The Inevitability of Life’s Roadblocks and How to Overcome Them

Phil Calandra Snippet (00:00):

To clear out the head trash, get very focused, get very clear on my mindset, and then develop a little bit of a callus or that resiliency that you can build over time, so that when the roadblock presents itself, you’re very clear, positive attitude positive mindset and truly have the belief that anything is possible.

Rob Brown Snippet (00:27):

Sometimes the roadblock is because we don’t have the right skills, we need to develop a skill that allows us to work through that robot is overcoming roadblocks. As I said, it’s a choice. But the way that you actually put that choice into play can be very different.

Rob Brown Intro (00:55):

Welcome to The Truest Fan Blueprint, a podcast for financial advisors, and other professionals looking to get the most out of yourself and your business. I’m Rob Brown, and my partner, Phil Calandra. And I promise to walk you through a journey that will allow you to take action in your business and your life, so that you can be the best that you can possibly be. Thanks for listening. 

The difference between a stumbling block and a stepping stone is how high you raise your foot. I’m Rob Brown, and I’m here with my partner, Phil Calandra. And welcome to the latest episode of the truest fan blueprints. 

We’re glad to have you on board. So in thinking about this quote, Phil, what really jumps out, in my mind is one of the steps in our blueprint process, which is how do you deal with roadblocks? How do you deal with stumbling blocks? Do you, you know, allow yourself just run straight into him? And like a head on collision? You know? Or do you let yourself get tripped up a little bit? Or are you willing to kind of raise your foot and step through.

I think is a really important thing to think about as you’re trying to be a better version of you, as you’re trying to lead your business. If you’re trying to be a better person in your community or your family. You’re gonna run into roadblocks and you have to be willing to say, answer the question, How am I going to handle this can be your quick thoughts as we dive in?

Phil Calandra (02:38):

Yeah, good to be with you. Again, Rob. I love that, quote, all I can think of is trying to run maybe like trail running, and you don’t lift your foot up quite high enough, and every rock or every route ends up tripping you. So that’s a great, great quote.

And, you know, the reality is we’re all going to have roadblocks in life. That’s why it’s called life, you’re going to have the roadblocks. And then you individually, you’re going to have to have the systems, the techniques, the tricks, the hacks, to bulldoze those roadblocks, or remove them, and then also have the maturity and remove the ego and realize that some roadblocks, you’re not going to be able to remove Yeah. And you have to be able to deal with that, too.

Rob Brown (03:26):

I think for a long part of my life, I have been I’ve lived kind of the bull in the china shop mentality. I just didn’t care what the roadblock or the obstacle was, I was just gonna go charging into the china shop and I didn’t care what I knocked over. 

But I think as I’ve matured and lived longer and have maybe a little bit more wisdom, I’ve learned that, you know, when you see that roadblock, you don’t always have to charge added or charged through sometimes you can kind of step back and think about it.

Phil Calandra (03:57):

Right. Yeah, I totally agree with that. And you mentioned a great point. And that’s that, you know, as we go through this journey of life, we build this experiential learning, right? That’s the old saying also is, you know, experiences the best teacher, it’s just so damn expensive. 

And isn’t that the truth because sometimes it takes us more than once to learn the lesson. So I think in in thinking about roadblocks and today’s you know, kind of message is, everybody’s gonna have a different way to process them or get over them or bulldoze through them. And I know for me in my journey as a father and in relationships, in my business, I always kind of relied on the positive mindset, you know, clear out the head trash, get very focused, get very clear on my mindset, and then develop a little bit of a callus or that resiliency that you can build over time. 

And so that when the roadblock presents itself, you’re very clear, you know, positive attitude positive mindset and truly have the belief that anything is possible, you can overcome it, you get knocked down four times you get up five, that type of mindset has to be developed. And I think the younger you develop that, and as a business leader, as a parent, in your relationships, the quicker you figure that one out, I think the easier it is to remove a lot of these roadblocks.

Rob Brown (05:29):

Yeah, in Sometimes though, you can’t remove the roadblock. It’s an external roadblock that you have no control over, you know, we work with a lot of financial advisors. And sometimes, when the markets go crazy, and they go into bear market territory, that has a big impact on their business, it’s a roadblock that they can’t control, they can find a way to adapt to it or to work through it. 

And I think your example of having a positive mindset is the most important thing, don’t let the drop in the market be the drop in your positivity, your mindset, your resilience, your decision to bounce back and deal with that thing that you’ve been given that you can’t really control.

Phil Calandra (06:16):

Yeah, it reminds me of a great sketch drawing by the New York Times, cartoonist Carl Richards. And it’s basically two circles that intersect. One is things you can control. The other is things that matter. And the intersection of those two, if you can visualize it listening to us, those are the things you focus on. 

So things that matter and things you can control, you focus on outside of those two circles, you’re just beating your head against the wall, right? Because to your point you, you can’t control it. And in our world, in the financial capital markets, we can’t control the markets, what can we control, we can control a client’s behavior. And we can control the financial plan that we’ve built for them to get them from point A to point B and their desired financial outcomes. So I agree with that. 100%.

Rob Brown (07:09):

Yeah, you know, the other thing that I’m reminded of, you know, in our process with the blueprint, one of the things that we help our clients walk away with is what we call the truest fan action plan. 

And the truth fan action plan is, what you’re committing to do, and what are your top priorities for the next 90 days and next, like a sprint period of time that you’re really dead set focused on and, you know, sometimes when we work with folks and put those action plans together, you begin to think, well, you know, I’m impenetrable. Now, because I’ve got this plan, I know exactly what I’m going to do. 

But just because you have a plan and know exactly what you’re going to do, doesn’t mean you won’t run into roadblocks. But because you have the plan, when that roadblock does occur, you can go back to what you said you were going to do. And so that’s a way not just with a positive mindset, but also analytically be able to say, Okay, how do I adjust to this? 

Or do I need to adjust to this? Or is this Robach something that I need to deal with, but I don’t need to deal with it right now. And the things that are most important to me, I can put it in my notes put into my journal, so that when I’m doing my future planning for my next 90 day sprints, I am going to deal with that robot because I’ll have more time and more energy to be able to do it. 

So it’s, it’s really again, it’s a choice. It’s, you know, what we do with a road block isn’t just something that we should act reflexively to or ignore. We have to say, if it’s a real robot with something that really can get away, that’s what what what are we going to do about it? Even if we can’t change it? Yeah. And

Phil Calandra (08:48):

that’s right, you’ve got to make the conscious choice of the right direction that’s going to be for you. The other thing that comes to mind and, and always work really well for me, and I know it does for others is if you’re going to cultivate and build this positive mindset, then you’ve got to be tied to and focusing on things that do just that. 

For me. It was reading, I have found great resource and make a commitment, a conscious commitment to to attempt to read 10 to 15 pages every day. It could be something as time tested as Norman Vincent Peale, who I know you thoroughly have studied it could be Dale Carnegie, it could be some of the new thinking Tony Robbins, Ed my lead. 

But doing that builds this positive mindset, it builds the reservoir or the arrows in the quiver for you for me to actually pull back on those that comes from in my case, it comes from reading and studying success literature. Maybe it’s business related as financial advisors. Maybe it’s the truest fan of the book that you gave me. 

Gosh, what is that been four years ago. Now? have the original copy of truest fan and I go back to that regularly, among others because it’s something you can pull off. And that’s a choice. But it gives you that that ammunition, that arrow in the quiver, so to speak to, for you to be able to deal with the roadblocks. 

And I have one other thing. And in thinking about in my business and the way that I work with my clients, I call those roadblocks, obstacles and threats. Obstacles are things that we can consciously tackle and remove threats are usually external. 

It’s the market, it’s the economy, it’s politics, it’s a pandemic, it’s a terror attack that affects the capital markets. But it may be another way to think of roadblocks. I think of them in my, what we call signature solution, those financial advisors that are listening to us right now, know we, how we think and how we communicate our signature value. 

If you’re not in that financial advisor camp, it may be a new term, but signature solution is something that we we cling to as a differentiator in our businesses. And so I would call those obstacles and threats, right, throw that in there.

Rob Brown (11:09):

So well, that’s I think that’s a great point, actually, you made two great points. One, we talked about the obstacles and threats as being part of your signature solution. And your practice as an advisor, you’re calling out in those steps that you walk your clients through to get from where they are, when they meet you to where they are, after they’ve met you in their working with your calling out that there are going to be obstacles and threats, not just the ones they may face, because they’re working with you. 

And they’re looking for, you know, a short term solution to get them on track, but also on over the long term is they continue to work with you. So I think that’s a great point to make. But the second thing that you said that I think is really important when you talked about that reading that you do, because one of the good ways to deal with a roadblock is through learning because sometimes the roadblock is because we don’t have the right skills, we need to develop a skill that allows us to work through that roadblock. 

So when you take those, you know that time to do the reading, you can focus it towards topics that help you develop whatever that skill is to gain the learning to be able to overcome the Robox because, you know, overcoming roadblocks is I said, it’s a choice. But the way that you actually put that choice into play can be can be very different. 

You know, as I was talking about that, I was actually thinking of a recent conversation that I have had with a client, who’s two years into a five year succession plan, he’s going to be buying the business of another advisor, or actually finish it off in five years, he’s already started the acquisition two years ago with the initial signing of the deal, but two years into it, the practice that he’s acquiring is totally refusing to follow through on the things that they committed to do in the process of the succession plan. 

And it’s a really tough place for my client, Jeff to be he just, he just doesn’t know what to do. And it seems like out of every three or four conversations that we have two or three of them are him just, you know, expressing his frustration with this process. And he’s got a roadblock a real roadblock in this situation. 

But he’s not necessarily choosing how to deal with it. He’s just going back over and over again, trying to use different words, to say the same thing to encourage his partners to do what they say they were gonna do, and they don’t want to do and he’s not willing to say, you know, maybe this isn’t worth maybe I should just pull out of this, which I personally think would kick them in the button. 

And they’d realize that they’re part of the problem. But anyway, it’s it’s a roadblock like that. And, but but he doesn’t see it as a robot, because he just keeps kind of going back and back over and over again, trying to do you know, a different version of the same thing. And he’s not able to solve the problem, right. And I think we all run into situations like that, whether it’s in our businesses or in our lives outside of our work.

Phil Calandra (14:24):

Well, and that goes to the famous saying, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. It’s like banging your head against the wall. So maybe Jeff has got to heed some of that traditional advice, but I can think of

Rob Brown (14:39):

yeah, maybe maybe that is what you just said is isn’t as a perfect example of a roadblock that most of us run into on a semi regular basis. Because yeah, it’s natural part of life.

Phil Calandra (14:53):

You know, I could think of a simple analogy. I’ve done a fair amount of trail running, and trail racing. Some endurance runs. And if you’re running along a trail, it’s not like running on a road. When you run on trails, you have rocks, you have roots, you have puddles, you have limbs, you have branches. 

And when you’re running, and I’m not an extremely fast runner, but I think, you know, eight minute mile eight and a half minute mile on trails, sometimes you’ve got to go around a big walk, sometimes you got to make the decision to jump, sometimes you got to make the decision to go right through the puddle. 

And some of those, especially if you’re in a race, you’re gonna want to make those in a split instant second, and you will be forced in your life to be called upon any number of times to make a decision about the roadblock or the puddle, or the route. Some of them you have to make quickly. 

And guess what, sometimes you’re gonna make the wrong call, you’re gonna go through the puddle, and then your foots wet for another five miles, anything ah, that really was deeper than I thought. 

That’s life, pick yourself up and just keep going. And that’s again, where the development of this positive mindset, that’s the mantra, you know, the truest fan, blueprint, the action plan, get the tools you need, so that when that happens, you just can shrug it off and say, I continue to march, life is good, even though you might have had to go around the roadblock instead of it simply removing itself because guess what in life it, it just doesn’t magically all appear and happen the way we design it. 

Right? It never happens that way. And that’s okay. That’s what makes it spicy. That’s what makes it fun.

Rob Brown (16:38):

Yeah, I think that’s absolutely right. And I think as we wind to a close here, one of the most important things we try to do in each episode is give a recommendation on how to use what we’ve been talking about in your life and in your business. And the way that we call it out in our process, and our Blueprint is that the first thing you do is you’ve got to write down your roadblocks. 

Don’t be afraid to put them on a piece of paper or your computer, whatever you like to write things down. So you can name them, you kind of like calling out your enemy, you know, it’s like this roadblock, I want to, I want to see that. And then don’t try to solve them all at one time. Because most likely, whatever your roadblocks are, you couldn’t solve them all at one time, if you wanted to. 

So don’t try to solve all at one time, pick one and say, you know, this is how I’m going to deal with this robot. Because I know it’s getting in the way of whatever that important action item is that you have in your action plan if you’re using a truce fan action plan or some other planning system, so that you can call it out. 

And then you can name how you’re going to work through it and just tick them off one at a time and keep that list rolling. So you’re not building imaginary roadblocks, or you’re, you know, you’re running into the same roadblock over and over again, because you didn’t call it out, write it down, then decide how you’re going to deal with it one at a time. And I think that’s a great way to move forward and get better performance in your life. 

And in your business. If that’s what you want to do is a result of listening to this podcast or just a result of wanting to be, you know, a better version of you.

Phil Calandra (18:21):

Yeah, I agree. 100%. I mean, this is a topic that could continue to be discussed. And perhaps for another time, we can do that.

Rob Brown (18:29):

Yeah, I’m sure it’ll come, it’ll come back up, because there are lots of roadblocks, and we’ve got to call them out. So we’ll help you do that through this podcast. So So Let’s wind it down here. Thank you all for tuning in to the truest fan blueprints. 

We’ve been happy to have you aboard. I’d love to ask you a quick favor. Whatever device or app you’re using to listen to this podcast, it has a rating system on there, go ahead and give us a rating. I would encourage it to be five stars. But ultimately, it’s up to you. 

But we want to build our audience and one of the best ways to do it is to get ratings to get some comments. So please take some time to do that at the end of this podcast. And as we always like to remind you, we’re rooting for your success. Take care.

Rob Brown (19:22):

Thanks for joining us for this episode of The Truest Fan Blueprint. If you want to learn more, head over to our website truestfan.com on the site to learn more about becoming a truest fan. You’ll also find today’s show notes and links to the other gifts and resources we talked about during this episode. Again, thanks for listening and remember, we’re rooting for your success.