Today’s episode is all about how you are creating a story in your mind about how and when to expect success in your business. I’m breaking it all down with why that’s hurting you and what to do instead! Learning how to sell yourself on the process over the timing of the results is just one of the key points she covers.
Other nuggets:
- What happens when you have the thought, ‘This shouldn’t be happening.’
- What it means when your business hits a plateau
- How to get out of shame and into action when you don’t meet a goal
- Things you should know if your organic marketing isn’t working as fast as you thought it would
- Why tracking your progress outside of your goal is so beneficial
- Learn to work your business even when you feel like crap and unmotivated
- Ask yourself how committed are you to the process of being successful
Don’t miss this episode!
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Transcript for Episode #16: Great Expectations
Kristen Boss (00:05): Welcome to Purposeful Social Selling with Kristen Boss. I’m your host, Kristen Boss. I’m a mindset and business coach with more than 15 years experience in both the product and service based industry. I believe that social selling is the best business model for people wanting to make an impact while they make serious income. This is the podcast for the social seller, who is tired of feeling inauthentic in their business and desires to find a more purposeful and profitable way of growing their business in today’s social media landscape. In this podcast, you will learn what it takes to grow a sustainable business through impactful and social marketing. It’s time to ditch the hustle and lead from the heart. Let me show you the new way. Hello, Hello! Welcome back to another week. Episode 16, great expectations.
Kristen Boss (00:58): Not the novel, not the famous novel, but a story that I see happen in the social selling and network marketing industry over and over again. And it is truly a tragedy. It is not a good story, but it is likely one. You have caught yourself in at one point or another in your business. If not you, it will likely happen. I think it’s happened to almost everybody at some point or another in this season, if it hasn’t happened to you, it might be happening to your upline and might happen to someone on your team. And this is what I’m going to call this, these great expectations. These are expectations you have about the success you thought you would have at the speed. You thought you would attain it in this industry. And I see this a lot. Oftentimes people promote the opportunity and promote their business and they share these stories of someone that hit the top rank in their company hit these 20, 30, 40 K months in a year, 15 months, lightning fast.
Kristen Boss (02:25): And they use that as the story to have people join the business and they join because that sounds really appealing. Oh, oh my gosh, 15 months, maybe you’re sharing about a $500 paycheck. Someone could, could work for and earn, but I’m talking about when somebody joins and maybe you did, maybe you saw that story, that Cinderella story that’s floating around in your company of that one girl who joined and decided to look at the opportunity. And she- rocketed to the top of the company almost overnight. She’s on the team calls. She’s on the corporate calls. She’s telling everybody what she did and suddenly there’s this sneaky little thought that creeps in. How did she get there? Why am I not there? She just joined. I’ve been doing this for five years. I’ve been doing this for six years, or you’re telling yourself a story.
Kristen Boss (03:40): That’s a story of disbelief. Like, how is she there? You’re already living in this, let down, you’re already living in the disappointment of not having your expectations and your reality meet your reality feels far below your expectations. You’re living in that. So when you’re hearing these stories, you’re thinking, why her? Why not me? Why am I not there? Or maybe you had the opposite reaction. You had big stars in your eyes. And you were like, oh my gosh, if it’s possible for her, it’s possible for me. And you’d got to work. You put your head down and you heard about all the things she did. And you believed that what she did, her magic strategy is now what you have to do. If I just do what she did, and everybody gets a hold of her message that she sent, they get a hold of her brand. And suddenly everyone starts branding like her talking like her, you’re doing it too. You go out there and you’re like, okay, I got this. I’m going to make it happen.
Kristen Boss (04:55): And it works for a time. And then suddenly you’re back in the place where you did not create the same results she did. So instead of guessing the strategy of what she did, you start second guessing yourself. The narrative you start saying is these are the things I hear. I should be further along. It shouldn’t be this hard. It seems to be easier for others. And not for me. I didn’t think it would take so long to get there. Why is it faster for them and not for me? Have you thought these thoughts at one point, this is because you had a story in your mind. When you decided to work this as a business, you had a story that you created. You had a reality that you painted for yourself, that you deeply believed of what success was supposed to look like. Want you to ask yourself when you joined, what did you think success would look like? How did you think it was supposed to go? Really? I want you to answer that.
Kristen Boss (06:16): What do you think isn’t supposed to be happening? That’s happening right now in your business. What are you telling yourself is happening for other people, but not for you? Here’s what happens when I see people living in this expectation, let down where their reality is not meeting their expectations. There’s this in the book, atomic habits, he talks about how we assume growth is linear. We assume that with steady effort and over time, we’re on this upward linear slope going up over time, just progress, progress, progress. We’re in reality, it’s a much flatter line for a very long time. And your results are far below the expectations of your linear growth. And that’s when most people quit. That’s when most people start doing these things and you’ll know you’re living in this. He calls it the valley of disappointment, that phase where your expectations and your reality, there’s this huge gap. Your reality is far below your expectations, your great expectations.
Kristen Boss (07:41): And there’s a season where it stays that way for a while. And then all of a sudden you hit your tipping point and all of your efforts prior to that, that felt non-glamorous, that felt pointless. That felt that they were getting you nowhere suddenly compound. And you hit the tipping point. That is momentum. I love the book, atomic habits. He calls this latent potential. All of your efforts leading up to that are not wasted. So here’s how to know if you were living with this success, disappointment or what my coach calls success expectancy. You thought you’d be further along. You thought you’d be at that rank. By that time, maybe you joined. And you said, okay, I’m going to hit that rank in two years. And maybe you even felt that that was ample time to hit that rank. Maybe when you joined the company said that the company average age in that rank was two years.
Kristen Boss (08:46): And here you are, it’s been three years and here’s, what’s starting to come up for you. You’re starting to compare you’re in that comparison, despair. You’re watching other people get to that rank when you’re not there. And you’re making it mean that something is wrong with you or something is wrong with the company or something is wrong with the team. But you start creating stories about people. You create stories about their success. Well, she got in at the right time, she got in early, she happened to sign that one person. She happened to sign that one runner. She just has a really good brand. She, you make it as if their success is unavailable for you because they have a certain advantage that you can not have for yourself. You create stories about their success that leaves you on the outside. The other thing you do is you assume you start to assume it’s not working.
Kristen Boss (09:53): What you’re doing is not working. You’re about to toss the whole thing in the garbage. And this is when you start going on what I call the how hunt, like, okay, I got to change up my strategy. Something must not be working re switching another thing in your team. You’re switching your messaging again. You’re switching your event again. You’re switching your online party again. You’re switching your verbiage back and forth and back and forth and back and forth because something’s not working or you’re in the place. I actually think that this, these are the phases. You start with comparing to spare. Ooh, I’m not where I thought it would be. And you start creating stories about why other people are there and you’re not. They have a certain advantage. They got in at the right time. They have a better upline. Their downlines more, more involved, started creating these stories. And then the next thing you do is assume it’s not working. And then you start going on the how hunt strategy, whiplash, and then when that’s not working, then what I see is this idea of giving up or starting to indulge in the idea of quitting. I’m just going to walk away for a while. Maybe this just isn’t cut out for me. Maybe I’m just one of those people. It was never going to work out for.
Kristen Boss (11:10): So you start sitting with that idea or you take a break. You’re just going to take a break for awhile. You don’t know how long we’re going to stick and take a break. You’re just so, because you’re so emotionally tired, you’re so exhausted from feeling a chronic sense of failure, because your reality is so far below your expectations, because in your mind you have made it be because something has gone wrong. That’s the assumption you’re making I’m wrong. Something’s wrong processes, wrong. So if I’m wrong, you’re in that misery chronic misery. I want you to think of something outside of your business, where you had this expectation of how you thought it was going to be. And then it got really hard and suddenly it wasn’t fun anymore. And it wasn’t the party. Anybody promised how much more resistant are you to the process when it’s not fun when it’s like, well, I didn’t sign up for this.
Kristen Boss (12:23): That’s when I start hearing that phrase a lot. I didn’t sign up for this. This is when your commitment really shows through when it’s hard, when you’re in the valley of disappointment, when you’re in the river of misery, are you going to commit or are you going to be like 95% of other people out there and quit? Or if you’re like, I’m not quitting, Kristen, I’m not quitting. I’m doing the things I’m still showing up. I’m still talking to my team. I’m still posting. I’m still doing the things and nothing is working. We’re going to get to that. We’re going to get to, even when you’re showing up in your misery, why your actions aren’t working and then the final phase of living with the despair of your great expectations is when you start to believe the grass is greener elsewhere.
Kristen Boss (13:22): Maybe I just need a different comp plan, join a different upline, different team, different company, different product, different business. You start to believe that your success expectancy lies with just picking a different horse in the race that it has nothing to do with your own efforts and belief and commitment. When things get hard, what if nothing has gone wrong? This phase you’re in the season, you could choose to believe it as permanent, or you can choose to believe it as you’re passing through. Not sure how long it’s going to take, but honestly, the longer you resist this season, you resist this valley of disappointment. The longer you’re going to stay in it because your brain is sitting with the, this shouldn’t be happening right now. It shouldn’t be this hard. And here’s what happens when you’re sitting with that thought your brain stops looking for creative solutions.
Kristen Boss (14:34): All it’s fixated on is how things should be. And you’re unable to see how things are. I want you to really think of a time again, outside of your business, think of how you emotionally felt when you were experiencing something and your constant thought was it shouldn’t be like this. It shouldn’t be this hard. It shouldn’t be miserable. Like I feel miserable. Just same these things. It’s not that something has gone wrong. This is a natural part of the growth process. It happens to everybody. You can call it the leadership lid. You can call it a plateau. You can call a attrition. We’ll do that a whole nother episode, but you’re making this lack of arriving at your Zol results within a certain timeframe, mean that it’s not working when you were focused on how things should be. You can’t be focused on what is, and when you’re not focused on what is, you’re unable to have creative problem solving. And you’re also not working when you’re sitting there, doubting everything, spinning out, spiraling, frustrated, hating where you’re at judging, where you’re at feeling shame, where you’re at. You’re unable to take the right massive action to actually get yourself out of this place.
Kristen Boss (16:22): It’s literally impossible for you to be in a place of doubt. Self-Loathing judgment and shame saying it shouldn’t be this way. It shouldn’t be this way while also taking action to make progress in your business. And when you aren’t taking action, it’s literally impossible to make any measure of progress. I want you to notice the energy you create and the feelings you have when you’re currently sitting with a thought of this isn’t working or should be further along. Notice that how do you feel you have to get out of the shame spiral and back into the work that actually moves the needle forward in your business. But it’s hard to get to work when you think nothing’s working, when you don’t trust the process anymore, it’s hard to get back to work when you’re second guessing everything.
Kristen Boss (17:17): And you’re sitting there with confusion and doubt and overwhelm. This is when people get paralyzed. Like I don’t know what to do anymore. It’s really important right now to be real with yourself about the progress you’ve made. What gains can you be proud of outside of your results, outside of the goal you set for yourself. So you have this, this expectation of where you thought you would be. So what are gains, you can look at outside of that, that you be proud of. If you’re not having growth in your business, what can you be proud of for having growth as a person, as a human? Because when our business isn’t growing, that’s when it’s time for us to grow as a person, you cannot out grow your business personally, from an, from a negative doubtful place. When your business plateaus, it’s often a sign that your personal development needs to have some work, and that’s not a bad thing.
Kristen Boss (18:28): And I hear it a lot like, oh, I just need to work on my mindset. Need to work on my mindset. Okay. Yes. But notice when you’re saying that, are you saying that from the place of, like, I just need to check this off the list because that’s what I probably should do to get me out of here. Instead of sitting with the discomfort and realizing that this is a normal part of business, it’s normal to experience this and actually work through your discomfort. So many of you feel like you need to feel good and be super positive and super motivated and super happy and super high in your belief to be working your business. No, you need to learn to work your business when you feel like, okay, because there are days where you won’t feel like rainbows and unicorns and butterflies, right?
Kristen Boss (19:31): You have to get to the place where you can work, even when you’re frustrated. And the only way you can do that is when you actually start to sell yourself on the process, you sold it, your cell phone, the goal, when you first joined this, you’re like, I know what I want. There’s the outcome I want. This is the financial goals we have. You’re sold on that, but you likely didn’t sell yourself on the process that would be involved to get there. Now was the time to start selling yourself on that. You have got to get to the place where you are, as in love with your journey, as you are with the end result and the book, a 10 X rule by grant Cardone. He talks about in the book that people often fail because they misunderstand the amount of effort and energy required to reach their goals. They miscalculate the massive action needed to achieve something and they give up before they even achieved what they want, because they believe leave it. Isn’t working there in that valley of disappointment, that is normal, that James clear in atomic habits says it is right before all of your compounded results hit your compounded efforts. It’s right before that point, that’s when most people give up and say, it must not be working.
Kristen Boss (21:07): And in the book he says, it’s not that it’s not working. It’s just that you calculated the effort and the action wrong. That’s it. That’s all that happened. You started believing that you can’t make it to the top rank, but it’s because you calculated the effort in the action wrong because you had an expectancy. You had a great expectation of what you thought success was supposed to look like. You had this story in your mind, I’m going to get to this rank in this time, this rank in that time, this ranked by this year, and it will feel this way.
Kristen Boss (21:48): That’s, that’s what I see all the time. And when it doesn’t happen, that way you sit and defeat and despair and shame and judgment. And you go into all the things I talked about, comparing and despairing, creating stories about other success. Assume it’s not working indulge in the idea of quitting looking elsewhere, thinking your success is with the right horse. I just got to pick the right pony. It’s a game of luck. It’s not a game of luck. It’s a game of consistent efforts over time. It’s a game of a massive action, even when it feels like it sucks, even when it’s hard. So here’s what you need to do in order to regain your perspective and get out of this misery, this chronic disappointment of being unhappy with your reality, not matching your expectations. You have to stop making your first thought, be it isn’t working. You actually have to go into evaluation and start with what is working. Here’s the truth. Organic marketing is trusting a process and it’s embracing the long game.
Kristen Boss (23:06): I have people that are like, okay, I’ve, I’ve done some things, you know, and people aren’t reaching out to me and do I need to go into like messaging a bunch of people? I don’t feel good when I do it. I don’t know what to do, but that they move into this like, well, I’m gonna take this forced action because that makes me feel like I have control. And I actually have to ask, okay, well, how many offers have you actually made? How long have you actually been consistently giving value to your audience and how many direct calls to action have you made and how long have you been doing it? And it’s so funny. Our brain likes to tell us it’s been a long I’m currently working on like tracking my macros and just being mindful of what I’m eating. And I remember I was telling my health coach. I remember I was telling her like, oh, it’s just, what, what have we been doing this like three weeks? And she’s like, Kristen, like 10 days. I was like, what?
Kristen Boss (24:08): Like in my brain, it felt so freaking long because I’m having to trust the process. And we do this. I see people doing this in their business all the time. I’m doing it. It’s just not working. Okay. Well really. How many offers have you made? How many posts have you done? Like if you are telling me it’s not working because you’ve done two post three posts, five posts. Nope. It’s not time to say it’s not working. Tell me after a hundred posts. And then at that point, maybe it’s time to reevaluate your copy. I might say, okay, are you copying and pasting? Are you being yourself? Working on copywriting? I get that. But what if you weren’t allowed to make judgments about what you’re doing until much further down the road, especially with organic marketing, I have to give P help. People have really realistic expectations and say, Hey, look, it’s going to be at the whole 45 to 60 days in this shift with you consistently offering value and sharing a certain message for people to start reaching out to you. And it’s true. It’s almost always 60 days on the nose. Almost always. If you’re doing it daily consistently with value and showing up in the right place and right energy. Yep. It’s what happens. But so often people want to make the judgment call right out of the gate. It’s not working for me. And you go to the next thing and you give it 10 days. It’s not working. You’re onto the next thing. So you have to stop making your first thought, be it isn’t working.
Kristen Boss (25:46): What if you actually need to think or ask yourself what if it is working? And I just don’t see the results yet. Okay. Next, you need to sell yourself on the process. Why is this still worth it to you on days when you feel like it’s not working, why is it still worth it to you? On days when you have to push through the hard building, a multi six-figure business, a million dollar business doesn’t happen overnight. It doesn’t happen easily. And without hard work and diligence and commitment and a heck of a lot of brain management. I got to manage my mind all the time. I love it. It felt really hard at the beginning, but now it’s like, okay, I get it. I understand it. It’s a lot easier. You need to sell yourself on the process far more than, and you sell yourself on the rank advancement that big check, because you have got to start loving your journey right now.
Kristen Boss (26:54): You kind of enjoy the, enjoy the journey friends. I know that sounds really cliche, but you need to, you have to find joy, even when it’s hard, before all the results come in. Honestly, this is the mindset I had with growing my Facebook group. I grew up to 2,500 members organically in less than 12 months. And I chose to love the process when I had 10 members, when I had a hundred members when I had 200. Yeah. I chose to have so much fun instead of fixating on the metrics and the numbers and engagement. I was like, nah, this is fun. I’m just going to keep adding value you in here. And it grew a lot. And it started to evolve. Many of you that listen to this were in my free community for a long time. I had a blast and it was, I was never judging the result.
Kristen Boss (27:56): I was totally sold on the process. So I’m serving, this is how I’m adding value. Of course, this is working for me. I just never made it an option to believe that it wasn’t working. I just believed it’s going to work. It’s just going to take some time. I don’t know how much time, but I’m going to have fun with it. Do it. I’m convinced. That’s why the group grew so powerfully. And why I had above industry standard engagement in that group. Like my group had obscene engagement. For it’s size. Typically engagement is pretty low percentage wise. Mine was double because I believe it was the mindset I had.
Kristen Boss (28:42): Okay. Next check your commitment level. Get real with yourself. How long were you in this for? What are you willing to do when it gets tough? Listen, when you stop resisting the amount of time it’s taking you to get there, then you stop resisting the process to getting the outcome you want. When you’re resisting the timeline, you’re also resisting the process. And when you’re resisting the process, you’re also resisting the results. You just stay in the muck, you stay in the mud. And some of you have been stuck for a long time, because this is a story you’re telling yourself. And maybe a couple of you are in the final two phases of this great expectation. Misery looking elsewhere, thinking about quitting, hiding, not showing up.
Kristen Boss (29:40): This is when it’s time to check your commitment level, because you’re going to find this exact story. No matter where you go, you want to build a multi six-figure business. This is the story you’re going to have to deal with no matter what, I don’t care. If it’s coaching, selling courses, network marketing, it does not matter. Connext tracking your progress and celebrate it. Kind of like with health goals, they say to track non-scale victories like, oh, are your pants looser? Do you have more energy? You sleeping better. Are you saying no to sugar more? You have to do the same thing for your business. How can you celebrate your growth as a person? Even when maybe it’s not the season where you are celebrating the growth of your business.
Kristen Boss (30:35): I have one client. I’m so proud of her. She’s been in a season of massive rebuilding, rebuilding her team, rebuilding the vision, casting new vision, recruiting new leaders, a new way of systems and onboarding links. She’s completely rebuilding from the ground. Yeah. And she’s not seeing the numbers yet. But when I asked her, I said, Hey, I want you to look back a year ago. And I want you to look at this past year and what are you proud of? And she was blown away. She’s like, I wouldn’t have done this. I would have hid. I would have done something else. She now trusts her commitment level because she’s stuck with it when it wasn’t glamorous or hard. She stuck with it when it required massive amounts of grit, belief, and commitment, which tells me, she’s literally on the verge of momentum. She’s literally on the verge of blowing up her business because she’s been faithful when it’s not glamorous. She’s doing all her personal growth. She’s doing the work. She’s leading by example. And she is truly celebrating her progress. She’s signing big influencers. When she gets there, I’m going to bring, I’m going to bring her on the podcast and she’s going to talk about it. But she’s doing it in the non-glamorous work of personal growth before her business growth.
Kristen Boss (32:11): And lastly, you need to sell yourself on your commitment, not your goal, your commitment and your vision every single day. This is the about the long game friends. This is about having infinite levels of commitment to a finite goal. This is about holding the outcome. Loosely, stop holding your success to a timeline. I’m going to really challenge you and make you uncomfortable. That timeline you have in your brain. I want you to double it. If you feel triggered me saying that, if you’re like, oh, what my goal was a year from now, now you’re telling me to, I want you to notice what thoughts come up. It’s actually good that I’m challenging you to sit with this discomfort.
Kristen Boss (33:09): If you’re resisting, even wanting to go there like, no, no, no. I don’t even want to entertain that. That tells me that you are very attached to your outcome instead of fully embracing the process. Like sit with it, double it and get your thoughts out. What would that mean? What do you making it mean? Does it mean you’re failing? What do you want your commitment to look like? Get yourself to the place where you have completely sold yourself out saying no matter what, even if it’s double the time, my commitment is the same. I think some of you think I’m going to give it this measure of commitment, this measure of energy within this timeframe. And if I don’t hit that goal in this time, in that timeframe, I’m going to reevaluate, which also might look like I might quit. I might look at something else. I might question this whole thing, but ask yourself if it was double the amount of time and double the effort. What are my thoughts about that? Are you willing to sell yourself on double the effort and double the timeline? If you are, it’s going to get you sell you out of this success expectancy, this misery of great expectations, and you’ll stop resisting the process that you inevitably need to go through to get to your results.
Kristen Boss (34:49): So it’s not that it’s not working it’s that maybe now is when you actually start working on your belief the most when it’s hard, not glamorous, when it’s gritty, this is when the cream rises to the top. This is when leaders emerge. How do you want to choose to emerge? When you’re in the valley of disappointment, the river of misery, this is when the cream rises to the top. And my challenge to you is sell yourself on your commitment to the process and the inevitability of reaching goal until next week.
Kristen Boss (35:46): That wraps up today’s episode. Hey, if you loved today’s show, I would love for you to take a minute and give a rating with a review. If you desire to elevate the social selling industry, that means we need more people listening to this message so that they can know it can be done a different way. And if you’re ready to join me, it’s time for you to step into the Social Selling Academy, where I give you all the tools, training, and support to help you realize your goals. In the academy, you get weekly live coaching so that you are never lost or stuck in confusion. Whether you are new in the business or been in the industry for awhile, this is the premier coaching program for the modern network marketer. Go to www.thesocialsellingacademy.com to learn more.
