May 23, 2019
There is a cost to doing nothing. Sometimes even, a very high price. Every entrepreneur, coach, influencer, storyteller, anyone with a message should understand the cost of doing nothing, of not taking action, of not signing up for your course, your coaching program or working with you as a consultant
People are missing out if they don't work with you and you need to be able to communicate that clearly.
Transcription
Kyle Gray:
The cost of doing nothing. There is sometimes a very high price for not doing something, for not taking action. Every entrepreneur, coach, influencer, storyteller, anybody with a message should understand the cost of doing nothing, of not taking action of, of not signing up for your course or your coaching program or working with you as a consultant. People are missing out if they don't work with you and you need to be able to communicate that clearly. Now, before we get into any more technical aspects of the story, let me give you an example. So last weekend I went down to Moab, Utah with three of my best friends, and we're driving down for our annual climbing trip we take together. This is the first day, we've set up our camp, we're all very excited. We're loving the warm weather, it's been a very long and cold winter in Utah and it's good to see everybody.
Kyle Gray:
Some of us haven't seen each other since the year before, so we're all really excited and we are driving to the first canyon, we're going to rock climbing. As we're driving to our destination, we pass the entrance to a different canyon called Grandstaff Canyon. I have a flashback of the last time I was hiking in that canyon. It's filled with lush green poison ivy, a very dangerous plan that at the time I knew too little about. Some plants can just sting you and right away you know what's happened. There's a plant here in Utah called stinging nettle or even little bristly thorn plants, those ones are very obvious and very simple. Ouch, let's move away. Poison ivy, however, is much more dangerous. It's a slow toxin that can take days to express itself and weeks to fully heal. But happily for me, that sign with Grandstaff Canyon written on it rushes past us and I'm very happy that it's long gone.
Kyle Gray:
So we start to walk around a precarious trail, meandering alongside a cliff, heading to where we planned to climb. We set up our ropes and get out our gear and have a great day of climbing. It was a very proud day for all of us. There was a climb there that we miss identified as a very, very easy climb but turned out to be a much higher difficulty than any of us expected to climb on that trip. It started easy with plenty of places to put your hands and feet and you were moving up the mellow incline. But about a third of the way up, the climb transforms from an easy warm up to an intense vertical climb, which is like the outside corner of a building. This can be challenging because it's hard to see all of your options for where your feet and hands can go because they're usually around a corner or sometimes you just have to grab onto the corner itself, to pull yourself up these rocks.
Kyle Gray:
It leaves you with a big feeling of exposure since there is a lot of open air around you and there's a lot of uncertainty that you have to fight through. You're climbing on a rope but the rope is below you and there's metal bolts running up in the wall that you need to clip into your rope as you climb up. So between each bolts on the wall, there's the chance that you can fall a small amount, even though it's safe to do with a competent person on the other end of the rope belaying you, it can still test anyone's nerves being high up on a cliff and feeling like you're about to fall. So I play it very safe as I climb up the wall and I have to trust setting my feet and hands in tiny cracks on the walls, small ledges or sloped in sandy surfaces where you're not so much relying on your grip, but more of the friction between the sand in your hand to hold you, which is very, very scary and sometimes you do slip.
Kyle Gray:
So why do I do this stuff? I don't really know, but I've always had a craving to. I think it's fun to test yourself and put yourself in situations where you have to keep a clear mind even when things feel risky. So having faced our fears and climbed up some tough cliffs, we left feeling invincible and encouraged. The climbing took most of the day, but we had a little bit of time for a small adventure before we return to our camp for dinner. I knew of a small grotto where a pool of water sits surrounded by these cliffs, dripping freshwater down and collecting in that pool with this beautiful blue green color. It's an amazing site that's off the beaten track, so we pile in the car and start heading that direction and pass the Grandstaff Canyon sign again. The grotto is the next canyon over.
Kyle Gray:
It's not a well trafficked area. The Canyon leading to it is narrow, so there's a lush green vegetation and a small stream moving up the canyon. It's a welcome change from the hot desert sun and rough sandstone that defines Moab. It was also a particularly wet winter this year and so the canyon is teeming with life. New Spring flowers are growing, snake grass is popping out of the ground like little bamboo shoots and green vines are creeping up the trees along the trail. I continue on cautiously repeating, leaves of three don't touch me. I've been in this canyon many times before and had never had a problem, but I want to be careful as I'll never forget that first trip to Grandstaff Canyon that left my legs, arms and chest covered in a horrible rash a few years back. You can get just a little oil from poison ivy on you and inadvertently spread it all over your body without realizing it until it's much too late.
Kyle Gray:
We see the grotto, enjoying the trickling water and the gorgeous site, relax by the pool for a few minutes and head back to camp hungry. Later that evening, or perhaps the next day I see two spider bite looking bumps on my right shin. I itch them a little, but I don't think much of it. Somehow all the concern I had felt earlier about poison ivy had left me. I ignored the early warning sign and carried on for the next three days of the trip. When I return home, I noticed more bumps on the back of my left calf and have an insatiable urge to scratch. So I indulge myself with a little itch and then start to see redness and blistering. And it's only then that I realize and accept the truth, I have poison ivy again. In that moment I hear the voice of the main character from Napoleon Dynamite repeating over and over," Idiot." All the evidence was there, a canyon right next to where I got poison ivy, the green leaves of three. The early signs of poison, I rationalized as a spider bite.
Kyle Gray:
But here I am, on the recording of this it's a week after I was exposed and my lower legs have some nasty poison ivy. I'm covered in calamine lotion, which has a pink pepto bismol color. I'm pretty much have to wear these Thailand pajama style pants that are very loose fitting and flowing because wearing any kind of pants is very, very unpleasant when you're moving around. I try to wear shorts, shorts are great, but you end up frightening people and it's just not so much fun. So I'm in for another few weeks of this. There are many things I could have done to change it, but I didn't and that's the cost of doing nothing. So I'll freely admit that, that was a dumb, dumb move on my part. But most humans do this in one form or another, it's pretty common in human nature. It's so much easier to do nothing and stay in a familiar, comfortable situation than take a risk, spend money, do something uncertain, and a lot of people will choose this overtaking action with your products and services.
Kyle Gray:
It's one of the most common ways many coaches, entrepreneurs and consultants miss out on customers. [bctt tweet="Oftentimes when we're speaking, doing a Webinar or doing a sales call, our potential customers may be intrigued by what we're doing, but they want to wait until they get the green light or they feel more ready to take action. -Kyle Gray" username="kylethegray"] Or maybe they have the spending cash, but oftentimes the trail goes cold and is put off until someday. It appears to them that by not doing it, they're at least not losing anything. They're not risking spending their money or their time in something, and so they feel like they're staying the same. [bctt tweet="But like I suffered from doing nothing when faced with poison ivy, your audience suffers too. - Kyle Gray" username="kylethegray"] Maybe it's not as obvious as poison ivy as to me, but by not getting your help, they are certainly paying a price.
Kyle Gray:
So having a cost of doing nothing story like the one I just shared with you can enhance your teaching and create a powerful illustration why doing nothing and waiting comes at a higher price than you might think. Don't let them be dumb dumb's like I was, and show them why putting off working with you is going to mean leaving money on the table, missing opportunities and exposing them to unnecessary risk. Show them the true cost of doing nothing. I hope you enjoyed this episode and this nice story telling tip, I would love to know what your cost of doing nothing story is. You can let me know in the comments in the show notes of this episode or send me an email, I'd love to hear from you.
Kyle Gray:
Thanks for listening to the Story Engine Podcast. Be sure to check out the show notes and resources mentioned on this episode and every other episode at thestoryengine.co. If you're looking to learn more about how to use storytelling to grow your business, then check out my new book, Selling With Story: How to Use Storytelling to Become an Authority, Boost Sales, and Win the Hearts and Minds of Your Audience. This book will equip you with actionable strategies and templates to help you share your unique value and build trust in presentations, sales, and conversations, both online and offline. Learn more at sellingwithstory.co. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time.