I studied marketing in college and while most of
the classes were a bunch of BS and I
went over that in my don't go to
college video. There was one class that I
took that was amazing. It was called
Business Ethics. Now, that doesn't sound
like that great of a class. That
doesn't sound like the type of class
where you hear things that would change
your life, but it did change my life and
mostly was because of this one book that
we're going to go over in this video
called The Four Agreements by the Miguel
Ruiz. It's basically four agreements that
you make with yourself in order to live
your life better. And live like a better
human. So without further ado let's jump
into it. Agreement number one is be
impeccable with your word. The point of
this agreement is to make sure that
you're not lying to yourself or to other
people. Basically, what he says, be
impeccable with your word, he means if you
tell somebody that you're going to be in
a coffee meeting at 11am, you're always
gonna be there.
You're not going to do like a
last-minute cancellation or anything
like that. And I found in my life the most
successful people will always show up
regardless of whether they want to be
there or not. I know there's so many times,
recently even, last couple weeks, last
couple months, where I didn't feel like
showing up to meetings. And it's usually
the ones that I don't feel like showing
up to that are the most game-changing.
For instance, there were a couple people
that put themselves on my Calendly for
Experiment 27 and looking at their
website off the bat I would have said
this isn't a good fit for us, but talking
to them it was either, that was just a
placeholder website and they had some
other company that wanted to talk about
or it was just a good opportunity either
way. Both of those times that it's
happened in the last couple weeks it's
been great. So had I not been impeccable with
my word, had I left and not gone to
those meetings I would have missed out
on some potential deals and some
potential new contacts. Number two is
don't take anything personally. And my
business ethics teacher said this works
both ways. So when somebody says really
bad things about you. Haters as they call
them. Trying to take you down. You
don't think about that feedback.
You try to get like the grains, right?
If there's something that's a
feedback that you can actually use to
improve then try to take that, but if
it's something like I hate your hair or
you've got really bad teeth or something
like that. That's the type of feedback
you don't want to listen to. And then the
other side is actually he said don't
listen to good feedback either. So if I
gave a speech and someone was like
that's the greatest speech I ever heard.
My teacher's point, and actually I think
Miguel Ruiz talks about this in the
book as well, is that's that guy giving
feedback really to himself.
So whether he says that was the greatest
speech he ever heard or that was the worst
speech he ever heard
that's really his opinion and his
lifestyle and his whole world coming
into that one comment. So really you
can't listen either way when it's good
or bad. The only person you can really, at
the end of the day, listen to is yourself.
So number three is don't make assumptions.
He's talking about in life and in
business and in general don't assume
that you understand how somebody else
feels just because you've had some
interaction with them or you're seeing
actions. A bunch of times in the past for
me I have thought that people were being
malicious or that people were just
making stupid mistakes, but what
really happens is, you know, they don't
understand or I'm just not getting the
full picture.
So if I had jumped on those people and
got angry that would've just made
me look pretty stupid at the end of it
was it all figured out. So don't make
assumptions is pretty big when it comes
to interpersonal communication and also
for feeling happy, at the end of the
day. I feel happy when I think
everybody's just trying to do their best
in the world. That's the kind of
frame that I always attack things
through. Everyone's trying to do their
best and if they're being malicious or
being mean I just dig in deeper and try
to figure out why that is, but
not making assumptions about it. And then
rule number four is always do your best.
That means in everything you do you're
trying as hard as you possibly can.
Whether you're going to succeed or not
is kind of
up to life. Recently, we were in a pitch
with a client and our whole team rallied.
We built this amazing pitch
deck, we showed a bunch of our results, a bunch
of our case studies. We customized the whole thing
for this client and at the end of it
they said they didn't want the business.
They didn't want to work with us
right now. And I didn't fault my team I
didn't fall myself because literally we
did every single thing we could have
done to make it work.
Everything was customized. The
pricing was right the packages
were fair, everything was good.
So in that situation I can't feel sad
and I can't even feel like... I don't even
feel like it was a failure because we
learned a lot about how to put together
a presentation. So always do your best is
the final point because if you always do your best
you'll always succeed somewhere. Maybe in
your own heart.
Okay, thanks for watching the video. I'm
Alex Berman. If you need marketing
support for your digital agency check out
Experiment 27 and if you need more B2B
sales training subscribe to this channel
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