Priests Are Doing This And I'm Thrilled - Ep. 193

On this episode, I go over a non-so-common character trait that I am seeing in some of my clients, and it's so exciting to see. I hope you enjoy and subscribe.

Transcript

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What is going on? I hope everyone's having a wonderful Monday. I just got back from a trip visiting family. My mother, my father, my brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts, everyone lives in Nashville, Tennessee. So I try to make it out there once a year to visit with everyone. Just got back after a week and it's very, very relaxing, very fruitful. And then the weekend before that, I was up at Mount Angel Seminary visiting my brother-in-law who is seminary there. Well, just graduated with his bachelor's, and now he is what is that, halfway? And he's on his way to El Salvador for cultural immersion to learn Spanish. Anyway, it's been a very fruitful 10 days, and I'm back on the grind, starting with today. So uh I had this is going to be less of a tactical episode and more of an episode on getting mindset or psychology, something I've noticed, and I I wanted to share it with you. Uh you learn so much more by doing than you do by learning, by reading and analyzing. And that's gonna be the central topic of today's episode. So I once had um this mentor, and when I was learning sales, because I I ran my fitness business, I had to learn how to sell. And this mentor, his name is Brian, he once told me, he said, you know, I can teach you all this stuff, but really the best way you're gonna learn is to just jump on a bunch of sales calls. And he had said the the you will learn more in your first 50 sales calls than you will in 50 sales books if you were to read them. And that always stuck with me. So almost that mindset of not thinking, just doing, just going in and getting your hands dirty, you learn so much more. But the reason people don't really want to do this is because we hate being bad at things. We'd much rather learn, learn, learn, analyze, analyze, and then go at something already being proficient at it. That's not how things work. There's too many nuances and skills and crafts that our brains and our bodies don't recognize no matter how much we study. And that ended up being the case with the sales calls. I did. I took, at this point, I think I've taken 500 sales calls, between like 400 and whatever calls with fitness clients and now priests. Um, and of course, that's how I learned the majority of all my stuff. Don't get me wrong, I read all the sales books. I read The Sell as Human, I read the Little Red Book, I read all of them, you know. I I remember Googling top sales books and I'd tell Michaela to order them all, send them to the house. Um, but that was after I took a bunch of sales calls. I didn't start reading any sales books until I had taken like 50 or 100 calls. So anyway, that was the example for me. And I want to talk about how this is relevant to you if you're listening to this, if you're a pastor, if you're a parochial vicar, or really just any maybe parish staff member, even a layman who just finds this interesting, which is if the case, thank you for listening. Um, I've noticed that some of my clients have been doing things and getting their hands dirty, so to speak, and I love it. So the main way, the the main way I've seen priests do this is by making content. The majority of clients that I've been helping, the pastors don't really make content. And I don't expect them to sit down and make like professional looking content. And, you know, I've been doing this for like three, four years, and by then you figure it out and know how to make it look professional. But in the beginning, you don't. But that doesn't stop some of these pastors from just getting their hands there, you're pulling out their phone and just speaking to the camera. Which is all you really need. And it's been such a such a blessing to see it because it gives me hope. It gives me like inspiration for parishes that the the uh the leaders are willing to do learning the right way. Which is messy action. Messy action is the solution to everything. So, for example, um we're looking for one parish, we're looking for a volunteer for kind of the lead the young adult ministry. And so, yeah, you can post in the bulletin and you can post on social media, but to me, the best way to do it is to run a local advertisement on Facebook and Instagram and have them fill out a form if they're interested, and then contact them. And so I made an image like looking for young adult ambassador in XYZ Town, um, which do fine, but what does better is when the priest is actually asking it in a video, and then we run that video as an ad. And so I messaged the priest and I was like, Hey, would you be, I know you don't do content, but would you be comfortable making this video? And he's like, you know what? Yeah, let's do it. And sure enough, I taught him how to do it on his phone and scripted and everything. And I sent him everything, and sure enough, like a day later, he sent me the whole video. And you know, it wasn't 10 out of 10 quality, but it didn't matter at all. He did it, and it was so cool to see because I know he's never really made content, and he just he's getting his hands dirty, he's doing it. Uh and guess what? If he makes a hundred more videos, he'll be so much better, so much more proficient. Uh so yeah, it just makes me happy to see. Even even just working with me, like working with my service, is a sign of getting your hands dirty, getting in there. I know a lot of the pastors, they don't really get social media algorithms and the Facebook advertising and all that stuff. But they're willing to be like, you know what? Let's do this, let's do this for the parish, let's figure it out. And so I guess the lesson I want to share with you guys is whatever area in your life that you want to improve in, the answer is probably not more studying, more learning. It's probably just doing the messy work and then learning from that. Because the only way to really learn the nuance of whatever skill you're trying to improve in is through the reflection of the work you did in the past. So, with my example, the selling. Well, I would have a sales call, and then the guy would be like, you know, I had calls where people hung up on me, mid-call. I'd tell them the price, and then they'd hang up. So that hurts. But guess what? Instead of getting all angry, I would, I was probably angry in the moment, but I would review the call, I would listen, I'd be like, What did I say? What could I have done better? Was I really listening to him? It's the reflection on the messy action that makes you grow so much quicker than the paralysis by analysis, so to speak. Another personal example was when I was younger, I played a lot of billiards. And I was pretty serious about it, but I didn't have the mindset I do now. And I remember that my mentor, who was ranked like he was like 680, 700, which for those who don't know pool rankings, which I'd be shocked if you don't. I mean, it's so common, is uh it's pretty good. And he used to tell me, like, I'd be like, Yeah, I really want to get better. And he goes, Okay, how many, how many tournaments have you done this year? Like, well, I haven't done any. Like, oh, okay. The best way to learn is to get better is to go to tournaments because the pressure's on. And then after the after the tournament, you'll really realize where your deficiencies are, and then you can practice that. But at the time I thought, now it's too scary. I don't want the pressure. I just want to go to the pool hall, drink beer with my friends, and practice like that. And sure enough, my ranking really didn't go up much after that. Now, my interests have changed over time, but I always look back and think, I would have had the minds that I do now. I could have become much better at billiards. Maybe even gone on a tour, tried to make some real money at it. It's always the thing that's uncomfortable, the thing that is nerve-wracking, the thing that is the skill you're not good at. That's where the biggest opportunities for growth are. So that's my lesson today. Do the messy action. It's been great to see priests doing it. It makes me happy that they're in charge because that's a huge sign of a leader that they're willing to do messy action. They're willing to jump into the abyss with faith and with the confidence that they'll learn as they go. There's another analogy of you jump out of the airplane and you or uh you jump, you jump into the sky and you build the airplane on the way down. I like that too. So anyway, consider that in your life. Maybe a takeaway could be reflect on what areas you really want to grow in. And are you learning through like study right now? And if you are, maybe it's more prudent to jump in into the abyss, do the messy work. You will be bad at it, but you'll never be worse than you are now. And the more messy action you take, the better you get over time, especially if you reflect on your work. So consider that and grow and have faith. And if you do that, you will be better off than you were today as time goes on, and that's all I want for you. So I hope this is valuable. If it was, drop a like and I will see you all in the next episode. Thank you. God bless.