminars is a very powerful way to grow your business and I just had headtrash about that and headtrash are those fears and things that float around your ead that prevent you from making a decision moving forward.

Jason:

So, how did you clear out the headtrash, then?

Jim:

It’s interesting, for each one of these – I’ll talk about public speaking. I’ve had a fear of public speaking for most of y life. I almost took an F in history because the teacher made everybody get up and read in front of the class and on the days I had to read, I skipped schools and it was really bad, but my career started advancing and I knew I had to get rid of this and one of the things that I do, if I do finally have my 3am holy crap moment and I decide I’m going to take care of business, I go all in.

In other words, I have looked at all these different things that could possibly help from positive affirmations – I took the Dale Carnegie program. I joined a group where speaking every month was not an option it was a requirement. I went to a professional hypnotist and then I learned self-hypnosis. I did everything at one time, because I didn’t want to like, for example, Jason, the Dale Carnegie program was either 12 or 14 months, right, and I didn’t want to try that and then say, okay, there’s a little progress, now I gotta keep going, because I am very impatient person. I wanted to kick this thing to the curb.

I did them all and then I started accepting speaking engagements and I just get better and better to where I can be on any stage now. So, I kicked that one to the curb. You have to figure out what’s really holding you back and another good strategy I talk about in the book is really personalizing your challenge.

So, for me, when I was really starting to grow my business, but yet I was running into my own self-imposed limitations. I knew, you know, I have twin girls. I knew they wanted to go to college. I knew eventually they’re going to get married and I still wanted to pay down debt from my early years. I wanted to buy a boat. I wanted to provide retirement. All these things going on and I said, you know what, I really got to take this thing and kick it to the curb and I stepped up or man up, woman up, whatever you want to say and took care of business.

Jason:

Yeah, another great quote that I’ve really, really liked in life and I’ve seen it happen with so many clients of mine over the years, the ones who are decisive and aren’t decisive and who wins or loses is self-evident based on what we’ve been saying so far, but here it is. It says, “Successful people make decisions quickly (as soon as all the facts are available) and change them very slowly (if ever). While unsuccessful people make decisions very slowly, and change them often.”

Jim:

Wow.

Jason:

I think that’s such a powerful thing, this decision, it’s really what life is all about is just making decisions on this and following through. I mean, can there be any other success factor really other than that, you know?

Jim:

It’s interesting when I was doing a video to promote the book, I said, what I want to encourage you to do, as I’m talking into the camera, is get this book and move it to the top of your to-be read pile of books and here’s why, because whether you got new books on Facebook marketing, internet, whatever strategy you want to learn, none of it is going to move your forward unless and until you kick the headtrash to the curb and finally decide that you’re going to stop being the impediment to your own growth, because once you do that.

I liken it to pull giant cork out of a bottle that’s hanging over your head or some kind of, – and everything just starts flowing and you start picking up massive speed. I’ve had some pretty good speed and growth in the last three to five years and that’s when I really got serious, that’s when I, you know, got working with Melanie, she’s been my personal mindset coach for years now and she’s really helped me kind of keep my feet to the fire and really, again, take care of business and grow.

Jason:

Yeah, so, I want to just raddled off several of these and then you can pick some that you want to talk about and we’ll drill down into those, but take out the trash, don’t be an imposter – these are decide, decide not to be an imposter, decide to be authentic, decide to invest, decide to delegate or stay small, that’s a decision, right?

Jim:

Yeah.

Jason:

Decide to be immune to criticism, decide not to be perfect; decide to take the rewards of risk and speed, decide to be an entrepreneur, decide to survive, decide to change your mindset; decide to be profitable, decide to emulate successful entrepreneurs, decide to use GPS; decide to think big, decide to be different, decide to roll with it; decide to decide. Pick a few of those, Jim. Let’s talk about them.

Jim:

Yeah, okay, you know, the headtrash we’ve sort of been talking about. Headtrash affects everybody. It’s the stuff that’s floating around. From the time you’re born, I am kind of liken it to the LP, the old record with the groves and everything you’ve read or been told or seen or watched or witnessed.

Jason:

Puts a grove in there, right?

Jim:

It’s putting a grove and so that – a lot of that is self-limiting headtrash and, you know, when I went to the hypnosis, he – I told him, look, I’m doing positive affirmations, I’m doing this. He goes, “All good stuff, but here’s the thing, positive affirmations are putting in, it’s kind of the good stuff you want to be thinking about, but you are layering it on top of the bad stuff and it’s like, if you go out and spend a $100 on this bag of like, gourmet coffee, because you love coffee and then you cook it in your ten-year-old coffee pot, which has like stains on the bottom and stuff like that,” he said, I love this, he goes, “You gotta clean out the crud before you put in the good stuff.”

I think that’s what taking out the trash is like. So, obviously, it’s a broad subject, but you know, when you decide that whatever is floating around in your head that’s preventing you from moving forward, that’s a good thing. The decide to not be an imposter. Jason, I knew what that was before I knew what it was called. In other words, a lot of people fear they’re going to be found out, right? So, when you start and here’s the thing, every big business starts small.

I mean, Dell Computers, huge, huge company. Michael Dell started it in his dorm room, right, and so the thing is, when you start going out and calling on prospective clients as an entrepreneur, today it’s so much more acceptable to have a home office. Start at your kitchen table, your spare bedroom, your basement, whatever.

Well, when I started, it wasn’t quite as acceptable as it is today and I started working in my dinning room on a Dell Computer, but when I went to meet a client, a prospective client, I put on a suit of clothes and had my business cards with the glossy finish and I had brochures and stuff and what I was fearing in my head was I was going to be found out and the sort of the headtrash I’m talking about and I’m guaranteeing everybody is going to relate to this in some way, shape, or form, was that he’s going to say, ‘how long have you been in business, where’s your office’, and things like that, and I’m going ohhh and then eventually he’s going to point to the door and go, ‘get out of here you worthless…’ you know?

Jason:

You know what though, Jim? I’m happy to say that, at least that, we all still have lots of other kinds of headtrash, but that kind of headtrash really isn’t very significant anymore. Like, think about the things that matter less than they’ve ever mattered in history, right, you know, I was just talking about this on one of my podcast shows recently.

I remember being at a, I used to be a member of the National Speakers Association and I was at a meeting and one of the speakers got up and this was maybe 15 years ago, maybe 20 years ago, even, and said that they were really concerned, they didn’t know if they wanted to have their address on anything, because they worked out of the house and everybody sort of had this conversation among the audience about oh, working out of the house, is that making a bad impression, blah, blah.

Now, everybody does it. There’s no stigma and there’s really almost no stigma to failure. In fact, in the technology world, in the silicon valley world, if you haven’t failed, it’s a stigma. I’m glad to say that is changing. I mean, you probably agree with that, right?

Jim:

Absolutely and I’ll share this with you..

Jason:

The formality is disappearing dramatically, obviously, yeah.

Jim:

Oh, no question. In fact, I had two already-made answers. Some said, ‘where’s your office, Jim?’ and I said, ‘well, I’m over in Eagle, PA.’, ‘Oh, are you in the Eagleview Corporate center?’, ‘no, I’m a couple miles from there.’ Most of the time that ended it. Occasionally someone would persist with one more question and I’d say, ‘well, I have a home office, you know, off of Township, Glen Road.’ And they go, instead of them going, ‘oh, you have a home office?’ They go, ‘ugh, you’re so lucky. I wish I had a home office. I didn’t have to deal with the route 202 traffic every morning.’ So, it is a nonevent, but it just – it affects some new entrepreneurs when they’re just starting out. The next one, which is very similar is being immune to criticism, Jason.

Jason:

Oh yeah, that’s important. Tell us about that one.

Jim:

My gosh. You know, criticism is everywhere and you are going to get it 100% and the only people who are not going to get criticized are the people who are not doing anything, kind of what you just said. If you’re failing, that means you’re not doing anything and there’s an expression. I’m pretty sure, Dan Kennedy said it first, “The higher up the flag pole you go, the more your butt is going to hang out.” I add to that, “But it’s okay, the view is better up there.”

So, it kind of signifies the more you do, the more you put yourself out there as an author, as a speaker, coach, video guy, whatever. More and more people are going to share their opinions because they deem their opinions to be very important and if you let criticism, things that you hear, slow you down, because you get apprehensive about, oh my goodness – if you feel the need for everybody to like you, that’s going to slow you down as well.

So, I use a two stage filter, Jason. So, if someone criticizes me, the first thing I think I want to know is that somebody that I know, like, and trust and really value their opinions. So, if I wanted to seek an opinion on some kind of direct marketing piece and somebody’s just a neighbor or the (#17:20?), doesn’t matter, but they have no direct-response marketing expertise, then it’s their opinion, but it carries no weight with me whatsoever and the other thing to think about is it somebody whom I value, is it a paying client, for example? Paying clients are really about the only people you need to be listening to, because everybody will share their opinion and everybody will criticize.

I guarantee that when I push the go button and started printing my latest button, I know there’s errors in it. I’m telling you, I’m not proud of that and my editors and I, we must have proof read that thing 30 ways from Sunday, there’s still going to be a missing coma or an SON instead of SUN somewhere and you know what? Somebody’s going to email me and point it out to me.

Jason:

The world is full of armchair quarterbacks, you know?

Jim:

Yes, exactly.

Jason:

Absolutely. The critics are always the ones who, you know, they are too busy being critics to do anything for themselves and I think that gives them a sense of accomplishment and makes them feel their own sense of self-worth, which is not a valid sense of self-worth, by the way, to just be a critic, right?

Jim:

It really is more about them. I do a lot of videos. Sometimes I have my dog, Toby in the video and somebody once sent me an email, it had to take them half an hour to write, about how it was wrong for me to use my dog as a prop and this and that. I mean, really, it was ridiculous, in my opinion. First of all, you know, for a half second, your blood boils a little bit and you go, okay, just delete that. I don’t need to see that, that’s ridiculous and then you think about it 10 minutes later and you go, I feel bad for the guy. What’s he got going on that he can write for half an hour about how wrong it is to use a dog in a video?

Jason:

So, decide to make yourself immune to criticism. What else? Just a couple of others.

Jim:

There is one, it dove tails a lot, but decide not to be perfect. Perfection is the enemy of progress. Again, what you said about the Silicon Valley dude, if they’re not doing anything, it’s because they’re not – they’re waiting to launch until that thing is 100% perfect. I’m not going to show it to anybody unless I am 100%. Well, perfection is just far too hard to come by. What’s better is to put out your best work, some great work, but not strike for perfection, because you’re going to be just never-pushing the go button.

I learned this probably six years ago when I was writing my first book and it took me 18 months to write. I wrote this one in like 60 days, so I’m getting a little faster, but really the reason my first book took me 18 months, I did not want to put that thing out there with my name on it and have there be a mistake. Every week or two I read it and read it, and keep finding one more thing.

I was at a conference and I heard Bill Glaser say, listen, perfection is killing your business and then he did me a real favor without knowing, because I was in a group about a $1,000 in the audience and he said, “Let’s say that somebody goes to Barnes & Noble and they see your book on your shelf. Good title, catchy headline. Picture they start thumbing through it and they buy it.”

He goes, “First thing is you made a sale, so that’s good, second thing is you got an opportunity, if they read the book and it’s good that you might gain a client, you know, more future sales out of that.” He goes, “However, if that book is in your word processor because you’re looking for the very last coma or grammar mistake, you will never make a sale.” And I actually probably remember turning red even though I felt, ah, shoot, I really launched my book about three weeks after that. So, perfection is the enemy of progress.

Jason:

Yeah, good point. So, any other tips on how people can get themselves out of this mindtrash or if you want to share maybe one more before you go, just thought I’d open it up for you or any questions I didn’t ask you, Jim, that you want to make sure you share with the audience?

Jim:

Yeah, one of the most powerful ones where, again, a lot of people struggle is when to decide to get help. When to decide to release and let go. I name that chapter delegate or stay small and I actually said  in jest it could be titled delegate or die, because when every entrepreneur starts as a bootstrapping entrepreneur and, you know, whatever skill or talent you have, whether you’re a speaking, dentist, accountant, whatever, that’s your skill or talent, but when you start, you’re also wearing every other hat of a regular business, so you’re the accounting – I’m not the accounting, well, if you’re the accountant, you’re the accountant, but you’re also the customer service, the delivery person, you’re doing everything, chief cook and bottle washer.

There comes to be a point, Jason, when you start building the momentum, start growing your business, you’re going to get stretched thin. What you need to do at that point is stayed focused on the high-revenue generating activity, which is your course, skill, or competency, and then you have to start getting help.

You have to let go and sometimes it feels like you’re putting the cart before the horse, because ‘well, I’m just not there yet’, but if you keep in that frame of mind and that mode, emails won’t get answered, phone calls won’t get returned, something that should be delivered today will get delivered tomorrow, quality starts slipping, and that’s going to actually slow your business down.

So, you have to decide to release and let go and I liken it to if you’re out, and let’s say you’re an outdoors person or not, you’re exercising on the treadmill or out hiking and they say that when you’re thirsty, when your mouth is dry, that’s a sign that you should have been drinking anyway or earlier, already, whatever the right term would be there.

Jason:

The thirst is a delayed reaction.

Jim:

It really is.

Jason:
You’re dehyrated long before you get thirsty, yeah.

Jim:

And so what I say, if there’s things that aren’t getting done in your business, your business is thirsty and you need to fed it. You can start small. You don’t have to hire a COO with benefits and vacation, healthcare, you can hire a virtual assistants for ten hours a week for anywhere from $15 to $30 an hour that can do things for you. So, what I say is, if it’s really scary, hire somebody for ten hours a week at $25. It’s $250 a week, it’s not a big deal even when you’re brand new and I would say is, if you’re struggling now, what would you do if you suddenly had ten extra hours? My guess is you will automatically start focusing on that high-revenue generating activity and that’s going to move your business forward.

Jason:

Good advice, good advice. Give out your website, Jim.

Jim:

DecideForSuccessBook.com

Jason:

You’ve got it in paperback, kindle, and audio version, correct?

Jim:

Yeah, this is my first book doing an audio. Took me ten hours. I would like to say it was a lot of fun, but I decided to be honest.

Jason:

So next time you’re going to hire a narrartor, is that what you’re saying?

Jim:

No, I won’t do that. I’ll probably not as silly and try and do it in one sitting just because I hate stuff on to-do, I like to get stuff done. The truth of the matter is the fun thing about the audio books, I’m sure you’ve heard some, I tend to go off the written page, so as I’m reading through the book, I say, oh, I gotta tell you something that didn’t make it in the book and I share some additional stuff.

Jason:

Yeah. Good, good stuff. Well, Jim Palmer, thank you so much for joining us.

Jim:

Jason Hartman, it’s my pleasure. Thanks man, I appreciate it.

Announcer:

This show is produced by the Hartman Media Company, all rights reserved. For distribution or publication rights and media interviews, please visit www.hartmanmedia.com or email media@hartmanmedia.com. Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own and the host is acting on behalf of Platinum Properties Investor Network Inc. exclusively.