Happiness Inverse Proportion Expectations

OK something thatI've been thinkinga lot about, and my wifeand I, we feel very muchaligned about this, which isexpectations, how expectationsis the way that you lead into.Sadness to lead intodepression, so I believethat your happy happinessquotient is inverselyproportionate to theamount of expectationsthat you have on something, ifyou can go to a movie and notexpect if it's going tobe a good or bad movie,then the movie canjust show up as itselfand present itself to you.And then you can havea different reactionif you go to dinnerand you don'tthink it's going to bethe best meal of your lifeor this road trip isgoing to create the familybond that you've always wanted.You put those expectationsinto the situation.And then when thingsdon't measure upto those expectations,you're angry, you're upset,you're anxious, you'redepressed and you'retrying to force the thingsthat are in front of youto live up to that.Why do I want totalk about that?We'll talk about itbecause a lot of you guysgo into client meetingsexpecting something.So when somebodycalls ring ring,hello, I'm lookingfor a creative person.You automaticallyassume this is goingto be a goodclient, that they'regoing to be able toafford you, that they'regoing to appreciatein value your time.They're going to respectyour creative input.And that's where you go wrong.You also assume that you'regoing to get this job,that they must not betalking to anybody else,and that would be alsoa false expectation.So I just want to open thisup a little bit about howyou guys have beengoing into situationseither with orwithout expectations.Before we move on to thelet's get things done, Chris.Anybody want to talk about this?Everybody is super quietthis morning, usuallyI can't get you guys to shut up.I'll go, OK, fire away.So I used to I used to thinkthrough the typical thingthat if somebody was speaking tome, they wanted to work with meand just assume that they'renot talking to anybody else.I just really recently,last week, in fact,for the first time,I wrote to someoneand they kicked back with, oh,you're too expensive for us.And they'd already comeback after one yearwhere they thoughtI was too expensive.So I just I just wentback with the stuff about.Well, then if you don'twant to work with me,you don't have to.But this is whereyou're coming from.This is what I've got rather.And they've now,you know, they'vecome back where I madethe expectation of,I'm not going to need youor you're not necessarilygoing to work with me.Go speak to other people.And once you'vespoken to everyone,come back and speakto me and I'llgive you any answers that arestill missing and kind of justbacking off.And they've jumpedfurther in now and said,well, you know, we stillneed some more confidence.Maybe we could speak tosome existing clients.So that's kind ofthe stage that I'mat with thisdiscussion with them.And it's quite nice.You know, it'sactually liberatingbecause it's almost likeyou're dancing, right?It's not that I can dance.I've got I've got.Despite being left handed,I've got two left feet,which is no good at all.But it's kind ofmental dancing somehowwith them, which is nice.It's really good, right?Andrew, if you gointo a situationand you were going totalk to a potential clientand you're thinking to yourself,I need to impress them,I need to convincethem of my value.I got to talk abouthow good I am.Then those expectations makethe situation a lot more.Intense Yeah.It makes it likeyou have to live upto some image of yourself thatnobody knows except for you.Now I've not heard itsaid more succinctlythan it was said onyesterday's live streamwith Jonathan stark.But he had a coupleof interesting ideassomewhere in the earlyparts of the conversation.He wants the client toknow that he's alreadythe most expensive option now.Most of us are runningaway from that.We're worried that they're goingto say you're too expensive.He comes out of the gateand says, obviously,I'm the most expensive option.Then he follows it up witha couple of questions.A couple of qualifiers.And he has a veryshort hand for this.And so I want to sharethat with you guys.Talk to you aboutit a little bit.He says.Why this?Why now?Why me?If you were to walkinto a conversation.And talk aboutanything, let's justsay you're meeting somebodyfor the first time, whateverthey're saying, youcan just ask why this?Why now?And of course, you don'thave to ask, why me?Because it's notrelative to you.But if a client came to youand you had said this to them,so why this?So why do you want a new logo?Why do you want a new website?Why do you want anew identity system?Why do you want torebrand right now?Why do you want tochange this landing page?And his job is to try toconvince them out of doing it?And by doing that, theyconvince themselvesthat they need to do this.So why now, why notdo this in monthsif everything is working, whychange something right now?Why is this sourgent, so then theyhave to prove to him and tothemselves, most importantly?Some kind of compelling,urgent burningobjective that we'retrying to solve.And then lastly, why me?You could choose alot of other peopleyou probably don'tneed to use me.You're going to have buyer'sremorse because you'regoing to pay the most for me.Well, we thoughtyou were the best.We heard great things aboutyou or a project that you puttogether really spoke to us.Are you sure about that?What is it aboutthat spoke to you?So he's come into everymeeting pretty wide open.His assumption, if any, is thisis probably not going to work.And he does his best.To kill the engagementas often as possibleto then weed out only theclients that really wantto work with them thathave a big problemto solve that need to do itnow that believes in him.This is where we got topurge all the expectations.And the same can besaid about your video.You're going there thinking, Ohmy gosh, I need it to be good,I need to be smart, Ineed to be coherent.The lightning hasgot to be right.The technical qualities,the optics, the focus,all that kind of stuffneeds to be just right.Those are your expectationsthat you put on it.But here's a shockingpiece of information.We, our community, alreadysee you for who you are.We we've accepted you.And we're not judging you theway that you judge yourself.So loosen up, burst ontocamera and do your thingand you'll be fine.Or if you know that you suck.Just accept that you suck.And that means you havea lot of room to grow,and that's totally OK.See, it's when there isthis cognitive dissonancebetween where you areand where you wantother people to perceive you.That's where your stressand anxiety come from.OK, anybody elsewant to add to this?I'll see.Go ahead.We had we get a lot ofinbound from our websiteand it's which is great.But one of the first thingsI do when I get those emailsand then we start contactingthem and talking to themis that we say, oh, howdid you find out about us?And if it's fromthe website, thenI immediately kindof run into the like,give them an ideaof what we costis so many people don'tknow what video costs,and I go into each ofthose expecting them to go,whoa, that's way too much.You know, when it'slike, well, why?Why did you contact us?Well, we saw what wesaw stuff that we liked.We think your workis really great.But and since doing mostof the future stuff,I've tempered that like,Oh hey, we got an email.It's going to be newbusinesses is goingto be great to the most of thesepeople can't afford what we'redoing or they don't wantto pay what we're doing.And that's helpedme deal with thoseand saved me a ton of timeand doing quotes and stuffproposals for them bygetting to that earlierand setting theirexpectations as well.I think which helpeda ton for both partiesand did the thing where yougo, talk to some other people,come back to us orwhat your price point.I think I know someonewho can help you.We're not really you're notalready ready for us right now.And that has comeback with someonehas come back to help us outor come back to give work to usbecause, hey, Thanksfor that information.That advice was great.Now we're ready for you.Yeah, which was great.And it was the push you away.And then whenyou're really ready,you're going to come back.Fantastic thanks, Don.I'm going to go toAnthony in one second,I do want to shareit with you guys.Another fishing story here.If you ever havegone fishing before,especially if you gosomewhere where you'reknown to catch fish, where thereare a lot of fish in the water.You're not justthrilled to have a bite,you're looking for aspecific kind of fish.So if we go into an area, thenthere's lots of fish thereand I drop my line down.And if fish bitesit and I pull it up,I know that's not theright kind of fish.It's a pain in the butt toget that fish off the hook.I want to release them becausethey're too small, they're notthe right kind ofspecies, I'm lookingfor something very specific.And we can look at that and say,well, we're talking to clients.We have to assume that we don'twant every client that calls usfor a lot of different reasonswhen they can't afford us.The project is notinteresting to us.The deadline too tight.They're going to be amicromanager, all the red flagsthat you're aware,well aware of.So we know that thenwhat we need to dois develop a process.What can you mute yourself?Thank you.And if we're awareof that, then weneed to develop a processor a system of questionsthat we can ask the client tomake sure they're not rightso they don't get on our hook.Now, when I'm rockfishing, I need my hookto go all the way to the bottom.And there are a lot ofspecies between the boatand the bottom, so I'm justhoping that as it drops,I'm going deeperfor the bigger fish.Another fish doesn'tbite it because I'mgoing to waste mytime at the reel up.I have to unhook themand then drop it again.So if you guys canunderstand that Ineed to go deep to getthe fish that I want.It's going to take some time.We have to avoid the little fishon the way down to the bottom.And then once it'sat the bottom,we have to presentit in such a waythat fish is going to go for it.OK, Anthony, you're up.Also, as far asgoing into meetingswith withoutexpectations, I knowfor myself that made a hugeshift in the amount of anxietyyou go into these meetingswith you're trying to gosh,I really hope thatthey work with me.I really hope theymake a good impression.But if you go inthere with the mindsetthat this is like a friendasking for a console,so you've gone therewith no expectations,you're not tryingto impress anybody,you're there to listen,you're there to ask questions.And you can senseover time that there'sa shift in energy from theother side of the tableto because some peoplethey call you inand they have theexpectation that you'regoing to try to sellthem, especially if you'retalking to a group of people.You have some peoplewho are very receptiveand you have other people whoare, like, kind of standoffishand they maybe had badexperiences with peoplebeing too hard sales.And I think as you go inthere and you're not salesy,you're very curious,you're tryingto find out what it is thatthey're trying to solve.And you seem kindof disinterestedlike, oh, I don't knowthat this is actuallygoing to work for us.You're right.They suddenly they'relike, wow, this person,this is something Iwant to talk to you.The barriers come down.There is somethingabout not beingpursued that makes them wantto chase you a little bit.It's just likerelationships and datingand all that kind of stuff.You know, if you seem too eager,then everyone's kind of like,whoa, whoa.But if you're like, I couldtake it or I can leave it.But while I'm here, I mightas well share what I've got.Then it really justchanges the energyand for me, just not going inthere, sweating with my palmson the table and all thatstuff, that was worth it.If that was the only thing thatit did, that would be worth it.But I just get sucha better responsefrom people on the otherside of the table now.So it's great.I'm going to tell you guysa little personal story,and then we're going tomove on to something else.Somebody else hassomething really pressingthat they need to talk aboutrelated to this very topic.A long, long time ago ina galaxy far, far away.I used to get really anxiousabout doing these webinars.Because Jose wasdoing them, and then Iwould fill in orco-host with them,and it was just superdifficult for me to do.Mostly because you'restaring at a piece of glass,you're not lookingat a human being.And so you don'thave the normal cuesthat you're used toseeing eyebrows raisedor somebody smiling orthey tilt their heador they're leaning in.And you can see thatI'm a people person.When I see somebody,they give me energyor they take away my energy.So when I look ata piece of glassand back then it wasn'ta piece of glass,it was my webcam up here.And then people didn't turnon the cameras like right now.Let me just switch modes here.How many peoplehave their camerasturned on and asked it withtheir crazy hot pink fuchsiaor magenta hair?Look at that, right?Not that long ago, all you guyswere hiding behind the camera.So I basically just saw myselfand my deck, and I'm talkingand nobody turned on their mic.So could you imagine howawkward that was to sit thereand talk to myself knowing that30, 40 people are listening inbut didn't say anything?It's like a stand upcomics worst nightmare.Zero feedback, zerolaughs, zero questions.But eventually, you getthrough this kind of stuff.Now I just showup and think, OK,the best that I canhave to offer youis just who I am today.And I hope that's enough.So I'm not trying tobe Jose, and I'm nottrying to be any oneof these other peoplethat you've seen oncamera where there'ssuper smooth orsuper high end energyand just have toshow up as who I am.