My sons and their best friend have made over $300 in ticket sales the past few weekends holding private showings from our basement for their just released “The b0z0 Movie”.

We can hear kids laughing and screaming with glee as they are subject to the creation of our boy’s imagination and hard work over a year’s worth of filming, editing, and pushing their own limits, and it is unbelievable to know this is the response.

With much pride I will let you in on a little secret:

This movie is a work of art and completely made by middle school boys.

It is wowing youth, adults, and the harshest of critics: teenagers and family members.

To me, as an artist, it is stunning to realize this level of moviemaking can be accomplished by anyone this age, yet to know it’s been made by my sons and their friends working together, well, it’s quite amazing.

The movie is filled with comedy stunts, painful hits, fireworks, a bit of mayhem, all based upon that genre which arrived during my high school years and rhymes with HackMass, or BackNass, or LastPass (that’s a stretch) starring Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, and those guys.

Yes, THAT genre.  Hahaha.

To put it mildly: This is not on brand for me as a professional, nor is it in line with much of what I teach, have taught them, or would usually approve of.

Some choice words, painful spills, a few stunts that caused injury, and questionable usage of fire, fireworks, pushing the limits in public places with silliness, makes for the reason it is a private showing by invitation only among friends.

Here is a LINK to the MOVIE TRAILER

For a few years, our oldest son, Redford, has been creating funny and bizarre videos with his friends, editing each version, writing music, asking for critiques, editing again, and even started a YouTube channel that is quite entertaining if you want to check it out and give him a few more followers.  This video short below is one of my favorites…I prefer the first minute of the video over the second, but he found a framed photo of some girl at a thrift store and made up a story that she broke his heart.  Ahhhh, young love.

Prior to the WORLD PREMIERE of their first full-length feature, they sat me down to watch the full movie, and were, frankly, scared to death of what I would say.  I had a general idea of what I was about to witness, you hear things while they film, edit, and figure out how to make it work on screen.

As I sat there for an hour I had many emotions:

Surprise 

Embarrassment 

Worry 

Pain

Frustration

And then, at the same time:

Delight 

Amazement 

Joy

Gratitude 

Inspiration

As it ended I sat there knowing how they felt, and how much my reaction, as a father, mattered.

What should I say?  

What would you say?  

What would you do if this was what your children had put all of their time, effort, excitement, and literal blood, sweat, and tears into making over a year’s time?  

Since none of it was illegal or too grotesque, I looked at them and said:

“My sons, this is….amazing.  I’m so proud of you. 

I’m concerned with a few parts, and hope you’ll steer away from doing that in the future, but you’re onto something, and this is very special. 

It is really quite brilliant, as the editing, music, and capturing of so much material is comedically put together with the right pacing and structure.  Everyone is going to love it.  

How can I help?” 

You should have seen the look of relief, surprise, and even confidence come across their faces.

From there we began promoting the first showing.

The reviews are in – as each attendee arrives, drops their phones in a bucket, and at the end are handed surveys to address what they liked, didn’t like, and want to see more of in future movies.  Every audience says we wish the movie was longer because it was so good.  That’s pretty cool.

As the boys read the reviews, laughing their heads off, they then clean up the mess, since they also sell popcorn, candy, soda and treats to make an even greater profit each Saturday night in their new business venture.

Question:

How does this acceptance of my son’s creation still allow me, as a father, to Keep The Promise, even if it’s not congruent with my own teachings and path?

Quick Story:

When I was a kid I was a pretty straight arrow.  Didn’t veer too much off the path I was taught, and when I finally did go “astray” I remember how my dad, very religious and staunch in his expectations of my behavior, reacted.

I had 2 “heroes” as a Junior in high school:

Dennis Rodman and Michael Jackson.  

When I wasn’t painting my fingernails and drawing tattoos on my body with a magic marker before our school basketball games (and leading the team in rebounds most games) to imitate Dennis Rodman, then I was dressing in chains, leather, a fedora, donning a white glove, and grabbing myself in inappropriate ways as I figured out how to moonwalk down on the street corner while making money to go to the movies as a street dancer by imitating Michael Jackson.

These choice actions made my father bow his head and pray our home wouldn’t be struck by lightning, and that somehow I would come out of this phase of ripe destruction.  The only thing he said about it was: “Son, please make good choices, and we trust you’ll ultimately make the right ones.” 

As things turned out, my mimicking of those 2 performers has led me to the work ethic and performance that have afforded me a living in spreading light despite the darkness I’ve wandered through. That time of my life taught me many great lessons, as well as which side of the fence I’m on: Spreading Joy through Family Appropriate Entertainment. 

And so it is – a lesson from my father, who didn’t stamp out my weirdness, now allows me to know best how to guide my own sons to keeping The Promise in my life and hopefully guiding theirs as well.

As we arm these boys with the tools (video cameras, computers for editing), confidence (belief, suggestions, helpfulness and encouragement), and expectation (aspirations for what comes next, branding and audience vs. self-values), it is our promise as parents to do all we can to do our best parenting possible: Set Clear Boundaries, Follow Through on Agreed Upon Consequences and Celebrations of Achievements, and ultimately – Get Out of the Way.

The Promise in Parenting is one I cannot teach as of yet, but we are doing our best to guide, steer, and live an example that will be worth emulating, while acknowledging the outside influences will play a very key role as well, and believing what we have taught, lived, and instilled, will eventually seep into the nature of their future creations.

And so – The b0z0 Movie rocks!  They have multiple showings at $5 per person each Saturday night in our home.  Perhaps someday there will be an opportunity for you to enjoy it.

Until then, how are you keeping The Promise of encouraging your child’s Signature Moves as they navigate and explore the limits of their own imagination? 

Well done, my sons, we are proud of you and your efforts and look forward to all you’ll do moving forward.

If you have participated in my Anticipatory Leader System, it is likely clear to you: sales is an Anticipatory career. No matter what industry a salesperson works in, they should be easily one of the most Anticipatory individuals in the contemporary working world!

Let’s think about that for a second. You are in a very customer-facing business, facilitating the connection between an individual, department, or organization and a product or service that they need. In many cases, your career itself is only successful if this connection between someone and their needs are met and maintained.

Therefore, being able to anticipate what a customer needs and any troubles they face long before those troubles take place would be beneficial, right?

Absolutely! Yet the unfortunate reality is most in sales simply preserve the customer’s status quo as long as possible and too often, lose customers when fully predictable problems disrupt the product or service’s solution.

So as mentioned above, sales is one of the most Anticipatory-minded careers out there. Understanding this fact and leveraging it to your advantage starts with understanding what sales really is, and connecting the skill to being Anticipatory.

Sales: Wants and Needs

A career in sales has been around since long before currency existed. Exchange and reciprocity are basic foundations of sociology: I have something that you desire, and you have something I desire, or I have something that solves a problem you have, and you can help me solve a problem.

The act of selling is actually a very human, non-material action. Based on the aforementioned circumstance where an individual or organization has something that would benefit the other, a sale takes place when the individual or organization with the product or service demonstrates that their product or service is the best option for that interested individual.

While basic necessities like food or clothing are considered easy to sell, over time, luxury items became prominent, brand names took hold, and suddenly we as humans discovered there is a prominent difference between a ‘want’ and a ‘need’.

This concept is in and of itself a Hard Trend future certainty — determining a ‘want’ from a ‘need’ will be here forever. As a professional in sales, you are always looking to prove to your customers that what you have is something they need, and the way to authenticate this is by illustrating just how your product or service will continue to solve their problems.

Connecting Sales to an Anticipatory Mindset

Your product or service may solve a customer’s short-term problem; however, how does it pre-solve their long-term problems or better yet, pre-solve problems that the customer doesn’t even realize they have yet?

The best way to ensure that your customers are always viewing your product or service as a need is by looking so far ahead that you see what could potentially render your product or service irrelevant.

For instance, let’s suppose you are a corporate salesperson working for a business-to-business (B2B) organization that manufactures a revolutionary headlight for motorcycles designed to identify obstacles and alert you through on-board technology, much like backup sensors on a car. Your job is to acquire Honda as a new customer of this innovative headlight that does something no other headlight has ever done before.

How would you approach a sales representative at Honda in this case? Would you portray this life-changing and potentially life-saving product as a want, like it would be ‘cool’ to have? Of course not!

An Anticipatory salesperson would double down on the future certainties of the industry and humankind, such as the fact that we are only getting more distracted daily while driving anything let alone a motorcycle, and that this product is solving future problems riders will have with safety at night.

You Are Selling to Humans

Especially in corporate or B2B sales, many salespeople have a tendency of looking at a customer base or organization as they do their personal technology — a faceless machine that will just say yes to something that they need.

This couldn’t be farther from the truth, and a recent competency I have taught more and more as autonomous technology transforms our lives is applicable here.

You are selling to human beings, not machines. This requires you to be human, relate to them, and above all else, think exponentially about their wants and needs. As our lives start to become more autonomous every day with transformative digital technology, individual customers and corporate customers with sales departments alike will remember you and your sales team just as much as they remember what your product or service does for them, if not more.

Selling is an art form and always will be. Your product or service will likely solve a customer’s problem with science, but you connecting them with it and revealing to them just how this will solve future problems they will have long before they have them is the art side of that science.

Another Anticipatory principle that goes hand-in-hand with being human in sales has to do with relating to the fears a customer may have of change. I’ve encouraged many business leaders to conduct what I call a Time Travel Audit within their organization, where they uncover if a person is past-oriented, present-oriented, or future-oriented.

You may find that most customer’s knee-jerk reaction to change is to resist it — they are frequently past-oriented. Get on their level, because as a salesperson, you too are just discovering the power of a new, revolutionary product or service.

Help bring them to realize that they can be future-oriented without losing touch with their past by highlighting yet another Anticipatory competency: the Both/And Principle. The old will be here to stay, but the new can help improve their lives and more. This and more is how you go from a status quo salesperson to an Anticipatory one.