‍SUMMARY KEYWORDS

betting on yourself, corporate career, personal goals, probability, Ted Williams, venture success, corporate machine, financial independence, opportunity cost, mentorship, achieving goals, internal conflict, paycheck addiction, proof of concept, charting own path

SPEAKERS

Billy Keels

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Billy Keels  00:00

Betting on myself led to the biggest breakthrough of all. Today's conversation is sponsored by the Billy Keels advisory program. If you want to learn more about how to make your nine to five optional, just go to Billy keels.com. Forward slash advising. Once again, that's Billy keels.com. Forward slash advising. Betting on myself led to the biggest breakthrough of all, and it's another one of the topics that I want to discuss, because many times you're asking yourself, like, what is the right thing for you to do? Like, how could you ever possibly bet on yourself? Meaning, how can you take the path less traveled? How could you invest in yourself? How

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00:40

can you think about this idea when you have so much security somewhere else? These are topics that I'm consistently speaking to with top executives, high paid executives, usually in the mid six to seven figures. And usually the seven figures comes from bonus. There are some very well paid, and I say that the upper end of the of the of the mid six figures. But the thing is, is that there's still this consistent fear of wanting to be able to bet on yourself and your ideas and your goals and your dreams as a priority. It doesn't mean you're not doing it, just means as a priority. And trust me, I've

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Billy Keels  01:16

been there. I've done that. I understand what it's like. I understand what it feels like, because I was that guy, right? The thing is, with sales people, or any sales people, sales leaders, we like to judge things based on probability, right? What is your close rate? How many deals do you have in the pipeline? Of those deals that you have, how many are going to fall out? When are they going to move forward? When are they going to, you know, what needs to happen in order to push them to signature, etc, etc, etc. So this whole thing of being able to to bet on yourself, it's a based on a probability, right? It's the probabilities of what will happen, and you base that success on whether or not it is six that the that the probability is higher. Like I was talking to a really good friend of mine the other day, and we were talking about baseball, and we were talking about talking about the fact that one of the best hitters in the history of the game, Ted Williams, batted 400 Well, the last time I checked 400 was a failing rate, as it out of 10. Four out of 10 is failing rate, but that perception is like one of the best of all time, right? So it comes back to this whole thing of probability and being able to bet on yourself and whether or not you're going to get to 100% 50% 70% and then based on that, you take the action. You see, I went through a very similar process, because remember, in a 26 year corporate career, things were going really, really good for me. I really liked corporate I had such a positive experience. I saw the world. I learned new things. I was exposed to people that I never, ever, ever thought I would be exposed to. I earned more money than I ever thought I could in my entire life. Coming from a lower middle class family, things were so positive, and at a certain point, I started to really understand what was happening inside the four walls of the corporate machine. But as I started to look at this new venture, like moving into a place where I would actually have more control, or absolute control, over my time, I would have the opportunity to increase income, to be able to directly take care of or care for my family, have more control over my time, be able to be more present. All of these things were going on in my mind, right? And as I'm looking at this new venture, the thing is, I wanted to get to a point where the venture was working so well, we were making money because I was I thought money solved all problems. And I know I've talked about this multiple times, I thought money solved all problems, but the actually, at the end of the day, what I was really looking for, I wanted to be able to prove to other people and to myself that I could chart my own path, that I didn't have to rely on the corporate machines. Definition of success, that I had to hit X number of key performance indicators, KPIs, revenue, close, rate, customer satisfaction, NPS, etc, etc, etc, right? So all these things are going on in the background, and I started realizing that, you know what to be a corporate achiever, like I was doing that I wanted to keep my bosses happy, because I was the happy corporate employee. That was literally what I had on my LinkedIn profile, by the way, if we're not connected, reach over there. Connect. Let me know your listener the going along podcast, and you're part of family. Love to connect with you there. But I was the I was the happy corporate employee. That was me. I was that guy. And yeah, you know what? I served my clients, and I served them through escalations, through executive meetings through multiple phone calls, so much relationship management between emails and WhatsApps and every single thing, like, I was that guy. I was the corporate guy. And there got to a certain point where I thought to myself, well, will I do this forever? Like,

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04:58

literally, because I started having this. And so I was going on pretty well outside the company. I was still continuing to earn more money. I was being well recognized. I was in top talent. I was mentoring people inside the company too. Everything was going well, and I had to get to the certain point where I thought so to myself, wow. Like expenses are now getting closer to covered, doing well at the job, like expenses covered thanks to what was happening outside of the business, the side business that I was building at the day job continue to get more clout, exposure, recognition, still moving up the chart. But I thought, you know, what

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Billy Keels  05:38

can I bet on myself? Can build my own dream, like build my own dream, and bet on me was that the thing Well, as I do, once I started this was like marinating in my mind. I had to then start to take action. What does a guy like me do? Well, once I was ready to go, and I was determined, and I was even though I had this uncertainty, I knew that it was on my mind so often that it was ruminating all the time, and I had to kind of move to the next phase. And so what did I do? Well, you know what? As anyone does, I got clear on my five year plan. I'd started to reflect on what had happened, and I saw that the we were moving in the right direction. I then start to set more attainable stretch goals for myself in terms of intentional about certain relationships that would begin to foster in the in the investing environment where I was be able to also gain more education, get more direction, insight, input from people who'd gone before me, advisors, coaches, mentors. And then it also too as I as I started realizing it came down to two questions, and the first one is one that you ask yourself all the time, and then the second one I'm going to say in just a second, but the first one was like, I'm doing all this. I'm thinking about betting on myself, and what happens if I don't achieve the goal? It's said, another way, what happens if I fail? Like that was the thing. Like, those are the kinds of questions like, that's one of the questions that keeps you up at night. But then as I stepped back, I thought, You know what? Let me actually ask another question. And the other question wasn't, and I wasn't ready for the answer that I received from myself, but I'm going to tell you the question, and then I'll I'll tell you the answer. The question was not. The first one was, what if? What if I don't succeed? What if I fail? And the second question, I think, is even more powerful, especially for high achievers, when you consistently do what you say you're going to do, or what you set your mind to do. It's the one that I wasn't expecting, the response that I gave to myself. But this question was, what happens if I actually achieve the goal? Weren't expecting that we're in what happens if not when recognize the type of question I was asking myself, What happens if I achieve my goal? And the answer to this is the one that really, really shocked me. That's the one that actually scared me more, because I knew that once I was able to achieve because that's what my track record shows, that if I put something in my mind, I was going to actually do it, and whether that was going to get a college degree, well, I ended up with two, or moving to after getting rejected for my job, going to a role where I thought I'd stay for two years. I stayed for five I saw 58 countries. It completely changed my world. I worked with Fortune 500 CEOs. And then I decided, hey, listen, I'm going to do this one year sabbatical. Well, that one year sabbatical, you know what it's turned into so far? It's turned into 23 years, three different countries, four additional languages, selling in different language, different cultures, eight figures, 25 million plus, managing a business that's $100 million across Europe, Middle East and Africa. This is a guy from Columbus, Ohio, by the way, that's me, yours truly, and being able to leave the corporate life behind at the age of 48 oh, and by the way, I've had a private equity company that raised over 10 and a half million dollars at a certain point in time saying those things only to say that whatever it is for you, when you put your mind to it and you accomplish things, it's almost more scary because it takes on you have to take on more responsibility. You have to take on you have to make different decisions because you're actually achieving the things that you say that you want to achieve, and you have to deal with the the circumstances, the consequences of actually achieving those goals right now on every one of those. Stories. There's always a part that comes that's not as nice to talk about, but it's just a part of it. Right? Don't talk about the sleepless nights, or the nights that I was not with with family back in the United States or during a holiday season. And you don't talk about, you know, going through divorce at a certain point in your life, these are different things that you also have to deal with, because when you whenever you change your trajectory, and you accomplish new things, then there are new decisions that need to be made in your life, right? And so you want to accept all of those things, but at the end of the day, it's because you bet on yourself, and you have that confidence, you have the ability to go there. And so as I was going through my corporate life, I started realizing, like there's this uncertainty of the outcome versus the guarantee of the paycheck, right? Because I was moving even more into the corporate life, and so there's this continual internal conflict. Do I go after the thing? Do I bet on myself, or do I enjoy this lap of luxury, which is corporate life, because once you've done it for a while, it's not that difficult. There's a lot of spaces to hide in big corporates, by the way, and you can still achieve your goal. Maybe we could talk about that. You can figure out how to make that work for you. But anyway, if you want to understand one of the things, and I know that I've talked about this in episode 466 some of the things that can happen and some of the trepidation that can come into your mind because you have this powerful addiction to the paycheck, to the benefits, right? And that will cause you to have the conflict. But the thing is, is that I've come back and I think about when this is all done and betting on myself, started realizing that even if I look early on the bet that I made, if I bring it back to the to building the business. It's that 30% it didn't take me 60 months. It didn't take me five years. It took me a year and a half to be able to get into a position where I had a proof of concept, a POC, a POC, a proof of concept to say, how do I make this work in a way that's more efficient, that it serves me, that it serves my family, right? And then this is much more important than this is when you realize that betting on yourself and having the right criteria, and then making the decision, making an informed decision, is that you realize that you can continue to chart your own path. I realized that that was the biggest thing that I realized when I started to bet on myself, when I started to say I'm going to continue to go down this path, when I decided, I said, I need to also have additional help. I need to get more education. I want to I want to get more education. I want to get someone who's been there before me in terms of a coach. I want to make sure that this path is done in the way that I'm not just burning the bridges and leaving corporate and going into the next thing for me, I needed to have that period of time where it was four years I was going to the role because I liked it, not because I needed it financially, right? So that's the thing. So the biggest thing was betting on myself that led to the biggest breakthrough of all, which is helping me to understand that I could chart my own path and understand the power of opportunity cost, because when you stay around doing things that you really don't want to do, or don't give you insight, or don't give you an internal positive energy, you're just wasting time. And so it's better to bet on yourself get to the breakthrough sooner. Find out how you get there, and figure it out if you're not there, what do you need to do to pivot, to adjust to get to your goal. So listen with that stated, I want you to take this episode maybe a little bit longer than most, but share it with family. Share it with friends. Heck, if you want to talk about it, you know how to get in touch with me. I make it pretty easy, as Deion Sanders says, ain't too hard to find so with that, I would say connect with family, connect with your friends, share today's episode, have the conversation about it. And with that, I would say, go out and make it a great day. And thank you very, very much. Today's conversation was sponsored by the Billy Keels advisory program. If you're looking to make your nine to five optional and need some help, just go to Billy keels.com. Forward slash advising. Once again, that's Billy keels.com. Forward slash advising.

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14:11

You

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