“Sales is an aspect of every part of your life,” says super-salesman Glenn Lundy. “You gotta sell yourself to your spouse. You gotta sell yourself to your kids. You gotta sell yourself to friends and, in particular, to investors and banks and clients. Sales is at the root of all success.”
Lundy should know. He worked his way up to general manager of a Chevy dealership in a small Kentucky town – population 9,600 – and through his now legendary efforts, grew that dealership 800%.
“We went from selling 120 cars a month to selling 850 cars a month and became the second-largest used car franchise dealership in the country.”
After his initial financial success, Lundy wanted to do something bigger. He left the dealership and started a training and consulting company called The 800% Elite Automotive Club.
Watch Glen Lundy at METAL
From there, he’s created a national lifestyle brand. Speaker, Author, Podcaster… Lundy is everywhere, inspiring others to upgrade their lives. By how much?
Well, by 800%.
“I knew that there was a ton of negativity in the world, and I couldn't stop that. But at least I could create a space with motivation, education, inspiration.”
So years ago, he started the Rise and Grind podcast.
“I had no idea what I was doing! But I had this passion to insert some positive things into the social media landscape. I’d get up every day at 5:30AM! My eyes were all crusty! The lighting was awful. I didn't know how to speak in front of people. It was terrible. But now, ten years later, after creating content every single day on every platform, I see the rewards and the results. It’s easier now, because we've gotten in the reps.”
Through the podcast, books, and speaking, The 800% Elite Automotive Club evolved into the foundation for the 800% Lifestyle brand.
“What is 800%? It's this idea that you can have it all. You’ve been told you have to sacrifice, that you can't have your cake and eat it, too. Well, it's like, what's the point of the cake? But I want my cake and I want to eat it! I want it all so I give it all! So I created this rubric of giving 100% investment in eight different areas of your life – that’s an 800% investment in all.”
How did he do it? He will tell you that, first, it’s an inner game.
THE 8 PILLARS OF SUCCESS, THE 800% WAY
Investment #1: Faith
“Pillar number one is faith. There's a spiritual aspect to all of us, understanding that we are not just our bodies. It's important that you invest in that. Grow and expand on that. Get to know who you are outside of who you are.”
Investment #2: Family
“There's nothing more important than the relationships you have with your spouse, your kids, with your loved ones. An integral piece of the success formula is having the right relationships in your family to keep you on track and keep you moving forward.”
Investment #3: Fitness
“The body is the temple. You gotta take yourself wherever you go. You wanna love how you look in the mirror. It affects your confidence. It affects how you can show up in the world. And ultimately it affects your results.”
Investment #4: Friends
“You know the saying, you become the average of the five people you surround yourself with. So you’d better make sure that your friend circle is telling you that you can, you should, you will. You don't want people telling you that you can't, you shouldn't, or you won't!”
Investment #5: Finances
“You’ve got to understand the flow of money, the energy of money. Make sure that you are investing properly in ways that are ultimately gonna set you up because we're all gonna live to be 120, right? So you wanna live fully and not be attached to a budget statement or line items, but you need to set yourself up for the rest of your life.”
Investment #6: Career
“There are aspects of our career that might not necessarily become a line item in our financial statement, but they bring us purpose as we do our life's work. Our career is so incredibly important. It's important that you're doing the thing you love – that thing that people talk about the mark you left in the world after you’re gone.”
Investment #7: Education
“You should be investing every single day in learning, growing, finding out something new. I'm learning to play the drums. I just started in January! I've never played an instrument my entire life. My brain does not want to do it, but we got to keep these brains firing, learning new things, reading, getting into the right rooms, going to conferences.”
Investment #8: Mental Health
“If you are investing 100% of your energy and attention into those first seven pillars, mental health no longer becomes a problem. When your faith's in line, your family's in line, your friends are in line, your fitness, your finances, when you're in a career that you love and you're educating yourself every day, you're gonna find that mentally, you're ready to rock and roll things like depression, anxiety, worry, doubt, fear. They go out the window when you invest in those first seven areas.”
“Invest 100% of your energy and attention in all eight of these pillars,” says Lundy, “that’s what it means to live life at 800.”
RISE AND SHINE (POSITIVITY!)
To make the eight pillar system work, he says, “you’ve got to start with a powerful morning routine. The devil lives in the snooze button. There's tons of science behind the power of sleep cycles and paying attention to Circadian rhythms, so sleep right, sleep the night, and rise with the sun and grind.”
Second, he warns, “Don't touch your phone. Emails, text messages, social media, politics, violence, death, destruction. That's not what you want to feed yourself for breakfast.”
The third part of his morning routine is to write down gratitudes and goals.
“Why do I put these together in one step? I looked at my goals. I wished I had a bigger house, that I was better looking, that I had more money. And I realized that in the process I was creating a negative experience, a negative emotion, a feeling of less than, that what I had now was not enough.”
By contrast, writing gratitudes puts him in a positive mood.
“When I started with gratitude, I'm grateful. I have a roof over my head. I'm grateful. I woke up today. I'm grateful. My bills are paid. And you know what? I’m already on my way to getting a bigger house, and I'm going to be better looking. And I'm gonna make more money right now. The energy around it was positive energy.”
Lundy put the two together. “So now I teach people to start with gratitude, and only then go into your goals. It's like rocket fuel for your goals.”
His fourth step is to get the body in motion, whether it's walking, jogging, or running. “An object in motion tends to stay in motion. An object at rest stays at rest.”
His fifth step is to reach out and touch someone.
“This part is incredibly important,” he says. Send out an encouraging message. A Facebook or text message. Sometimes I put sticky notes up on the wall or mirror for my wife. I whisper into my kids ears while they're sleeping. Energy cannot be created or dissipated, it can only convert. Share your good, happy energy with others.
He points out that creating positive human relationships is more important than ever.“Treat somebody terrible and watch how quickly that goes viral. Back in the day, people bought cars locally. Now that we have access to information on a global scale, the game has completely changed. Relationships reach around the world – as do reputations. When somebody Googles your name, how you show up on social media is everything.”
Human relationships, he reminds us, is not simply about being kind and positive.
“I have six daughters and two sons,” he says, confirming his predilection for the number eight. “And I recognize that we're all on different journeys, we're all experiencing things differently and that’s got to be respected. So in parenting, as with life, I try to show more than I tell. Otherwise, it’s just all talk, isn’t it?”
Written by Adam Gilad
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