What You Must Know About Your Thoughts
A good friend of mine was telling me about a discovery he made. He is an excellent and fast Paintless Dent Repair tech, but a year ago he took a job with an international dent company as a regional manager.
“When I joined the company, I had big aspirations of getting them to see and think from the technician’s point of view. I’d heard all the complaints from techs I worked with and really thought I could make a change. I was going to make it more tech friendly because I figured a happy tech will come work for us again and again.”
We’ll come back to his big dream in a bit.
If you’ve been a reader for long, you know that thinking differently is a necessity for success. This is true in all areas of life, but this was solidified for me through learning paintless dent repair.
Working in body shops, I noticed there were two schools of thought. The body and paint techs I worked with either thought it was the coolest thing since sliced bread, or they found all kinds of reasons why it would never last. The vast majority chose the latter view.
I was fortunate to be somewhat isolated at first exposure. I worked alone in my own body shop at the time. I wonder now if my thinking might have been shaped differently if I had gone back to a shop full of guys and immediately told them what I had just witnessed.
Fortunately, the event had time to gel and take shape in my mind before I spoke with any peers.
I must admit being somewhat surprised at the negative reaction. In hindsight, if you were in the body business, it would have scared you pretty good. Every body man or painter knows a balanced mix of work leads to a good paycheck. You needed a mix of heavy hits and light jobs to keep you busy and productive. The very thought of losing the light jobs was enough to send the industry into mass panic.
Their behavior was not too far removed from the Salem witch hunts here in the US. Any who dared voice the heresy of fixing dents without painting were burned at the stake, so to speak.
Occasionally, I still hear echoes from a misinformed shop, “I’ve never seen a good paintless dent repair.” Truth be known, they’ve had lots of PDR right under their nose, but much of it was too good to see.
The only opinion that matters to us is the opinion of the customer. If you’re like me, you’ve spent far too much time and effort trying to help someone who will never spend money with you or at the least, consider what you offer.
We as humans are amazing creatures. Our power of reason and ability to learn seem literally unlimited. But its our propensity to hold on tight to closely held beliefs that keep us down.
When you begin to see the power of thought or, more important, accurate thought, note what happens.
You may feel a sense of obligation to correct every minor issue someone else owns as a thought pattern. If you are in control of this, you are truly humble.
For me it was the realization of the fine difference between arrogance and self confidence.
I used to be the guy who would read a book or go to a seminar and discover some new twist on any subject. Trouble is I left with a mental flu of sorts for I then began to inflict verbal vomit on any who dared to cross my path.
Now I see it was arrogance. Really, a veneer of arrogance trying hard to mask a very low sense of self worth.
Lloyd S. Etheredge, associate professor of political science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, stated not long ago: “Col. Edward House, who was a senior political adviser to (former US President) Woodrow Wilson, was once asked about his unfailing courtesy to other people . . . The colonel explained that he had grown up in the Old West when most people you dealt with packed six-guns. Under those conditions, he thought, people learned fast that being arrogant was not very smart.”
My goal has been and remains to be increasing your insight. Not just the how to of dent repair and getting business but the why. Knowing the why increases your vision.
Insight is the ability to see into a situation. To look beyond the obvious. To act with prudence or discretion. Understanding is part of insight but there is more to it. Understanding means you can distinguish the difference between two things while insight reflects an intelligent knowledge of the reason.
Changing Thoughts
A most valuable insight is found in knowing where we are now is not where we have to stay. Any ugliness we may uncover can be changed or improved.
Practicing dent repair or learning any new thing will uncover things you didn’t know about yourself before. It can be uncomfortable, as the mirror is held in front of you, for better or worse.
How you think or feel right now, no matter how enlightened you may be, will change. I want to promise that it will change for the better, but I can’t. This part is up to you.
Remember my friend mentioned at the outset? He was a technician and had a view and thought pattern much as a technician would. I know him well and can tell you that he could easily empathize with any manager or business owner. But his world view was from a tech’s perspective.
How did his goal work out? Was he able to share his technician’s insights once he jumped down the rabbit hole into the corporate world?
You already know the answer don’t you? Like Alice his former way of thinking was changed. The instant he went from tech to manager, his insight grew. From the inside he learned why things are done as they are in that group. What was once an annoyance and a reason to ask why, soon turned into irrefutable logic.
You have had the same experience many times. Just think of any skill you’ve mastered. Riding a bike, playing an instrument, even just figuring out a personal computer. Any aptitude you’ve mastered started with a pretty strong disbelief you’d ever arrive at competence.
Your skepticism may well have been reinforced by watching another who had mastered it make it look easy.
You may have experienced this with the Paintless Mentor System. Watching is learning, but only about ten percent of what is needed.
The other ninety exists only in the courage to go and mess it all up. The strength to be just awful at first. Then, the personal kindness to acknowledge your progress.
What Will you Say?
Listen to the things you say to yourself, out loud or just in your head. As you pay attention, how can you change it to reinforce growth?
“Boy, I sure messed that up” becomes “I see some flaws but I’m getting better.”
The most tragic event I witness is a student who talks themselves out of success.
If we talked to others the way we do ourself, they wouldn’t have us around for long.
Take notice of the people who challenge you. Why does what they do or say give you heartburn? Is their view different from yours?
Again, my friend, mentioned above, is now in the corporate world. Do you think he sees things the same as an entrepreneur would?
I’ll tell you this, I’ve been called an entrepreneur but I know better. I’m a business owner. Actually, I’m self employed.
Entrepreneurs build businesses and form Corporations to keep their chaotic ways organized. They hire employees to work in their companies. A CEO might be an entrepreneur and might not.
To say a mid level manager is entrepreneurial is the same as calling a sixteen year old a manager at a McDonald’s restaurant. Its a title only.
I’ve worked with some very high paid hail guys who would come back from a weekend all depressed after spending time with their buddies who went to college. How does a guy with a bigger check get intimidated? The grass is greener. It sounds like fun to work in those places.
You have the insight to not take all things at face value. When you feel the pull inside toward “Boy, I’d like to live like that!” its time to adjust.
There is a trade off in every person’s life. Often we see only the results and benefits of a person’s choices but we are not privy to what he gave up to get there.
This loops back to what I said earlier about how you think or feel right now.
What Others Say
It will change for the better if you put yourself in a success environment. If you avoid those who would bring you low by spewing their emotional poison on you.
Remember, there is social pressure in every environment. We all want to think we are unaffected by those around us, but its impossible. If you are in a room (shop, forum, house, etc.) on a regular basis with someone you will try to get along. Sometimes getting along means going along. Joining them in their thoughts somewhere in the middle of what you think and what they think.
So naturally, if they are positive, your thoughts lift. Its the vice versa that will get you.
You know that still small voice inside? To me it starts in the tummy. The gut feels weird and the heart rate goes up.
Listen to that.
I once played vendor to a small body shop owned by a guy I really liked. Over the years, he manifested a severe jealousy toward me and I became more and more uncomfortable. I couldn’t put my finger on it at first, but the tummy was talking to me.
Why did I feel so bad after a day spent there?
Finally, when I figured it out, we talked it over. He denied all intent, but the problem grew worse.
I asked him to find another vendor and you know what? I almost immediately replaced the account with one 10 times the size in revenue.
It seems you can only fit so much stuff in one day or week, so you might as well choose good stuff. You could even make the argument that holding on to the bad account kept any good ones from coming in.
Before you remove a client you feel is costing you more than they spend with you, remember this. You will also lose some of their friends as clients. I say some because their are a number who know the guy as he really is.
You do get to choose your customers, so you might as well like doing business with them.
I worked on 3 cars for a used car dealer here many years ago. I delivered a car to him and he drove me back to the shop. While in the car with him, his detail guy called. My face turns red even now as I think about the litany of abuse this dealer unleashed on his detail guy. After he hung up, he said, “I spend 20,000 dollars a year with that guy.”
No amount of money is worth that kind of treatment.
One side effect of insight is you realize you can make choices different than you are now. You understand that you can and do choose how you are treated.
No one can inflict abuse on you unless you tolerate it. Not even you.
till next time,
Tim