Recruiting Success Has A Daily Rhythm

Welcome to recruiting conversations welcome back, it’s another recruiting conversations with your host Richard Milligan, I’m excited that you’re joining me here today. I’m coming fresh off a conversation with someone around recruiting and I had to share this with you because what I’m sharing is actually a lot of times in coaching, I’m sharing my own life experiences, like my own journey of struggling through failure, or struggling through getting stuck, or you know coming up with an idea that helped me win at a higher level and the execution of that idea, and so i’m coming to you on a conversation I think most of us as recruiting leaders at some point need to hear some of the things that I have to share with you today, and so I’m just coming in live and i’m sharing this with you. So, hopefully i’m finding a great place, and you’re kicking some butt and you’re on top of the mountain as it pertains to all your recruiting efforts. I’m gonna share this conversation with someone who’s actually not there right now, and this individual shared with me this week that they were actually struggling and one of the places that is very typical for people to even and flow out of when it comes to struggling is the phone and actually uh working through making what I would call “cold calls” to people that they don’t know.

 

I think most recruiting leaders and of course that recruiting leader title, typically means that you are leading a team and then you’re also responsible for recruiting to that team most leaders that are already leading a team are relational leaders like that they enjoy contribution to the team, which is that i’m helping you solve problems, I’m helping you grow i’m helping you get clarity around your goals i’m helping you on the journey to what’s important to you, that’s really fulfilling for a heart-centered leader. And I’ve noticed over this journey of being a coach is that it’s very normal for a heart-centered leader to struggle with picking up the phone and calling someone in a cold call situation where this individual doesn’t know who they are. It’s very difficult to bring much value in this short conversation that’s to be had over the phone and because there’s just a lack of contribution from that heart-centered leader, there automatically some tension there. So, we need to identify this and with the client today we just we just identified it we walk through this process and this process is that whenever I begin to feel stressed, or anxiety, or just not a willingness to step into whatever it is that’s next that’s necessary for me to win at the level that I said i wanted to win whatever my goals are or possibly you’re looking out farther like i recommend, which is like what’s the larger vision, and I always think it’s imperative to put words to the anxiety, to put words to the stress, the but words the fear, what is it because what I found is that there’s fear where there are unknowns, and by actually be creating knowns, allows us to address those, there’s typically a lack of fear. And so, if I still walk through with this process with a hundred leaders who are struggling to make calls what’s typically going to come up is like the unknown of what’s going to be said, the unknown of like are they going to be mad because i’m the seventh recruiter to call them this week, are they going to be abrupt and hang up the phone on me because they don’t have time to talk to me, like our minds can actually go to some weird places and play these scenarios out and create worst case scenarios. So, we get we gotta actually squash that ability of chasing these mirages that don’t really exist, and let’s put some let’s put something on actual paper, this is what i’m afraid of so what is it i’m afraid that i’m going to get rejection and it’s okay to say that, I’m afraid that i’m going to get hung up on i’m afraid that i’m not going to be able to share well enough with someone to get them beyond that i’m not interested or i’m happy where I’m at, or I don’t have time to talk so we always start with like putting on paper what is it that I’m actually afraid of, what is it that’s creating stress and anxiety we put words to it, okay? This is how we start by squashing fear. Now, let’s just pause here for a moment, look, most success and when I say most, I mean practically all success is found outside of our comfort zone. It’s very rare that we find success inside this place where everything’s warm and fuzzy and perfect and I don’t have anything to worry about and this is gonna always go great, it would be a rarity that’d be like the rainbow unicorn, if that was true. So, one of the things I learned in my own career is that i would struggle in moments to get outside that comfort zone to really be bold or courageous if I got there i would do something as simple as this I pull out a little sticky note I would write the word bulb to the top of it, I would stick five check mark check boxes on that sticky pad and I would actually force myself, i’d put that right on my computer monitor right on my phone, right out, right over where I was going to be i would force myself to actually put a check mark in the box that I was bold five times that day something as simple as that I can focus on this moment getting outside my comfort zone, where my heart’s kind of speeding up and if your heart if your heart’s not speeding up, when you’re doing this you’re probably not doing it, right? I mean there is I’ve, I over the course of coaching around 1200 people now over the last three, three years, what I found is that there’s a handful and when i’m holding up my single hand there is a handful of people that say “I love the phone” okay? So those people do exist and I applaud you for that, and if you can find people that aren’t afraid of the phone, do so because they’ll never struggle with this, if they’re a recruiter but the bottom line is that most people will. And so, we’ve got to come to this conclusion, I got to operate outside my comfort zone, I’ve got to be bold in being able to pick up that phone, or send that video text or send that message, or whatever it is that i’m about to do that’s that has me stressed, or anxious about what the results going to be, or what the response is going to be, and I just need to follow through with it, because there’s a direct connection to being outside the comfort zone and winning it at a higher level than operating inside the comfort zone. That’s where, that’s where you, that’s where success resides, outside your comfort zone. So, i’ve got to come this place in my brain where it’s like I have to live in this place so I gotta get okay with it so where things begin to get so big and so heavy that you’re not able to really push through the level that you want to push through, go back to how I started this which is like put some words to it. We’re afraid of the unknown. Think about this as a kid, in full disclosure I was a fraidy cat. So, my underneath my bed at night anything could have existed in the unknown turn the lights out and immediately something’s under my bed right that’s the unknown the lights are out I can’t see it so the light’s on guess what I can see under the bed there are knowns like there’s no fear where there are knowns okay so to some degree we’re going to deal with this because there are unknowns but we want to put words to these things that our brain uses against us to create stress to create fear to create anxiety, okay? So, I’m observing constantly where is my tension where is my stress why am I feeling this i once heard it was um trying to think who said this it was the it was uh he wrote the book wild at heart and in in something that I heard that was said by John Eldridge, he said this once and just resonated with me said “An unobserved life is a wasted life” an unobserved life is a wasted life”. So, in these moments if I’ve got anxiety and stress and and this tension here and I’m not observing this, I’m wasting this stress, I’m wasting this moment, and I’m allowing it to actually grow, and foster. So, we want to observe this, okay? So, in this one of the things that I figured out is that, I can actually if I put a name to this if I write it down, I know what it is I can attack this thing head on, that’s what we’re trying to do here. We’re trying to attack this thing directly face forward coming, right at it, okay? So, if for example it is i’m just afraid of rejection, i’m afraid of the no i’m afraid of someone being rude over the phone, or afraid of the hang up if that’s what it is one of the things that you have to do is you’ve got to come into this time that you’re going to be on the phone with more energy. Think about this if I was driving a car down the road and the car was going 70 miles an hour, and there was a thin brick wall that the car would go straight through that brick wall right? Why? Because there’s a lot of energy in the car going that mile per that at that speed, right? If I took my car and was driving one mile an hour and tried to drive through a brick wall, I probably wouldn’t go very well, why is that there’s not a lot of inertia, coming at this. So, there’s very little energy to overcome this let me just pause here, I every once in a while I have to pause this and mute and then back up as I’m cutting this podcast because I’ve got a little bit of this upper respiratory cough, going on I spent almost a month down with covid which is why there’s been a lag in the podcast. I’ve been cranking out and I’m at a place where I’m beyond that i got my butt seriously kicked by it so feel sorry for me please but i’ve got a little bit of a cough still going every once in a while, and so i’m having to pause, and then come back but we’re driving this car one mile an hour, we hit this brick wall, right? And there’s not a lot of energy to press through it so if i’ve identified the brick wall, and this brick wall is i’m afraid of people saying no, or afraid of people hanging up the phone, or afraid of people being rude to me on the phone, when I have to hit that wall with a lot of inertia, what does that mean man if i’ve got an hour blocked on my calendar to make calls to top recruits in my market, how I arrive in that hour matters. It just matters if I show up tired, and oh my gosh here we’re here we gotta do this for an hour, and I don’t do any mental preparation for this moment, or physical preparation for this moment then it’s highly likely that I won’t accomplish a lot in that hour. So, my state of how I arrive in this moment is going to matter a whole heck of a lot okay so now i’m observing I put a name to this i know what it is I know that now i’m going to deal with this and so so how am I going to deal with it well let me just tell you your environment and how you show up in this moment matters. So, a lot of people forget you can change your state, if you’ve ever been to a tony robbins event, then you know you can change your state. One of the things that that kind of cracks me up at some level now it’s not really funny – funny but it’s like if if they’re even in a city someone wins the super bowl it’s highly likely that a bunch of morons are going to run in the parking lot and flip cars over, and and set them on fire, and I never fully understand that, understood that until until i had season tickets, to the oklahoma city thunder. Now, I’m in Oklahoma. I got season tickets to the Oklahoma City Thunder games and for a number of years had tara suites there and I was there in a sweet season. So, if you’re an nba fan you probably know that okc had a really sweet season we got Russell Westbrook, we got Kevin Durant, we got James Harden we’ve got a team that should probably win the nba title. Now, we didn’t, came close a couple years, but we didn’t but I can tell you the first year that Oklahoma City won the western conference championship, to go to the nba finals against san antonio. I felt euphoric, and the entire building of 20,000 people were euphoric and I was thinking to myself i’ve never been here before but i finally get it you get a group of people yelling and screaming and clapping their hands, with all this amazing music being pumped in right, and so there’s people changed their state. I was sitting here with my wife going i feel euphoric right now well think about it i’ve been clapping my hands yelling and screaming and listening to high volume high intensity music during you know these little windows of time that they’re in timeouts, or in between a dead ball, or whatever and and suddenly my state has changed. So, this is why those things happen is that people’s state has changed, and you are in control of this, think about this, you control this, why do we identify the unknowns, it’s also for for so that we can approach them with knowns, what’s a known? I know that if they’re if I’m if I’m if I’m if I stressed out about making that phone call and I show up with high energy I’m less likely to allow that little wall there to stop me, so my state matters. So, one that I encourage this coaching client to arrive in the hour in the right state of mind. You control that so what are the tools in your toolbox? Well, look, science says that when we clap our hands that our body produces endorphins, right? So, clapping your hands is actually a tool in the toolbox and look let me just pause here and say this is going to seem weird to other people around you is this going to seem weird, like Milligan’s over there in the corner listening to Justin Bieber, “I got the power” clapping his hands and chugging a glass of water while breathing in and breathing out and stretching what has gone wrong with Milligan i didn’t realize Milligan needed medication, but in this moment everybody thinks that I do, why because I embrace the weirdness you have to embrace the weirdness of this if you’re going to have the right state to come into this moment and to break through this wall or whatever while it is it could be anything around recruiting you may have some fears of an anxiety around another part of this some of this is just life like there are things that that stress me out, or that stress my wife out that stress you out, the people around you that that my my stressors may not even make sense to you but they are mine. So, I have to hack breaking through some of this at a life level not just a uh recruiting level, these are like this is like a life hack, you can’t break through something whatever that one thing is like how I arrive in the moment of approaching this thing matters. So, i’m going to change my state build a toolbox around this in fact give yourself five minutes before you actually make the calls to actually change your state and here’s why this matters even if you don’t struggle with the phone and here’s why it matters because recruiting is simply a transference of energy that’s it. I’m excited and I transfer that excitement to you. So, you better arrive if you’re gonna call people on the phone, you better arrive with some great energy. I mean you should arrive at a level eight nine or ten energy if i’m going to pick up the phone and call someone and I know that i’m at a level three or a little level four then I am not in the right state with enough energy to convince you to take a next step with me, that’s just the bottom line. So, this matters for everybody to show up in this moment at a level eight nine or ten and watch people say yes! Look, network marketers get this at the highest level, it’s why i hate network marketing because I freaking buy your stuff. Why do I buy your stuff because you all are excited about whatever the heck it is. It can be facial cream and you’re fired up about it it might be like a like a protein shake or ketones or whatever you’re fired up about it and you transfer your dang energy to me and get me excited about it even though I don’t really fully understand it and now i’m signed up for a monthly subscription for this stuff, again, and again. One time, I ended up with like hundred dollars with a shakeology in my kitchen, simply because I signed up for a subscription, I couldn’t figure out how to cancel a subscription and I couldn’t drink it fast enough but someone got me excited about it and they transferred that excitement that was their excitement to me, this is recruiting 101. I got to be passionate about what I do, and if I can transfer that passion to you, game over. So, how you arrive, whether you’re feeling anxious or stressed or have fear around the phone, or not how you arrive at this moment matters. I think everybody should have a process they go through before they get on the phone. What’s your process, identify it, okay? My process is I breathe out four times and in four times for five minutes, so it’s it’s in, in, in, in, through my nose and then through my mouth out, out, out, through my mouth and so for those of you that are going to try to sit down while you’re doing I don’t want anybody passing out, or doing this in the car while you’re driving but one of the things I read is that in a MIT research they found that five minutes of that actually gives you a physical oxygen high. So, I tried it one time I was like holy smokes, it really does, like my skin was tingling, like my hair felt like I was standing on in, I felt like I just had chugged like one of a 36 ounce monster or red bull, or something I was like oh my god this is awesome, that became part of my process part of my process was actually clapping my hands for a full 60 seconds, what was I doing i was increasing my endorphins. I was changing my state, I would get up and jump up and down why are you jumping up and down Milligan, that’s awfully weird, I’m changing my state, and look if if I just change my state enough look if I can get from a level four to level eight, we’re just measuring this metrically like on a random scale of one to ten, but that’s twice as much energy, what’s the likelihood that I would convince twice as many people to go to some sort of next step, highly probable, this is a subtle thing. It’s so subtle most people never even think about it, but when I attack the phone, I would literally want to be at a level 9 or level 10. I can’t always be at level 10. I didn’t get to bed last night until 2am. I was working on a project and came back into my office around 10 and stuck with it till 2. But I get myself to level nine. I might be able to get myself to a level ten embrace the weirdness around this, okay? That’s the challenge, embrace the weirdness around this, when you attack something with more energy you are more likely to break through that wall, okay?

 

Now, here’s the thing, energy typically comes from a place of overflow, okay? I want you to visualize this, like every single day you typically arrive with a measurable amount of energy is how we kind of see it. We kind of see it like a reservoir, eight hours in a day if i’m going to work if you’re a recruiter you probably don’t work eight hours a day but eight hours in a normal working day and we’ll start there and that’s the reservoir right the of energy that you have is for eight hours so the question is like if you’re gonna operate a level eight nine and ten for a lot of that, then you’ve gotta create overflow because ultimately you aren’t a reservoir of water, unless you wanna consider a reservoir that actually has a stream that’s constantly flowing away from the reservoir, you’re more like a sieve, which is that you’re constantly needing to fill yourself back up, and you can transfer energy energy, great, if you can come from a place of overflow. So, where’s the overflow going to come from i’m giving a little hack here like a five minute setup coming into your call, that’s great you’re you’re you’re now creating energy, that’s great but what I found is that this place of overflow comes from things like gratitude, like what are you thankful for today, you thought about that? I got a lot to be thankful for, I have four healthy children got a beautiful wife of 22 years, I think we have two dogs we might have a third dog, I don’t know it’s kind of crazy around my house, we have three horses I have healthy grandparents, list is long like god’s favor has been all my business I’ve got we just hired a bunch of new people here at 4C, I think we’ve got close to 20 people now as part of the team, and I mean like we just had a team meeting this week and it was amazing, it was like hanging out with like best friends like everybody’s smiling and laughing, and this is all done virtually because we’re a virtual a company but it was incredible, to get to spend the time with those people. I’m so thankful that you see what i’m doing here, I’m actually grateful that it actually helps build the overflow, okay? If I set around and say this sucks, that sucks,you suck, I hate this, I hate the phone, I don’t like recruiting, how the heck are you going to transfer energy from you to someone else, you’re just not. So, it’s going to be important for you to really think about the overflow where does the overflow come from, gratitude is definitely one of those things some of this can be hacked through the external influencers that I talked about, going for a walk around the block drinking a green tea, I don’t recommend drinking monsters, I’m not really healthy for you long term, short term maybe if you have to get by, but but really coming from place overflow. One of the places of overflow for me is every single day listening to something motivational, inspirational, reading oh my gosh like having these ah-has, like reading a book and coming up with a great idea, I just recently read a book I recommend the devart leader called managing transitions, if it tells you anything Patrick Lencioni wrote the four for that book you know anything about patrick Lencioni the book’s good because patrick wrote the forward he’s probably one of the foremost thought leaders when it comes to leadership and team structure and so great book managing transitions every company is in a transition today because of the speed that business is moving and because technology is moving so quickly as well, as part of that. So, taking in content is one of those things that actually allows me to have energy in this overflow, okay? So, identify it, break it down, what are you going to do, have a morning routine that you go through that allows you to do those things, gratitude journal pick one up, there is a gratitude journal pick it up, okay? Read books listen to motivational inspirational things every single day and you’ll come from a place of overflow which will then allow you to also transfer energy okay so these are some things that you got you really need to think about observe these things where are you at in these moments okay here’s the last thing I will leave you with you can actually cut negative thoughts off, I can’t drop the mic, but if I could i would, I wish I knew that early in my career, I wish I knew that early as a young man, that I could that I can cut negative thoughts off, okay? There’s a, there’s a verse in scripture that says capture your thoughts. Now, that’s an interesting framework capture, like capturing my thoughts. That sounds difficult to do, but one of the things that I figured out is that that framework when you think about the framework of capture, I think of a terrorist, you would capture a bad person, right? You capture a terrorist, we literally have to think like that our thoughts actually terrorize us, like in these moments it’s you know for you think about it when you have been most afraid to jump on the phone or to do whatever it was that you wanted to do next, it’s partially because you allowed that thought to go rampant, right? It just ran its course, it’s like this person hangs up the phone, they probably know this person that i know, they probably say something bad about the about me to them they probably go and look at my facebook page, and block me, it’s like we’re playing this thing out in our head,right? I can interrupt that negative thought pattern, I got to capture it like a terrorist would capture it. Now, here’s what i’ve learned this is really important I can’t say something out loud and have a negative thought at the same time, think about that, it’s like sneezing and trying to keep your eyes open, If you can do that please send me a video, i’ll make a recruiting video out of it because that’s crazy but as far as I know we can’t keep our eyes open and sneeze at the same time and if you manage that you probably like flush your brain out through your nasal capacity or something weird like that you just can’t do it. Just like, I can’t say something out loud and still have my negative thoughts. So, connect the dots here, if I say something out loud, I interrupt my negative thought pattern, okay great what would I say out loud something affirming, something positive, right? I’m going to replace the negative with something positive. How about that? Think about this just try to think and count to 10. You can’t do it. So, I want to interrupt the negative thought pattern, so here’s the challenge for you struggle with this here’s what I want you to do, I want you to write five affirmations around whatever this thing is you’re struggling with as it pertains to recruiting, write five of them okay if it’s the phone you might say something along the lines of “i’m amazing on the phone and people can’t wait to talk to me” I don’t know i haven’t thought this thing through i’m not initially giving you giving you an affirmation here but what could you say positive about yourself out loud, and i want you to say these things out loud, okay? Now, I use an app called “think app” and think up has been amazing for me think app is a affirmation app, and on the app you can actually record your voice and you can set background music, you can set reminders throughout the day to listen to your affirmations, and so I do use that app every single day, and all of my affirmations are in there. So, now I put them in there so that when I’m in an environment where I can’t necessarily just say them out loud that I can listen to them. So, I list them in the morning i listen to them in the evening and i know every single one of them by heart like one of my affirmations is this, i’m not a victim of circumstance, i’m gifted to change, create and lead things from what they are to what they can be, and i’m not reading that, why because i know it I say it every day multiple times per day, i’m not a victim of circumstance i’m gifted to change create and lead things from what they are to what they could be, guess what, within the last week I was making myself a victim of a circumstance, guess what came to mind, you’re not a victim Milligan, you’re gifted to change create and lead things from what they are to what they could be, and so, so that affirmation surface itself it gives me some overflow to to attack something head-on and I attack it. So, here’s what I want you to do I want you to write minimally five affirmations you struggle with the phone, write them around that, you’re amazing on the phone, people can’t wait to talk to you on the phone, you approach the phone with passion and energy that causes people to want to change. There you go, great write them out, now here’s what I want you to do before you attack the phone, I want you to say these things out loud like, you mean them, right? Like it’s actually true, it may not be true right now, but say it like it’s true what are we doing interrupting a negative thought pattern, if I say this thing out loud, I can’t actually think all the other rubbish that leads me to nowhere, okay? Embrace the weirdness. So, I hope this brought you some value. Success has a rhythm, I’ll leave you with this success has a rhythm, okay? The thing I’m giving you here is a rhythm to success, this isn’t about just recruiting, this is about life it really is about life I don’t know what you’re struggling with today, but I would challenge and interrupt that thought pattern, okay? Success has a rhythm to life not just a rhythm to recruiting, okay? I would encourage you to write affirmations, you’re struggling going to the gym, you’re struggling to lose weight, I don’t care what it is this is a success always has a rhythm, and so one of the things i’ve learned is that this connection of recruiting is just life in general, a lot of things we’re learning here if we’ll observe this, apply to everything, right? Think about that, like think about this like uh I for my 40th birthday, I went skydiving thank you honey for putting me in a plane 13 000 feet above the earth as a birthday present, like maybe there was a hint, she’s known i’ve wanted to do it for a long long time so my 40th, 40th birthday she got my wife my awesome wife Leah got me a skydiving package, and so i show up at the hangar, where the plane is and my instructor is and and they had actually built a model of the plane in the hangar, it wasn’t the actual plane, it was actually just it was made of hard construction, it didn’t go anywhere it was built on one of the side walls, and you could get in it and it was the exact model that you were going to jump out of what were they doing they were identifying all of the unknowns, and making them knowns, why well i’m sure that if I had gone up thirteen thousand feet went to jump out of that plane. It’s highly possible somebody might have actually had to throw me out of the plane, why because they’re just all these unknowns, is my parachute going to open, right? Am I what am I responsible for in this situation, where does my foot go when I get to the edge of the door, and in this particular plane the step was on the outside holy smokes, right? Imagine that not knowing the step that you put your first foot forward to get outside the plane on is outside the plane right what do you expect in that moment, what were they doing they were taking all of these unknowns making them knowns, why to reduce the fear to make it more enjoyable, I didn’t know that when you jumped out of a plane that you don’t feel like your stomach’s dropping out from underneath you for 13 000 feet doesn’t feel like that at all, feels like you’re floating, like on carpet, it’s just like condensation set in your face, like they’re making all these unknowns knowns, okay? So, this is just life in general, when you start to look at these things, what do you fear, name it, okay? Create a pattern to actually approach these things with energies by changing your okay? Create some habits that allow you to come from a place of overflow. So, when you get to this place where you’re tired or depleted that you still have energy to transfer to people, okay? Where you really struggle, create some affirmations, forever affirmations, like my affirmations I’ve been saying my affirmations for probably close to a decade now, okay? Create some affirmations, create a new rhythm to this, success, the things i’m giving you are all tied to success, period because success has a rhythm, okay? So, I hope I brought you some value today. Thanks for tuning in to recruiting conversations, holy smokes! I talked for over 30 minutes on this one, can you believe that, I love what I do. I’ll just leave it there. Thanks everybody, have a great week! I look forward to talking to you again here in another recruiting conversation.

Want more recruiting conversations? You can register for my weekly email at 4Crecruiting. com. If you need help creating your own unique recruiting system, you can book a time with me at BookRichardnow.com

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