How to get what you want with Gina Mollicone
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In this episode, I speak with Gina Mollicone-Long; she helps people get what they want. She is an international best-selling author, compelling speaker, and peak performance coach with a mission to reveal greatness in individuals, teams, and organizations. She is the co-founder of The Greatness Group, a global team-building and personal development company. Since 1998, she has trained, coached, or spoken to tens of thousands of people on six continents. Her books, Think or Sink and The Secret of Successful Failing, are widely read and enjoyed by people around the world. She can show you exactly how to get out of your own way. We talk about CHANGE and making it happen FASTER and with LESS EFFORT!
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You’ve likely heard about limiting beliefs and continue to hear about it from time to time, but limiting decisions? Do you know if it ever had anything to do with your life, mental health, and productivity?
Gina Mollicone-Long introduces the concept of limiting decisions and tells you that your limiting beliefs are in fact the limiting decisions you made at some point in your lives. While the former looks like something you put in a wheelbarrow, the latter is what you have the power to change/own. Beliefs have layers of complexity which decisions don’t – they instead put the cause back on you. We will go into understanding this concept and how it helps you take back control of your life, beliefs, mental health, and performance by showing you how to retell your tales based on what you “did” instead of what you “are”. Taking ownership of your decisions helps you achieve your best life by turning adversity into an advantage and just learning from the tough times.
As a peak performance coach, Gina gives away tried-and-tested advice on the importance of values in business and how to align them with individual or company's goals for success in the long run.
Here are some highlights from our conversation:
Many successful people still have limiting beliefs, such as thinking they are not good enough or that they are a fraud. These limiting decisions were adopted at some point in time and made sense at the time, but they are now outdated and need to be reprogrammed.
The obstacle in your way is an opportunity to change your program and turn adversity into an advantage.
The unconscious mind is efficient and takes the path of least resistance, which is why it's important to reframe the problem as an opportunity.
Taking true responsibility for your life and decisions is necessary to operate at your peak and avoid relying on external powers.
Values are the fundamental driver of behavior, according to NLP.
Personal values are just as important as organizational values in this process.
Change your words and say "I'm doing anxiety or worry" instead of "I have anxiety or worry" the next time you experience anxiety. By acknowledging that you're doing it, you can undo it and focus on what you want instead.
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Mike Goldman: So, back in 2018 and 2019, I spent I think it was 31 or 32 days in total in Whistler, British Columbia. Beautiful place with our next guest to learn NLP and a thousand other things that blew my mind and the minds of other coaches I was there with. Blew my mind every day. So, my goal is to give you a little slice of that. You won't get 32 days, but you'll get a little slice of that. Gina Mollicone helps people get what they want. She's an international bestselling author, compelling speaker, and peak performance coach with a mission to reveal greatness in individuals, teams, and organizations. She's the co-founder of The Greatness Group. A global team building and personal development company. Since 1998, she's trained, coach, or spoken to tens of thousands of people on six continents. Her books Think or Sink, and The Secret of Successful Failing are widely read and enjoyed by people around the world. She can show you exactly how to get your own way. Gina, welcome.
Gina Mollicone: Thanks for having me.
Mike Goldman: Looking forward to it. Look, so, I'm gonna hit the question.
Gina Mollicone: Dig right in.
Mike Goldman: Yeah. Something right from the beginning of your bio it's something I know you're amazing at is, I have real simple question. I'm sure it's a ten second answer. What keeps people from getting what they want?
Gina Mollicone: Well, I think the biggest answer is the obstacles that are in the way. I mean, if you want my real answer...
Mike Goldman: No, no give me the bullshit answer and then we'll go back to the real one.
Gina Mollicone: So, I was gonna say what keeps people from getting what they want is the bullshit that goes on up here that they think is real. That they then act according to this. It's the story, right? So, a nicer way of saying that is the obstacles that prevent people from getting what they want, such as limiting decisions, negative emotions, lack of belief or values that are misplaced, just prevent them from accessing an infinite number of possibilities or probabilities, and somewhere on my website it says, every reality is possible, but not every reality is probable. And you will get what's most probable for you based on how you're conditioned up here.
Mike Goldman: Let’s start talking about how we condition that. We know the lens of this show is always about creating a better leadership team. We’ll talk about some team stuff, but we also know that you cannot lead a great team, you can’t be part of a great team unless you could lead yourself. And it sounds like what we're saying here Gina is one of the first things we need to do is change the stories we're telling ourselves in our heads. So, you mentioned negative beliefs, limiting decisions. Say a little bit more about how do we figure out first what those stories are that we're telling ourselves, and then we can dive into what we do about it.
Gina Mollicone: Well, it’s not rocket science. It's the stuff that comes out of your mouth. You know as well as I do that, here's the thing, what we tell ourselves and how we perceive the world and how we frame reality. Personal. We don't realize that it's different for every person. An important factor, this goes back to evidence from the fifties where the computer scientists were trying make the computer model the human brain, and they showed empirically that there were millions of bits of information available out here, outside your meatsuit and the brain was constrained and could only process 126 bits a second.
Now, this is very technical paper from the fifties. Fast forward to where we are now, and I generalized that by saying, look, there's millions and billions and trillions of bits of information here out here available in what we'll call capital R reality. Then you filter almost all of it. 99.9996% into hundreds. So, we go millions, billions, trillions, hundreds of bits of information that become our story, if you will, or our map of reality. I call it little R reality. And once that's in our mind, that is real. So, it's real because it’s in our mind, but it’s not capital R real because there are millions and billions of trillions of bits of information.
Like I said, all realities are possible. This is bit of quantum physics, but not all realities are probable. And so, the filtering mechanism, if we really had to say, if the call got cut off right now and there was like one thing, it's the filtering mechanism that we filter the millions and billions and trillions into hundreds that determines our choices for behavior. And those choices for behavior determine a hundred percent somewhere over my shoulder, a hundred percent that determines our results, right? Thoughts, feelings, actions, results.
Now, those filters are made up of what we believe, what we don't believe, what we value, what we don't value, what we tell ourself, what we don't tell ourself. Limiting decisions, limiting beliefs, negative emotions, past experiences. That all makes up the filtering mechanisms, and that's basically what NLP does in a nutshell, is unlayer the mechanisms, the filters.
Mike Goldman: I wanna jump in Gina, you'll get a kick out of this because I learned this from you, and I talk about the 11 million bits and the 126 that’s all the time. And I did the math, not the Math on what percentage, 126 of 11 million. That's easy Math. But I went and I give two examples now to make real that I want to give the audience is it's like, and this Math works. It's like judging your week based on a six second experience. That's one way to look at it. The other thing I looked at and again.
Gina Mollicone: I know, I like this.
Mike Goldman: It's like thinking you've seen the Mona Lisa at a piece of it no bigger than a grain of sand. That's what we're talking about. Like your life is great.
Gina Mollicone: That's amazing.
Mike Goldman: But you’ll see the grain of sand. So let's talk a little bit more about what those filters are and how we can deal with those filters. I wanna paint that picture in case people don't get 126 to 11 million. It's a big deal, perception is reality, but what we perceive is such a small piece of reality.
Gina Mollicone: And what people don't realize is whether you are aware of it or not, you are deciding what to perceive. That's the good news, bad news. The bad news is you're deciding what you perceive. The good news is you can undecide, if you decided you can undecide, but you have to slow the process down, back it up and look at it piece by piece. And at Greatness U, we talk about mechanistic models of the mind, NLP is one of them. And that doesn't mean we think human beings are machines. That's so far from the truth it's not even crazy like it’s, I actually think the opposite.
However, when we put on our mechanistic model hat and we go, okay, let's look at this baby like it is a machine, then we can tinker with those variables, i.e. the filters and the mechanisms that cause us to reject some bits and accept other bits and we can alter those relatively easily in the same way that we can fix the gasket in the car. And that's what a mechanistic model is, and the power of it is that it allows us without attachment, go in and fix a couple of things that are kind of clunky, like the filters.
Mike Goldman: So, let's make this real. So just an hour ago,
Gina Mollicone: Yeah.
Mike Goldman: I had a conversation with one of my client CEOs and his perception, his little R reality.
Gina Mollicone: His reality. Sure.
Mike Goldman: Right. His little R reality.
Gina Mollicone: It’s real.
Mike Goldman: Is that he's going through a cash crunch. He lost his biggest client. He’s gotta make some hard decisions on letting some people go. That's his reality right now. And of course, being a coach, we talked about a whole lot of things he could do to think about that differently and take action on it. So when people hear I'm just focusing on the 126 bits and it's little r reality, not big R reality. Let’s make it real. There are a lot of leaders out there that are having a difficult time in their business. How could a change in that filter or a change in how they're focusing… how do they do that, and how does it help them resolve their problem?
Gina Mollicone: So, first thing out of the gate, I wanna ask you a question. What type of person never hits an obstacle?
Mike Goldman: Somebody who's never moving.
Gina Mollicone: Right. So the only person who doesn't hit an obstacle is someone who's standing still. Period. And people need to get their head around this, so right out of the gate. and I'm guessing the people who watch and listen to this, they're not those people. They're not trying to stay still and avoid life lest it be it difficult. Now so that being said then, what's happened is they've hit a bunch of obstacles, right? Now here’s the thing. First of all, it signals that you're moving. I wanna reframe it to something that's not a bad thing. The problem is we view the obstacle like it shouldn't be there and instead, what I'm gonna invite people to think about is what if that's not the path of least resistance to the goal.
So, all this perturbation, as you described, and I just throw it into the bucket I call perturbation, is causing, giving you the opportunity to use a different filter, a different skillset, a different belief or quite frankly, to discard what no longer works and adopt a new reality. So, here's the example I love to give, so that, as a metaphor, you know how much I love my metaphors. You can get what I'm talking about. This is not a big deal.
So, in the nineties, when I worked in a Proctor and Gamble, you remember what it was like when they would come out with a new version of Microsoft Office, right? They would launch it like they currently launch iPhones so all the early adopters would line up at the mall for a fricking software program and they would get it and they would install it on their computer and they'd you send an email, and the attachment would be Microsoft Word 98. And if you were running an old version of Microsoft Word... what would happen when you clicked on that document?
Mike Goldman: Yeah, you couldn't read it.
Gina Mollicone: You couldn't even open it. At least now they're compatible, but back then you couldn't open it. So, there's your problem. There’s your cash flow crunch. Now the solution is simply to go get the program. It's not to blame them or scream at them or yell at the person. Who got in front of you in traffic or go to therapy.
None of that is the appropriate response. The appropriate response is to go upgrade the program and the way you know which program to upgrade is it's the one that's broken. So, wherever you have a perturbation in your life, wherever there's a air quote problem, and don't even get me started on the word problem. Wherever you have this problem or obstacle, is the actual program that is asking for the upgrade. It's not so simple in the sense that it doesn't come with a tag that says office 98, but it's the area. So, cash flow crunch, it could be a limiting decision about capability or about abundance.
[00:12:18] 12:50:5 Limiting Belief
Mike Goldman: Explain what you mean when you say limiting decision.
Gina Mollicone: Everybody uses the term limiting belief, and as you know I'm a bit of a linguist and I'm very particular. So, everybody says, oh I have these limiting beliefs like they’re something you can put in a wheelbarrow, but the thing is, there was a point in time when you didn't believe that. There was a point where you adopted the belief, you decided to believe the limiting belief. Hence, it is not a limiting belief. It is a limiting decision and decisions are active. They put the cause back on you so when you say, I have a limiting decision, then it's like well if it's not working for you… decide something else.
Which is a lot easier by the way than saying to someone just believe something else because trust me dude I've studied epistemology. It is very, very different and difficult to just change a belief. There's a lot of layers of stuff, but it is very easy to make a different decision, which then changes the belief.
Mike Goldman: Making this real for the CEO that is going through a cash crunch, gotta lay people off, just saying man is this all worth it? You know, me running this business it's so stressful. What might one of those limiting decisions be?
Gina Mollicone: Oh, I mean, the basics that come with every single meat suit the planet is I'm not good enough. That's basic. I'm a fraud. I don't know how to do it. Those are the basics. Some of my private clients or some of the most successful people on earth. What shocks me is they all have those beliefs. And if I ask them point blank, these are successful people, billionaires, actresses, if you put them on a scale of humanity, everybody wants to be them. But if you ask them point blank, if 10 is your maximum potential, where do you think you're operating? They'll say 3, 4, 5, 6. And it's shocking because they're super successful and the more successful they are, the lower the number is, which blows my mind.
So, there's this element of compensation that turns up in these limiting decisions, and they're all, quite frankly, bullshit. It's this story that you tell yourself and whenever you decided to believe it, it made so much sense, it protected you, it got you out of a sticky situation, it allowed you to stop, to fade into the woodwork. But it's a 98 program that you're trying to run in 2023, 24, 25, It doesn't make sense anymore. So it's showing up as air quote problems. So that you'll fix it, so that you'll reprogram it. Period. It's so linear.
Mike Goldman: So, the obstacle that's in your way and this is a Ryan Holiday book, I'm gonna steal the line, The Obstacle is the Way, in a different way of saying that obstacle is there to say, hey, you gotta change your program.
Gina Mollicone: Literally, my first book was called the Secret of Successful Failing. It's not a book about how to fail. That's like the worst book ever. It’s a book that basically says here's how you turn adversity into advantage, dude. It's the portal and you know this because you've been there in the classroom with us that the reframe is on the problem itself. It's the opportunity, until you see it that way, you're only ever gonna find out what's wrong instead of how it's leading you. And you know this, the unconscious of our mind is super-efficient. It doesn't go in a straight line it goes in the path of least resistance.
So, the goal is faster and with less effort. You can see that over my shoulder there. That's my thing. Faster and with less effort, that's it. Just faster and with less effort. If it was as easy as your conscious mind would say, for me to get from here to there, I just go straight like this. If it was that easy, everybody would have what they wanted, but they don't.
And if it was even as easy as saying, oh, I have this belief, I'm just not gonna believe it anymore, everybody would also do that. It’s not quite that simple. You have to actually take a bona fide responsibility that you create your life. And that sucks for most people. So, they just don’t want to so they’re like eh. But the thing is, you can't operate at your peak without being responsible, because if aren't responsible then your power is outside of you, It's not inside of you.
Mike Goldman: The challenge is what you are calling a limiting decision if people don't take true responsibility for it and they say something, I'm just not good at building relationships or I'm just not good at having those conversations, or I'm not good at selling, or I'm not good at whatever.
Gina Mollicone: No one in my family is right.
Mike Goldman: And for me, I've just never been disciplined about exercising. That's my thing, but, when we say that, and I say we, because it's every human being that has this.
Gina Mollicone: Me too.
Mike Goldman: I coach on a lot of the things I suck at that’s why I coach on it, it helps me be better.
Gina Mollicone: We teach what we need to learn.
Mike Goldman: Yeah the challenge is what you're calling a limit limiting decision. And many of us just think, no, that's just the way it is because we don't take real responsibility for it. So, if someone has-
Gina Mollicone: It is the way it is because those are the 126 bits they've selected. So, it literally is the way it is. But, what I’m here to say is, back up, It's like you with the Mona Lisa, back up, take a different bucket. And I could dive into the quantum physics of this. Collapse a different waveform.
Mike Goldman: So to make it real and straightforward for folks.
Gina Mollicone: Yep.
Mike Goldman: If someone listening to this is saying, oh. I don't know. my business is driven by the economy, there's only so much I can do. It's the economy, right? That's the economy.
Gina Mollicone: I love the economy I love that one.
Mike Goldman: Step us through, because I imagine there are many people right now thinking that. Step us through, make it real. How do we change that limiting decision? How do we think about that differently?
Gina Mollicone: Okay, let's do this because denormalizing is a big part of NLP. So, I’m gonna denormalize so people understand, words like economy and recession, these sound like nouns, right? We say, oh, I can't do this because of the economy. We have a bad economy. Or right now I can't make as much money because it's a recession. So English, the linguistic structure of those sentences, those words act like nouns.
They're usually the object or the subject. If I take this sharpie, it's a person, place or thing I can stick it in, I don't have a wheelbarrow, but I do have this handy little cup, right? So, I could stick it in this cup, but you can't put the economy or a recession in a cup or a wheelbarrow, which is a clue that it's not a noun. So, this is NLP, this is NLP’s very linguistic oriented.
So, let's denormalize it. Let's use recession because everybody thinks that's what’s happening, right? So if the word is not really a noun, we have to turn it back into a process word. So, the word recession is to recede, so in a recession, what's receding?
Mike Goldman: GDP, right?
Gina Mollicone: In a recession, GDP’s receding, I think technical terms are that it's two quarters of negative growth I'm not an accountant, but...
Mike Goldman: Unless the politicians wanna define it differently.
Gina Mollicone: Let's just say the going definition is something like two quarters of negative whatever. And so, what I say to people is who do they measure? We’re gonna literally walk this through. So, who do they measure when they do those statistics? Do they measure every company in the United States or Canada or Europe? No. In Canada it used to be one or two companies, but in the US let's call it 40, 50, 100, it's not all of them. So, they measure a group of companies that provide the statistics for these definitions. Now, I always ask the person I'm talking to, I'll just ask you, so Mike, do they include your company when they're doing the statistics?
Mike Goldman: I would imagine not.
Gina Mollicone: They don't include mine. And so, here's how I’m gonna paraphrase a recession. This is, you know classic Gina. Basically, a bunch of other people's companies either had a bad couple quarters or wrote stuff off on their papers, they went backwards. So other people's companies went backwards and so now you are screwed. So just think about that for a minute and then I know not this. So, what do they do with all the money? Do they put it in a pile and burn it? No. It's still there somewhere.
Now here's the thing, it might not be in the straight line place you expect it to be in. True. But when cassette tape market dried up, that was it. That market dried up, but it went somewhere. If you're stuck in the negative emotion of panic or worry in a recession, then you're looking for how to survive in what’s in front of you, you don't have any creative faculties and you're certainly not looking to the side. The problem is when you're wrapped up in the limiting decisions, you can't see the opportunities.
Now, my whole exercise that I just went on about is to point out to you that there's another way of looking at it and that’s why I like to do that denormalization because it’s like holy crap, where is the money? If you start asking yourself that, where did it go? Notice how your reticular activating system is now activated to find it. That's different than lamenting that it's gone. So now you're looking for where it might be, and who knows, maybe this leads you into a new opportunity or a new thinking of your product.
Mike Goldman: Let me take that and make that even more real for folks, because I think you're hitting on something really, really important.
Gina Mollicone: Yeah.
Mike Goldman: Because when I hear, well my company is not in that GDP measure. So, it's other people, It's not me. But I could hear my clients saying but my clients are saying they don't have the cash. I'm losing clients because they're not profitable. But what you are saying that's reality, but what you’re saying is, I get it. And you could say…
Gina Mollicone: Who has the cash?
Mike Goldman: Right, right. So, you could say if you have this limiting decision that says, these are, in this box here, these are my clients, and those folks aren't able to say they're not able to pay me anymore, so they're no longer clients. Well, that limiting decision of my clients are in this box. Yeah, you might be screwed.
Gina Mollicone: It's not my fault.
Mike Goldman: But if you step back and look at the entire Mona Lisa, instead of that grain of sand, which is the box of your clients and say, where's money going? Maybe there are different industries. Maybe it's government work. I've had a couple of times over the last few months where a client has said, they had one particular company. B2B company, one particular company making up two higher percent of their revenue, they lose that client. Oh my god, now I gotta lay people off. All right. You think maybe there's a lesson to be learned there? You think maybe there was a limiting decision and you allowing that one client to make up 45% of your entire business? You could cry about it and curl up in the corner. Or to your point, you could say, all right, maybe there's a different decision I could make.
Gina Mollicone: I was thinking of a story that's personal between you and me, and I wanna share, when I met you, just so you guys know, when Mike called me, he was like adamant about setting up a code, I wanna take NLP, I got a group of coaches and we basically made a curriculum for them, right? do you remember that? That's how it was.
Mike Goldman: Well first it was I just wanted to do it and it was nothing of them, then it was like what if we brought bunch of other coaches?
Gina Mollicone: Oh yeah, the dates didn't work for you. And you were like, I want my own course I was like bring me a group of people. but what have you guys always been saying to me about this content? You've been saying to me put it online, break it up. And I was like can’t be done, can't done, can't be done. Now March 13th, 2020. My revenue in all the businesses, so we have Greatness U, Scavenger Hunt, Anywhere, all of it. Zero.
I want everybody to understand not cash flow situation. Zero revenue. And we didn't have a choice. The nice thing about zero is it's like holy… so we revamped the entire company. Did we get it right? No, but we just kept running. I call it ready, fire, aim. And here we are three plus years later and it's completely different. We chopped it all up, exactly what you guys were telling me, and I used to make this joke that sometimes fate speaks to us first in whispers and then a little bit louder and then it kind of clocks us and then it just grabs a cosmic two by four and smacks you across the forehead.
So, I needed to make those changes years ago, but I didn't have to. And listen because there was no problem. It ain't broke. Don't fix it. I’m not preaching from the pulpit. I live it and then I just go out and teach people some of the pathways that might make it faster for them and less effort. Like I do all the tripping and falling in the mud and then I come back and go, there's a bump over there and like a hole, whatever in the ground. And that's it.
That's what we're up to. I think of you guys a lot, that class in particular, because you were so enthusiastic about, oh if you just chopped this up more people would come, it may sound a bit virtual and I was like, nah you can't do it on Zoom, now like look at me I got this stupid microphone like how have I ever lived in private?
Mike Goldman: Did we hit you at that point and say, that sounds like a limiting decision to me. We probably did, we should have.
Gina Mollicone: Yeah, you should have just smacked me, right? It was just a funny story that I think of you guys, whenever I deliver a course on Zoom or I chop up Master Pratt, I go they kind of told me to do this and had I done it when they said so, it wouldn't have been as exciting and painful.
Mike Goldman: I'm still waiting the check for the percent of that business, but we'll talk about that later. The other thing I want to talk about which is a different topic, but incredibly related when I spent all those days in Whistler, one of the things that blew my mind was the discussion about values and one of the reasons it blew my mind is because the way I have always talked values and the way in a lot of cases I still talk about values with my clients is the more traditional, what are your core values as a company?
And these are the non-negotiable behaviors, and you define values very differently than that. And we talked about how values can you hold back or propel you. Talk a little bit about personal values and how they could help anyone but let's talk specifically about leaders in an organization because there's a personal part to this and a business part to it.
Gina Mollicone: Sure.
Mike Goldman: Talk a little bit about how you define values and how values impact us moving in the direction that we want to, or think we want to go.
Gina Mollicone: Well just so we're clear, it’s not how I define it, it's an NLP thing. But it's what I teach and very basically put values are what you do or don't do period. They are the fundamental driver of behavior, period. Now, they're not this bullshit that people you know stencil on their wall, you'll notice there's no values on my wall because when you walk into a corporation and it says we value honesty and integrity and all these words, the thing is, if I find one example where they're not behaving that way, I don't believe anything they say, those aren't values, those are aspirations maybe, or hopes. Values are actually what drive your behavior.
For example, I don't really like doing all my reporting, income taxes. I don't like it. It's not what we like, but I value. You could either value being in integrity or compliance or you could value not getting busted or whatever. It doesn't even matter how you language it. But I would never stencil that on my corporate wall that I value compliance but I do, because I do those things and they're high on my list of priorities.
Values, they're very high generalizations that direct all behavior, and they are a filter, they are one of those filters that filters out the millions and billions and trillions. So that's one thing. The second component of values and I'm just gonna borrow the dynamic that we teach, so we teach spiral dynamics, is this idea of values levels. So, your values actually have an evolutionary path. So, Claire Graves' work is all about spiral dynamics.
So, your values aren't something that are tattooed on your skin when you're born and they never change. They actually evolve as you evolve. And so, these values levels explain how it's possible that two people in the same organization could have very different behavior based on the evolution of their own value set. That alone is, as you know, mind exploding because it explains all human behavior.
But then the next thing because I wanna bring it back to your target market. The people that you're talking to. If you are the founder or the key stakeholder in a company, typically your personal value set is very similar, if not the same as the corporate values. And this is where people don't understand it.
Now, if you are in a ginormous organization that you didn't found, then that's different. But if you have any sort of key stakeholder ship in the organization, then those two things are gonna be very similar, whether you know it or not. If you value security, if you're the CEO who values security personally, where you have your 401ks maxed out and you got everything perfectly planned and security is a high value for you. But your company is some sort of risk-oriented company like tech where they're moving at the speed of light. There's gonna be a clash because that value's gonna hinder that company.
So, either you bring it to the surface, and you find a way to integrate it or it's gonna work under the surface and it's just gonna constantly create problems. So, when there's a values misalignment between the C team, like the ELT, the executive leadership team and the company in general, or even within the team. So, if there are people on the team that are not aligned to each other, that's all gonna play out and it's gonna look like air quote stuff happening from the outside. It's not our fault when really what we have is a values misalignment, either from the CEO or the top key stakeholder itself, or the team is misaligned, or the team and the company are misaligned. That all plays out in an incongruent value or results incongruent, static, scattered. It looks like chaos.
Mike Goldman: So, you've got a company that quote on quote believes that the company believes oh, it's really important we take care of our people, our team members are most important to us, but you've got a CEO, and probably the CEO in some portion of the leadership team, that when they truly look at what they value, and to your point, based on what they do and don't do.
Gina Mollicone: Yeah.
Mike Goldman: Not based on some aspiration, they look at what they value and very high on list is money, success, security and somewhere not on the list or very far down on the list is relationships or, those things related.
Gina Mollicone: Or training and development.
Mike Goldman: And by the way, I'm not judging that makes them bad people, right?
Gina Mollicone: No.
Mike Goldman: But that’s your point of a values misalignment of saying, well, look, if that's truly not what you value personally and the way I interpret, its kind of our personal values. If you have enough people at leadership that share those personal values.
Gina Mollicone: Yes, yes.
Mike Goldman: Then they become what the company values. And you've got a team that's very aligned. I wanna go back to your example because I wanna talk about what you could do about it.
Gina Mollicone: Oh yeah.
Mike Goldman: You said if values are not set in stone, they can evolve and change over time. So, if you are in a tech company where if you're not growing it 30, 40% a year, you look like you're standing still.
Gina Mollicone: Exactly.
Mike Goldman: And if you've got, you know a VC or a private equity backing you up that wants you to in the next or three years, you gotta grow 300% and then sell. And you've got very high on your list of personal values, security and risk and adventure is just nowhere to be found. But security is high up there. Does that mean you’re out of luck and you need to change jobs, or is there something you could do about it?
Gina Mollicone: Well of course, as with anything, once you are able to look at the programs that are malfunctioning or mal adapted, then you can simply change them, I mean this is the power of NLP. In NLP we have a technique to literally change a value as it’s held in the mind. But you gotta want it, you gotta be willing to do the technique but it can be done. You have to do values alignment on the team. And you know that there's a technique for eliciting values, ranking them and seeing are we aligned or not? But it's not this sort of aspirational talk, it’s like the mechanistic of NLP give us the step-by-step linear capacity to work with the program that’s not working.
And often, especially in companies where the results are up and down, yo-yo scattered, inexplicable, there's usually a values problem, either a misalignment at the leaderships level or a misalignment down below. I was working with this big consulting firm a long time ago when this was a big deal they were like, oh, we really value flexibility and diversity. They say all these things. This is way before working from home was normal, just so we're clear.
And, because they were noticing that they were losing women really, really peak performing women as they were going out to start families. It was too much of a grind and so, they were just leaving the consulting world in general, and they didn't wanna lose them and so they put out this whole thing about valuing this and flexible work hours and work from home and all this. And it was always, don't even get me started. It was printed on pink paper. It was disgusting. But here was the problem, right?
When you talked to the women that were in these sort of soon to be executive leadership roles, they would say, yeah, but all the partners, including the female partners, the women partners they're working 70 hours a week.
So, it's corporate, its career suicide, not to do what they're doing. So, they were saying we value this because it was like a nice thing to say to retain people because you know, words are a cheap thing, but they weren't doing it. They didn't have a culture where that was obvious. And we do what we see, not what we're told. And it was a complete flop, and I was like, this is a disaster. Like, what are you doing? Right? Anyways, I didn't say what they wanted to hear.
Mike Goldman: If someone has got a value and maybe an unfair question because we spent a lot of time on this, so there may not be a quick, episode answer to it.
Gina Mollicone: There's no quick fix.
Mike Goldman: But if someone is in a business, like I said, it's high tech and they've gotta, and high growth and you've gotta take risks and that's just not what they value right now. One answer absolutely could be, I'm in the wrong place and they could leave. That's an answer.
Gina Mollicone: Sure Absolutely.
[00:35:58] 35:58:2 Changing Values
Mike Goldman: But there is another answer which says, hey, I could change my values, is there a quick way to explain to folks how they can go about changing- the answer might be go take an NLP course.
Gina Mollicone: I was gonna say, take an NLP course. Hire Mike Goldman. Or we actually, it was so important that we split values out as its own course. When you guys were telling me, split it up, Master Pratt. We actually now took all the values and just put it into one course and that’s it, that’s the whole course. It's that important. So, there is a quick fix so to speak if you understand all of it. I'm not gonna teach for three days on your podcast. I think the most important thing to focus on is that if it is the problem, it is easily and with minimal effort fixed, if it's identified so someone like you and the people like you that I've coached and trained know how to do it.
And this big, baffling enigma, it’s just step one, step two, step three, and you're right, there could come a point where maybe there are the wrong bums in the wrong seats. That happens, right? And better you should find it out and rectify it than just keep riding this question mark for the of your career.
Mike Goldman: Yeah, and I know from you it boils down to, at the end of the day, just making a decision. To change it and that you could make that decision a month’s long process, or it could, ultimately the decision happens in the snap of finger. You could do a lot of stuff for six months leading up to that, or you could do it now, but you make a decision and know that you're in charge.
Gina Mollicone: It could be so big picture like that, get to cause, change your value. Like those are very, these are very broad. It could be also very specific. There could be just tips and techniques that NLP also provides that allow you to break the inertia in the moment. So, the frustration one, people on this listening or watching have been frustrated once in their life. So, the way that you break the inertia, where you're getting stuck in that frustration loop is just to look up and smile. Right? So, everybody try that.
Unless you’re driving, don't do it if you’re driving, right? So, look up and smile. And what that does is kinesthetic is down. So, looking up disconnects, the kinesthetic loop. Okay. And smiling fires off a bunch of nourishing chemical, biochemicals that puts you in a more resourceful state. Now, it doesn't solve your problem, but it breaks the inertia, and it gives you a split second where you can make a different choice.
Now that is, what did that take me? 25 seconds. It's something you can do like that, but if you make the choice to do it, when you're stuck in that frustration inertia, it will reset you so that you can make a different choice or see a different opportunity. Now, these are little things that peak performers do regularly, that regular people don't do, right?
And I always say this, if you, the person listening, the leader, the C level or your people don't operate at your peak level of performance, whatever that is for you. Then there's money on the table, period. This is not a soft skill, right? Those companies that value their people and all that, they usually spend more money on coffee and tea and stuff and the plant watering than they do on training and nurturing the people and the relationships in their organization and that’s a true story because that's the industry I'm in. They say to me, oh, these are soft skills. Baloney.
The first day I worked at Proctor and Gamble, the very first day, back in the early nineties, they said, take away our brands, take away our factories, take away our offices, take away our patents. If you knew how many patents they held, that's a big thing. Leave us our people and we will rebuild this company in record time and I was like, oh boy, here we go. And you know what? That is how they operate. I could not believe.
And then you look at them and they've been successful for as long as they have through multiple crises, multiple economies, many recessions, many governments, couple of wars, and yet they're still here. And it's not because this is better than that or whatever. It’s something to do way they stick inside their values. And I remember thinking at the time when I was in my like very early 20s going, whoa, this is unique. And didn't realize it or appreciate it till I was out. Right? How unique it was. it can be these big picture things which seem very overwhelming, or it can be tiny little things, what if the CEO and this is very real, is prone to worry? What if they're always worrying? I heard this the other day from a Hedge Fund manager, right? So stressful environment right now, which it's turbulent. Chaotic. And that makes humans that like to stand on the ground. That makes them nervous.
What if worrying about it is making it worse, I always say, worrying is like praying for what you don't want. That's utterly ridiculous, you know where I'm going with this. Now, I've got this quick technique called the anxiety eraser, and you only have to do it every single time you feel anxious or worried. And what it does is, one, eliminates the anxiety as you know in the moment. And two, it highlights how much of your day you're spending focusing on what you don't want. And that alone for a lot of people is like earth shattering. Now, do you think we have time to quickly teach this?
Mike Goldman: I was gonna say the, that'll be before we wrap up. That'll be the last gift.
Gina Mollicone: Here's my gift to you.
Mike Goldman: Go ahead.
Gina Mollicone: You're welcome. This is called the Anxiety Eraser. Mike, you know where this comes from. There's a lot of content behind this, so you're just gonna have to roll with me. Those of you listening that don't know everything about this body of knowledge. And then if you wanna learn more, then find Mike or find me. The anxiety racer comes from a body of knowledge that's similar to NLP, A mechanistic model that's called timeline therapy. Here's what's important, is you need to work with your timeline.
Now it's as simple as imagining your timeline. Just close your eyes and imagine your life laid out in a line. But if that's not your jam, here's a quick way to discover your timeline. Just think of something in your past, you were where last week? When were you in Toronto?
Mike Goldman: Last week, Toronto.
Gina Mollicone: Yeah, and where did that memory come from when it just flew into your mind to talk about? Did it come from above, behind?
Mike Goldman: Over to the left.
Gina Mollicone: Okay. So, your memory came in from the left. So, your past is somewhere to your left?
Mike Goldman: Yes.
Gina Mollicone: Okay to your left. And next week you said you’re going back to Florida. And that’s already formed, like it's happening, the plane tickets are bought and stuff. So where does that live in your timeline?
Mike Goldman: Over to the right.
Gina Mollicone: Over to your right. So those of you who are listening, just play with me. Assuming you're not driving, if I were to ask you what direction your past is just point to it. So up, down, left, it doesn't matter. So, for Mike, it's left. And if I were to ask you your future, just point to it. So, for Mike, that's right. For you, it could be down, up, doesn't matter. Notice this implies a line. That's your timeline. End of story. If you need more, call me. So, you have a timeline. Now, everybody who's got a timeline, the next step you have to do is see it in your mind's eye, i.e. imagine,
something that five year olds can do. So you close your eyes and if you're driving, do this later, right? So, what you do is you need a specific event you're worried about. So, let's say you're worried about cash flow because that's obviously a thing. Okay, you need a specific event because you have to work on a specific event. Notice how what you're about exists in the future. So, anxiety and worry are technically fear of the future. Okay. So, what you do is you get your timeline in your mind's eye. So, it might help to close your eyes, definitely not if you're driving. So, then what you do is you imagine you’re superman or superwoman and you lift up above your timeline and you hover above it, now you’re looking down on it in your mind's eye.
Now do what I say very specifically, and it'll erase the anxiety or worry. So, float above the timeline like a hovering Superman, superwoman perspective. Looking down on your timeline. Float out into the future. Keep going until you get to 15 minutes past the successful completion of the event you think you're worried about. So go 15 minutes past the successful completion of this event. So 15 past the successful cash flow report, turn your perspective 180 degrees and look down the timeline into the past and notice that it turned out well and your anxiety or worry will erase. Now, finish the process by remaining above the timeline. Come back into the room that you're sitting in, drop into your body open your eyes. Mike feeling good? Anxiety erased?
Mike Goldman: Every time I do it. Every time I do it.
Gina Mollicone: Now, here's the key. Every time.
Mike Goldman: Yeah, you don't do this once and go oh, I could better deal with anxiety. I don't have anxiety anymore. No, it’s gonna happen and now you have technique to use.
Gina Mollicone: And here's why. Because anxiety is a direct result of focusing on what you don't want. And here's the thing, because of the millions, billions, trillions hundreds filters, you get you focus on. So as a peak performer, do you think you should be focusing what you want or focusing on what you don't want?
Mike Goldman: Wonderfully simple question you could ask when you are stressed and have anxiety, overwhelmed is just, what do I want? It’s also a great question to ask is because you probably focus on all the things that go wrong. What do you want?
Gina Mollicone: And even change your words. So instead of having anxiety or worry just say, oh, I'm doing anxiety or worry because that then causes you immediately in the moment to realize if you're doing it, you can undo it. And if you undo it every time, I had one client who, this was their main complaint and they were doing this like a thousand times a day, and finally they just called me up and said, I realized it was just easier to focus on what I want then to spend all this time doing this process. That's the goal. Right? Because peak performers focus on what they want because you get you focus on, period. So that's a little trick. It's very popular. It's a nice, easy quick fix and you can do it just every time you choose to do anxiety or worry.
Mike Goldman: Pull the car over first.
Gina Mollicone: Yeah, pull the car over. But here's the thing, Tad James was my teacher, was one of my teachers, he came up with that phrase that anxiety is a warning sign to focus on what you want. So technically, it’s doing you a favor, but if you don't attend to it, right? And rectify your focus, if you don't attend to your anxiety or worry and rectify your focus in the minute, second, millisecond, you feel it or notice it, then it wreaks havoc in your body and it is not good for you. I wanna be clear because a lot of people suffer the effects of anxiety, but it's because they aren't checking it. They aren't bringing their focus back to what they want and therefore their anxiety is running in a loop.
Mike Goldman: Gina, the only frustrating part of this conversation for me is I know we can go on for about another 31 days and I don't think people will listen that long, but they’ll call you if they want to. In wrapping up, how can folks get in touch with you to learn more? Do more.
Gina Mollicone: Easiest way is my link tree, it's linktr.ee/ginamollicone. We're always changing that and my last name is spelled M O L L I C O N E but if you're just like super lazy and you wanna go straight to the courses we're GreatnessU.com
Mike Goldman: Excellent. That'll all be in the show notes if you wanna look. But Gina, thanks so much. Amazing stuff and a ton of value. So, thanks for doing this.
Gina Mollicone: You're welcome. I really, I mean, I could talk to you all day, so have a great trip next week and thank you for having me. It really was an honor.
Mike Goldman: Thanks.