Understanding Intentionality And Anti-Hustle With Alex Schlinsky

Intentional living is about living your best story.John C. Maxwell

Check Out These Highlights:

As a business owner for over two decades, I have often had a love/hate relationship with my business. At times, it felt like it took over my life. Other times, I was able to build a life with the support of my business. What has been the common denominator of which side of the love/hate relationship I fell into? 

The answer is simple. I was the common denominator! The clarity of my goals, the focus of my daily efforts, my mindset, and so many other factors have impacted the results in both my personal and business life. So how do we determine the correct next steps to create a life, business, or career we love?

Understanding Intentionality And Anti-Hustle With Alex Schlinsky (EP. 120)

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The first one is your natural superpowers of how you are perceived as you communicate with others. On the flip side, you’ll get a second report, which shines a light on your lowest score or probably your biggest blind spot as it relates to communicating with others. Please take advantage of my gift to help you navigate wherever you are in your career and business. If you’re loving the show, which I hope you are, please rate and review it. I read the reviews and I’m so touched by some of the expressions that people share with me. Also, subscribe so you don’t miss an episode.

My motivational quote in this episode is by John C. Maxwell. He says, “Intentional living is about living your best story.” I have to share. As a business owner for the past decades, I’ve often had maybe this love-hate relationship with my business. At times, it felt like it took over my life. At other times, I was able to sit back and build a life that supported or was supported by my business.

What’s been the common denominator of which side of this love-hate relationship I fall on? It’s me. The answer is simple. I was the common denominator and here’s what I found. The clarity of my goals, the focus of my daily efforts, my personal mindset and so many other factors have impacted the results on both sides of the coin, my personal and business life. How do we determine the correct next steps to create that life, business and/or career that we love? You’re in store for a special guest in this episode.

My guest is Alex Schlinsky. He is the Founder of Prospecting on Demand, a heart surgery survivor and a former UFC and Miami Dolphins media member. He has a decade’s long journey to building out a mastermind community for agency owners, coaches and entrepreneurs alike to build a business that better facilitates their life. Alex, thanks for coming on. This is an important topic for us.

 

About Alex Schlinsky:

Alex is the founder of Prospecting on Demand, heart surgery survivor, and former UFC and Miami Dolphin media member. He has had a decades-long journey to building out a mastermind community for agency owners, coaches, and entrepreneurs alike to build a business that better facilitates their life.

 

How to Get in Touch With Alex Schlinsky:

• Website
• Email
• Free Gift

 

Connie, thank you so much for having me. I’m grateful to be here.

I heard you laugh at, “What’s the common denominator?” “Me. Let me raise my hands.” It’s a reality check. The good, the bad and the ugly, we’ve got it all going.

I understand that. In terms of taking over and being responsible for ultimately identifying what your satisfaction level is, your happiness and what makes it good, bad or uglier, otherwise, there’s a lot of scapegoatism. It’s pretty common in society but if we take a little bit more responsibility for ourselves on the things we can control, we’ll end up ultimately being a lot better as a human race but also individually feeling a lot more accomplished to be able to achieve the things that we want in our life.

If we take a little bit more responsibility for ourselves on the things we can control, we'll end up ultimately being a lot better as a human race, but also individually feeling a lot more accomplished to be able to achieve the things that we want in… Share on X

 

Critique Of Hustle Culture And Its Consequences

The scary thing is you use the word control. We can’t control everything. You have to be discerning when you’re looking at a situation, financial relationship, economy or whatever it is, “Can I control it? If I can’t, do I need to put my energy towards that?” That’s that balance that we need to find. I like how you said the human race because we’re a freaking hot mess out there, in my opinion. Let’s talk about the hustle culture that is more prominent in the US but I’m seeing it with my colleagues around the world. Do you buy into that go culture that we live in?

No. I’m writing a book called The ANTI-Hustler’s Handbook, which is all about the complete opposite model of hustle. What we find oftentimes in the hustle culture is people pursuing goals that are not defined whatsoever. People use ethereal goals or undefined goals based on motivational speakers, people like Gary Vaynerchuk, Jocko Willink, David Goggins, Grant Cardone or whomever they were following at that time. They get inspired by the idea of more.

We live, especially in America, in what I would call a capitalist-imperialist society. The idea is not to achieve a certain revenue number. It’s to achieve more. The problem with more inherently is that it’s an ever-moving goalpost. When you get more, you want more. When you climb a certain mountain, there’s a bigger mountain to climb. When you catch a big fish, there’s a bigger fish to catch. When you get a big deal, you want a bigger deal.

 

That’s the only method of what hustle culture is all about. There’s no definitive clarification of what success is and when there is, it’s usually based on someone else’s definition and then we wonder why so many entrepreneurs, even though they enact their agency, their choice, why they’re so burnt out, stressed or frustrated. As you noted, the common denominator is them.

They’re wondering why I chose this path, instead of working for a boss, being in a managerial position or having a franchise where I have these restrictions and responsibilities. Instead, I’ve built my business, method, process, vision and image, yet I’m still frustrated and burnt out, in lack, unfulfilled, anxious, stressed, confused, irritated and not excited. We wonder why that’s the case and usually, that’s because of undefined goals based on hustle culture.

Whether it’s either comparing yourself to other people, counting their pockets or being concerned about what they’re doing online, which is heinous and a cancer of our society as it stands. The other side would be people that feel like they’re allowing themselves to be defined by someone else. “If I don’t have a yacht or I don’t have a $200 million house, then I’m a failure.”

 

The Anti-Hustle Approach

My recommendation for anyone that I work with is the anti-hustle approach. I’m a big believer in the three-step process, define, design and do. Defining is identifying very clearly what you want. Instead of saying, “I want to be financially free,” identify what that number is. Clarify, “How much are my monthly expenses that I need? If we’re going to consider that I should have one and a half times my monthly expenses to feel comfortable, that’s good.”

Define, design, and then do. Share on X

“What are the extra expenses I want to consider? Where do I want to travel? What car do I want to buy? What house payment do I want to put down? What are the things that I need?” You then have a calculator that tells you, “Based on your monthly expenses times one and a half plus your desired expenses, how much money do you need to make?” That becomes a defined financial freedom goal versus financial freedom, which is an undefined goal.

It’s like if you were playing football and your goal is to get into the end zone but every time you pass the 1-yard line, you automatically go back to the 50-yard line. You can never get in the end zone. That’s what entrepreneurship is like when your goal is financial freedom because it’s never defined and that’s very dangerous. It’s defining financial freedom. The other main definition is usually, most entrepreneurs want this goal of financial freedom and time freedom but time freedom is undefined. Everyone’s time freedom might be different. Maybe your time freedom is you don’t want to work on Fridays in the afternoon. Maybe you want to work only five hours every single day. Maybe you want to stop working on Saturdays.

That might be someone’s scenario that works every day of the week or you want to stop working on Saturday. You are the only one that gets to define what time freedom is, even though inherently as a collective unit, the reality is most entrepreneurs want time freedom but if you do a survey, everyone will define it differently. Defining is the first step of the anti-hustle process. Define your goals very clearly, which requires hard work and takes deep work to do. It’s not magically going to happen.

You are the only one who gets to define what your freedom is. Share on X

The reason why I see people not defining is usually 1 of 2 things. 1) They’re afraid that they don’t know what’s going to make them happy or 2) They’ll make these astronomical goals that they’ll never achieve. What I’ve often found is we’re not in a short-term game here. We’re playing a long-term game as entrepreneurs and human beings to identify and clarify what time freedom is to you and what success means to you financially.

Ultimately, what you have to identify is, “What is the last time that I was truly happy or successful in my mind?” Let’s make that the minimum KPI and then go from there. If you get there and you realize, “I’m still not that satisfied,” then you can move the goalpost and then identify the next goal. That’s not a failure. It only means, “Now, we have to optimize.” Like anything else in life, we have to optimize to figure out what that is.

On the alternative spectrum, if you’re someone that is like, “I don’t know if I’m ever going to achieve the things that would make me happy,” there’s this concept of shooting for the moon but landing on the stars. Ultimately, if you identify that you want to have a $100 million house in Newport Beach, a Bugatti and a Lamborghini but you end up having a modest home in South Florida that’s a $2 million home and you have a Mercedes-Benz S-Class instead of a Bugatti, you find out that you’re the happiest you’ve ever been. You don’t have to expect something of yourself that’s unreasonable just because you’ve heard BHAG thrown around every entrepreneurial event you’ve been to. BHAG is Big Hairy Audacious Goal.

You don’t have to try to be Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos. Those are 1 in 6 billion type people and it’s okay. You’re not a failure if you’re not those people. It’s fine and you don’t have to sacrifice everything in your life to try to be those people. If you want to, that’s fine but it’s coming at the cost of your mental health, personal relationships and life. As someone that had heart surgery at 29 years old, I’m pretty confident in saying it’s not worth it.

That’s a defined element. The design and due elements are pretty simple. Designing is simply identifying, “I have a goal here. What are the activities that get to the milestones to get there?” I have activity one. It gets to me in a milestone. Activity two gets me in a milestone. It’s a yellow brick road to achieve your specific goals.

That becomes your custom roadmap. Not someone else’s roadmap, game plan or some guru’s model. It’s your model because you get to define and that’s your opportunity as an entrepreneur. Lastly is the hustle part of anti-hustle, which is do. The thing is hustle tells you to not define and design because they’re already defined and designed elsewhere by someone else. Someone else will give you the roadmap somehow impossible but somehow that happens.

Instead, we just do until you burn yourself out or metaphorically put yourself into a puddle of nothing. You have nothing left. You’re bleeding at the core. You have no more cups to be filled. You’ve oversaid, “You’re welcome,” if anything. You keep pushing yourself and grinding yourself thinking, “I work better with my back against the wall. I work better when I sleep four hours. I work better when I see my kid only twice a day or twice a week. I work better when I work at midnight.”

It doesn’t make any sense. You identify what you want in the define, design and do format. That’s what anti-hustling is all about. I’ll wrap it with this comment, “I don’t get to define what you want, design what you want or do what you get to do. I’m not the one that’s telling you what to do. I’m only giving you the roadmap to build it for yourself versus letting someone else tell you what that is.”

If you’re inspired by David Goggins yelling at you to work harder, then do that. If you find that weird and not comfortable for you, you’re not weird and that’s okay. You’re just you. Find what matters for you and what works for you. Be radically comfortable with designing and defining what you want in your life. That’s what anti-hustle is about.

 

There was so much in that and I didn’t want to interrupt you because it was so succinct and not your first rodeo. That was beautiful and the examples you gave and everything. I didn’t want to stop you but here are a couple of observations on my part. I feel like a lot of these consultants and coaches are like, “My program works.” “It worked for you. That’s a wonderful thing. I could see your success but that doesn’t mean it’s going to work for me.”

Whenever I go into my clients, it’s so funny because I say, “I have the infrastructure of what you need to do to build a culture and all the moving parts that we need to identify but then you determine your values. What is your mission statement? What do you want your employees to do at the end of the day? What do you want that client experience to feel like? It’s not what I think. It’s what you think.”

Once we defined that, you have that vision of what your organization wants to deliver to their client, then I can help you by saying, “Let’s look at that CRM system. I don’t have a preference but let’s look at what we want that CRM system to do so we could support the client journey that you’re envisioning.” As soon as people hear the word customized, they know there’s going to be a fortune. It’s not. I cannot go in and tell a company, “This is what you should do because this is what’s going to be successful.” What are their demographics? Are they in New Jersey, Florida or California? It’s going to be different.

I get concerned when my private clients and entrepreneurs hire me and they’re like, “I bought this program.” I sit there and think, “Tell me why. What is your expectation with all of these programs? How are you going to pull them together if you have to make them yours.” It’s your business and it’s exactly what you’re saying. It’s your vision but we are chirping in the ear constantly of, “This works over here. They won $1 million or built a $3 bazillion business.”

They’re selling the dream. They’re not selling what is going to work for you, the individual business owner. I like yours because it’s like, “Here’s the structure. I could give you the structure.” You have to fill in the blanks because of your business and life. “Do you have one kid? Do you have ten kids?” All of that will impact the decisions you make.

I want to share one more quick story. My husband and I were away for a conference for him and I went psycho work from anywhere. I wanted to meet his peeps and colleagues. One gentleman, who was a little behind us, has a 1, 3 and 5-year-old. He is a lovely guy. As we were talking, exactly this hustle that you’re talking about, he said something to us. My husband and I are older. Our kids are men. I said to him, “You’re feeling guilty when you’re away from your kids. When you’re with your kids, you’re feeling guilty that you’re not working. What are you doing? Where’s the logic in that?”

He says, “I know but how do you stop?” I said, “You can only set the boundaries that you could set. You have to define what those boundaries look like. When you’re with your kids, if you’re truly present, why are you thinking about work? You’re enjoying the kids at that moment. Even if it’s two hours a day, you have that quality time versus that quantity of time where you’re sitting around on your phone.” It’s this balance. We have to determine what it is for us, the individual, the business owner, the employee or whatever it is.

 

The Importance Of Personalization And Setting Boundaries

I have one more question for you and I’m curious about your take on this. I have grown boys living at home saving money, which is a beautiful thing. COVID threw everything off for them. My younger son is unsure of what the next step is and what that career looks like. He kept saying, “I want financial freedom.” My husband and I were like, “What does that mean to you?” He could define it, which I was proud of him.

Are you seeing that the younger generation was almost sold a bag of goods in the college of, “You can be anything you want to be? Live your passion and you’ll get paid for it.” I feel like they’re coming out confused. I’m curious about your take on both things that I shared. The gentleman with kids, my son and where my husband and I are right there matters.

Let’s start with the college portion. When you go to college at 16, 17 and 18, they’re like, “What do you want to major in? What do you want to do when you’re grown up?” It is what they’re telling you. You’re going to put four years into it. My story is one of those potential examples of, “It’s not working the way I had hoped.”

My initial intention was, “I’d become an attorney,” but then in my senior year of high school, I did an externship and the attorney I worked with was a school of hard knocks kind of guy. He was not roses and daisies, “Everything in life is great. It’s so easy.” He’s like, “Being an attorney sucks. This is why I didn’t want to do it. I wish I didn’t have to do it. I feel like I’m in prison.” It turned me off from wanting to become an attorney. I then thought, “I want to become a psychologist. I’m a natural empath. I love how the human mind works. I love studying that in high school so I’ll go do that.”

I’m a very academic person so I worked hard to be successful. I graduated Magna Cumlaude from the University of Central Florida but it didn’t matter. My mom cared about it but no one else cared about it. I was proud of myself but it didn’t do anything for my career. If anything, it was negative. It would’ve been better if I didn’t work as hard and I got regular grades essentially instead of trying to be top 5% or whatever that number was.

What ended up happening was when I graduated school, I was so burnt out that the idea of going to grad school was impossible. There was no possible way that I was going to add more time to go back to school to go through the wringer again. It was unreasonable. Leaving school felt like, “I wasted four years and overworked myself without making $0.1.” I worked but paid for work, which was terrible for education that I probably wouldn’t use.

I did end up using it in my business ultimately. I then started a new entrepreneurial career in marketing and coaching sales. I became a salesperson and learned all of those elements but it’s very challenging with this idea of, “You can do anything you set your mind to.” When I was younger, I refused that type of logic because I would rather be the contrarian of like, “I can’t fly at the top of a building if I wanted to. I can’t be a NASA scientist because I’m not good at engineering,” which is fair but I was losing sight of what the purpose of the message was.

When I graduated college and felt at a loss, I used to work with UFC and the Miami Dolphins. I’m a big sports fan. I have been my whole life a diehard Miami Dolphins fan. One of the things that I was thinking about was maybe I could create a career in sports journalism. I like writing and I love sports. I know a lot about it. Why don’t I give that a shot? However, I didn’t know how to start.

This is essentially where the hustle culture I was ingrained into was like, “If you can do anything you set your mind to, then you have to be willing to have the audacity to do those things.” What I would do is emailed probably 500 different websites to ask if I can get a writing position. I got accepted by FanSided, which was a Sports Illustrated affiliate that gave me $1 per 1,000 views on a website that averaged 1,000 views per article.

I made $1 per article on average, which is terrible but when I got the opportunity and the job, I thought, “This is amazing. I’m credentialed media member for the NFL.” They’re like, “No, that’s not how it works. You have to get that credential using us as your byline to get in touch with the Dolphins.” The editor that I worked with explained to me that in the NFL, it’s required that the team puts all the PR director’s phones, names and emails on the website.

I called the PR Director of the Miami Dolphins, Jason Jenkins, who passed away in 2022 tragically, which is terrible. This was in 2014. I called every single day for two months before training camp. At that time, I was a waiter at a local restaurant after college. My wife was still in college for one year and we had to make ends meet but I called every single day. I heard every objection possible from the receptionist. “Jason’s at lunch. Jason’s in a meeting. Jason’s not available. Jason’s not in the office. Jason’s here. Jason’s there.”

After two months of being willing to hear no more than they were willing to say it, that was my main thing, finally, she said, “Jason’s available.” They patch me through this hold music, that classic elevator music. Suddenly it’s like, “Hi. Jason Jenkins of the Miami Dolphins. How can I help you?” I said, “Jason, I am a Dolphins fan. PR media at FanSided. Me.” I don’t know what I said. I was at a loss for words because I never thought I would get through to him. I thought I was going to keep pushing and trying to make it happen.

He said, “You’re credentialed for Sunday. We’ll see you there.” I was able to go to training camp. I went to five Miami Dolphins games as a media member in person, which was an incredible life-changing experience. At that point, what I realized for the first time was that you can do anything that you set your mind to if you’re willing to do the work required for it. That part is the piece that’s left out of the most common statement that you can do anything you set your mind to if you are willing to do the work required.

You can do anything you set your mind to if you are willing to do the work required. Share on X

The Obstacle Is the Way was an important book for me to understand. With the number of rejections that they gave me, I felt like there was no amount of rejections I would take until they would say yes because I was willing to hear an infinite amount of rejections, no matter how many times it took and how much effort. With that, it spurred me to become a much more successful entrepreneur in what I call audacity sales.

It’s the willingness to do the audacious things that most people are not willing to do, especially with what a computer allows you to do by hiding behind a computer. I’m going in person. I’m meeting people face to face. I’m looking someone in the eye and ensuring that they have to look me in the eye to say no, which is infinitely more challenging than answering a text or a phone call to say no.

That was important to me. Any younger people reading this, you need to be very audacious. Be an advocate for yourself. You learn that as a surgery patient as well but you have to be an advocate for yourself. It’s important. “The squeaky wheel gets oiled,” is one of my long-term beliefs. Everything is negotiable. Everything is within the discussion. It just has to be asked. You can’t get anything if you don’t ask. That’s something that I’m a big believer in.

 

 

Persistence And Rejection In Sales

Here’s the thing. In sales in general, no is not a rejection. The timing was off. It was like, “Blow the lid off.” You don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. It had nothing to do with you or what your objective was. He was a busy man. Her job as the gatekeeper is to say no to you and keep you away. At some point, she probably thought, “I got to at least put this kid through and let him have his opportunity.”

You probably wore her down because of your tenacity. There had to be a level of respect for this kid who is tenacious and won’t take no for an answer. That’s number one. That’s sales. It’s not rejection. Keep going. Every no gets you closer to the yes and you’re an exact example. The other thing and I’ll share another quick story is if you don’t ask, the answer is already no.

We’re NHL fans here in this house. My kids played hockey. Wayne Gretzky says, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” I remember a friend of mine was following James Clear before he wrote his book Atomic Habits. He was a blogger and she loved him. He wrote the book. She says to me, “You have to have him on your show.” This was a few years ago. I’m like, “I don’t know who this guy is.” She sends me the link. I go in. He had this whole application to be on a show.

“You should have 100,000 downloads.” I wasn’t even near that. I thought, “What do I have to lose?” I filled out the form with the real information and the stats of my show. In the email that it was attached to, I said to him, “I read your book. I loved your book. Here’s how I’m using it. You don’t know me. Here are my stats. I would truly be honored for you to be on my show but I understand that you have these criteria and boundaries so no hard feelings.”

Twenty minutes later, he responded personally and said, “I would be honored to be on your show. Thank you for being so authentic and honest. I’m honored that you read my book and that you gave me such beautiful feedback.” I didn’t try to be like, “How can I manipulate him?” I thought, “I’m going to ask and be me because I don’t know who to be any other way.”

He was on my show and it was a beautiful episode. The book is amazing. I’m still using it. I tell everybody, “You should be reading this book because it’s that little minor change that could change the trajectory of your whole life.” If you don’t ask, the answer is freaking no. Why aren’t you putting yourself out there? That’s the tenacity that you shared. That was beautiful.

These kids are missing that, “You have to go to college.” They’re listening to the rhetoric out there instead of pausing and saying, “Do I know what I want to do? If not, let me at least move forward.” With each forward step, I’m learning something, even if it’s not exactly what I want to do long-term but it builds on who we become. At my age, I am who I am from all of those ups and downs, all of those silly mistakes, those choices I didn’t make and the choices I did make.

We are this beautiful tapestry but everybody looks for the destination instead of the journey. You set it at the onset. This is the long game. It’s not those transactional, “Get in, get out, learn and duplicate what I do.” Duplicating what I do is not going to work for you, I assure you. It’s the game we have to play but we’re only given part of the information.

Unquestionably, we’re only given part of the information. The reality has to come down to that you have to be comfortable with defining what you specifically want and then taking the actions necessary to do it. It’s pretty unbelievable how often people expect things in a privileged sense that’s magically going to happen to them, like being handed the silver dollar or silver spoon or that they automatically consider that someone else that achieved something that they wanted was handed the silver dollar or silver spoon, when you have no idea what the circumstances of that scenario were.

It’s conjecture and ultimately, that’s a pretty common thing that human beings do. We believe something that would make us feel better out of ways for us to feel protected. Anyone that I could challenge, be more comfortable doing uncomfortable things. The more uncomfortable you become, the more comfortable you are and that’s how it is. That’s what it takes.

Be more comfortable doing uncomfortable things. The more uncomfortable you become, the more comfortable you are. Share on X

Ultimately, the uncomfortable things at the end of the day, you’ll realize aren’t that uncomfortable. Once you get rejected a few times, get no a few times, lose a couple of deals or fail a few times, you get and understand it. It’s a prerequisite to success. Also, the stakes are pretty low. You’re not a surgeon, police officer firefighter or airline pilot that crashes a plane and kills 50 people like, “Oops. On to the next one.”

You’re calling a lead for a marketing service or you’re going in person to a gym and trying to get them to sign up for your SaaS product. It’s not that big of a deal if they say no. It’s all good. You’re not going to ruin anyone’s life and the stakes aren’t that high. That’s not to hopefully dissuade you from realizing the impact you can make. It’s to hopefully be grateful that the stakes aren’t that high.

My brother is an ER doctor in Ocala, Florida. Every day, his stakes are incredibly high. The life of human beings is in his hands every single day. I’m super grateful I don’t have that in my hands. I still take my job very seriously. I take the coaching that I do very seriously. It’s important but thankfully, it’s not life or death. I don’t want to have those scenarios. Anyone that reads this that is in those life-and-death scenarios needs to be consulting with people that are in that every single day because that’s an entirely different environment than what I’m used to.

I’m grateful for that and also for you if that’s your scenario as well. That’s important to understand because human beings in general raise the stakes of whatever they’re in due to being in their individual self, as if it’s the highest stakes possible but it’s not. Normally, the way I think about it is what the problem is but this is how we think the problem’s going to be. That’s an important key mindset for entrepreneurs and human beings.

That unknown is worse in our head than in reality, always 100%. The other thing that I am cracking up about is that you think you’re that important. I laugh. When I am live with my client’s training and we sit there, my phone rings. I always have it on vibrate because I have an elderly father. God forbid, if he calls, I pick up the phone. Sometimes he forgets I’m working but whatever. That’s the only time I will stop. If it buzzes and people go, “Do you have to take that,” I go, “No.” I swear to God, Alex, I say, “I’m not that important.”

It’s not like they’re calling me because they have an organ that I have to go and transplant. I’m not that important. I could call them five hours from now because my job is not a life and death yet, I see people constantly on their phones. I challenge them. At dinner, we do not bring phones to the dinner table. You’re present. We talk and chat. “How was your day?”

We decompress with each other. It’s wonderful. When we answer the phone as my dad calls, they go, “Mom, we’re having dinner.” “It’s Grandpa.” You have to set the boundaries of what’s of value but everybody is addicted to their phone and they think they’re that important. We’re not that important unless you’re an ER doctor like your brother.

 

The Importance Of Asking And Authenticity

One of my favorite stoic lines is from Seneca, which is we suffer more in imagination than in reality. I love that framework of mind because your mind often punishes you. One of the greatest lessons I’ve ever learned from any entrepreneur was at an event I went to in San Diego. It was a small mastermind for seven-figure businesses that ranged from coaching products to marketing agencies and a few other different types of physical product businesses as well.

They were doing a mindset chat with a guy named Dan Livens. He is a good dude. He was asking the audience, “Does anyone ever feel like they have that voice in their head that’s their worst enemy? Has anyone ever felt that way?” Everyone raised their hand because it’s a common trope for a reason. People talk about old clichés but there’s a reason why it’s a cliché.

There’s this common phenomenon around human beings in general that understand the idea of being the worst common enemy or your worst enemy, which is not just entrepreneur-specific. It’s for everyone. It’s for moms thinking that they’re not good parents or it’s for brothers thinking they’re not good sons or whomever thinking they’re not good at X. It’s not only entrepreneurs. It’s every human being in general.

He said, “Let me ask you something. If I had a microphone to listen in only to the voice inside my head, the one that’s the negative person, not you or the one talking to me now, just your worst enemy, would I want to be friends with that person?” Everyone had the same reaction of, “No way. Never.” He then went, “Why do you listen to him?” It was so impactful and great.

He was explaining, “If you would never allow someone to be in your inner circle close to you that would text you every day, talk to you every day and live in your house every day or live in your head every single day to talk to you like that, why do you listen to them?” It was a fascinating pragmatic view of a very emotional experience in a way that hopefully will allow people to move forward so whenever they hear that creep in, they shut it down.

It’s interesting how five years later, I am 100% certain that I have significantly less negative communication in my mind simply because I will say, “Shut up. No.” My inner confidence instead is so much greater than my greatest fears or the person talking negatively to me that I don’t even have that experience anymore. I love speaking. It’s probably my favorite thing to do and people will ask me when I speak like, “Do you get nervous?” I’m like, “Not at all. It’s the opposite. I get crazy amped.”

I have to pace for twenty minutes before I’m going onto the stage. I have to make sure that I’m not going to go onto the stage and burn out every ounce of jet fuel action and energy I have in three minutes because I have an hour speech to teach sales. They ask me why. I always talk about this thing that Dan said. It’s like, “I know that I’m going to crush it.” It’s not because I’m worried that I’m not going to do well. I’ve closed out that version of my mind. That’s a valuable asset for anyone to believe in that insight. I’m a huge believer in it.

I’m giggling. There are two things. It’s that old saying, “The mind is a precious real estate. Who are you letting rent in there? Be very discerning about the voice that you allow to park itself in your brain.” That’s what you were saying, which I love. The other thing is I love to speak. People go, “Do I have to write? Can I just speak it? It’s so much easier to speak it.”

 

I spoke at a conference that I was training one day and they were like, “What are you doing?” I’m like, “I have to leave. I’m speaking at this conference.” They’re like, “How many people?” I go, “A couple of hundred or few hundred. I don’t even know.” They were like, “Were you worried about getting up there?” I go, “No, that’s the easy part. I don’t know what I’m going to wear. I’m stressing about what to pack.”

They look at me and go, “You’re kidding.” I said, “Speaking is the easy part because I know myself, what I want to share and what I want to give the audience. That comes through loud and clear but I want to make sure I look nice.” They were like, “You’re a weirdo.” Isn’t that the funniest thing? It’s perspective that we speak for a living so it’s super comfortable.

We are out of time. I love you and your energy. You’re young. You are ambitious but from this beautiful framework of, “I got this. I can do this. If I can, I’ll learn and keep going.” That’s the mindset that we need definitely as entrepreneurs because we can easily burn out trying to juggle everything. At the end of the day, you have to design your life and that’s what you profess. It’s a beautiful thing.

I love the define, design and do. We think we design what we do but we’re chasing our tail with the do because we’re not defining, which is important out of the gate. It’s a beautiful job. I wish you so much success. You’re remarkable and fun. You can laugh at yourself. You have a good perspective for a young person. I’m proud of you for what that’s worth.

Everyone, you need a little Alex in your life. Go to the website, which is ProspectingOnDemand.com. If you have a question specific that you want to have a quick email chat with Alex, it’s Alex@ProspectingOnDemand.com. You have a beautiful gift. Do you want to tell everybody what it is in the Facebook group?

I want you to see how I coach sales. I coach sales about the one-call close methodology and it’s all about sales psychology and how to get paid on your first call. I’m going to give you that training. All you got to do is join my Facebook group. It’s called 7-Figure Sales Savages. It’s an automated thing that when you join the group, you automatically get it on Facebook. We’d love to have you in the group and be able to share that training with you.

Thank you so much for sharing that with my peeps, Alex. I appreciate it.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you for being on. There is so much great information. I highly recommend going back and reading the episode. If I were you, I would certainly take notes and get an idea of that define, design and do. I remember the do because I like to do it. That’s where I come from but those three Ds are easier for everybody else to remember. I’m older than Alex so give me a break.

Alex, thank you again. I truly appreciate our time together. I hope you’ll join me every episode as we question, build and discover together. No matter where you are on your entrepreneurial journey, your career or whatever it is, I truly hope my guests and I help you define where you want to go. What is the trajectory of what you want your career or business to be? You have full control over this. You have a choice to make.

I hope that, between Alex and I, we gave you some tips, ideas and stories. The three Ds that Alex shared gives you some idea or steps to take immediately after the show. Information is a beautiful thing. If you do nothing with it, it’s simply information. Take it, apply it and see the magic that happens on the backside. I truly wish you an inspiring time. I hope that you will tune in next time to join me with my next guest. I love you all. Have a great one.

 

Important Links

• Communication Style Assessment
• Prospecting on Demand
• The ANTI-Hustler’s Handbook
• The Obstacle Is The Way
• Atomic Habits
• Episode – Past Episode
• Alex@ProspectingOnDemand.com
• 7-Figure Sales Savages – Facebook Group
• https://Linktr.ee/ConnieWhitman
• https://ChangingTheSalesGame.MyKajabi.com/All-Star-Community
• https://YouTu.be/Ab-llRb1Fd0 – 120.  Alex Schlinsky – Understanding Intentionality and Anti-Hustle

 

 

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