Learn For 2.0 with Brandon DeVere

Sometimes a simple change in routine is all it takes to get a little boost or new perspective.

It could be as simple as walking somewhere instead of driving.

On my whiteboard calendar in my office, Eva has written, You're doing better than you think you are. I am PROUD of you! Keep going, you've got this!".

I typically use it for a daily reminder, but what my son wrote on it yesterday made me realize how young someone can be and still have a positive mindset.

My son co-hosts this episode with me.

As much as I want to be the perfect parent, sometimes that doesn't happen.

Today was a prime example.

I didn't listen to my own advice from yesterday and made my case based on just a few keywords.

Resulting in a failed attempt at being a good dad.

"Listen To Learn, Not To Respond”

This weekend, I was locked in battle with a social media giant.

Facebook and I were exchanging blows.

Actually… not really.

But the experience made me stop and think about how our minds work , in general.

I am hosting a class this Thursday for Real Estate agents, to teach them how to start their own podcast for no cost.

In order to get the word out to more agents I decided to run a Facebook ad that targeted… you guessed it, Real Estate Agents. The very people this class is for.

About an hour after I set up the ad I received a notification that my ad was rejected because I wasn’t following their rules for “housing opportunities”.

But…

This wasn’t a “housing opportunity”. This was an ad inviting real estate agents to a class I was offering for free.

No housing involved.

If you are familiar with Facebook ads for real estate, then you will know that they are very strict on how you choose your target audience to advertise to. The lines can sometimes be a bit blurred and they don’t want to take a chance that something can be considered discrimination.

Which I totally understand, but had their algorithm made a decision based on something other than a few keywords, they could have understood what the ad was actually about.

After being rejected, they gave me the opportunity to “request a review”. So I did.

I explained to them in 1 sentence that the ad was for an invite to a class, not for housing. Giving them the FULL story of what it was about.

Guess What?

YEP! It was approved this morning.

This isn’t just a Facebook thing though, this is how many of our minds work.

We tend to listen just long enough to find the keywords that we want to respond to, and make our case. Usually glossing over the rest of the information.

I hear it everyday when I’m talking with people about the company I’m associated with.

People say, “You guys do this”, “you guys do that”, “I know what you are about”, “What I don’t like about your company is...”, etc.

They hear one or 2 things that they remember and make up their mind based on those “facts".

And 9 out of 10 times, those “facts” were given as misinformation. Either by accident due to lack of information on the subject or given intentionally.

Again, not their fault. We are conditioned that to not know something, or to not have a response in a conversation, somehow makes us dumb or stupid. So our automatic response is, “I know”. Constructing a response, regardless of how much information we actually have.

But just like Facebook in this scenario, they were looking for their “keywords” to respond to, and made their initial decision based on just those.

But when presented the facts, they were able to learn what the entire picture was, allowing them to make a different decision. A decision that factored in everything, not just what they wanted to respond to.

This is an example of what happens when you…

Listen To Learn, Not To Respond.

If you have a sentence in your vocabulary that looks like this, "I'm not a (blank) person", then you have already lost.

I am a firm believer that everyone gets multiple opportunities presented to them throughout their lives, but most don't recognize them in order to take action.

I believe it takes 3 things for an opportunity to be executed, it needs to be:

1) Presented

2) Recognized

3) Acted on

When we tell ourselves, "I'm not a (blank) person", we have already lost that opportunity.

The more opportunities we miss out on because they "aren't us", the less opportunities we get to act on.

“I’m not that interesting”

I am lucky enough to know some amazing people that have lived incredible lives.

These people aren’t famous, they don’t live in mansions or drive Ferraris.

But their stories are much more inspiring than any of those things.

I’m talking about people that you’d make a movie about, people that inspire just by being themselves.

Yet, they don’t believe themselves to be inspirational, or even interesting for that matter.

One of those stories comes from a good friend of mine.

After knowing him for some time, we were having a casual conversation and we ended up on the topic of his football ‘injury”.

As we got deeper into the story I was in disbelief.

When he was 26 he was playing a pick-up game of tackle football. During a play he was tackled by the neck.

He didn’t think much about it at the time. But what he didn’t know, was that a blood clot would start forming.

This blood clot would eventually lead to a stroke which left him paralyzed for a year.

He was paralyzed from the face down, preventing him from even being able to speak.

He eventually had to re-teach himself motor skills, including how to walk again.

I can’t even imagine the frustration that must have caused.

Going from an athlete that spent multiple days in the gym to almost an infant at the age of 26.

If you see him know you would never know the adversity that he had to overcome and quite honestly, you probably wouldn’t believe it.

When he first told me about it I was in disbelief and after picking my jaw up off the floor I asked him if he would like to be on the podcast.

I knew this story needed to be shared.

His response, “Nah, I’m not that interesting”.

I beg to differ.

If he were to put his story in a book, I would own it, multiple copies probably.

I think one of our greatest curses is that we believe that we aren't interesting enough for others to be impacted by our stories.

But in reality, there is someone out there right now going through a similar struggle to what he went through that needs something to relate to, something to be motivated by.

Someone that needs to hear his story.

There is someone out there that needs to hear YOUR story.

So share it!

You might be surprised by who you help.

Is that it? Just 68 more times...

I saw a good friend of mine recently and he asked me if I had still been writing my stories. He hadn’t seen any on FaceBook lately and wanted to know what was going on.

Unfortunately, my answer was, “not really?".

Then a couple days later I got a text from my friend Cliff…

“Hey, brother! Happy New Year! I haven’t seen you post in a while. Just making sure everything is ok”.

I text him back right away, assuring that everything was ok.

It felt great, to 1, have people notice I hadn’t been sharing my stories, and 2, reach out to make sure I was ok.

I am grateful for both of these things.

Really there were a couple of reasons I have been lacking in the story-telling department lately.

The first is a little superficial I’ll admit.

I had a streak of 168 straight days of completing daily stories, and on day 169 I submitted the story too late...

Streak broken.

It took a little wind out of my sails, causing me to become a little more relaxed about my daily writing. I still wrote but not as often and nothing that made it further than my notebook.

The second reason has deeper meaning.

Just before the stories stopped my dad and I were on a road trip. Eventually, our conversation ended up discussing the lifespan of the males in our family.

After a quick discussion, it was decided that 85 was a good number.

I thought about that conversation over the next few days and started doing the math.

-Well, dad is 68, males in our family live until 85, that is 17 years-

Great! 17 years seems like a long time.

But then I broke it down.

Since we don’t live near each other, we only end up seeing each other about 4 times per year.

That's when it hit me…

17x4=68… 68 more times that I will see my dad.

That’s not enough!

Obviously this isn’t an exact figure, there are a number of variables to consider

But when it is presented this way, presented as a 2 digit number, reality hits hard.

So for the remainder of his visit, I focused more on him, paying more attention to his mannerisms, listening more closely to the stories he’d shared with me a dozen times before. I dedicated more of my time to him and less time to tell stories.

So if you have been wondering what happened to my stories, that is the gist of it. Well, that along with some other things I’m working on, but those I will save for another day.

For now, I need to figure out a way to double, triple or even quadruple that number.

Like I said, it's not enough. I have to have more, more than…

“Sixty-Eight"

I love sports and think they can play a huge part in who we become in life.

It isn't even the winning and losing that is most impactful.

But to learn how to communicate, lead and work as a team, I feel is the bigger lesson in sports.

Over the weekend Jose Altuve hit a walk-off homerun and his post-game interview, he proved that even though he only stands at 5 foot 6 inches...

He is the biggest leader in the clubhouse.