Jason: Welcome to The Sales Experience Podcast and welcome to another special guest episode. Today, I have with me the master of the mindset, Mario Porreca. I will put all of his information in the show notes as you know, but the one part that I do want to plug even before we begin and I definitely want you to check out his podcast. It’s a daily podcast it’s called The 10 Minute Mindset. And he is not a five day a week guy like myself, he drops one every single day at least seven episodes a week and that is amazing. That is goals ladies and gentlemen. And I appreciate his effort, everything he does to help people with their mindset. For now, sit back, relax — actually, probably not sit back, relax, get a notepad, take some notes, sit on the edge of your seat and let’s get started. Mario, welcome to The Sales Experience Podcast.

Mario: Hey, Jason, thanks so much for having me. This is fun.

Jason: Yeah, I’m super excited. We connected on LinkedIn through the interviews that I saw you do with shared connections, and it was amazing. And for me, I saw the topic of mindset for your show. And I thought that fits in really well when it comes to my focus, which is on the sales experience, sales people, sales teams and leaders.

Mario: Absolutely. I mean, for me, mindset is kind of the foundation for pretty much everything. And I know it’s a very overused word in today’s world. It’s one of those things you see popping up everywhere, but the reason I like it is because it’s such a broad topic. I mean, if you listen to my show, and you just flip through my directory and the different guests that I’ve had on, I’ve talked to everyone from nutritionists, to personal trainers, to counselors, to therapists, to coaches, to consultants, to real estate experts, all the way up to spiritual leaders, Kaushik records, people. I mean, it spans across a lot because I think that not everything resonates with everyone, but everything resonates with someone. And I think that by having that way of thinking, that’s what mindset is to me, it’s what are your thoughts? What predominant thoughts do you have and how do you sort your thoughts? Because thoughts come to us, you know, if you look at science, it tells us that the average person has between 60 to 70,000 thoughts per day. Now, you don’t see all those thoughts, because your unconscious mind doesn’t present all of those thoughts to your conscious mind. But they go through your mind. And it’s almost like a reminds me of if you ever watch ESPN, or, you know, the CNN or any of those shows that have the ticker that go through the bottom of either the scores or the stocks or anything like that; that’s what our thoughts are like. So, they come in and out of our minds and we have to decide which thoughts we’re going to put emotion to because the thought in and of itself has very little creative power. But I thought back with emotion is infinitely powerful and that’s what we call a desire. When you back a thought with strong emotion, it creates a desire, and that’s what leads to action.

So, what thoughts are you — and we all have, like, if you think of your thoughts is like a ratio. So every hundred thoughts, how many empowering thoughts do you have and how many disempowering thoughts do you have based on what you want to achieve? And so if the ratio right now it might be 80/20. You might have 80%, empowering 20% disempowering. Well over time, if you condition yourself to not attach emotion to the disempowering thoughts, and attached to the ones that will help you, over time, your mind will start to realize which ones you like the best and which ones you’re focusing in on. And it’ll present you with more of those and become a better filtering system. And to me, that’s what mindset is. It’s setting up your thoughts in a way in which you are presented with more empowering thought, as many empowering thoughts as possible, that will help you get to where you want to get. If you look at like, the really successful people like the Richard Branson’s, the Tony Robbins, even the Gary Vaynerchuk’s of the world. They’re not any different than you and I, but their mind, they’ve learned to really hone in on this empowering thoughts, on the thoughts that are going to help them deliver value, and the thoughts that are going to guide them to where they want to go. They’re very clear on what they want to achieve. And then their mind is very good at sorting those thoughts. And the cool thing about thoughts too is I’ll give you one more thing, and then I’ll let you move on to whatever we want to talk about because I don’t want to hijack your show. But one other thing about thoughts is I’m going to ask you a question really quickly, Jason, just for an example, have you ever in your life had the thought? I mean, you don’t have to like get into it, but just yes or no, have you had the thought, maybe I’m not enough?

Jason: Yes, of course.

Mario: And guess what? So have I. And you know what that means? Neither you or I own that thought because we each had the same thought, that means it’s not unique to us. So you don’t have to — If you have a thought, if you don’t want to you don’t have to put ownership behind it. And what most of us do is we create these beliefs from our thoughts and we will like fight to the death to defend that that’s the truth. But the fact that you’ve got I’m not enough at some point, I’ve thought I’m not enough at some point; we don’t own that thought. We don’t have to defend that and believe that because it’s not unique to us. It’s a thought that I’m sure millions and billions of other people throughout history have had as well. So, when you look at your thoughts from that perspective and you look at your thoughts as like something that will guide you and be able to empower you if you give an emotion, that’s the key right there. If you give an emotion, then you really have the control. And that to me is what mindset is.

Jason: Okay. So I’m listening to you talk and go through all this, which is amazing. And I’ve done a lot of personal like focus and development work and kind of thinking about my thoughts and I’ve talked to a lot of other people. And there’s a tipping point, I guess and this is one of the things I wanted to ask you about, which is interesting you brought up this part is, it sometimes can be tough in a mindset when somebody is trapped in their head, when they’re listening to the positive stuff. Let’s say Gary Vaynerchuk, for example, or even what you just went through, where there’s a lot of motivational mindset. Sometimes it’s complete BS, right, Guru BS, sometimes it’s actual practical stuff. But you hear this Roz, you know, rah, rah, positive, motivational, you know, just focus on attaching the good mindset, the good focus, but then there, you know, somebody — It’s not 80/20, right? They’re not 80%, positive and 20%, you know, kind of negative in their mind, it’s more the opposite. And in fact, the listening to motivational stuff can actually make you feel worse in the context of sales or anyone else, if they just don’t feel like a winner, like how do you start. Where’s a good place to begin to start shifting that balance, and not go, you know, full on, like, you know, Tony Robbins up on a stage because you feel so far away from that, right?

Mario: It’s really, really super simple and it’s one word, gratitude. It all starts with gratitude. I mean, it all begins and ends with gratitude. And the key is not just gratitude because if you’re in a really bad place, hearing that you should be grateful is going to make you more angry than anything, right.

Jason: That’s what I’m talking about that, right.

Mario: But here’s the key, you have to practice gratitude when things are good because gratitude is like a muscle, and you have to build it. So, if you practice it on a regular basis, and I don’t mean like being overly like crazy, grateful happy hippy dippy all the time. None of that stuff, you know what I mean? It’s more like looking at the small things and allowing yourself to get into that state of gratitude. That’s why if you listen to 10 Minute Mindset, I start every episode with what I call the GIO method, and it stands for Gratitude Intention Outcome, but it always ends with gratitude. And it’s always three specific things. And there’s small things, everyday things like being able to get up and just being grateful for another opportunity, being grateful that you know that the world is in and of itself is abundant. You don’t have to worry about where your next breath is going to come from, you don’t have to worry about if the sun’s going to shine or not. You don’t have to worry about all these things. But just finding that gratitude that you can really get into a state of gratitude from and operate from. Because here’s the key, the most powerful person is the person who needs nothing. And the person who is truly grateful, needs nothing because they’re already appreciative for what’s present in the moment. So, if you can operate from from a place of gratitude, you’re the most powerful person around. And the other thing is, if you practice gratitude, when things are good, and you do it consciously and consistently, then when things are not so good, your gratitude muscles will be stronger, your mind will automatically look for things that it can find in this not so good place to be grateful for focusing on those things. And that’s not going to mean that you’re not going to have challenges. And that’s not going to mean that it’s going to make it like super easy all the time. But it will help you get out of that bad place faster.

And so to be really, if you want to be really real, and really practical, you practice gratitude on a regular consistent basis, and you make time in your day to be grateful for what’s already around you. And you know, it’s not like always having to see the silver lining all the time. But if you always have gratitude to fall back on, you always have a powerful state to operate from. And so that’s where it’s at. It’s in– especially if you want to talk about sales situation, if you go into a sales situation, you’re grateful, just to be there. And just to be in that conversation, and you drop your expectations, because that’s what gratitude is too, is dropping your expectations. I believe there’s no such thing as failure. Failure is just a label that we’ve created. It’s a label that we’ve created, that we apply to situations where we feel like we haven’t met the expectations that we previously set. But guess what? The cool thing is, if you drop that expectation, the failure label goes away. And you can look at that situation and say, okay, this is just a result, what do I take from this result? What can I take from this result and apply to something else, learn from something in learning, you know, a new way, learn something new from. And it takes failure away because failure becomes personal, we make it personal about ourselves. But it doesn’t have to be. It can be something where if you drop that expectation. So, in a sales situation, if you can be grateful going into that, not focused on the outcome, but focus on the actual process of developing that conversation, the process of learning what the other person’s problems are, then you can figure out ways that you’re serving your product, whatever it is you’re selling, can specifically solve that problem. And then you could come from a place of really wanting to help as opposed to making it about you so that you meet the quota, you make the sales, you get the numbers, and then it just becomes a transaction. Because guess what, the relationship is always infinitely more valuable than the transaction. And that relationship will lead to multiple transactions over the course of time if you’ve nurtured that and put that first. And I know that a lot of people talk relationship, but here’s the other key; there’s a fine line in the sales game. And you know, I love sales. I am not against sales whatsoever. I love it. I think when done right, it’s one of the most great experiences on the face of the earth. Actually, one of the best friends I’ve ever had started as a sales guy. I went into the situation, knowing that I wasn’t going to buy anything, man before the conversation was over — Yeah, I made up my mind. I said, I just want to see how he’s going to sell to me. And I even had my girlfriend, who’s still my girlfriend, I had her we put the phone on speaker I said, take notes with me so that we can see what their process is, maybe I’ll miss something. And so we started, we’re taking notes, we’re doing this whole situation. And at the end of the call, not only did we buy a five figure product, but I still talked to him two years later on a weekly basis. This is a guy I never talked to before. So, that’s the power of sales when it’s done, right. Not only did he make the sale, but we’re still friends to this day and it’s been two years.

Jason: It’s relationship. Yeah.

Mario: Exactly. But there’s a fine line. So I always say, don’t let the sale get in the way of the relationship. But conversely, don’t let the relationship get in the way of the sale. Because what I see in today’s world, when it comes to sales, people are increasingly, they have this fear around getting on the phone and having an actual sales conversation. They dress them up, which is fine. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that it makes it more personal, but they call them breakthrough sessions or strategy sessions. But it’s really a dressed up sales call is what it is. But that’s fine as long as the sale isn’t the direct, isn’t like the only thing that comes out of that call. And so what I see is a lot of people, since their quote-unquote, they have this fear around getting on the phone and actually having this conversation, they have what I call the landing page dream. So, they put up a landing page, and they hope that that copy and that page, if you just drive traffic to it, it’ll do the work for me. Well, here’s the thing, it can if you do it correctly, and you have the targeting done right. But what really happens is, if you break down the numbers, the cost per acquisition of someone that becomes a client from a landing page is on average, three times greater than someone if you had just pick up the phone and have the conversation with that same person. So, conversations are so vital, but here’s the key; since a lot of people are afraid of having the sales conversation, they preach relationships, which is true. Relationships do lead into more valuable sales. However, there’s a fine line because you can get to the point where if you don’t focus on the sale at all, and you just focus on the relationship, you’ll get to the point where you’re such good friends that you may end up doing the transaction, but you don’t feel right charging them for it.

Jason: Yep, the friend zone.

Mario: Exactly. So there’s that fine line. Now, here’s the other thing, if you switch your framework, or your way of thinking, your mindset, I should say, and you reframe it, to think, you know, money in and of itself is just a form of energy. That’s all it is. And you know, for there to be a real transaction, it’s a cycle, it has to complete itself. So, the key is to be able to give freely, but at the same time being able to receive graciously. And so if I’m going to provide a service for you, the only way or not the only way, but one of the best ways to complete that cycle and make it complete of energy so that the universe always lives in balance, right, to make it balanced, is for you to put energy into this process as well. And it just so happens that the form of energy that business thrives on is currency. So, there’s nothing wrong with someone paying for the service that you provide. You just have to have that balance of relationship and transaction, relationship and sales. If you can balance those two things, the process will not be difficult. It’ll actually be fun. Both parties walk away, gaining something, both parties walk away happy, and you’ll get the best referrals and testimonials that you’ve ever had in your life.

Jason: That’s awesome. So true. We could just end right there. And that would be great for everyone listening. But I want to go back to something you said about disappointment. And I think it’s interesting because you were talking about disappointment. And you know where that comes from. I think one of the big things and I heard this Pastor Furtick, if you’re religious or not, it’s still applies. He basically says that disappointment is the expectation gap, is where you have an expectation, it’s not met. And when that doesn’t occur, you know, when your expectation doesn’t actually happen, disappointment is there. And I think you’re absolutely correct. Like, especially in sales people, the expectation is they’re going to make this sale, or this call is going to go well or this meeting is going to go well. And when it doesn’t, they have disappointment, leads to rejection. And it really doesn’t matter, but it’s because they have an expectation of the process or what’s going to happen. Instead of going into it like you also said, which is you know, the person who needs nothing. When you need nothing or expect nothing or want nothing from it, and you’re just doing your service and what you feel like you should be doing or can do, then, like literally it’s going to happen or it’s not and then it’s not personal. It’s not about you.

Mario: Absolutely, the process is the key. If you can fall in love with the process. And you love having conversations, you love connecting with people and you’re always looking subconsciously for gaps, meaning everyone has problems, right? Everyone has things that they want fixed. So, if you’re looking and you’re trying to figure out like, what’s the problem that you have and can I solve that problem? And if I can’t, who do I know that can? If you’re thinking in those terms, but you put the connection in the relationship first, then you’re going to win. And I mean, it’s like you said when you’re a salesperson, I think one of the most detrimental things you can do is go into a situation with expectation, going into a conversation expecting a sale. You know, I’ve even been and I’m sure you have too Jason, with your sales background, you’ve probably had people that you come out of a conversation with the con spectacularly say, I’m in, I’m ready to do this. Let’s get started. Yeah, yeah, well, what happens? If you don’t have it, I never assume anything, until I have cash in hand. When I have cash in hand, and we begin the process of working together, then that’s when the client, you know, relationship really begins. Until then it’s all talk. But you want to foster that, nurture that relationship and work on that. So I mean, that’s the point, you know, expectation to that point. Meaning most or not most, but a lot of sales people, especially new ones, go into situations before they’ve even had the conversation and they expect that sales happened. They’ve even maybe even celebrated before they’ve had the conversation, even meet this person. But you know, again, if you go into the place where even if you’ve had a stellar comment, you don’t expect anything until the process is already underway. If you can love the process, I think the best salespeople are the best salespeople because they love the process of sales, they love people.

Jason: Well, and I think it’s two things, I think they love the process and then they also come from an abundance side, which is they don’t need to force it. They love the process and there’s no attachment. Like I’ve said forever. I mean, there’s 7 billion people on the planet. No matter what your goal is, and what your focus is. There’s enough people out there who will want what you have, where you don’t have to force it or feel desperate or have expectations.

Mario: Can I chime in here for a minute and I don’t want to correct you on your show. But I want to take you back to you said there said there is 7 billion people on the planet, you’re correct. But the number of clients available is really infinite. Because while there’s 7 billion people on the planet right now think like, think about it, there are more people being born every day, there’s no shortage of human beings. There’s people getting older, every day that are coming into your target market, there’s people discovering things or discovering problems that you can solve coming into your target market. The number of potential clients in the world to you is infinite. And the second thing is people get all tied up with their competition and who they’re competing with. But here’s the deal, you don’t have to be better than all your competition, there really is no competition. You don’t have to be better than all the people in your field, you just have to be their best choice on the day they need the work done. If you do that job, the best on the day, when they’re ready to make that decision, then you’re going to get their business. So, you don’t have to focus on what so and so’s doing and try to be better than them. You just have to be the best version of you and show up with the intent to make a difference. And so there’s no competition, there’s an unlimited supply of people out there that need what you have. It’s just a matter of going out and doing that and focusing on that process.

So yeah, that whole competition — Like Gary Vaynerchuk says it all the time and one of the things that he says that I love is that, you know, there’s two ways you can have the biggest building in town. You can either A, build the biggest building or B, you can tear down everyone else’s building until years bigger than all of theirs. And so I you know, it’s all about how do I build the biggest building, not even worrying about what other people are doing. It’s like work on yourself, work on your own thing, be the best version you can be, show up with the intent to serve and do good. And you’ll start to see magical things happen. But you have to do it consistently and that’s why you have to love the process. Because if you don’t love the process, you’re not going to continue to show up. And if you don’t get to — and it’s not enough to just show up, you have to show up with intent. You have to show up with intent to love another person, to serve that person, to do the best you can for that person. And at the end of the day, I think that’s what really separates the best salespeople is that love for the process, and the intent they show up with and I think that’s the game.

Jason: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. And I’m thinking about it with, you know, within this framework of the sales people and sales professionals, even leaders of sales teams, and you know what that looks like, especially as I keep thinking, you know, I’ve got you, and you’re the mindset guy. And I’m just thinking about your statement about gratitude where, you know, somebody’s struggling with their mindset, the rejection, they’re feeling like they’re taking things personal, when things aren’t going their way, just focusing on that gratitude. I know, for me, you know, one of the things I focused on for myself, and you know, other people is, life happens, right? Like, sometimes shit happens and life can suck and things go on. But, you know, the key is, how quickly can you recover from that, right? At first, it might take you a week to recover, and then it might take you a few days. And then maybe if you can get it down to a few hours or a few minutes. You know, when you talk to people or things that you’ve shared or learn from all the different people that you’ve interviewed and spoken with over the years, other than gratitude or even expanding on gratitude; what’s a good way to shift as quickly as possible, you know, as a building that muscle in your mind?

Mario: Well, I can say this from, you know, I think more so than the mindset guy, I’m the conversation guy. Because I’ve had– I mean mindset, like I said, I focus on that. And because number one, it’s so vast and number two, it’s such an integral part of the foundation of success in any area of your life that you want. It comes down to your internal work and the way that you’re set up in the way you experience the world. And so I really believe that but, you know, I’ve had over 2,000 conversations in the last 14 months with some really remarkable people. And I think that what I’ve come up with, or what I found, or what I’ve learned from all of not — just from these conversations, but from my life and the things that I’ve studied, and the things that I’ve looked at and consumed, is that it really comes down to focus. I mean, you can take — this goes back to my childhood, but I like to kind of go back there. One of my idols growing up as a child was Mr. Rogers, you ever watch Mister Rogers Neighborhood?

Jason: Yeah, totally.

Mario: So, Fred Rogers. He’s actually from Pittsburgh, lived in Pittsburgh, where I’m from, where I live. But aside from that, I used to watch Mr. Rogers every day. And one of the things I learned from Mr. Rogers is, when he was a kid, he would watch TV like all of us. And he said, he remember seeing things on the news that were really terrible things that happened in the world. And when he would see these events because these things have happened all through, you know, we think about the things that happened in our lives. And we think that only terrible things are happening today in the world. But they’ve happened all throughout history. I mean, there were wars before we even had can remember. But he remembers watching the news when he was a kid, seeing these terrible things, and being like, upset about them because you see these things, and we get emotional about what’s happening in our world today as we should. But his mother would always say, look for the helpers. If you look hard enough, you can always find the people helping. Even though the situation’s bad, you’ll find that the people– there are people who step up and help and try to make the difference and make good things happen. So, learning that and really, that hit me, when as I was growing up when I heard that him tell that story. And it made me realize it’s all about focus, whatever you focus on, you’ll find. So, if things are really bad, and you’re focused on how bad they are, they’re going to seem a lot worse than they were are. If things are really bad, and you’re trying to find the helpers and you’re looking for the good, things are going to seem not so bad, and you’re going to start to work your way out of it. Again, it’s not a magic pill, it’s not like it’s just going to– if something really catastrophic happens, and you look for some good things that’s going to make everything you know, rainbows, unicorns, and fairy dust, that’s not going to happen. But if you focus on the good, and you make a habit to focus on the good, and it’s what you’re looking for, you’ll start to find more good around you, and that will help you lead into better things.

Jason: Totally agree, I think that’s a great place to end with the value for hopefully salespeople and sales leader on what to focus. Mario, I appreciate you being on the show with me and everything that you’re doing in your conversations and in the landscape of mindset, and helping people focus on the good things, the good value and the good parts of their lives. So, I appreciate it.

Mario: Thank you, Jason, it’s been a real pleasure. I hope that your audience finds value from everything that we’ve talked about today. And I look forward to speaking with you again, real soon, my friend.

Jason: Perfect, I appreciate it. And as always, there’s going to be the show notes, all of Mario’s links will be in there on the website. You can go to CutterConsultingGroup.com, and also make sure to subscribe to each new episode so that you can get those. And if you’re on iTunes, rate, comment and share how amazing these episodes are, I would appreciate that. And as always, remember that everything in life is sales, and people will remember the experience you gave them.