HL November 20,12

The speaker discusses the importance of rehearsing for important conversations. He defines important conversations as those with clients or potential clients, recruits or potential recruits, where you want to convey a point of view or idea to persuade them. He advises against having conversations when upset or angry, as it can lead to saying things based on emotion that can harm the relationship. He suggests writing and rehearsing calls to ensure desired outcomes. He emphasizes the importance of practice and visualization in achieving success and getting paid for what you do. He mentions the formula of 10 years and 10,000 hours of practice to become great at something. He shares his own experience of working on himself and the long journey to success. He encourages continuous personal development and staying the course to achieve desired results. Hey, good day, everybody. Hey, listen, I wanted to talk to you this week about how to rehearse for important conversations. You know, what are important conversations? Well, any conversation that you deem is important is important, of course, but in relation to what we're doing here, important conversations are when you meet with clients or potential clients or when you meet with recruits or potential recruits when you want to convey a point of view or an idea or whatever in order to move them over to your way of thinking. That's, to me, what an important conversation is. And every time you talk to your people, every time you talk to a client, it's an important conversation because these are individuals that you want to influence to do certain things in order to help them and in order to help you in the growth of your business. So they're all important conversations. Or even when you, you know, one of the things I found that is very, very important is to never have conversations or never react when you are upset, angry, perturbed, frustrated. I think that's always a mistake that if you are going to talk to somebody and you're feeling any one of those feelings, that you need to stop and you need to, you know, take a step back. Maybe, you know, if you're talking to somebody and it gets a little heated, you stop the conversation and you say, listen, let me think about what we're talking about, I'll call you back later, we'll talk later. It's just what happens when you're upset, you're frustrated, you're angry, or any of those things. You end up saying things based on emotion without thinking about those things and they end up becoming a drag, a negative drag on the relationship. In many cases, you can't take back something that you've said out of anger, out of frustration that could hurt the other person, which will ultimately hurt your relationship. You know, what happens is those people then no longer feel safe with you and if they're not safe with you, then they don't trust you and I think that's a mistake. I think it's always a mistake. I think one of the problems that a lot of people have is they are constantly reacting out of frustration and anger, out of sometimes fear or whatever. I think those are all, you know, places you don't wanna be when you're trying to create a business and a relationship that has a potential to grow and help everybody concerned. So I think so, what you do, what you should do in rehearsing important conversations is what I've done and I think what you should do is write and rehearse those calls to ensure that you get the outcome, you achieve the outcome that you really want, that you need, that's a good outcome for you, it's a good out for them. You know, what I like to do is I really like to practice what I'm gonna say before I have to say it. In fact, I would visualize that thing. I'm gonna talk a lot about visualization because that's what I've done my entire career. I've done a lot. I really have focused on visualizing exactly the outcome, exactly what I'm gonna say to create the outcome that I want to experience, you know, and I think that the more you practice, the more you visualize what you want to have happen, it increases the odds, you know, exponentially of that happening and that's been my experience. So, you know, thoughtful people rehearse for important conversations. It's, you know, it's so much more effective. It's far more effective than winging it and I think that's what most people do in their life. They wing things and that's why most people get mediocre results, you know, really professionals don't wing things. If you're gonna be a pro, then you have to practice, drill, rehearse what you're going to do, what you're going to say. Winging it is for amateurs and the difference between an amateur and a pro, amateurs don't get paid. You know, so I'm always thinking about that, you know, so what's the difference between a pro and an amateur? If you're an amateur, like if you're an amateur bowler, you're an amateur golfer, right, you don't get paid for doing it. Even though you enjoy it, you don't get paid, right? Pros, on the other hand, get paid, okay? And so why do they get paid? Because they've practiced, drilled, rehearsed at a level that far exceeds what amateurs practice, drill, rehearse. As a result, because they get so good at what they do, and it's so rare that people are really, really good at what they do, they get paid for doing what they do, right, even if it's something they love, right, like a sport or whatever, right? So that's the difference. So you gotta think about yourself right now. Are you an amateur right now or are you a pro? All we have to look at to determine whether you're an amateur or a pro is whether you get paid or not, right? Do you get paid? Are you getting paid? If you're not getting paid very much, you're amateurish. If you're getting paid a ton of money, you're a pro. And all we have to do is look at your income to know if you're an amateur or amateurish or you're a pro, okay? That's so simple to do, right? What are your results? Pros get fantastic results, amateurs get mediocre results, okay? So you wanna look at that and the difference always is in the preparation, folks. It's always in how prepared you are. You know, like I've said this before, you know, I've read tons of information on this on what's the difference and why do some people become great at what they do and why are some people not great? And they've done studies on this. And what they've come up with is this formula. It's 10 years, 10,000 hours. So it's 10 years of time and 10,000 hours of very focused, deep practice, okay? 10 years, 10,000 hours. So whenever you see somebody that's doing unbelievably well at something, they're getting paid tons of money for it, all right, you can bet a lot of money on the fact they've been doing it for 10 years and 10,000 hours. Even some people that are young, you know, that are doing really well, they've been doing it for 10 years and 10,000 hours, okay? So you see somebody, how do you get to Carnegie Hall, right? 10 years, 10,000 hours, that's how you get there. There's no shortcuts to getting to Carnegie Hall. And what I mean by Carnegie Hall is performing in Carnegie Hall. To be able to perform in Carnegie Hall, you have to be a pro. You have to be phenomenal at what you're doing. You can't get there without 10 years and 10,000 hours. I'm sorry, I wish you could, but you can't. You know, I talked, I sent an email out to some of my teammates, you know, and I was talking about what I did in order to, you know, get where I'm at. And one of the things that I've always been a huge proponent of and what I talk about and what I've done, not just what I've talked about, but what I've done as well, is really, really work on myself. And I think that's, you know, the one lesson that everybody that's serious about succeeding ought to do, you know? They ought to really think about, you know, what it is that they're doing, you know? So I'll actually read the email to you because I think it's important, and I'll talk about this a little bit. You know, and I said this to her, I said, hello, Studs, I hope you're working over time on preparing yourself for victory. As you get better and better, you'll find that building a successful business gets easier and easier. In my experience, preparing to win is what very few do because the results aren't immediate. So what happens, why don't people do it? Because when you start preparing, you start practicing to rehearse, you don't get great right away, it takes time, right? So what happens, because people aren't getting results right away, they let up. And when it's really critical to stay the course and keep working on them, they stop doing it. Or people start having some success, maybe they do do some personal development, they work, they read the books, they listen to the audios, but then they start doing well and they stop doing that. They stop working on themselves, they stop, you know, having their car be a university of success, they start listening to the radio, they start doing other things, they don't prepare quite as much, okay? And as a result, right, their results start to wane. So, you know, my success that I've had in Primerica wasn't overnight, you know, I began in earnest to develop me, in 1979 is when I really made the decision I was gonna do something great. I hadn't even heard of Primeric yet, I didn't know what that was. But I made a decision that I was gonna be successful, that I was gonna become wealthy, that I was gonna get free. I made that decision consciously, it wasn't like something, you know, it was a very conscious decision for me that I was gonna do what it took to become wealthy, to become successful, to become free. Because to me, wealthy and successful is freedom, that's what it means to me. It doesn't mean a nice new car or a great house or all that stuff, it means to me freedom. So, look, 1979 is when I started. I didn't see any real tangible results until, you know, 1987. Okay, so that was like eight years later. In 1987, I earned $409,000 that year. If you do, you know, you can go online and you can do calculations and see what, you know, in 1987, what would $409,000 be worth in, you know, with inflation today? And it's really close to a million dollars, okay? So that year, I made $409,000, that was 1987, so a long time ago, almost, you know, 25 years ago or something like that. So, in 1988, I earned $855,000, which is really over two million dollars in today's dollars, okay? And then the rest is history, I've made over $60 million in Primerica since then. From 1979 until 1986, through 1986, rather, right? My average annual income was about $40,000 a year. That was for seven years, it was about 40 grand a year. You know, during that time, I was reading four or five books a month. I was attending every personal development seminar I could. I was spending a lot of money that I didn't really have. I was listening to Tom Hopkins, How to Master the Art of Selling Anything, two hours a day. Plus, I turned my car into a success university on top of that. I had all kinds of audios, Zig Ziglar and Jim Rohn, and, you know, you name the person, okay? I had all these audio programs I was listening to all the time having to do with how to become successful. I turned my car, like I said, into a success university. So, I worked like crazy. So, everyone thinks, you know, I was lucky, but I have news for you folks. There is no such thing as luck. You make your luck based on how prepared you are to take advantage of an opportunity, like Primerica, right? So, by the time, 1979, I didn't get into Primerica until 1984, okay? So, 1989, so five years I'm doing this, right? I'm listening to the audios, I'm listening to the Hopkins, I'm going to all these seminars, I'm spending, you know, thousands of dollars a year on trying to get better books, you name it, tapes, seminars. I didn't know about Primerica at that time. All I knew was that I wanted to be successful, and I knew this, that you had to be prepared when the opportunity presented itself. So, a lot of you haven't done that, but now that you have found an opportunity, but you're not prepared, you need to be willing to do the work to prepare to succeed. It's not gonna happen overnight. This idea of instant gratification and this microculture that we're in where we want things to happen instantly is ridiculous. There's no place anywhere that that happens. Yeah, you can get lucky and win the lottery, but that's one in hundreds of millions of people, okay? So, you can't count on that. You've got to prepare. The reason there's so few people that succeed, folks, is there are so few people willing to prepare. That's the real reason. If you think about your situation right now and how well you're doing or how poorly you're doing, it has 100% to do with how prepared you are and how hard you work and how self-disciplined you are. It has nothing to do with luck, right? There aren't like some people that are blessed to be lucky to succeed and some that aren't. There are some people that prepare like crazy and there are some that aren't. The ones that don't are the mediocre. The ones that do are the ones that everybody deems as special and lucky, but the truth is they're not lucky. And you're not gonna get lucky. You're gonna get prepared, you're gonna get great, and then you're gonna start having success, and then everybody's gonna think you're lucky, okay? But there's no such thing as luck. You make your luck based on how prepared you are to take advantage of an opportunity like for America. Like I said, the reason so few succeed is they think luck's involved. People think luck's involved, and because they think luck's involved, therefore they never do the preparation that's required because they think, why should I prepare? You have to be lucky and maybe I'm just not lucky. That is the most loser-like thinking you could possibly have, okay? Because there is no such thing as luck. It's preparation that's required to succeed. Look, don't let that be you that you think luck's involved. Luck is never involved. Because look, you could run across the best potential recruit on earth, but if you suck at the business and you're not prepared, you're not gonna be able to recruit that person because they're not gonna see any value in being involved with you and it has nothing to do with luck. It has to do with how prepared you are. Look, I hope for your sake and your family's sake, you heed my advice and over-prepare. I know most of you won't. I know that already, but it doesn't matter. Only some of you need to. I'm not talking to all of you right now because most of you won't do the work. I already know that. I wish you would. I know you could, but you will make a choice not to do it. It's not that you can't, it's that you won't. When people aren't successful, it's not that they can't be, it's that they won't do what's necessary. And you can keep using that delusional thought process that you just aren't cut out for this or you're not made up for this or you're not lucky, but that's delusion nevertheless. It's still delusion. Look, I hope you over-prepare. The benefits will not come overnight, but as surely as the sun will rise and set in the next 24 hours, success will come, I guarantee it, if you're prepared for it. Look, you've already found the most amazing, the most amazing opportunity you could possibly find in Prime Merit. It's an enormously awesome opportunity, but it doesn't matter how great it is unless you're prepared to take advantages, unless you've mastered those seven fundamentals, unless you're continuously working on your leadership skills and your sales skills and your time management skills and all the skills, people skills, all the skills are necessary for you to be successful. If you're not growing those skills, it doesn't matter how great the opportunity is, right? If somebody like me could make millions and millions of dollars, so can you, but you've gotta do the preparation that me and others that have succeeded at this have done, and if you're not willing to do that, then you're delusional, it's not gonna happen, and you've got to get over this idea when you look around Prime Merit that some people are lucky and some people aren't because it's not true. That's your defense mechanism that you use to justify why you're not successful. Stop it, do the work. Look, by the way, through encouraging the motivated people in my business to grow themselves through self-improvement, which is what I did, look, what I was always doing every week, every day, I'm always reading something, listening to something, okay? So what I would do is I would, all the stuff I learned, let's say if I read a book this last week, right, that had information on whatever, or whatever, didn't matter what it was, what I would do on my Monday morning managers meetings or my training meetings or when I got together with small groups of people that were real serious or my Saturday training meetings, I would share what I learned, I would take the best out of those books, out of those audios, out of whatever, I would take the best stuff that actually related exactly to Prime Merit. In other words, I would Prime Merit-erize everything I read, everything that I listened to. I would, every time I do, I still do that, every time I read anything today, I look at it through the lens of how can I use this material to get people to do the right things, to become more aware of how to be successful in their Prime Merit business. There's not a thing I read today, I always read with the intention, how can I use this to help people become more successful in their Prime Merit business? I've always done that, I still do it, I do it all the time. I send out, you should follow me on Twitter, okay, because all the stuff that I put on Twitter, as I'm reading stuff all the time, and as soon as I read something, I think this would be helpful for somebody in Prime Merit, this would be helpful to help people to become more successful, this would be helpful to get people's thinking right so they can become more successful, so all the things that I post on Twitter are from things that I'm reading or have read. So, you can follow me at Hector, my hashtag is at Hector Lamarque, just Twitter, a Twitter account is free. Look, you should, there's other great stuff on Twitter, I wouldn't follow anything that wasn't gonna help me, but I mean, I know for a fact that the stuff that I post is gonna help you, it's geared to help you. I don't put anything on there, I don't put like, I went to, you know, Starbucks today and bought a latte, and I don't do any of that stuff. All the stuff I post on Twitter is 100% geared to help people become successful. That's the only reason I'm on it, okay? And you should be doing the same kinds of things with your people, reading and then sharing with them thinking, actions, whatever, right, skill sets to help people become more successful. So what I did is by reading, you know, and sharing this information with my people, I was, and then I would encourage them to buy these books and to read the material that I'm reading, but I knew most people wouldn't do it, so I shared that information in the meetings I did because I already knew, you can tell people, you should buy this book, you should read this book, but the number of people that actually do it, well, some people actually buy the books, but then they don't even read them. You know, of the 100% of books that are purchased, do you know that only about 10% of books that are purchased are actually read cover to cover? That means that 90% of all the books purchased by people, 90% are never read cover to cover. So I know this is why you must grow and you must teach because most people aren't gonna do it, and if you're not teaching them, they're not gonna get that mental food, folks. That's been my experience. So by doing that, it's one of the reasons I've had, I've been able to develop so many successful people. I got a lot of people to buy into this concept of personal development. Now, and everybody does it to a different degree, but everybody that's done it has done better than they would have done otherwise, folks. That's why it's so important. You want to grow people's confidence, you must grow their knowledge base, their skillset base. You have to grow that. You're never gonna become super confident until you become super competent. Let me repeat that because this is an important phrase. You're never gonna become super confident unless you become super competent. Competent precedes confidence. Competent precedes confidence. If you're not super competent, there's no way for you to be super confident, and if you're not super confident, you're not gonna get people to follow you in what you're trying to do, folks. Not to mention, if you're not super competent, you can't teach anybody anything that's gonna help them to any significant degree, okay? So confidence can only come through competence, folks. Without confidence, people have no chance to succeed in a significant way. You can't teach what you don't know, so studying success allows you to know how to succeed, and more importantly, to teach it to the motivated people on your team so that they can succeed. So if you're not constantly growing yourself in the air of how to be successful, how to succeed in your chosen field, you can't teach anybody to do it, and if you can't teach people to do it, you can't capitalize on this incredible overwrite system we have in Primerica. Look, your success long range is tied directly to the success of your people, and if you can't teach them the success principles, success kinds of attributes, what people need to do, characteristics, then you're not gonna help them. Look, we cannot become successful unless our people succeed first. I succeed because Rick Susie succeeds. I succeed because Gary McCrummon succeeds, right? I succeed because you succeed. If you don't succeed, I don't succeed. I don't know why people don't get that concept, right? How do you not tie in that the success of your people is your success, and you can't have huge success without lots of your people having significant success? So everything about you must be to grow you so you can help people become successful. Look, I made the connection, the connection. Thank God I made the connection that my level of preparation was the key to my success, and that the connection, and that connection, folks, has proved to be 100% correct. And I'm trying to appeal to right here in this conversation I'm having with you is for you to make that connection and to act on it. Look, I hope you make the same connection I did because it's foolproof. Also, if you're not experiencing the level of success you want, take a hard look at where you need to improve, and then seek out the material that if you study it and implement it, you can turn those weaknesses you have into strengths. That's what I did over and over. Look, right now, if you have a recruiting weakness, study it like crazy. There's lots of material on recruiting. Study recruiting and then apply it. If you have a problem closing sales, study closing sales like crazy. Turn it into a strength and teach others. If you have a time management self-discipline problem, study time management and self-discipline. Turn it into a strength. Look, if you have a people skill issue where you somehow can't get people to do things, look, when you're not able to get people to do things, it's because you have a people skill issue. You can learn how to turn a people skill issue into a people skill strength and get more people to do things, folks. You do this over and over. Chip away at those weaknesses. Little by little, turn them into strengths. The more energy you expend focusing on turning weaknesses into strengths, everything will get better in your business life. I promise you. Look, none of us is born ready to win. None of us is. That's a fallacy that some people are just genetically prone to win. It's not true. None of us is born ready to win. We have to do the work to make it a reality. Everyone has to do the work to make that a reality, folks. There are no shortcuts to that. Look, so getting back to this conversation thing, right? You need to rehearse important conversations. It's more effective than winging it. Look, if you need to have an important conversation, deciding your outcome, preparing the points you wanna make and choosing the right words in advance will help you obtain the outcome that you desire. Look, this is true whether it's a meeting with your dream client or a meeting with a recruit. It doesn't matter. You gotta think about what is the outcome of the conversation you desire? Is it the closing of a transaction or is it the recruiting of an agent or is it getting the agent to set up appointments or is it getting the agent to come to meetings or is it getting the agent to bring people to meetings? Whatever the conversation is, you need to rehearse and you need to choose questions and statements and words that you're gonna use that move you in the direction of that outcome. You gotta start with determining the outcome that you desire, that you wanna have so you can make the right choices about the content of what you're talking about. You gotta always begin with the end in mind. So whenever you're having a conversation, you gotta decide what do I want from the outcome of this conversation? Like let's say for example, one of the things I was very good at doing, let's say I had a person that closed a transaction, right? They closed this transaction and I wanted them to do more of that, right? I wanted them to continue to close more transactions. I wanted them to do more of the same. I'll give you an example. I had this agent, his name's Paul, right? And he just closed another transaction, starting to do some things, right? So I actually sent him an email but I wanna share with you what I said to him because this is the kind of conversations I want him to do more of that. I want him to close more sales. I want him to process more. I want him to recruit. So this is what I said to him. I said, hi Paul, congratulations on your latest transaction with Johnny Perez. I'm really excited for you. You're making so much progress. I want you to imagine a year, two, three, or four or five out from now, how your life can change if you keep improving and you grow your skillsets and you grow your confidence. Think about how great your results in your business will be. I want you to keep visualizing how it will be. Keep working harder on your development than anything else. The more prepared you become, Paul, the easier and the easier the business will become. The key, Paul, is for you to know exactly what you're after, okay? I want you to write down your goals and your dreams and keep them in the forefront of your mind every day, all day. Look, knowing what you want is how you'll be able to stay focused and motivated day in and day out. The better you know what you want, the more focused you'll be. When the goals are burned into your psyche, look, what happens when we burn those goals into our psyche, we develop a magnificent obsession that's gonna help us accomplish them. Paul, I believe in you, but what's most important is you believing in you. Prospect every day. Work on implementing everything you're learning. Don't worry about mistakes right now. Focus on doing, on doing. Focus on doing. The more you do, the fewer the mistakes, the better you'll get, right? Be bold. No thing can hurt you. Look, words can't hurt you. Only your reaction to them can. Be disciplined. Grow your work ethic. Don't allow yourself to be like the mediocre masses. There's no future in being like everyone else. Go, go, go, Hector. Okay, so this is the kind of conversations that I have with my people when they do anything that's good. In other words, anything that's moving, and they make a recruit, they bring people to the meeting, they close a transaction, whatever. That's the way I talk, and that's the way I've always talked to my people. That's how you get people to do more of it. So you think about, if they do anything, if your people are doing anything that's moving in the right direction, you've got to encourage them like that. That might seem obsessive to you, but I'm telling you, if I sent you this email, and you're in my team, is this kind of talk, right, is this gonna make you more apt to do more of that or less apt to do more of that? Think about it. So you gotta think of the end in mind. So I see he writes these sales. What's the end in mind? I want him to continue to grow. I want him to do more. I want him to get more confident. I want him to be successful, okay? So what am I gonna do then? I want him to do that, so then I'm gonna have this conversation that I just had. Look, the fact is, very few of us ever get encouraged like that by anybody. Think about when was the last time somebody encouraged you like that? Think about that. It almost never happens. So you need to think about what's the outcome you desire, right, because the choices of questions, the statements, the words you use, all are going to depend on the outcome you need from that conversation. So you start determining the outcome so you can make good choices about the content, all right? What objections and areas of concerns might come up? Look, you need to rehearse. Like if you're dealing with a client, you gotta rehearse the responses. Like if you're dealing with a client or potential recruit, things like I wanna think about it, I don't make decisions right away, I'm not a salesperson. Those are the kinds of things that are gonna come up. You have to have a response for them. You need to write your outcome down on top of a piece of paper. Everything that follows, right, has to lead you towards that outcome. In our business, the outcome's a closed transaction, a new recruit, appointment, people attending meetings, whatever, right? You gotta think about what points do I need to make? You need to make statements and ask questions to achieve the outcome that you need from your conversation. What are those statements, what are the questions? What do you need the person you're speaking to to know? What do you need them to do? Why do you need them to know this or do that? Write down the statements you need to make in order to achieve that. It's important that you start with a strong opening statement that describes what you hope to get from the conversation. You need to write down that opening statement first and make a list of bullet points to get you started with the content of your conversation. You need to rehearse the conversation in your head. You need to visualize it in detail. I'm gonna give you an example. Whenever I went into an appointment, let's say it's a transaction appointment or a recruiting appointment, it didn't matter. Let's say it's an appointment to close a transaction. I would literally, before I went into the appointment, rehearse in my mind that appointment from the time I knocked on the door and greeted the person, shook their hand, everything that I wanted to have happen. I would rehearse it in my mind how I wanted it to go and what the response would be and what the end result would be, which would be to close transaction and maybe recruiting them as well. I would rehearse that in my mind every single time. It was just uncanny, it was uncanny how often it went exactly as I rehearsed it in my mind, as I visualized it in my mind. Instead of visualizing what could go wrong and what the potential problems could be, visualize exactly how you want it to go, how you want things to end up, how you want that conversation to end up, right? That's what I would do every single time. So being prepared for a conversation makes you look and sound confident. If you have command of the material, a prepared agenda, the right set of questions, and thoughtful points to make, you're gonna be better prepared to achieve your outcome by rehearsing your plan in your head. You're much more confident when you have your big conversation right. So preparation, folks, is the key to self-confidence. Read the words you've written to yourself, tighten them up, make sure you're making the right points by reading them to yourself, then rehearse them aloud. Practice, drill, rehearse. That's what actors, athletes, musicians do. Why do they do that? So they can perform at their best. So should you. Rehearse the conversation out loud. Say it out loud, feel it. Look, rehearsing by actually saying the words out loud improves your confidence even more. If the conversation is really important, then speak the words out loud as some, maybe even if you have to do it in the mirror or do it on audio or video, okay? So that you can have the feedback of how you look, how you sound, what your body language is, all that stuff. Saying the words out loud gives you the opportunity to feel what it's like to say the words, right? You're gonna see if it feels right. You get a feel of the conversation, how it might go, the questions, how they're gonna maybe might naturally flow from a certain statement built a certain way. Look, I can't overstate how much confidence it builds to feel what it is like to say the words before you actually have the conversation. Look, one of the things I used to do, for example, when I used to set appointments, I have appointment setting sessions, you know? I would always put a mirror in front of me so I could look at my face on how I'm looking when I'm talking, right? I would audio tape it, I didn't have video back then, but I would audio tape me setting appointments so I could listen to them later and I could say, oh, that was horrible, Hector, no wonder you didn't get that appointment. Or I would go, oh, that was good. And then I kept on doing it till I got rid of the stuff I didn't wanna say, right? And I just got better, it got tighter and tighter and tighter and got better. Pretty soon I got to the point, by doing this practice, really hershing and taping myself, right? I got to the point where I would say, wow, Hector, that was really good. I would buy from you, right? I would join you. I got to that point where I did it so much that I started getting really, really good at it, okay? And then I felt like, man, my confidence level was through the roof. But it didn't happen overnight. Look, saying the words aloud will help you make changes. It gives you a chance to work on choosing the right words. You got to choose the words that convey the right message and the right meaning. The words you use matter. And when you're saying these words out loud, it gives you the opportunity to gauge what words might feel like to you and to the other person you're speaking to. By saying the words out loud, you might conclude it's more effective than something different, right? Than what you initially thought. Something that sounds more pleasant or motivating. Look, choosing the right words can make all the difference in whether or not you achieve the outcome of your important conversation. Practice gives you a chance to discover what it feels like to say and hear the words that you're using. And to rework them to create the result you desire. As planned, but prepared for it to be otherwise. In other words, you got to plan it all, but you got to be prepared for things that might come up. Look, it's amazing, like I said before, how closely your rehearsed conversations track your rehearsal. If you rehearse a conversation in your head and out loud, including the answers to the questions you're likely to get, you're gonna be shocked at how closely your actual conversation resembles your rehearsal. And when you're surprised by a question, it's pretty helpful to have your talking points to fall back on. Have you ever been presenting, taking tough questions, right, from clients? Don't you love the give and take of being asked challenging questions and giving the perfect, smart answer and dealing with that, right? Look, the reason you're so confident is the answers to those questions aren't new content that you're creating on the fly. The reason you're confident is that you've answered the questions many, many, many times before. You've made good language choices, you've rehearsed your statements. Look, you've got to prepare for those things. Preparation is everything. I know I talk about this all the time. Very, very few people do it, folks. But if you do, you're gonna have incredible, fantastic results. I guarantee it. Things are gonna start happening. Are they gonna happen overnight? No, nothing great happens overnight, but they're gonna happen, folks. They're gonna happen, believe it.