Atomic Actions: Small Steps, Big Results

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Welcome to the Executive Connect Podcast, a show for the new generation of leaders. Join Melissa R. Skad as she speaks to a wide variety of guests that bring new insights into leadership, prosperity, and personal growth. While now it has all the answers, by building a community of open-minded and engaged leaders, we hope to give you the tools you need to help you find your own path to success. [Music] Welcome to the Executive Connect Podcast.

I'm so excited to have Michael Peterson here with us today to talk about fear. Michael is a peak-performance coach, a business strategist, an author of two books, dominant your market, and atomic actions. His unique blend of elite, athleticism, and entrepreneur success has helped him launch two successful seven-figure businesses. Welcome, Michael. Melissa, thank you so much for having me on. I'm very, very excited.

And I'm excited today to talk about fear. I think fear plays a very important role in people's day to day lives, and whether people are able to make decisive decisions on their life, whether what they're eating, what they're doing, where they're working. So from your perspective, talk to me about fear and how it plays a role in people's lives, and how they're able to overcome certain fears and take action. Well, you know, fear is interesting because the way I look at fear is it's a perception.

It's not real. It may feel real, but it's not real, you know, and so we've got to be really good at staying in the moment. They're very present, and we've got to be able to assess, is it life-threatening? Because human beings by nature were wired for survival, okay? So when we sense fear, is it real fear? Like is my life in danger? Is my family in danger? Because that's real fear, right? That's real.

Anything outside of that, in my humble opinion, is fictitious fear. It's just what's it? What's the definition fear is? False? What's that? What's that? The acronym? God's darn it. Evidence appearing real. God, I'm blanking right now. Yeah, so there, I mean, that's the definition of fear right there, you know? So I think a lot of people, they live their life in fear because if they feel like they make any decision at all, it's going to be this life-threatening, dramatic result.

And so it's better to stay in the comfort zones and make no choice at all. And let's just stay comfortable, but what really gets me and why I wrote this book is we have opportunities around us all day every day. We have thoughts, ideas and opportunities that come through our brains thousands of times every day. Well, because we go on our subconscious brain, 95% of the day, we are missing out on all these opportunities.

And I think a lot of people, everybody has a good idea, everybody has a thought that's like, wow, that's kind of interesting. And then they just let it go. And for me, I've lived my life, basically pulling the trigger, pardon the pun, immediately, truly immediately. So if I get a thought or idea, I'll assess it very quickly. Fear does not even come into my brain. It really doesn't.

And what I don't say that to make it sound like I'm some Superman, but it's a trained situation, right, where you repeatedly over time when you think of a thought, you might have fear creep in. And then you say, you assess, is it real or not? From there, can you create a tiny action? You can do literally right now. And I mean right now.

You can do the smallest of action. I don't care if it's writing something in a notebook. It's sending an email. It's what it's getting out of your chair and doing something. That's going to trigger something in your brain to go, I can do this. Like this is not that big a deal. And the whole idea is you need to compound successes over and over and over. But success to me are the small micro actions we take that get us closer towards how we want to live our lives.

So many people get overwhelmed with the vastness of it, the bigness of it, right? Like, oh my God, I can't do this. Well, when you feel overwhelmed, that's where you need to stop yourself. Number one, say, why do I feel overwhelmed? Because I feel overwhelmed a lot. Why am I feeling you've got to get in touch with emotions when you have this fear kick in, you've got to stop yourself and literally have this reflection going on.

And literally talk to yourself and say, is this really scary? Is this really a scary thing? Or is it something that I'm fabricating in my mind? And I'm just going to let it go by like I've done every single time. Absolutely. I think fear can be so crippling. And we put these things in our brains that like you said, false evidence appearing real. And we might miss out like you mentioned on really big things in our life are job opportunities or relationships for people.

And I look at them like opportunities. Like you mentioned, you have trained that muscle in your brain to push through and persevere through struggles by just training your brain like a muscle. Right. I think of like saying yes to things and not being so scared is a trained muscle just like lifting away and stepping up your weights. Let's talk a little bit about a lot of times. I think in my world, very ceased we VP executives are like, you know, I can't I don't have experience in this area.

I'm working for 20, 30 years in this space. I don't know how to do this role. Let's talk a little bit about techniques that people can use to overcome fear like in this example, somebody has been working as in, I don't know HR and they have the opportunity to move into more of a COO role, but they're like, oh, I don't know how to run a PNL. You know, let's talk about techniques that they can use to overcome procrastination to increase their productivity and an opportunity to make decisions.

That's and I love that topic. So I believe in we live our lives surrounded by triggers and I did a whole chapter in my book on triggers, right? I think triggers fascinate me, you know, why does a trigger happen and then why do we respond typically and not a good way that moves us forward in our lives, right?

Triggers come from our past. They come from previous experiences. And I think when somebody's thinking about a new job role, you know, we live in a world that I think is, we've got this sense of perfectionism, right?

Everything's perfect. We have to be on, on all the time. We've got to nail it every time. And that's not realistic and that's paralyzing that's paralyzing in our personal life and it's paralyzing in business. That sense of perfectionism. And I think when somebody's considering a new role, one of the first steps you've got to do is speak to somebody that's already in the role, whether it's in your company or in another company, right?

And then there's a phenomenal platform for that. You could literally on your own, your company doesn't even need to know it, not to sound sneaky, but you could literally seek out people in that role and see if they would be willing to spend 10 or 15 minutes with you and ask some pertinent questions so that you're arming yourself with, OK, this isn't what I thought it was.

I was so fearful of this. I didn't think I could do it, but gosh, I've talked to a few people now in that role. OK, I can do this. So, you know, you're building up self confidence because I think everybody in life, including me, although I come across as a, I don't have a lack of self confidence, but we all have it right in posture, send them whatever you want to call it.

But the only way to build your confidence is to surround yourself with people that you aspire to be, and that could be in the next position you're looking for, it could be in a full blown career transition, right? That could be where I'm done with this, this line of work. I can't do it anymore. I'm not passionate about it. I'm not fulfilled.

That's when you need to seek outside advice to do that. So I was strongly recommend anybody in that situation, first and foremost, to seek out somebody in that role. And, you know, if you, if you make an attempt to connect with somebody and let's say they're in that role. But maybe they're not nice people and they don't want to give you their time. We'll go to the next one and go to the next one. And that's what I call that relentless persistence.

Relentless persistence, because a lot of us have this quit mentality, right? And, you know, the quiet quitting going on in all the companies, right? But quitting to me is not an option. I've never lived my life to quit anything. Now, is there point in times where you have to pivot like you've, it's run its course. Whatever you're doing, it's run its course and you really realize I've exhausted everything.

This, this isn't going to go anymore. Then yes, you need to pivot. But is that quitting? No, that's not quitting. That's just pivoting. That's being present in the moment to realize this isn't getting me where I got want to go. It's time to make a move in a different direction.

Well said and I like one really important point I think you hit on is job shadowing. So if you're looking at another job and getting on LinkedIn, finding somebody else that has that role, you know, finding information about the role, understanding the positives and the negatives and you know job shadowing. And you know, when I was really in my career, I was decided if I wanted to be an attorney and I job shadowed an attorney and I'm like absolutely not I don't want to be a fat attorney.

And so you nailed it. I think, you know, getting out and trying the shoe on I always joke because I was shoe person, you know, trying a pair of shoes on and if you don't like the way they look and they don't fit put another pair on and I think to your point, the relentless determination.

And making decisions and not giving up is super key to anybody and their lives, whether it's a job or a spouse or a sport, it's all similar, it's all tied together and I think, you know, you mentioned just a number of great points, but that's really key is is getting out there and trying it on and if you're not a math person, don't go in math roles, right. And on it extrovert, don't go in extrovert roles, but try it on and see if it might fit and I think to your point.

So for giving advice to the listeners who are struggling with making decisions, are there any practical tips that you can share with them on how they might be able to practice this if they are currently paralyzed by fear and any decision right now.

You know, I write a lot about this and I call it micro actions right it's it's it's taking the smallest action in the moment so you know, for example, you know, New Year's resolutions and I used to be a fitness trainer right so I know all the excuses, I know all the BS and I'm sorry it sounds so harsh, but you know, it is what it is right so when people say I need to lose 30 pounds and they look at the big end goal of losing 30 pounds right.

And they think oh my god that's just never going to happen right well you shouldn't be looking so that's that's that's an example of yes that's your long term goal, but you've got a gap where you're currently at and where you want to be right that's a gap and what people don't realize is that.

As human beings we don't take action typically until we feel a sense of urgency okay urgency and urgency in sales and marketing we know that works right when you create urgency people like oh my gosh you know this thing's available for one more day I want to get it right well same thing in our lives we need to almost factor we need to create urgency.

If it's not there created right and you can create it in such a way that like let's go back to the weight loss so one lose 30 pounds it looks overwhelming oh my gosh I've got all this work ahead of me I got to change my eating I got to start working I got all these things well how about just the very next more put shoes and a work out of it at the foot of your bed the night before that's an action it's a very small action it's all it's doing is taking your clothes and putting them in a spot right you put them there when you swing your legs up the bed.

Your feet are literally landing in your shoes bingo there they are right there well shoot if I've just landed on my shoes and they're my workout shoes I got no excuse right here we go I'm often running and you go do a 10 minute walk or you go but it's people need to understand that the overwhelm of our life all the noise is happening out there all the competition the lack of loyalty and companies you know Charlotons all these things.

All these the bad people the good people we can't focus on that we have to we have to get all that out of our minds and focus on what's important to us internally inside and I think we spent our lives through the social narrative and I write about this often we've been fed a social narrative that I think's wrong and I think a lot of people are finally waking up to it right and I think part of that is we we're looking for satisfaction happiness outside of us.

The BMW the Rolex the new job the house to this to that right and I think a lot of people realizing even when they get that they're still not happy they're still not happy well why is that because they didn't do it internally we have to make we have to take actions in our life that are aligned with what we want inside not outside super super important.

Yeah I love what you said to two pieces I think you know going back to the weight loss piece if you don't see yourself 30 pounds lighter you need to pick something that a that you believe and start at five pounds start that you're exercising one day a week put your shoes at the foot of the bed like you mentioned I think it's it's small actions and small turns to achieving whatever you're you're wanting to achieve.

And if you can't put the shoes by your bed and you can't remember to lay your clothes out you need to find other ways like an accountability partner or paying a trainer if you're paying a trainer 200 bucks it's more likely you're going to show up.

Because you're paying for it then oh you know it's raining outside it's cold I'm tired I didn't sleep last night we all can make excuses we you know we have a thousand reasons why we can't do things and I think to your book exactly what your book talks about is it's tiny actions it's tiny things that we can do on our day today to move the needle and I think you nailed it by putting the shoes out and that's one step.

And then if you put the shoes out and you step over the shoes you need to try on a different action the next day and so you can develop a routine and a rhythm with what you're trying to accomplish. Now let me add to that if you step over your shoes and don't put those shoes on you need to stop and reflect and ask yourself right now as honest as you can why am I not putting those shoes on.

Why so you know it's so interesting because even in like the medical system right we we get prescribed drugs that don't prevent the situation it's just treating the symptoms right and I'm all about prevention so when it comes to your mindset when it comes to business growth personal growth whatever it is you've got to find out why you keep repeating these patterns over and over again because the definition of insanity as we know is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.

Well if we keep doing that every day if we don't make a change the smallest of changes we are going to get the same life we get day in and day out and I call that mediocrity. You know I'm a pretty hard hit guy I am who I am I can't change who I am and I don't know if anybody really wants to be mediocre at anything right and if you do want to be mediocre then.

Okay I go live that life I guess but you know if you live a life of mediocrity here's why look at this and I wrote about this at the end of my book so here's it here's a trailer or what's that called spoiler alert I call it the deathbed of regrets okay so I heard a phrase yesterday that I thought was really cool regret minimization regret minimization I thought wow now i'm going to look into that one so I can't tell you a lot about it because I just heard it but I loved it because.

The question you need to ask yourself is when you get a thought or an idea or an opportunity presented yourself which happens multiple times a day if you did not take a little action on any of those would you regret it on your deathbed would you regret it right because if you can stop yourself and be present and ask that question what I regret if I didn't do anything about this that's that's a strategy and a tactic to stop yourself in the moment and say.

You know I've been a stop and take a little bit longer look at this and maybe you take an extra two minutes an extra five minutes right you take a little extra length of time to then decide should I take an action or not right so that is so critical I think.

There's not a lot of instruction or guidance there's a lot of memes out there and there's a lot of fluffy stuff out there that that I mean people jump on the bandwagon but yet after they're done reading it they don't do anything about it which is taking action and then they're still living the same life they've lived for years.

I agree I think you know it's a lifestyle change right what no matter what your goals are if it's health and wellness unfortunately a lot of times you have to get the bad doctor reports to take action and in some cases we've seen during the pandemic you can do 20 years of not taking care of yourself it takes time there's no magic pill no matter what we see online it's it's a lifestyle change for yourself and that includes not just health and wellness.

Not just health and wellness who you associate what your goals are and even if you're comfortable being you know mediocre but what does that look like for you are where are you happy I will I want to you know do this thing and but you still got to set goals to achieve these things and push yourself out of your comfort zone no matter what it is that you're looking to do with your life and I think you nailed on it you know I hear a lot.

I wish I would have done this right what have finished my degree or I would have had a call or I would have oh I couldn't because of these people and and I think we got a leader of cells right we have to lead ourselves through our life and we can't blame the pandemic or the politics or the weather or whatever is happening in our lives you have to take accountability for what you have and where you are in your life and if you don't have the skills and the tools

similar to what your book is about we need to create actions and lead ourselves to where we want to go and you're you I love that that saying and I I got it it's a great saying because I I don't want to live a life where I look back and have 80 regrets personally either I want to live a life that says I tried I failed and I pivoted or I retried and I got better at something

and now I'm happy where I am and I think you you nailed that point is is making decisions and decisions lead to habits and they're presented to us every single day and I forget the the number but we have like 200 choices a week on decisions and most of which is about what we eat and when we eat and how we eat and how much we eat

and so those tiny little decisions you know not putting a gallon of ice cream in the the fridge the freezer if it's not fair you're not going to eat it right and we can make the effort to go to the store to get the ice cream we can make the effort to get to the gym

it's the smallest decisions this is not it's not rocket science you know but I think we as human beings we tend to make things more difficult we think that the more difficult that is the better it's going to be or the more impressive the result is going to be and that's you know I'm all about you know I turned 60 about six months ago and I was a big deal for me right so but because of that I've done a lot of reflecting on my life right you know I'm a single man again

I'm traveling huge on my list now I want to travel the world and do all these things but you have to make decisions that are aligned with your core values your vision and your purpose core values vision and purpose so when I coach clients and I work with a lot of CEOs and executives we lay we lay that out immediately what are your core values what is your vision and what is your purpose right and you hear that a lot in leadership but I'm talking about it for the individual

what it or you because you know it really comes down to this so it might sound selfish but it's true if you don't get yourself right you can't make anybody else right you can't make a company right you can't make a spouse right you got to get yourself right first and that you know that self care that's whatever you want to call it but you know I want to I want to circle back on something that you said that I don't want to forget because I forget it because my mind goes a hundred miles an hour

you said the word wish and could whatever here's six words I want the listeners to remove out of their out of their mind their dictionary everything wish could should try hope hope I hope try wish could should what was the other one there's six of them gosh trying to get up but you get my point right because when you catch yourself saying phrases that start with I wish I hope I could I should I'll try

those are not words of conviction those aren't words that really say I'm going I'm going for it right and when I say I'm going for it it goes back to the micro actions not going for it meaning yes you're going to make some life changing decision that all through your family and all through everything you do that's not what I'm talking about I'm talking about the micro actions that lead to the bigger outcomes right so those those mental words of should could

try wish and hope there you go there's just six right there I hate those words now hope hope can be restrained and because people say oh well you know that hope you know you know that of anything what I'm talking about here is that that weak mind setup will I hope things work out

well go G were you giving the control because you just given it all up you don't have any control when you say I hope things work out right so hope is a word that some people will argue with me on and push back on that no no no I think hope is is important yes in certain scenarios but when you when you make it the way I just said it which I hope things work out I hope I get that job I hope I get that you're not going to get it because there's no conviction there.

Well said and yes it's it brings me back to something my dad used to tell us growing up we weren't allowed to say can't like I can't ride my bike or I can't pick up my track. I love your dad like we weren't allowed to say can't and every time we did that and I think to your point when you're used to saying with those words you don't even realize that you're saying them.

I challenge the listeners to find an accountability partner not just themselves but others at any time they say should have or can't or won't to be aware of what you're saying because it's directing your life a direction that you may not want and I realize that bad things do happen to people I've had bad things in my life and we've all been through tough things but it doesn't dictate who we are we dictate we are it's our life

and and we have to accept the bad things that happen learn from them forgive the people and move on with our life otherwise you're going to spend your life in overthinking fear struggling indecisive and you're just going to be kind of stuck is the word I think of is just stuck in the place that you don't want to be.

So I absolutely agree with the the the six words that we shouldn't be using them and in in process the difficult things that go that are happening to you sometimes it takes a year sometimes two years sometimes 10 years you have to spend 10 years rebuilding your health because you've gone through cancer and chemo and other things but to your point in your book at home and habits it's one little habit and those habits build on top of habits and then they become normal.

They become just like shampoo in your hair before you condition it's it's something that's just automatic that we do naturally. Well you know I want to say one thing number one is I tell my actions not habits so I think a lot of it but I think a lot of people do that right but I want to talk about habits for a minute. So James Clears book is phenomenal and my book has no cross over to his whatsoever if anything at the beginning of the book I give him a little bit of a

you know pump up or whatever like great book great book whatever my book has nothing to do with your book but what I will say is this so much you know his book is sold 10 million copies and still selling nine years later awesome right he's got a newsletter list of I don't know a million people whatever but here's what I'm going to say to this you don't have a habit without action.

It takes action to create the habit so when everybody keeps talking about all I need to change my habits it's all about habits habits habits habits habits yes in the end you can create habits but it's from consistent actions that creates the habit therefore actions are the precursor to habits right so theoretically Mr.

Clear if you're listening right now everybody should buy my book first read my book then get your book and then we got a we got a great situation so and that's no knock on his book is I've read his book three times but when I wrote my book I took my mind completely off his book like there I don't think I said there would have it three times and three

and three and 76 pages so it's it's not about the habit it's about the action first right and yeah and that's a good point I think if you're not comfortable taking action you got to practice it you know you got to build that muscle you got to build that muscle if you're an introverted person and

here I can't do this I'm introverted I can't present in front of a room you got to try it and fail and then redo it and fail again and then fail again in the more that you fail the more that you learn in the better you become and you strengthen that that muscle through like you mentioned action we know I will say this to me personally me personally I hate the word fail I hate that word because it's it's it's lessons learned it's not fail right you don't it's not failure until you quit

if you did something and truly just said I'm out I quit and you really should have stuck with it a little longer that's failure then yes that was failure but in my mind

we need to live our life like this so I love the idea of reframing right reframing thoughts reframing words reframing everything so when you think of the word the tactic and strategy of reframing you know I can't do something I will do something right I'm not confident I would right I mean when you when you reframed things in the moment literally in the and when I work with these CEOs and I coach them

we talk a lot about this right because you know I've had the pleasure even in my previous life I was a private fitness trainer in the home with these high powered male CEOs I told you about that on one of our previous calls and you know these guys really successful men I mean you know worth a hundred million dollars eighty million dollars you know so companies for ten figures and I would go in their home when the door shuts and I would see the real deal

and I was like oh my god like you know one kind of mine so long ago you might not be around anymore but he sold his company for hundred twenty five million dollars and you know people might say well that's a small business well I don't know if you got a hundred twenty five million dollars handed you that pretty good I don't know so he sold it he was on the front page of the newspaper up in Oregon where I'm from

and he hired you heard about me from one of his CEO buddies and I went to his home like a week later and I was well intimidated five million dollar home on the water blah blah blah up and up in Washington but what I realized when he shut the door was number one he's a human being like everybody else and I love that right and I didn't treat him any different that treat the guy down the street

and what he did from that is he said he well the first thing he said is who the hell are you because nobody talked to him like that right but what I say to all that is that no matter how successful you are no matter where you are in your life we all have things to work on and if you if you if people get delusional with your ego and they live their life based on ego you're going to hurt a lot of people along the way

and most importantly you're going to hurt yourself along the way so there is a point in time and unfortunately for a lot of us we don't get into later in life where we become more humble we be humility kicks in and we might reflect back on previous years ago wow I was a real I was a real dick back then right you know and I think if you can take ownership in those things

there's a phrase I use a lot and I call it own your outcome and it's written in both my books both of these books right own your outcome and I put it in all cast because I tell my kids this it's not going to come to you you got to go get it it's not going to come to you you got to go get it I say that to them all the time I told my don't children so anybody in life if you're not happy you have a choice to make it better

you have the choice it's not up to anybody else your spouse your boss your children your friends whoever you hang out with it's up to you to make the choice to become happier absolutely absolutely I well said well said all around in closing couple final question actually really just one final question for you top three takeaways for our listeners on fear I know we talked on if you anything else that you can think of that you want to leave with our listeners before we close

well just remember this fear is made up in our mind people need to realize fear is fictitious it's not real unless it's life threatening and people say well you don't know that's not true you know I'm driving in the car and I got in a car wreck last week so I'm fearful this week

well gosh if you live your life like that and I understand there's PTSD and all of that so I don't want to downplay that but I do want to say that we have control over our thoughts in our mind if we don't have control over our thoughts or a mind who does right so when it comes to fear you got to realize find out right away it's not it's not truly fear

it's not life threatening once you realize it's not life threatening what minor action can you take right now right now to overcome that perceived I'll say the word perceived fear what action can you take now with no delay literally no delay this should be this should be something within 60 seconds

the two minutes that you decide well if I do this little thing right here that's going to move me forward and get me pass that fear it's going to break through that wall of fear it might not completely eliminate the fear but you'll start making progress right because I totally believe that it's never the outcome it's a progress towards the outcome right we all have a vision but if that vision so far out you know and you know

for leaders it could be I want to double the revenues of my company from 100 million to 200 million okay well you got a reverse engineer that you got a reverse engineer year by year by year month by month day by day by day and then create all the actions that are lined up with that new vision

so I think when you when it comes to fear people need to really stop and reflect on why do I feel it why am I feeling this fear and typically it doesn't take a lot of deep reflection to realize gosh I shouldn't be afraid of this this is a joke this is ridiculous right this is self talk by the way so I think if people look at it that way but the only way to combat fear is you have to be in the moment

you have to be present and you have to reflect on why do I feel this fear right now and what can I do to overcome this fear right now I'm all about decisiveness and that's why I wrote the dang book right and I was fortunate that my ex wife we get along with fantastic when she read the book she wanted read it right she said give it to me give it to me give it to me and she said can I write a letter in the front of this book and I thought what and she goes

you are this book I got goosebumps all of my arms right now she goes you are this book and I thought go for it and she wrote a very amazing letter at the front of this book so I don't know how many authors have their ex spouses right a positive letter in a book that's seen by thousands and 10,000 p. I don't know but that was pretty cool

oh yeah I think that's really it's a testament to your character and knowledge as a person and I think you so much for being here and sharing your information with our listeners tell us how we can connect with you and get your book

well thank you so much this was amazing you and I are so aligned in so many ways I mean I I feel like I've met a new friend with you and I hope we stay in contact forever but and I appreciate that but you know atomic actions actions not habits atomic actions is on audible it's on Amazon you can go get it just type in the phrase atomic actions there it is I also put together I do a lot of coaching with people that are not having their current role in their job

or they're considering leaving their role and so I do what I call a clarity break through session it's a full blown 90 minute zoom call I go deep into barriers and overcoming the barriers that I come up with an action plan after the call then we do a 30 30 day call afterwards but people a lot of the people weren't ready for this commitment yet because it's a commitment right so I put together a free assessment a 60 second assessment

I would like to send you listeners to this assessment and the assessments at www.Mike Peterson dot com slash clarity slash and Peterson spelled P E D E R S E N if people listening because they're going to probably go P E T E R S O N

so let me spell it one more time www.Mike P E D E R S E N dot com slash clarity go take that free assessment Thank you so much go do it take the assessment take action so you can live your best life that's all for us today thank you so much for joining the executive connect partner you've been listening to the executive connect podcast if you have questions or ideas on how to bring leadership to the next level email us at executive connect podcast at gmail dot com

and don't forget to subscribe she can catch every new episode until next time you (upbeat music)