Holding Steady: Navigating the Stall in Performance Culture

We're going to go ahead and get up and running. As always, we'll kind of ease our way into the day. But keep that chat open because we're going to be spending a fair amount of time in the chat today, engaging in some, uh, in some group discussions, sharing a little bit of feedback. And part of the reason we like to use that chat is because we like the unique perspectives that you all bring to the table. But the other value in that is you're not alone.

You're going to see that a lot of the answers that you put in those chats are going to be the same things that you're seeing with the, the folks that are here on the screen. And that's what we hope to do at all of our sessions of Beyond Limitss. A lot of you have been here before, but there are some new faces. So welcome. If this is your first time, we do this on the first Friday of every month.

And this is a virtual session where we are going to try to bring topics to you that are, let's say, salient in your world. We want to focus on the things that are going on in your world and try to tie that back to our core curriculum that we preach and teach here at The Pacific Institute. And if you're new to The Pacific Institute, let's just take one step back further and say from a high level what we believe, what we believe is that you, your team, your organization, you are flawlessly built. You are perfectly designed for the results that you're getting right now. Everything that you've done up to this point in time has been a flawless design to get you to exactly where you are right now.

And if you would like to stay exactly where you are, you already have the recipe. You do not have to do anything different. Many of us have decided that where we are is a way point. And where we would like to go is someplace bigger, better, different. And we want more and more can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

More can be more growth. It might mean more alignment or more energy. It could be more innovation or ideas. It might be more shareholder returns, if that's important to you. It might be more quality time with your children.

But more is something that we need to start with the way that we think. And if we're trying to do more and we're trying to get different results, we want to change the ingredients for our performance. That all starts between our right ear and our left. It all starts with the way that we think. I'm going to steal a line from our, our chief consulting officer, Cheryl Hicks, and say, you need to tap into your causative power, your ability to cause changes around you.

Here at The Pacific Institute, we call that your self-efficacy, your abil, your belief in your own abilities to cause changes and adapt to the changes around you. So what we do here, we help people unlock their ability to do exactly that, to think differently, to act differently, to behave differently, and to create the future that they want. Not by accident, but by design to do it intentionally. So if what has got you to where you are now feels like it has been an accident and where you would like to go, you would like to have intention, you're in the right place. That's exactly what we do.

Now that all starts with the individual. If you've ever looked at our Pacific Institute logo, you'll notice that it's shaped like a flame. And at the bottom we have a quote from our founder, Lou Teis. All meaningful and lasting change starts on the inside and it works its way out. Gotta make that change internally first before we're going to be able to make the change externally.

And then it's going to work its way out into everything that we do. Hopefully that will be our teams and our immediate family and the folks that are around us. And when we can make those same changes there with our families and our teams, then we can go out to the greater community or the organization. We're doing that at work. So our endeavor is to start with that meaningful and lasting change on the inside and work that through your team, through your organization, through your family and community.

We believe one to one to one to infinity. We want to make sure we connect all of those individuals until we can connect everyone. High level beliefs. We've seen this one a lot. People don't believe what you tell them and they rarely believe what you show them.

And they usually believe what their friends tell them and they always believe what they tell themselves. And since we believe culture is the collective self-talk of your team, it's what everybody on your team together is saying collectively in their minds. If you believe what people are saying and you believe what your friends are saying, that culture is really important because that's what people believe and the message that they say to themselves in their head when they go to work every day is the most important. So we're going to talk a little bit about what people say to themselves and when. And we're going to do that through a conversation because we started fall that we're going to talk about breaking out the old smoker.

So that might be your old green egg, that might be your Traeger pellet smoker. If you're like me, that might be just going to your favorite barbecue spot. If you don't have one at home, if you are a vegan, apologies, there's a couple slides that you're going to hate for the balance of our day today. But for the rest of you, you might get a little bit of an appetite. So here's the analogy that we want to talk about.

Here's how this goes. Let's start by saying you smoke up that uh, you fire up that smoker. You're getting ready to watch your favorite football team. While you're at it, put your favorite football team in the chat. Maybe it's college, maybe it's NFL, but let's see what your favorite football team is

because we all know that when you put whatever it is that you put on that smoker today, it's going to be a brisket. We got some time. So you probably got your favorite football outfit on your favorite jersey. And we've got uh, some Bears fans, some Buffalo fans, some Packer fans. Yours truly owns one share of the Green Bay Packers.

So as a part owner, go pack, go. Lots and lots of favorites going on, but as we're getting ready, we've all probably been through this wave your hand at the screen. Sh show me some indication if you've ever put something on the smoker at home that I'm going to make a brisket. All right, so you probably know what I'm talking about. The temperature starts to go up, it's been on there for a couple hours and then it stalls.

It's been moving smoothly, temperature's been rising all along and then all of a sudden it stops. It flatlines, it's just not getting any warmer. You check everything, the smoker's still on, still got the pellets in there. But you start to doubt yourself. You start going, I don't know man, this is an eight hour brisket and we're five hours in and it's just stopped.

I've started to freak out. So you start to second guess your process. You start wondering what's going on. You know, you're not supposed to lift the hood and look underneath, but you take a couple extra peaks. You know you're not not supposed to open the foil to get a look at the inside, but you just can't resist because you think something's going on.

Now, pit masters, they call this the stall. Anybody ever heard of the stall before? And the crazy part is you have no idea how long that stall is going to last. That part is undefined. It's kind of like human behavior.

We just simply don't know. We can make some predictions, but it's going to be a little different each time. And if you know anything about what's going on on the inside of the brisket during that stall is where the magic is actually happening. That's the benefit. And if you interrupt it, you're causing a problem.

So the best pit masters, they're ready for it, they prepare for it, and they don't freak out. They don't do what I would do. I'm no pit master. I dry out my briskets. I decide I want to pay too close attention.

I want to tinker, I want to make changes. I want to do these last minute things and I ruin it for everybody else. So what we want to talk about today is how do we do what the pit masters do? How do we avoid the panic and trust the prep and hold steady and finish strong? Because this is what's expected.

And we know that culture works the exact same way. Culture does the exact same thing. You start a new initiative, it's going along great, everybody's on board. And then lo and behold, it stalls and the belief starts to waver and the team starts to flinch just a little bit. And the next thing you know, your culture is operating the same way as that eight hour brisket is.

It's just not going anywhere. So my question is, what's an initiative that you've had that stalled something at work? What was something where you started a past initiative or a strategy that just stalled? Maybe it had a strong start. Take a minute or two to put some answers in the chat.

And let's see what a past initiative that stalled after a strong start. What's an initiative that's stalled after a strong start? Oh, here's some good ones here. Migrating CRMs got an EOS person there with those quarterly rocks, community initiative to support people in recovery. A lot of sales ones spent years working in direct market life insurance and there was constantly these new initiatives for cross sales, new things that would make companies a lot of money.

They usually went out the door like gangbusters, but ended up stalling after just a little bit Sale of a new product. Henry says there's a part two to this question. What happened next? What happened after the stall for you? The honest answer we're still stalled.

Gail, with a very empowered answer, learn, reflect, apply. I love that. Couple answers for still working through another honest answer. Talking about exercise, right? You get back into that workout routine and then three weeks in you're like, oops, just realize I've gone a week without going to the gym.

So a lot of answers are real common. A lot of varieties of discouragement or frustration. Those are pretty common to come across. So this is what we see in practice. This happens everywhere.

Every major change with virtually no exception, is going to end up hitting that stall. It's going to come out of the gate at whatever pace it comes out. But eventually we start hitting that slowdown where the progress doesn't make it as far and it makes sense. It's like when you first learned how to ride a bike, being able to ride 10 feet was infinitely further than not being able to ride at all. But it's harder to make those incremental steps as you get better and better at something.

So sometimes it just feels like the progress is slowed. But with that, the energy dips. And if you've done any work with The Pacific Institute in the past, we talk about how the energy can sometimes dip as you get closer and closer to a goal. 'cause the amount of energy that it takes to complete that goal when it's far away is less energy than it's going to take. Now that you're closer to that and that that dip in energy, that's actually natural, that's actually expected.

And if you don't set yourself a new bigger goal, that energy is going to remain small. 'cause it takes a little bit less energy to do the end than it does at the beginning. And that's where the doubt creeps in. That's where that self-talk, that narrator that runs through your mind, that conversation, that voice that sounds exactly like you, that's constantly talking in your head, it starts to get just a little bit louder and it tends to say the things that are not necessarily driving you in the right direction starts to point out the cans and the shouldn'ts and the not able toss that get in the way. And most keeps end up overreacting.

They add a new tool, let's do something different. Last time we made a change, we got results right away. So let's make another one. Or they changed the strategy, it was working, but now it doesn't. We have to change this strategy or they increase the pressure.

Those of you that put up sales numbers know exactly what that's like because if something has stalled, what happens? They put pressure on the sales teams to bring in the new customers and they put pressure on the customer support teams to keep the existing ones. Bottom line, strong cultures don't escape, escape the stall. They figure out ways to move through it. They figure out that the stall is expected.

So instead of being afraid of it, what do we have to do to move through it? So let's talk about what you've done when your team does hit a lull when this happens. And those of you that have been leaders for a while have seen it happen multiple times. You know it's inevitable. When your team hits a lull, what is your default reaction?

What do you, what are you leading to? Put those answers in the chat?

Great answers right off the bat. Kathleen says, create a team and a team charter. Ben says, positive reinforcement, couple votes for just press a little harder. That's an awful lot. Like my JV basketball coach.

Just press harder. Ah, I love that answer from Bobby. Be curious. Find out what happened. But one step further.

And Ted lasso that. Be curious, not judgemental. Ah, one-on-one engagement. Then a team huddle. I like that approach.

Tyson, A couple votes for looking for new ways to inspire. I do like that a lot of you have said, acknowledge don't live in a vacuum. We can see that we've stalled. Terrific stuff. So as we move on, what we want to talk about is the goal is not to fix the stall in the middle of it.

It's not to wait until a problem happens and then be reactive. It's to prepare for that. As I've gotten a little bit better at making those briskets season by season, by season, I've gotten better and better at not breaking all the rules that you're supposed to follow. I've gotten better at not taking a look too early and tinkering around and needing to see with my own two eyes that it is still in fact inside of the tinfoil where I left it. So if you can't fix it mid stall and you want to prepare for it, you have to have the ability to have that forethought.

You have to have the ability to see into the future and create that clear replacement picture. Now, if you've done any work with us at all, you know how important we talk about the replacement picture. The replacement picture. If you don't know what that means, when you go to IKEA and you buy a piece of furniture on the first page, they tell you what that bookcase is supposed to look like. It makes that whole process a whole lot easier to get to because you know exactly what it's supposed to be when it's done.

Now sometimes some of those IKEA instructions do not give you a very good picture. It's a stick drawing and it's not drawn to scale and it makes it just a little bit harder to build because you can't see what it's really supposed to be. The clarity of a replacement picture works exactly the same way. If the instructions that you're giving yourself for what you're trying to accomplish are crystal clear and the replacement picture looks good, then it's like that good experience with the IKEA furniture where you don't have any leftover pieces and it actually looks like it's supposed to. And if it's not clear, it's frustrating.

You get a heck of a lot more stalls along the way. So if the replacement picture is clear and you know what it's supposed to look like, it helps you stay a lot more oriented. Even when things get hard and things get difficult, you know, this is where we're headed. This is the final destination. We're going to stay moving towards these GPS coordinates.

The second part of that is your self-talk. Now the words that we speak, that's what generates those pictures in our head. No matter what, whenever I say words, you're automatically going to picture something in your head no matter how much you try not to. If I say sailboat, darn it, you just pictured a sailboat. The only difference is what color, what kind, how big or how small, unless you've never seen a sailboat before.

But since most of us probably have, we created a replacement picture. So if we know that the consistency of our self-talk creates those replacement pictures than the mantras that we have, the self-talk that we have, the things that we say when nobody's listening or nobody's watching AKA, our culture really, really matters. And all that leads to a shared mental model of the individuals in the organization. It's really easy for us to see with our families about these shared mental models. We all know how to decorate the house for Christmas.

We all know exactly where things are supposed to go and we have a shared replacement picture. We know exactly what it's supposed to look like. So if things went awry, it feels a little bit easier to get everybody back on track. If we can have the same level of clarity at work with those clear replacement pictures, clear words that draws to those replacement pictures, and a simple mindset model behind the scenes that says, this is where we're headed. This is what we do, then a stall really doesn't matter as much.

It doesn't really make much of a difference because it's expected. It's kind of like going on a long drive in your car. Is it a problem that you have to stop for gas? Nothing has gone wrong. This is expected.

There wasn't enough gas in the tank to get from here to where I was going, so I planned for it. I didn't freak out, I didn't panic. I pulled the car off the road and I put gas in it. Same thing can be true. If you have consistent replacement pictures and self-talk and a shared vision about where you're going, you're able to move towards where you want to go steadily.

And that's what helped teams keep showing up with purpose and moving towards that ultimate goal without inevitably slowing down for what feels like no reason at all. So even when the results lag, even when sales have started to dip, even when customer acquisition has started to slow, even when retention starts to slide, if there's a clear picture about where we're headed and this is expected, it's no different than the mindset of I knew were going to have to stop and get gas and now we're ready to do that. Little variables are going to change that. Like how much you ran the air conditioning and how fast you were driving, whether or not you drive an old busted G like mine that gets no gas mileage. But inevitably you're going to have to stop.

And that's not a problem because you're going to be able to refuel and know exactly where you're pointing. So another question for you. Scale of one to 10, when momentum shows up, or I'm sorry, when momentum slows and the stall shows up, how prepared is your team to move forward? On a scale of one to 10, how ready is your team to take that next step forward? One would be a low score, 10 would be a high score.

I don't need to be very good at averages to see that. We started with an average of six of the first seven answers all being a six. A lot of numbers between a five and a seven here. Those of you that are putting the numbers, regardless of what it is, hopefully you feel a little bit better seeing how many others have the exact Or Part two of that question. What tools or mindsets do you or they lean on or not currently, what are your tools or mindsets or mantras?

Currently Kathleen leads the way with a constructive mindset. Nick says, recalling the big picture and affirmation in the midst of the stall, in the word affirmation. Throw up a couple times in here. Very common.

Ah, open discussion and transparency. Terrific. I really love that answer from Juan Sue. Why? Why do we do this?

What's the big picture Simon Sinek says, but why behind our why? Why are we doing this? For a lot of us, we find ourselves having absolutely no difficulty doing this in our personal lives in some areas and extreme difficulty doing it in our professional lives. Show of hands or thumbs up on the screens. How many people here have children, particularly children that still live at home?

How many of you have a personal mantra that sounds a little bit like this, there's nothing I won't do for my children. I got a lot of people nodding along with that one. And how easy is it for that to be your mantra when things happen? Like what happened to me? Let's just pick a day at random yesterday while I'm waiting for my son to get out of the water surfing who was supposed to get out at 4:00 PM and it's now five 30 and I've just been waiting and waiting and waiting.

And I would definitely go so far as to say that was a stall. And as long as I had that consistent mantra, nothing I won't do for my children, it sure did make it a whole lot easier to move through that 90 minute stall that I experienced in the middle of my day. And a lot of us can really see how easy it is to have that mental mindset for something that's as important to us as our families. But maybe we don't have that same level of self-talk and we don't have that same level of clarity as far as what we want in our workplaces. And when those stalls come up, it becomes a little bit harder and it becomes a little bit more likely that we think to ourselves, oh, we're stalled for good.

This is just how it's going to be. And if what we're moving towards something that's very, very important, that's that's unfortunate. So we want to try to put that at bay as best we possibly can. The key to doing so all starts with the words that we use. As I said before, if I say the word sailboat, you're going to picture a sailboat.

And if I say cruise ship, that boat has got a whole lot bigger. So we know that the words are going to generate the pictures and it's like a mental snapshot of what success looks like in the chat. On a scale of one to 10, 10 means you can see it crystal clear and one means you can't see it at all. How clear do you feel your replacement pictures are? 10 is they're crystal clear. One is they're not very clear at all.

Some people might be honest and put multiple numbers because the replacement picture they have around one area of their life might be a lot clearer than the replacement picture or another. You may have a crystal clear picture in your mind about the Paris vacation that you want to go to, but maybe not a crystal clear idearound what your next promotion could be. So when we think about our self-talk, especially those of us that are leading teams, it's important for us to know that we have the tools. A couple of you before said, be curious. That's your tools, things that end in question marks, not statements that end in exclamation points are how you'll reach your team.

So you can ask them questions like, what does success look like when things are hard? Not if things are hard, but when things get hard, what's going to happen when you're teaching somebody how to ride a bike? What's going to happen when you fall? 'cause it's inevitable. You're going to fall off.

You're teaching somebody how to shoot baskets and playing basketball. What's going to happen when you miss? What's going to be your inevitable action when it gets hard? If the replacement picture is clear, I get up, I dust myself off, I get back on the bike and I try again. What we would say, we create a picture about what you would do the next time.

You can also ask questions like, what do we want to see or feel or reinforce? What mantra do I want to have? What emotion do I want to have? What feeling do I want to have when we run into these problems? Does obstacle planning is paramount to success.

We have to accept that there's going to be obstacles. We can't live in a fantasy world where there's not any. So if we're open with our teams and we use curiosity as a tool, we can ask these types of questions. What does it look like? I could say to Tracy, inevitably, when this gets difficult, what is it going to look like when it gets hard?

What are our actions going to be as a team? How can I support you? What do I need from you to support me? Because we know as an organization we can be intellectually honest with each other. We will hit stalls.

Things will slow down, the leads will dry up in sales and people will cancel on customer support. These things all happen. The key is, do we have the tools to actually reinforce it? We used extra large font to make this point, write it, speak it, believe it. There's going to be multiple opportunities for us to engage with uh, a future workshops where you can learn how to do that in a very, very formalized way.

But at a very high level, write it, speak it, believe it. If you do that on repeat, that's how you reinforce those new neural pathways that will absolutely change your behavior when solves happen. So we asked this question before, how clear is your team's picture of success? Put a couple numbers in the chat. Answer this though.

Is it something that you could describe and visualize with vivid detail so much to the extent that if I asked you to come off of mute and said, can you describe it to me with detail? Would we all be able to see what you see? Take a minute to try to write down in front of you. You can put it in the chat if you're brave. But take a minute to write down what you envision for your future with extreme detail.

Extreme detail. If it's you experiencing success, what color socks are you wearing? What time of day is it? Take two or three minutes to write down with vivid, vivid detail what you think your picture of success looks like for work. And like I said, if you're brave, share it in the chat.

I give you three or four minutes here. Oh, Nick, I'm going to join you on that beach, my friend. That sounds great. Nick says, sitting on a beach remote work, inclusive of coaching and speaking at colleges and universities all across the United States. Gail, with a crystal clear replacement picture of our lean management system.

Beautiful.

I think Nick is showing us the beach on Some really good stuff. I don't want to trim anybody the opportunity to put those answers in and share those in the chat. As you're thinking about the clarity of that replacement picture, the more clear it is in your mind, the more memorable it's going to be. So when we think about having those replacements, we can oftentimes say picture two things. One, picture yourself being more successful.

Really hard to picture what that looks like. But when you picture the detail about what being more successful would look like, is it you sitting in a bigger office? Are you managing a bigger team? Have you moved on to your next position? What does it actually look like to be more successful?

And I was only half joking when I said, what color shoes are you wearing? Because for me, when I talk about how important it is for me to have my goals, those of you that have been in sessions with me have heard me mention my wife and I have a nonprofit that helps children stay involved in youth sports. And we set goals to do fundraising for that every year. And my replacement picture that I shared in the chat is about 10% of my full replacement picture. I can tell you what perfume my wife is wearing as I'm giving the speech to celebrate raising $75,000 for our nonprofit.

I can tell you which one of my eyes has tears in it because the left one always lets go first. I'm looking at my children, I'm looking at my son who's laughing at me 'cause he thinks it's funny when I break. And my daughter who's crying just as much as I am because she joins in with all human emotions, I'm looking at the hundreds of kids that are involved in the different youth sports that we've all helped stay involved in those. And I'm seeing the difference that it's made in their lives. And I have a cracky voice as I'm attempting to give this speech because I get emotional now.

That's something I extremely look forward to. And that has happened exactly zero times in my life. That's this year's goal. So the goal that we want to have is to set a target for ourself that is so crystal clear that we can feel it, that we can taste it, that we know exactly what those details look like so that when things that feel like a stall happen. So for me, like when we go do fundraising and I'm hoping to generate 2,500 bucks and I show up and there's nobody at the event, and it'd be really easy to say, this one's a bust, this is a stall.

Oh darn. But instead, if I think about not doing the fundraising that night, suddenly my replacement picture gets a little foggier. Maybe I don't see those kids in front of me anymore and maybe I don't see my daughter crying and maybe I don't have my armor on my wife and I don't smell the champagne anymore. And I don't know if I can word this any other way than to say that sucks. So it makes me want to work to make that replacement picture happen.

The goal is that we want to have all of our replacement pictures that strong. It's the same thing that the pit masters are doing now when it comes to what's really going on, we've gotta look a little bit deeper than what's on the surface. We oftentimes make the analogies that those engagement surveys, they're just telling you what's going on on the surface, but they're not really telling you what's going on on the inside. And dashboards are the same. So when we do these types of tests, we do these types of evaluations.

We can't really tell what people believe. We can't really tell if behavior is shifting. We can't really tell if the energy is aligned or is it fractured? Are we leaning in the same direction when things go wrong or are we leaning in opposite directions? One of those directions might be stick with it.

We're still moving towards our goal. Another one might be there's a problem we need to react. And if organizations and individuals within those organizations are not aligned on a simple topic like that, something inevitable like this stall that we know is going to happen makes an organization feel like they're being pulled apart because they're reacting to it in a different way. So performance culture, it actually lives in between those numbers. It's the behaviors, it's the thoughts.

It's not the lagging indicator that is your engagement survey. It's the leading indicator that is your culture. And leaders need to learn how to see the signals that are behind those stalls and speak to them ahead of time and prepare their teams ahead of time. So another chat opportunity here in your organization. What's one of the non-data signals?

Not from your dashboard, not what Salesforce will tell you, not what you get from HubSpot Marketing Cloud,

but what's one non-data signal that you pay attention to in your organization to know how things are going? Team engagement. Tough to measure that one. Unless you're saying if they show up at the meeting, they're engaged and if they don't, excellent example. Vision, alignment, energy of the team.

And I assume you don't mean how caffeinated they are. I really like the answer of attitude. Those of you that have spent time with The Pacific Institute know that when we talk about attitude, we're referring to the direction that you're leaning towards a goal or away from it. If we all have the same attitude, it sure does feel like moving towards those goals is a lot easier. We all lean in the same direction.

Henry with a high EQ answer of just listen to how the person's voice sounds. Might even be so far as to look at their body language and really try to interpret what's happening. Good stuff. In fact, Randy put body language. Excellent answer part two of that question.

What does this non-data signal tell you about what's really going on underneath the surface? Those of you that said attitude, what does that tell you about what's going on underneath your body language or those other things? What does that really tell you? Since you use it as your non-data signal, it signals what Jeff says. What's getting done?

Kathleen says, motivation. We've got an answer for reflection. Is the staff engaged and focused or questioning the direction? Absolutely. A reflection of attitude.

Yeah, those signals can tell you, is somebody bought in or not? Are they resisting or are they leaning in? Mel says, belief in the leader. Good answer. And Tracy with one of my favorite answers is procrastination.

Does that tell you people are resisting? Change. Wonder why Change is easy, right? So great leaders, they know when to adjust and they know when to hold and when they're prepared for it, they know what those decisions look like in advance so that decisions are planned instead of being reactive. Same thing happens with the good pit masters.

The ones that really know what they're doing that make those ribs that just fall right off the bone, the real good ones, they don't throw it away. They don't look at the brisket and go, oh man, it's been on for five hours, but it stalled. I should throw it away. Go to the store and buy another one. But if we're honest with ourselves, how many of us have done the exact same thing with an initiative at work?

We put a lot of time and energy into it. We did a lot of prep work, things were moving great. And then when it stalled, instead of recognizing that that was expected, we just threw it in the trash and we wasted that money. And then our significant other says, I told you not to go to the store and buy that. Right?

So we can avoid that if we know how to plan for it ahead of time. And culture does the exact same thing. If our leaders know how to flex when needed and where needed, we can prepare for that if we stay grounded in the belief and stick with the process.

If you're a 76 er saying it's trust the process and reinforce the vision, keeping people consistent to that same, same belief, the same vision, same alignment. So it's really not about doing more. It's not about asking how much more you can accomplish or how much more can get done. It's not a reflection of we have stalled. What do I need to do as a leader?

What do my actions need to be? It's really more like, what do the actions need to be in advance? What do we have to do ahead of time to make sure that everybody is aligned so that it's not just you, the leader that knows we're going to leave that brisket alone when it stalls because that's expected. It's everybody knows. Because if you have the belief, but everybody else is looking under the hood and causing problems organizationally, you're going to stay in that stall.

So what's one belief for you? Take a minute to think some of those through. Let's see as many chat answers as possible, but what's one belief that you want your team to hold steady to maybe even just to close out this year to close out Q4 when momentum slows? What's a belief? What's the north star you want for your organization?

The Vikings would say that Gods are calling us west of Valhalla. What is our belief? Let's see some of those strong North Star beliefs. Jeff leads with a sales answer. Continuing.

This will increase sales. We do what matters. Stay the course strong. Our organization has a purpose and all of our employees play a key role. As you're writing these, consider how much detail is in this belief.

Is your answer the brisket is done, or is it the brisket is perfect, it's falling off the bone. People are eating every last bite telling me what a wonderful job I've done preparing this for the next Eagles game. Good one's here. Nothing is above reach with a vision and reaching beyond the goals. Beautiful.

Henry's answer is great. Look in the mirror and remind yourself why. I always say there's a left-handed version of me that lives in that mirror. That's got some good advice. Ah, connection I like Abby says, we are not alone.

I might word that as we're all in this together. I happen to know that Bobby works at a firm that regularly affirms I bigger than the challenge in front of me. That affirmation served them very well when they made a lot of adaptations in early C. Really good answers as always, makes me want to save these chats for days when I need more motivation.

Some really good answers in here. So as we move along, what we can learn from brisket, besides the fact that most of these slides are making me hungry, what we can learn is that every transformation has an expected stall in it. It just happens. It happens in everything. It happens when we hit physical growth spurts where we grow six inches over the summer between sophomore and junior year and then we don't grow at all for another year.

And it happens in business when we take on new endeavors and we bring on new team members and we merge with other organizations. But if the belief is stronger than the doubt, if we can stay oriented to that same North star, it's not that big of a deal that we have to stop and get gas. Not that big of a deal for prepared for it is if we're not. But if we have clear self-talk, if we use that narrator that lives inside of our mind, it gives us 70,000 sentences per day that we call thoughts. If we have clear self-talk and that creates those clear pictures about clarity, it makes getting to that final destination a whole lot easier and it makes the stall part of the process and not part of the problem.

And when we're looking at that, human signals matter just as much as the metrics do. So when the metrics are stalled, what are the humans doing? Are they being resilient? Are they locked into their belief that what we do around here matters? Or that we've uh, we've achieved key metrics, right?

Or any of the other positive things that you listed in here that you're bigger than the challenge in front of you. And adjustments are okay if you absolutely have to. Adjustments are okay, but panic is not. And throwing out all the good work that you've done and giving up on a project just because it's stalled. That's definitely what we want to avoid.

So if you're looking for methods, techniques, practice working through a stall on your own, whether you're an individual or whether you're a team, first opportunity to do that is we've got an upcoming session and in that upcoming session, we are offering a discount. Discount. Anybody that joins Beyond Limitss, that's what this session is called. By the way, there's a link in the chat or you can scan your QR code. We're offering a 50% off discount to an upcoming session of Invent Your Future Professional.

We're doing four virtual sessions starting on November 5th. We'll be hosting those on Wednesdays and Thursdays. So we'll come back on the fifth and sixth. We'll do it again on the 12th and 13th. Sessions are two hours a piece from noon until 2:00 PM Eastern Time.

It's a great opportunity to work on creating your own replacement picture, getting a hold of your individual self-talk and working through some of the tools that would help you lead yourself or a team through some of the stalls that we know are inevitable. And for participating in Beyond Limitss, as I said, you get a 50% discount on that. So the link is in the chat as well as the QR code on your screen. There's also programs. If you've got a team or an organization, you're trying to work through some stalls, you've hit some things that you've experienced in the past that have slowed you down.

If you've not brought your team through our thought patterns for high performance program, please do reach out to us. We'd love to work out an opportunity to show up, bring this curriculum to your team members, create those crystal clear replacement pictures and let you work through what you know are your obstacles so that you can create clear replacement pictures

and wonderfully positive self-talk in each and every one of those areas. Thank you Bobby, for mentioning that. It's an amazing program. Bobby's been through it a handful of times. And then finally, if you're looking for something a little bit more individualized, not something as part of a workshop, don't forget, we've got a huge team of coaches and consultants that can work together with you as an individual on your goals or with your team or your organization as you work towards yours.

Everything from individual and team coaching to full fledged cultural transformation is what's available. That is the end of our time today. So we are going to be wrapping up about 10 minutes early, but as always, I'm going to stick around for any additional questions or comments. Thank you all very much for putting all of your answers in the chat. And for those of you that had your cameras on and were nodding and smiling, especially of those of you that overtly laughed at my bad jokes, that's my very favorite thing you do.

But we will be back next month on November 5th for our next edition of Beyond Limitss. We also have some executive impacts that are going to be coming up on November the 14th and on December 12th. Those are like these sessions. But we're going to be bringing in executives and CEOs to tell their stories about how they've used The Pacific Institute for Great Success. So if you're looking for first person accounts, keep your calendar open in the middle of November and the middle of December for our executive impact.

But thank you all for being here, for sharing your time with us on the first Friday of the month. I'm going to stick around until the top of the hour for any questions, but that is our time for today. Thank you all very much and have a wonderful, wonderful weekend and go whatever sports team you put in earlier this weekend.