Why Pressure Kills Deals and What Elite Performers Do Instead | Guffy Wright

Our brain has two primary functions, safety and energy management. So because of that, we really fear making the wrong decision,

but ultimately friction is not failure, it's just information.

And detachment is not apathy, it's the highest form of professional empathy. Velocity is not speed, it's directional movement, what's friction is removed. I almost quit this book because I didn't want to put myself out there. Dude, I'm so glad you're on the show. You guys hand me on your show and then you ask me to blurb your new book, attach high.

I absolutely love it. I love it for so many reasons. And frankly, you know, I just had to stop myself in the green room before we went live, because I was like getting into it and I was like, wait a minute, we need to talk about this stuff on the show. So I want to, I want to start with, I want to start with this idea of

we humans are afraid to make decisions. I want to know why you think we're afraid.

“And what does that actually mean for relationships, business development sales?”

But at first, just why are we afraid to make decisions?

Like, what is it about us at our core that making decisions is such a scary proposition? Our brain has two primary functions, safety and energy management. So because of that, we really fear making the wrong decision. We love autonomy, we love freedom, but we don't love making the wrong decision. And quite frankly, all of us have been burned by making the wrong decisions in our life.

And we know the cost, we know the price. The older you get a lot of times, the less risky you want to be, because you've been hurt and you've been challenged. And so, it's really an important distinction. We take 20,000 breaths a day, Ryan.

We make 35,000 decisions a day. So now, not all of them are high stakes, high pressure. But we are afraid to make decisions because we have it pretty good. How do we get through the day then? Like, what is that?

“How does that operationally impact the type of decisions we make and how we make decisions?”

Well, most of us wake up in default mode, the same thoughts go through our brain every day.

How we start our day is crucial.

But there are decisions and things that business owners and people want to make, and they know eventually they have to make, but ultimately they wait and they stall. And that was the most frustrating thing for me in the insurance advisory business. Was when value was clear when I was clearly better, but yet value didn't move and I didn't win.

That was the most frustrating part of sales. And so, I spent a lot of time, a lot of painful time, a lot of personal journey time, and learning why decisions, not just why decisions stall because there's a lot of behavioral science books out there that I respect and written by people that are great. But there's not a lot out there that teach you how to remove what's in the way.

And what I teach is in the way is friction. There's three different types of friction that we can get into if you want. But ultimately friction is not failure. It's just information. And once you look at it that way, you don't try to persuade, convince, or influence people to make a decision. You just remove what's in the way and let value go to its natural conclusion.

So what are those three types of friction? Every important decision, very important decision that you have that you're stall,

“that you know you should be doing, but you're not.”

Comes down to three types of friction. First is not clear. So it's just cognitive friction, not clear. Second is a big one, emotional friction, not safe. And third is directional friction, which is either not aligned or aligned.

You can trace every single stall decision to one of those three things in your personal life and also to a business deal that you are trying to guide someone through a decision. It is stuck in one of those three sequences. And so when you ask the question initially, like how do we make great decisions, you flip those and it creates the environment to actually make a really good decision.

The opposite of confusion, clarity, the opposite of fear or emotional friction, safety. And then the opposite of directional friction, which is alignment or misalignment, a no is great too. And so this decision making framework that the book has, it doesn't get people to a yes. It gets people to either alignment or misalignment by just removing the crap in the way.

So they can make an excellent decision for themselves. So that was one of the first things that I picked up and reading the book was that so many sales books and the number of sales books that I've gotten two chapters in and have gotten right in in the garbage because they're all like these.

Like I'm not using that in negative context, but it's like these psychology games that you play.

And I'm not saying psychology isn't part of it, for sure it is. But like so much of it, that's taught is like say this and then here's a three response, waterfall and whichever one and then then here's the objection manipulation over that. And you know, and like it's all about just convincing this person to say yes, no part of what

“you present in this book comes off in that way, right?”

Especially this idea of we're trying to get to alignment or not alignment or figuring out where we are on the alignment spectrum, right? Like that is so much different. Why not just why not isn't the book just filled with psychology hacks and manipulative tactics? Because I'm in the high stakes, consultative sales business selling to very successful people,

people that if you try to manipulate or convince or if you have commission breath, they'll just walk you out the door. And and because of that, I thought okay, there's a sales process and like you, I've read all the sales books and some of them are great and written by people that I respect and I've written by your psychology books and behavioral science and I kind of came up with, well, there's a whole decision

layer in there. What if you're just the most valuable and what you actually have to offer is better than what they currently have?

“Why get these are human beings that are very smart, run multi-million dollar businesses?”

Why not just remove all the friction through the V3 framework that I lay out in the book and let value go to its natural conclusion? And it's worked well in my personal life, but that first, that first V is value. And how do you create clarity with value is the right, is the right framing for when you're guiding someone through a decision or you're talking to a business owner?

Because everybody values different things that different times for different reasons.

I mean, if I asked you Ryan like, hey, you want $10 million a cash or an 8 gallon ball,

8 gallons of water, you're going to probably say a cash money. Well, what if you're in the desert for seven days? Now, what do you want? Okay, what's the water? Drink a water. Elon must have the same thing. He became a trillion. They said, how do you feel? He says, I feel great. But if I was on a desert island, I'd rather have a cup of soup, right?

And it's the same kind of thing. So how do you know, how do you get there? And an exercise that I do with ourselves people here that I trained for them to help understand how to gain clarity together with a buyer is, I say, think of a dog. What kind of dog are you thinking of when I say think of a dog, right? And the listeners think of a dog. What kind of breed of a dog are you thinking of, Ryan?

I just met a beautiful golden retrievia day. That's the first dog that popped in my head.

You're a golden retriever. I'm thinking of a great day. Your listeners might be thinking of a hot dog for all I know, right? And the dogs that they have. So now I just said, dog, and there's cognitive friction between us. We're not talking about the same dog. So how do I remove that? You know, there's there's a couple ways to do it. But if I said to you, think of a Dalmatian with a red collar and three legs scooting across the park.

Now we're thinking of the same dog. I didn't have to say a bunch. I didn't have to over explain and bore people and with my company and my dog and all this stuff. Now we're on the same page.

“And then, as soon as you get on the same page, the best way to guide someone through a decision”

is ask them what they value in the future. They'll tell you everything they value. If I said, Ryan, what a success look like for you in three years with the book you're coming out with, with your podcast, with your consulting company, tell me what success looks like. You would tell me everything you value and then if I actually have value, I would tie my expertise to that and in the book, I call it Coincre. Now we're anchored on your future ambition. Coincreing

means tying your expertise to that individuals or businesses future ambition. Now, if I'm not the guy that happens to help people in consulting businesses or podcasting or even writing a book, if I work, if I were, I could tie my value to you. That would release a lot of cognitive friction and then we can start talking about the next V and keep going down that decision layer process. The thing that I love about this, this, I'm going to call it a methodology. This is a broad stroke,

philosophy. Everyone who leans on that I know in sales, who leans on psychological hacks and manipulation. Again, and guys, I'm not saying manipulation negatively. I'm saying using certain pressure points inside people's decision making process that if you use properly, you can exploit. Yes, you can sell

as two sales. You can sell me one time. You come in and you wedge me and you bump a bump and you make me feel like crap for making my previous decision. And then you build me up on your specific thing and you get me to buy in and you water fall my nose and all this kind of shit. And now all of a sudden, I'm like, okay, Guffy, shit, I'll do it. I'm in, man. And then, but then it's not what I want to your point. I wasn't really clear on what I was getting. It wasn't really aligned with

what I wanted. Maybe I didn't feel completely safe, but man, you put a bunch of tumblers in

place. And I got me to say, yes, what I'm never going to do again for you is say, yes, again,

because I'm going to go, you know, what, like, I like Guffy's a good guy, but like, I, you know, I just, I don't trust them to like do the right thing for me. You know what I mean? Like, you know,

“so it kind of feels like, sure, if you want to go down that path, you can be successful in sales”

with one sale using these like, we'll call them, you know, Instagram Ninja Tricks, but if you want to be to your point, an advisor, if you have any intention of retaining the business, if that's important to you, these things do not work twice. They just don't. And that's what I feel like none of these sales books talk about. They talk about new business, one-time purchases, almost none of them talk about repeated sales, value-driven sales, relational things where you want that person to be

with you from 10 or 20 years, not just that initial purchase. Does that, does that align with what you're talking about? You gave me goosebumps, Ryan, because that's exactly what my intent was for this for this book. And, you know, the next V is, it's called V3, value creates clarity. The next V is vulnerability. And that expands and tests the safety that's already there. Okay? And you just, you just talked about that a little bit. And we talked about trust and trust is foundational

throughout decision making and throughout V3. It enables movement, but it is not the currency. It is not moved decisions. I had a client call me one time and say, a past client now. I said, hey, we've done all these things for you. XYZ, aren't you happy with this? He says, got me, I trust you. I'm just more aligned with this other direction where they can take my company.

And that's when I had the aha moment when decisions actually get made, trust is crucial and foundational.

But if I want to build a house in New York and my wife wants to build one in LA, we got problems. We can trust each other, but if we want different directions, we want different things. We have problems. And so now vulnerability and decision making, it's not just, I call it in the book, vomit vulnerability. You don't just walk into a meeting and say, hey, Ryan, I just want you to know, I'm here to do what's best for you. That is garbage. They'll smell commission breath on you,

and that is car salesmen stuff. Even if it's done genuinely, you have to earn the right to be

“vulnerable in that room. And so that's why first you have to present value. And then, yes,”

the best line you can say in vulnerability and I've watched this so many times in meetings where I can actually see the nervous system relax. And it's only works if it's delivered authentically. Is if you say, hey, Ryan, this is what I would do for you. This is what I would do if I were you, even if you decide not to go with us and meet it. When you say that, that really expands and tests the current vulnerability between two parties. And then, as soon as you do that, and you're really

serious about it, you're doing it authentically. Man, some pretty amazing stuff can happen after that.

Can you go into a vulnerability a little more, because again, speaking to alignment, right? Like, that can mean a lot of things. Like, I could tell you about, you know, hey, Guffy, I got $50,000 and credit card debt. And, you know, I, you know, I got this thing. And, you know, my wife and I are about to get it over. And now you're like, there's like personal sometimes people take vulnerability too far. Like, what is in this context and a business relationship and trying to, you know,

create a deal between two people will say, whether that's a business development or whatever we're trying to do sell something. What, what constitutes reasonable and rational vulnerability that, and obviously your relationship with that person matters. But let's say it's someone who you're

“meeting in a business context. Like, what is that? What does vulnerability actually look like?”

How does that sound? This is a great question. And I think some people get confused in decision-making

on vulnerability and a lot of business leaders. And I think they're right. And it, it becomes the

“most powerful force in the room if authentic and aligned with the business owner. But you have to”

provide value first. In decision-making, it's about releasing the outcome. That's vulnerability, that's

vulnerability and decision-making. So if you have a daughter that's trying to make a decision and go to college, but you want to make sure she goes to, you know, USC? Well, that's, you're not being very vulnerable with her because you're trying to manipulate her and to where she wants to go. It's truly releasing the outcome. And I'm not a natural empath, Ryan. Like, this is the skill I had to learn. And the way I do it is before I have any meeting, and even

before I got on this podcast, I just told myself, I'm here to give value. I'm here to do the best I can and regardless of the outcome, I get to meet another human today and and talk about stuff I enjoy. That's vulnerability. That's being able to release the outcome. And I, the skill I call it in, in a touch, in the book is called Detachment. And Detachment is not apathy. It's the highest form of professional empathy. It's when you attach to the client's best decision and detach from

your individual commission. When you do that, you can become elite because you can never be

elite in sales or decision-making. If you need the commission and you have commission breath, if it makes you desperate, you could never be elite ever. Do, you know what? So I can talk about this topic all day. I learned this firsthand actually in my sports career. I was a three sport athlete in high school and football baseball weren't two best sports. And I kind of realize that even though I was probably better at football, I wasn't going to go pro. And the idea

of having more head injuries in college, you know, with no chance of ever making any money off of my football career, I started pushing towards baseball. And your junior in your junior is like

“the most important year for you in high school when you're trying to play sports in college. Okay.”

So my junior year, I did what anyone who doesn't know what the heck they're doing does. I just pressed so hard. And, you know, I'm a starter, my entire career, catcher, you know, captain of all these team, and my I couldn't hit, I couldn't hit a 50 mile an hour fastball if they lobbed it underhand and put it on a T for me that year. Like, I just, you know, because I'm just pressing and pressing and I'm angry and I'm frustrated. And that summer, I had these two coaches,

probably the two best baseball coaches I've ever had and they coached an American Legion baseball team, which was like the top level, summer ball in my area was this a legion league. It doesn't really exist anymore, but it was the thing back in the 90s. Okay. And I show up and I'm just, I'm a wreck. Yeah, I just had the worst high school season I've ever had. I'm like, I'm screwed, you know, and this guy kind of grabs me. And this is the kind of guy and I promise there's a

point to this story. This is the kind of coach who, you know, he would have a lit cigar in his mouth

down at third base while he's coaching third and the first base coach is ripping heaters out behind

the dugout in between innings. Like, that's the day that we're in. You know what I mean? And these guys are gruff old school baseball guys. And he looks at me one day and he goes, what makes you think you have any control over what happens? And I go, what do you mean? He goes, once you make contact with the baseball, it goes, you have no control over what happens. Zero control. It was all you can do is hit the baseball. It goes after that. Everything that happens is out of

“your control, every single thing. He goes, you need to his words, the touch from the outcome. And it”

took me that summer to figure it out. But I showed up my senior year and I had the best season of my career because I literally, in my friends would make fun of me. Like, no one understood, right? I'd be like, I would strike out. And I'd turn around. I'd tip my hats at a catcher. You know, I was telling the catcher, hey, you got me that one. I'd walk back, come back, you know, I'm like, not that I didn't want to be successful. Don't give me wrong. At this point, after the

junior season I had, I needed to have a good senior season where I was in big, big trouble. And it was just simply, I just, it's weird. It was like, I wanted it so bad. But I also didn't care if that makes sense. And all the sudden, it was like the sky's parted. The ball became the size of a beach ball. Everything moved in slow motion. It was like I couldn't miss. And like

this is such a hard skill. I mean, this took essentially a year and a half of my life to like

figure this out about the thing that at that time was the most important thing to me. And this was

“the most important thing in my life is all I could think about. And so like, how does somebody who's”

sitting here? And I, guys, I apologize for that long story, but it felt relevant when I started it. My point is like, okay, someone's sitting here and they're going, I've heard people say this before I trust Guffy. I know he's successful. You know, I kind of trust Ryan. I know he's a little crazy, but I'd love to get this, like how do you start to develop this skill? This, this idea of detaching, because I think it feels so foreign, particularly to ambitious people. I was just going to say

that it's the hardest for high performers because we've been able to grind and get outcomes. We've been able to outwork other people and get outcomes. We've been able to do a lot of that stuff. And so when you can't, it really is difficult. And I'll share with you, you just talked about the whole thesis of the book. Attach high, detach low. How do you do that? That's, that's what the game is.

“That's what the whole, the whole game is, especially in decision-making. I took me four years,”

years smarter than me. You took you a year and a half. I was in four years of stagnation, which I argue is worse than failure. Because failure gives you clarity. Failure has a villain. It gives you information.

stagnations like a leaky tire. You have to fill up every three months and you always wonder why

your car's serving to the right. Okay. So I was in this mode, con cognitive friction. I was experiencing them all. But a lot of times, it's V3 in reverse. We distort value. We value the wrong things. We are not vulnerable. We don't tell our spouse or anybody around us how bad we're suffering. And then the third V, which is validation, which I want to spend some time on with you, because what we think is validation is totally not true. But we seek external validation, which is

garbage. And so how do you attach to contribution and detach from comparison? How do you attach

“high and detach low? There's no easy way. You have to do the work. You have to experience pain.”

And you have to take that pain and ultimately create something beautiful. Which I know a lot of top performers eventually do. But I wish if I could just collapse time. Like now, I sell more new business in six months than I sold than my whole book of business was during those four years of stagnation. And it's because of what you said. You have to do addition by subtraction. Don't add more things. We would type of performers like to add things. Okay. If I just do this,

I do this. Velocity is not speed. It is directional movement when friction is removed. That's what Velocity is all the top performers listening right now. Velocity is not speed. It's directional movement when friction is removed. So what's one thing in your life right now? You need to remove the first thing you thought of. Go do it. Remove it. There's a lot I had to remove that was in the way. And ultimately, that's when I started having Velocity in my business.

And in my personal life. Like those four years of stagnation when I thought I was so concentrated on my high performance and everything was about me. Like I totally missed my wife's postpartum depression. 100% missed it. Totally missed other things where it's just like that's when you're really anxious and you feel like your stuff's more important than everything else. Right? And so yeah, I'm passionate about attached high, detached low for a lot of reasons. But you asked the

question, how do you release control? There's no easy way. You have to determine what you value and you have to be vulnerable to go do it. And you will receive validation which means to make strong. That's what validation actually means to make strong. First of all, you're like I'm

walking the source of one lineers that are incredible. And I love this.

Velocity is not speed is amazing. And the reason I like it is because and this is this is one of my actually, I was just talking to my kids about this. Like we all have misses. I was just talking to my mom on the driving range. So my younger son as a baseball tournament this week. And so he's not going any camps. So he's home with me. He was bored. So we went over to the driving range. And he had a really, did a really bad time over there. And basically, we were, I was trying to explain to him

that like, you know, his misses he sways. He, he lets his weight move in his swing. Okay. So if you're not a golfer, don't worry about it. My miss is exactly the same. And I said to him, dude, like, we all have things like for some people, we're talking about golf. It might be your setup,

I start to sway the ball starts spraying. Okay. I was like, so we all have misses. My miss in business

is that when I feel when I am to attach to the outcome or I do get in that place of stagnation, I, I just start expanding. Well, maybe I can do this. And maybe I can do this. And maybe I can do, and now I got 17 things going on. And I'm shitty at all of them. And now you're like, what the hell, why am I not good at anything? What's wrong with, you know what I mean? Like all these crazy narratives start going in your head. How do you, like, one, maybe what's your miss, if you, if you have one,

like thing that you have to watch. And when you feel that coming on, right? When you feel that friction entering and maybe impacting your velocity, what is your method for recalibration, for, for realigning yourself to, to this method of when you feel yourself getting off the path?

My first word to myself is always my breath. That's the first thing I do is I take a deep breath,

and I think, and then I have to go back to, okay, what do I value? What am I designing? Where is this ultimately? Do I believe it's going to lead? Because confidence fills amazing. Courage fills terrible. And so you have to be courageous in order to say no to a lot of stuff, because I think I could monetize it. It doesn't things right now. I really do. And it's like, okay, how do I go back and, and realize what I actually value and why? And so I take a breath,

“and remember, okay, this is what I want to do. This is why. And then you have to have the courage”

to feel terrible and go do it. I almost quit this book because I didn't want to put myself out there. I didn't want to do a lot of, I hate asking people for help. Like, I had no idea how bad I hated that until this book. Even reaching out to you and asking you for a blurb, you know, I delayed a month. Right? And I just knew I knew it. But you have to be courageous to attach, trying to attach low. We all know what will bring us joy, fulfillment. We just have so many things,

so much friction in the way that we try to force our way around it, manipulate, persuade ourselves, tell ourselves lies. Man, all progress starts by telling the truth. So that's where I would begin the truth of what you value and go from there. Do you have a practice for it? And I'll give an example like, I don't journal all the time. But when I find myself in a spot where I'm unhappy or I feel misaligned, I will journal for a season or for a block of time. Like, and try to do it

every day. And I find that just getting the ideas and has to be handwritten, voice to text into something doesn't work. Like, it has to be handwritten. I find that helps me really clarify what those things are and where I'm missing it. Do you have a practice for staying on top of this or is it kind of like where it's like a tool belt kind of thing? I do have a practice and then every once in a while, I get really misaligned. And I'm out of whack, right? And then I got to, like, man, I thought I was

doing this. What happened? Grattitude and curiosity are the two biggest unlocks for me. So every

“morning I wake up and the first thing I think of is, I wonder what amazing things I'm going to”

learn today. And then, too, wow, I am so grateful for all the wonderful things that God's blessed me with in my life and how can I contribute and add value to others to be more useful to others. If I stay in those two lanes, I seem to do pretty well. But, but I get, I get out of whack a little bit over time. You know, things happen. You got to run your kids here. You got to do this. Then all of a sudden, the client leaves you and you get fired. And, you know, you could have issues in your marriage and

is political stuff at work. And, man, that's when it gets really tough. You know, but those

facts are crucial. So, for me, gratitude and curiosity are undefeated.

Yeah. Very similar. Very, very similar. Grattitude, I think, is universal. Not everyone is curious, but they are okay. Everybody thinks they're curious, though. I've never heard someone say, yeah, I've never heard someone say, you know, well, I just, I'm not very curious. Yeah. Nobody thinks they're curious, but they're not. Everyone thinks they are. I agree. It's a very interesting thing. And, and I, I'm one of those people who thinks that I am. I think this podcast

hopefully proves that I, that I am actually curious because it's why I do it. But there's something

“that you've said in there that I really think is important. And I know that this may not sound like”

a sales business growth, leadership kind of thing, but, but I do think it's paramount because if you're, if you, as the leader or as, if you're a salesman, whatever, like, even if you're the

all the tasks that you need to in order to be successful, either in your personal life, your business life,

et cetera. And you said, you know, you wake up and you're excited for who you might meet or what you might learn or what you might experience. I have found, and I've done 500 plus episodes of this show. I did 500 plus episodes of my insurance show back in the 20, 20, 15 to 2018 range. Like, I've done thousands of podcasts, thousands of interviews. And I can tell you, even some of the most high-performing people that I've had on the show don't wake up with that mentality that you did.

Is that, is that born in? Is that something you developed? And if it's something you developed,

“why? Like, what, what, what, what did you learn? What did you have to go through to decide that you”

wanted to wake up every day and be excited for what the day would bring in curious about all the

various things that you could experience? Yeah, the first one is on gratitude. And during my four

years of stagnation, which really ultimately was the first time I ever felt real depression, I met somebody at the gym that we had helped their family for Christmas. It wasn't a lot of money. It was like 100 bucks or something that a lot of families gave to this one individual and their family. And I did some small talk with him at the gym. Hey, how was your Christmas? And he looked at me, Tiriide, said, "Guffy, it was the best Christmas of our family's life." And here I am with a good

size book of business, a good house, great family, and a miserable. And I thought, "What is my problem?" And my biggest problem was a lack of gratitude. And that was a big unlock for me. That's

“gratitude, and that's why ever since then, I don't leave my bed until I think about two or three”

things I'm grateful for. I will not leave my bed in the morning. You know, the famous thing make your bed. I don't make my bed. I don't care about that. But I do think about two or three things that I want to be grateful for every morning. And then the curiosity thing for me was, I had this list, these self-limiting beliefs that nobody could do X amount or nobody could do this, or I couldn't do that. And then, as soon as I remove those, I realized, and I went and accomplished

a couple things, I thought, "What was the thing that helped me do that?" And initially, it was curiosity. Well, why is that impossible? It's impossible unless what, unless I do this, unless we do this. Why couldn't we do this? It's about challenging the status quo. And so that was kind of more reverse engineered. But that's how I came to the gratitude and curiosity for me. I love it. I'm an enormous, so one of the mechanisms that I use in my life almost every day are reframes. I find that

reframing things and just as thought experiments. And it's funny, I've met and worked with different

“people in my life who sometimes find this very frustrating about me. But it's the only way that I”

can figure, I approach everything like I'm a dummy. And I don't mean that like dumb, like low IQ. I mean, dumb, like even if I've done it a thousand times and I have a pretty good feel for what the answer might be, I approach every new situation as if I have no idea. And I've had people go like, well, isn't that a waste of time? I'm like, well, every scenario is different, right? Like, you could look at two clients that are in your quote unquote sweet spot, right? Large, wherever they are,

you know, I'm not 100% sure what your book is. But let's call them large manufacturing shops that you really want to work with. And on paper, they look exactly alike. And you could go to one of them and just your natural process knocks it out of the park. The process you've used for 20 years and it just crushes and you get that client and you're feeling great and beaming and the hairs look and good and your shoulders are back and you walk into that next one and it bombs and you're like,

what the heck just happened? And to me, that happens because taking process or just stuff like that out and some of the stuff we've already talked about. I think right at before you even go in the door that happens because you went in assuming you knew the answer before you got there. Like, you assumed and so, you know, one of my big reframes is always like, like, especially when something feels impossible, it's like, well, and this is going to sound tried, but most people don't think

this way, let's just assume it is possible. Let's assume you've never written more than $250,000

and new business sales in a month and you want to do a million and you're like, I could never

do a million. I don't have an assistant and my company doesn't give me enough marketing dollars and, you know what I mean? You come in, let's just assume that it's possible. Let's assume that next month you're going to write a million what does that look like and right and then you like you said you work better. So what do you have any reframes or mechanisms or thought experiments that you use, especially considering this V3 process that you have, etc, that you found to be,

It's impossible. What else is possible? It's I say it's impossible unless dot dot dot and then I start writing after that. Yeah, so I don't have much more to add to what you said other than I that's all I do is just say it's impossible unless or what would make it, what would have to be true in order to obtain X, YZ? I like what would have to be true. I like another one that I like

“is pretending that I'm someone else. I'll be like, what if I was Elon Musk? What would he do?”

Well, he would go buy a cot and he would live in there. Okay. Well, I don't want that life. So that's not so okay. So I'm not willing to go with, and the other thing I find due to is it kind of, like these thought experiments help you understand who you are, right? Like, I love Elon Musk. I love him. I take the good in the bad and thankfully I was born enough of a rational human with nuance and perspective that I can understand that he's imperfect, right? And maybe everything he

does isn't like right down the middle of the way people want, but in general, I love him as a businessman. That being said, I've done thought experiments as Elon Musk and I, I literally,

I don't want to go as far. I will never go as far as he will go, right? Most people wouldn't.

The vast majority 99.99% of people wouldn't go, but I'm one of those, one of those people. So for me, and this is the part that I, where I think people get messed up, especially with going all the way back to detached from the outcome, I can't expect Elon Musk outcomes. If I'm not willing to go as far as Elon Musk is willing to go in his business. If I'm not willing to, like, basically not have a relationship with my kids, not have a relationship with a

spouse or partner. If I'm not willing, if I'm not willing to live in a sleep on a cot in the, in the floor of, of whatever business I'm working and work 24 hours a day on, you know, at a raw and

masculine, then, you know what I mean? Like, I'm never going to have Elon Musk results. So why am I

trying to hold myself? And I think, you know, we, we sometimes, like, especially, like, newer producers if we're talking insurance industry stuff, or if it says in general, newer salespeople, they'll look at someone like you and the results you're having and they'll go, well, how, what's wrong with me? How come I'm not getting guff here? So what have you built 25 years of relationships? Like, guffies? Like, have you, have you cultivated them the same way? Do you, like, have you? Are you

willing to go as far as guffy and to think through and literally build your own philosophy and write books on it? So it's hard coded in your brain, right? To be as good as it. Like, you know what I mean? And I feel like, if you're not willing to go that far, that's okay. But like, now at least you know where you can start to, because if you, this one I'm trying

to go with this and I'm, I'm butchering this, but, but here's what I'm trying to ask you.

“Yes, we wanted to attach the outcome, but outcomes are still important. I think people have”

maybe heard versions of that before and the part that I think is missed and I'm really interested from you is, how do I set a proper target or goal when I am attaching from these outcomes? Like, how do I, how do I marry those two concepts together? I want to do X and new business, but now guffy's telling me I need to detach from the outcome to get there, but do I set a reachable target? Do I set a crazy, how do I marry those concepts together? I look at

impossible goals and I think that's where I like to start. And I also like to, these, these big massive goals, but I also like to think, okay, if I could only work three days a week and I had to double my business or my family dies, what would I do differently during the same time period? And then that helps me kind of understand the things I need to give up and the things I need to start doing a little better, but I do like the massive, I do like the massive goal. I like to attach to

like a horizon. It's like an ideal. You can never ever catch a horizon. You can never never, you can never arrive. But that doesn't mean you can't improve. That doesn't mean you can't become

“better. That doesn't mean you can't do more. The truth is, if we attach to the right things in our”

life, we'll get way more than our little small single-minded eyes can see on the outcome. And so I want to attach to the horizon. I want to attach to something higher. I want to, I want to truly give value on the spot into everyone because when I do, it comes back tenfold. So I don't want to limit myself. That's why I don't want to attach to an outcome. And if you are attached to an outcome, you are really, really in a tough spot where your identity is

going to get messed with. If you achieve it or you don't, because when you achieve it,

nobody there telling you you're great. And so I think there are amazing things in our future that

we can't even see. We like to think, oh, what could happen? We like to think about the bad part that could happen. But yeah, I like to attach to the horizon. And I like to attach high and attach low in every way. Yes, be passionate. Build a system that can support a players. Of course,

“attach yourself to a standard and a system and a process for you and your company. That's crucial.”

But if you don't have a massive ideal goal horizon, big hairy audacious goal, strategic vision that's sexy. Like to me, you got to have both. This is not my original thought. And I'm paraphrasing a little from the way I originally heard it. But it was essentially a rival is in the eyes of others. Like like, if you're hyper ambitious to your point, even if you set a goal and hit it, you're still not going to feel like you're going to arrive. And if you do, you feel like you are

right for a moment. And then your goal gets bigger and now you're working again, right? So but really what a rival is really just in the perception of other people of you. So you could feel like you're just grinding through another day, doing what you do, you know, selling stuff. And to you, it's just, I got, I got this horizon out here on point at that. And every day I'm working

“towards it. And, you know, I'm not there yet, obviously. And to someone else, you're like, Holy shit,”

"Guffy, you are killing the game." And like you're everywhere, your work is so dialed, like everybody's talking about you. Like, and in your mind, you're like, "What?" So it's, it's a rival's going to be in the eyes of everyone of some other, the point of that this guy was trying to make was like a rival is an external perception anyway. So why even consider that for yourself? Like it's, it's not even something you can internally achieve. Now you're hitting the third V, which is validation. There's external

and internal validation. And if you want, we can go into, that you talked about a reframe, the third V and V3 is validation. So value creates clarity, vulnerability creates more safety and validation creates direction. Now validation, I want everyone to reframe and understand what validation is. If it is not cheerleading, it is not affirmation. Validation is making someone strong. It comes from the, the Latin word "validus", which means to make strong, to make value strong.

So how do you validate someone and make them strong in their decision? And how do you have internal validation? And measure that and feel that as opposed to external validation, which is just the

applause and comparison of a jury that's never really ever going to judge you. That is really,

really hard to do when you're advising someone and making a decision. But it does sound like like this. If you were making a hard decision and you had to say, hey, Guffy, I have to get with my team first and ultimately decide how we're going to go about this. I would validate you and say,

“Ryan, it's really important that you get with your team. Even if I disagree that you need to”

get with your team to make a decision. Validation is not agreement. But I'm making you strong in that decision. I think it's really important you, you get with your team and you help make this decision. And then as a salesperson, you can try to keep moving the ball down the path without pressure. Like, when do you guys think you want to make this decision? Do you have everything you need to make the best decision for you? Is there anything that you're missing in order for you in order

for you to fill a line in this direction with us? You know, those are a lot of different sales questions that people can ask to move the ball. But this is decision making we're talking about. And it's it's about respecting and then guiding someone through it to ultimately a line or misalign. And that's what Validation is to make people strong. My daughter the other day, you know, she's got a boyfriend. Of course I hate. No, he's a good guy. But she has bullied,

tell me you did the bad boys thing when he showed up for the first time in the door. Like, I put the gun sideways to let him know of serious. No. No. But I was talking to her and she was telling me she's got all these plans. And when I first heard these plans, my first thought was to say in my

brain, I thought these plans are never going to work and they're not very smart. Well, that's not

Validation. I said, you know, her name is Halie. Halie, it's really good to make plans. It's really smart of you to make plans. And then she goes, Dad, well, what do you think about my plans? Well, if I would have led with just your plans suck, all of a sudden, we have now directional friction, that goes to emotional friction. And now it's just this bad thing. But because I validated her and made her strong and and and respected her and said, yeah, it's really good that you have plans,

what do you think about my plans? And I said, well, I think some of them are good, but we have a

couple of misses here that I can help you with. And all of a sudden, she came up with on her own, you know what? This is actually makes no sense. I said, yeah, I think you're, I think you're on to something. And it was a great experience because I validated her. So if you value people, you show

“them value, you're vulnerable with them and you're authentic. And then you validate them. That's how you”

remove all the friction. So then decision velocity, which what I call it is when the decision reaches its natural conclusion because there's nothing else in the way to stop it. That's V3. That's how you guide people and making excellent decisions. And you know, when you talked about reframing, well, we have to reframe validation because it's not cheerleading. It's not affirmation.

It's helping someone be strong. And you may not even agree with them. Think of some of your mentors.

Maybe you came to them with an idea. They saw your passion. They didn't want to kill you. They just probably thought, you know what? They're still kind of confusing here. But he's got passion. Maybe I'll just say, hey, you should go. You should continue and search out this. You should get more clear on this. I think that you could, maybe if you tweak this or that, you could really have something. That's validation. So one of the ways that we were able to grow my agency,

road risk. So so fast was we wrote non-standard small commercial. So everybody hates, so if you're not insurance person, just know that every insurance person in the world hates non-standard insurance because it's not like clean and simple. There's like 17 extra forms and like 43

“additional hoops you have to jump through. And you know, when I was trying to grow,”

we had to put business on the books, right? Like I started a bootstrapped agency. Like we were we were revenue in revenue out. You know, I mean, there wasn't a stockpile of cash to make bad decisions or to like wait for sales. And because no one likes it, it was very easy to obtain opportunities to sell. And so I started calling everybody I knew people who did everything from like premium finance companies who dealt with that side to agencies, to

carriers and all these people. And I just, and everyone said the same thing, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it. And so what if I had to like what if there was no other option? What if what if standard business didn't exist? How would you do it? And it was funny like by asking that question,

all the sudden like everyone goes, what would happen is everyone would stop for a second. It would

be quiet for 30 to 90 seconds. And they go, well, if you had to do it, you know, there's this tool in this process. And I heard of this one guy. And then all sudden, you know, now half our book of business is not standard. And it's a big part of how we're growing as fast as we are. And like it's funny to your to your point of what you're saying is like, it, it wasn't a good plan it first, right? And it wasn't a great idea at first. But by continuing to reframe, by continuing to

“try to find clarity in the idea. And it's why I love this V3. I mean, I think this V3, I was so excited”

to chat with you today. And it's why we actually, so you guys know, we pushed the podcast up the recording, because I wanted to talk to you. I was so excited. Like, I think that this site, what I love about this is it isn't like, ask these five questions in a row, you know what I mean? And here's the fourth question you throw this like objection hook in. And it's like, this is the framework to essentially not just sell more what you can, not just be maybe a great recruiter of people if you're

running a company. It's literally a framework for making every decision in your life. And that, to me, like, it's, it's incredibly valuable as a business tool. But I think even there's even so much more extended value in it. If you think through this idea of, of value through clarity, vulnerability, which I also, and tell me if you think this is wrong, when I was reading it, I threw in like ego in this area around vulnerability, like removing your ego from the process.

And then getting this validation on the end where, you know, you start to figure out like, what's real and what's not, you know, I just use the business example. But like, you know, there's all these personal examples where you can do this too. Like, stupid stuff, like, where do you go on vacation with your partner or spouse? Right? Like, that you say, she could want to go skiing and you could want to go to the beach or vice versa. And I want to

play golf three times. Well, you know, how are we going to have a vacation together if you're playing golf three times? And I'm like, well, how do we make this work? You know, let's figure out how we, let's let's talk about what, you know, it's so much valuable in that way because now you can adjust to every situation versus I have to find this right situation to put this right processing. Right? Is that, is that kind of the idea behind this? Is this becomes a more universal way of operating

versus just, you know, if I want to sell this widget, here's the system in this set of questions.

layer it in any sales process that you have in any decision, you know, environment that you have

when other humans are involved. And so yeah, that's that's the goal. It's it's definitely going to

“I think first, make its way through the advisory circles first because that's why I have the most”

credibility. And then from there entrepreneurs, business owners, you know, anybody that's really really cares about business acumen and emotional intelligence is going, is going to dig this book because it's going to challenge your way of thinking in some ways. But it's also going to call you to attach to the things that will actually bring you joy and will help your identity and live a more fulfilled life. And I know we were talking off air a little bit, but the title of this book

came because came out of grief. You know, my dad who was a businessman or more than just a father,

a friend, we enjoyed hobbies. He died. And after about almost a year after his passing, I had this stagnant relationship with him because I didn't want to let go what we had. I had accepted his death, of course, but I didn't want to let go of what we had. But I felt like I was drifting away because he had passed away. And so I thought, okay, I need to attach high to a living version of him. Someone that's guiding me and helping me make decisions today. And I need to

detach low from an earthly stagnant relationship. And so this this book was born a little a lot out of grief. And part of it is how he helped me make decisions in my life. And so whether you had an

amazing dad or not, you know, that's okay, you can still be an amazing dad yourself. And this book

will show you how to help your kids make decisions, let alone business owners and people in high high stakes decisions. And so I'm really proud of it. In that way, it's going to put some velocity behind my dad's legacy. But yeah, that's that's ultimately what I want this book to do. I want to help the advisory space, help people make great decisions, but put velocity behind

“my dad's legacy because he was an incredible human being. Well, one, you should be proud of this”

book, no matter what, it's fantastic. Yeah. And but more than the book or completing the book as a project, the ideas in this book are these are timeless concepts. And it's why, again, it's why I was so excited to talk to you. And I know I've said it a couple times is like, I read a lot. And I, I'm one of those people who, you know, if I ever had like a financial consultant come in, they'd look at my Amazon book purchase budget and they'd be like, what is wrong with you?

You know, just how many books I buy? And especially because, and I actually got this, although I feel like he's lost his mind lately, I got this from Ryan Holiday, the author of, you know, discipline is destiny, object is, or, uh, obstacles way. You talk a lot about stoicism. He's written a bunch of other books that are really good. Actually, really like him as a writer. And I feel like regardless of where you stand on this, he acquired TDS and is like lost his mind about everything

in life lately. But that being said, he's the one who kind of gave me permission, not explicitly. I was listening to him on a podcast that to throw books out. So I'll, I'll buy a book. I'll spend $15 or $16 on a book. I'll get two chapters in. I'll like this book sucks garbage. Next book, right? And a lot of that has to do with these particularly business-oriented books that are either very hard-line on a specific process that doesn't feel like it has flexibility, or they

tend to be, and we were talking a little bit about this beforehand, like this obvious obvious, like obvious solution to an obvious problem kind of thing. And, you know, when I dug into a touch high, I was like, this isn't, like, you know, I'm kind of selling the book. I don't mean to be, I just don't go home and buy it. I said to myself, like, this is the kind of concept that I want to internalize, and I do want to teach my kids. And to your point, what your dad did for you,

what I'm sure, and you talked a little bit about it, do for your kids. What I try to do for mine is one a really good way to get clear on what you believe is teach your core principles and values to your children. Like, just spend time with them when you're in the car, like pick one idea. And my kids probably get sick of it, but I don't care. They're locked in there with me, and until they can drive, they can't do shit about it. Like, I'll just talk to them about an idea. Like, I told

you today I was talking to my son about we all have these, these things, these, these little things

“that for them, like, this is what my misses. That's what I call. This is my miss, my miss and this,”

or my miss and that, my miss and relationships, my, and I was talking about that idea. And it's like, just teaching these things to our kids and picking up a book and digesting an idea, like V3,

your, and not only passes this very valuable, relevant information down to the next generation,

but it also, man, it hard codes these ideas in your brain when you teach them. And like, I look, I look at this book and, you know, I read the PDF that you send me. I'm going to buy the the hard copy once it's available, but like, it's going in my library, because I look at this as the kind of book and the kind of concept that is, this is like a tech, it's like, it's like a, it's a resource you want to pull out when you need it, right? Like, I'm struggling with this,

with this decision, man, my decisions have been off of it. Hey, I know Guffy talked about like, let me pull Guffy's book out, let me leave back through it. Let me figure, okay, now let me talk about this, like, and finding those, those resources and putting them in a place that you can reference them and then trying is often you can to teach them down, stream to younger generation, man,

“it, it, it feels rewarding. I think it's also a responsibility to your point of being a good”

parent, regardless if you had a good parent or not, it's not an excuse for being a bad parent,

and it also locks them into your brain in a way that you can never, you can never release them.

They're in there that, amen. That was that was the point, point of the book, and I'm glad it challenged some of your thoughts. I didn't want to put out something that felt like everything else. I wanted to come out business in a different way on the decision-making layer, and with a framework that's memorable, giving my dad, you know, his, his, his props for what he, he, he rightfully deserves, and also to train our company to, in this language, to help them transform. This is an

identity book. It's not a sales tactic book. It will make you better at sales, but it's not a sales book. It'll make you a better leader, but it's not a leadership book. It's, and I didn't invent human psychology, but I did sequence it through V3, and, and I think it's repeatable. I really do.

“Yeah, I love it. Where, if you want to get deeper into your world, if you want to follow along,”

where do they do that? Yeah, LinkedIn is the best place to find me, and also I have a personal website that's on my LinkedIn profile, where you can order the book, and it'll be available. September 1st is launch day, and really excited about this. It's been quite the journey to write a book. Yeah, our pre-orders live on Amazon and stuff. Can they get into the book right now? Yeah, you could pre-order effective August 1st. Okay, so we will make sure that

this goes out after August 1st. So guys, I'll have a link whether you're watching on YouTube, listening wherever you listen, scroll down in the description. We'll have a link to pre-order the book if you're listening before September 1st or purchase after, or just go directly to Amazon,

“do it yourself, but I do. Appreciate the hell out of you. I think you've put something absolutely”

wonderful together, and I certainly am going to do my part to help it reach as many people as it

possibly can. Ryan, keep doing what you're doing. Yours was the first insurance podcast I ever listened to.

And so I really appreciate you, what you've contributed to the industry, and keep doing it, man. It's awesome. Thank you, brother. Be good.