(playful music)
- Hey guys, it's Kevin
Kermes and Olivia Gamber
from Career Attraction,
an executive talent agency.
And we want to talk to you today
about something that we're
seeing with executives
and professionals alike.
And something that is
consistently slowing them down
and hopefully it's not slowing you down,
but if it is, we're gonna
try and fix that today.
And it's perfection.
And as the adage goes,
perfection is the enemy of done.
So, Olivia, start us off.
I know this is something
that you see a lot too.
- Yeah, absolutely.
I think, in the context of
career, in life in general,
though, when you are
looking to change something
or do something you haven't done,
a lot of people are really
afraid to take that first step,
until they have everything figured out
or until they have all
their ducks in a row.
And what we see happen,
over and over again,
whether it's with an executive
trying to make a transition
into a new company
or trying to pivot into a new career path,
they end up paralyzed in their own head,
over-analyzing in trying to
get everything figured out
before they take that first step.
And it keeps them from getting
any momentum, whatsoever.
- Yes, I think back, 20 years ago,
to when I was in the infantry
and something through,
several courses I went through
and just kind of life's experience,
something we were always taught
is you just gotta keep moving.
You have to keep moving.
So, the object in motion, stays in motion.
We could, whether we're
gonna talk physics,
we're gonna talk practical
application in life.
You know that we could
say this a number of ways,
but going back to something Olivia said,
one of the things that's
interesting is that
getting caught in sort of that cycle
of I need more information,
I need to do some more research,
the best, if you feel like
you need more information,
the best place you can
get information from,
is the market.
And what the market requires you to do
is to go out and have
dynamic conversations,
which is what's gonna form, sort of,
either the problem you're trying to solve,
or the value that you're
trying to present,
which is the way that I see
this, in a professional setting.
Either we're trying to figure
out where do we fit in,
which is something, oh, by the way,
you need to constantly do.
Because economies are changing so fast.
Or problems you need to solve,
the problem's not going away
either way, right?
It's continuing to sit there and fester.
Get bigger.
Present other issues for
you, when it's not addressed.
So, you've got to engage it.
What would you say, Olivia, to people who,
because I think about this
in the context of networking, right?
- Oh yeah, absolutely.
- People will always
say, well, I tried that.
Well I went out and--
- And they stopped.
I have the perfect
analogy for these people.
So, I'm gonna go
psychological for a second.
And, let's talk about baseball analogy,
because it's the world series.
So, I think what people truly,
I know perfectionists.
I'm friends with a lot of them.
I'm married to one.
They want everything to be a home run.
So they don't swing the bat,
unless they're 100% sure
that it's gonna be a home run.
But, guess what?
The people that hit the most home runs,
not only do they swing the most,
but they strike out the most.
And so, I think you gotta reframe failure
as not the opposite of success,
but the path to success.
And so, anyone that's good at sales,
anyone that's good at
creating opportunities,
anyone that's killing it in their career
has become completely fearless of failure.
That is the bottom line.
So, you have to be, it's
about taking more swings.
- So, right, so here's
a different problem.
And this is something you
and I encounter all the time.
We like to fail fast.
We move very quickly.
Sometimes we have to slow ourselves down,
because we haven't,
and this isn't a matter
of gathering enough data.
We haven't been punched in the face enough
to know whether or not
it's actually a problem
or it just wasn't a fit.
Prime example, so you take,
you decide that you
want to pivot industries
or you wanna run something past your boss
because you wanna try to expand your role.
And the first time you bring
it up, you get pushed back.
And the tendency is, because
we're feeling vulnerable,
wow that didn't work,
that didn't feel good.
First of all, didn't feel good, right?
So it didn't feel good, so I
don't want to do that again.
That's the fight or flight,
the amygdala, did that lizard brain,
trying to keep you alive, right?
So, instead, a better way to look at it is
that didn't work,
I still believe in the outcome,
I still believe in doing this,
this is still something I
want to do and I see value in,
how do I approach it differently?
So what do you do with that data?
So, when that happens to you, Olivia,
walk through, how do
you take that pushback,
and then, figure out
what your next move is?
- So, the first thing you have to do is
emotionally get in the right state.
Because I feel like people get flustered
and upset and they start thinking
Oh, I'm never gonna succeed
or I'm never gonna get this,
and then they shut down.
Whereas, instead, you
need to get to a place
where you're looking at the facts.
The fact is your boss
doesn't want to do something.
What was their reasons?
What were their objections?
Now, let's get in their head,
instead of being in your head,
get out of your damn head
and I just feel like it's the thinking
that keeps people down the path
and the stories they take themselves
down that path of failure.
Instead, focus on what the
problem is in front of you.
And get to a logical state of mind.
You're boss has objections,
what are those objections?
Now what objections do you control?
And then, think about potential solutions.
But you can't get in the solution mindset
if you're in a failure mindset
and if you're in a fear mindset.
So this is all very emotional.
And everything with, I think achievement,
at the highest level
is extremely psychological and emotional
because, at that point,
it's no longer about technical
skills and capability,
it's about influence over people.
It's about your ability to
achieve results through others.
So, it becomes extremely emotional
and it's really hard to
articulate this stuff
because, it's not easy,
it's not easy to deal.
- Well, I think, so there
are a couple things, right?
That you were talking about.
So, you have to commit to the outcome,
because, number one,
fear's always there.
So what fear is looking for is
fear is looking for validation.
And fear's looking to
move from emotion to fact.
Again, it's the lizard
brain, right back there,
that is, when we came
out the primordial soup,
is the thing, fight or flight,
that is trying to keep us alive.
And it is still there.
And this is one of the
biggest challenges for us,
as human beings, is the
fact that, as much as,
so think about this as a rub:
as fast as business is changing
as opportunities present
themselves and then retract
or shift or completely go away,
we have to change faster.
We have to pivot, is the
new, kind of buzzword.
It's not a fad.
You have to get used to changing.
You have to get used to change.
You have to get used
to constantly evolving.
Which means you're constantly
gonna be uncomfortable.
And that thing's never going away,
so you have to be aware that
it's gonna present itself.
And not let it deter you from the outcome.
Conversely, that person
that you're talking to,
particularly when, so let's
use the example again,
you're going to your boss
to try to do something new.
It's something new.
Immediately people think about friction.
People think about Oh my god, how much--
so think about how you frame out something
that you're taking to someone else.
Is it now requiring them more work?
It's something as basic as,
it's something we see all the time,
where people say well I asked so and so
to make an introduction for me.
Or I asked somebody to write
a recommendation for me on LinkedIn.
Or I asked someone to do anything for me.
And then we dig into well, what if,
if you asked them,
if I asked somebody to
make an introduction
to Olivia for me,
did I write out the introduction for them?
- Exactly, it's that simple.
Remove the barriers.
- Or did I just ask them to do more work?
I just asked you to do more work.
Of course they're not gonna do it.
They're not gonna, no one
is waking up this morning
and going, god, I wish people
would pile more shit on my plate, right?
Nobody's saying that. (laughing)
Nobody's gonna do that.
- I talked to a woman yesterday
and she was frustrated
'cause she's been in banking for 20 years,
executives, operations and she literally,
she's going through a layoff,
she reached out to all of her network,
and just said, hey, guys, you
know you've worked with me,
what do you have, what do you know?
That right there, I think,
is asking them to think,
well, I don't even know
what you're looking for.
So, just asking questions
that make other people think,
when we have such limited
attention and brain power,
is a recipe for failure,
not only for your boss,
but anything you're trying to achieve.
How can you make it so
easy for them to say yes?
That's it.
I think we've kind of gone
all over the place today,
but I just wanted to throw that out there.
- So, the recap.
Fear is ever-present,
it's never going away.
So, you need to understand
what it feels like,
what it tastes like,
how it manifests itself with you
and be aware of it,
so that you don't confuse it
with something that it's not.
'Cause it's going to,
it is the most basic self-sabotage.
So you've got that.
You need to be aware and really think out,
how you're asking people to do things.
What you're asking of
them, so that it's not like
you're just putting a
heavier burden on them.
And then, as well, when you get pushback
to dig in and figure out why.
