The Sales IQ Podcast

Get Out There And Do, with Craig Ballantyne

January 26, 2022
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The Sales IQ Podcast

Join us as host of the show Luigi Prestinenzi talks to thought leaders from around the globe about the art and science of sales and marketing, personal development, and the mindset required to sell more everyday. Luigi is a master of creating pipeline and breaking down targets, he specializes in helping sales professionals build the mindset to achieve greatness and #bethebestyoucanbe.

In the last three episodes we've been focusing on the power of mindset as a strategic differentiator for sales professionals. To round out your mindset foundation for the year ahead, we're pulling this episode from Craig Ballantyne back up to the top of your list. Originally recorded in September 2020, it's essential listening if you're wanting to win in 2022.

Join Craig and Luigi as they explore managing anxiety, barriers to success, balancing your work and home life, splitting your identity from what you do, and Craig's formula for success.

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Connect with Craig on LinkedIn, at his website, on Instagram, or via email. Find his books here.

Find Luigi on LinkedIn.

If breaking your quota is your goal for 2022, Sales IQ's Create Pipeline program should be too.

Craig Ballantyne
Co-Owner and Editor, EarlyToRise.com
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[00:00:00] Luigi Prestinenzi: By the Sales IQ Network, this is the Sales IQ Podcast. I'm your host,Luigi Prestinenzi, and each week we'll be going on a journey that will inspire you, motivate you and help you be the best sales professional you can be. Our focus will be on mindset, tactics and the strategies that will enable you to create more pipeline and win more deals.

The January mindset theme has been fire. We've had some incredible guests appear in the Sales IQ Podcast this month to really help you develop the right focus, the right strategy, the right mindset to make 2022 your best year yet. I mean the episode last week, Meredith Elliott Powell was amazing. You know, talking about how you can thrive in uncertain times.

And then Ian Koniak talking about sort of his strategy and the mindset that he brings to the world and who can forget Larry Long. Jr. He brought energy, the Chief Energy Officer for our inaugural sales kickoff session for 2022. But this week we're actually going to be bringing an old episode back and I've been speaking to a lot of sales professionals, obviously I coach quite a few in my role, one of the things that keeps coming up is the discussion around time and how time seems to go fast and people aren't able to get the maximum results from the time that they're spending in their role.

And I think if we all look, it's already February, right? So we've already, the first month is almost down before we know it. We're going to be a mid-year and time does seem to be going faster and faster. And that's why have brought back an older episode with Craig Ballantine because he is an incredible high-performance coach. If you haven't listened to the episode, don't stress because we're going to play parts of that episode today.

And he's going to talk a bit about kind of how you break some of the barriers down. Look, how do you look at fear and anxiety? How do you create a more balanced approach and fundamentally, how do you really set yourself up? How do you give yourself from a planning perspective, the best opportunity to maximize results in the time that you have?

And I think this is a really important topic for us because we do see the data that says salespeople are spending around 36% of the time actually selling. That's the main, the other percentage of time is going on wasted stuff. People aren't actually doing anything. There's probably a whole range of tasks, admin tasks, all this stuff that our bosses are saying, Hey, we need you to do A, B and C that's impacting that, but I definitely believe there's an opportunity to get a little bit more out of the time that we're spending and actually spend less time.

And there was another episode with Brandon and I had the opportunity to interview him for our community this week. And if you didn't hear the episode, it's Brandon talks a bit about how he was able to earn a million dollars in commission.

And Brandon's absolutely when it comes to managing his time, managing his energy levels so that when his energy levels at that peak level he's able to do the high payoff tasks that require that level of energy. And that's what I thought I'd bring this episode today because I just think, you know, as sales professionals and you hear me say this over and over, there are many things we just can't control but we do need to be bringing more in off control.

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So, this is

[00:04:32] Luigi Prestinenzi: going to be a great episode. Craig's going to bring it. He's, he's incredible in what he does. He's a high-performance coach. And then next week we get to kick off our prospecting month and I'm pumped and we have some incredible guests. We've got some incredible content for sellers to be the best they can be.

So Craig, welcome to the sales IQ podcast, mate. This is gonna be so much fun.

[00:04:52] Craig Ballantyne: Thanks for having me.

[00:04:53] Luigi Prestinenzi: Yeah, I'm pretty pumped man. Twice in a day. I've been speaking to people from Canada. So. Yeah, really excited to have you on the show maiden before we dive deep into, I suppose, mindset planning you know, all discussions around salaries and business.

We'd love to learn a little bit more about you, how you started in the world of sales and business.

[00:05:13] Craig Ballantyne: Yeah. I grew up like, kind of with nothing. I grew up on a farm in Canada. Went into the health and fitness world. And then I got lucky. I started writing for men's health magazine and a huge worldwide publication.

From there. I created a bunch of information, products, workouts, DVDs, online videos, eBooks, all this sort of stuff that I sold from about 2000 to 2015. And then I. Over the years around 2007, I started coaching other entrepreneurs. And then I started doing that about full-time in 2015. So that's all the good on the bad side.

In 2006, I had severe anxiety attacks because of not having good planning and preparation and separation of work and home life. And so I fixed that over the years and have helped a lot of people.

[00:06:00] Luigi Prestinenzi: Yeah. Fantastic. And thanks for sharing that with me. And I mean, I like a lot of the content that you push out across, you know, social and Instagram, et cetera.

And I love the fact that a lot of the stuff you talk about is around mindset and building that level of resilience. And sort of when you talk about that story of anxiety, when did you get to that point where you realize. That anxiety was going to stop you from achieving your goals and you really need to make that a focus.

[00:06:26] Craig Ballantyne: Well, I mean, when you have really bad anxiety, you, you can't concentrate on almost anything else because you just want to get rid of it. And for a period of time, there were six weeks where it felt like I was having a heart attack, 24 hours a day. You know, you couldn't breathe properly. The heart rate was up there was tingles.

And you just think like, oh, I'm a die or, oh my goodness, am I actually having a heart attack? Or if I do something or strenuous, I am going to have artifacts. So for those six weeks, like there was no other option than to try and overcome them. And I, I learned a lot through breathing techniques, yoga, meditation, Tai Chi, Qigong, all this.

Each of them were incrementally helpful. None of them were like thug, big aha breakthrough. And then also two trips to the emergency room where they kind of did some testing on me, said physically I was okay. And that really was helpful to my head to go, okay, this is all something I can control here. And then I started going down the path of putting in many, many guard rails to allow myself to be very much high-performer, but also without.

[00:07:28] Luigi Prestinenzi: Okay. And, you know, pre that, that point of anxiety, had you always been someone or considered yourself a high performer or?

[00:07:38] Craig Ballantyne: Yeah, definitely. I was the type of person. Like I didn't, I did homework in high school, which is very irregular for back when I went to high school and, you know, I was on the Dean's honor list and stuff in college and, you know, good grades and studied and did the work.

And I was always willing to do. And, but there was a lot of things where, you know, I didn't talk a lot about my problems that other people, I think set my ego aside and ask for help. I just kinda muscled through it. And you can do that in your early twenties and up to 25, 27, 29. But then I also is, you know, like a lot of Aussies and a lot of Canadians, binge drinking and you know that stuff on the weekend.

Yeah. You know, you get your you're physically and mentally fatigued from it. And then you had physical and mental fatigue from work. And there was a period of time when I had the anxiety, it was around the holidays. And so, you know, you're late and all that stuff but then up early attending to work for most of it.

And that caught up with me and then it was the physical manifestation of it, but was able to only endure it for six weeks before.

[00:08:40] Luigi Prestinenzi: Yeah, I think it's an interesting topic, right? Because I think for many on a back where I am, I know that Canada is just starting to open up, but we, a lot of people have experienced some significant pain over the past sort of four or five months.

Even things like normal routine has changed or I'm homeschooling at the moment. And I'm not a teacher for kids. Right. So homeschooling. I think there's levels of anxiety. That for some, I know some of the people that I coach have differently shared this with me, that they weren't anxious people, but just the, the, the current conditions is creating a level of anxiety and a level of unknown.

[00:09:21] Craig Ballantyne: Nobody's a bad person until they're rained on their late. You know, somebody cut them off and then we all become bad people. So, so it's not like somebody is anxious or not anxious. There is a continuum of anxious until you hit the point where the anxiety. Switch is split, and then there's a real issue, but you put, you put people, I mean, you know, it's like think back to world war one, like I, I'm not a shell shock type of person until you're shell shocked, you know?

And, and so this has been our own version of it in this weird way, with all the other stuff that comes along with living in the 21st century of, you know, seeing other people. Even though, you know, everything's falling down around us and we still see other people on social media having a great time. And so it is very, very stressful.

There's really a ton of pressure on people. And so no one should, should feel bad about it because there's a lot of inputs upon us. And there are certain things we can deal with and certain things we can't. And then when you can't deal with them, then you need some remedies.

[00:10:29] Luigi Prestinenzi: Yeah. And you know, what an anxiety or depression or mental illness, it doesn't determine it.

Doesn't define who we are. Right. There are, there are things that are happening that impact us. And so you work with a lot of entrepreneurs, you work with a lot of business owners and help them with various strategies. And I know that you've written a couple of books around planning and being very, very focused with your time.

Talk to us about why. Planning and actually being focused on key tasks is a key for entrepreneurs because our audience we've got a lot of salespeople, but the reality is entrepreneurs are sellers, right? Whether they're selling VC or they're trying to get their startup off the ground. So we'd love to see how you plan and.

You'll formula for success.

[00:11:12] Craig Ballantyne: Well, yeah, so I'll give the plan in a second. Especially planning takes a lot of the pressure off. It really does. I mean, like imagine, for example, you know, U2 is going out and they're playing a concert tonight and they hadn't done any planning. All of a sudden the bono is going over to the edge.

Like, Hey, I don't know. We started with, well, I don't know. I thought you were going to come up with the song. It was like, okay. You know, that's obviously an extreme, ridiculous example, but what did they do? Well, obviously they have a set list and everybody from. The lighting guy to the roadies, to all the, everybody knows the setlist in advance.

This is how the show's going to go. Same with whether you want to talk about you know, football in America or football around the world. Like the teams have set place they've planned and practice the place. Nothing, none of this stuff at the highest level is ever made up and their sales person just goes in.

I don't know anything about this person. I'm getting on the call with right now. I'm just going to go and I'll just make it up as I go along. Like, obviously that is not the way to do. And yet, yet how many people do that with their days and they wonder why they end up stressed out. So, so planning and preparation is just a way of, of you know, releasing the pressure valve a bit.

And so one of the things that I recommend people do, I'm not a big fan of like 5:00 AM club or anything like that. But I am a big fan of like, you have a little bit earlier, like gimme five minutes earlier than everybody else in the house. Just to let you collect your thoughts. 15 would be better, you know, get a cup of coffee, sit down and just relax and go and exhale and journal, or bring you down for something like that.

You'll feel a million times better and you won't be chasing the world is, you know, if you hit snooze and the kids are up before you, and now you gotta go and you're all reactive, you want to be proactive. And so the three steps at the highest level. So I have a, I mean, there's always this one female entrepreneur that I've worked.

That comes to mind. When I start talking about this planning and preparation, she has five kids, a multi seven figure business with her husband, and she works from 7:00 AM until 2:00 PM. And the more prepared she is for tomorrow at 1:55 PM, you know, before she quits for the day. The more successful. She is not just in having good days and getting done on time, but growing the business.

So they go through everybody that I coach goes through. These three steps. The first step is a brain dump. You can use a scrap piece of paper. You can use the. Whiteboard, you can use the little scripting pads that we give to people and in our coaching, and you just write down all the things in your head, you know, I got to call this person, I got these free calls.

I gotta run this errand. I gotta go to the gym. I gotta go to F 45. I gotta, you know, whatever it is. Right. You've got all these things. 18 things are on the list. But when you do that, you go, all right, I'm glad that's out of my head. Now. It's kinda like, it's kinda like, have you ever played Legos with you?

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, so what's the biggest Lego set you bought?

[00:14:14] Luigi Prestinenzi: Oh, that's a good question. From the old techniques

[00:14:18] Craig Ballantyne: I bought one of my business partners. I thought this was the greatest gift. I bought him the death star. It's 4,000 pieces and he looked at me and went. I hate for what you've done here, because all I see this picture on the box and Lego inbox, I don't see Lego all over the place.

Right. But as entrepreneurs, busy parents, we're walking around with 4,000 pieces of Lego in our head, all jumbled up. Right. And so it's a very unclear. The brain dump is like taking the Lego and spreading it out over the table are very much like when I was a kid, you know, I did play with some Lego, but also played with jigsaw puzzle, you know, things and you take a thousand pieces out and it's like, okay, it's still a mess, but at least it's, now we can organize and start putting it together.

So step number one is. It's not number two is now we organize it into a priority to do. If you're doing your two lists to do list in the morning, you're already too late and that's why people are stressed out. You need to do your to-do list the night before, because first thing in the morning, you have the greatest willpower, discipline and intense.

The greatest willpower, discipline and intention, which means if you have to write a new sales script or you have to read chapter for your book, or you have to do hard, hard work doing it, first thing in the morning is a greatest chance for you to do it. But most people, what they do is they wake up and they do gratitude, journaling and yoga and meditation and exercise.

And then they do their to-do lists like, okay, well now you've been up for an hour and a half and you haven't gotten any work. So do the to-do list the night before. And then when you wake up. Go to your hardest activity as quickly as you can. And you'll make more progress, which will Luis more of the pressure belt.

So that's the second step is taking those 18 things. Identifying your top two or three really important tasks. Making it very clear that you're going to attack them in priority order and then also scripting out your day so that yeah, you pick up the milk and you get the F 45 and all that stuff, but you attack the day.

And then the third thing, cause most, most people who are good to get there, but they missed this third thing. And the third thing is something that I stole from chip and Dan Heath and their book switch, which was all about habits. And they said you want to make the path to success as smooth as possible.

So for example, like if somebody listening to this has ever tried to take up an exercise habit and you're not a natural exerciser, you've probably heard all, you know, I wake up in the morning and I'll go for a run, but you wake up in the morning and you're like, oh yeah, I don't know where my shoes are.

You know? I dunno where my workout clothes are and kinda, you know, it's kinda cold out there, but it's warm in bed. But if you put the exercise clothes and the shoes right beside the bed, you put them on. And, you know, half the gone this half done as Mary Poppins once said. So, yeah, so there it's the same sort of thing with our work.

If we know what we have to do, and then. Like, like I'm a writer. I read two books. So if I like, if I say, okay, my number one priority for tomorrow morning is to read chapter two and then I wake up and I open this computer and there's nothing but a blank document staring at me. I'm going to go I don't know.

But if I have a title in five subtitles that I thought of the night before in that process planning, all of a sudden it becomes a whole lot easier to write 300 words for five subtitles rather than 1500 words. So think about what you can do the night before in a minute or two to make tomorrow morning to work easier so that you slide writing.

And wow. If you do that, you will triple your productivity, which means opening up more time for either homeschooling. The kids are finally getting that exercise or being able to have a little bit more sleep, getting to bed early or whatever it is the night, the next night,

[00:18:00] Luigi Prestinenzi: You know, the way you've broken it down, very simple formula, right? Literally three steps. It's not. Where do you find like, or actually let me rephrase that question. What stops people from executing those?

[00:18:14] Craig Ballantyne: Great question. And a lot of people will, you know, they'll go, okay. I know I have to do this before I leave. I leave at five o'clock every day, you know, I'll start it at 4 45, but of course it's four 40, they're in the middle of some activity and they're like, I can't get to it.

And they're like, I'm just going to skip it tonight. And so that's the thing that stops people is actually. Right. It sounds so simple. Everything sounds so simple though. You know, like, like if you're a religious person, you know, read the Bible every day, but, but I have so many clients who are very faith-based that don't, they're like, oh my gosh, this is like one of the most important things in my life.

And I never find time for it. So you never find time for it. You never, ever find time. It's like, time is not hiding under the bed with your app rocker that you bought off an infomercial, you know, you only can make time for what matters. So the has to be an alarm at 4 45 or whatever time it is, where it's like, okay.

As soon as that alarm goes off, I'm stopping whatever else I'm doing. And I'm going into planning tomorrow. I absolutely have to. It's non-negotiable now here's the thing is you don't have to do it as a very last thing in your work. Some people do it after dinner. And some people will do it as early as lunchtime on that day because they know they're not going to be able to do it in the afternoon.

Like I had one client, he was an online marketer of supplements and he had a. Three week old baby. And he was like, Craig, I'm not doing the thing, but you know, at the end of day routine anymore, I'm like, we'll do it at like two o'clock. He goes, you can do it then I'm like, yeah, yeah, it's totally fine to do it.

You pretty much know what tomorrow needs to look like by two o'clock in the afternoon. So that's the biggest mistake is people don't do that. And that's the problem is is you miss it. Once you end up missing. 50% of the time and that's where it all breaks down.

[00:20:11] Luigi Prestinenzi: And you're right. You know, it's going to be a non-negotiable, it's got to be as important as washing your face, brushing your teeth. And I find I'm very disciplined in that, in that space. I'll do mine after dinner. Cause I've just, it's, it's, it's worked well for me and I find the days, and I very rarely do it, but the days that I skip it the next day, it's just things don't stop. Right or I'd get up or I'm kind of foggy or it just, I just don't feel as productive and I just, just, just don't get things done.

So it's amazing how, just a simple habit of just spending a bit of time planning enables you to have a productive day the next day. I want to find out as well, because I know for a lot of entrepreneurs and a lot of salespeople are in the. Work-life balance. It's a constant challenge, right. And, you know, finding time in the business and then finding time for self.

And I know there's a post that you put out which constantly talks about, you know, mindset. How can one person, especially now with the days are connecting, you know, we're, we're at home, we're spending a lot of time at home now. It's easy to fall into a, not the best routine and working too many hours.

What can people do now to sort of create a more balanced approach to work and life?

[00:21:34] Craig Ballantyne: By being more hardcore. So by being more hardcore, we, we talked about something called the operator mindset and the operator mindset is something like a special forces person. Like what's your special forces.

[00:21:47] Luigi Prestinenzi: Yeah.

[00:21:48] Craig Ballantyne: Okay. Okay. That's the same as the UK, right? SAS or something like that. Okay. So in the Navy, you got Navy seals, you got the SAS. I forget what the Canadians ones are called. These guys, these guys they're dropped into wherever, right. You know, there's a team of five or six and they are told the mission is the most important thing.

The mission is to, you know, take the hill or assassinate the person. If somebody's got. Or it gets hurt and we can't save them or we can't carry in our long lead alone. The mission is the most important thing. If you get, you know, a part of your leg blown off, but you can still crawl. The mission is the most important thing.

And you just keep on going. And now that obviously that's pretty extreme thing, but here's the. Is, you have a mission and you can either allow yourself to get distracted by it. Or you can say I'm an operator and, and I am going to have a lot of non-negotiables non-negotiables quitting time of five o'clock.

That is like, that is non-negotiable. And if I work past five o'clock, there must be a punishment for me for doing that. So this is where I tell people, a lot of people struggle with being caught on know on social media late at night, I say, great, great. This is going to be an easy game to fix you.

You tell everyone, you know, that anybody catches you liking sharing, commenting on a post after certain times, say seven o'clock, eight o'clock at night. You're them $50. The first person. You think you think that your behavior is going to get corrected pretty quick? Sure. It is like everybody does all the things wrong in life because there are no immediate consequences, right?

Like if we're all speeding until we see the cops. We all are because there's no consequences when there's no cops around. But when we see, oh my goodness, that's a cop up ahead. Hit the brakes hard, you know, get back into this thing or, you know, here in Canada and the U S. They had, when you're going into a zone, they show your speed and you know, that triggers people to slow down.

So there's, you just need these things, these boundaries that you've put in place. And I teach people to do that and I teach people to put their life boundaries on first. So you plan your family life first. If, if you're not giving your family enough time, like if you're not giving your family enough time, you're actually choosing to not give your family.

Like, you're the one in control of your. You are the one who chooses what to do and whatever. There is nobody holding a gun to your head. And so you then need to think, okay, what really matters? What am I actually committed to? What am I giving lip service to? What am I saying? Like, oh yeah, you know, family's the most important thing, but you got 12 hour Workday and two hour round trip commute.

How is that to grew up with your, your beliefs? It's not. So we, we put the blocks on and say, okay, I have to fit all my, especially if I'm an entrepreneur, I have to fit all my work into this amount of work. And I'm not allowed to work outside of it. When I'm at home, I put my phone away, you know, all these things and you just make a commitment to it.

So it was a combination of having non-negotiables with consequences for acting outside. And it's a combination of changing your identity as James clear talks about and atomic habits. So I don't swear. I am not I'm. I just gave it up like several years ago because I wanted to see if I could do it. And so I did do it.

And now when I'm out in public, everybody, everybody apologizes when they, when they're around me and they swear, which I don't care if people swear, I'm just saying like for a personal thing, I don't sweat. And so. I'm known as the guy who does not swear. And if I'm known as the guy who does not swear, then I'm not going to swear because otherwise people would look at me as a hypocrite and being a hypocrite.

It's one of the lowest forms of the human population. The mean some criminal activities are, are seen as better than being a hypocrite, you know? So you don't want to be a hypocrite. So when you change your personal identity, you change your behaviors. In addition to having consequences for acting outside of behaviors that you want and that'll fix your.

[00:25:48] Luigi Prestinenzi: Yeah, this is a actually really good talk track. I'm Craig, and I'm really glad you brought this up and you've just said something about that identity. And I dunno if you found the same thing, but with work, I take my work seriously and sometimes. You kind of define yourself by what you do in your work.

Right. And I think that, that there is for me and has been the challenge, right? Because I'm a, I'm a, I'm a single father of two, and I'm trying to demonstrate to them good habits, work ethic, et cetera. But in saying that when you not working, sometimes you kind of go, well, what else. You know, how else do I define who I am?

And I think a lot of, and I'm not breaking this up to male or female, but I think a lot of miles fall into this category of, well, I'm defined by what I do. Not who I am.

[00:26:44] Craig Ballantyne: I was for a long time.

[00:26:45] Luigi Prestinenzi: Yeah. How did you go, go through that process?

[00:26:50] Craig Ballantyne: Well, I went through anxiety attacks. In a way. And you know, for a long time I still subscribe to it.

But a lot of it is ego. And you know, when people ask me if I have hobbies, I still don't really have hobbies the way some people have hobbies, but certainly don't work as much as I used it. And when things don't go right when things went wrong and one of my businesses a long time ago, and then it was, you know, please, I tied my identity so much to it that, that I felt like, you know, it was very embarrassing, but none of my, I didn't care about my friends.

Like none of my friends are my friends because of what they did. They were my friends because they're my friends. But for some reason I thought people liked me because of my success, not because of me. And that really caused me a lot of problems. And sometimes like losing things is the best reset because when I lost it, A little bit of my success early in life.

And, you know, I had went through a little bit of pain. I then came out the other side and realized like, okay, you know, you're walking down when you're walking down the street, you're not as successful person, you as a person walking down the street, you know? And so we need to remove ourselves from that.

Another thing that got me into trouble was when you are a person who is an entrepreneur and. You're in a, you're always working. You're always thinking about business. And then you're given an, a, like a block of time becomes available. Like Thursday night, you don't have anything going on. All of a sudden you don't know what else to do with your time.

And you fill that time, that void, that vacuum with work. And when you do that, it only reinforces things. And actually. Puts you into more of the spiral. So you have to break it by having non-negotiable. So you, you know, I talked to a lot of entrepreneurs and I joke that we have to plan flux fun into our lives.

Most people don't have to plan fun into their lives, but we have to like actually plan fun into our lives. And maybe eventually you won't have to, but at first you may have to break the cycle of working.

[00:28:53] Luigi Prestinenzi: Yeah, that's this is really good. Like I'm, I'm actually just triggering a lot of thought for me right now with all these staff.

[00:29:01] Craig Ballantyne: And I probably a lot of like, in, in, in a lot of ways, and I've just, I've just made more mistakes and then had to deal with them before you have. So, you know, certainly I do a lot of the stuff I do so that people don't go through.

[00:29:16] Luigi Prestinenzi: Yeah, it's it's awesome. And I think one of the negatives that I've found of social media is, you know, that whole entrepreneurship, that grind, that hustle, that work, and it kind of creates the this dangerous view on what's required to be successful. And I've often said this, you know, with every, with every level of success or with every, with every positive, there's a negative, just like with every negative, there's a positive. Right. And so you know, my story is really simple. In 2012, I set a goal.

I want it to be number one, sales person in the world. Okay. The company I was working at and I got it, but what was the consequence? I lost my marriage. Got it. Right. So, you know, I, it was, it was and you said, what you said earlier was right. It's a choice. Nobody was holding a gun to my head. I was so fixated on this goal. I attacked it with the level of intensity, but it affected other parts of my life. Right.

[00:30:12] Craig Ballantyne: You know, whatever decision or whoever made the decision, like, okay, so Michael Phelps became, you know, I don't know if it's 18 or 28 gold medals. Right. But there were consequences to Michael Phelps for that success just like there is for, you know, there was for Tiger and there was for so many child athletes and there are for so many people who, who, like you said, have, have put, you know, the financial goal became the number one goal.

And obviously. There's too many stories to count where that led to problems. So you, then you, what you need are some outside eyes and somebody to give you some counsel. And the more that I talked to, very wealthy men over the age of 60, the more eyes like, I don't know, too. I know a few of them that wouldn't change things, but most of them would be like, I would change a lot.

But I don't know if you can actually change somebody until they get to that.

[00:31:13] Luigi Prestinenzi: Absolutely. It's not that midsize hierarchy of needs. Right. They've got to that point and they're really considering mate, look, I'm conscious of time and I've, I've absolutely loved this conversation. We probably could talk for hours on this subject, but if anybody that wants to engage with you and learn more about you, where can they find find more information?

[00:31:30] Craig Ballantyne: The best place is Instagram at real Craig Ballantyne, and then if they want to like grab one of my books probably the best place to start is my first one free perfect daybook.com or be unstoppable book.com talks about entrepreneurial anxiety. So if you are anxious and it's also for people that aren't entrepreneurs, because it goes through a lot of things that will help you overcome the anxiety, get rid of mental clutter.

Physical clutter, that's be unstoppable. book.com and then just hit me up or you can, anybody can email me. I actually like email I'm one of those people so Craig@godfather.com is my email. So you can also hit.

[00:32:08] Luigi Prestinenzi: Awesome man. Well, look you know, and we'll put all that information in the show notes for our listeners, but great. Just want to say thanks very much for coming as a guest on the sales IQ podcast, but more importantly, thanks for you know, putting out content that, that addresses things that. Maybe they don't want to hear, but it's very important for them to hear it right. So I appreciate you, and I appreciate the contribution you make to the entrepreneur and sales community.

[00:32:34] Craig Ballantyne: If there was one piece of content that I could put out on my Instagram in the next week or two, what would it be for, for you and your audience?

[00:32:43] Luigi Prestinenzi: You know what? I think it would be that if, if it's something around anxiety, right.

[00:32:47] Craig Ballantyne: In my first two books, I kind of had these nine words. Mantras. So in the first book, in the perfect day formula it's control what you can cope with what you can't and concentrate on what counts.

Okay. And what that means is the big lesson for that is your morning routine. Get yourself, get your partner and get your kids on a morning routine that is control. When you have control, you have less anxiety, so that will help there. And then my second book unstoppable it's. Action, beats, anxiety, motion, beats meditation, and work beats worry.

And what that means is I'm not attacking meditation, so don't take it wrong. What I'm at, what I'm saying is, and I deal with this every day because I'm an entrepreneur and I go up and down, up and down, like every entrepreneur does and you know, with good things about things, good things, bad things. And when I have a bad.

I know the only way I'm going to fix it is by taking an action in a positive step. So my Facebook ads aren't working and I'm all frustrated sitting here and being all frustrated about the failure of my Facebook ads is only going to send me down a negative spiral. But if I go, okay, here's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to reach out to all my friends who are successful with Facebook ads. I'm going to bring them into our team meetings. I'm going to, you know, buy a course for my team. I'm going to do this. Oh, okay. I feel a little bit better because I know that we're moving ahead. So action. Beats anxiety action.

Taking action. Don't just sit there and stew get out there and do

[00:34:19] Luigi Prestinenzi: Mate, and I think that's the title. Don't that's that's brilliant, Craig. So again, I want to say thank you for the contribution. We're going to share all this and I'm sure you'll be hit up with a, you know, a few requests, so really appreciate you, man. And, and thanks for being on the.

[00:34:33] Craig Ballantyne: No problem. You have a great day. My friend we'll talk to you soon.

[00:34:36] Credits: This show has been recorded remotely produced by Sales IQ Global, audio editing and music production by Stefan Malliate and graphic design by Julie Marshall. Don't forget to leave a rating and review on your podcast player. And if you want to find more about the programs that we offer at Sales IQ, head to www.salesiqglobal.com.

This episode was digitally transcribed.

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