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Patterns of Limitation: Part 2

The Advanced Selling Podcast · 2026-06-22 · 13 min

0:00--:--

Key moments - from our scoring

Substance score

28 / 100

Five dimensions, 20 points each

Insight Density7 / 20
Originality5 / 20
Guest Caliber6 / 20
Specificity & Evidence5 / 20
Conversational Craft5 / 20

Bill Kaske and Brian Neal continue their discussion of patterns of limitation - cognitive and behavioral constraints that hold salespeople back from peak performance. Building on the previous episode's concept of drift (small, unmeasurable declines that compound into major problems), they explore three core limitation patterns: fear-driven decision-making, the belief that certain outcomes aren't possible in one's territory or market, and either/or thinking that prevents salespeople from pursuing both high income and quality of life simultaneously. The hosts emphasize that naming fear openly, rather than denying it, releases emotional energy and enables clearer action. They challenge the common belief that success requires choosing between earning a million dollars and taking time with family, arguing instead for an "and" mindset. Using examples like the FedEx logo arrow (invisible until noticed) and Elon Musk's problem-focused time allocation, they illustrate how awareness precedes change. This episode is essential for sales leaders, individual contributors, and coaches working to help teams identify self-imposed mental barriers and shift from scarcity-based thinking to possibility-based goal-setting.

Key takeaways

  • →Small drift in daily activities (like reducing outbound reaches from 10 to 8 per week) compounds into major performance issues over time if not caught early.
  • →Fear-driven behavior limits your ability to act freely and detachedly; naming and admitting specific fears (job security, company failure) releases mental energy for better decision-making.
  • →Limiting beliefs about territory potential are self-reinforcing - your mind finds validation for why something isn't possible rather than discovering how it could be.
  • →The either/or thinking pattern (either make a million dollars or see your family) is a limitation; inserting 'and' instead opens up new possibilities worth solving for.
  • →How you spend your 40 hours matters far more than working additional hours; effective time allocation, not time quantity, determines income potential.

In this episode

  1. 120-Year Podcast Anniversary Celebration
  2. 2Drone Rescue Efficiency and Logical Priorities
  3. 3Understanding and Recognizing Drift in Sales Behaviors
  4. 4Fear as a Limiting Pattern and the Power of Naming It
  5. 5Seeing Possibility: Challenging Limiting Beliefs
  6. 6Defining What You Really Want and the Role of Possibility
  7. 7Either-Or vs. Both-And Thinking: Breaking Binary Limitations

Mentioned

Bill KaskeBrian NealElon MuskFedExCatholic ChurchAdvanced Selling Podcast

Topics in this episode

DriftFear-based limitationsPossibility thinkingEither/or versus both/and frameworkTerritory potentialDetachmentElon MuskFedEx logo arrowCoaching methodology

Questions this episode answers

What is drift in the context of sales performance, and why does it matter?

Drift is the slow, almost imperceptible decline in key behaviors - such as reducing outbound reaches from 10 per week to 8, then 7 - that compounds over time into massive performance gaps. Small drift matters because it's undetectable until it becomes a major problem, similar to gradual weight gain; the key is recognizing and stopping it early.

How does fear limit sales performance, and how can it be addressed?

Fear drives behavior in ways that prevent detachment and clear thinking; when people fear failure, consequences, or the future, they become paralyzed and pattern-seeking. The solution is to name the fear openly and admit it - a practice coaches use to release the emotional energy behind it and enable better decision-making.

What is the either/or limitation pattern, and how does the 'and' mindset solve it?

The either/or pattern assumes binary choices - for example, that you must choose between earning a million dollars in sales or spending time with family. The 'and' mindset reframes this by asking "How can I make a million dollars AND take six weeks of vacation?" forcing creative problem-solving instead of accepting false constraints.

Why do salespeople limit themselves by believing certain goals aren't possible in their territory?

People unconsciously seek validation for limiting beliefs by pointing to past failures or market conditions, then stop looking for solutions. Until you actively look for the path to a goal (like a FedEx arrow hidden in plain sight), you won't see it; the pattern finds evidence that possibilities don't exist rather than how they might.

How does Elon Musk's approach to time management challenge the 'I don't have time' limitation pattern?

Musk has the same 24 hours per day as everyone else but is worth a trillion dollars because he uses his time problem-focused rather than routine-focused; this shows that the constraint isn't hours available but how those hours are allocated and directed toward solving problems.

What our scoring noted

Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.

Insight Density

7 / 20

The episode spends roughly the first 3 minutes on anniversary promotion and an irrelevant TikTok anecdote before reaching substance. The actual ideas - drift in activity metrics, naming fear, either/or vs. both/and thinking - are real but presented at a surface level with no supporting depth or mechanism.

drift happens slowly and it is immeasurable until it's huge and massively measurable
you're used to making uh 10 outbound reaches you know a week, and that's served you well, and then all of a sudden at 10 turns into eight a week, and it doesn't seem like a big deal until you do that for a year

Originality

5 / 20

Every concept here - fear as a limiter, limiting beliefs about possibility, either/or vs. both/and framing, drift-as-weight-gain analogy - is standard fare in sales coaching and general self-help. No contrarian or first-principles arguments appear anywhere in the episode.

Elon Musk has about the same number of hours per day as we do, and he's worth a trillion, and we're not
it's either make a million dollars, not see my kids. It's a it's a binary choice. You don't have to pick one

Guest Caliber

6 / 20

There are no guests - only two co-hosts who are long-tenured sales coaches. They reference working with an unnamed external coach but bring no practitioner with documented at-scale results into the conversation to validate or complicate the ideas.

I work with a coach sometimes, and he says the first thing I do when I go into a company is okay, where's the fear?
we've been doing this since 06, and we want you to be a part of this celebration

Specificity & Evidence

5 / 20

The only numbers in the episode are illustrative hypotheticals (10 calls to 8, $500K to $1M) rather than real client data, named companies, or documented outcomes. No case studies, no citations, no attributed research.

Is it possible for you to go from$500,000 to a million dollars of income?
10 outbound reaches you know a week...10 turns into eight a week...eight then turns to seven

Conversational Craft

5 / 20

This is two hosts loosely riffing without a structured interview dynamic; there are no probing follow-up questions, no challenges to each other's claims, and frequent meandering (the TikTok digression, forgetting the episode's own title). The conversation is affirmatory rather than generative.

what do they they say something now? They don't say double stamp, but what do the kids say?
Yeah, it's really good. God's funny, my wife was just telling me about this.

Conversation analysis

Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.

Most-used words

speaker12pattern12drift11fear10possible10hours9podcast7million7dollars7patterns6drone6water6lost6limiting6bill5celebration5

Episode notes

Send us Fan Mail Bill and Bryan continue their series on the hidden patterns that quietly cap sales performance. Building on last episode's conversation about "drift," they dig into two more limiting patterns: fear (and why naming it is the first step toward detachment) and the belief that bigger outcomes simply "aren't possible." Along the way, they tackle the either/or trap - the binary thinking that convinces salespeople they have to choose between income and time, ambition and family, more and enough - and make the case for replacing it with "and." Plus, a bizarre drone-rescue story that turns into a surprisingly useful metaphor. This episode also kicks off the celebration of ASP's 20th anniversary - Bill and Bryan want to hear from you. Send in an audio or video sharing what the podcast has meant to you for a chance to attend an exclusive live coaching celebration this September. P.S.: Watch the drone rescue clip that kicks off this conversation: The Insider program is open for enrollment. To

Full transcript

13 min

Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.

SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to the Advanced Selling Podcast, the longest running sales training podcast, podcast history. I'm one of your hosts, Bill Kaske. Host number two, Brian Neal. We are celebrating this year 20 years at the microphone.

And we've been doing this since 06, and we want you to be a part of this celebration. So if you haven't already, make sure you send in an audio or a video, but an audio is fine. With what has this podcast done for you, meant for you? Maybe if you if you're now the number one person on the stack rank and you just started listening two years ago and you can attribute 99.

9% of your success to the podcast, or 1%, we'd love to hear it. And for everybody who uh gives us that and sends in an audio, we will give you a ticket, punch your ticket, as Brian says, to a live coaching event that we're going to do only for the people who have sent in these audios and videos sometime in September. Be a one hour, one and a half hour. We'll we'll do something that'll be fun and you'll get access to it.

You'll be an elite member of uh some kind of club. SPEAKER_00: You'll be in a club. You'll be in the celebration, the 20th celebration club. What is 20th?

You know, is it like silver and gold? I don't know. I don't even know if I look that up. Yeah, I'll have to find it out.

Check it out. Uh yeah, real quick, we're gonna get to our carry-on topic from last time. We're talking about um uh limitations, and we're gonna start with the drift thing, but we're just talking about uh what did you call them, Bill? Something's of limitations.

Oh, patterns of limitations. I'm sorry, I couldn't find patterns. Patterns of limitations. We're gonna keep talking about that.

Uh, before that, and I'll forward this to Travis. Um, uh, this is a TikTok video. I thought this was interesting. I'm gonna read the caption.

And the uh the uh caption says in this video of this like parachute thing falling down from the sky into the woods. And it says, uh, incredible footage shows a drone delivering water and food to two lost hikers near Bear Mountain, Colorado on Thursday. The hikers were reportedly running low on water and phone battery before emergency teams responded. The two were safely rescued and are uninjured.

And what I thought was if we can get a drone to the guys to drop a bottle of water, can't we get a helicopter there to come pick them up? Like, why are we why are we flying? Okay, first step, let's get the drone, let's fly it 40 hours over there, get them some water, then we'll take the helicopter and then we'll go get them. I'm like, what are we out of order here?

This seems really silly. And are they really lost if we can find them with the drone? They got their cell phones on. I just the whole thing, I'm like, this is just an interesting, it just seemed to me.

Yeah, are they really lost? They really lost they were lost. Well, yes, but then the drone found them. They're right over the top of them.

I'm like, you're not lost anymore, man. We can see you. You're found, you are here, your eyes have been opened. Anyway, there's a lot of questions around.

A lot of questions on this. I'm sure I'm missing something here, but it just thought, well, before we send the helicopter to rescue the guys, why don't you send them a couple buckets of water and an iPhone charger? An iPhone charger of a portable battery, and then we'll talk about when to go get them. Like, why don't we just go get them now?

SPEAKER_01: I guess the cost of a helicopter rescue is probably a little bit more than the cost of a couple bottles of water delivered to a drone. So I guess they're probably trying to save a little money, their lives are not worth that much. SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh. Uh, okay, so let's go to um uh our topic.

We're doing patterns of um limitation here. We ended last uh episode talking about drift, and I want to just again, what do they they say something now? They don't say double stamp, but what do the kids say? They say pull a thread or double double down, it's some there's a word they use.

Oh man. Anyway, uh drift happens slowly and it is immeasurable until it's huge and massively measurable. Drift happens really slowly over time, and then all of a sudden, yeah, kind of like weight gain. You like gain a little bit of weight over a long period of time, and you're like, How did I get to here?

And so I think it's important to recognize drift early and recognize that small drift matters. That's what I wanted to uh add to that, that small drift matters. So an example would be you're used to um you're used to making uh 10 outbound reaches you know a week, and that's served you well, and then all of a sudden at 10 turns into eight a week, and it doesn't seem like a big deal until you do that for a year, and then it becomes a huge deal. And if eight then turns to seven, it's a bigger deal.

So notice drift early, and every little bit of drift matters. SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's like drift. It is weight, it's a weight thing. If you're not weighing yourself, you know, once a day or once a week or whatever, it's two pounds here, three pounds there, and yep.

Uh, and then you wake up and you're a hundred pounds, and yeah, then it's hard. Yes, it's hard to get back. Yes, yes, yes. All right, so we were going through these patterns of failure.

Drift was one we ended on. Did you have another one? Do you want me to go? Well, you go one and then I'll think of another one.

Okay, all right. Um, one I don't think we I think we get uh blinded by the pattern of limitation that has to do with fear and has to do with how much of our behavior is driven by fear, and is that a good thing? And you know, I know in the in the Catholic Church there's a confession, I presume there's a orientation to confession and that what is that once a week or once at what when do you when do you do confession? You go as much as you want to go.

As much as much as you need. You need to be, you know, free to move and free to say, and you gotta be, you can't worry about the outcome. Well, if you're I can't do that if I'm afraid. If I'm afraid of the future, or I'm afraid if I do this, what's going to happen?

If I don't do this, what's going to happen? If fear is governing everything around you, then you can't be detached. You just can't because it's the fear is too. And so the question becomes is well, how do I get rid of that fear?

And I think you have to, you have to name it, you have to admit it. And uh I've I work with a coach sometimes, and he says the first thing I do when I go into a company is okay, where's the fear? And I'm like, Do they answer? Because, oh, everybody knows exactly where the fear is.

Well, I'm afraid that if we don't succeed, the company's gonna fail, or we're gonna profitability, or they're gonna fire me. Or but he says by coming clean with the fear, it just releases the energy of detachment. He didn't call it detachment, but I don't think we spend nearly enough time focusing or or just being mindful of where the fear is. You don't have to obsess on it, but you have to at least name it.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's really good. God's funny, my wife was just telling me about this. I don't know if it's the same person or where she's getting her information from, but yeah. Um, yeah, naming the fear.

She was we just talked about it yesterday at brunch. Um okay, I have one that goes uh to um the the limiting um pattern around seeing what's possible. And I think a lot of people that sell have a limitation pattern of thinking that things are not possible that are. And you can roll back things in the world, like the first trillionaire, and go to a place where you're like, There'll never be a trillionaire.

And now there is, and now there's one, and there's probably gonna be another one coming up here soon. So that's possible. So then you go, well, is it possible to have a quadrillionaire? I'm like, it is because it is, and so notice your your limiting pattern here.

If when you're served an idea or a seed from Bill Kaske or Brian Neal or someone, your leader, your boss, and your first reaction is that's not possible in my territory. Yeah, they won't go for that. And watch what your pattern does. Your pattern finds validation to that belief.

Well, the last time we did that, well, when we presented that, they were they they they kiboshed it immediately. Well, when was that? Well, that was four years ago. Okay, life's world's a little different.

So just notice, and this is one of those things like a FedEx arrow, like the arrow in the FedEx uh logo that a lot of most people have seen, some have not. If you've never seen the FedEx logo arrow, look for it, you'll see it. You never unsee it. Um that until you're seeing these things, you won't see them.

So you have to force yourself to see. Boy, every time that we bring that up, I don't think that's possible. I don't think my territory can produce a million dollars. Yeah, it never has.

And I I can't see a path to it. You have to look for the path to it and figure out how. Um, and that I think it's a really, really common common limiting pattern. SPEAKER_01: And that's kind of like the question of what do you want?

Like I start all my coaching uh was well, what do you want? What do you want for your from your business? What do you want your income to be? What do you want your lifestyle?

What's the want here? And a lot of times, well, probably 80% of the time, people can't really tell you. Uh-uh. They can't really tell you what's what they really want.

Well, I want more. Well, I want more free time with my kids. That's not enough. I gotta I gotta be a little more vivid with that.

And that comes as a it's a cousin to your possibilities. It's like, what well, what's possible? Because if I'm only wanting what's possible for me in my current state, then I may not be wanting enough. Because once I realize, well, what's possible?

Is it possible for you to go from$500,000 to a million dollars of income? I don't know. And I'll show you how it is, and then you're like, well, that's my new goal, right? But if there's if there's no felt possibility there, what you want will always be less than what you could have.

And I I I don't, this is not about money all you know, all the time. Uh it's about what do you what do you want your life to look like, really? SPEAKER_00: Yeah. And it's very common in that setting to you do the either or birth both and game.

This is a limiting pattern, either or both and, which means we tend to, when we're in a a pattern of limitation, think, well, it's either this or that. I either will never see my kids or I can't make a million dollars. It's either make a million dollars, not see my kids. It's a it's a binary choice.

You don't have to pick one. You put the and in there and say, How can I make a million dollars in sales and still take you know six weeks of vacation? Now we're uh solving for something that's really cool and fun. Yeah, but your limiting pattern will tell you that you can't do that, yeah, instantly.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I I'm already working 40 hours a week, Brian. I you know get to a million dollars. I mean, I don't have any more time. Who's saying anything about time?

Right, totally. They right, right, exactly. Your 40 hours may not be spent properly. Maybe your 40 hours are spent for the 500 or whatever, the whatever the income is.

Yeah, your 40 hours are very different when it comes to a million dollars, but they're still 40 hours, it's not a hundred hours, but you might have to admit that the 40 hours is not gonna get you to where you want to go. That's spent the same way, I mean. SPEAKER_00: And I want to call out when Bill is coaching this, any coach or a manager or me, anybody, when they say that to you, and your instant reaction is what you just heard Bill say, Well, I don't have time, you know, that's a limiting pattern.

Yeah, you've got to notice that, and you're like, that's where your answer is because you got to get rid of that pattern, you'll you'll never be free of it. You just won't until you figure that out. SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, Elon Musk has about the same number of hours per day as we do, and he's worth a trillion, and we're not. And so was he lucky?

Was he smart? Maybe, maybe. Was he a great salesperson and a really good marketer? Yeah.

Um, but he used his time differently, yeah. So it's not and and I've seen some of his videos that he's done where people have asked him how he spends his time, and it's it's always in the service of problems. Uh, like what's the problem here? Well, how do we fix that problem?

It's never, hey, let's just talk about, you know, let's it's it's always problem-focused. And I guess that's a do you have one more before we end? I don't go ahead. You got one?

No, throw one in there. We're good. Uh, I don't want to, I don't want to belabor the fact because we've given you enough now that you need to go through these two or three today that we did. And uh I think we can sometimes be guilty of giving too much and then your head's spinning at a too high a rate.

So just take these two or three and ask yourself the question or am I limited by some of these patterns of thought? I love it. SPEAKER_00: Okay, go to the website, chime in, yeah. 20th anniversary uh celebration, please send us a video of what the podcast has meant to you, uh, what you've learned from listening to the podcast, any personal anecdote you want to share with us that will buy you a ticket to our September celebration coaching event in uh September of 2026.

Awesome. That's it. We'll see you next time.

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