(VIDEO LINK AT THE END OF BLOG POST)
I was chatting with a lad a few days ago, which almost turned into a blazing row over money, and it turned out to be one of the craziest conversations I’ve ever had. I knew I had to write a blog post about it. So here’s how it went down:
A guy messaged me on Facebook and he was interested in doing a property training program but he never actually booked onto the course. Turns out he was a business owner, a carpenter, who had a few lads working for him. So he texts me and tells me he will ring me in 45 minutes. Within those 45 minutes I was on the phone to a client of mine, Sean, who just finished doing 6 months training with us. With our guidance, Sean was able to bank an extra €40k in those 6 months. So myself and Sean are chatting away and the conversation shifted from the extra €40k he made to getting the ball rolling on a property deal, so we’re going to sit down during the week and have a chat about that. Sean is ready to move to the next level and is on course to start generating wealth, which is what I want for all the clients I work with.
So the carpenter rings me back and we’re chatting away and he tells me he would do the property training course out of curiosity and that he was more intrigued than anything else. Straight away I know the guy is skeptical, and that he doesn’t think my strategies will work, or that his ego is standing in his way.
My property training costs €495 and my business coaching costs €295. So I said to him “Don’t do the property program yet, do the business coaching program 1st, and if you are not completely satisfied, we can use the money you paid for it and put it towards the property program”. I can’t be any fairer than that. I told him about the results that Sean had achieved, banking that extra €40k in 6 months, and straight away he said “I wouldn’t do it. If you told me Sean had banked €15k in 6 months, I would have done it”. He told me it’s just not possible to make the money Sean made in those 6 months, but what shocked me the most was that he was absolutely convinced of this. This guy told me he watches a lot of my videos and does trust me, but he just couldn’t believe those numbers, even though he has been in business for years and has around 10 staff.
He was telling me about how things were in business, how things are now and that it’s the same for everyone else, which is just not true. This guy just has a fixed mindset, as I discussed in a previous blog post. So I tell him “If you think you can’t do it, take the property course, prove yourself right, and get double your money back, but to get your money back you must show me you have taken action and done the work”.
So after our conversation I was just thinking to myself “What an absolutely mad way of thinking”. I couldn’t stop thinking about our conversation for the rest of the day and wondered to myself, “How many other people think like this?”
Every one of us can achieve outstanding success, but several things can stand in our way, which include having limiting beliefs, cognitive biases, having a fixed mindset amongst others.
This guy has several cognitive biases, one of them is confirmation bias which according to Wikipedia is:
“The tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one’s prior beliefs or values,”
I delve a little deeper into confirmation bias in a recent video I made here
But basically the guy is going to seek out something that disproves what I say and prove himself right.
This isn’t the first time I’ve come across this. I remember a while back I was working with a client whose girlfriend told him not to do business with me for whatever reason. But we ended up working together, and he absolutely crushed it in a very short amount of time using the strategies I gave him. He had made more money in this short amount of time than he had made in years. In the beginning he was coming up with all sorts of excuses why things wouldn’t work but I just said “Just get out of your own way and crack on with the work”, so he did and he got the results that I knew he was capable of. This guy was looking for confirmation bias to prove his girlfriend was right, even though in reality she wasn’t.
But the conversation with the carpenter led me down a rabbit hole into learning about the different biases that people have. It’s really fascinating stuff and I’ve learned a lot.
Another cognitive bias I came across is the Halo effect, which according to Wikipedia is:
“The tendency for positive impressions of a person, company, brand or product in one area to positively influence one’s opinion or feelings in other areas.”
One more I came across while doing some research is “The Dunning–Kruger effect” which is a hypothetical cognitive bias stating that people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability.
So many people find excuses why things can’t be done and take no action instead of just getting stuck in and getting the work done. I see it every singl
I go more in depth into the topics above in this YouTube video.
Like I said guys, really fascinating stuff on how the mind works and how some of us think differently than others.
If this is one of the first times you have ever come across my website or any of my content, please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Joe Doyle I am from Clondalkin and I am Ireland’s number one business mentor for tradesmen and the construction industry.
Nowadays I’m not involved in the building game anymore and I am a full-time property investor. I have almost €13 million worth of rental property all over Dublin as I mentioned, and I am on a mission to grow this business to €100 million.
Aside from my property business, I also run a world class business mentorship program for tradesmen like your good self. If you would be interested in having a chat to see if there is something we could do to help you out, reach out and either myself or one of my team will be in touch to have a chat.
If you need any further convincing about anything I have just said about my background, just do a google search for ‘Joe Doyle Entrepreneur’. I am
the proud owner of over 320+ google reviews and I own the entire first page on google. I go by the name Joe Doyle Entrepreneur on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. I have a
lso written a book called THE TRADESMAN’S SURVIVAL GUIDE.
Either way, if you have found some value in any of my content please tell a friend or reach out just to say hello.
See you at the top!!
Joe