Billy Keels  00:00

Today's conversation is sponsored by first generation Capital Partners. If you're an accredited investor, and you want to know about how we're helping other accredited investors keep more of their income, go to firstgencp.com forward slash going long.

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00:12

You're listening to the going long podcast with Billy keels, the number one podcast for long distance real asset investing.

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Billy Keels  00:21

Welcome to the go on long podcast are back once again to continue to help to educate you. So you feel much more comfortable as well as confident investing beyond your backyard. And yes, I'm your host, Billy keels, and back once again, with another solo episode. So this is just a quick check in with me and you and sharing some of the things that either I have learned in the past or recently, I'm having conversations with people and things like that. And so I want to welcome each and every one of you here, appreciate you investing your most valuable asset with me. And I would also like to say thank you for continuing to share the podcast across the globe, helping us to stay in the top 1.5% of podcasts around around the world. Really appreciate that. And so for those of you especially that are sharing across social media tagging us, we'd like we love that LinkedIn, Instagram, thank you so much. And once again, don't forget, if you want to leave an honest written review, as well as reading go ahead and do that. And also for those of you who want to find any of the previous episodes, just go to first gen cp.com Ford slash podcasts once again, first gen cp.com forward slash podcasts. So today, in this solo episode, quick solo episode, I want to talk about something that most people really don't like hearing anything about. And it's something that I used to never ever, ever like to embrace. Because I'm a recovering perfectionist, and it has to do with finding the value in failure. Yes, I did say finding the value in failure, it was one of those things I would have never ever imagined. But you know, as I talked to more and more people, and I start to realise that, especially for those of you who are like me who are recovering perfectionist, and you want to get right everything right the first time, every time. And when you went to school, because you studied really hard and you got a good grade, you kind of had that pattern reinforced and you did the same thing in college. And then after college, you got the good job, you moved up the ranks, and it was constantly reinforced. But the reality is, is yes, when you study and you get a good grade that helps to help you in the theoretical sense. But the real, the reality is, is in the real world, a lot of the experiences and the insights that help others really come from events that were caused by failure, or learning opportunities, or however you want to call it, I just want to call it what it is, you didn't get the result you were looking for. It was a failure, right? A lot of different spins on it. But I used to think that that was a bad thing, I'm gonna share just a little bit of a story that happened to me when I was wanting to move up the corporate ladder, I remember talking to my mentors inside the company and saying, Hey, listen, you know, I really want to become the managing director of a big territory and be able to say that I'm the managing director of such and such right as I wanted to move up to the CEO. Well, eventually that kind of thing changed. And, as you all know, free from corporate, but hey, listen, I'm able to do that in my late 40s. Because I found different priorities. But the reality is when I was a sales executive, so I went from one sales motion to working back in a local market in the Spanish market. And I remember the very first year that I went out, I had this great plan and all these things, and I was meeting all these people. But at the end of the day, the result was less than 50% of my sales quota. I was crushed, I was absolutely crushed, because I had come from leadership that was going back to actually being a sales executive. And I had all these great plans, and then the plans were in the execution. But the result was less than 50%, specifically 48% of what I was supposed to do. That failure event by not being able to over achieve, I really had to take a step back and say really had to analyse what was happening didn't start the full year started a portion of it. In through that portion of the year, I had a lot of good execution that was happening. But the reality was, I was far from the goal. So I went back and analyse and I looked at things and I had looked at with my manager and with other people and got their insights. And we felt like I was doing the right things. I was driving the right activities. And so we made some small changes, I started gaining more experience. And I started also gaining more understanding of the local culture, way of doing things, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But I was focused on having a specific game plan. And so fortunately for me, I had the right mentors around me, I was asking the right questions, and I was open, open to getting feedback on the things that I can improve maybe areas that I was not recognising that I could be a little bit stronger in and I started to gain more insights on really what to do, and also what not to do. So I wanted to fast forward three years later, and each year the improvements happen started getting back on track getting back to 100% and over 100% And then eventually less than three years later was over three times 300% of what I was anticipated doing me in this was a new market a new location, a new light, a new language, selling very complex solutions to very multibillion euro type of organisations. Why am I sharing this story with you? Well, it would have been very easy early on to say listen, you did less than 50%, you did 48% of what you were supposed to do. I could have just collapsed and said, Hey, listen, I'm not doing this blamed other people said it was someone else's fault. But know what I did. And what I would recommend that you do the same as he listened, look, take a look at the plan, get other people's point of view. And if you're doing things that are working, continue to do more of them, if you're doing things that are not working, when you talk to mentors, when you talk to coaches, and they can see it from a different perspective, take that input what to do more of what to do less of, because in my experience, went from 48% to over 300%, in less than three years, it took time. But the reality is, is I learned a lot through that first failure of it, I learned to be able to trust others, to get others insights to see have them help me to cover the blind spots that I was unable to see. I was able to learn and fight through the challenge of something that was different. And I got better at understanding the sales process, the sales leadership process. And it's now helping me many years later, to help so many other people as it relates to leadership as it relates to sales as it relates to sales process, and even managing an organisation and leading people. Right. So there is a massive value in what you could perceive in a moment as failure, stick with it, stay with it, surround yourself with the right people get the inputs and continue to take action. That is what is going to continue to help you overcome what you perceive as a short term failure, a learning opportunity or what have you. So as a recovering perfectionist, I felt like it's really important to share that with you because I know I'm not alone. I know there are more of you that are listening that are watching. And I know that you have the plan forward. Don't worry about what's happening right now. Stay consistent, stay focused, get more inputs, and you I'm really, really confident are going to get to the goals over the time that you are seeing for yourself. So like I said, at the end of each one of these, I want to keep this short. We hope that this is very, very valuable for you that you want to share it with your friends, share it with your family, talk about it, tear it apart if you want to. And even you know reply let me know what you liked about it what you don't share it in the comment section. You can you can do that there. So while you're sharing today's conversation, I'm going to be preparing for the very next solo episode. So until then go out and make it a great day. And thank you very much. Trust that you enjoy today's conversation and once again, today's conversation was sponsored by first generation Capital Partners. If you're an accredited investor want to find out more about how we're helping accredited investors to gain their personal freedom even faster. Go to firstgenncp.com forward slash going on.

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