Welcome And Steve Lentini

Mike Mirarchi 0:19

Welcome to the Toilet Paper Salesman Podcast. My name is Mike Mirarchi, and I'm really happy to have Steve Lentini on my show today. And uh Steve, I'm gonna give you a quick introduction. You're an adult man of Italian descent, a master sales trainer who has 38 plus years in the field, known for spot-on, powerful presentations, seminars, and keynote addresses that are effective and entertaining, savvy, street smart, dynamic, producer of results, imparts information that can be immediately used for increasing the bottom line. And with that, Steve, welcome to the podcast. Oh, thank you.

Steve Lentini 1:00

Thank you, Mike. We've worked together for a long time, off and on, and actually then existed in the same field and didn't cross paths all that often because it was different territories. But yeah, it's it's an interesting business to be selling toilet paper, amongst other things. And I love your book, by the way. You know, wisdom from a toilet paper salesman. I have it here so people know, by the way. And I've got it flagged. I've got things that I love. Uh I'm a writer, and so I love when authors express stories like you did, because it hits home and they can see that you you're not just telling them what to do, you're telling them what you did.

Mike Mirarchi 1:39

The story I tell is my grandfather made wine, and you can appreciate this. Yeah. Incredible homemade wine. Yeah. But he would never let anybody in the basement. And so when he passed, the recipe was gone. And so now nobody knows how to make this incredible wine. And so having gone through 40 plus years of sales and failing miserably from time to time and having great successes and all of those things, you know, you want to impart that knowledge and wisdom to other people so that it's around forever, right? So that you know, my grandson and your grandkids and the younger people that we're trying to attract into our industry can learn and learn from our mistakes and learn from our successes.

Steve Lentini 2:23

Yeah. And AI won't replace the toilet paper salesman.

Mike Mirarchi 2:27

No. Nor will he replace the acorn brain. Well, he might.

Steve Lentini 2:32

Maybe gradually. Yeah. I'll tell you when it goes away, when we leave this world for what's next. That's right. There's this little voice does not go with us, at least in my experience. And we'll talk a little bit about that later.

From Banking To Commission Sales

Mike Mirarchi 2:46

We will. So, uh Steve, why don't you just tell us a little bit about your story and how you got into the industry and a little bit about how you got to where you are now? Sure.

Master The Obvious First Questions

Steve Lentini 2:56

My brother Frank worked for the Kelsey Paper Company and eventually bought it. But by the time he bought it, I was working at a bank. And uh he called me and said, Hey, you want to come work for me? I said, Sure. That's it. That was the answer. And I'm driving two weeks later, so I give my notice. Two weeks later, I'm driving down to Middletown, Connecticut, and it occurred to me, hey, what am I gonna do? I have this job working for my brother. And the second thing is, what am I gonna get paid? I had never asked him what I was gonna get paid. So I get there and he says, Well, you're gonna be on the road. I'm gonna introduce you to my customers. You're gonna be in sales. And then I said, Well, what do I get paid? He said, Commission. And I said, What's that? And he explained it was a percent of every sale based on the profit. And I said, Okay, I'm gonna learn this because at a bank there was no commission, right? We're gonna bring you in the vault, Steve, and you can take what you can what you want for the week. There was no commission. So, anyway, I I went out on the road and um he showed me the pretty traditional training that people had had for years. And so this was 1975, so I'm dating myself. Anyway, it was features, advantages, benefits, and then the tap dance at the end. You want to sign here? Press hard. There's five copies. Because by the way, we we didn't have computers, and uh it was literally carbon paper, and I didn't like it. So after about six months of knocking on doors where I had customers and they loved us, and they and I got to know them, I had to go make new calls. So, in the business-to-business world, that toilet paper and janitorial supplies and packaging supply salespeople, they you got to go make a new call. And back then you could walk in, you could just walk in. Some of that's changed dramatically. I s I would surmise maybe in the food service world, it's still the same. You could still walk in and to a restaurant, and we sold cleaning supplies, paper packaging supplies for uh restaurants and factories, and we sold supplies for hospitals and nursing homes. And so we could also sell almost any customer, which meant I had to learn to focus. But in the early days, I called on everybody. And I started asking people when I got there hey, you're already buying everything I sell. Do you even want another salesperson calling on you? It was something that I later called the obvious. Become a master of the obvious. Look around. Don't try to say, hey, I'm Jim Beam from the XYZ paper company, and we do this and that, and this and that. And you know, we got 29 trucks. And the people didn't care. You could see their eyes glow glazing over. They were shocked when I said, Do you even want another salesperson? And they'd answer the question. Sometimes they'd say, No. And I'd say, Well, my brother's my boss. So some I would ask people, is that for now or forever? And then when when they said forever, a couple of guys said for forever. And I said, Well, my boss is my brother, and he thinks forever is three months. Do you mind if I stop in three or four times a year? And most would chuckle, do what you're doing, and say, No, no, you can stop in. And what if I have a new idea? Oh, yeah, sure, stop in if you got something new. Okay. The ones that said, Yeah, no, I don't mind having another salesperson. The next thing I'd say, well, how long have you been with the company that you're buying from? And they'd tell me. And if they said 10 years, I'd say, wait a minute, is it the same salesperson? Yeah. You have coffee with him from time to time? Yeah. Does he buy food from you? You know, does he come in and shop here or does he have a meal? Yeah. What are you going to say to him? Let's suppose I get the business. What are you going to say to this person? And they'd have to stop and think about it and say, Oh, yeah, okay. Well, you know, if you got a new idea, why don't you stop in? They weren't going to give me the business. But if they said, well, I've been with somebody for a couple of years, I said, Now, how often have you changed? I've changed three or four times. That was also a red flag because maybe they were only going to give me a couple of years. But I would take a shot, right? So I'd say, All right, so then how do you do this? Well, here's a price list. Give me all your prices. Here's an inventory list. Price everything out. I said, No, I don't do that. So, what do you mean? I said, Well, first of all, it's going to take me a couple of hours because back then, no computers, right? It's going to take me a couple hours. And then let's suppose that I'm lower on a few things. What happens then? A lot of people, and you know this. Well, I'll show my guy. I'll show the gal I'm buying from and see if they can meet it. I said, that's why I don't do it. I don't do priceless. I said, so they'd say, Well, what do you do? So why don't you take me back? Let's go look at your items. So I'd get in the back and I'd say, take me through your top 10 items. And they would. And if when they got to number one, or if they took me right away to the number one item, if I knew there was something better, I'd say, Really, that's your number one item? What are you putting in that? Is that helping your sales? What's it? Because there were ways, of course, and you know, right, they could have packaged the product better. And it caused people to have just a thought. It was, it caused them to a pattern interrupt. And we'd talk about the deeper purpose of that container or that packaging was to either protect the item or help make it look good so that they could sell it and make a margin. And they didn't care if the container cost 10 cents more, 11 cents more, if they could add a 50 cents to the price of something that looked good. So anyway, by having real conversations, I started to make a lot of sales. And by asking people right up front, you're already buying everything I've got. Why would you even want me? Because, first of all, I'm respecting their time, right? Why should I continue to knock on their door if that's not what they want? And it's things that you talked about in your book because it's building trust with people. I'm not there to overwhelm them and be a showman and then lower all their prices and three months later raise their prices or four months later. And people were doing that in those days. So anyway, I started to build in the first segment of my sales career relationships with honesty and being authentic because I didn't want to do the dance. And then later on, I realized I've got to spend my time with different people to grow. It was easy to call on a pizza parlor or a sub shop or a bakery because their doors were open. And I started calling on manufacturing and hospitals, thinking about how much larger the sales would be.

Prune The Territory For Growth

Mike Mirarchi 9:40

You know, we all, as new salespeople come in, everybody hits a wall, right? So how do you create more space? And that's really what you need to do is you know, you can't only fill a glass of water so much, and you need to pour some out in order to get some more in. And so we talk a lot about in territory management, looking at your accounts on who's your A, B, C, D accounts, who are your best accounts that of course you want to work with, and who are the ones that maybe you ought to move from, or maybe you ought to pass them on to someone else, or create some space so that you can now focus on more of those better customers, like the hospitals and industrial accounts.

Buying And Selling Companies

Steve Lentini 10:19

Yeah, it's like pruning. As a kid, I worked in an apple orchard, and uh every fall they would prune the trees after the harvest. You know, in November, there we would go there for a couple of weeks and and prune the trees, and they would show us how to do it. And sometimes they did things they called a money cut. And when the farmer took us out, and it was it was a big farm in Middlefield, Connecticut, the Lyman family still owns it. Wonderful people. Anyway, they'd make they'd show you making a cut, and you'd go, that's a big branch. And even if from memory you said, well, it had a lot of peaches on it and a lot of apples on it, because you know, working in the field all year long, they'd say, Well, that's the money cut. From that branch, there'll be four more branches when we cut it, and it'll it'll produce even more. And salespeople didn't don't often think of their territories that way, is to prune a few things like you just pointed out. So I did the same thing. I pruned certain things out and made sure that I spent time with customers that could give me a bigger return on my time. And in the beginning, I didn't, right? In the beginning, I was I wanted to get out there and show my brother I could do it, and I learned it the hard way. At some point, I realized, to your point, I've I've got I've got to make more room. I've got to create space to call on different people. And so I just started calling on people less frequently, the smaller ones, and spent more time with the larger accounts, and it worked. And later on, I sold my company to a big company. So there's a story in between there. My brother Frank wanted to buy another company in Hartford, Connecticut. And the bank told him no, it was just the beginning of the inflation of the 77, 78, 79. So 78, the bank said, Well, why don't you sell it? Why don't you have your brother go buy it? Put some capital up. And I partnered with another brother. We bought the company in Hartford with the idea that we'd merge with my brother in Middletown four or five years later. And the bank approved it. And I bought a little company in Hartford. And five years later, I sold that to Eastern Bag and Paper, a big company at the time, and then started managing people and doing other things, marketing and selling larger accounts, which was really a gift.

Mike Mirarchi 12:33

Did you work for Eastern Bank for a while? Yes, 16 years. Oh wow. Okay.

Steve Lentini 12:39

16 years, and then they asked me to go to Massachusetts, and uh I did. I went to Massachusetts and started uh the a Salem branch, a New England branch.

Mike Mirarchi 12:49

So you're 16 years into Eastern Bag, and then what happened?

Winning Harvard By Offering Partnership

Winning Without Being Lowest Price

Stop Overselling Start Listening

Steve Lentini 12:55

So I decided that I wanted to do sales training, but before that happened, I had some amazing sales I wanted to share with you. Please. Uh one of the salespeople in Massachusetts wanted to get into Harvard, and I said, Well, that's funny, because on the way up here, I thought maybe I'll close Harvard and some of the big real estate companies, right? Just having the thought, driving up for my first day. And uh what what the company had purchased was a struggling company. It was sales were going backwards, and the first three or four months, actually, they continued down. So, flash forward a couple of years later, we're established in the marketplace, the company had started to grow very nicely, and uh, one of my salespeople got a got an appointment at a big university. And we go there and we sit down, our butts weren't warm in the chair, and the buyer said, Hey, I just want to let you know we could never give you the business. And we were like, and my salesperson wanted to go right into response, like, what do you mean? Don't you know who we are? We're one of the big companies. We just moved into Massachusetts, we can save you a lot of money. I put a handout and said, That's fine. I'm just a little curious. How come we got an appointment? Heard a lot about you guys, wanted to get to know you a little bit. Okay, what did you hear? She said, Well, some good, some bad. I said, Well, give me the bad. She told me. And I said, Some of that's true. Where'd you hear it? Your competitors. And I said, Well, what about the good? She gave me the good. And I said, You know what? Some of that's true, some of it's not. Where'd you hear that? You're customers. Then I said, Since we're not going to get the business, do you mind telling me what's happening? And she said, Well, we're going from 16 suppliers with some that we've done business for over 30 years, and we're going to go to one. How could we ever give it to you? And I said to her, her name is Linda. I said, Linda, I wouldn't give it to us if I were you. You'd have a lot of hard, you'd have a hard time explaining that. How'd you give the business to a company that you've never done any business with? The president of the college probably would have strung her up. So anyway, she told me the whole story, and they were competing at that time with outside cleaners. The president of the university had invited outside cleaners to bid on the different campuses for cleaning and other services, snow removal, everything. And so she was worried about her survival. And she told me the contract cleaners are paying less wages than we are as a university. I'm I'm afraid that I'm going to lose a lot of employees. The cleaning company has said they'll take some, but again, my employees are going to have to take a wage cut. So she was worried about survival. And I said, you know, it sounds like you need a partner. And she said, What's that? And I said, Well, don't you have a process? Aren't you bringing all the 16? How are you going to get to one? She said, Yes, we got a process. We're going to bring them all in. We're going to go from 16 to 9, from 9 to 6, 6 to 3, and then down to one. So they had a plan of a pretty lengthy process to make that decision. And I said, Well, if you don't hear the word partnership, call me. She said, You're right. I'm going to interview them all, maybe. I said, I can't believe one wouldn't have the idea. She said, Yeah, you're right. Okay. And my salesperson on the way home wanted to knife me. And I said, I explained, you have to allow people wherever they are. Fighting her wouldn't have been good. And when she explained the story, when the buyer explained the story and the pressure she was under, there was no way we were going to convince her we should be there. But the but listening to the story, I knew she did need a partner. And we sold a lot of contract leaners. So two weeks later, I get a phone call. And it's from Linda. Linda? She said, Steve, what are you doing next Tuesday? Could you come in? I said, Sure. Why am I coming in? She said, I want to hear about your partner idea. I said, You mean to tell me no one had that idea? You've seen all 16 people. Yes, no one had that idea. I said, Yeah, I'll come in Tuesday. Would you do me a favor? And I said, I know it's a crazy ask. She said, What's that? I said, Would you make me number 17 on the list? And she said, Yes. And you know, there's more to that story, but three months later, we had the business. As the only supplier. Yeah. Wow. And we st and it stunned all the suppliers. And a few of them shot themselves in the foot. When the letter went out that we were named, they called her up and said, What are you doing? We've been doing business with you for 30 years, 25 years, 20 years. How could you name these people? She said, Three people eliminated themselves with the first letter. So a few months later, and I had spent time on the BOMA, the building owners and managers board. I ran the vendor cocktail parties. And a guy came up to me. His name was Pete, and he looked at my name badge, Eastern Bag and Paper. He said, Oh, Eastern Bag and Paper, we could never buy from you. And he gave me that energy, and I said, Pete, I looked at his name tag. Pete, how do you know I'd sell you? And he said, What do you mean? He do you know who we are? Do you know how much we buy? I said, Wait, wait, wait, Pete. I don't want to upset you. I'm sorry if I did, but let me ask you a question. Do you sell everybody? No. Why? He said, Some are big enough. Some don't pay the bills at times. Some I said, there you go. I don't even know you. And he said, Well, I said, Why'd you say you could never give us the business? He said, I got nine suppliers and I'm going to one. And I started looking around to see if God was right next to me. Because that was like, what? It sounds a little familiar. So I said, Pete, I understand it. If you need some help, because there's some intricacies about volume and getting pricing from manufacturers. I said, distributors can get contract pricing. So if you want to send it to me, I'll look it over. I'll send it back to you. I'll give you my thoughts. No obligation. So he did. And I sent it back to him with consolidated volumes because he had like nine paper manufacturers. He had like five trash bag brands. He had all kinds of chemicals from like eight or nine suppliers of chemicals. So Pete, you're going to have to condense this and then send it out. So I sent it back to him and he called me back. He said, Hey, can I add you to the list? I know it's a long shot. He added me to the list and he he mailed out the bid with a lot of the recommendations. He didn't take all my recommendations, but he took the he took the majority of them. And so I put in a bid. He called me up about two weeks later and said, Steve, you're not the lowest. And I didn't say anything. I said, okay. He because he waited. There was dead silence on the phone. And I said, Pete, there's nothing I can do. We gave you our best shot right up front. And he said, All right, what are you doing next Tuesday? Uncanny how Tuesday came up. I said, Why? He said, I'm going to give you the business. I said, No, you said we're not the lowest. He said, I didn't like that other guy. Wow. The lower company, he didn't like him. And that meant he didn't trust him, which is what you talk about a lot, is building trust and being authentic. And this was something that I was doing. I wasn't teaching to people then. I wasn't teaching it to people. I realized in later years that I had an idea, uh, especially after I bought the license for the Sandler Sales Institute. And then when I got into my own work, uh, because I was with Afflinck for a number of years, my boss at Afflinck called me one day. He said, Hey, Steve, I know you want to do some consulting. He said, one of our members wants to get into the janitorial and uh world. He said, Would you consult him? I said, sure. So it was an office supply dealer in Queens. And I started making some calls with some of their salespeople. And the first appointment a guy brings me on, he knew nothing about that world. So he wanted to bring me. He was selling office, office supplies only and the basic, you know, Lysol, the Clorox, and that's all they stocked. They didn't stock the major cleaning supplies. So it was a big theater group in New York City. And he brings me in and I didn't say anything. I said, What do you want me to do? He said, No, yeah, I'll handle it. He started telling the guy about their copier services, their print services, their imprinting on clothing, their concession services, their beverage services, their snacks that they stock. And the buyer was like pissed. He's got his arms folded, he turned away, and he was really upset. And I stopped the salesperson. And I'm the consultant, right? I'm not the salesperson. But I said, Jeff, no, hold on a minute. Bill, you seem upset. Did we do something? He said, This guy is selling me all kinds of stuff that I don't care about. I only called you in to talk about the cleaning. That's what I want to hear. So we listened. I said, okay, so tell me about what the challenges are. I took over from the poor sales guy, but he learned something valuable. And I went to a few of the theaters over the next couple of days, took in some shows, which was fun. I didn't get free tickets. I didn't ask the guy for free tickets. I went to four different theaters. And a week later, I sent him pictures and notes and said, Hey, I went to the following shows. By the way, they were great. Here's what I saw in the theaters. Gave him the list, and he sent back a reply. All it said was A plus. That's all it said. So we ended up submitting our pricing and some of our recommendations based on those four trips I made to the theaters. And he called me up and said, Steve, I got good news and bad news. What's that, Bill? He said, Well, the good news is you. Got the business. I said, What's the bad news? He said, I I can't deal with that salesperson. He said, I want to deal with you. So I said, Well, Bill, I'm the consultant. So as long as you're okay with the salesperson getting the commission, I got one more request of you. And he said, Yeah, I'd be okay if he gets the commission. As long as I'm dealing with you, I want to deal with you. I said, Fine. I said, And I want to ask you just one favor. He said, What's that? I said, Will you go bowling with the guy or have lunch with him in a year with the other salesperson? And he laughed and he said, All right, so you mean you're going to bring him in from time to time? Yes. And you know, a year later, he did. He ended up, he got to like the guy, and and uh it turned into a million and a half dollar account because the supplies were a million, the theaters themselves were really big. But little did we know they were moving the next year and the and it needed all new office furniture, and they ended up getting uh a hell of a customer, probably still have them to this day. But the learning was watching people, their body language, and when you oversell them, pay attention to what they say, right? If they tell you I can't buy, I can't, I couldn't ever give you the business. Okay. Just tell me why. What's going on? If they tell you they only want this, just do that. It's not an invitation to tell them about everything you sell. And when when we listened and gave people what they wanted, it's fascinating how the sales closed.

Mike Mirarchi 23:44

I remember when I started with RJ the first year I did not compete. So I traveled around with different salespeople and row with them. We were in Texas and I was riding with the salesperson, and we were going into an account, and this is an old food service guy, like huge history and everything. So we're walking in, and the salesman said, This guy doesn't really talk too much. And I was like, Okay. So we go into the waiting room, and there's pictures all around, like this huge history of this company, like obviously very proud of their history, right? So we go into the meeting, and it's the owner of the company, it's the it's the old the father, right? Who we're talking with. And I said, Man, I was in your waiting room, incredible history. Could you just tell me a little bit about your company and the history and everything? And he went on and on and on for 15, 20 minutes, like just and and this is the a company who hired the first African Americans, and like there's just this huge history, and obviously they're very proud of that history, and they should be. You know, it's incredible. That led to all kinds of different opportunities we talked about and how we could partner and do business together and everything. So we walk out, and the the salesman was like, Man, he goes, I've never seen anybody talk so much. And I said, Have you ever asked him about his business? Like, of course he's not, because you're trying to go in and sell to make a sale, right? He's just sitting there not saying a word, you know.

Steve Lentini 25:11

Well, and in your world, they're obviously buying from somebody when you get there, right? Sure. And they may not be buying everything, right? Uh how many distributors are buying from a number of redistributors? Of course, right? Most yeah, it's very rare that you're the only one. And except maybe in smaller people or medium-sized people, or or maybe the ones that really love you, maybe.

Mike Mirarchi 25:34

Yeah, sometimes. If you can get to that spot, that's a very special spot to be entrusted with all the business. But it's not typical.

Flatlining And Finding The Now

Steve Lentini 25:43

So, yeah, I always felt blessed. I I talked to people about a North Star having a higher power, and my North Star is God simply because I had a near-death experience. But before that, going back to high school, I wanted to be a priest. I thought that's what I'd be. And then I met Sophie on the high school bus, and I knew, oh well, I'm not going to be a Catholic priest anyway. Yeah. And I studied other faiths, and it led to what uh the work I'm doing today, which is uh it's about leadership and overcoming this small-minded thinking. And that we all have, we have a little voice in our heads. And for some people, you they they lose sleep at night from a little voice telling them to worry or have anxiety. And if they can surrender all that and be in the moment, because one second I was doing a Sandler training for my clients because I bought the license for the Sandler Sales Institute. And five years later, like I said, one second doing a training, the next second I needed an ambulance. And the fascinating thing is I was grateful. They're asking me, How you doing? How you doing? Right in the office before the ambulance came. I said, I don't know how my body's doing, and I'm grateful. And when the EMTs came and asked me the same question, and I gave them the same answer, this the looks in their face, like this guy needs an ER doctor and a shrink. Right? How could he be grateful? I think they were expecting me going saying, I don't want to die, I don't want to die. As I look back, I realized it was the feeling of a divine presence, and I had just surrendered to whatever was next. And I'm embarrassed to say it was 50. And I hadn't surrendered like that. There were moments of surrender, but not like that. I was mostly in the past or in the future, thinking about something that happened in the past or wanting something different in the future. And as I said, there were present moments with family and friends and things like that. However, the minute I knew I needed an ambulance, it didn't matter. Whatever was next, I was just going to face what was next.

Mike Mirarchi 27:41

So did you actually, from the time you passed out uh to the time the EMTs came, did you Oh, it was five days later, actually.

Steve Lentini 27:48

I I so they took me right to intensive care immediately when I got to the hospital. I I I learned later that my pancreas had exploded. Wow. Uh I have a blockage in my pancreas, and and literally um I'm a walk-in miracle. I have no symptoms. Five days later, what happens when your pancreas explodes? The body knows what to do. It fills you with fluid to protect your organs from being digested because they're in my body cavity digesting my organs. So um the water, the fluid, uh caused a congestive heart failure five days later. Anterior myocardia infarction is what Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston said, that they couldn't rule out an anterior myocardial infarction. I had the the heart instance at a little tiny hospital in Waltham, Mass, that that little did I know. I mean, the ambulance took me there because I was in Waltham at a at a uh another office I had in Massachusetts. Little did I know it was going out of business. It was closing. They couldn't do surgery, they couldn't do uh a lot of uh different procedures. And I was there five and a half weeks. But on the fifth day, I flatlined. I had two friends at the end of my bed. One second I was with them, the next second I was one with everything and nothing, one with God, one with immense light, mercy, grace. I mean, we if we all knew how loved we were, we wouldn't be so petty, we wouldn't worry, we would just turn it over to God. And I had been doing that only because of my idea that I'd be a priest up until I was 50. Uh, not a priest, but but in my early years thinking I'd be a priest, and then all the study I did, but not to the degree that I that I do today after that experience and getting a peek at what's next. There is no death. I call it what's next. And what awaits us is an amazing miracle. And it's also here now, if we can just surrender, that life is for us and that God, in our difficult moments, it's God trying to wake us up. It's a knock on the like I got a knock with a two by four that day. I mean, literally, God said, You're gonna get off this track of sales training, and you're gonna go into life experience and teaching people about me in a different way. And that's the work I do today. What happened in my life review? Because there is everything you've heard, there's the life review, only the good I had done flashed before me. Everyone I had helped, I could sense the presence of family and friends and the times I helped to move, and you know, all the things that we help neighbors do and friends painting things, fixing things. And then strangers, people I bought sandwiches for, people I helped walk across the street or bought groceries for, a lady I bought tires for one time that flashed before me because she was in front of me at a tire shop crying that she didn't know how she was going to repair them. The shop told her, Well, you got a flat tire and you got another bad tire. And and when she left to go, she said, I got to go talk to my husband. I said, Here, give him some cash. I said, Buy her tires, but don't tell her where it came from. And so that flashed before me. And and then even people I smiled at. I had no idea how many lives I had touched. And I realized I had been the one resisting all the times God had reached out to help the North Star.

Mike Mirarchi 31:06

He gives us opportunities every day to do good, to be a vessel for his goodness, right? And we either accept those uh assignments or we don't, right? We either do the good thing or don't do the good thing. It's it's really interesting because I'm in the exact same place in that regard, right? I didn't have that experience, although I know people who have. Uh my father actually had an experience uh where he left his body and he met all of his family members, and they said, What are you doing here? It's not your time. And then he went back in his body, and then and we happened to be there the next day, and he was pretty freaked out, you know. But it was wasn't a bad experience, it just was a shocking experience for the well and David R.

Steve Lentini 31:48

Hawkins writes about it that he David R. Hawkins is dead for for a while now, but uh he wrote about how many times he had he didn't have near-death experiences, he had experiences of the unconditional love God or the Creator in certain moments in his life as a child, as a teenager, as an adult. And he wrote saying you don't have to have a near-death experience to experience God. I agree with that. And a lot of people feel that during the day, they wonder what it is. They feel this unconditional love. They're having those moments that David R. Hawkins writes about and talked about.

Mike Mirarchi 32:23

I think it's the we're so in tuned or trained to the religious, right? To the religion that we've all grown up in. I was a Catholic as well. And um, my mom said I was going to be a priest, which is kind of interesting. Uh so that didn't come to fruition, but uh I'm a vessel. I I truly have God in my heart, and I do the things that He wants me to do, and He gives me the opportunities to do. And it's a it's a wonderful way to live because it is there's opportunities every day. You you just see, and like you said, it's just a smile or it's a nice gesture.

Steve Lentini 32:59

There was no judgment. That's the thing that I was stunned by when I was back in the intensive care. And the third, after my life review, there was a question just like this stay or go. And my consciousness surrendered again with thy will be done. It didn't matter. That was the whole experience for the time that I was in the hospital. Little did I know it was going to be five and a half weeks before I moved to Brigham and Women's, and then and then more time, it was 60 days straight, and then and then another 40 days out of the next 60 in the hospital. So it was a hundred days and six months out of work. But stay or go, I surrendered. And when I got back in intensive care, the next second I was in intensive care again, and I I couldn't even speak because you I couldn't put the events together because there was no past or future. There was only the now. I call it the now on steroids. And so there was a scene and a scene and a scene. The third scene was the question. And um I finally said to my two friends, something happened. And they said, Oh yeah, you flatlined. The nurses and doctors came running in, said, Out, out. This is it. Call his family. And that's what we were doing. We were in the waiting room calling your family. How long were you dead for? Well, they I don't know how long I was dead for. Because uh they weren't called back into the intensive care until after about 20-something minutes. And the nurse came out and said, He's stable now, you can come in and sit with him. And so um I think they said he's that the nurse said he's stable for now. And so she was cautioning them that because acute necrotizing pancreatitis at that time, it was 23 years ago, November 18th last year, 30,000 people a year got it. 300 survived. And then to have the heart attack. So in five days, I I survived two major events, and I have no symptoms. Yeah, I have no symptoms. The heart doctor, I mean, he's a I didn't even see a heart doctor for like 15 years uh after the event. And then as far as digestion, everything works. I do have to take a pill. I have less than 10% of my pancreas left uh after surgery. After five and a half weeks, I finally had surgery. What I can tell you is what I suspected many years ago when people would show up for uh a sandwich or money begging on the street, or people that would show up out of nowhere because they needed a tank of gas or something. Back then, my brain would judge some of those. Or if I was with a friend who'd say, You're not gonna buy that guy gas, are you? And sometimes I'd put the card, you know, the credit card or the cash back in my pocket. I don't do it ever because now when somebody knocks on my door, uncanny, when I stop at a rest station on way to trips to New England, in fact, somebody invariably will knock on my window when I stop at a rest area and say, uh, sir, can I I say, Don't, don't, don't, don't give me the story. I don't need it. Just tell me what you need. I need gas or I need cash. I just do it and afterwards say, Thank you, God, for allowing me to serve you because I believe today those are the little tests and the little god wings because of how we feel when we do good. And why was only the good that I had done flashed before me in my life review? Why? I still don't know the answer to that, except that's our job.

Resentment Guilt And Daily Service

Mike Mirarchi 36:15

Those things are beyond comprehension, truly. I mean without a doubt. Yeah, they are. So if somebody's listening to this and they've lived in a religion their whole lives, which there's many people who have, uh, but they they feel like there's more there, that they're missing something, or that there's there's more, right? And we know there is. What would you recommend for them? Like how do you how do you get to this place where you say, you know, I want to be your vessel? I want to how do you do that?

Steve Lentini 36:44

What do what's your be in the now and and to not judge anything, just be in the moment because God is never absent. I wrote the book, just put it out last month. You missed God on the way to the the mosque, the temple, or the church. How to see God everywhere in a universe that we're still so mystified by, how could God be ever absent and that God is everywhere? And just to remember, especially when you're bothered by someone or something, some event, those are the real teachers that God is behind, that those moments that really bother us are there to wake us up to something, a way to grow. Maybe we need to be more patient, forgiving, accepting, loving. And it's from the people that really bother us that we learn the most when we can say, okay, God, that didn't feel good. And what was it here to teach me? What's it here to show me? And then the opportunity to serve others, like you've mentioned when we were talking about that lady in front of you at the supermarket that you know was struggling, an old lady needed some help, and you paid for her groceries and you felt good. And every time you've done good, you feel good. And when I ask people, how do you feel when you do good? Except for one guy out of thousands, the last 23 years, one guy said, I guess I feel good. He was reluctant to admit he felt good. But everyone else resoundingly says, Oh, yeah, I feel good when I do good. Yeah, why? Why do we feel good when we do good? Because we're doing God's work here on earth, we've done what Jesus would have recommended, right? To take care of our brother and our family. But even all of the faiths talk about that. There isn't one that at least comes from the tree of Abraham that doesn't talk about doing good and loving others.

Mike Mirarchi 38:36

And that's it, right? So I believe that opening yourself up to the opportunity and seeing it's kind of like a radio. You kind of tune in, right? And you tune your radio in, and now all of a sudden you start seeing things differently. And you know, the other thing which I think is important, a lot of people harbor resentment and they harbor guilt and they harbor all these feelings. And I view those as anchors. And those anchors really hold you back from being able to be that vessel, they block the flow. And I think the more that I've grown in my life, I've learned to cast those off. And the forgiveness part, you know, to try to uh work through those feelings that you have, those negative feelings about different people and about who they are. It's uh it's really powerful when you're able to cast those off in the feeling you get, which is positive, right? You get uh lightness about you because you're casting off those anchors.

Steve Lentini 39:35

Yeah. And it can be brought with people into business and sales. See, that's the that's the the transition that people can make. They don't have to go to work because God wants me to earn money, but God isn't here while I'm working. No, that the God is there if you're listening. And if you listen to your clients to help them and let go of your own goals, don't go there for a commission and a bonus. Go there to help people and be curious and loving. And and you you may impart them with something, some knowledge or some gift. You may help them overcome a problem and not sell them anything for now. And later on, those people remember those instances to allow people wherever they're at, including the ones that bother us and bug us, right? Because you can't change their life. If they're angry or they're fighting people or they've got some resentment, let them have it. And to your point, you deal with your own. What's yours, right? You clean up your side of the road, and that's the part you can control. And those things are freeing because then it's gratitude and surrender to the moment. And what happens is our plan supersedes God's when we're stuck in our head. When we're stuck in our hand and we've got a plan, and we're gonna get there. We can be the MMA fighter of life and say, I'm gonna do this my way, and God'll say, Okay, go ahead, give it a try your way. Today, my partner, the name of the company is Lord and Lentini, because I did it, I tried doing it my way, and it nearly killed me. And and today it's gratitude and surrender that have been the most amazing blessings of my life. And uh every time I let go of wanting something my way, God shows up in an amazing way, much greater. I mean, 24,000 came in the mail after a month, people hearing about me in the hospital. Afflink was a big customer of mine around the country. I was a sales trainer for them. And when they heard I was in the hospital, the guy that I ended up working for called me and said, uh, hey Steve, you want to come do a seminar for us? I said, Mike, I'm in the hospital. He said, Yeah, I heard. He was breaking my chops. I he I said, Uh I don't know when I'm gonna be out. And he said, I actually got a different idea. Maybe you would come to work for us and run the Northeast. And I said, Mike, but I don't know when I'll be available. He said, I don't care, I'm gonna wait. That was January of 2003. And so in April, I was went to see my primary care for the first time because he was in Beverly Mass, where my main office was. He hadn't even seen me during this whole experience. And I get released to go to work, and I'm driving home in the middle of April, and well, who wouldn't you know who calls? Mike from F Link, Mike Palichek, what a great guy. And he said, Stevie, what are you doing? I said, Mike, it's uncanny. I'm driving home. I'm just cleared to go to work. He said, Good, I got an airline ticket Sunday. Come down to our meeting, and you can give a talk if you want, and and maybe you'll come to work for us. And so he and I talked, and I sold the Sandler license, and and I said to Mike, as long as I can do a class every once in a while of my own work. He said, Yeah, Mondays after you do your expenses and stuff. Um, you know, take Mondays to do that in the afternoons. And I started my own work and uh wrote the first book, uh, Wake Up, Jump Into Your Life, and and and handled Aff-Link for six years, and they're they're a great, uh, it was a great organization, great book.

Mike Mirarchi 43:01

That's actually where I met you at Aff Link. Yeah, that's right. So that would have been 2003, 4, 5, 6, somewhere in there.

Acorn Brain And New Neural Paths

Steve Lentini 43:07

Yeah. Right. So it all turned uh the darkest moment had the greatest gift in my life. It wasn't wrapped as I would have liked, and still I was grateful and totally surrendered. That gratitude and surrender stays with me. And back in my body, I have to remind myself again, hey, wait, God is here because this brain tries to take over. That's the coaching that I do with people is don't listen to that brain, that you can reprogram your mind. When you realize that that we're that I'm stuck back in my head, the best thing I can do is remind it that I'm in charge. What and a lot of people are doing that work today.

Mike Mirarchi 43:43

Yeah, Steve, what's the acorn brain? Because I know that's something you talk about a lot. Uh, but in a nutshell, that if you could uh in a nutshell, that's great. If you could help people out of the way, that is.

Steve Lentini 43:55

It's that little small-minded voice, anything small-minded where you're judging people. You don't want to put your hand in your pocket to give a

Speaker 44:02

guy five dollars because he's asking you for money. What if he showed up because God put him there for you to as a test? That little voice that has you judging your employees, making people wrong, angry at people, that voice is called it's it causes us to react. And I hyphenate it and put it in quotes, reacting, because it's something previously learned. And what we know about an acorn is it has potential to be an oak tree. We can all be the oak tree of our mind. We can train our mind by paying attention to what and who triggers us. And when we learn to what and who triggers us are actually a gift. They're for us. It's not happening to us. Life isn't happening to us. Then we can become the oak tree. But it it's a journey. I haven't found the way to program the mind. I haven't found the way I tell my clients, if I ever tell you I found the way, run away.

Mike Mirarchi 45:00

That's right. Because no matter what, that acorn brain sometimes just kicks in. And you know, it's it's hard to control sometime. And we all fall into it. I fall into it like I'm guilty as charged.

Steve Lentini 45:12

I've been doing this work for over 20 years, and I'm still catch myself reacting, especially in Brooklyn traffic. Yeah. Okay, God. I'm gonna let him in. I'm letting him in. Okay, I'm backing up. All right, I'm letting the guy in now.

Mike Mirarchi 45:27

Yeah, yeah. It's a it's a work in progress, it sure is. And that's really true.

Steve Lentini 45:32

Well, and what neuroresearchers are proving is the first 35 years, we train our brain by all our emotional responses to people and events. So joy and happiness, great. The brain remembers. But just like driving and learning anything new, snowboarding, snowmobiling, skiing, bowling, whatever you learn, golf, in the beginning, you're you're trying to remember everything and get it all right so you can perform. The brain eventually takes over, right? Muscle memory, driving. You don't have to worry about driving today. Emotionally, though, the brain also remembers every response to certain situations, every emotion. So, including anger, frustration, stress, sadness, depression, and thoughts of judgment and less than that, or that we're more than someone or less than others. The brain remembers those. And neuroscientists say that unless you do the work to reprogram your mind after the age of 35, they can predict what your next 35 years will be like because the brain will have you repeating all those reactions. So whether it's worth it or not, tell people to do the research into Dr. Daniel A. Man or uh Joe Dispenza or Sherzad Shamin or Dr. James Dody. There's so many people today talking about reprogramming the mind, and that when you learn to train the mind to go to a response instead of a reaction, what they're proving is that there's new neural pathways opened in the brain, like stroke victims. It's like learning how to walk again for stroke victims or talk. They open new neural pathways so that they can continue that. It's the same with the emotional responses. That if you've always had somebody uh that angers you or you're telling people, this is who I am, get over it. No, it's who you've programmed yourself to be, and you can always make a new choice and grow, hopefully, into the oak and get out of the acorn.

Mike Mirarchi 47:30

You know, the good news is every day we have a new opportunity to start over, no matter what's happened. Each day is a gift, truly. And that's all we have. We have this day. You don't have anything else.

Steve Lentini 47:42

It wasn't on my calendar 23 years ago, over 23 years ago. Steve, today's your last day. Enjoy.

Mike Mirarchi 47:47

Yes, and we just never know when that is. But uh, we do have this moment and this time to make a difference. And I um really appreciate that uh you're one of those people who make a difference and you have and continue to.

Steve Lentini 48:02

I'm grateful we met. I'm grateful we met, and we share a lot of the same philosophies in whether it's in sales or in about faith. And uh that might be confirmation bias, why I like you. Uh but I don't find any evidence to the contrary, right? There's no evidence. I know that if I do have someone that I don't like, I need to look at what I would say. Because what let's say that I I meet someone and I would say they're an obnoxious idiot. I've got to take a pause and go, wait a minute, have I ever been an obnoxious idiot? I can't say no. So now I have more compassion for that. Oh, okay, I see what he's up to. He's me.

A Modern View Of God

Mike Mirarchi 48:42

You know, my wife is is famous for this, uh, and it's actually a good thing, right? So somebody will be a certain way and she'll go, well, maybe he was, you know, this, or maybe something happened in her life, or maybe, you know, that's that's kind of her response. And it's actually a really good response because it is somebody could be a wonderful person and just be having a really bad day, yeah, and react in a way that if it's the first time you're ever meeting them, you might think, Wow, this person's really a jerk, you know. But that person might just be having a really bad day, and you just never know, right? We don't know their story. Wow, this has been amazing. Thank you. Love to have you on again, maybe sometime. This has been a great conversation. And uh, do you have any parting thoughts? Or just you don't have to search for God. God is everywhere. He's right there, everywhere. He's right by you. It all you need to do is ask and just say, Yeah, that's it. And uh it's as simple as that, truly. Yeah, just tune in to his radio station, you'll be amazed what you hear.

Steve Lentini 49:42

Yeah, and you don't need to do anything to to earn God's love. He's not a transactional God in my experience. There's nothing to do that it's automatic. As Christ said, our sins were forgiven. I think that's the original message that Christ came to say there's no such thing as sin, but that would have been worse.

Mike Mirarchi 50:00

Yeah.

Steve Lentini 50:01

As it was, he got crucified. Well, for the your sins are forgiven. I never believed it, and and then maybe that's the confirmation I got, right? The gift was I'm loved beyond all understanding, and all of us are.

Mike Mirarchi 50:16

I mean, it's a huge conversation because there's so much evil in the world, and you know, obviously it's there. So when you talk about getting into sin and all that stuff, it's a it's a really we could probably have 10 podcasts on that subject alone.

Steve Lentini 50:29

But anyway, I'm sure my new book has upset about 300 theologians.

Mike Mirarchi 50:34

Yeah, no question about it. And the whole philosophy of you know, you have a direct connection with God versus having to go through other people. That whole thing, yeah, trying to drive people a little crazy.

Steve Lentini 50:46

But yeah, uh, that's okay. It is. Enjoy this miracle. We're given a floating ball in the midst of a space, a vacuum, and everything required for life here, why not enjoy it?

Mike Mirarchi 50:57

So if you think about the fact that God knitted you in your mother's womb, if you in the Psalms, Psalm 139, knitted you in your mother's womb with a purpose, and he's created you for a purpose. Why wouldn't he do anything but love you? It's it's no different than a child. Yeah, and sometimes children do things that uh you know aren't good, but the love is always there, it no matter what, you know, you love your child, right? And it's a similar thing, but with God it's perfect. And and so it's much bigger and better than what how we can love our kids.

Steve Lentini 51:31

I write that in my book. I ask a lot of questions in the book to have people think about things, right? To think of a modernized God. I mean, we've modernized, we have new technologies, but we think God is still back in the uh, you know, the dark ages uh in the 2000 years ago. And um, what I say to people is which one of your children would you condemn to burn in hell forever? Right.

Mike Mirarchi 51:54

You know, the shack has that as part of the do you ever see the shack, the movie, and the the father has to judge one of his kids? Yeah, that's so powerful.

Steve Lentini 52:02

I mean, that is one of the most powerful scenes I gotta see that again because it's been a long time. I gotta see that again. It's so powerful. It is so powerful. Yeah, and when I ask people that, they're like confounded by the question or angry, like I wouldn't want my kids. Well, so then if that's true, then you think your love is greater than God's.

Parting Thoughts And Thanks

Mike Mirarchi 52:22

Great stuff, Steve. Thank you so much, Mike. Thank you for being on my podcast. Who says selling toilet paper isn't glamorous? Thanks a lot and have a great day.