Masking Your Insecurities and Fooling Yourself

Have you ever given a gift that was very, very disliked by the person who received it? Well, that's what happened to me...with a customer from work. 

I learned a valuable lesson about not getting too comfortable with your customers. 

Also, there are no shortcuts to being successful. 

Sponsor I Wish I Had:
Epicurean cutting boards
epicurean.com
@epicurean_usa on IG

Just the Tip:
Building a pizza - the rule of three

Whisper In:
The Salad Whisperer 
@thesaladwhisperer on IG

Music by purple-planet.com
music by Wondershare Filmora 12

SIDMEDIA.net
@saturdayisdadurdaymedia on IG
@Saturdayisdadurdaymedia on YouTube

Transcript

Holy shit. insecurities are everywhere
Welcome back into another episode of The Story lesson advice podcast. I am Justin, thank you very much for listening. As I mentioned in previous episodes, I have a another podcast coming called I hate reading it is going to be a book review podcast from someone me who does not like to read at all. So these are going to be some of my favorite books, not going to do atomic habits or chicken soup for this cocktail soul, whatever that book is called. I'm going to do books that were more relevant to me. Some of them are slightly business, some of them are personal, some of them are fun, but I'll try to give you a, a college. What are those things called when used to cheat the cliffnotes. I'll give you a Cliff's Notes version of the book review. And then you can decide if you want to do something as totally lame as actually reading.
But thank you for the support, please check out the SID media dotnet
website that I have that has weekly blogs, which is going to cover topics kind of adjacent to the podcast topics. There's a little overlap, but a lot of new information and new stories and, and that kind of stuff, as well as my YouTube page at Saturday is Saturday media and Instagram page with the same handle. So thank you for that. So I said Holy shit, insecurities are everywhere. And I'm talking about mine. And I'm also talking about an instance with a customer a couple of different instances. But we'll see how many stories I get to in this part of the podcast. So the story that I'm thinking of is right when I started maybe a year after I started working for my current company. So this was 2015 2016, I was working in outside sales, selling commercial food equipment, to schools and restaurants and hotels and country clubs and bars and all that kind of stuff. So all of the things that you see out at the at the tables in the bars, we were sitting at all this stuff back in the kitchen, that's what the company I work for, we sell a whole bunch of those kinds of products. And one of our biggest customer groups is schools, K through 12, elementary, middle high schools, because they buy a lot of equipment for feeding all the students, all the kids and everything. And I work with a lot of the people that are called child nutrition directors. And they are the ones that are responsible for the all the food service department, and the menus and, and all of that. And those are typically the people that we work with. So I was working on again, less than a year in building relationships with these types of customers. And one in particular was a woman who was maybe five years, seven years older than me, maybe a little bit older.
And I had visited her multiple times and worked on a handful of projects and everything. And whenever I would interact with her, she was always very pleasant, very casual. She was not shy of using language not shy of talking, you know, very, very casually that you typically wouldn't find between, you know, a customer and someone who's getting trying to get them to be a customer but so I'm usually a little bit more reserved, I don't mind cutting loose and all that but you know, I'm like, Hey, I'm at work, so probably, you know, should maintain a certain level of decorum. And nothing that she said was outrageous or whatever, but just surprised that, you know, person in a position like that was kind of thrown around language and the way she would talk about different situations and whatever. So we got to be a pretty what I thought was a pretty decent working relationship. And for that year for Christmas, I had bought about maybe five or six different customers of mine, the same gift and the gift was it was a little set of cocktail plates from William Sonoma. And there was four plates and each of the plates said something had like some funny saying on it. One of them was like
dessert dot dot dot it's worth the wait but wait was spelt W E IG HT one of them said like Get your hands off my plate you skinny bitch. But one of them two other ones they said stuff or whatever. And at the time, this was my mistake. I thought that was like a funny gift for the people that I bought them for based on the way that they had conversed with me not the other way around the way that they had conversed with me. I thought that they would get a kick out of this gift and some of the people were male and some of the people were female. So I gave five or six of these away at Christmas time. And out of the say five that I gave four of the people responded back to me either with a phone call or an email I love this such a great gift thank you so much. So funny going to use them this weekend, blah, blah blah, right all that kind of fun stuff. And I was like
Okay, awesome. And then this one person that I mentioned earlier that I had been working with who I thought would really kind of get a kick out of it and laugh and think it was funny, apparently, did not. And she was furious. I did not find out about this from her, I found out about it, because the three or four owners of my company at the time, had called me and let me know now they handled it super well with me, they were not mad at me, or they were not yelling at me, and they probably should have. But it was an eye opening experience. That number one, I think I was insecure about my ability to be a good salesperson insecure about my ability to, to build relationships with customers. So I was looking for a shortcut, I was looking for a fast pass, if you will, to get to the front of the line without having to do all the work because I think I was probably insecure about having to do that part of the work. And also, so And also, I think, on her end, I think there was some insecurities there about, I guess she had made comments to our ownership team that, that she thought I was basically fat shaming her. And number one, there was no indication with your eyeballs to indicate that there was there was any type of a reason for fat shaming, not that there ever is but like, I mean, this there was none of that this person was of normal build normal size, you know, whatever that means. But I think there was some insecurities on her end, where she was projecting that outward to me. So here I am, projecting my insecurities outward on to her in these other customers by trying to buy a gift for which I think will get me goodwill, which will expedite the relationship building process, what will get me to the front of the line because I'm afraid and insecure that maybe I'm not good enough, once they see me when I'm doing the work to build that relationship. And then on the flip side, is her maybe being a little less than receptive to something or taking something personally like, why would someone who's pursuing you to be their customer, also fat shame you with a gift that doesn't seem like those to line up. But I thought that was quite the interesting story. And it's something that my co workers and I still joke about today every time around around the holidays, which is pretty funny.
Alright, and now it's time for this week's sponsor I wish I had and this week's sponsor is a little bit unique for me because they have two basic giant divisions of their company. The company is called epicurean, and they make a whole host and variety of products for foodservice, the commercial side, which focuses a lot on applications for commercial foodservice restaurants like thick cutting boards and utensils and serving dishes and flight boards and all of that kind of stuff. I actually work with them in my in my job that I work with the retail side I do not work with and you can find their products in places like William Sonoma, Central Otago online, they have an unbelievable amount of stuff. And I think their products are so cool, because as you can see right here, this is a cutting board. And it's set up as a grid. And it might be hard to see visually here if you're on YouTube, but it's got all the different cutting
the different ways you can cut vegetables, and it's got different dimensions and sizes and measurements and all that kind of stuff. And it's a really cool cutting board but all of their products are dishwasher safe. All of their products are heat resistant to 350. All of their products are non porous, which means you're not going to have a buildup of bacteria if you cut raw chicken on it, for example, really, really awesome products. They're super fun. They come in a couple of different colors, and they just look really slick. They work super well. I've had some of their stuff for 567 years, and they still work perfectly. So if you're in the market for a cutting board, or a fun serving platter, something really cool check out their website epicurean
USA or go check out William Sonoma serrulata something like that. And check them out. So epicurean this week's sponsor I wish I had
Alright, so the lesson that I learned from this I kind of touched on a minute ago, but it has to deal with with insecurity and that's something that we all face with that we all face and we all deal with am I've mentioned before about how one of my insecurities on previous episodes is, is my way to hell every time I walk past the mirror, you know, I'm looking at that anytime I'm in pictures I it's something I think about like it's something that is a massive insecurity for me and sort of my
idea of what what I look like compared to what everybody else thinks I look like or, you know, the fact that no one cares, or no one is noticing anything. But it's It's always such an important thing. It's always so top of mind for me, but in this instance with the customer is that I let my insecurities drive me to make a decision that was plain as day probably not the right decision. And maybe my intentions were good, and I was trying to do something funny or fun or whatever. But because I was nervous about my inability to hack it as a salesperson and my inability to build those relationships, and my reluctancy, that they would see me maybe as a fraud, you know, kind of that imposter syndrome, that I was trying to shortcut the line. And here I was buying gifts, that were number one inappropriate. And number two unnecessary, and not that you can't, you know, buy one of your customers or a friend or something like that a gift.
But the reasoning behind it for me was clear that I was scared, I was nervous that I wasn't going to be able to continue to build the relationship. And I was trying to find that silver bullet to get there. And the silver bullet to get there right is just to do the work to be there day in and day out. And the only times that in my life, and maybe you you have dealt with this as well, the only times in my life that I have felt where I truly made mistakes was number one, when I didn't trust myself, I didn't trust my instincts, I didn't trust my gut. When when in those situations, when I knew I should have, I should just do the thing. And I didn't because I didn't trust myself. Those were situations that I usually ended up regretting. And then the other types of situations that I ended up regretting were situations where I let an outside factors such as an insecurity, or my ego or something like that drive a decision. And I made a decision that was full of a motion and full of wants in and and I need this and I want this and as opposed to just making the correct decision.
Okay, for this week's just the tip segment, I'm going to talk about a fun little food thing that you can do with your family. Absolutely not reinventing the wheel here. But there's some information I want to share that might be more helpful for you as you do this. So we've all done things like make food with our families and our kids and make pizzas or whatever. So one of the things that I've started doing a couple of times a month with our families we get, we make pizza together at home. And what I'll do is I'll grab dough balls from Trader Joe's, or you can get them from other grocery stores if you have something like that nearby and get your pizza sauce and get to your mozzarella cheese or even your ricotta if you want to be fancy. And then go ahead and build the pizza. But if everybody can back can remember back to when you were kids, and you would go out to Pizza Hut or whatever with your parents. Man that supreme pizza had our parents in a chokehold. Like that thing was on the table every single week was the Pete the supreme pizza. When you get frozen pizzas, there's always a supreme pizza as a kid in the freezer. I'm thinking what in the actual hell Well, I love supreme pizza. I'm good with that you can throw every ingredient under the sun on a pizza and I'll dominate it but what I've learned is that the best topping on a pizza is restraint. And the best way to to actualize that is sort of a rule of three. And I've talked about this before last season with building a shokudo reboard kind of using the rule of three when it comes to meats and cheeses and crackers and all that. But with pizza, if you're going to build a pizza with with your spouse with your kids, doing anything fun like that, the easiest way to do that is to think about the rule of three. So you've got your pizza sauce, and you've got your cheese, let's just say you've got red sauce and mozzarella to make it easy. So the rule of three I would use is for the rule of three of ingredients. So I would look for a protein like a pepperoni I would look for a vegetable like a mushroom and then I would look for an unexpected ingredient. And that can be something as simple as fresh herbs like fresh thyme or fresh basil on the pizza. Or it can be something like fresh honey that you would drizzle or hot honey something like that. Or it can be something that would be textural. So maybe you have a pizza that is going to be sausage and red onion and maybe pistachio. You you cut up a bunch of pistachios and sprinkle the crumbs on top of them or even bread crumbs that you've toasted that are nice and crunchy
So I always try to think about the rule of three, give me a protein, give me a veg, give me something else unexpected. I've got sausage, I've got mushroom, and I'm going to drizzle balsamic reduction on top of it. And then you can add something more if you want, like herbs or, or, or whatever. But oftentimes, people just load up the pizza number one, when you cook it, all those food products have moisture in them, that's all going to get released. And you're going to end up fighting to have a soggy to not have a soggy crust. And then also too many things can just kind of overwhelm the palate, it works for sandwiches, sometimes when you can load it up with meat, cheese, you know, lettuce, onion, pickles, tomato, mushroom, mail, all that kind of stuff, it can work a lot of times for sandwiches. But for pizza, when you start throwing four or five, six ingredients on there, it can just become a mess. So that is my recommendation the rule of three give me a protein, give me a veg, give me something else unexpected that is this week's just the tip.
All right, so the advice that I would give the story of me giving probably inappropriate plates to customers.
And getting negative feedback from one of my customers about that. The lesson of really me projecting my insecurities onto these customers, as a way of by way of buying these gifts is trying to shortcut the line. The advice that I would go back and give myself the advice I would give to my daughter when she's older to anybody that's listening is Do not be in a rush to build anything. And whether that's something as simple as building some furniture, or Well, that's whether that's something of building relationships at work, building the body you want in the gym and in the kitchen. For me building this, this business, this media company, you there are no shortcuts, everybody knows that. But I'm not talking about that I'm talking about, don't just just give yourself permission to take the time needed to get to all the different steps. Because the second you start to shortcut stuff that I've seen in my own life, the second I look for a shortcut, is all of a sudden, you start to see the glue starting to come on down a little bit. And I have noticed that time and time and time again in my life where I am so quick to wanting the result that all I want to do is just get to the result. And there are some people that just like the work and there are some people that like the result, I am 100% a result person. As opposed to a work person, I do enjoy some things of doing some types of work. But I want to see the result. And I constantly have to fight that with myself. Because you can't shortcut that. And so many times in my life, whether it was at work, or trying to be, you know, quote unquote, healthy or fit or whatever that means.
Or even when I was used to cook, when you start to look for shortcuts, then that is when stuff is gonna go south. And I think where a lot of that originates from something I talked about recently in a previous episode is your expectations. And you have expectations, but they're probably not aligned with the work that you are going to do or have done in order to get those same results. So you have the expectation of I want to be the best salesperson, but are you doing the work day in and day out? Have you built the systems? Have you built the relationships? Do you have the skill set the knowledge to actually achieve that? Now I want to be in really good shape and look good with my shirt off. But have I done the work? Am I doing the work? Do I have the habits? Do I have the system built to allow me to do that? Or do I just want the end result and I'm looking for whatever I can to get there as fast as I can. So my advice to myself to my daughter when she's older and to anybody else is Do not be in a hurry to build anything. It's going to take time and enjoy the process. And when you go through the process is where the learning happens. And then usually after that your results will exceed what you thought they would because you've actually put in the work. Oh,
okay, it's time for this week's whisper in at this week's whisper in his Instagram account that I have been following for several months. And I really enjoy it. Number one, because it is food and number two is because it is very well done recipes. The name of the account is the salad whisperer apropos for whispering and the woman's name that runs it. Her name is Sarah and she does a great
job of putting together a whole bunch of salad recipes. And then showing you also how to prepare the different components of the salad recipe. She tends to lean into vegetables. But that's not a vegan thing. And it's not like a diet thing. It's just really awesome salad recipes. And I think salads are such a great blank canvas to do anything. And there's so many ingredients that you can add into a salad to make it just unbelievable. That we probably don't think of all the time, such as, when was the last time that you had delicata squash and pomegranates in your salad. Exactly. So my recommendation is hop on your device, go to Instagram, and find Sarah and her account, the salad whisper this week's whispering
All right time for the cooldown. So let's recap started off with my story of buying some inappropriate plates for a customer that did not like them and told every single one of my owners at the company I worked for. And that was quite the hole to dig out of for years, up until just literally a summer ago, when I was able to chat with her apologize again and kind of wipe the slate clean. The lesson from that as I think I was dealing with my insecurities and looking to do anything I could to make me feel better about the fact that I didn't think I was a very good salesperson or that I didn't think I was very capable of building relationships with customers. And the advice that I would give on that would be, don't do what I did, don't be in a hurry to build whatever it is Don't look for the easy way out to build whatever it is that you're trying to do, whether it's a relationship, or whether it's the body you want in the gym, in the kitchen, whether you want it's a business like what I'm doing anything else. There are no shortcuts. We all know that. We've heard all the quotes from the Instagram people and everything. But when you go through the work day in and day out, then your results are often going to exceed what your expectations are. And you realize that your insecurities aren't because you're not capable. Your insecurities are because you're afraid to do the work because you're afraid you might fail. And you're afraid of what other people will think of you when you fail as opposed to realizing that no one cares because everyone's busy doing their own thing. The sponsor I wish I had right here is epicurean. They make a whole variety of foodservice products like cutting boards and serving dishes and utensils, I work with him on the commercial side. But the retail side is awesome. They have so many cool different serving dishes and cutting boards. And really, really neat stuff. They're really slick looking, they they're shaped really cool. They have really rich, vibrant colors. So I highly recommend checking them out. The just the tip segment a if you're going to build pizzas, at home with the family, I recommend going to get Trader Joe dough balls, they have a whole little section where you can get the dough ball, you can get the mozzarella ricotta, you can get the tomato sauce, you can get all that squared away. And then within that is sort of the rule of three for me I do a protein, a veg and then something unexpected. Now you can get fancy and add a couple of things and do whatever you want. But if you're looking for a baseline to start that sort of a tried and true system to build a good tasting pizza, get yourself a protein, get yourself a veg, and then do something unexpected, like some honey or balsamic reduction or breadcrumbs or pistachio crumbs, something like that. And the whispering to keep along with the food theme here is her name is Sarah and she runs an account on Instagram called the salad whisperer. And does just an awesome job of putting together some really great salads, which I think is just such a great blank canvas for just flavor explosions.
But she does a really good job of putting a lot of cool salads together and then also breaks down the different components of how you can make each part of the salad. So very, very easy, very user friendly. Vegetable focus, but not vegan, but just really great for salads. And then you can take that and maybe add some chicken or add some of this or add some of that or whatever but really, really fun. So that does it for another episode. Thank you so much. We are 12 weeks into this which is just great. I'm so glad that I started this back up. Like I said I've got a lot more stuff coming in the forms of other podcasts, more blogs every week on Sid Sid media dotnet more videos culinary product reviews otherwise on Saturday is Saturday media on YouTube, as well as Instagram. So thank you for all the support. We will see you next week on the story lesson advice podcast.
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