Success Leaves Clues

Phil Calandra Snippet (00:05):

Success is leaving us a lot of clues all around us, each individual listening to this podcast are going to have to discover for themselves, what action they need to take to move their life, their goals, their family, their spirituality, all those things in the right direction.

Rob Brown Snippet (00:22):

Ask yourself, what is it that is keeping you from moving forward? Do you have something that you have identified, that will give you that help to move to the next step. And if you haven’t, decide what that is

Rob Brown Intro (00:47):

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.

Phil Calandra (01:23):

Hello again, everyone, and welcome to a another edition of the truest fan blueprint Podcast. I’m Phil Calandra. And I’m alongside my partner, Rob Brown. Hi, Rob. How are you?

Rob Brown (01:35):

I am great, Phil, I can’t wait to dive in.

Phil Calandra (01:39):

Yeah, this is going to be an interesting topic, I have a feeling we’re gonna get a lot of likes, we’re gonna get a lot of shares. We’re gonna get a lot of reaction on this. Saying that I’ve really pondered, I’ve really been thinking about a lot recently. 

And success in life in in any area of our lives, leaves clues. There has been trails blazed by dozens and hundreds of 1000s of people over the last decades and centuries. But why is it that we still struggle we we know that there are, there’s fear in the world, there is anxiety, there are things that create this passive life that people go through. 

And I’ve been wandering and thinking about this a lot. And I think it makes for a good question, Rob, which is, with all this success, with all the clues with all of the information we have at our fingertips. 

Why do we still have this fear and anxiety over success? And some people get there? They reach their most cherished goals financially and otherwise, and others don’t? Why is this Rob?

Rob Brown (02:50):

Yeah, well, I wish I could answer that question. In 30 seconds, or less than it could be a short podcast. And then I could win maybe win a Nobel Peace Prize? I don’t know. But you know, I think is I was hearing you talk about witnessing success and watching what people do. 

There are definitely patterns that help people move forward. But one of the patterns that doesn’t help people move forward. And I think maybe we should address this first is, why are so many people waiting for the next bad thing to happen. 

Because I can tell you in my work as an advisor, as a coach, as a successful entrepreneur, that I’m never waiting for the next bad thing to happen. And when I talk with my most successful clients, sure times they have doubts, but they aren’t waiting for a bad thing to happen. And maybe that’s just like glass half full or glass half empty. 

But Phil, why do you think that is? Why, given the history, given the proof that we have that show those patterns? How do we sometimes still say okay, deer in the headlights? What’s the next bad thing that’s gonna happen?

Phil Calandra (04:12):

Yeah, that’s a great way to throw it back on me, Rob. I think that in the generations today, we, generally speaking live very passively. Right? We’re waiting for things to happen instead of dedicating our life ourselves, our families, instead of dedicating everything we have in our being, to making things happen, we’ve become very reactionary, instead of action oriented. 

And there’s never going to be any peace of mind or security in that it’s just the kind of the way that I see it. So people I guess, are existing in this darkness, this cloud waiting for bad things to happen and then guess what it does, it’s self fulfilling. 

And I would guess I’m not a psychiatrist or psychologist. But I would say that a lot of the mental health struggles and real mental health issues that we have in society today are kind of stemmed from that in some some way. 

Because human beings, the way God made us, the way he wove us all together in human beings is we were built to move forward, like you said, we were move, we were built to be in motion we were built to create, and not meant to be passive and to be by standards in what we call life.

Rob Brown (05:35):

Yeah, that’s a great way. I think, Phil to answer that question, that difference between letting things happen to us being reactionary, which is maybe for some the natural reaction to that fearful situation, and those who say, hey, let’s just take x, let’s take the next step, let’s have confidence that that plan maybe that God has for our lives is a good one. 

And we have to move towards it, even though we could make some mistakes. But I think that also leads to another, you know, I think, really good points, you know, if we’re onto something, if that’s a thing, and I know, I know, it’s a thing, we’re not trying to be, as you said, psychologists or psychiatrists, we’re just trying to help people kind of untangle those things that may get it away, put fear in the way of them succeeding, not following those paths that we know can lead to success, which I think leads to another really important question. 

And, and we see this all the time as coaches to entrepreneurs or financial advisors, as well as coaches to clients for whom you fail or doing financial planning. It’s, why do some people not ask for help? 

Because I think that’s woven into that passivity there, or that lack of taking action and move for why do some people not ask for help or not accept help when it’s offered? And why do others accept help? And immediately see that, that gets them go? And it gets them on that right path?

Phil Calandra (07:14):

Yeah, the only thing I can think of there, Rob, is people are afraid maybe it’s ego. Maybe it’s just plain old fear of asking for help. Or they don’t want to hear the truth. 

They don’t want to hear the real answer. When I counsel clients in the financial planning sense, it’s amazing. But the client will wonder or they’ll ask, you know, am I gonna run out of money? Am I on the right path with my retirement? 

And I’ll say, Absolutely, you’re not on the right path. You’re spending too much money, your lifestyle is bigger than your your assets or your your income flows. It’s pretty simple. They just didn’t want to hear that. 

So it’s an interesting phenomenon. And it happens across generations, demographics, genders, men, women, it’s a barrier for people, they don’t want to ask for help. Why? If you know that you could get good counsel, good advice, it might cost you a percentage of your assets to retain a financial advisor, if I was trying to get into, I had a triathlon coach, right. 

I talk often about my experience as an endurance athlete. I spent hundreds 1000s of dollars on coaches because it was better my success was much greater. The path was the path of least resistance was me hiring somebody to share with me the things I didn’t know for myself, or that I wanted deeper understanding. Some people choose to do that. And some people don’t.

Rob Brown (08:43):

Yeah, I think if I pulled apart a little bit more what you’re saying Phil, there are two really good Wang’s is there’s the lack of confidence that you can handle the reality of where you are. And you said that you saw it, you see that when you ask people about, you know what their fears are about retirement, I see that when I’m coaching business people about why, you know, their businesses hit a plateau, they have a really good successful on the surface happy business, but they can’t get it to that next level. 

And when we first start talking, they’re afraid to answer some of the questions that would uncover what the things are that they’re doing wrong. Wow. And you’re not supposed to say that nobody’s ever doing anything wrong. 

It’s just a challenge. But you know, figuring out what the biggest challenges or obstacles are, is really important. And so I think that’s one of the reasons that people maybe don’t ask for help as they don’t want to really see what that reality is of where they are when understanding that reality is not like taking them into the darkness. 

It’s take Keep them into the light, because you can’t get into the light if you if you don’t expose that darkness or that bad habits or those bad routines that you’re doing, it’s extremely important. And and I think the other piece of that is that statistic. And I know, the numbers vary depending on who you talk to. 

But there have been studies done over the years that say that people who write their goals down, write their dreams down, have a 35 to 45% greater chance of success. So I think that’s another thing that’s under lying. 

This idea that of not asking for help is we’re not even willing to write those things down. But we know, as you started out this podcast saying, there are paths, there are patterns towards success, and one of them is asking for help.

And one of the ways to get help is just to write things down. You know, maybe you don’t want to hire a financial advisor, you don’t want to write a coach, then ask yourself and answer for yourself, those tough questions by writing down what it is you really want.

Phil Calandra (11:09):

Yeah, that’s right. That’s an amazing statistic. I wouldn’t have guessed 35 to 45%. I guess another analogy that comes to my mind, Rob, is, it’s not the tip of the iceberg that sunk the Titanic. 

It was what’s underneath and I, I use this analogy in my own life, is it’s what’s underneath, we’ve got to get underneath the iceberg. The tip is what we see, the tip is what we know. And you know, you don’t know what you don’t know. 

And that’s what sinks you every single time. So how are we going to find out those things in life? You know, what’s the old saying, experience is the best teacher? It’s just so damn expensive. And isn’t that right? 

Because we go through life with our own experiences. But if we don’t know it to be true, then we don’t know what we don’t know. And then I think it gets back to your point, you know, just simply writing things down and then searching that the Age of Enlightenment, if you will, in your life and discovering what action you need to be taking, as opposed to reaction and passivity in your life.

Rob Brown (12:17):

You know, there’s that quote, and I’m terrible remembering who said them. So I’ll attribute it to anonymous, but it goes, a dream written down with a date becomes a goal. And I say that because as we’ve been going through this conversation and thinking about, why don’t we, you know, use those patterns of success that are right in front of us like writing things down, like hiring a coach, like creating a plan, a, why don’t we use them. 

And I think part of that is that some of us aren’t fearful, we’re daydreamers. So we just like to kind of just think about all of the things that could happen in our lives, that would be cool would be fun. 

But because we’re not willing to write them down, we’re not willing to find someone or something that can help us to move towards them, we just become daydreamers, as opposed to those who are taking our dreams. 

And using those as a pattern is that picture of user success that we can work towards just as you can have that negative pattern that you envision, be something that leads you the wrong way that that mental picture, taking that dream and writing it down, getting somebody to help you work towards it becomes extremely important. Yeah, I

Phil Calandra (13:45):

could also be robbed that doing that requires effort. It requires us to get off of our you know what, and do something hard, get out of our comfort zone, which we’ve talked about, do something that’s productive, and moves us forward toward our future self. And that paralyzes people. 

So I think we covered a lot of ground, but I think all valid, you know, as we always say, We’re rooting for people success. Well, success is leaving us a lot of clues all around us. Each individual listening to this podcast, each of you that you forward this to are going to have to discover for themselves, what action they need to take to move their life, their goals, their family, their spirituality, all those things in the right direction. 

So any last kind of thoughts on this, Rob, as we kind of wrap it up for today?

Rob Brown (14:40):

Yeah, for sure. Because we really do like to send people away with an action item, something that you can do because you have listened to this podcast and not something that requires a huge shift right to change everything because oftentimes it’s just that one little thing that you You change that becomes that first domino that goes over. 

And it keeps kind of propelling once for but I guess the action item here would be, you know, ask yourself, what is it that is keeping you from moving forward? Do you have something that you have identified, that will give you that help to move to the next step. And if you haven’t, decide what that is, maybe you’ve thought about hiring a coach? Well, there are a lot of us out there, some of us are really good at what we do. 

Schedule a time with a coach, don’t be afraid of that strategy session where you’re worried they’re gonna try to sell you something. Because there are a lot of good coaches out there who really want to help propel you forward, if coaching isn’t where you are yet, then, you know, perhaps go back into the archives of this podcast, and we did a podcast, oh, I guess five or six episodes ago, we recommended some great books that will allow you to take action, but identify that one thing that you want to do to help you take action, and maybe even further isolate it to one aspect of your life. 

You know, if you’re trying to lose weight, improve your spirituality, grow your business, make more money, be a better, you know, Dad, whatever it might be. That’s, that’s a handful. They don’t want to those areas and just start making progress and set that domino forward. 

Because I think that is the thing that will get you off the bench, and moving forward and following those success patterns that can help you really live the life that you were meant to live.

Phil Calandra (16:43):

Yeah, I love that. Rob. That’s great advice. And I would just say, make the investment in yourself. Nobody else is going to do it. You have to be the one to make the first deposit. Thank you for tuning in to the podcast. 

Please give it a like, please share it. Please give us your feedback. If you’d like things to other topics, things you’d like us to cover. shoot us a note our way we’d love to hear from you. And as Robin I always say we’re rooting for your success to see you next time.