Assume the Best

Hey, badass. Welcome to Confident AF Live, where we ditch the doubt, crush your fears, and take your business game to the next freaking level. If you're tired of playing small, ready to smash your goals, and unapologetically own your power, well then you've come to the right place, boo. Get ready for some no BS strategies, mindset hacks, and the occasional truth bomb.

Because here he comes, your confidence coach, faith-based mindset expert, and number one encourager, Brandon R. Foster. Hey Boo! Welcome to the brand new episode of Confident AF Live!

My name is Brandon Foster, I'm the author of Confident AF, Unleash Your Inner Badass, And we are continuing and wrapping up the final episode in our series, how to create unrealistic results inside of your business, how to make people's heads turn inside your industry and go, what? How did they do that? Today, we are talking about something that is really important to me right now. And I don't know why it's exactly important to me.

It's just something that God's really put on my heart, which is assuming and believing the best in people. that's what the topic of today is and I feel like one of the reasons why this is so important to me is because the bigger my vision gets for my own businesses the more I realize I need more people I need more humans I need people who are smarter than me I need people who are more talented than me I need people who had different zones of genius than me and I just you need the people guys to gals guys and gals we need the people to grow and scale our businesses okay and uh you can't build unrealistic business by just flying solo you just don't have enough energy you don't have enough talent you don't have enough resources you don't have like i could go on and on and on but like you have to have a team at some point to grow and scale your business you gotta have other people who have other zone of geniuses that can really help you and elevate your business to help you grow.

So you can't, and the thing is, is you can't attract high caliber people. You can't retain high caliber people and you can't motivate people and have a great working relationship with the people that are helping you build the thing. If you expect the worst, can I get an amen? Can I get a hallelujah because the same people you're guarding yourself from are often the very people that God wants to use to actually bless your business and help you move forward.

So here's what I want you to remember as we dive into this. Number one, your expectations will shape your experience of people. Okay. And when you have suspicion, which oftentimes we feel like our suspicion is warranted in fact I was talking to my husband today and he was mentioning a family member and he was like and and the way that happened was we were talking about somebody else and I told him what I thought I heard the other person tell me in a conversation and he goes I don't think that's true at all unless i think that person might have been lying to you i'm like why would they lie about that they're not lying about that and then he goes well look at this family member they lie about things all the time which basically is what we do all the live long day we take one person who lies or one person who betrayed us or one person who said a mean thing to us or one person who did this to us and now all of a sudden we're on this guard that every human being walking on the face of the earth is going to do the exact same thing to us and so what happens is we have the suspicion of all the humans based off a behavior of one or a few humans and because of that suspicion we create distance and when you create distance you can create trust and you can build a team and you can build morale You can do all those things And trust with connection or excuse me I should say trust with wisdom actually creates meaningful connection to people.

And you know, one of the things that I've been talking to some of my clients about is creating culture with their teams. And creating culture with your team is not just about making sure that their personal values are aligned with their role. It's about making sure their personal values and way of being aligns with the company values and the company mission. That way they don't leave.

Because if you have someone who's really good at a role and they're amazing at it, but they're not invested in the vision and culture of your company and your organization, then they can just easily leave because they can fulfill that someplace else. So it's really, really, really important that you understand this concept. And remember that when you have a strong connection, that creates loyalty. And when you have a loyal team that stays with you, you can build something truly meaningful because it takes time to build things, right?

There's a gestation period to build things. So most people think I need to, especially if you've been hurt, If you've been hurt by the people, a lot of people think I need to protect myself. I need to keep my guard up. I need to make sure I'm not taken advantage of.

I'm not betrayed. I'm not abandoned. Whatever it is. But what that often becomes is closed off, skeptical, and you don't trust your team.

So you don't delegate. You don't give them things. And if you expect people to disappoint you, you will interact with them in a way that makes connection harder. And because you don't trust them, boo, they will not trust you either.

It's a two way street. It's so bizarre to me because I've worked with a lot of brand new entrepreneurs and not everybody has the same relationship on social media. So some of the entrepreneurs that I've worked with who they know if you're running online business, then you need to do online marketing, which means you need to be visible and comfortable online. Oddly enough, I've interacted with people who have been in law enforcement, people who have been in credit card fraud, all sorts of different jobs where people literally, we talked about the RAS filter before and focus mechanism.

but part of their past is they had to find not so good people or people who at the very least were not doing very good things online and so they created this idea and this belief that it wasn't safe for the people on the internet to know who they really are to know their real identity to actually have a profile picture i mean i've seen people have a dog a cat a balloon a baby all sorts of different things as their profile picture but what's ironic is they have that up because they don't trust the humans on the internet but then they want the humans on the internet to trust a dog or a balloon or a cat to book a $10,000, $30,000 vacation, $100,000 cruise around the world, not going to happen.

And so the same thing, Boo, happens with you. The same thing happens with relationships and you growing and scaling and building a team. so a great example of this is the and i remember there i don't know if it was a miki me video or if it was another animated video but i remember as a kid at vacation bible school watching and we read it too but the story of the good samaritan so this is a great example of like people saw the same situation they saw someone in need who had been robbed and beaten up And some people choose distance, some people avoid, some people choose self-protection, but only one chose compassion, engagement, and action.

And what you choose to see in people determines how you show up to them. And it also determines how your team shows up for you So if you in your business if you approach clients teams and partnerships with skepticism doubt and guarded energy others and others approach with openness belief, and trust, those two people are creating very different results. Real different results. A great example of this is Richard Branson.

He is the one who created a Virgin Records. He created Virgin Voyages, basically anything I guess named Virgin he created. But he is known for trusting his people and empowering his teams and building relationships first. His philosophy is train people well enough so that they can leave, treat them well enough so they don't want to leave.

And he built an entire global empire by trusting, empowering people, believing people. and listen not every single venture he went into worked that's the other side that's a whole nother podcast episode on persistence maybe that's what we should do next week is persistence but he built a global empire by trusting empowering believing in people not by controlling micromanaging or by assuming the worst so trust is not weak in your business okay it expands it now we talked about confirmation bias already when we're talking about focus but it's so true when it comes to your relationships and the humans whether it's clients team members or even your family or even your kiddos your brain will look for evidence to confirm what you already believe so if you believe your kid is lazy you'll find all the reasons why they're lazy if you believe your kid actually you've probably known this you probably know somebody who believes that their kid is like the best thing ever since sliced bed they're just using their confirmation bias on their kid all Right.

I, you know, personally, I want my entire team and my husband and my family to use confirmation bias of how great I am. That not mean great, like, like in an egotistical way. I just mean like that affirm the goodness and the good qualities that I do possess, you know, because that's what you can't change people with criticism, condemnation and guilt and shame. you can't change people that way but if you affirm the best and believe the best and you call people up not out you can create some really really amazing change so if you believe that people are unreliable you're gonna find proof if you believe that people are supportive you're gonna find proof you are literally constantly going to be reinforcing your expectations of people there's also this and this is uh this is also newer to me but it's the uh pygmalion effect have y'all heard of this the pygmalion effect the expectation theory so people tend to rise or fall to the expectations placed on them so if you expect and actually experiences as an eighth grade language arts professor but if you expect excellence performance increases if you expect mediocrity, performance drops.

So what you expect from people often shapes how they show up. So whenever I'm working with a leader or an agency owner or another business owner, I'm always telling them, treat your team like A players. Treat them like they all want to be million dollar sellers. Treat them like A players.

It's amazing how their behaviors and thinking shifts when you treat them that way. Okay, trust and psychological safety. When people feel trusted, safe, and believed in, they are more likely to take initiative, communicate openly, and perform at higher levels. The three most important core pieces of any relationship is trust, control, and recognition.

When you don't trust someone, you will try to control them. When you're trying to control someone that violates their free will which is our biggest god-given gift and that turns into manipulation so when you trust people you release control and love which allows them to rise up and because you're not manipulating them they actually want to do the opposite and want to help more it amazing it like backwards strategy but it works so trust is not just emotional you guys and gals it is absolutely strategic So assuming the best does not mean that you naive It means you choosing a perspective that creates better outcomes.

Okay. And listen, remember we talked about wisdom earlier. So if something needs to be seen, if a light needs to be shown, God will show it, trust it. Okay.

two verses on this one is first corinthians 13 7 which says love leads all things hope all things huge okay if you want to start creating some amazing changes in your relationships whether it's work relationships leadership relationships client relationships family relationships i highly encourage you to believe in all things hope for all things and look for those things and remember you're not called to be naive there's also the verse in matthew 10 16 which says why is a serpent's innocence his doves you're not called to be naive or unaware or unwise but you are called to be discerning wise and still open and believe the best okay so by the way this is why you have boundaries right you have boundaries and still be the best in people so the the innocent as a dove is believing the best and wise as a serpent is having boundaries.

So if you are a solopreneur right now, this might show up as, uh, people won't pay. People don't value this. People are flaky. So start assuming that the right people are ready.

Start assuming that people want what you have to author. Start assuming that people are looking for this. And when you sell or show up, speak to people who are ready, not the ones who aren't, okay? Speak to them, directly to them.

And with your team, this shows up as, if you have a small team, this shows up as lack of trust, over-checking work, hesitation to delegate. So I want you to shift. I want you to assume that your team is capable. And I want you to lead them at that level.

Choose one team member. This is your action. Choose one team member and raise your expectation of them. Communicate that belief clearly and watch.

Watch how they perform. Watch what they do. Watch how they step up. All right.

Now, if you're a scaling leader at your level, your belief in your people becomes your culture. So if you assume people slack, culture weakens. If you assume people rise, culture shrinkens. So I want you to audit your leadership and ask are you leading from trust or from protection so if you're leading from trust great lean into that call them up higher if you're leading from protection i want you to ask yourself why let that go and go the other way okay remember unrealistic results are not created alone a lot of people have different zones of geniuses than you you only have so many hours in a day okay so much energy you can really grow and scale a business when you trust an incredible team that god has placed before you to help you so they're created through people partnerships opportunities favor and if you don't trust people you cut yourself off of one of the biggest blessings god has to give to help you grow and scale your business assume the best lead with wisdom and watch how differently people show up.

So if you've been listening to this entire series, Boo, you now understand something that most people never will, that unrealistic results are not about doing more. It's not about effort. It's not about sacrifice. It's not about burnout.

It's about thinking differently, believing differently, and moving differently. And now it is your turn. I love you so much. We'll see you next week with a brand new episode and a new series.

I love you, Boo. Have a beautiful day. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Confident AF Live, boo. If you're fired up and ready to dive deeper, be sure to visit BrandonRFoster.

com to discover Brandon's latest books, courses, and exclusive coaching programs. And remember, badass, don't postpone tomorrow's blessings by refusing to plant seeds today. There's never been a better time. Embrace the power of now.