In this article I’ll discuss secret number 4 from my business partner Steve Siebold’s book, 177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class. Of all the secrets in the book, this is the one that hits closest to home for me, because it’s the one that has driven my entire career.
Mental Toughness Secret Number 4: Champions Are Driven by Emotional Motivators
“When a performer begins to experience physical or emotional pain in the heat of the battle, the brain, whose primary role is self-preservation, asks the question: ‘Why must I suffer?’ The champion will answer the question with the vision he has carefully constructed, and he will continue to fight. Since the masses lack this mental clarity and have no reason to suffer, they quit as soon as pain kicks in.”
— Steve Siebold
In first grade, I was diagnosed with a learning disability. The teacher described it to my parents as trouble grasping the English language. Over the years, everyone, including me, came to think of it as a speech impediment. Both kids and teachers made fun of the way I talked… yes, teachers too, not just kids. The moment that stands out is when my sixth-grade music teacher said to me, “John, if I talked like you, I’d never open my mouth again, ever.” I was already a shy kid because of the way I spoke, but after that incident, I almost stopped speaking in public permanently.
A year later, in seventh grade, my English teacher asked me a question that would change my life forever. She asked, “Are you from Wisconsin?” What was interesting about the question was that I wasn’t from Wisconsin, but my parents were. When I told her that, she said, “I knew it. I have an aunt from Wisconsin, and she talks just like you.” I informed her the reason I spoke the way I did had nothing to do with where my parents were from; it was due to my speech impediment. She said, “No, they talk slower in Wisconsin than out here in the Northeast. Also, they pronounce words like aunt, roof, roots, and many other words differently. You speak fine; in fact, you have a great voice. You don’t have a speech impediment; you have a Wisconsin accent.”
All at once my life seemed to flash before my eyes as I recalled all the times I had been made fun of by kids and adults, how I was placed in the lowest reading group in every class I was in, and how I constantly got Cs and Ds in reading and English, all because my Wisconsin accent was misdiagnosed by my first-grade teacher. At that moment something shifted inside me, and my grades went from Cs and Ds to As and Bs. Geez, I wasn’t stupid after all. And it didn’t just affect my grades; it affected my communication. I was now confident when I opened my mouth. If someone asked where I was from or why I spoke the way I did, I said, “My parents are from Wisconsin. I have a Wisconsin accent.”
But somehow that wasn’t enough. I still had something to prove to myself. So I joined chorus in junior high and ended up as one of only six boys in the baritone section. Even that wasn’t enough. I was out to prove my voice wasn’t just as good as everyone else’s, but better.
My first job was as a financial advisor. I was 21 and looked even younger, so I hid behind the phone. My voice was deep, so I sounded much older. One client who finally met me in person said, “Geez, I thought you’d be six-foot-four and about 40 years old.” Clients who met me tended to stop sending “the kid” their money, so 98% of my business was done over the phone. I eventually became the top salesperson out of roughly 3,000 salespeople. I thought, “Yup, if my sixth-grade music teacher could only see me now. If the kid who kept insisting I had a speech impediment, and harassed me about it constantly, could only see me now: the number one salesperson, with a brand-new convertible Corvette and a condo nine floors up on the ocean.” It motivated me and absolutely drove me to prove everyone wrong, everyone who ever laughed at me or made fun of me. Beyond becoming a number one sales rep, it drove me to become a professional speaker, where I’m constantly complimented on my energy and, more importantly, my voice.
That’s an emotional motivator, and it’s far more powerful than a commission check. I’ve also seen one drive someone else to the top of the sales board. In my sales trainings, I spend time helping reps find their WHY: an emotional reason they have to be successful, one that will drive them to make the calls and do the work necessary to succeed in their sales careers. Among the methods I use is remembering things people have said to you over the years that you can use as motivation. Maybe someone told you that you’d never be successful or that you’d never be able to do something.
After a speech to a group of Realtors, a woman named Sally approached me and said, “That’s interesting what you said about things people have said to you and motivation. My dad used to tell me, pretty much every week growing up, ‘Sally, you’ll never amount to anything. You’ll always be a loser.’” I had a great relationship with my parents. I even worked with my dad for 10 years, and both of them were always positive and supportive, so Sally’s experience was really foreign to me. I was a little taken aback, but my heart went out to her. I said, “Sally, I’m really sorry.” She said, “Thank you, I appreciate that, but don’t be sorry. Not only am I the number one Realtor in the office, I’m the number one Realtor in the whole company, in the whole country. I also have a great family life because I saw a perfect example of how not to do it. But I never realized until today why I’m so motivated and driven. It’s to prove my dad wrong.”
Think about that. Sally’s emotional motivator had been driving her to the top for years, and she didn’t even know what it was until one question brought it to the surface. That’s exactly what Steve’s secret is about.
You may have heard similar stories, whether it’s Tom Brady being picked in the sixth round of the NFL Draft or Michael Jordan being left off his high school varsity team as a sophomore. The stories are endless about people who took a negative experience and used it as motivation to fuel their success.
To be a top salesperson, follow mental-toughness secret number 4 in Steve’s book: find the emotion that drives you. In Steve’s words: “The masses are primarily motivated by extrinsic motivators, such as material possessions and money. The world class is motivated intrinsically, by their dreams, desires and passions. External motivation is short lived, while internal motivation is nearly impossible to exhaust until the goal is achieved.”
Notice what he says about pep talks: “The rah-rah, jump-up-and-down motivational pep talks are fun and temporarily motivating, yet lack the real fire emotional motivators generate.” That’s why the energy from a big sales kickoff is usually gone by the second week of the quarter. A reason that truly matters to you doesn’t fade.
If you lead a sales team, this secret is written for you. As Steve puts it, “World-class leaders know the secret to motivating themselves and others is discovering what they will fight for when the going gets tough.” And the process, in his words, is “tedious, time consuming, and simple: ask questions, and don’t stop until you have landed on the emotional hot buttons.” Great coaches keep digging until they hit what Steve calls the vein of gold, “when the performer begins answering in terms of how they feel, as opposed to what they think.” Then they keep probing until the performer reaches the white moment, the strongest emotional driver they have.
Here’s what that looks like in practice. In your next round of one-on-ones, ask each rep what they’re working toward. Then ask why. Then ask why again. “I want to make President’s Club” is a thought. “I want my dad to see me walk across that stage” is a feeling. That’s the vein of gold. Most managers know their reps’ numbers cold but have never asked what’s actually driving them. The answers will tell you more about who will push through a tough quarter than any pipeline report will, and they’ll show you exactly what to remind someone of when they stall.
Elsewhere in his book, Steve lists the five most popular emotional motivators in the Mental Toughness University program:
1) Religious/Spiritual Beliefs
2) Children/Family
3) Desire to prove oneself to oneself
4) Desire to prove oneself to others
5) General recognition/validation
Which one is yours? For me, it was number four, and then number three. Find yours, and you’ll find the fuel to do the work.
Here’s the action step Steve provides in his book. Ask these five critical-thinking questions:
1) What am I willing to fight for?
2) What values do I hold dearest to my heart?
3) What values would I be willing to die for?
4) If I could only achieve one thing, what would it be?
5) If I had thirty seconds left to live, what would I tell my children are the three most important things I learned about how to live a happy life?
In Steve’s words, “Your answers to all of these questions will tell you a lot about what drives you emotionally.”
Steve Siebold and I are partners who, cumulatively, have 69 years in the profession of sales growth and excellence. We have mastered pragmatic techniques to create dramatic growth in sales teams, from the under-performers to the all-stars. This work has increased sales by more than $3.2 billion for companies like Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, Merrill Lynch, Coca-Cola, and Toyota, among many others. If you’d like to discuss instilling this, and other mental toughness principles, in your team, go to www.completeselling.com or email me at johnchapin@completeselling.com.
John Chapin is a sales speaker, trainer, and coach with over 39 years of sales and sales management experience, a #1 sales rep in three industries, and author of the 2010 Sales Book of the Year, Sales Encyclopedia (Axiom Book Awards). You may reprint this article provided the contact information stays in place.