Welcome to SALES with ASLAN, a weekly podcast hosted by ASLAN Co-founders Tom Stanfill and Tab Norris, geared at helping sales professionals and sales leaders eliminate the hard sell. At the end of the day, we believe that selling is serving. ASLAN helps sellers make the shift from a ‘typical’ sales approach, to one that makes us more influential because we embrace the truth that the customer’s receptivity is more important than your value prop or message.
The goal of these interviews is to spotlight various experts in the world of sales and sales leadership – sharing informational stories, techniques, and expert interviews on the sales topics you care about.
The following are notes from Ep. 142 – Achieving the Impossible
In this episode, Tom and Tab discuss our ability to accomplish truly remarkable things – not only in sales, but in any aspect of life.
We can all bring to mind an example of someone who has achieved something incredible, overcome unbeatable odds, or found success beyond what seems possible.
How do they do it? We often think that there is something unique, different, or special about these people; that they were born this way, destined for success. Most of us doubt we can achieve the same things. But that’s not true.
So, what sets these people apart? How do they accomplish such remarkable things? And how can we do the same? Join Tom and Tab as they discuss 4 keys to “achieving the impossible.”
Listen to the conversation here:
Or check out the transcript:
00:13
Tom Stanfill
Tab. It’s another episode of SALES with ASLAN and you’re here. You’re not somewhere else. You’re here. I’m here. I’m excited as always, always kind of say, when we talk about the, our topic, I always kind of set it up and say, I’m excited. I’m super excited. I’m always excited cause we wouldn’t be talking about it otherwise. I think what’s what makes me super motivated. That’s a keyword there, super, because I’m professional podcaster Tab. I use words like super and wow and incredible. Why I’m more connected to this topic than anything else? Because I’ve focused on this topic. It’s been a fascination of mine for years and got a personal connection to our guest today.
01:00
Tab Norris
I can’t wait to.
01:01
Tom Stanfill
Meet. Yeah. Had some personal connection, but the topic today is if you ever watched people accomplish remarkable things, like when I hear about Bizo and go into.
01:17
Tab Norris
Space,
01:21
Tom Stanfill
What are we going to say? Our people that build these big companies or they, they w they start a company and they, they accomplish incredible odds or they’re amazing parents, or they, they just do things or they’ve got, I looked at some lady this morning on LinkedIn, she got 700,000 followers. I’m like, I’m like, I look at these people that accomplish, these remarkable feats. I’m like, how do they do that? I think we all have a response to that situation. Most of us have the response, like, oh, I could never do that. You know?
01:55
Tab Norris
Or I could go to space. I mean, how hard is that?
02:02
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. Well, it actually, that’s who we’re talking today. We’re talking to people who probably are there more people in this category than the other, but the people who like, think about accomplishing these remarkable things, whatever that is, but it’s just, it’s beyond what you probably believe you can accomplish. It. It kind of puts you in a whole nother tier and most of us doubt it.
02:25
Tab Norris
Yeah.
02:26
Tom Stanfill
We may attribute success to, oh, well, they were just born that way. They just, they were just, they were gifted by God and it’s just, I’ll never be able to do it. I think most of us are that kind of, then there’s other people are in the category of like, oh yeah, I can do that. No problem. I’ve actually been in both categories when I was young. I’m like, no problem, man. I got this. Why don’t you just do this? It’s like, I can do that. That’s not a problem. I was wrong by the way tab. There’s other people who, and I think most people fall in this category, like, that’s for special people. I could do that. We’re going to talk about how do we accomplish remarkable things and it’s going to be a story that I think it’s a riveting story tab. It’s, it’s about how you accomplished this amazing feat just a couple of weeks ago.
03:17
Tom Stanfill
So tell us about that. She, you are our guest. Oh,
03:21
Tab Norris
I didn’t even know that. What a surprise. I love these guys.
03:23
Tom Stanfill
Wow. You did this amazing thing that I personally believe with all my heart, except after this podcast, I’ll change my belief that I couldn’t do it. Tell us about what you, what the feet that you pulled off. This remarkable achievement.
03:39
Tab Norris
Wow. That’s quite a setup with the space. It was awesome. That is on my bucket list though. But no, I did something. If people may know this term, they may not. It’s called the rim to rim. And it’s kind of a thing. It’s not a sanctioned thing, but it’s in the grand canyon and you go from one rim, the south rim all the way down to the bottom of the canyon to the top of the north rim turn around and you come all the way back to the south rim all within 24 hours.
04:15
Tom Stanfill
Okay. How that, I mean, what is that like know like a mile down, a mile across and a mile up. That’s another big deal.
04:21
Tab Norris
Total of 48 miles.
04:23
Tom Stanfill
Oh my gosh.
04:24
Tab Norris
And about 11,000 feet of elevation change. It’s about 6,000 feet dropped straight down for about seven or eight miles. You’ve run across the desert and the bottom of the canyon. You climb about 7,000 feet up this incredibly intense. Even if you’ve seen the grand canyon,
04:45
Tom Stanfill
Like seven or eight miles across. Seven down seven, let’s just say seven down, across and seven up. And then you do it again.
04:55
Tab Norris
Yeah. And then you come back. So, and it never stopped. Never stopped really. I mean, you get water, you make little water stops, but you have to keep moving. I mean, that’s the key. So, we did this for my buddy’s 50th birthday. He talked me into it. He did a marathon with me and I’m like, this is twice. This is double what I did with you. So I’m like with Charlotte’s do it. We’ll train. So anyway, so that’s what we did. It was made. I thought were pretty well-trained we’d gone up to like 32 mile 30 to 32 miles, Appalachian trail, 6,000 feet of elevation. I’m like, you know what? I’m feeling pretty good. I got it. I got this. But we get in the canyon. It’s 32, 33 degrees. When we.
05:34
Tom Stanfill
Start at what time did you start in the.
05:36
Tab Norris
Murray? In the morning, three in the morning, about 30 to three. I can’t remember. 32, 33 degrees, but cold. When we, when we’re coming back in the bottom of the canyon later that day, it’s 98 degrees. I turned to my buddy. I said, man, this just feels like this is as hot as the desert. He goes, it is the desert.
05:55
Tom Stanfill
You went from the mountain, 32 degrees, and now you’re at the bottom and it’s 98 degrees.
06:01
Tab Norris
I’m about to explode from heat and sun’s beaming down on me. Yeah, it was nuts. Just give you just a quick kind of how it went. My whole mindset is if I can just get to the north round, what I mean? Get down. We ran across the bottom, climbed up the top and if I can get to the top, I just felt like I got it. All I gotta do is get to the bottom, cruise across the bottom of the canyon meetup that we had, our spouses were meeting us like,
06:30
Tom Stanfill
Hello, Chris, get a cruise. I’m just gonna, I’m just gonna walk. I mean, it’s going to climb down a mountain. Seven, eight mile runs eight miles and then just climb another eight miles down and back up.
06:43
Tab Norris
I was delusional, Tom. I was,
06:46
Tom Stanfill
I was not, by the way, when I heard about this, I was not delusional. I be like, that’s no way I can do that.
06:50
Tab Norris
Well, I was just thinking that our spouses will be there. They’re going to come out in the last 10 miles with us. So, well, it didn’t work out that way. I get to the north side, I get about 11 miles in coming down. It’s glorious and happy and whatever. And my right knee started swelling up. I mean swelling to where I can barely move it, like move it. And I’m thinking, this is not good. By the time I got to the north side, it was really swollen and hurting. Then I get to the top. I start coming down. I get to the bottom of that. Seven to eight miles and every step for that 78 miles. It’s like sharp pain in my right knee. Hey, Hey, you know what? I’m going to die. I don’t, I was, I miscalculated, I did not run across the bottom.
07:36
Tab Norris
We walked miserably through the desert at 98 degrees. For those, it was awful. It was just one foot in front of the other. I get to my wife. She looks at me, she’s all excited. She thinking, oh God, this is going to be great. She sees me. Instantly goes, oh no, he is not in good. She’s not in a good year. Right.
07:54
Tom Stanfill
The trouble. And you’ve been dragging your leg. When you say walk, you like you throw a step and then you throw your, I mean, for eight for.
08:03
Tab Norris
Client climbing part.
08:05
Tom Stanfill
Okay. For the climbing, you’re throwing your leg for eight miles up and then you’re eight miles down. You’re coming across the camp. You’re just limping across. I mean, this is a law in 98 degrees.
08:16
Tab Norris
Limping.
08:17
Tom Stanfill
You show up and you see your wife and you’ve got how far to go,
08:21
Tab Norris
10 miles to go. Now it’s straight up 6,000 feet. It’s getting ready to be dark. And, and somebody looked, they’re like, I’m looking bad. My nutrition’s all sideways. I haven’t been eating enough. I’m thinking I can’t. I feel like I’m gonna throw up, but I won’t, I don’t want to eat. They’re trying to make me eat. I’m done. They’re just like, well, I’m like, I don’t get, and I just turned to my wife and said, I don’t know if I can make it. She’s like, wait, you don’t have a choice. We’re in the canyon. There’s, there’s no rescue vehicles were it. We’re going to take just one step at a time. We’re going to get out of this canyon together. And, and seven hours later at one 30 in the morning, we got out of that canyon. And it was really, really hard.
09:10
Tom Stanfill
Now. W was it there a point in time when you were maybe halfway up, remember maybe even a little further up the south side you’re almost home and you said I can’t go any further.
09:25
Tab Norris
Yeah. Yeah. I was feeling desperate about that whole time, especially the last five miles, but we got about three miles. I was feeling like there’s just no way. I’m starting to stop more and all this thing, but I’m one mile away now. And I’ll, I’m one mile out. One of the guys who’s done this thing a few times, Paul, he looks up this white way up high, says, dad, I want to encourage you. That’s the finish. I’m like, that’s like the mood. Like that was the most discouraging thing I’d ever seen. That’s like for ever. So I just, and I’m one mile. I said, guys, I’m out. I’m just going to lie down on this rock. I have to lie down. I have to get a nap. I cannot move anymore. I got blisters all over my heels there. I think they’re probably bleeding out on the, I don’t know.
10:16
Tab Norris
He just said, we you’re not stopping. You’ll never move again. You’re Neal just, you’re not stopping. So we just, they helped me. We just one step at a time we got out of that thing.
10:31
Tom Stanfill
And you got you a car. So is there anything you’ve done? That’s more difficult. This is the most difficult thing you’ve ever seen.
10:37
Tab Norris
Yeah. Yeah. By far by far, one of the guys said he’s an ultra marathoner. He does these hundred mile deals. He said, I always say, he’s done this four times. He said, this is a 50 mile event that runs like a hundred mile event. So because there’s no, there’s no stations. There’s no aid stations. There’s no, there’s a tense altitude. Jay, do you know what I mean? It’s just a different, and you’re in the, you’re crossing streams and you’ve got extreme weather and you’re in the desert and then you’re cold. And it’s just a weird dynamic. It’s just, that’s why it’s so cool. It’s just, you’re enduring a lot of elements that are outside of your control, which is pretty cool.
11:17
Tom Stanfill
Well, and you’ve got thin air. I mean the altitude at the height of the canyon. I mean, you’re climbing up, you have less oxygen. You’re going straight up. There’s also, if I remember you showed me pictures that there’s places that you’re when you said you’re bonking, which I think that means is you basically just hit a wall and your body’s just shutting down and you can’t really function correctly. And you’re limping along. You’re dragging your knee and there’s a cliff right there. If you move the wrong way you die, you said, you told me that you, that you talk to some, I guess, ranger that worked at the park and they said, there’s X number of people that die every year because they fall.
11:53
Tab Norris
Yeah. Well, they’re taking, that’s where they’re taking pictures. Then they back up off the leg. I mean, it’s just obviously lots of intense drop-offs.
12:03
Tom Stanfill
They don’t have like little steps.
12:05
Tab Norris
No netting there for people that fall. No.
12:10
Tom Stanfill
I love so, so really what you’re sharing is you did some things that in the middle of it that you thought, I can’t finish my knees. Your knee went out immediately almost, I guess the first half. So you’re thinking, okay. I mean, I, I mean, I could easily see how you’re like, I can’t finish another 20 something miles. I’ve got to go back across the desert backup the backup 6,000 feet, eight miles. I mean, I just can’t. I mean, like we talk about these numbers, it’s like, oh, well just walk eight miles up a cliff. I’m like, no, I.
12:45
Tab Norris
Mean,
12:46
Tom Stanfill
We’ve already been up for 20 hours. I mean, body shutting down, you haven’t eaten.
12:52
Tab Norris
Yeah. You just can’t think about it. You have it, you have a goal. You never lose sight of your goal. You’re not, it’s like, I’m not finishing. It’s like, I will they’ll have to fly me out of here, unconscious dying with a homie. I’m not going to stop. It’s just, it didn’t happen.
13:07
Tom Stanfill
Well, I think that’s one of the things that as I was kind of talking to you about, and I know you took notes, as you thought about what did you learn from this experience? So tar walk us through that. I mean, I would imagine one of them is you just that what you just said is, and I think of it as, cause I read the book by Navy seal and that was part of their training when they go to, I forgot what the camp is and buds in, I guess it’s Cornado and they basically have a bell and they, they, they just keep saying, you can quit anytime you want. They just put them through agony. They’re like, and they’re looking for people who will come and ring that bill and say, I’m done. The people that make it make a decision, no matter what you do to my body, I’m not going to ring that bell.
13:54
Tom Stanfill
They basically were just looking for people who just won’t ring the bell and you weren’t going to ring the bell.
13:59
Tab Norris
No way. What made it hard is there was a hell of pad in the bottom of that canyon, which I did not know existed. There was a rescue helicopter on that pad doing things. There wasn’t, I mean, there was nine of us out now I don’t want, it may have been $5,000 to kind of rent the helicopter, but I don’t know. But, but it was , if it really got bad, but you just can’t go there. You can’t go there.
14:25
Tom Stanfill
I mean, what I’ve thought about when I heard this story, you shared this with me a couple of weeks ago, is that the Mo the body is stronger than the mind.
14:34
Tab Norris
Oh yeah. We can do a lot more than we think we can do.
14:37
Tom Stanfill
The body. The body will beat the mind quits before the body, the mind will say, you can’t get up at five in the morning. You can’t, you can’t write that. Or you can’t accomplish that, or you can’t do that. You’re like, Nope, your mind, like you need to stop.
14:51
Tab Norris
Yeah. If you told me 10 miles to go, that I could actually go 6,000 feet up, straight up a mountain with my condition. No, my body said you are crazy to have, this is not happening.
15:04
Tom Stanfill
And was it just your knees? You also were dehydrated because you quit.
15:09
Tab Norris
The hydrated.
15:10
Tom Stanfill
Hydrated.
15:11
Tab Norris
It was a nutritional problem. I actually was so focused on hydration that I didn’t focus on nutrition. So.
15:18
Tom Stanfill
Quit eating enough. You didn’t want to eat anymore. Right?
15:23
Tab Norris
The plan was the, once the plane was eat once an hour, eat like a hundred to 150 calories every hour. I had own plan and did all that stuff. Well then the guy and the guy that was kind of the lead guy, the guy has done this a few times. He about halfway through, he said, guys, I’m bumping. Well, this was more than half like three fours. He said, I’m bumping everything up to every 45 minutes on my food that went in one ear and out the other, what an idiot. I mean, I’m sitting here, I got this wise dude, that’s done this four times. He makes that comment to all of us. I just thought, well, I d my system. I’ve done this. Never. I don’t, I’ve never gone more than 26 miles in my life, ? Anyway, that’s, that was the problem, Tom.
16:06
Tom Stanfill
Okay. That’s one of your, so that’s one of your takeaways, right? Yeah,
16:09
Tab Norris
I really did. Yeah. I wrote down, I put, I wrote a lot of notes because I’m like, there’s a lot to take away from this experience and I’ve kind of called it into four big takeaways that I think can transfer to anything you’re trying to accomplish. You know? Cause things are hard, whether it’s sales, whether it’s leadership, whether it’s being a parent, I, whatever, we do hard things and, and the first one is preparation. Okay. Tons of preparation to pull this off food, lifestyle, support, crew, water stations, hydrovac poles dealing with temperature change. You need to think, you have to prepare the spickets, where are we going to find water? I mean, there’s not water all over the place. There’s every, sometimes it’s five miles. Sometimes. Sometimes it could be 10 miles. So it’s the little things matter. You don’t have enough water for a stretch, you get dehydrated and you’re done.
17:08
Tab Norris
You know what I mean? It’s like preparation,
17:11
Tom Stanfill
All the preparation that you did to train.
17:13
Tab Norris
Oh yeah. Trimming my every week we’re doing, doing, miles and miles of training all over the place, we’re, we’re doing step, we’re doing, a thousand step ups every week or whatever. We’re trying to get our legs in shape. Yeah, I mean, but preparation, this was the perfect example of if you didn’t prep, no chance.
17:36
Tom Stanfill
I think that’s so relevant to sales and to anything, that’s the least glamorous thing we do, it’s, it’s the pregame it’s like, what do you do? I see all the time when I’ve worked with our own team or I work with other people in other organizations, they minimized how important it is to prep. Like if you’re one of my rules is if you’re making a, a presentation and let’s just say, it’s a 60 minute presentation. Yeah. You need 10 X, the prep.
18:13
Tab Norris
Yep.
18:14
Tom Stanfill
Totally 60 minutes, you need 600 minutes of prep. So, and I’m not gonna do the math on how many hours that is, but it’s like, and, and that’s one of the things that even if I’ve been selling the same solution for, 27 years now, I still put in that prep. There’s just, like the time it takes for me, for me specifically, like the, the hardest part is when I think about the key elements of anything that I’m going to share with a prospect or customer, especially in a presentation. I want to begin the sentence with, because you,
18:47
Tab Norris
Yeah. A great example,
18:49
Tom Stanfill
Like, because you, and then I wanted to set up every key point every, I mean, the things that really are matter, I want to begin the sentence with, because you, because that draws them in. That’s what, I don’t know. That’s what, it’s always weird. You know, I’m working with a company. I don’t understand their technology. I don’t really understand the organization that, well, I kind of get it. I was, and I’m fuzzy on how it really works. It’s so easy for me to just talk about my stuff. This is what we do, and this is how it works. I hope you make the connection, but I can. And I stick to my script. I can, I don’t have to prep it all. When I move over to go in your world, you guys are doing this. And therefore, this is how that connects. And that’s my prep.
19:26
Tom Stanfill
I have to prep and I don’t want to prep.
19:28
Tab Norris
No, no, it’s not glamorous. It’s not fun. But, but man, if you don’t and what it does too, I think it can cover a multitude of sins, meaning it can, if you’re not the most talented person, I I’ve never been the most talented person. I don’t have the most strength, I I’m not, but I think prep can put you in a different category that you, oh, you’re, I’m never going to be prepped. You know, you may better than me. You better be faster than me. All of a sudden, but I’m, I may go down, but I’m going to go down prepared. That’s what I don’t, that’s what angers me. Just like everybody, there were building times I haven’t prepped. That angers me because that was up to me. That was on me.
20:13
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. Yeah. You can. Yeah.
20:15
Tab Norris
I can control that.
20:16
Tom Stanfill
I’ll prep the competition or just do the work. What is it going to be required to be successful at whatever you’re going to do and do that, figure out the plan, don’t wing it. It is like you said, the little things, like, like little things that I love to do. Like if I’m going to present anything, whether it’s document or anything, custom, I changed the colors to match the logo.
20:41
Tab Norris
So.
20:41
Tom Stanfill
Like little things like that, or I’m gonna like names, like the spelling and the pronunciation of their names. Like, how do you do how to say it? Like you write an email, you check it because a lot of people spell their name and I can easily screw that up. Like, or the pronunciation of their products, like we work with pharma companies. And how do you say their drugs? And how do I communicate? I understand come up with those, all of that stuff creates a contrast between you and the person who’s like, yeah, whatever. Right, right. You know,
21:14
Tab Norris
The great takeaway. Anything you’re going to do that is hard or tough. I mean just preparation.
21:21
Tom Stanfill
All right. Number two. What’s your, what’s your number.
21:22
Tab Norris
Two wise counsel.
21:25
Tom Stanfill
Oh, I hate wise.
21:26
Tab Norris
I know this is an I’ve already given you a little foreshadowing to my lack of that, but I will just tell you, we wouldn’t have made it out of the canyon without Paul. Paul’s an amazing guy. He’s done four of these. He’s an ultra marathoner. If he had told us about water stations like that whole thing, nutrition. I mean, even though I didn’t listen to him, if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have known to do that even to eat every hour. So, it’s one, it’s one of those things where there’s wise counsel all around us, open eyes. We need to open our eyes. You take a talk about a great application to sales. I mean,
22:06
Tom Stanfill
This is my biggest mistake that I’ve made in my career tab is not get a mentor earlier. You know, I, there’s a beautiful truth. I, I can’t remember if I made this up or, but I think it’s true. I think somebody said this somewhere, is it there’s somebody who knows how to get what you want? Like whatever you want. There’s somebody that knows how to get it. All you have to do is find the person who knows how to get it, whatever you want. Like, if I want to double the size of Azlan, if I want to, do a better job recruiting. If I want to do a better job marketing, if I want to be a better spouse, if I want to be a better parent, if I want to be a better friend, if I want to better at whatever, somebody knows how to do that, all I have to do is find that person and ask the question.
23:04
Tom Stanfill
How do you do that?
23:06
Tab Norris
Can you give me insight?
23:09
Tom Stanfill
All I have to do is go, I will you help me? You know? That’s what you did that, but you also didn’t do that.
23:16
Tab Norris
I know I had the guy and he was offering me this, but in my arrogance, I guess I didn’t listen. I didn’t heed what he told me to do. And, and by the way, I’ve done that in my career too. I had an amazing mentor and Bobby Reagan, I think I’ve told you that he, I wanted to get into sales and I have a career in that world. To your point, he grabbed me, had me tested, got me connected. You know, I mean, that was there. I’ve had other opportunities to do that my career. And I haven’t done that thing. So.
23:49
Tom Stanfill
I love what you shared about him saying you Paul saying, we need to up our calorie intake from an hour to 45 minutes, because that reminded me of, of how we respond to advice. Yeah. Cause I think we, I think most of us respond to advice. Like, okay, if you tell me something, I agree with, I’ll do it.
24:14
Tab Norris
Like,
24:18
Tom Stanfill
Hey, Hey, you going to tell me something different than what I think. Well, I’m not gonna do that.
24:25
Tab Norris
I don’t think.
24:25
Tom Stanfill
I.
24:25
Tab Norris
Need to.
24:27
Tom Stanfill
45 minutes. Hey, I don’t think I need to do that thing. Cause I don’t think, well then what’s the point. I mean, we need to, that’s what we need to dive in. Right? You’re just telling me something different than what I would normally do. That’s when we go light should flash and go. That’s the thing we’re missing, you know?
24:40
Tab Norris
Yeah. Dan’s not, this is not a normal thing. People aren’t going to 48 miles in this tensity all the time. Just because you’re not hungry, doesn’t mean anything.
24:51
Tom Stanfill
So don’t trust your instinct. Don’t.
24:52
Tab Norris
Trust your instincts. Find somebody have wise counsel. They’re all around us. So that’s two.
25:00
Tom Stanfill
Oh, so thank you. Maybe at one point, at other point, I want to make foot, Paul had already done this.
25:04
Tab Norris
Four times,
25:05
Tom Stanfill
Right? Four times we need to fight. When we find a mentor, the qualification is they’ve already done this,
25:12
Tab Norris
That’s it. And here’s another little qualification. The first time he did it, they failed, which I love. That’s a good thing. A mentor like meaning he knew what w w they all went wrong. He did, he didn’t fail. The group he took, they got to the north side and all of them said, we’re tired. We’re done. We’re done. Which is great, because he kinda knew because of that failure, he kinda knew he could give us even more great insights. So.
25:42
Tom Stanfill
I think, beyond a mentor to, I think there’s another point that we should make about, getting outside information to help us learn is I think a lot of people are very, are too specific. Like they get the idea of like, they need a mentor and they’re gonna talk to somebody, a trusted advisor who they, but I also think it’s important to learn from everybody.
26:09
Tab Norris
Well,
26:11
Tom Stanfill
We come, we come, we, we enter, we have people telling us things all the time. I think a lot of times we dismiss the information because of who’s delivering it. Right. Like I was working out a couple of years ago. I was speaking at the hard rock hotel for a client. I’m working out like just I’m working out it’s me and another guy I’m just working out. I’m just by myself. And there’s one other guy there. He walks over to me, never met this guy. He goes, you’re doing it wrong.
26:45
Tab Norris
Like your bench press or something. Yeah.
26:47
Tom Stanfill
I was working on the machine because you’re doing it wrong. He was basically telling me I should do the exercise differently. What, my first response to this guy was like, well, who are you? What are you? I don’t know you. Why do I think I don’t, like, but my, the right response was, is he right?
27:06
Tab Norris
Ooh, tell me what you’re seeing.
27:07
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. Y Y it doesn’t matter who you are. I mean, I think a lot of us, won’t only learn from certain people. And I think it’s really important. I mean, I like it. Atlin try to learn from everybody. I don’t care if you’re like one of our junior facilitators said something to me about the content the other day. I’m like, my initial response could be, well, who are you versus maybe he’s right. And listen, and learn from everybody. I think that’s really critical.
27:32
Tab Norris
Yeah. I totally agree. Preparation wise, counseling from everyone, whether it’s a mentor, reading other people, whatever, three big one, number three times,
27:44
Tom Stanfill
Number three, baby.
27:46
Tab Norris
Keep moving one step at a time.
27:50
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. That’s overlooked.
27:52
Tab Norris
In it. I mean, just keep moving one step at a time. I mean, I think we live in a world that everything’s fast, get it done now. It’s like, I know I’ve talked about atomic habits, great book. I’m reading it. Start big focus, small, what I mean? Like, kinda like you, we add four yeah. 48 miles, but then you just break it down. By the way, that is part of how I made it. I lived in chunks. I’m going to get to the bottom. That’s a victory. I’m only all I’m focused on is getting down to the river. I’m just, I got to run across to the north base and I’m gonna, and I will tell you that was really critical. I was thinking of all the little things in that when I got behind on my nutrition and the whole world fell apart. But, but the first three fourths of this thing, it really worked well.
28:43
Tom Stanfill
Well, and you still, as you are at the end of it, you’d just kept breaking it down and be like, I got to get to that rock. I got to get the,
28:50
Tab Norris
Yeah, it got, it started shrinking way down. It got down to literally one step.
28:56
Tom Stanfill
Time. You just gotta take one. I gotta drag this knee one step one.
28:59
Tab Norris
Step at a time. It was just, just, I mean, you couldn’t even, it was overwhelmed, like, when I got, when he pointed ahead a mile up the mountain.
29:11
Tom Stanfill
It.
29:11
Tab Norris
Was too big, it would overwhelm, it made me want to throw up and quit.
29:15
Tom Stanfill
I just said that rock at the talk.
29:18
Tab Norris
Yeah. Let’s just, and it was like each switchback. I just lived for a switchback. All I’ve got to do is get the top of that, the eight steps.
29:26
Tom Stanfill
It kind of goes back to the philosophy of just when the day, just one day at a time, like I do it today. Can you do, can you get a next, can you go another 20 feet? Can you, I remember hearing a story about a guy that was mountain climbing, and I don’t remember the, but you just reminded me of it. He fell and broke his leg and he find himself and he’s miles from safety. He’s just like, I’m either going to get out of here, I’m going to die. He would pick a rock and literally crawl to that rock and he would pick another rock. And he called that Mach. And he got down that mountain,
29:58
Tab Norris
One rock at a time,
29:59
Tom Stanfill
Literally one little goal at a time. He’s, I think he’s a public speaker and talks about it, but it’s so true. It’s reminds me of our early days at Asalyn when we both left jobs and, were starting at, and were in your basement and we had no windows. And it was like.
30:17
Tab Norris
A little depressing.
30:19
Tom Stanfill
I mean, like, I mean, like.
30:21
Tab Norris
Occasional nap on that couch when I got too depressed.
30:26
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. We had no clients. We were like, can we really do this? And doubt was strong. I remember we broke down our, our really goals on a daily basis. We just made goals that we’re going to call this many people today. We had a little tick sheet and we would mark through those. I learned to define success by the end of the day, if I had these, if I called this many people and I talked to this, that was how I defined success. And I could get through that day. And that was my goal. And we needed the same thing.
31:00
Tab Norris
It would be like, okay, I made 50 40 calls today. I got hung up on most people, nobody did anything. It was all bad, but guess what? I just made $4,000, whatever, whatever the number was. It was just like, okay, I did it. We’ll just keep showing up, climb that rock today, climate tomorrow. And, and what it did work. We eventually did get out of that basement, which was the Vincent got out of the grand canyon.
31:27
Tom Stanfill
I think it’s really important that, what we talked about earlier, as in what you’re teaching me is the body is stronger than the mind. I think that’s so important because the body’s going to say, you can’t do this, but if body’s like, if you just keep the body or like, if you’ll keep going,
31:44
Tab Norris
Well, remember the cold call. I remember my early Motorola days, I had to get in my car. I’m 22 years old. I look like I’m 12. I’ve got to walk into this big intimidating building to try to sell them two way radios. My body, my mind is telling me, can my body do that? Of course it can do that. My mind is going to get there. They’re going to throw, they may actually punch you and throw you out of a window. You know, whatever works. Just keep moving.
32:08
Tom Stanfill
I love it. You had one more,
32:11
Tab Norris
One more. We got preparation wise, counsel, keep moving one step at a time. Lastly, and not leastly is completely not leastly community. You know? I mean, you can’t do it alone. You need people to encourage you when you’re struggling, when it’s not going, like you planned, there’s going to be adversity. It just it’s. Can you, I just go. If I had been in that canyon by myself, I would’ve probably died.
32:45
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. That was part of your preparation is finding your community.
32:48
Tab Norris
That is true. Like the Impala even said this, we told them that our spouses were willing to come down and meet us. It’s just 20 miles for our spouses who were not, none of, only one of them really was a runner. He said, Mike, he goes, that’s brilliant. I’ve never had that. That is an amazing, he goes that’s a game changer. And he was exactly right. He was exactly right.
33:15
Tom Stanfill
Community, I’ve thought of this little formula when I was, were prepping for this and you shared that. I thought one times zero equals zero.
33:24
Tab Norris
Ooh, that’s good.
33:25
Tom Stanfill
It’s like, well, you by yourself.
33:29
Tab Norris
Yeah.
33:29
Tom Stanfill
You CA you don’t have anybody in your corner. You know? I, I experienced that with writing the book. I mean, that was my rim to rim, to rim. It took two years to get it done. I had to break it down. All the things you’re talking about. I didn’t believe for a long time I could do it. I mean, I had a lot of doubts, but I just kept, I kept the body going. I kept writing. I kept doing the little things, right. Two bad pages a day. I mean, it was just like, you break it down. And then if I.
33:57
Tab Norris
Write this paragraph, that’s.
33:59
Tom Stanfill
Really good. It was like, it just seemed overwhelming, but you break it down. I was able to do it, but I had a community and, and one of the things that I did, and I think you did the same thing here, which is another key point is you got to get yourself trapped.
34:14
Tab Norris
Oh yeah.
34:15
Tom Stanfill
Like you were, you had that you were either gonna be stay there at the bottom of the can or you had to walk up. I mean, there was no way out.
34:22
Tab Norris
No one was carrying me.
34:24
Tom Stanfill
Well, in what you did is when you left the north rim and you came back down, now you’re trapped.
34:29
Tab Norris
Area.
34:29
Tom Stanfill
You knew if I go down that mountain, I’m trapped. And I think that’s key. It’s like, I think part of getting trapped that forces us to stick with our plan is to go public, which is kind of connected, like have a community, tell people what you’re doing, invest in something that makes you finish, something like I hired somebody to help me, or I would tell people. If I tell people I gotta do it, ? I did these little things that I would go on a trip to meet with somebody. Then that would be a writing trip. And I’m like, I’m here. Now I have to do it. I would just constantly put myself in a situation where I’m in the middle of the canyon and there was no way out, but up. And so I think that’s a,
35:09
Tab Norris
It’s really good. Well, I mean, same thing with sales, like I, I’m amazed how often, if I go, I’m going to sell 2 million this year, I’ll sell 2 million. If I said I was going to sell 1.5, I’d sell 1.5. I mean, you know what I mean? It, it really, there is something about that. It’s like, kind of all in.
35:25
Tom Stanfill
Going public, going.
35:26
Tab Norris
Public.
35:27
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. Say this is what I’m putting this out there. They were a little nervous about putting it out. We’re going to space the people that in the news, they go public way before they fall. Like we’re going to space or we’re going to, like Branson’s famous for doing it, ? If it fails if it’s like, but it propels us. So I love that.
35:54
Tab Norris
Yeah. Yeah. So it was really good stuff. I, I do have to say this because this is really important on the community thing. Because if my wife ever hears this, I want her to hear me say this because she was one of my, part of my community. She and Caroline, her best friend, one of her best friends. They got me out of that canyon. I had my wife behind me and Caroline in front of me. They were literally, she, me and Caroline, I was at my lowest point. And she knows, I love ACDC. So she starts cranking back in black. So she’s got music going for me. My wife’s going, they’re going stay left. We don’t want you to fall down the mountain then. Caroline’s turning back to me going your knee is strong and your mind is stronger. And she kept saying that to me.
36:46
Tab Norris
And, we need people in our lives that they can say that to us. I, I don’t, I think that’s really important that we do need that community. That’s gonna encourage us that we have people that’ll support us when it’s tough. And when it’s,
37:03
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, maybe it doesn’t agree with our negative messages or negative perceptions.
37:08
Tab Norris
Oh.
37:10
Tom Stanfill
People that pull us up, like, I’ve seen just the way that I think, like, went away with a good friend of ours. Who’s accomplished a lot in business and just hanging around him. We all of a sudden, we think differently. We believe things separately. We’re like, oh, we could do that too. He, he, he’s done things that we haven’t done. We’re like, okay, that makes it possible. We build our community, build it around people who’ve accomplished what we want to accomplish or act the way that we want to act or be the person we want to be rather than people are like, well, cause I think a lot of us can be intimidated by people who’ve accomplished more than us. We can say, well, I don’t want to be with those people because I feel less than no it’s people that encourage us to be more.
37:51
Tom Stanfill
We only need to measure ourselves against our goals. We don’t need to measure ourselves against other people’s goals. We just say, what is it that I want, what am I called to do? What am I called to be? I will be able to, I believe we will. We will have the, if we do with the things you talked about, we can accomplish the things that we’re called to do, and we don’t need to compare ourselves.
38:09
Tab Norris
Yeah. That’s a really good point. You think about the people I did this with, there were six of us. I was by far the oldest and they were much stronger than me, most all of them. But great point if I be with people that are better than you, they make you better. I mean, they, you it’s just, and like who we choose to have in our community is going to have a huge impact. That’s a great message for anybody, listen to this podcast, especially if you’re newer in your career, just fight to be around people that make you better. That just make you better. And, and that’s our choice. The mentor thing, find a great community, find a mentor. These are things that I would put high on my priority list.
38:55
Tom Stanfill
Beautiful. Oh, tab. I was incredibly impressed. Motivated, inspired by what you’ve accomplished. Not only with this, I mean, just the marathons that you brought. I’m like, it just, I can’t imagine accomplishing something so difficult. So,
39:11
Tab Norris
Well, I may be, I may have, I think I’ve retired. That was my retirement party from the grand canyon, a difference. I’ll always have a limp, but other than that, it’s great.
39:24
Tom Stanfill
Great message. Great. True. Thanks, my friend. We’ll hope everyone enjoyed this episode. If you did give us some comments, give us feedback and tell us how we can serve you better tap. Thanks for joining me and look forward to the next episode of SALES with ASLAN.
