SPI 554: Pressure Situations

SPI 554: Pressure Situations

Speaker 1: Welcome to the Smart Passive Income podcast, where it’s all about working hard now, so you can sit back and reap the benefits later. And now your host. In college, he once played the trumpet at one in the morning on the rival school’s campus, Pat Flynn.

Pat Flynn: So this past week we interviewed Chris Do, and if you are not a Donut already, that’s what he calls his community and his followers and fans, then you should be because he’s absolutely crazy and he’s just as sweet as a donut with all the glaze and all the sprinkles, because he’s just amazing. I highly recommend you go back and listen to that episode. It’s going to be game changing and it has been game changing for me too ever since I stumbled across his stuff. In fact, I initially discovered him on Twitter, but then I went down a deep, deep, and very satisfying rabbit hole on YouTube. And his YouTube channel is just massive. The Futur, F-U-T-U-R, if you haven’t seen it yet. Definitely check it out.

Pat Flynn: However, there’s one video I want to point you to that describes this idea of pressure situations, and he does a much better job of doing it than I do saying it, pressure situations. And what I mean by this is Chris demonstrates his skills. He doesn’t talk the talk, he actually does the thing that he’s teaching and that he talks about. There’s a number of videos of him on stage at events, which is always great. He is in a pressure situation there, obviously, because he’s presenting live in front of people and you kind of have to know your stuff, right, in order to serve that audience when they’re there in person. And that’s very admirable, that’s very authoritative and influential and you grow to love whoever’s doing that even more if they’re hitting the marks and they’re saying the right things and they’re speaking your language. But at the same time, a presentation can be rehearsed, a presentation can in fact be practiced and it can be predictable for the person giving it, obviously.

Pat Flynn: And there are some amazing people who I know who just don’t do well in live situations that are ad hoc, that are on the fly. However, they are incredible on stage because they have had a lot of time to prepare. Now, that used to be me. Before that, I used to be not good at any communication. I mean, even before the podcast, my form of communication was the blog where I could just write and it was a lot easier for me to formulate thoughts and edit those thoughts and then publish them after, versus a podcast, which yes, I can formulate my thoughts and edit them, but it is my voice and it is a lot harder to do that. And then of course, there’s video on top of that, which came later and I’ve been pretty all in on for a while now and definitely going all in on this year on YouTube. If you haven’t found me yet, Pat Flynn. We also have a Smart Passive Income YouTube channel, which is the entire team contributing to that, that answers more specific questions about your online business tools and software needs.

Pat Flynn: Anyway, recently, thanks to AskPat, in fact, I have been forcing myself to put myself into pressure situations, situations that I cannot help, but need to, not want to sometimes, but need to demonstrate my capability to coach somebody. Now it’s not live. I have done that live before and that’s the sort of ultimate pressure because there’s a live audience there, right, and that’s very nerve racking at times, especially for somebody like myself. But even in a call where there’s one single person on the other end, if you haven’t listened to AskPat, I highly recommend you subscribe to it. AskPat 2.0, starting with episode 1,000. Yes, we are over a thousand episodes. But once we got to a thousand, prior that it was just answering a voicemail message essentially. And I could, again, formulate my answer and respond.

Pat Flynn: Post episode 1,000, or starting with episode 1,000, it was a coaching call, a live call between myself and somebody else who needed some help. And the reason why I wanted to do that was because not only did I know it was going to serve people better because if I just got a voicemail and then I responded once, there was no way I could dig deeper. It was only a surface-level question. Often those surface-level questions don’t actually even address the root-level problems. And so with a live coaching call, typically on SquadCast, we can dive into really the root of the problem and it never is what that first question is about, which is really interesting. That’s just the seed of the idea for me to go and dig deeper into the realms of truly what is going on in a person’s head. Anyway, that has helped me practice so, so much and grow so much as a coach, as a leader, as an authority in the space.

Pat Flynn: And now 250 coaching calls later, that people are now able to listen to using a very specific formula, in fact, that I learned from Michael Bungay Stanier and his book, The Coaching Habit, highly recommend that book if you’re doing any sort of coaching or even if you’re a parent, honestly, I use a lot of the questions that he proposes in there and the shooing away of the advice monster, which we also all often become. When a person needs help, we often become the advice monster, oh, you need to do this or I think you should do that. That’s not helpful.

Pat Flynn: Asking questions to dig deeper, and The Coaching Habit tells you which questions specifically to ask. And I ask these questions live. And initially it was hard. It felt very formulaic, but over time it became more organic and hundreds of episodes in now, post episode 1,000 of AskPat, I can do that in any moment’s notice at any time, if I get stopped on the street or if I’m in front of a crowd and somebody asks a question in front of thousands of people, I can do that because I’ve practiced and I’ve forced myself to practice and I’ve been able to publish that.

Pat Flynn: And that is what Chris Do has been doing on The Futur. If you look up this video, it’s called, “When Client Says Your Price Is Too High, How To Respond Role Play.” And this has become a format of video that has gone pretty viral on Chris’s YouTube channel, The Futur, this role play situation. And it sounds exactly like it is. It is a situation in which he has some students of his or clients, or even people in an audience play the role of somebody who says, in this case, Chris, I don’t want to work with you because your price is too high. And Chris will respond in a way that he would respond on an actual call or in an actual conversation. And we all get to sit and listen in. And it’s so fascinating and I’ve just gone and watched every single one of these, right?

Pat Flynn: “How To Talk To Clients And Get To A Yes, Role Play.” “Eight Client Objection Responses In Eight Minutes, Lightning Round Role Play.” “How To Respond To Price Buyers or Low Budget Clients, Role Play.” “Selling Through Curiosity And How Not To Be Salesy, Role Play.” If you sit and listen to these, these are actual conversations of people playing the role of the client and Chris using questions and understanding, and value-based answers to lead to you a point where even in a world play, even if a person has a low budget, the person will say yes, and it’s just always amazing because you can learn so much by watching somebody else do or Do. But you also gain so much admiration for somebody who does that sort of in person like that.

Pat Flynn: And so my advice to you, my lesson here for you comes from Chris Do, comes from myself and having done this and maybe not so much of a pressure situ… I can’t say that today, pressure situation, maybe there’s just too much pressure on me right now to say it, but putting yourself in a place where there is a bit of pressure on you to respond in a way or to teach in a manner that you know you can, but to do it on the fly helps you use that muscle, right? It helps you understand how to use that muscle even better. And it’s almost like, and I think I’ve spoken about this person before, his name is Harry Mack, Harry Mack, M-A-C-K. And if you look him up on YouTube, it’s some of the most fascinating stuff you might ever see. And it’s not even about business. He is a freestyle hip hop rapper.

Pat Flynn: We’re talking about on the fly, right? So freestyle meaning, there’s a beat in the background and he’s wrapping on top of it. Yo, what’s up? This is SPI. You can consider Pat Flynn a standup guy. I’ve been practicing. I’ve been practicing. He’s really inspirational, in fact. But I remember watching a video… That sounded very eighties, right? We’ve been watching this show on TV called, That’s So ’80s, I think it is. And it’s just incredible because it’s all things from my childhood spoken about, from the top 10 street… I think it’s called, Top 10 ’80s, top 10 street wear, top 10 fast food chains, top 10 commercials, top 10 water cooler moments. I highly recommend it, especially if you lived through the ’80s, it’s just fascinating. Anyways, I’m getting off of track here.

Pat Flynn: But Harry Mack, he mentioned in one of his videos, he’ll freestyle live to the chat that’s in a live chat room on YouTube, he’ll freestyle live and in person to people who give him and throw him words and he drops it in there and he rhymes. It’s just absurd. It’s kind of like off the curb. I got the word. I’m not as good as him. Okay. I’m going to delete that. No, I’m going to keep it in. I’m going to keep it in. And it’s cool because he is demonstrating how he’s doing this live. And it’s just absolutely fascinating because you know he’s legit, you know he cannot write this stuff down. And so you follow him and just sharing his stuff and it’s just so inspirational.

Pat Flynn: But there was a video that he published where he talked about his process, right, his process of doing this. And he says he forces himself to rap at maybe faster BPMs or beats per minute, right, than he normally would. And he does this often and even live because he knows he’s going to make mistakes. And sometimes it’s in front of people. But the fact that there’s that much pressure and the fact that he has even less time to think, when he’s in person, he’s actually doing it in a slower way. When he’s in person, he’s already able to do it at a faster pace with more pressure already, that it’s no problem. And in fact, it becomes second nature when he is doing it just in his normal way in his videos.

Pat Flynn: So the practice, the pressure situations and putting yourself in that pressure situation is really key. But it can be very difficult, right, if you’re doing this as a freestyle rap, right, you often will get in your own way, you’re going to think it’s not good and you might stumble and fall with your words and then you’re kind of done for, right? And you kind of go down that spiral and it’s hard to get back up from that sometimes. And we do the same thing when we’re live or we’re answering questions. Sometimes it could be very difficult. It’s a very noticeable moment when a person might lose their train of thought or just kind of fall off a little bit.

Pat Flynn: I remember watching a number of presentations where the person who was presenting was doing amazing and then come Q and A, it’s just a stumble fest, right? But that was because it was those people’s first time doing Q and A. I remember this conference because the presentations were supposed to be 45 minutes and people created their presentations to be 45 minutes. And then they were like, oh, we’re going to add in a 15 minute buffer after your presentation to answer questions. And all these people came prepared with a presentation, but when it came to Q and As, things they’ve never done before, they stumbled a little bit. Now, when I was in that situation, because I was speaking at that same event and I got to the 15 minute question and answer situation, I had already practiced. I’d already practiced in my community. I had already practiced on YouTube and on my podcast. And it was very easy for me to do that.

Pat Flynn: I also took it one step further as I always do and I watched Q and As happen in YouTube. Right? I was looking for tips about how to best handle a Q and A situation. What do you do when you get a question served to you that you don’t know the answer to? Well, a lot of people will try to find their way to that answer during the presentation or during that Q and A session and stumble a little bit and might try to make up something. For me, I figured out, well, if you don’t know the answer, just say it up front, but say, you know what, here are some thoughts that I have about that. And here is what might be the answer or what I think about it.

Pat Flynn: You can’t be wrong if that’s what you think or if that’s your opinion. And then also saying, you know what, I don’t know the answer to that, but I’m going to go and find out because I think that’s a really good question, but let’s get on to somebody else or let’s move on to the next question. What else do you have? And you can just breeze that over and not make a huge deal about that. Right? And I think as long as you’re honest, then you’re good to go. And that’s one thing I learned by not just forcing myself to be in these pressure situations, there, I said it correctly that time, but also learning how other people have performed in those pressure situations. So this response/role play situation, I’m getting really inspired by it from Chris Do Role Play. Look up Chris Do, D-O, Chris Do Role Play on YouTube.

Pat Flynn: And you’re going to see, it’s like actually watching those videos, you get a little nervous. You build a bit of anxiety because it does feel real even though it’s just role play. And so I’m looking for ways to be creative, to do more of that role play, right, where we can put ourselves in that pressure situation so that when it comes time to actually do that in real life, you are prepped, you are prepared, right?

Pat Flynn: It’s like if you are practicing on a basketball team, if the offense that you are on is facing a defense and it’s just a little light because it’s practice, well, what’s going to happen in a real game when a person on the other end on the defense is going light, but they’re going hard on you? Well then you’re going to not do so well in offense. You’re going to lose the ball all the time and just stumble, versus if the defense is pressuring you the way that, or even more than they would in a real game, then you’re going to be prepared.

Pat Flynn: Remember watching the documentary about Michael Jordan, right, The Last Dance, and in it, he would go so hard on his teammates with defense to a point where his teammates hated him, or just really disliked playing with Michael because he wasn’t even letting up at all. In fact, he was going harder on his teammates. Why? Because he wanted the team to be at its greatest. And it was in the nineties with their six peat. Actually, it wasn’t six in a row, but sixth championship in a very short period of time. Fascinating, fascinating documentary if you haven’t seen it. Not for kids though.

Pat Flynn: But all that to say, there is some stuff for kids that you can find on Chris Do’s stuff. Chris Do Role Play. I hope that this makes you think, how might you demonstrate and put yourself in a pressure situation? Maybe this is in live streams on Instagram. Maybe it’s live streams on Facebook or in your community. Did you know that Circle.so now has the ability for you to go live inside of your own community? Big shout out and thank you to Andrew and Sid and the entire team at community or at Circle, excuse me, who’s helping us build community at SPI Pro.

Pat Flynn: If you haven’t yet applied to SPI pro, you got to apply to SPI Pro. It is our number one focus this year. We’re making the experience the best experience for any entrepreneur who has started their business. You have to fill out the application. It helps us get to those core people who do belong in the group. And if you don’t, well, we’ll tell you, and we’ll tell you what you can do to get to that point where you will find success within the group, because we want it to be a place for serious entrepreneurs, no matter if you’re just starting out and you’ve got a little bit of business coming in, a small email list, or you’ve been a million dollar business. We have some million dollar businesses in there as well. It’s incredible. And so I highly recommend you check it out. Go to spipro.com. That’s right, spipro.com and apply there. And we can’t wait to see you in there and we’ll be going live in there and all the good stuff.

Pat Flynn: So thank you so much. I appreciate you. Put yourself in those pressure situations. There is no better way to grow. And I look forward to serving you in the next episode of the Smart Passive Income podcast. Got a great, great guest coming in next Wednesday, and we’re going to do another one. In fact, this guest, you might want to catch it on YouTube because it’s unlike anything we’ve ever interviewed before.

Pat Flynn: It might sound weird the way that I’m talking about that. But yeah, you’re not going to want to miss it. It’s very unique, very different and it’s very, now. I’m just going to say, you may or may not be interested in the topic, but you should be because this is where we’re at in the world today. That’s all I’m going to say. That’s all I’m going to say.

Pat Flynn: Anyway, thank you so much for letting me entertain you and educate you. I hope all is well with you and your family and your health. And I look forward to serving you next week. Peace out, cheers, and as always, team Flynn for the win.

Pat Flynn: Thanks for listening to the Smart Passive Income podcast at smartpassiveincome.com. I’m your host, Pat Flynn. Our senior producer is Sara Jane Hess. Our series producer is David Grabowski and our executive producer is Matt Gartland. Sound editing by Duncan Brown. The Smart Passive Income podcast is a production of SPI Media. We’ll catch you in the next session.