Why Not

Dean Mannix isn’t a good, but a great coach. As the co-founder and CEO of SalesITV, he has delivered sales performance projects in over 25 countries. He’s recognized as one of Australia’s leading sales performance coaches, advising, coaching, and training senior executives from many of the world’s leading corporations, like Goldman Sachs, Oracle, Canon, News Corp, and plenty of other companies you see in Forbes.

Welcome to another edition of Summa Sessions! This week, we’re talking habits. Johnny led us off with the 8 easy steps to start a new habit, such as taking baby steps and not committing yourself to too many new habits. Ryan then talked about how all of our actions are based in habits we formed and that we should shoot to be 1% better each day. This led to a quote from Danae, “Get in the habit of asking yourself ‘does this support the life you’re trying to create?’” If whatever you’re doing doesn’t support the life you’re trying to create, you may need to get rid of some bad habits. Chris then discussed practicing your habits and the bad habits that he would find himself committing to on the football field. This also led to a new initiative for the group- all of us will be finding a new habit to commit to for the month. Nick ended the session with a quote, “You cannot change your future, but you can change your habits. And surely your habits will change your future.”

On July 1st, 2012, Jared Ward was riding his motorcycle when he got into a major accident. He hit two bumps in the road and skidded across two lanes. It seemed to happen in slow motion. Life flashed before his eyes. When he snapped back to reality, he realized he was in trouble. He had a dislocated clavicle, broken wrist, and cracked ribs. 50% to 60% of his body was covered in road rash. He ended up spending 19 days in a level one trauma center ICU, where doctors told him that he would need help just to walk. He was constantly in and out of surgery.The crash flipped a switch in him- he went from off to on. Sitting in the hospital, he knew his perspective and mindset was about to be challenged, and he rose to overcome this obstacle.

Today is the 4th Summa Session about communication! Johnny led us off with how not to apologize, which is to bring up excuses of why the mistake was made and instead own up to it and hopefully provide a solution. Next up, Chris talked about the difference between extroverts and introverts, and how you need to understand who you’re talking to and how they communicate. Ryan then discussed a pet peeve that many of us share, which is talking to someone who is paying all their attention to their phone. Sure, they may be nodding along to what you’re saying, but they are almost always much more interested in what’s going on on their phone. Danae brought up the 10 ways to love (or the 10 ways to be a good friend and coworker), which included things like “Answer, don’t argue” and “Promise, don’t forget.” Nick ended us off talking about his favorite number, because we’re in Q4! This is where legends are made, this is where games are won. And he also brought up how you’re 95% more likely to accomplish your goals if you say them out loud, so we chanted “half a milli, 50 reviews” to end the session.

On today’s hump day Summa Session, we’re talking communication. Johnny led us off with some horror stories about communication failures at hospitals, which were extreme examples of the importance of communication. Ryan then discussed a very relevant quote, “Assume the person speaking knows something you don’t.” Our team is constantly talking to experts in their field, so every conversation should be treated as a learning opportunity. Danae then brought in the 5 love languages of graphic design and this sparked an idea of talking to clients about how they want to use each of the love languages in their projects. Chris then gave us 5 reasons why effective communication is important, and Nick finished us off talking about the importance of the other types of communication other than words- body language, tone, speed, enthusiasm. These account for 90% of the communication we have, while words are just 10%!

On today’s Summa Session, we’re still talking about communicating! Johnny led us off with a Forbes article on using storytelling in your business to connect emotionally to your clients, which’ll help retain them for longer. Danae then came in with a quote from the book Boundaries, which talked about responding instead of reacting. When you react, the control is with the other person, while responding keeps you in control. Chris then brought up some tips for being an engaged listener- did you know you should favor your right ear? Ryan talked about how communication has evolved throughout the years, from cave drawings to the smart phone, and how our connection with the world has gotten easier and easier. Nick finished us off with a discussion on the internal dialogue you have with yourself and how that affects your mindset.

On Monday’s edition of Summa Sessions, we’ve got a new topic for the week: communication. Johnny led us off with the top 5 reasons that communication is a must for a small business, a fitting topic for our team. Danae then discussed the positive benefits you get when you have open communication, such as improved mental health and greater work and personal relationships. Chris brought in the questions for launching a product - who, what, how, and where are you going to communicate to be effective. This led Ryan to talking about the 5 C’s of communication- be clear, be concise, be compelling, be curious, and be compassionate, and then Nick ended us with talking about how no communication is still communication- if you don’t show up and don’t tell anyone, you are actually telling them that you do not respect their time. He then finished with the 10 benefits of effective communication and discussed how these benefits can and will play out for Summa.

On today’s Wednesday edition of Summa Sessions, we’re still winning. Johnny kicked us off with a story of Gene Hammett, a man who lost $3 million dollars and his business in one day and had to learn the lessons from his loss to start winning again. This led to Chris talking about a favorite saying around here, “Win the day!” Chip Kelly brought it to Oregon when he became the football coach of the Ducks and brought the total mindset along with it. Danae then talked about a quote, “Life is 10% what happens and 90% how you react,” which ties very nicely with a lot of the mindset talk we’ve been having. Ryan then talked about measuring your wins for yourself and not against others, because everyone moves at different speeds. Nick finished our conversation off with the 3 things to bring to every dream- enthusiasm, imagination, and perseverance.

On today’s Summa Session, we’re continuing our talk about wins. Johnny started us off with a WikiHow article about how to win at everything. There were 9 steps, and we discussed each one. Danae then brought a quote that said, “Being Positive in a negative situation isn’t naïve, it’s leadership.” This led to Ryan’s quote from Pat Summit about winning being fun but not the point, the point is not giving up. This sports analogy got Chris talking about how he makes everything a game, which helps him stay motivated so he can keep “winning” at every step of the process. The sports theme continued with Nick, who brought up the Chiefs 49ers Super Bowl, where the Chiefs were down to just a 4.6% winning percentage. Even though the odds were stacked against them, Pat Mahomes went to Tyreek Hill to pick his head up and keep him motivated like a great leader, and Hill ended up converting a huge play that led to the Chiefs game winning drive.

On this week’s Monday edition of Summa Sessions, we’re talking about wins. Johnny kicked off the topic by talking about the power of small wins, which was illustrated in a study by the Harvard Business Review that discussed the progress principle. Danae brought in a quote that followed up the small wins topic, “When you focus on the good, the good gets better.” We talked about appreciating the small victories, which helps you get closer to the big ones. Ryan then brought up a quote, “Eat the frog before it eats you,” which is about tackling your biggest challenge first to get your day started on a victory, and the rest of the day will come easier. But if you wait, the “frog” will eat you, meaning the stress of that big task will weigh on you all day. Nick ended the day’s conversation with a rousing speech about winning the day. Your vision can look incredibly intimidating, but to win the year, you’ve got to win the month, and to win the month, you’ve got to win the week. You’ve got to break down your goal into small victories you can accomplish, and that starts with winning the day.

On today’s fifth and final day of goal setting, Johnny led us off with continuing his theme of the week and wrote down 10 goals that he’d like to accomplish for the year, from getting clients for Summa to learning a song on the piano. Danae then talked about the 10 rules confident people live by, and we discussed the final one, which was surrounding yourself with people that believe in you. This got Ryan talking about a list of 10 goals and the ways we’ve used those templates for our own goals. Chris then brought up Tony Robbins, a goal setter extraordinaire. And Nick closed our week of goal setting talking about the mindset you need to be in to achieve your goals, which is simply to believe that you can do it, and then talked about having a fixed mindset vs a growth mindset and how that affects the way you look at goals and obstacles.

On Thursday’s edition of Summa Sessions, we continued our goal setting conversation by first talking about Bruce Lee’s letter to himself from 1969, which stated that he’d be the most famous Asian movie star, a goal which he achieved in just 4 years before he died. We moved on to a quote from Danae that said, “If the plan doesn’t work, change the plan, not the goal”, which is a good segue into Ryan’s topic which was to keep the end goal in mind. If you see obstacles in your way, that means they’re covering the view of the goal. This obstacle talk got Chris’s topic under way, which was about knowing your resources and asking for help if you need to. Nick ended it by talking about accountability, which got us talking about how we use that for our goals every morning. He also discussed knowing your why, the reason behind your goal, and the self-sabotage that can occur when you get close to your goal, making you think, “Do I deserve this?”

On today’s Summa Session, we continued the goal setting conversation. Johnny started us off with a quote from Michael Jordan about taking each goal step by step- if you want to be a doctor and are getting a C in biology, your first goal should be getting a B. Danae then touched on the 3 goals for balance and harmony- the what (business, career, financial), the why (family, friends, health), and the how (where the growth comes in) and we discussed if you can strive for all at once or if you need to focus on one or the other. Ryan then brought in the 5 golden rules of setting goals and that led to us talking about how we implement these rules every morning we set our goals. Chris’s topic was one of our latest services- cold e-mails- and how each step of the process has its own goal in mind, from the subject line to the call to action. Nick finished us off by talking about how a goal is a road map leading you to where you want to be, where sacrifices must be made and you acquire the skills needed to accomplish that goal along the way.

On today’s Summa Session, we continue our talk on setting goals. Johnny led us off talking about Octavia Butler, who wrote on the inside of her notebook her goals of becoming a best-selling author and turned those dreams into a reality. That led to Danae talking about a podcast she listened to where they discussed setting their goals in the present tense- not “I will” but “I am”- and crossing them off once achieved to start a new goal. She also had two quotes, one from Disney about setting your goals early, and one from Michelangelo about not being afraid to set high goals and fail, but to be wary of setting too easy of goals that are easily achievable. Chris then discussed the 7 pillars of setting goals- deadline, plan, self-discipline, self-control, focusing, systems, and taking action, and we talked about how this strategy applies to our daily goal setting. Nick finished it off on how to transform your thoughts to reality with a quote from The Ultimate Guide to Success.

On this Monday’s edition of Summa Sessions, we are on to the topic of goal setting. Our founder, Nick, just hit the insane goal of running 100 miles, so we decided this would be a fun one for this week. We started off talking about Morolake Akinosun, the US Olympian runner who called her shot on Twitter. She tweeted that in 5 years she would be graduating from college and going to the Olympics and followed it up with confirmation that 5 years later, she accomplished her goals. We then talked about the 5 principles of goal setting- commitment, clarity, challenge, complexity, and feedback, and how these apply to our day to day, where we are constantly setting goals for the day, week, month, and year. Nick then wrapped it up by showing us a note he wrote in July of 2018 that said one of his goals was to run 100 miles. He had attempted it once before but had a setback when he tore his meniscus, but instead of letting that derail him, he just pushed himself even more and was able to accomplish that incredible feat.

On today’s Summa Session, we continue the dive into the world of problem solving. It started with a talk about the famous quote, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” and the mindset of someone in a problem vs someone who has conquered and is looking back at a problem. This led to another quote, “Problem solving leaders have one thing in common: a faith that there is always a better way,” and how we apply this thought to our work and everyday life. Our next topic was from a Tim Ferris TEDTalk, which discusses the DSSS system: Deconstruction, Selection, Sequence, Stakes. Our team talked about how we can improve our system by using this process, especially sequencing. And we ended with a talk on how the haters will always come out when you’re doing something big, and how you need to ignore them because they’ll only bring you down. We also looked at a list of world-changing inventions and talked about how the naysayers were probably all out while those were being invented and look at them now!

Our team spends the first 20-30 minutes of the day with a brainstorming session. We pick a weekly topic to focus on. From there, each of us shares our thoughts and perspective. Our first week is covering problem solving.

Paul Pendergast has been on a journey of advocacy and advancing of LGBTQ businesses since 1992. Doors started opening when leaders of big businesses in San Francisco such as Bank of America and Gap realized that, to be successful advocates for business at large, they’d have to make sure that all groups were benefiting from their actions, and that included LGBTQ ones. Suddenly, Paul found himself sitting next to these CEOs at the table, all advocating for the same business issues, which was a major milestone to be included in these discussions and meetings. These connections continue to have far-reaching effects on the LGBTQ business community today.

With $300 to her name, Lorena Cantarovici came to the states without knowing a word of English. Since then, she became the Founder of Maria Empanada with five locations in the Denver area, won 2017 Colorado Small Business Person of the Year, and earned a spot with Guy Fieri on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.

Our next guest, Fran Roman AKA “The King”, has built a financial and family empire. Fran has always been an extraordinary athlete. In high school, he won the state championship in basketball and led his school to their only undefeated season in football. At the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point, Fran’s success in sports earned him the honor of being inducted into the 1980 Hall of Fame for football and baseball. Fran has been playing racquetball three times a day for 50 years. His unbelievable backhand won him 5 State Single Championships and he finished 3rd in Doubles Nations.Fran’s passion for sports led him to a career in coaching. He started out at Pardeeville High school in Wisconsin. While coaching football, Fran had an undefeated season, won 24 straight games, and helped develop an All-State Quarterback. He became the Athletic Director and also coached baseball and basketball. For additional four years, Fran was the Athletic Director, Head Football & Head Baseball coach at Stevens Point High SchoolThen, Fran got into business. He fell in love with the idea of being his own boss where he could control his time. It worked well with his, “work hard, play hard” mentality. Fran has been working for Equitable for 50 years. He was awarded 35+ times for bringing in $100,000 in production credits and hit $250,000 in production 3 times.Fran’s dedication to his work has allowed him to build a financial and family empire. Today, he shares with us how we can do the same.