WHY NOT

Dean Mannix isn’t a good, but a great coach. As the co-founder and CEO of SalesITV, he has delivered sales performance projects in over 25 countries. He’s recognized as one of Australia’s leading sales performance coaches, advising, coaching, and training senior executives from many of the world’s leading corporations, like Goldman Sachs, Oracle, Canon, News Corp, and plenty of other companies you see in Forbes.

Welcome to another edition of Summa Sessions! This week, we’re talking habits. Johnny led us off with the 8 easy steps to start a new habit, such as taking baby steps and not committing yourself to too many new habits. Ryan then talked about how all of our actions are based in habits we formed and that we should shoot to be 1% better each day. This led to a quote from Danae, “Get in the habit of asking yourself ‘does this support the life you’re trying to create?’” If whatever you’re doing doesn’t support the life you’re trying to create, you may need to get rid of some bad habits. Chris then discussed practicing your habits and the bad habits that he would find himself committing to on the football field. This also led to a new initiative for the group- all of us will be finding a new habit to commit to for the month. Nick ended the session with a quote, “You cannot change your future, but you can change your habits. And surely your habits will change your future.”

On July 1st, 2012, Jared Ward was riding his motorcycle when he got into a major accident. He hit two bumps in the road and skidded across two lanes. It seemed to happen in slow motion. Life flashed before his eyes. When he snapped back to reality, he realized he was in trouble. He had a dislocated clavicle, broken wrist, and cracked ribs. 50% to 60% of his body was covered in road rash. He ended up spending 19 days in a level one trauma center ICU, where doctors told him that he would need help just to walk. He was constantly in and out of surgery.The crash flipped a switch in him- he went from off to on. Sitting in the hospital, he knew his perspective and mindset was about to be challenged, and he rose to overcome this obstacle.

Today is the 4th Summa Session about communication! Johnny led us off with how not to apologize, which is to bring up excuses of why the mistake was made and instead own up to it and hopefully provide a solution. Next up, Chris talked about the difference between extroverts and introverts, and how you need to understand who you’re talking to and how they communicate. Ryan then discussed a pet peeve that many of us share, which is talking to someone who is paying all their attention to their phone. Sure, they may be nodding along to what you’re saying, but they are almost always much more interested in what’s going on on their phone. Danae brought up the 10 ways to love (or the 10 ways to be a good friend and coworker), which included things like “Answer, don’t argue” and “Promise, don’t forget.” Nick ended us off talking about his favorite number, because we’re in Q4! This is where legends are made, this is where games are won. And he also brought up how you’re 95% more likely to accomplish your goals if you say them out loud, so we chanted “half a milli, 50 reviews” to end the session.

On today’s hump day Summa Session, we’re talking communication. Johnny led us off with some horror stories about communication failures at hospitals, which were extreme examples of the importance of communication. Ryan then discussed a very relevant quote, “Assume the person speaking knows something you don’t.” Our team is constantly talking to experts in their field, so every conversation should be treated as a learning opportunity. Danae then brought in the 5 love languages of graphic design and this sparked an idea of talking to clients about how they want to use each of the love languages in their projects. Chris then gave us 5 reasons why effective communication is important, and Nick finished us off talking about the importance of the other types of communication other than words- body language, tone, speed, enthusiasm. These account for 90% of the communication we have, while words are just 10%!

On today’s Summa Session, we’re still talking about communicating! Johnny led us off with a Forbes article on using storytelling in your business to connect emotionally to your clients, which’ll help retain them for longer. Danae then came in with a quote from the book Boundaries, which talked about responding instead of reacting. When you react, the control is with the other person, while responding keeps you in control. Chris then brought up some tips for being an engaged listener- did you know you should favor your right ear? Ryan talked about how communication has evolved throughout the years, from cave drawings to the smart phone, and how our connection with the world has gotten easier and easier. Nick finished us off with a discussion on the internal dialogue you have with yourself and how that affects your mindset.

On Monday’s edition of Summa Sessions, we’ve got a new topic for the week: communication. Johnny led us off with the top 5 reasons that communication is a must for a small business, a fitting topic for our team. Danae then discussed the positive benefits you get when you have open communication, such as improved mental health and greater work and personal relationships. Chris brought in the questions for launching a product - who, what, how, and where are you going to communicate to be effective. This led Ryan to talking about the 5 C’s of communication- be clear, be concise, be compelling, be curious, and be compassionate, and then Nick ended us with talking about how no communication is still communication- if you don’t show up and don’t tell anyone, you are actually telling them that you do not respect their time. He then finished with the 10 benefits of effective communication and discussed how these benefits can and will play out for Summa.

On today’s Wednesday edition of Summa Sessions, we’re still winning. Johnny kicked us off with a story of Gene Hammett, a man who lost $3 million dollars and his business in one day and had to learn the lessons from his loss to start winning again. This led to Chris talking about a favorite saying around here, “Win the day!” Chip Kelly brought it to Oregon when he became the football coach of the Ducks and brought the total mindset along with it. Danae then talked about a quote, “Life is 10% what happens and 90% how you react,” which ties very nicely with a lot of the mindset talk we’ve been having. Ryan then talked about measuring your wins for yourself and not against others, because everyone moves at different speeds. Nick finished our conversation off with the 3 things to bring to every dream- enthusiasm, imagination, and perseverance.

On today’s Summa Session, we’re continuing our talk about wins. Johnny started us off with a WikiHow article about how to win at everything. There were 9 steps, and we discussed each one. Danae then brought a quote that said, “Being Positive in a negative situation isn’t naïve, it’s leadership.” This led to Ryan’s quote from Pat Summit about winning being fun but not the point, the point is not giving up. This sports analogy got Chris talking about how he makes everything a game, which helps him stay motivated so he can keep “winning” at every step of the process. The sports theme continued with Nick, who brought up the Chiefs 49ers Super Bowl, where the Chiefs were down to just a 4.6% winning percentage. Even though the odds were stacked against them, Pat Mahomes went to Tyreek Hill to pick his head up and keep him motivated like a great leader, and Hill ended up converting a huge play that led to the Chiefs game winning drive.

On this week’s Monday edition of Summa Sessions, we’re talking about wins. Johnny kicked off the topic by talking about the power of small wins, which was illustrated in a study by the Harvard Business Review that discussed the progress principle. Danae brought in a quote that followed up the small wins topic, “When you focus on the good, the good gets better.” We talked about appreciating the small victories, which helps you get closer to the big ones. Ryan then brought up a quote, “Eat the frog before it eats you,” which is about tackling your biggest challenge first to get your day started on a victory, and the rest of the day will come easier. But if you wait, the “frog” will eat you, meaning the stress of that big task will weigh on you all day. Nick ended the day’s conversation with a rousing speech about winning the day. Your vision can look incredibly intimidating, but to win the year, you’ve got to win the month, and to win the month, you’ve got to win the week. You’ve got to break down your goal into small victories you can accomplish, and that starts with winning the day.

On today’s fifth and final day of goal setting, Johnny led us off with continuing his theme of the week and wrote down 10 goals that he’d like to accomplish for the year, from getting clients for Summa to learning a song on the piano. Danae then talked about the 10 rules confident people live by, and we discussed the final one, which was surrounding yourself with people that believe in you. This got Ryan talking about a list of 10 goals and the ways we’ve used those templates for our own goals. Chris then brought up Tony Robbins, a goal setter extraordinaire. And Nick closed our week of goal setting talking about the mindset you need to be in to achieve your goals, which is simply to believe that you can do it, and then talked about having a fixed mindset vs a growth mindset and how that affects the way you look at goals and obstacles.

On Thursday’s edition of Summa Sessions, we continued our goal setting conversation by first talking about Bruce Lee’s letter to himself from 1969, which stated that he’d be the most famous Asian movie star, a goal which he achieved in just 4 years before he died. We moved on to a quote from Danae that said, “If the plan doesn’t work, change the plan, not the goal”, which is a good segue into Ryan’s topic which was to keep the end goal in mind. If you see obstacles in your way, that means they’re covering the view of the goal. This obstacle talk got Chris’s topic under way, which was about knowing your resources and asking for help if you need to. Nick ended it by talking about accountability, which got us talking about how we use that for our goals every morning. He also discussed knowing your why, the reason behind your goal, and the self-sabotage that can occur when you get close to your goal, making you think, “Do I deserve this?”

On today’s Summa Session, we continued the goal setting conversation. Johnny started us off with a quote from Michael Jordan about taking each goal step by step- if you want to be a doctor and are getting a C in biology, your first goal should be getting a B. Danae then touched on the 3 goals for balance and harmony- the what (business, career, financial), the why (family, friends, health), and the how (where the growth comes in) and we discussed if you can strive for all at once or if you need to focus on one or the other. Ryan then brought in the 5 golden rules of setting goals and that led to us talking about how we implement these rules every morning we set our goals. Chris’s topic was one of our latest services- cold e-mails- and how each step of the process has its own goal in mind, from the subject line to the call to action. Nick finished us off by talking about how a goal is a road map leading you to where you want to be, where sacrifices must be made and you acquire the skills needed to accomplish that goal along the way.

On today’s Summa Session, we continue our talk on setting goals. Johnny led us off talking about Octavia Butler, who wrote on the inside of her notebook her goals of becoming a best-selling author and turned those dreams into a reality. That led to Danae talking about a podcast she listened to where they discussed setting their goals in the present tense- not “I will” but “I am”- and crossing them off once achieved to start a new goal. She also had two quotes, one from Disney about setting your goals early, and one from Michelangelo about not being afraid to set high goals and fail, but to be wary of setting too easy of goals that are easily achievable. Chris then discussed the 7 pillars of setting goals- deadline, plan, self-discipline, self-control, focusing, systems, and taking action, and we talked about how this strategy applies to our daily goal setting. Nick finished it off on how to transform your thoughts to reality with a quote from The Ultimate Guide to Success.

On this Monday’s edition of Summa Sessions, we are on to the topic of goal setting. Our founder, Nick, just hit the insane goal of running 100 miles, so we decided this would be a fun one for this week. We started off talking about Morolake Akinosun, the US Olympian runner who called her shot on Twitter. She tweeted that in 5 years she would be graduating from college and going to the Olympics and followed it up with confirmation that 5 years later, she accomplished her goals. We then talked about the 5 principles of goal setting- commitment, clarity, challenge, complexity, and feedback, and how these apply to our day to day, where we are constantly setting goals for the day, week, month, and year. Nick then wrapped it up by showing us a note he wrote in July of 2018 that said one of his goals was to run 100 miles. He had attempted it once before but had a setback when he tore his meniscus, but instead of letting that derail him, he just pushed himself even more and was able to accomplish that incredible feat.

On today’s Summa Session, we continue the dive into the world of problem solving. It started with a talk about the famous quote, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” and the mindset of someone in a problem vs someone who has conquered and is looking back at a problem. This led to another quote, “Problem solving leaders have one thing in common: a faith that there is always a better way,” and how we apply this thought to our work and everyday life. Our next topic was from a Tim Ferris TEDTalk, which discusses the DSSS system: Deconstruction, Selection, Sequence, Stakes. Our team talked about how we can improve our system by using this process, especially sequencing. And we ended with a talk on how the haters will always come out when you’re doing something big, and how you need to ignore them because they’ll only bring you down. We also looked at a list of world-changing inventions and talked about how the naysayers were probably all out while those were being invented and look at them now!

Our team spends the first 20-30 minutes of the day with a brainstorming session. We pick a weekly topic to focus on. From there, each of us shares our thoughts and perspective. Our first week is covering problem solving.

Paul Pendergast has been on a journey of advocacy and advancing of LGBTQ businesses since 1992. Doors started opening when leaders of big businesses in San Francisco such as Bank of America and Gap realized that, to be successful advocates for business at large, they’d have to make sure that all groups were benefiting from their actions, and that included LGBTQ ones. Suddenly, Paul found himself sitting next to these CEOs at the table, all advocating for the same business issues, which was a major milestone to be included in these discussions and meetings. These connections continue to have far-reaching effects on the LGBTQ business community today.

With $300 to her name, Lorena Cantarovici came to the states without knowing a word of English. Since then, she became the Founder of Maria Empanada with five locations in the Denver area, won 2017 Colorado Small Business Person of the Year, and earned a spot with Guy Fieri on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.

Our next guest, Fran Roman AKA “The King”, has built a financial and family empire. Fran has always been an extraordinary athlete. In high school, he won the state championship in basketball and led his school to their only undefeated season in football. At the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point, Fran’s success in sports earned him the honor of being inducted into the 1980 Hall of Fame for football and baseball. Fran has been playing racquetball three times a day for 50 years. His unbelievable backhand won him 5 State Single Championships and he finished 3rd in Doubles Nations.Fran’s passion for sports led him to a career in coaching. He started out at Pardeeville High school in Wisconsin. While coaching football, Fran had an undefeated season, won 24 straight games, and helped develop an All-State Quarterback. He became the Athletic Director and also coached baseball and basketball. For additional four years, Fran was the Athletic Director, Head Football & Head Baseball coach at Stevens Point High SchoolThen, Fran got into business. He fell in love with the idea of being his own boss where he could control his time. It worked well with his, “work hard, play hard” mentality. Fran has been working for Equitable for 50 years. He was awarded 35+ times for bringing in $100,000 in production credits and hit $250,000 in production 3 times.Fran’s dedication to his work has allowed him to build a financial and family empire. Today, he shares with us how we can do the same.

Our next guest, Ryan Groth, lives with a growth mindset and it has allowed him to reach high levels of success in athletics, entrepreneurship, and family.Ryan became involved in the family contracting business as a teenager; however, he decided that he did not want to take over the family business and focused on athletics. Through hard work and dedication, he was able to become a professional baseball player and signed with the Los Angeles Angels. His dream of building his career in the major leagues didn’t happen and it left Ryan wondering what was next. Through networking with high performing leaders, he found mentorship with one of the top businessmen in the region and nationally recognized roofing contractor.Over the next 4.5 years, Ryan learned the mindset, vision, strategy, structure, systems, and processes of a $50 million per year local contracting sales organization. Today, Ryan uses that knowledge to grow his own company, Sales Transformation Group. He is on a mission to help contractors transform their companies with predictable sales models.

Our next guest, George Bilbrey, is driven by creating innovative solutions to critical business challenges. George has started and scaled new businesses twice, brought new product categories to market four times, and developed business processes multiple times to solve challenges where the current solution was lacking.George graduated from Duke - Cum Laude in Economics. Then, he received his MBA from the University of North Carolina. From there, he was a partner in the telecommunications group at Mercer Management Consulting. George went on to become the founder of the industry’s first deliverability service provider, Assurance System, which merged with Return Path in 2003.Return Path scaled to $100 million in revenue and was sold to Validity in 2019. Now, George is taking on a new challenge and becoming the CEO of Signpost, a CRM and marketing automation provider.

Mike Villalobos started his career in Silicon Valley and quickly realized his opportunity to have a career in SaaS (software as a service). Shortly after beginning his entrepreneurial journey, Mike was part of the founding team at FuelX. They scaled the SaaS-based advertising company by more than 250% for three consecutive years. As the VP of Sales and Business Development, Mike led FuelX to profitability in 6-months without outside funding and scaled the sales organization from one account executive to a team of twenty-six people.FuelX eventually moved Mike to New York City, where he now has taken on the opportunity to help Teads, an innovative company specializing in digital advertising for the world’s largest brands, build out its performance advertising division.Throughout his career, Mike has become a specialist in scaling startups and shares his insights that can only be gained through experience.

Dr. Ken Keis is an international speaker, author, podcast host, and the leader of Consulting Resource Group that helps organizations worldwide improve employee satisfaction and productivity. Ken’s passion is leading others to experience clarity and joy by creating a life of purpose, and empowering leaders to empower others.

In 2017, Danielle Shoots was named to the Denver Business Journal’s 40 under 40 business leaders. The Colorado Women’s Chamber of Commerce named Danielle one of the top 25 most powerful women in business. She owns the stage as a keynote speaker, including a Ted Talk on leadership. But the weird part is, Danielle is also a millennial...and leads accordingly.

It was not until Randy Brothers realized who he really was as a person, what his purpose was, and what his God given strengths and weaknesses were that he finally became self-aware enough to embrace himself as a leader and a visionary of a company.

Brie Reis was pregnant and became a mom at 18. Drugs and alcohol were the foundation of her life from 15-years-old on. She became shackled to drugs and her life as an addict.Today, Brie is one of the youngest female, bi-racial CEOs in the construction space. Elite Roofing sold $20 million in revenue in 2018 and has been named as one of the Inc 5000 fastest growing companies in the nation two years in a row

At only 21-years-old, Kyler Williams was a successful salesman for Wells Fargo, but wanted to start living life on his terms. Kyler’s first attempt at entrepreneurship was his selling products on Amazon. From there, he started his own moving company, I Like To Move It, Move It. Kyler was running multiple moving crews and helped develop a team that was much older than him.Just like any artist, Kyler has created multiple paintings in desire of creating that masterpiece. Today, Kyler owns Dream Painting where he paints the interior and exterior of residential properties. Kyler understands that he must paint his dreams into reality and live accordingly.

Madison Dorenkamp, truly captured the crown - the crown of Miss Colorado 2019 and earned a trip to the Miss USA 2019 Pageant in Reno, Nevada. When you see Madison - you see the pageant photos, her beauty, her ability to walk on stage in 6 in each heels, strut her stuff in a swimsuit and then sound so intelligent in an interview.What you don’t see is her journey, resilience, and dedication to handle the pressure and win Miss Colorado. Madison competed in the pageant four times prior to finally capturing the crown.

Danny Needham is a former D1 football player who tackled Barry Sanders and Thurman Thomas in the same game. His mindset of having no self-limitations helped him become a successful serial entrepreneur. Danny teaches us all how we can become limitless.

Summer Forrest is an international keynote speaker that discusses - manifestation & visualization, self love, overcoming obstacles, mindful business, financial soundness, domestic violence prevention, and motherhood. She continues to expose her naked soul to live at her full potential and is now transforming the lives of others.

Matt Lengel is passionate about helping children have access to education, creating generational change for their families and communities. Matt teaches us all that knowledge is power.

Mike Claudio, Founder of WinRate Consulting, teaches us how the proper training and process makes it possible to win fast and win often.

Omar Vinas left his career to start Keen - a platform that strives to continuously empower purchasing decisions by streamlining the online shopping process. Omar teaches us how to create a vision and make it your reality.

Greg Marthaler Jr started "Solutions for You" four years ago. SFY is a growing organization with 40+ employees with regular goal setting to achieve 500% growth in five years. Greg teaches us the fundamentals of getting started and our goals in motion.

At just 26-years-old, Chris Pendergast became the VP of Sales at a finance company in Chicago. He was set. His career was in motion, his income was rather wealthy. Yet, he decided to risk it all and become President & Co-Founder of Summa Media. He teaches us all how to play risky and reap the rewards.

Beau Brooks is the Senior Vice President of Sales and Customer Experience at Formstack, a husband, a father, a leader at church, an ultra marathon runner, and so much more. Beau teaches us how your success can be a product of building and leading effective teams.

Daniel lost his life to Leukemia at 2.5-years-old, but he left a legacy that is impacting the kids who need him most. His mom, Jeri Jones teaches us how we can all leave our own legacy.

Dmitry Lipinskiy lived in his car for an entire month after moving from Siberia to America. Today, he owns five businesses and teaches us all how to live our dream life.

Nathan Patterson quit his job as a software salesman to pursue his dreams of playing baseball. He signed a contract to pitch for the Oakland Athletics and reminds us all that fate loves the fearless.

Brock Maier teaches us how to "go all In" on life and reap the rewards. A few hours after recording this episode, Brock won $20,000 playing Texas hold'em.

Jessica Diers, Owner of Diers Exhibit Group, shares how to be fierce and unleash your gifts on the world.

Without even realizing it, we are salespeople. Scott Lopina teaches us how to master the art of persuasion to influence people and get what you want.

Phillipe Christodoulou, Founder of The Eco Laundry Company, shares how to turn your intuitiveness into hyperdrive.