Ep 307 - Replay - Secrets to Reaching Your Potential as an Electrician

0:03 Hello and welcome to Entrepreneur Secrets, the Electrician's Podcast. We're here with you five days a week to help you master sales, simplify pricing and deliver premium level service. Today, we're going to add to that, by helping you reach your potential the sum of all that you can be. I'm your host, Clay Neumeier. With me, as always, my partner and esteemed co-host, Joseph Lucchini. Joe, how are you doing today? I'm having an absolutely wonderful day. I'm going to go on a limb and say I felt happier today than I have felt all week. I'm feeling great. It's been a tough week. It's been a tough week. It's been a tough week. If you were with us on the Facebook community group watching this live, then you just experienced us talking a bit about that and the entrepreneurial roller coaster.

0:50 Now, while we both agree that we're happily, you know what happy servants I would say to the electrical industry trying our best to rise this tide that floats all boats five days a week. As I mentioned, we are literally out here grinding with you guys and the calls are back to back to back to back. It's busy and, just like you guys probably feel, some days you come into the workplace your to-do list is greater than the number of the hours in a day, which ties perfectly into what we're talking about today. Right, and that is part of this roller coaster. It's not all ups Sometimes. I mean, our Monday was hard, Would you say so, Joe? Oh my God, was Monday hard?

1:31 Yeah, it's one of those things where, no matter what we seem to do, it's always something like whether it's oh hey, by the way, all my kids got pink high this week. Hope you don't mind. Oh God, yeah, the health, family and business problems adding up Right. That's tough, it's super tough, but we're in this with you, joe, what do you love about being in business for yourself? What I love is that I get to be authentic Like I've. I've been the kind of guy where I'm not used to being in the spotlight. I've always been more the servant than the spot. I like to serve others and I like to serve a purpose that's greater than my own.

2:14 By running my own business, I'm able to tell everyone full authentically, I'm better than none of you, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. But you will never find someone who's going to work as hard to make you better than me. More dedication to the cause. Yeah, I agree with that, and that's one thing I take through every day is, no matter how hard that day is, when I think about the number of people we would let down if we gave up here, if we just stopped. And the same is not. It's not just just for us. This is for you guys in your business and your clients, who you're happily impacting with your aim for perfect service, that premium service. If you don't do this, who gets that job?

2:54 If they're not listening to us, if they're not taking consistent efforts to be premium service providers, then you know that client's getting the shitty end of the stick. I think I heard a great quote where it was only a rich man can afford to do something wrong because it means they'll have to do it the wrong way twice. I would rather say honestly I don't mind charging a premium. When it came to doing electrical, I really didn't, because I could say I'll either apologize for the quality or I'm going to apologize for the price, and I know I'm going to do quality work at this price. So am I wrong to want to do something that I know is going to be the best interest of your family?

3:36 No, not at all, and we've all heard about those calls that come in after where they went with tank top Terry, because of the, the price, because maybe your presentation didn't quite connect, because maybe it just didn't quite line up, the options were maybe out of alignment with what they were looking for. This happens. We're just human, really. What we're dealing with every day is human psychology. We go to do our best to read a mind, help, extract all the thoughts, engage in the conversations in their head and then put that in paper and six options for them to choose from. That's easy, right? Oh yeah, just a piece of cake. So sometimes we do lose to tank top Terry chucking a truck. Sometimes the $75 street sweeper comes by right, 75 buck an hour street sweeper comes by and grabs that job out from under you.

4:24 Right, 75 buck an hour street sweeper comes by and grabs that job out from under you. And then we see the nightmares that ensue. Code violations. No permits in the first place, no permit, no inspection, no additional safety inspections, none of that. If you don't get this work, they're not better off. They didn't save money or time. Right Stress, more time, more money in the future. What happens if tank top Terry gets a job and then they call you for a fix because of what he messed up? Can I actually speak to specifically that? Because I had an exact situation where that happened. So I was working with an engineer and, go figure, I'm sure everyone's immediately like, oh okay, I know where this is going. But I was working with an engineer and, go figure, I'm sure everyone's immediately like, oh okay, I know where this is going.

5:07 But I'm working with an engineer and he called because he said that he had a issue with going on with his panel. And I remember looking at it and being like, well, it's clearly, it's overloaded. Your panel is way drawing more than a hundred amp breakers going to do it makes sense that it's tripping. It's doing exactly what it's supposed to do. Gave him a price to fix it. He declined. He said no, that's outrageous, it's only this part. I actually even manufacture those parts. There's no reason it should be this more than this. Three weeks later he gives me a call. He's like hey, something's not right with my panel. You need to take a look. He called the handyman and he bypassed the main breaker. And he bypassed the main breaker. He's like, well, now it won't trip. It won't trip now, so it's straight utility power going to everything else.

5:49 And now the moral of the story was I could have just changed the system and it would have been X dollars. But now I'm tracing melted wiring throughout his house. And it didn't trip. I bet it didn't trip. Sure as hell didn't trip, that's a good handy man right there knows, oh my goodness. So we could go on and on about that, but what we know is you're the best choice. Now let's talk about how to make you the best choice. Let's talk about reaching that potential, and it just so happens I love motivational screensavers. I'm constantly looking for the next piece of influence to get a little pep back in my step and keep me going. So I hope that our energy in today's chat, I hope that the knowledge will kick today in this experience, will help drive that for you.

6:34 But here's the quote beside me today tell me what you think of this. Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out. Yes, yes, amen to that. This perfectly parallels what I say so often, that consistent activity is the barrier to success. What's easy to do is easy not to do, as Jim Rohn said. Absolutely. Look at the outcomes you're having now. Look at the activities, the critical success factors, those activities that produce those outcomes, and you will find an answer in that activity, 99.9 of the time, there's activity missing or the activity wasn't done completely, or the activity wasn't done in the time that we set out to do it in does that make sense, joe it does.

7:25 It's like you know, we only have a certain amount of done in the time that we set out to do it in. Does that make sense, joe? It does. It's like you know, we only have a certain amount of hours in the day and we think that we can use them effectively. But I've almost found that when you use them ineffectively, you end up using more time ineffectively, because now you're not only focusing on the lack of time but the burnout that's following, and now you have to overcome the emotional distress of that. I mean, that's how people end up doom scrolling, right, you know? You think about people on their phone and you're like I don't have time to read more books, but I can scroll three miles a day. Yeah, it's like, do you? not have the time, or was it not a priority? It's nuts, it's absolutely nuts, and you know that I never have a problem plugging mentors on this show because I've got so many.

8:12 We talk about jim rohn so frequently. Right, we talk about all these guys. I was listening to grant cardone stuff yesterday. Grant cardone maybe some like him, maybe some some don't. He's a bit of a gorilla in the marketing and sales space. If you ever get a call from Grant Cardone's team on your business sale, you know what it's about. They're trying to sell you a sales program. That's what they do. They do a lot like what we do, but Grant actually has some really powerful and a lot of the stuff he speaks to is showing up for yourself every single day and making room for growth.

8:57 And so I want to quote him on a video that I shared in our inside group yesterday. He literally said this guys, at the stage that you're at training, self-development is number one. He's like if you've got food or shelter up there, take it back down. Self-development, for many of us at least. If you're in our age group maybe you're in your 30s, maybe you're kind of halfway into your business you haven't realized your dreams yet. Especially if you're a one-man operation to two, maybe three-man operation, you're having troubles pulling back from the tools. This might be true for you. Self-development, and that commitment to the time for self-development and training might be more important than food to you right now to reach that goal.

9:46 Now that's a bit of a stretch, of course, but that's where I want you guys to picture this being. And this leads us perfectly into a topic that we really wanted to crush on today, which was when should you develop? When should you put this time in for training? I got to jump in on this. Okay, do it All. Right. So I want to speak to any of the parents out there, right, because running a business can sometimes feel very similar to being a new dad or a new parent, right, and one thing that I always used to love doing was working out. I actually believe it or not. Back in the day, I studied bodybuilding for a long time. I loved it. It was really, really interesting.

10:26 But when you start having kids I mean Clay you get it probably as well. There's always a reason why you cannot do the thing you're doing, right, like, you know what the baby kept me up last night. I'm not going to get up and work out. Or you know what it's tiring and I'm going to order a pizza instead of doing something. The small little steps that you take away from your goal add up. Instead of thinking, imagining putting a quarter into a jar, you're putting a half, a penny in the jar. Small little steps, add up and cast favors. Every action you take for you is considered a vote.

11:06 I was actually taught by one of my mentors that you can cast votes for yourself, as is Something, as I don't have to do a workout every day that's 16 sets long, but I will always cast the vote that I'm going to get up and work out, because then I'm acting as if someone who works out every day and by establishing that routine you're able to start seeing more and more consistent results. That makes sense. Absolutely. In fact, I'm reminded of another quote from the late great Jim Rohn that is one of my favorites and sure to be on my screensaver tomorrow. You got to have a plan, or you'll fall into someone else's plan.

11:49 Or you'll fall into someone else's plan. You know what someone else has planned for you. Not much, joe. I want to say that again. This is one of the most impactful statements I've ever recorded in this brain of mine. You've got to have a plan, or you'll fall into someone else's plan, and you know what someone else has planned for you. You know what someone else has planned for you, not freaking much. This ties perfectly into the eisenhower matrix, where we see the four quadrants of where we should be spending our time. There's urgent matters and there's important matters, and then there's not urgent, not important, and most of us spend all of our time in this one little quadrant that is also known as being stuck in the fire, stuck in the mud, stuck in the weeds, and that's that.

12:37 Urgent, important, everyone else's important shit becomes our emergency because we're not following our own schedule, we're not prioritizing our needs first, and this, even if I may make a reference to our classes. Sometimes, when new clients come in, there can be this feeling of well, the class time doesn't work for me, even though we've got an 8am across three time zones. Sometimes it's difficult for the smaller companies to make that time available. The reality is, though, and the question that needs to be asked is what are you going to do when you have a team that time is still going to need to be dedicated to training?

13:25 Are we just going to let them go out and wing it? Maybe that's a better way. Just send them out every morning and they just go to let them go out and wing it. Maybe that's a better way. Just send them out every morning, they just go. Wouldn't you say that the minimum requirement for training in sales and service is one hour a week? Yeah, when should? we start that good habit, then when we can control it. So what I mean by that is this you can control yourself, but you cannot control others. But you can establish habits, and habits can be adopted by others. So if you believe that you can set yourself up to learn and dedicate, hey, 8 am is my training time. This is what it is.

14:05 Whether you want to join me or not, I am developing myself and my skills at 8 am. Eventually, people will realize yeah, I can't get anything done until the boss finishes his development time. All right, maybe I'll join him, and now they're part of it. But if it was non-negotiable, it wouldn't matter. Train with them. Here's what I would do. Here's the ultra specific, actionable advice here. Every week, choose one hour If you're in our program program, make it the class of your choice. Block that hour out of your house. Call pro, your jobber, your service, titan, doesn't matter what it is, you deserve that hour to learn and grow.

14:47 How does that saying go? Even an iron sword begins to rust in just hours in a glass of water. I think it was, it was um if an iron sword will rust within eight hours and therefore you lose your edge within eight hours of non-training. So every single day, you need to focus, and it's, it's true. I mean, if you think about the concept behind it you have. Imagine your brain is the kitchen island at your home Every single person has one and we all know this where all the junk mail goes and everything all piles up. If you don't keep it clean and ordered and structured and routine, you're stuck in a pile where you have to take so much time digging through what's unimportant to find out what is.

15:35 Instead, keep your home in order, keep your life in order and, as a result, success will find you here's some hard irony, and these are one of the moments where a lot of people will feel we're talking directly about them or directly to them. But a lot of people will feel we're talking directly about them or directly to them. But a lot of people that struggle to put this one hour a week aside, even just one training hour a week, forget the daily thing for a moment. So little control in their schedule that they can't take one hour without taking it from sleep. What I mean by that is needing to actually wake up earlier. That's how little control some people have in their schedule.

16:16 I would have to lose sleep in order to self-develop. And the irony there is how long would you sit in that emergency? Why I call it an emergency is most of the people in this place are the same people that would say I'm not making enough, things aren't going as good as we want, we're not reaching our goals, underpaid and overworked. Joe, that's an emergency. That's what we call an electrical emergency. You got to put that out ASAP, right? We need to be able to control a schedule, or how else could we control our team? How else could we be a fundamental member of our family, a fundamental partner to a spousal partnership.

17:05 How can people count on you if we can't set aside an hour a week? Does that make sense? Is that coming through clear and dramatic enough? It really does, and I want to speak to a personal example because I wanted to express the gravity to these things right. Even if some of you are worried that you may lose sleep in order to personally develop, it is still worth it, and let me explain why. I can tell you from exact life experience. So, for anyone who has young kids, you know that their wake-up time never is going to be consistent. It could be 7 am, it could be 6 am, it could be 5 am, it could be 4 am, you don't know.

17:47 Two, three, one, exactly right. I remember I would come to the conclusion that I needed to work out, I needed to get my life in order and really start getting my health in check. But after all day of working and being with the kids and all that, you're burnt out. It's not going to happen in the evening. So I started getting up at six. The kids started getting up at six. So I started getting up at 530. Kids starting up at 530. So I woke up at five. Up at six. So I started getting up at 5.30. Kids starting up at 5.30. So I woke up at five. The benefit is is that every single day I wake up early, even if I just do 20 or 30 minutes of something, I'm ahead of the ball. Now, instead of the girls waking me, I'm already awake, rushed, face washed, dressed, and I've started on something that I was going to do for productivity.

18:31 If you can do the same thing, you'll eventually find that the sleep was less important than the feeling you got after you did the thing and that feeling carries you through the whole day. I feel better. I trained legs today. I love doing legs was doing. I feel better doing it because now, when the evening comes, I don't have to worry about doing it later. It's already moved on. Biggest frog was eaten first I love that. I love that. It's a great share. I want to give another example. I want to speak through example here for a moment, because if you're here listening to us, even if this is your first episode and you decided already, hey, I'm coming back these guys are passionate about helping electricians reach their potential topic of the day.

19:17 If you're attracted and engaging with us and following along with this podcast, then that means there are some things that make us a benefit to your personal arrangement, to your business, to your life, to your relationships, to your life, to your relationships, to your service, and that that you're attracted to that which you want to either you feel like you relate to or you want to be more of. You want to become is all the cultivation of the work you can't see in the background. This is the literal cultivation of an intentional, intentional, unshakable character, as jim rohn would say. Yeah, for me, I'm 15, 16 years now in personal development, studying like a freaking, like there's nothing else.

20:06 Every day of the week, brain dumps and brain fill back ups. It's constant. And guess what, if we'll take that hour and really I mean all-star level is going to be an hour a day, but even an hour a week. I promise you something. I want to make a promise to everyone right now, because this is not a stitching bitch. This is how we make you a freaking rock star. Mm-hmm, that hour will always be full with something. The moment you think you've got nothing to put in that hour, guess what? Life is going to fucking challenge you. And when you get challenged, what are you going to put in the hour, whatever it takes to get out of the hole.

20:47 Whatever it takes to learn and grow and get out of the hole. Absolutely, couldn't have said it better myself. Life is going to challenge you and you're always going to have something to put in that hour that is intentional to make you better, to make you a better grinder, to make you a healthier person, to make you a better father, a better husband, to make you a better leader or manager, because leaders weren't born either man. We're forged. Absolutely. I love that term, by the way. I love that term because it's fucking hard, joe. Work hard to get to this. Reaching your potential is not something that's, dare I say, easy, because it is actually easy.

21:29 You know what? Taking an hour a week is easy. You want to hear something? Hard. Try growing up in some of the third world countries around the world right now. Right, try not having electricity, a pot to piss in. Literally that's hard. I don't want to over quote jim rohn, but this is something he said. Anything that's easy is something you can do. You got to work hard at it, but it's easy because you can do. You got to work hard at it, but it's easy because you can do it. You can be all that you're meant to be just by committing yourself to the consistent activity and become the sum of all of those efforts and be everything, everything that you vision.

22:12 If that's not a motivational mic drop moment, I don't know what the fuck is. Joe. I'm loving it. I'm sitting here. Sometimes I know that you and I kind of feed off each other sometimes, but there's some moments where I just gotta pause. I'm like, damn, all right, I gotta, I gotta one-up that thing. That's rough so the takeaways here are actually quite simple. Again, if you don't have a plan, whose plan are you falling into? Because I guarantee you, if you went out in business on your own to have more time, have more money, create a legacy for your family, and you're not feeling that yet you're feeling the opposite. We all do that, we all feel it. We all went for one thing and experience another, but that hard stuff, that's what forges you, that's that fortification, and if you'll combat that with some hours a week to work on the business, work on yourself, then you can actually climb that hill and get over that part.

23:11 You can be better than you are today if you'll focus on it. If you don't, the consequences are dire. It's more of the same and, as they say, the definition of insanity is more of the same, while expecting a different result. If this isn't where someone should start, joe, what is? I mean, there's an let's start at alpha which just means this is the beginning. You have to start somewhere, even if it's just like I struggled getting up in the morning. Really, I really, really, really struggled with getting up in the morning because I had a lot of trouble sleeping and starting.

23:53 I knew I needed to start working out, but just the thought was so insurmountable I couldn't do it. So you know, what I started doing, the exercise for the day was get my feet out of bed and touch the floor, and if I did that, that was successful and I could write that down as a check mark. And then eventually it was feet on the floor and stand All right, that's a check mark. And we just kept getting better and better Make it to downstairs, get it into the gym, put on your headphones. Every little thing became a step, and the best part about it is that if you're going to treat your life that way, where you are so damn resilient and relentless in your own perfection, no one can stop you, because that knowledge no one can take from you.

24:37 All the things that we've built and we've learned and we've developed and we've grown personally, that's ours. No one can take it from you. So are you willing to invest in your own pot, or are you going to keep putting coins in someone else's? I love that. That's that C money, the money you see invested in yourself. Love that and I love that you brought the coins in the pot up too, because we all have just 24 hours a day. If you haven't recognized the danger we're all in with that, then it might help to look at it as 24 coins. And if you had just three jars, I want you to visualize this with me brian saying one percent better every day, brother, every day, every bet, every day.

25:19 I got day, every bet every day. I got a graph and it's an exponential growth. Just to touch on that for a sec, at the end of the year you'd be 36 times better. That's how that works out one percent better every day. But imagine time is coins and you've got three jars health, family, business. Where are you putting your coins? Health includes you and your self-development. How many are you currently putting in health? Let's be honest, guys, and if you're live with us in the chat and you're able to grab your two thumbs or your keyboard, let us know how many coins of your 24 are going in health. Really, probably not enough. We're electricians, probably not enough. We're electricians.

25:59 How many go in with family? Here's a better exercise, a better way to look at this coin problem and the time problem. Start in the order we suggest. Go health coins. This is how many coins I need. Maybe it's eight, maybe it's nine, maybe it's 10. You got 14 left. Then family how many coins do my family get intentionally each day of the week? Then business If you find you only got seven or eight coins, isn't it best that we build a business around that? You just designed a life with the only coins you have, but unfortunately, 99% of us are going the other way, putting that business like a vacuum in your pocket, letting the business suck up all your coins, giving what's left to your family, giving what's not left to yourself Is that designing a life?

26:52 It sounds like a prison and I feel like a lot of us get into business to get out of prison and when we do business wrong, we find ourselves in an even worse prison because we were the ones who designed it. That's it. That's all I have. Joe, I think we just rocked a solid half an hour here. Do you have anything else you want to add before we jump into action and all-star actions today? Honestly, we could just keep going, but I think action and all-stars where we got to be at right now all right, here's what we're going to do. I want to throw an action out that includes our audience today, the vip audience, live in the facebook group with us. Because my first action would be you know what? We need that hour a week and, if you can stretch it, do the hour a day.

27:35 But you're going to want some why to this, because without a why, you don't have intestinal fortitude, you don't have that sticky power. So I'm going to make a suggestion to start with what to put in that hour. I'm going to call it a non-negotiable that everyone here should book this hour at least a week. One hour for your better, for your better understanding of where you're going, what you could do. And a great resource to start could be as simple as here's one we've all heard of before Dale Carnegie how to Make Friends and Influence People. What a great place to start.

28:17 Tony Robbins Unlimited Power, understanding, understanding, conversations, internal and external, so you can gain control of yourself and start to have more influence with others. What a great place to start. Jim Rohn challenge to succeed changed my life personally. Whole weekend event I got five hours recorded on this thing Changed my life. What a great place to start. So here's how you get engaged. Let us know where you started. What's your first self help, your first self development, that thing that drives you. What's your book recommendation, what's your audio tape recommendation? Let us know so others can join in see those recommendations by putting that in the comments.

29:00 Joe, do you have an all-star? Oh, I do. I'm ready for it. You're teed up. So the all-star action is both something that you can do as an all-star and at a bare minimum, and that's why I think it's so awesome. So I've come to the conclusion that I want to work out, I want to develop my health, I want to continue learning and developing and growing all my knowledge and skills, but the amount of time is difficult to do. The all-star action is learning. What things can you combine for maximum effect? So let me explain what I mean by that. I get up in the morning and 5 am I'm in working out in the gym, but in my ears are podcasts and I make sure that I have the sound cancellation on and I'm only listening to this, and the benefit is is that I actually time the podcasts to the workout, meaning that I'm not gonna stop until they're done talking.

30:00 The benefit of doing this is this You'll find that if you can start your day being filled with positive news and positive affirmations and your body is also receiving it while you're working out, you'll actually have a higher adrenaline pump by natural. Your body's natural chemistry will respond to it and your endorphins will go up to an extent to where you'll actually have a more productive day by you having a more productive day. It feels like you only have 24 coins but at the same time, when you start on the right foot, it just feels like you have more because there's more of you that's primed and ready to give, because you can't give what you don't have.

30:41 So start your day putting back into your own, so you can give back to those you love most. I love that Can't give what you don't have. That reminds me of another quote you've dropped. If you didn't bring it, you're not going to find it here. Arnold Palmer, right there, yep, okay, the last little nugget to attach here. We've talked about this before learn, do teach, guys. That's how you master any principle. Learn, do teach. Learn it in a way that makes sense to you, that's relevant to your priority sensories. If you're a reader, read. If you're a listener, listen, right, but also do it and then speak it, write it, share it.

31:23 Do whatever you've got to do to learn, to teach, because that will progress your learning and cement those learnings in a way like nothing else. Joe, this has been an absolute journey today. I know electricians are going to take value from this and I challenge each and every one of our listeners, our current viewers in the Facebook group, to not fall into the trap. And the trap is doing everything for everyone else on everyone else's time, leaving only some zero to one coins for yourself, with no intention around where you develop, where you will grow and where your team can benefit from that.

32:06 Are we wrong to want to do that for our viewers? No, sir, we're not Big challenge of the day. Thank you guys. This has been another Entrepreneur Secrets, the Electrician Podcast. As you know already, we're here with you five days a week to help you master sales, simplify pricing, deliver premium service and today become your premium self reaching your potential. Thank you, joe, for joining. We'll see you guys again tomorrow. Take care all.