High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 517: How to 5x Your Revenue Growth with Dan Hager, Managing Director, Northwestern Mutual

Episode Date: October 20, 2022

Dan is a Managing Director and Wealth Management Advisor for Northwestern Mutual. He has nearly a decade of experience in corporate business to business sales. He holds a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) and is a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) and Retirement Income Certified Professional (RICP).  He is married to his wife Melissa and has two children, Cameron and Addilyn. When Dan isn't in the office, he enjoys traveling and spending time with his family outdoors. He has participated in multiple marathons and coaches youth sports within his community.  In this interview, Dan and Cindra discuss:  How he uses the Law of Attraction to grow his business  How coaching helped him grow his business by 35%  Ways he has learned to reframe his focus and the impact  Steps to RACE to your Growth  Pain of discipline vs. plan of regret    TO LEARN MORE ABOUT CINDRA’S BREAKTHROUGH PROGRAM: https://cindrakamphoff.com/breakthrough/  HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET SHOWNOTES FOR THIS EPISODE: www.cindrakamphoff.com/517  FOLLOW CINDRA ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/cindrakamphoff/  FOLLOW CINDRA ON TWITTER: https://twitter.com/mentally_strong  TO REACH DAN: Daniel Robert Hager - Rochester, MN 55902 | Northwestern Mutual  Love the show? Rate and review the show for Cindra to mention you on the next episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/high-performance-mindset-learn-from-world-class-leaders/id1034819901       

If you're an entrepreneur, salesperson, or business leader, and you're looking to get more clarity on where you're going, if you'd like to be more connected to your purpose and ultimately make more money, then you'll love our new Beyond Grit Breakthrough Program. It's a six-week-long journey where you'll be paired with like-minded entrepreneurs, salespeople, and business leaders who want to learn how to build the business and a career they've always dreamed of. With six weeks of teaching, live teaching with me, you'll get clarity on your long-term vision

and your short-term goals. You'll be more connected to your life's purpose. We'll help you break through your internal barriers so you can level up empowering emotions to lead with positivity and confidence. And by the end, you'll have created a business roadmap so you can get more clarity and direction. You can head over to cindracampoff.com slash breakthrough where you can learn more about

the program and book a call with me and I can answer any of your questions. Again, the URL is cindracampoff.com slash breakthrough. Welcome to episode 517 with Dan Hager. This episode is about how to five times your revenue growth and I'm excited to introduce you to Dan. Dan is one of my coaching clients and I don't have my own coaching clients on this podcast very often but I knew Dan had something special to share with you about how to grow your mindset and when you do so, how it results in your revenue growth. Now, Dan is a managing director and wealth management advisor for Northwestern Mutual.

He has nearly a decade of experience in corporate business and in business sales. He holds a master's in business administration and is a certified financial planner. And in this episode, Dan and I talk about how he specifically uses the law of attraction to grow his business, how coaching helped him grow his business by 35%, ways he's learned to reframe his focus and the impact of reframing that focus. He also shares his steps to race to your growth and describes the difference between a pain of discipline and a pain of regret. To find the full show notes and description of this podcast, you can head over to cindracampoff.com slash 517 for episode 517.

And let's bring on Dan. Welcome, Dan Hager, to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. How are you today? I'm Podcast. How are you today? I'm fantastic. How are you? I'm doing great. I already had my run this morning, so feeling pretty good. Was it a long, slower pace, or were you short and fast today?

In the middle. Well, I'm excited to talk with you today and just learn more about how we can each race to growth. So my first question, Dan, is just for those people who are listening, tell us a little bit about your passion and what you do right now. Yeah. So really what I'm fired up about most is to educate and inspire those that I work with on a regular basis so that I can really motivate them to live a life of abundance and whatever that means to them, but just being abundant and helping them serve more people and create more opportunities for more people, whether it be locally or nationally, any way that I can help just gets me fired up every morning. I love it. So I'm definitely hearing in your answer, living a life for other people and in service. And I think when we do that, that really does allow us to grow, too.

So maybe just give us a little insight and tell us, you know, how did you get to where you are now in your career? Sure. Sure. It's actually a funny story. about 20 years ago already, walked away from an internship opportunity with my current firm and went into national sales with a window manufacturing company. And after about a decade of that and finishing up my MBA program and spending two, three nights every single week in a hotel room, I ended up coming back to our current firm as a financial advisor, recruited in by my advisor, who was helping my wife and I. And, you know, through the course of good fortune and a lot of hard work, I ended up here in Rochester and now leading Northwestern Mutual of Southeast Minnesota and helping grow our brand

down here. Well, what I'm really excited to talk with you about today is how you trained your mind and how you've utilized some of the principles we've talked about on this podcast or that's in my book, Beyond Grit. And because I think you have become a master at it and you've realized the importance, even just when you said like, what do you do? It was all about abundance, right? So as you think about now, where you started as a financial planner and now as a managing director, maybe just give us a little insight on what that shift has been like for you, just so people can kind of get a sense of what is the difference? Sure. Really, quite frankly, I think about it, the visual that comes to my mind is like the wake

behind a boat. And as a financial advisor or financial planner, you know, I get to impact the clients that I serve directly every single day. As a managing director, I now get to think about, you know, 10, 20, 30 different boats creating those wakes. And now the impact just spreads so much more significantly across those communities that we serve. And really, at first, it was all about, and quite frankly, before I met you and started using a lot of these principles, it was all about survival and just figuring out

what we need to do to be here long term. And the daily battle of, you know, what's happening? Why am I doing what I'm doing? Why are these things happening to me? Almost a victim mentality some days. And then the shift to, you know, the abundant mentality of, hey, these things are happening for me. Every opportunity, every stress that I experienced in life is an opportunity to learn and grow. And now I get to share that with other people and help uplift them through the same learnings that I went through. Yeah, that's really powerful, you know, because I think so many

people can relate, you know, and I think we might not be in financial planning, but some people who are listening are in sales, you know, and I think about just the be in financial planning, but some people who are listening are in sales. And I think about just the importance of when we're going through difficulties and just day-to-day difficulties. A client says no. Someone puts you off in traffic. It's easy to be like, why is this happening to me? I think that's our default as humans, actually. I think it takes a lot of intention to take a step back and ask yourself,

like, what's the gift and how can I grow through this? Absolutely right. And beyond that, I think it's the law of attraction, right? We talk a lot about that in our coaching sessions of, you know, we get what we tend to think about most at the end of the day. And we can choose whether we think about all of the challenges and the roadblocks in our path or we can choose how are we going to address those and how are we going to thrive despite all of those. And you think about not too long ago, 2020, right, when the world shut down COVID, right, that was obviously a very clear obstacle. And we get to see firsthand those who chose to thrive in spite of that challenge and those who chose not to. And it's a very powerful lesson for us to learn. Absolutely. So, Dan, you're one of one of the first coaching clients I've had on the podcast.

So I want to be mindful of that. And, you know, I really appreciate that you really wanted to come on and just kind of share how you've used Beyond Grit and then, you know, your own philosophy on training your mind and leadership. So maybe just to get us started with this idea, tell us a little bit about, you know, what you see is the impact of training your mind and using some of the principles and beyond grit and even within our coaching. For sure. Yeah. And really, quite frankly, I boil it down to three main advantages that I've used and implemented on a regular basis, which is morning priming. Expecting, embracing stress, and it's reframing our focus on what's immediately in front of us that's controllable. Yeah. And so take morning priming as a perfect example. You know, John Asraff wrote a book called Inner Size. Yeah. You went for a run this morning, right? And you went for a run and I know you, you run regularly. It helps keep you in shape. It keeps you healthy, et cetera. Well, our brains are the exact same way,

as you know. And if we don't train our brain in the same way that we train our physical bodies, we can't expect to stay in shape and we can't expect to stay alert and on top of everything that's going on in our life. So starting every single day in my vision statement, focusing on what I want in life, why it's important to me is mission critical. Because if I can win the day before 6 a.m., well, then I just set the trajectory for the rest of the day for myself.

Yeah. And you're leading the hardest person yourself, right? And I know we've talked about the act of priming, which is just like intentionally choosing your focus and your emotions to get you primed or to get you started. In my book, Beyond Grit for Business, I give a grit acronym, gratitude, remember your why intention, and then talking to yourself powerfully, that the T is talk to yourself. And I think, you know, you don't have to necessarily use the grit acronym. But I think the point is, is that you're priming your focus in the morning. And what do you think the impact of that is, Dan? I think it's energy, quite frankly, and it's resilience because we're all going to face obstacles throughout the day, right? And when we can just have the energy to face those

obstacles and just know who we are and be true to ourselves and not try to morph into someone we're not because we're just trying to adapt on the fly when you're clear on your values and you have that energy and you know exactly what you're trying to achieve those obstacles becomes nothing more than speed bumps at the end of the day and what i love about your analogy using grit to start with gratitude yeah right when we think back on our lives, we're in these positions because of a lot of people who have helped us get to where we are today and by a lot of hard work and a lot of good fortune going our way. Right. And regardless of what challenges we face in front of us, when we take a step back and really focus on how fortunate we are. To be in the most affluent country in the world, to have the healthcare system that we have, everything that we get to enjoy makes a lot of the stresses of our daily lives seem quite a bit smaller. Yeah. Isn't that true? And there's always something that we can be grateful for,

even though it's sometimes really difficult to kind of focus on that, right? I mean, we're alive, you know, I mean, we're still breathing and just, just that is something to be grateful for. So the other, yeah, go ahead. And maybe then tell us a bit more about like expect and embrace stress and, you know, finish your thought and then tell us a bit more about the other one. It was kind of a silly thought, but I mean, you and I are both here in Minnesota and we are approximately 60 days away from the winter coming. And we're going to be in winter for seemingly, you know, the next 22 years of our lives, even though it only lasts about five to six months. It feels like 22 years, isn't it?

It always does. When it's, you know, negative 20 in February, it feels like forever. But at the same token, we have the opportunity to be grateful of the warm houses that we have to keep us sheltered. And it's just the little things you can focus on. Absolutely. So tell us how you embrace and expect or yeah, expect and embrace stress. What does that mean to you? And then how have you used that? Yeah, really, quite frankly, you know, I'm the type of person who really enjoys seeking out challenges. And here's a here's a personal story. My wife and I, we are we had our 15 year wedding anniversary this past June. And we went out to our happy spot, which is the Rocky Mountains.

And, you know, normally when you think about a 15-year anniversary trip, you think about relaxation. Love my kids dearly, but just the time away with the two of us, it's a perfect opportunity to recharge our batteries. And we get there and all of a sudden we see something called the Manitou Incline. Have I ever, do you know what that is? No, I don't know what this is. So there might be some experienced hikers listening to this who think it's no big deal, but to me it was a huge deal. It's literally, it's an old logging trail straight up the side of a mountain in Manitou Springs, Colorado. It covers 2000 vertical feet in less than a mile, literally 2,744 steps virtually straight up.

Wow. And my wife and I choose to ignore rest and relaxation to go like bust out our heartbeat and like thumping through our chest to go climb this mountain. But you know what's interesting about that is even though the climb sucked, when we got to the top of that climb and turned around and looked back over the entire valley, imagine how that view was to us in that moment. View's always the best after a hard climb. So many analogies to that, you know, a hard climb to go after, a big goal, weathering the storm along that and maybe having to stop or take a step back to move forward, right? And how great it is to accomplish it and see it in the end. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I

heard this quote once, I don't know who it's attributed to, and I like and I don't necessarily like it, but I think the point is true. It says unsuccessful people exchange short-term stress for long-term distress and successful people are constantly under short-term stress, but rarely experience long-term distress. And there's elements of that quote that I like and appreciate. There's elements that I don't. What's the definition of success? Is a seven-figure earner who's got multiple properties around the United States successful when the single parent work in two to three jobs to keep a roof over their kids home and feed their kids? Is that not successful? I don't think so. But the point remains true when we learn to embrace difficult situations and not flee from difficult situations and hit them head on with our vision and purpose

in mind because we're willing to do the little things that so many people aren't and in the back end we rarely have the distress that so many people do experience yeah that's a good point that it's you know I think we can define success on our terms. And so many times we maybe look to what society or how society defines it. And then tell us, Dan, about the last thing that you said about focusing more on what's right in front of you and just managing and reframing that focus. Well, this is all attributed to you, quite frankly, in our coaching sessions. And I think about some of the stories you shared with me about working with professional athletes and how we can fall into the trap of focusing on the past, which tends to lead to feelings of regret or sorrow or whatever the case may be.

And then we could also focus on things that are outside of our control in the future, which leads to anxiety and fear. And the most elite athletes tend to focus on the next play. They just have this laser focus on what do I need to do right now that is in alignment of the future. We can't ignore that, but it's controllable right now today. And so I think about how do I break my business down into very small, acute daily wins that are in alignment with my vision. And as long as I can win those items daily, complete those tasks, whatever it may be daily, build self-efficacy. The confidence that

pursues is like a cycle and that consistently compounds time and time again. So that's what I really try to focus on each day is just block out the noise. What do I need to do Wednesday, September 21st, as we're recording this, to win today and go home knowing that I did my job. Yeah, so powerful. I think really what you're saying is like focusing on the process, right? The small things that you can do that you can control. And we know that pro athletes are at their best when they're focused in the present and in the current play. And I think it's so easy to get so caught up in the future and maybe, you know, not reaching your dreams or being frustrated or angry or, you know, focused on

the past, regretting things that are done with and we can't control. So Dan, I know people, as they're listening, they're thinking, OK, this all sounds good. And I'm curious about, you know, what do you think the impact has been related to coaching your mind and and using some of these principles day to day? Like, why do you think people should do it? Well, quite simply put, I think it's going to allow you to chase your dreams unapologetically. It's going to allow you to achieve a different level of success. I mean, we've been working together since the just start of 2020, I believe, if my math is correct. And you think about all that we've experienced in just the last two and a half years.

It's been wild. But because of the principles that we've put in place, I've been able to stay focused on what's most important to me and lead an abundant life despite all of those roadblocks. inspiring observation is when I lead myself well first, the contagious energy that results and seeing others catch that and want to run at a different pace than that they're running at because they see me taking the lead, that gets me so fired fired up and it just leads to more and more energy, more and more confidence to think about, okay, how big can we really make this? Yeah, that's awesome. And I think about the momentum that you create by choosing more of your focus and your energy as a leader, right? And everybody leads in some way. We lead ourselves for sure, but we lead others in some way. And I think that's when we're our best and we're training our focus in our mind and intentionally choosing our energy.

Like the outcome takes care of itself when we're working really hard towards it. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that, too. And when you say everybody leads in some way that's so true and oftentimes unfortunately our society is kind of elevated quote-unquote leaders based on position or status when in all reality is every person out there is leading and inspiring and affecting somebody else and they get to choose how they go about that regardless of role or status position paycheck doesn't matter absolutely so I think one thing that uh that um you know when I think about the impact of coaching and just training your mind over the last couple of years I mean you mentioned to me like 35 percent revenue growth and I I was like, oh yeah. And also just being able to weather the

storm during the pandemic, obviously you became managing director. So moving offices and being able to manage that change. So those I think are other reasons why people should choose to engage in coaching, because I think it allows you to get out of your own way and allows you to have somebody else to say, Hey, um, and I have my own coach, Dan. So, so she'll think, Sindra, you know, is that really what you want to choose right now? Is that really what you want to think? And she calls me out, you know, it sounds like you're playing a little small right now. I'm like, Oh yeah, I think you're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, there's two things that come to mind as you say this. I had an opportunity to sit and listen to a college football coach probably a

year or so ago. And he made a comment of if you're not coached in a particular area of your life, you're probably not living up to your fullest expectations or your fullest potential. The other thing I'm thinking of is, well, advice paid for is advice received, right? If I'm going to go out of my way to pay you to help me, well, you darn well know I'm going to take that advice, right? Really quite frankly, I kind of kick myself for telling you about the 35% revenue growth, because I'm a little bit worried that my bills are going to start

climbing year after year after year. So I'm going to start fudging a little bit. That's funny. That's awesome. All right. Well, let's let's move on to this idea of your race acronym and the idea of like racing to growth. And that's really what we're focused on today is helping other people and helping all the listeners be able to be intentional with their growth. And I'm thinking it could be a lot of different ways they grow, could be growing in their leadership or their ability to lead themselves, or maybe they want to grow in their revenue, you know, grow in their own performance. So tell us first about just this idea before we kind of dive into the acronym. How can we use this kind of in your own perspective? Well, I think it's reframing focus at the end of the day. One of the first things that you shared with us as a group,

even before I hired you as my individual coach, was the focus on running a marathon. You and I both run. Well, I mean, you run, I jog, but I don't know. You're just done a lot earlier than I am. And at the end of the day, one of the things you said was you don't want to focus on the end. You just want to focus on the next light pole. Remember that? Just get to the next light on the marathon. And then all of a sudden, those light poles become 26.2 miles. And when I think about race, I think about us running our own individual races.

Right? race, I think about us running our own individual races. I'm not going to run a seven-minute mile. I used to. Right now, my race is different. I've got a number of advisors in my district, and they're all running their own races. It's all individualized to what's most important to them. But these, the lessons from race, which is resilient, acute, consistent, and elevate, I believe are life lessons that are impactful for anybody at any stage of their business or sales or teaching or whatever profession you may be in. These are lessons that I've learned just through observation, through some of the best leaders that I've been around and some of the best coaches I've been around. So I really do believe they're universal. And I love that you said like running your own race.

I think in a culture that it's really easy to compare, right? Because of social media, but instead, if you're staying focused on, what does my best look like? How can I be my best today? How can I keep growing from yesterday? How can I continue to get 1% better or whatever percent better it is? But just like, I think that allows us to thrive and is a really a pillar of peak performance. Exactly right. If you're going to compare anything, compare to the version of the person you once were. Right. Don't compare to anybody else. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Great advice there.

So let's kind of dive into this and tell us the R stands for resilient. What does resilience mean to you and how can we practice resilience? So two things come to mind for me. Number one is resilience is a function of a strong vision. Okay. When you know where you're going, it's easier to stick the course despite all the obstacles. But what I really have learned over my career is that a vision without a purpose is nothing more than a dream. Yeah. And you've seen my vision statement. You see right at the top, there's a picture of a home in the mountains. My wife has happy spot, right?

And that's my 2025 vision. So last I checked, we're T minus just over three years to make that happen, right? But what's interesting about tangible or extrinsic items in a vision statement is they're very easy to justify away. And that home, for example, 2025, my kids are going to be in the prime of their most active years. And to think about having a home halfway across the country, it's like, yeah, that'd be great. And I plan to put myself in a position to be able to do that. But realistically, it's like, are we ever going to use it? Because six nights out of the week, we're going to be in bleachers somewhere. So it's very easy to justify that way and say, well, okay, I know that'd be really fun,

but it's not that important. And then all of a sudden the vision fades. And then now all of a sudden we're not resilient and we're not chasing what's most important to us. But a vision with a purpose, that's what creates the sustainable energy to handle all of the rejections, to really put ourselves in a position to succeed regardless of what life throws our way. Stock market going crazy, inflation out of control, unemployment high, low, whatever the case may be. If we know why we do what we do, we're going to stick through it.

And, you know, candidly speaking, I also think that there is a fallacy out there that if you go after your dreams and you really chase growing something meaningful and special that so few people are able to accomplish in the business world, that you have to give up all of these important things in your life. You have to give up time with your family, right? You have to. That's probably the most important thing that people aren't willing to give up, of these important things in your life. You have to give up time with your family, right? That's probably the most important thing that people aren't willing to give up, and rightfully so, right? You have to give up hours and freedom, et cetera. I think that's an absolute lie, personally. And I think being resilient and chasing your dreams and having

a clear purpose on what you want in life actually creates more autonomy, more control, more time with family and more of an impact with the people that you're trying to impact. You know, one of my greatest fear syndrome to be totally vulnerable is I don't want to look back on my life and think to myself that, man, I had these gifts that I've been given and I didn't maximize those. And by not maximizing those, there's two main types of people that I impacted the most. They're one way. Number one, my clients and those I serve. If I don't maximize my gifts, I'm letting all of my clients down. But two, and most importantly to me, I don't want my children to grow up and think that it's okay to not maximize those gifts in themselves. And I can talk to them all day long about leadership lessons and life lessons, et cetera. lead the path. Yeah. But if I'm not willing to do the work necessary to maximize my talents and my gifts and really make an impact on people's lives, they're going to follow my example. And that would be the most heartbreaking thing ever to me. And that's why I'm resilient. Yeah, I love it. I appreciate what you said in connected purpose to resilience, because I think if you know really why, you know, why you're going after that cabin in the mountains

or the house in the mountains, right? And, and, and so the why behind your goals is what's going to power you. But I think your why and your purpose also allows you to stay the course and be resilient and bounce back from things when they don't go perfect perfectly and finding your purpose is a really big idea you know that um took me many years to really understand and it I think it took for me at least constant reflection on why am I here and what purpose do I need? Do I really want to, do I want to have, and how am I at my best? I'm curious in this resilient piece, I know you talk about this idea of like pain of discipline versus the pain of regret. Tell us a little bit about that and how that connects to resilience. Yeah, well, it stems from my career change into financial planning. You know,

by society's terms, we were pretty successful. My family and I, a six-figure earner in my 20s, had upside opportunity within the corporation and, you know, just bought our new home and had our second child and everything was going right. We probably even had a dog at that point in time. So we were the American family, right? And outside looking in, it was everything that we wanted, but I wasn't fulfilled. The work that I was doing at that point in time didn't leave or create energy in me and leave me feeling like I was actually making a mark on our world. And so I chose to leave all of that.

I chose to give up security and stability to chase something that was much more meaningful for me, despite the fact that I was starting a business from scratch with zero clients, zero income, and nothing more than trusting relationships and the people who have done it before me. And to me, that's pain of discipline. The pain of picking up the phone to make another sales call, the pain of hearing another rejection, the pain of being in an office an hour plus away from my home on a Friday night until eight o'clock at night to bring on a new client, that's pain, right? It takes a lot of energy to get that flywheel spinning. But boy, if I didn't do that, if I wasn't willing to put myself through that, quote unquote, pain, then I would have the pain of regret.

Then I would have exactly what I was talking about before, where I look back on my life and say, man, I really didn't maximize what I was given. I didn't leave a mark. I didn't impact people the way I want to impact people. And worse yet, I taught my kids how to be average too. Yeah. And I think, Dan, we're motivated by both kind of pain and pleasure. And kind of what I mean by that is like the pleasure to go after something like, you know, a big goal. What's your thing at the top of the 2,000 stairs, right? That you want to look over and be happy that you accomplished it and proud of yourself. But also like, if I don't do this, I'm going to regret it. And I think discipline can be really difficult, especially when you're pushing yourself outside your comfort zone and doing things you've never done and, and, and trying and starting a new business.

That's really scary. And we can be really overcome with a lot of fear. I'm curious about the A. So we talked about R is resilience, A is acute. Tell us what acute means to you and how do you think we can train our acute focus? Well, this goes back to what we talked about before with the professional athletes and just focusing on what's immediately in front of you. Gary Keller and Jay Papasan wrote a book called The One Thing. And I'm going to summarize their quote, but I believe it was something like, what is the one thing that by doing it makes everything else easier or irrelevant? And as a business owner, I'm getting bombarded from every single side of our business with distractions on a regular basis. Distractions from client services, distractions of things going right or wrong in the office, the economy doing what it's doing.

There's always distractions and fires that we need to put out. And if I allow the urgent to trump the important, quoting another book, right, then at the end of the day, we're never going to move the needle towards where we need to be. And really, quite frankly, as I develop teams here, whether it be new advisors, whether it be my own teams, et cetera, I think there's a natural tendency to try to become the expert in all things. And what I see is it creates paralysis by overanalysis. When I changed careers, I was pretty good at what I did. That sounds not very humble of me to say. Maybe I should rephrase that.

But the point being is I had a decade of growth, right? When I was day one in my first career out of college, I didn't know anything. 10 years later, I knew a fair amount. And then when I switched into this career, I expected to know everything and that's just not right. And when I tried to focus on being all things to all people, I sputtered out. I didn't take initiative. I didn't do what I needed to do to accelerate my growth. And I see that all the time. So my focus in leading others is what are the two to three key indicators of success that if we can be experts at, instead of being average at a half a dozen things, let's be phenomenal.

Let's pursue excellence in two to three areas and allow that to grow our firm. I think that's really, really important. And here's a story on that. So this August, I took the family down to the Smoky Mountains for a family vacation. And on our way back, we stopped in Indianapolis. And we pulled into Indianapolis. We stayed right across from Lucas Oil Stadium and the stadium was packed. And I got all excited because I'm thinking preseason football. I can take my family to a football game to cap off our vacation. It's going to be awesome. Well, it wasn't football. It was actually the World Drum and Bugle Corps Championship. Nice. Yeah, it's pretty cool. And I'm a band geek by nature. So I thought it was really cool. I had

to kind of sell my kids on the idea. And I actually wasn't very successful in selling them on the idea because the tickets were 70 bucks a pop. And so that immediately got shut down. But a park that was two blocks away from our hotel, an outdoor park is where all the teams warmed up and practiced. So we went over and we watched and this was fascinating to me. I watched a bugle corps hold their trumpets, horns,

whatever type of horn they were playing, hold it out in front of them in ready position and practice doing nothing but pulling the horn up to play. They didn't play a note and they did this over and over and over again for a half an hour. They didn't take one step. They didn't play one note. They literally just held it in ready position, pulled it up to play. And their coaches were walking and inspecting through the lines of, is the timing right? Is the angle of the horn right?

The most acute details. Yes. And what was going through my mind at that point in time is a Nick Saban quote, and I'm not an Alabama fan by any stretch of the imagination, but what I respect about Saban's quote here is he says, hey, we don't practice a play until we can get it right. We practice until we can't get it wrong. And imagine if we took that mantra into our everyday lives and our everyday businesses, where we practice the most minute and acute details and became experts to the point where we could not possibly get it wrong.

Imagine the trajectory of your business when you're that laser focused. And I really appreciate that, Dan. I'm thinking about everybody listening and having them think about what are the two or three things that, you know, you can really dial down on and get so good at. What are the things that are fundamental for you in your business or your sport or your life that you can't get wrong? You know, you've done it so many times that you can't get it wrong. Acute. Okay. Love it. Let's go to C, consistent. And you say consistency compounds. Tell us about consistency and why that is really important, I think, in leadership and growth.

Yeah. My favorite expression ever, consistency compounds. I truly believe it does have a compounding effect when we can show up and be the same person consistently every single day and consistently achieve what we say we're going to achieve. You know, I think about how to build self-efficacy and confidence, right? It starts as early as when the alarm goes off in the morning. Is our routine the same, right? We talked about morning priming earlier. Is our routine the same? Am I checking the box? Am I doing what I said I was going to do so that when I show up to the office each day, I can deliver what I said I'm going to deliver. I can be laser focused on those two to three areas where I need to be acutely focused. And when I can win the day,

every single day, then that courage and confidence is like a flywheel just spins faster and faster and faster. And when that confidence and courage starts to spin, well, then ultimately the compounding effect of that is, hey, I'm much more willing to pick up the phone and make those extra dials. I'm much more willing to ask for a referral to that A-plus prospective client. I'm much more willing to do the things that so many people aren't willing to do because I have consistently showed up and honored my commitments to myself. And I led myself first. And then all of a sudden the world of possibilities opens up. Absolutely. And I think, Dan, that confidence is really a decision we make every day.

And even the best pro athletes will tell me that they aren't always confident. Right. So I think we see them and we think, oh, they have got it together. They never doubt themselves. But I think just kind of what you're saying is when you do these small things every day, it builds confidence, like these daily successes builds confidence. And I think as we continue to grow in our own confidence, taking control of that, and I'm going to encourage people to think about what can they do to keep growing in your confidence? Because I think if you leave it up to chance, there's too many external things in the environment that are

going to maybe negatively impact your confidence instead of taking control of it. Exactly right. And, you know, what I'm thinking as you say that,, is I was talking about showing up and morning routines and hitting your two to three action items. None of that was about results. And when I think about when my confidence is that it's worse, I'm comparing myself to the results that I want and not comparing myself to showing up and being the person that I expect to be. And Dan Sullivan just came out with a book not too long ago called The Gap and the Gain. And so far, so often we compare ourselves to where we expect

ourselves to be. And we don't look backwards and say, holy crap, we've come a long way on this journey. And I've really developed and imagine what I was like as a brand new advisor, you know, a number of years ago when I didn't know anything. Like when you compare yourself to the growth. And who you are and what you need to do to continue to grow on that journey compared to, boy, yeah, I want to have that house. And I can't afford that house right now. That feels really heavy. Yeah. I think you're really on to a really important point that when we're so focused on the outcome that creates a lack of confidence and anxiety and pressure, whereas we're focused on the small things we can do today, right? Your two to three wins. How can I win the day idea, then the outcome takes care of itself. But I think our results driven environment and society, you know, I think even when you turn on ESPN, what do you see? And I don't mean just like the sports game. Okay, so let's go to elevate

the last part of your race acronym. Tell us a bit about elevate and what that means to you yeah to me this is all relationship focused elevate our relationships um you know i i heard this analogy from a managing partner out in california a while back he called he refers to weights and flames of a hot air balloon the weights are very very important because as you're filling up that hot air balloon if you don't have weights, the thing's going to fly away on you. And the flame is what's necessary to inflate the balloon and take off, right? They're both mission critical and both incredibly important in our lives. And that refers to people, right? And I, as a leader, get to actively choose, do I want to be a flame and help uplift people or am i going to be a weight and hold people back and believe me i am i am not perfect in this at all it's a continual evolution and continual focus of mine to be the flame but it's it's fascinating how little things in life

can create this lingering effect as a weight. Yeah. So I talk about inside of that is address the problem, not the person. Right. And we're all having challenges in life. And here's a story. When I was a senior in college playing football, there was a handful. I played defensive back, as you can tell by my body stature, I was not exactly defensive tackle.

And so there's a handful of younger defensive backs that had a challenge with one of the upperclassmen. And as a senior, I felt like it was important for me to go in and speak with the coach, along with the younger defensive backs to try to solve the problem. That was my mindset going into the conversation. When the problem was presented to the coach, I got the kind of the John Gruden like snarl, just like staring at me. And I'm like, oh, this isn't going to be good. And he immediately started to go on the offensive and attacked me. He said, well, here's what I'm hearing from parents and coaches, and they believe that you shouldn't even be on the field, so why are we talking about one of your teammates when we should be thinking

about just taking care of what you can control? And it's like that wasn't the point at all. But instead of addressing the problem, he addressed the person, which was me, unfortunately. Wow. Wow. And to this person, which was me, unfortunately. Wow. Wow. To this day, in all vulnerability, this is a challenge that I work through literally daily. I still, I kid you not, I still have dreams about that moment and dreams about how I felt playing there for the rest of my career. And now as a result, not intentionally by any stretch of the imagination,

but so ingrained in me because of his choice to address the person and not the problem, that now I second guess whether somebody really wants me to be a part of their team or not, whether somebody really trusts me, whether somebody really believes that I can do what I think I can do. And that was 20 years ago. Right. But it's still hardwired into me, and if I'm not proactively addressing it, it's an issue.

My point in that is, when we elevate people, it starts with the assumed positive intent that they are great people with great ideas and opportunities and they are here for the right reasons. If there's a challenge, if they're not getting the job done or not meeting expectations, well, I got to start asking questions like, hey, what part of the problem am I? Have I clearly communicated the expectations? Are they on the right seat on the bus? They might be the right person, but are they on the right seat? And does the environment that I've created allow this person to truly flourish?

So now I'm addressing the problem and I'm elevating the person. Yeah. Because I'm not addressing them necessarily. Yeah. So good. Thank you for your vulnerability and just like sharing with us that difficult example. I think a couple of things is like what you said is, you know, that happened many years ago, but still, if you're not aware of it and noticing how it impacts you, right, it can hold you back. And I think that's what I want people to hear is that it's easy to let rejections or what other people have said to us in the past, like impact us now many years later. And I think that takes a lot of conscious awareness to work through.

But, you know, you learned a lot from that. And I'm hearing that you're like a stronger leader because you don't address the person, you address the problem. Yeah, we have to take a step back anytime there's unmet expectations. And instead of just allowing our emotions to create an instant reaction, we need to slow down and focus on our response. And I think that builds trust and that's going to build a more cohesive team long-term. Excellent. Well, Dan, we covered so many things today. I appreciate everything in your insights. And specifically at the beginning, we were talking about what you've learned from training your mind. Like we talked about the morning priming exercise, just how to embrace and expect stress. You talked about really staying focused in the

present moment and growing in that area. And then we talked about your race acronym, resilient, acute, consistent, and elevate. I know people enjoyed the podcast and got a lot out of today. How can they reach out to you or follow along with what you're doing? Sure. Well, you can find me just by typing my name into the normal Google search. You'll find me there. Otherwise, my email is just dan.hager, d-a-n-h-a-g-e-R at N-M dot com. Excellent. Thank you, Dan.

I appreciate you being on. And thanks so much for sharing your wisdom today. You're very welcome. Thank you. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more,

remember to subscribe and you can head over to Dr. Sindra for show notes and to join my exclusive community for high performers where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can head over to Dr. Sindra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A.com. See you next week.