Push Your Limits to Achieve the Impossible, with Dan Waldschmidt [Episode 404]

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In this episode, we dive into what it means to push the limits with customers and prospects to succeed.

Dan Waldschmidt, is a keynote speaker, business strategist, ultra runner, business owner and author of Edgy Conversations: How Ordinary People Can Achieve Outrageous Success.

Key Takeaways

• Dan speaks to clients on ways to grow and dynamically scale ideas into massive money-makers. He also writes about concerns he faces and addresses in his own businesses.
• Dan pushes against what is “impossible,” by pushing limits — personally, with running; professionally, by strategizing to make “millions and billions” of dollars; and with clients, helping them to see the world differently, and to excel.
• Dan’s ultra-running goal for 2017 is to run another few thousand miles, in 100- and 50-mile races, and maybe a 200-mile race. Running gives him clarity for next steps. Transcendental Meditation and running keep him grounded.
• How did Dan cope when he wanted to quit, 20 miles into his last 100-mile race in the mountains of Alabama?
• Days after a race, Dan can reflect, “Dude, you didn’t even know that was possible, and you did it! What else don’t you know is possible, that is next on your list of things to do?”
• Instead of asking for salesmen to close better, ask why your business isn’t creating a brand or a customer experience so outrageously positive, that deals just automatically close?
• Dan couldn’t finish one race, because he had depleted his salt. Little things can have a fatal effect when you are trying to perform at a high level. The details matter when you answer the phone and how you brand.
• What are you prepared to sacrifice? Some people don’t progress because they have too many TV shows lined up to watch. Prioritize time. Your choices control your achievements. Be desperate to meet your goals.
• To perform at a high level, “burn the ships.” Make a list of five to ten things in your life that you need to burn right now, until you cross your continent and build new ships.
• To be amazing, you have to talk yourself down from your fears. You can learn not only to survive stressful situations, but to thrive, in spite of what happens around you.
• Successful people refuse to: excuse their mistakes; copy others (instead of building on their own strengths); or look down on others who are struggling (Dan tells of Jeff Bezos’s many years before Amazon turned a profit).
• Successful people refuse to: waste time doing things that don’t matter; or let the current chaos distract them from future success.
• The Sales Enablement Podcast with Andy Paul was formerly Accelerate! with Andy Paul.

Episode Transcript

Andy Paul  0:56  

Hello, and welcome to the Sales Enablement Podcast. I’m excited to be joined on the show again today by my friend Dan Waldschmidt. Keynote speaker, business strategist, ultra runner which we’re gonna talk a little bit about, which we did last time as well, business owner, and maybe we’ve talked about that too. So Dan, welcome again to the Sales Enablement Podcast.

 

Dan Waldschmidt  3:02  

Thank you. Thanks for having me back.

 

Andy Paul  3:04  

So introduce yourself, tell people sort of the range of things that you do.

 

Dan Waldschmidt  3:10  

So, as you mentioned, speak to large groups of people about ways to dynamically grow and scale their ideas into things that make them lots and lots and lots of money. And we have a kind of contrary view and for some people like that, and that makes us a really unique asset to our clients. Another thing that we do is, you know, you were talking before we started, grabbing some time for this recordings is as a guy who owns several businesses, I’m actually elbow deep in problems and strategies ideas every day, and so often when I’m writing about, frankly, is kind of an IV drip. You know, I just solved my own need to be out So anyways, if you are someone who has sentiment analysis, you can probably get my emotional bandwidth by either what I’ve written about recently or what’s coming out soon So,, I’m a guy who really likes to push against limits push back against the idea of impossible and so it’s in my personal life it’s running. In my professional life, it’s  how do we make millions and billions of dollars and then speaking to clients, it’s like, how do I help you see the world in a different way where you exceed your own expectations and then maybe transform yourself financially or physically or spiritually those sort of things.

 

Andy Paul  4:39  

Alright, so let’s talk about your ultra running. So what are your ultra goals?

 

Dan Waldschmidt  4:47  

My goals are to run another few thousand miles. That’s the one goal I’ve generally mocked up for myself. I’ve done about 2750 miles this year. So far. Mainly because that was my goal. And I’ll run at least one 100 mile race this coming year. It’s becoming a little more difficult. Just due to schedule. I did a few this year and did a few 50s. So my goal is to keep pushing that hundred mile, adding a few more to the list. And I signed up last year for a 500 kilometer race, which is about 320 miles. And I did not run it for health reasons. 

 

Dan Waldschmidt  5:46  

And my challenge this year, I think my one big goal is to run something beyond 100. I think 100 and 205 is probably my longest distance. I want to push something beyond that. So even if it’s Not a 300 mile race, I might want a 200 mile race to see it. See how I can do that.

 

Andy Paul  6:05  

Alright, so people are listening to this and think, okay, gosh, I’m a busy person. But as you said, You own multiple businesses that require your direct involvement. And we talked earlier if you’ve purchased a new company, you’re so busy scaling it. So how do you fit everything in? I mean, how do you fit in 3000 miles of running in a year?

 

Dan Waldschmidt  6:25  

Priorities? You know, look,, for me running is what gives me clarity to think about next steps. It’s the thing that allows me to avoid false moves, you know what I mean? It’s what allows me to look past the daily fear and grind that stops me from being successful, and frankly, it’s the thing that allows me to perform at the highest level. I can achieve myself personally, I was telling my therapist yesterday. And, and I think the gentleman finds me quite amusing now after years of work together, but I’ve been sick for about a week. I had some really, really crazy stuff going on in my head and a swollen artery. And so I had not been for about a week. And I was telling you, I’m losing my mind, I’m going crazy. Running is the thing that allows me to have focus and then I come back from a run, I know exactly what I need to do. And I think, for me, it’s that thing that focuses me and I go to it, that meditation between meditation, transcendental meditation and running, these are the things that kind of keep me anchored and grounded. I think I can be more productive, because the things that keep me focused and accountable. I’ll tell you this too. When you’re running a 100 mile race, and the last race I just did, I was running through the mountains of Alabama, and in my previous race I had finished 100 miles in about 17 hours and 18 minutes. I found myself stuck about 20 miles into a race going, I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to do this right? They say the average salesperson quits 11 months before they actually quit. Don’t know if that’s real or not. But that seems about right. Based on facility. Yeah. I’m 20 miles into a 100 mile race, what can you do? We have to figure out how to make it work, right? Because you’re 20 miles in. So you got to go 20 miles back to the starting line through the mountains and feel like a fool or that make a find a way to make it to the across the finish line. And I did, it took me a full working day longer. So it took me 23 hours and 36 minutes. So the difference between 17 hours and almost 24 hours is just a vast amount of for almost a full working day. You have to think about why am I such a loser? Why can’t I get this right? What’s wrong with me is that I’m an elite. I’m a world record holding ultra runner. I can’t seem to put it all together. And I think that’s that moment of weakness of humility, a vulnerability of law trauma. Have a forcing your perspective to change or you die, you adapt or die. That sort of focus is exactly what I need to remain an elite level of speaking at running and doing business. And so for me, that’s, the interconnection between all these different pieces.

 

Andy Paul  9:20  

Yeah. Wow, great story. I mean, I I want to tell you my story. I had a similar issue with my last half marathon. I did. I got a mile into it. And I was running, running with my sister. And, you know, I said, Jesus, it seems like we’re running out at a pretty fast pace, especially for her because she’s hadn’t done many of these. I looked at my watch and said, oh, we’re not running fast at all. What’s wrong with me? And yeah it was a death mark. So the remaining 12 and a half miles but you find a way.

 

Dan Waldschmidt  9:52  

Yeah. And you find a way. And I think that’s the best part of it, if I could find a way to run 100 miles, which we knew for a while I thought was interesting. achievable. And then I did it. And I was like, Oh, well shoot, that wasn’t that bad. Which is, you know, by the way, you don’t say that when you cross the finish line, you say that a few days after you cross the finish line, probably giving birth. Exactly. I have no experience in that. Except other I know, my legs were shaking and, and all the parts of my body, we’re saying you’re fabulously hungry, and all the things that came back, almost like I kind of view them as like flashbacks weeks later, where you’re thinking, like, you know, why do I want to do this? How could I do this? And then there’s like, this quiet strength that says, dude, you don’t even know that was possible and you did it. What else don’t you know, it’s possible that is next on your list of things to do. And so, you know, I just, you know, and by the way, it doesn’t have to be 100 miles, maybe it’s a couch to five K, maybe it’s a half marathon. My wife’s done a dozen or so half marathons, and that’s her distance. She loves it. You know, that’s trying that’s her push, you’re pushing her own limits. physical exercise I feel. And it’s not just my feeling it’s backed up by a lot of coaches and smarter people than me. That physical exercise does something interesting with your brain, where it focuses you, it flushes out the fear you’re feeling, and allows you to have clarity and inspiration for everything else in your life. Often, I’ll tell the people that asked me about running, I don’t eat calories, two to one, and I don’t run to burn calories. In fact, if I go running and then eat something, I’m not like the running doesn’t cancel out the calories but the running does something inside my body metaphysically right. And quite physically, not just metaphysically but quite physically where we know, my body is saying, Hey, we gotta get ready. We have to be you know, how we store fat matters, how we optimize oxygen intake, all the all the things that happen. And that’s very similar business people often want to focus on like, I just want to improve How am I salespeople close deals? And I forget, wait a minute, why are we even focused on closing deals? Why not focused on, you know, creating a brand or a perception or a customer experience? It’s so outrageously positive that the deals automatically close themselves. And so I think that in my mind, and again, I know I’m somewhat of a nutjob. But all these dots connect between business and sports, to show that things that aren’t necessarily a clear, clear line, it’s a dotted line. Connect and impact are lost just like it for me. Earlier this year, when I was running from Key Largo to Key West, about 40 miles in a DNF. They had to drop out of this race, my kidneys were shutting down. I was in first place and I was doing quite well. And all of a sudden, in 102 degree weather with 98% humidity. The amount of salt that was in my body was out of whack with the amount of water I was drinking, and quite quickly, my kidneys shut down and I started you know Seeing this stuff that looked like maple syrup, it was not good. And you know, and so a quick lesson is that it does salt matter. No, it doesn’t matter until you’re trying to perform at a high level, and then it does matter and all the tiny little variables that you shrug off as Oh, that doesn’t matter. Oh, it doesn’t matter what my receptionist said, it doesn’t matter what color my logo is, it doesn’t matter how I answer the phone, or what the presentation I have is to my clients, none of that matters. Just close more deals, you’re probably wondering why your kidneys are shutting down or your revenue stream is shutting down. It’s quite clear. You’re not optimizing your CV or your company or yourself to perform at an elite level. And so you know, the things that shouldn’t be killing you or taking you out of the game.

 

Andy Paul  13:48  

Well, I think for a lot of individuals that came back to a point you’ve made earlier is about prioritizing. It is when we’re talking to somebody recently at one of the guests talking about when they interviewed prospective salespeople. People they talk about, they try to measure the person’s tolerance for sacrifice. And so when you’re sort of working people in business and so on, and on your personal life is, you know, what are the things you have to sacrifice in order to become this elite, business athlete or elite athlete in an athletic pursuit? I mean, there are tangible things. It seems like people want to overlook that. So as I think as people start to plan going forward is, is one thing you have to be conscious of is what are they prepared to sacrifice?

 

Dan Waldschmidt  14:36  

You’re absolutely right on. What I often tell leaders, it’s not even what you’re willing to do. Because people will say to me, oh, Dad, you know, and I’m sure they say it to you, right, you have no idea and I’m going to do this, I let them make this happen like you do. You’re never going to see somebody as motivated and driven as me. And you’re like, Okay, great. Let’s go do it. And you check in with him later and you’re like, what are you doing? Gonna give you a list of what they’re doing. And it’s like, Okay, great, you’re doing some things. That’s a great start. But it’s not so much what you’re willing to do that makes you successful, as you just mentioned about sacrifice. It’s what you’re willing to do without until you start reaping the rewards of that success. And so there’s people that you try to coach and improve, it doesn’t add up, why aren’t they successful? Why isn’t it working? Why aren’t they growing as quickly as you think they shouldn’t be growing? And then you realize, wait a minute, that guy has too many shows in his Netflix queue. I have to do these things. And he’s not willing to sacrifice the indulgent, another Netflix show, by the way, that’s an hour. That’s two hours and you’re like, Where did your time go by there went right there. You made that choice. I went to seminary and I live in the south. And so all that combines within 10 miles of my house in South Carolina, there’s like 300 Baptist churches. And so in the south, we blamed God for everything in the North Rim from Washington, DC. We blame the government right. We’ve been public Politics rename stupid voters. But in the south we blame Jesus. And so you’ll talk to someone they’ll be like, hey, bless your heart, Andy, you know, well, if God wanted me to be rich, he would have made me that way. And like, No, no, you made yourself that way by stupid choices and stupid decisions and lack of effort. And lack of focus. What I’ve noticed interesting about focus is that you need a little bit of desperation, in order to get to where you want to be. If you’re not desperate enough, you know, then you’re probably not going to do the things that are required to elevate your game to the level where you can compete and win to get across the finish line. You’re just not going to do it. If you don’t need it badly enough. You’re going to walk away and so on my right arm, I’ve got a sleeve, you know, tattoos and the  sleeve is Hernando Cortez burning ships. When Hernando Cortez came to South America, he famously said to burn the ships and I don’t know if he actually burned them. I think they just put holes in them. It’s psycho. Why he really is all of these men. These men who have romanticize this idea of Latin America, beautiful Latina women gold nuggets on the ground exploration and in this kind of high sex appeal adventure, you know, machismo, alpha male sort of task, which is obviously all those things are associated with sales and revenue creation, and high performance and business. And and so he realized when things got tough, they could go home and go, Well, listen, we got halfway across the island, we defeated a third of the Aztecs, right, I got to to, you know, to, you know, two steps towards my goal, because they had ships and a place to go back home too. And so Fernando said, if we’re going to win, we’re going to have to make it impossible to go back home empty handed. And so he said, burn the ships, burn them down. The only way to get back home to Europe, is we’re going to have to go through the Aztecs conquer, when By the way, you know, that’s pretty Machiavellian to say we’re going to destroy other people that we have no right to destroy. We’re just going to do that. We’re going to take this, but we’re going to take this crap When we get to the other side of the country, we’re gonna build new ships and then float those homes and see all the way back. And so I often tell people, if you want to perform at a high level and that’s really the conversation, no BS, no pretension, you’re not saying that because you’re trying to impress the person next to you, if you really want to change, I would tell you build a list of five to 10 things in your life right now that you need to burn. It might be a relationship that’s negative and needy, to another person. Probably it might be you driving a vehicle that’s way too expensive to appear that you’re successful to other people. It’s, there’s a whole laundry list of things. If you’re really serious and you put together a list of things you’ll be shocked at the number of things you’re doing right now that you’re doing just for appearances sake and that are stopping you from from conquering getting to the other side of the the continent in your world, whatever that means, and and sailing your boat home with massive success.

 

Andy Paul  19:07  

So that’s I think part of why I tell people about this. This doesn’t teach us, you know, what are the things that you have to unlearn? They always talk about what we want to learn in the coming year. What are the things we need to unlearn? Yeah. When you talk about fears earlier right, how do you unlearn your fears?

 

Dan Waldschmidt  19:23  

Mm hmm. Yeah, no, you’re asking if you’re definitely Right. I mean,these fears, these memories come from memories, your fear less until you have a memory of something that causes you not to be afraid. First time you see a saber toothed Tiger you go wow, that thing’s angry but I don’t know he hasn’t killed anybody I know. And then you see a friend get hurt and you get hurt. Next time you’re a little more cautious and then pretty soon, you don’t even have to see a saber toothed tiger. All you have to see is the grass moving in a different direction. You’re like Odell and it happens at business. It happens in a boardroom. It happens with a prospects call and happens with a spouse or, or another relationship where you see something start to change doesn’t even change, you think it’s going to change. And that fear drives you to do things that you wouldn’t ordinarily do. And, again,you’re going to perform at a high level, if you really want to change, if you really want to be amazing, then you have to talk yourself down, you have to say, Dan, it’s not a saber toothed tiger, you know, that’s just the grass. It’s just the wind blowing, that boss isn’t trying to find a way to fire me. He’s just asking me for the status of that deal. He just wants to know what that deal is. He’s trying to find a way to throw me under the bus. But because of the way we’re wired, we often aren’t aware of our initial gut responses, we just say oh, I feel like I should be responding this way. That way I should, but we don’t know is that for instance, as as a human being, you know, the second your body feels fear, your adrenaline glands kick it and you start getting twitchy in your mouth and it’s tried because As your body shuts down your saliva glands to focus on more energy, and your stomach stops digesting foods, you can focus that energy on surviving your brightest, all these things and then you get out of a stressful situation. It could be a boardroom, or sales call or a pipeline review, whatever it is, and obviously, like, Oh, I’m hungry, why do I need water because my mouth is dry all of these things. And you’re not even aware that you’re feeding into these fears, the negative outcomes of fear and with a little bit of self awareness with a little bit of self improvement, you can not just survive these moments, you can thrive in spite of what’s going on around you.

 

Andy Paul  21:36  

Yeah, well along the same line, you’ve recently published an article about 25 things successful people refuse to do and so long lines of learning behaviors and I just want to spend a few minutes going through some of those because I thought there are a lot of good ones we don’t have time to touch all 25 But yeah, first of all list which was, I think maybe you prioritize to this way but as you say, successful people refuse to make excuses for their own mistakes.

 

Dan Waldschmidt  22:02  

Yeah, we spend a lot of time trying to excuse away why something didn’t happen or why your interpretation of that is wrong. And you just have to not make excuses, say I didn’t perform, it didn’t get there. We’re going to try to do it better next time. Simple as that.

 

Andy Paul  22:22  

Well, humility is a very powerful thing.

 

Dan Waldschmidt  22:26  

Very powerful. I think one of the reasons why I enjoy running is if there’s one thing I often use the word pure and I know for those, you know, people who are not that, maybe hardcore about sports, like, shut up, Dude calm down. But you know, when you’re running, it is what it is, right? The clock is the clock and like you said, you look at your wrist and you’re like, wow, I’m crushing it. You’re like, oh, wait a minute. I’m not crushing it. You felt like you were crushing it, but when you checked the standard, the fact was, you weren’t crushing it. Same with me. I’m 20 miles and gone. I’m going to finish by, you know, in reality there are facts there are realities about what works and what doesn’t work. And you know, you can spend your time making excuses. Or you can say, I have a relentless desire to improve. So it doesn’t matter where I’m at what matters is if I make the decision to keep improving,

 

Andy Paul  23:21  

Well, another one that’s very interesting, you say successful people refuse to copy what other people have done to be successful. And this is so interesting, because in sales, particularly your filler pieces, they always want to put the strong salespeople on a pedestal and tell everybody else to do just what they’ve done. And the fact is that you’re not gonna succeed that way. You’re a unique individual, you have unique strengths and capabilities, and so much about sales diseases, you know, putting people into rigid processes, and not letting the individual really thrive the way they could.

 

Dan Waldschmidt  23:57  

I have nothing to add to that besides Exactly. Well said, well done. You’re exactly right. It’s easy for us, you know, the whole get rich quick scheme is you know, hey, I sell coffee and if you sell my coffee beans to 17 of your friends and they all sell to 70 of their friends, you’re going to retire to the beach and do no work and life is good. And you know, I know I’m over simplifying things and perhaps taking a dramatic example they’re painting a dramatic example. But guys, you know, life is much, much more difficult than that if you’re ever on YouTube and can stomach a few f bombs, look up CT Fletcher guy who’s grown up in Compton and 22 inch arms, he talks about working out he said, there is no seven minute workout. You know, you get big arms, you put in the time there are no shortcuts. There are no easy paths to getting in shape you have to put in the time as same as sales. And so that’s why I write a lot about philosophy, not exact steps, and you’re a guy who’s actually you know you’ve written a couple things and and you’ve talked about optimizing and talked about how improving and people will say, you know a lot of what you’ve tried to refine and home is how to do more of what you’re good at no better. Right. But I couldn’t, I don’t have the same strengths as you. I tell people all the time, I dropped out of college twice. I’m basically a village idiot. You know, I’m surprised people pay me any amount of money to help them drive their business towards rapid acceleration, right? But there are people around me who can look at a situation with this deep analytics, and go, here’s exactly what you need to do, you know, to have a 10 minute recipe for XYZ, here’s a perfect way to do it. I could never do that. So if I tried to copy you, or you try to copy me, you’re in for a rude awakening, there has to be this self awareness to say, What am I truly gifted with? What sort of pain and chaos Am I willing to stomach? You know, what are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? How do I use those to get to where I need to be?

 

Andy Paul  25:59  

Well, another one I think is really interesting that you talk about this is, you know, part and parcel for we’ve been talking about so far as you say successful people refused to look down on others around them who aren’t winners yet. And yes, and so often because, again, part of what we see in sales is, too often a manager server encourages this class system within sales and takes actions to sort of reinforce it rather than giving everybody an opportunity to succeed.

 

Dan Waldschmidt  26:32  

That’s right. And the reality is it takes people different amounts of time to be successful. I’m in a business right now, where we’ve got competitors who several years ago, they looked like they were ahead of us. Here’s why. They spent vast amounts of money millions and millions and millions of dollars on building out their own data warehousing infrastructures, basically building data centers, you hear about Apple building these billion dollar data sets. So we have competitors who built out many versions of those, and not in any versions of an apple data center and they spent millions they thought we’re going to drive the cost down. And then all of a sudden Amazon comes along, and now they have storage at two pennies per gigabyte, two pennies. Now the reality is you’ve spent millions and millions of dollars building an infrastructure that is now obsolete Time, time. And cert has has as an interesting way of changing perspective. And so there are a lot of people who seem like they’re slow and plodding, who come out far ahead. One quick example. You know, Jeff Bezos spent time as a manager at McDonald’s. Before he founded Amazon paid his way, his early way through school, working as a manager at McDonald’s. It probably doesn’t seem like you’re a super success story. When you’re a manager of McDonald’s. Let’s go one step further. I think it was nice Before or 97, when he started amazon.com is this business which would allow you to get a used book from one side of the country to another side of the country off a computer screen and the website was pretty bare bones. He didn’t make a profit for almost 24 years. And now runs one of the most successful companies in the globe. Why? Why is that he had this view of what success was like and if you judge him in between now and then you would have had different judgments, you know, Microsoft was crushing it, and now Apple is crushing it. Guess what, last month, the Microsoft Surface, this brand new computer that Microsoft has come down, out sold the macbook, it looks at the tables are turning back again. And so we have this chance to go on going back to Windows. There you go. I’m not either. I’m not either, but the reality is, you have to have a mission, to know why you want what you want and what you’re willing to do to get it. And, and, you know, along the way there will be those who judge, it’s just a waste of your time and to look at other people and go, you’re not what I think you should be, therefore I’m judging you, or it’s just a waste of your time and it also limits you from going, what’s that person doing that I could learn from it improve?

 

Andy Paul  29:22  

Yeah, so a couple other points and there’s, you know, talk about successful people refusing to waste their time doing things that don’t matter. And, you know, time and time and time again, we’re always reminded that there’s the one thing we’re trying to accomplish, you know that one thing and to have rigid am very disciplined fashion, and you’ve talked about early in the show, but how you prioritize is that this is a hard thing for people to master.

 

Dan Waldschmidt  29:54  

Yeah, you have to know what you want and you have to know why you want it. It’s gonna Gotta be a deeply held emotion, you know, and a lot of people are ready to discuss that. And then you got to change your priorities. If it’s hard for you to change and adapt to the new struggle when circumstances force you to have to adapt in a day or in an hour or in a week, right, it’s hard for you, but you have to kind of in your mindset, what’s the most important thing? And then what should I be doing right now? I often challenge our teams with this question. Does it really matter? Does it matter? Look, I, earlier in the conversation, we’re talking about the importance of details, but also an equally important question is Does it really matter? Right, does it mean that, you know, and so asking yourself this question helps you adjust your priorities, real time, you know, and allows you to perform at a high level despite what’s going on around you. You know, right. This election was a big, you know, show and there’s a word you could put in front of that, right. It’s a big, big mess. The reality is what’s changed in our lives since then, I mean, Lockheed Martin is getting railed on for building you an F 35 is the new Air Force One. But I mean seriously, like, What? How has our lives improved or gotten worse in the last bit of time? And how will they, the reality is, is probably not going to change a lot for most of us. It’s just not. And so we spend time agonizing over whether I have to follow this debate, and I have to be a part of this thing. And I have to do that and this other thing, and then you look back and go, Wow, I spent a lot of effort, spent a lot of money and a lot of time on things that you could argue looking back don’t really matter. Yeah, well, I mean, this is actually on your list of 25. That’s number 22. is successful. people refuse to let the current chaos distract them from future success. They can’t. And that comes from knowing your priorities. What’s more important. And by the way, I’m a DC guy. We’re 19th and K. We’re right downtown DC and literally, K Street unites us. And I’ll tell you, it’s easy to fall into that bubble of Oh, so when so got elected for Secretary of Labor Wow, okay, well, what’s that mean for this? And how’s it and who’s going to do it, and when I start hyperventilating, those tickets take a step back. Does it matter? You know, what does matter is that I helped my 12 year old son study for his finals. And he got a B plus on a test when I thought he was gonna get a deal on that matter, like the Secretary of Labor doesn’t really matter, right? But that B plus does matter. But it’s easy to lose perspective, when you’re not focused on, on, on, on priorities. You just let the chaos of the moment sway you left and right and right to left and you forget that what you’re watching isn’t a new show. It’s entertainment. It’s there to keep you, you know, coming back after the break because there’s this juicy story, right? The scintillating thing, you know, and instead of saying, Hey, listen, you’re watching a dramatic production of what could be called sometimes news.

 

Andy Paul  32:59  

Yeah. I think that the blessing is for a lot of people just to keep in mind and I certainly saw it. You know, I looked at that during the election period like the month of November, Just in listening to this podcast as if we saw a little bit of a dip because people were distracted. So yeah, politicians come and go and administration’s will come and go, but they’ve got one opportunity to lead and live your own life.

 

Dan Waldschmidt  33:26  

One of the things I think about sometimes, and again, I’m not trying to be overly morbid, but i’ll watch, you know, as I travel a lot, and I know you do as well. And you’re in an airport, you’re looking around and you see older executives or older people, older husbands and wives and, and I sometimes ask myself, Well, what I’m doing now matters when I’m that age, but will it? And that’s a hard question to answer, but it’s something I keep coming back to. Will it matter? Am I doing things that matter? Or am I just falling Prey to the next, you know, get rich quick scheme, or am I falling prey to things that look back and go, you know, I’m unhappy and I’m disgruntled, and I’ve ruined my life on things that that just have not done anything for anybody else. They’re selfish. So, you know, some things I think about as I look around.

 

Andy Paul  34:20  

No, that’s a great point. I mean, you have to have that passion that drives you otherwise, yeah. I mean, the passion could be, look, I just don’t provide for my family. And, you know, give them opportunities that I didn’t have, or it could be. Yeah, I’m trying to make a huge difference in the world, but you really need to identify what that is.

 

Dan Waldschmidt  34:41  

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, most definitely.

 

Andy Paul  34:43  

Okay, last segment shows I’ve got just a handful of standard questions. I asked all my guests and since you’ve been on the show before we do get a different set of questions. So, the first one. Is it easier to teach technical nonsense salesperson how to sell or teach a salesperson how to sell a technical product.

 

Dan Waldschmidt  35:06  

I think it’s easier to only hire salespeople who are hungry and teachable. And that’s what we do. If you’re not hungry or teachable, you don’t get hired, the rest fills in itself automatically.

 

Andy Paul  35:18  

Okay. All right. So the next question is what is one book that’s not a business book, not a sales book, like a literary book that you recommend that every salesperson should read?

 

Dan Waldschmidt  35:32  

You know, I’m reading some philosophy books by Marcus Aurelius. One of the things that I’ve been doing, following a lot is this idea of stoicism. Right. And a book that if you want to if you want an easy book, there’s one called the daily stoic 365, basically not devotionals but daily reads that are two paragraphs each that will help you under And then another book that I think you would like is called meditations. Go grab this on your Kindle, meditations by Marcus Aurelius. And it’s really neat. I mean, it takes you a minute because of how things are worded to like, understand it, but I went to seminary, and I was studying Greek. So you know what I mean? So it’s not, you know, you can do Greek, you can do know, you can build English, but it’s really, it’s really awesome. You know, you’ve read some of these books, you read how the greatest General of the Roman Empire, how he really sold the world, it is so incredible. it’ll inspire you to kind of create your own kingdom.

 

Andy Paul  36:37  

Well, I think it’s interesting when you read some of those Stoic philosophers, or, you know, Roman philosophers in Greek, is that, you know, their perception of the human condition wasn’t too terribly different from the way we look at it.

 

Dan Waldschmidt  36:50  

That’s right. But they had you know, want to find interesting is, they had this and the Greeks did it. They spent a lot of time on philosophy on not just surface level stuff they dug into this idea of, you know, yours or a vapor and and and this idea not that we’re looking at mortality, but understanding that you have a limited number of days. It was really, really neat how they didn’t push the idea of the scariness of life. But they talked about purpose and what I like, I connect to that because I’m thinking, you know, it’s usually not this surface level discussion, how do I make money and I want to go on vacation. I want it’s really this, what am I doing that matters? Once you figure that out, everything else just kind of falls into line. It’s like that picking a lock. You know, it’s like once you get a couple of pins headed in the right direction, everything else takes care of itself. But if you don’t know the basics of how to get inside your own head, then you know you’ll, you’ll always struggle. I’m a nerd for biographies, too. So I was reading. I was reading a book about pre story of Steve Prefontaine, right and I love that and the You know, there’s a couple other sports books once called duel in the sun that I love to, which is about Umberto Salazar, one of the greatest runners of, of I guess I’m America. And in his he won a race that was pretty hotly contested. I love those stories, because you see the agony, the effort. And I think that compares to where we’re at right now, which is this idea that in between here and there, there being the finish line, there’s a lot of struggle, and we often summarize people’s success stories by Oh, Bezos. Yeah, he’s the founder of, you know, Amazon, and Oh, yeah. Tim Cook. Yeah. Oh, yeah. He’s the CEO of Apple. Oh, yeah. What was he before he was a CEO of Apple? What was he before he was at Apple? He was an engineer and an aluminum plant, and Alabama. Hmm. And so we often cut out that crap in the middle of the struggle. You know, we forget that Doug McMillon worked in the warehouse before he was CEO of Walmart. Right. We welcome All this stuff out there we go, oh, that guy, he must have had better parents, he must have had a better education, he must have something I don’t have. Well, that may be true, he may have more drive, he may have more insight, he may have more self awareness and emotional intelligence and things like that. But none of that he has nothing, nothing that you can’t also have exactly time after time after time you see these examples of Sheryl Sandberg, who works in the mall as a retail clerk, you know, you look at anyways, example example. You read it from these biographies, which I love the richness of them because you’re thinking you got 500 pages of 400 pages, or you know, God bless you. 300 pages, right of something where you can read his biography of someone’s story, and you go, Wow, this guy had a really, really rough, agonizing time, right. And yet he crossed the finish line. The lesson for us should be I’m not any different than this. I’m going through the same thing that Steve Jobs went through and going through the same thing. You know, that that was another successful person was you. Life isn’t unfair to me. Um, you know, I don’t need any special breaks, I need to apply the effort to get to where I need to be.

 

Andy Paul  40:07  

Okay, so one last question for you is, is Do you have a favorite quotation or words of wisdom you live by?

 

Dan Waldschmidt  40:15  

My nephew asked me, what’s one thing you would ask? And I said, belief. And here’s what I mean by that. I spent a lot of time in my 20s and early 30s not believing myself. I listened to everyone else, maybe because I dropped out of school and I had a mom who said, You’ll never be somebody unless you get a degree, despite building a couple companies that were millions and millions and millions of dollars. And so I think if you can believe that you’re worth it, believe that your idea is worth it. Believe that your dream is worth just believing. Belief has an interesting way of impacting everything you do. When you believe that a pill is going to heal you you get better, even if it’s just a placebo, right.. No, this we know the power of blue leaf removal if not shaking your head, but really believing when you think of what people do when they believe they blow themselves up, right? They do all of this fanciful stuff that we our minds can barely understand when you believe and so if there is one, there’s no one, one code or mantra I live by. Believe me, let me give you one short, one longer phrase that I remind myself every day when I meditate, it’s this. If you want something new I’ve never had, you must do something you’ve never done before. And this is one of those affirmations that I repeat to myself every day. If you want something you’ve never had, you must do something you’ve never done before. Which means simply this if you’re listening to this podcast and you’ve bought you know Andy’s books, so you’ve listened to read the blog, and you’ve consumed and you’re like, you know, hey, I want to be successful. How do I do it? Here’s how you do it. You do something you’ve never done before. And that might be trying harder. It might be trying something different. It might be asking for help. It might be paying Help, whatever. But don’t ever imagine that you’re going to get something you’ve never had before doing the same thing you’ve always done before. You’ve got to change and you’ve got to want to change. And when that happens, and you believe that it’s going to pay off and be worth it in the end, your whole life is magical. It is not. It’s easy. It’s magical, right?

 

Andy Paul  42:22  

Perfect. Well, great way to end. Well, Dan, thank you for joining me again. That was fantastic. So tell folks how they can find out more about you.

 

Dan Waldschmidt  42:30  

Just Google me, Dan Waldschmidt. And there’s blogs and there’s nothing to sell you but you know, if you go online, you can download some calendars and some insights and some workbooks and things like that that will be helpful to you. And again, we’re in the transformation business. So go to DanWaldschmidt.com and you could read some stuff and argue with me about what works and doesn’t work. But the goal is to get you to think differently. As you see life differently. Your whole life can be different.

 

Andy Paul  42:56  

Perfect, great way. So thanks again for joining me and remember, friends, thank you for spending this time with us. Make it a habit. As we remind you every day, make it a habit to deliberately learn something new every day to help you succeed. and an easy way to do that. Join my conversations with top business experts like my guest today, Dan Waldschmidt, who shared his expertise about how to accelerate the growth of your business. And if you enjoy the Sales Enablement Podcast and the value we’re delivering, please take a quick minute right now to leave your feedback about this podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, wherever you listen, it’d be very much appreciated. So thanks again for joining me and until next time, this is Andy Paul. Good selling everyone. Thanks for listening to the show. If you like what you heard, I want to make sure you don’t miss any upcoming episodes please subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or Stitcher.com for more information about today’s guests, visit my website at Andy Paul.com