From Rock-Bottom to Rockstar: 7 Crucial Motivation Tips with Todd Collins

Scale | May 10, 2018 | 18 min read
Not many people are willing to open up about the not-so-attractive times in their lives, but we’ve got a man who shares a powerful come-up story. Todd Collins is the ultimate workhorse, and after hitting rock bottom his story is sure to inspire many.

Collins is the Chief Operating Officer of Platinum Reputations, a company that works to help businesses and individuals with their online brand. Todd Collins works with over 400 clients building out digital marketing strategies, managing online reputation, and assisting businesses in conquering their local markets.

Today, Collins has a fast-paced life speaking in front of audiences across the globe sharing his expertise, eating lunch with Tony Robbins, and helping run a very successful agency.

(Todd Collins speaks on fulfilling customer services at VendastaCon 2018 in Banff, Alberta, Canada)

But life was not always this glamorous.

Listen how Todd Collins went from having his car repossessed in front of a client, to sitting at a table with Gary Vaynerchuk and Tony Robbins in just 6 years. Hard work and hustle at its finest.

7 Motivational Tips and Challenges to Start Winning at Work, Home, and Life

1. Change Your Mindset, Become Competitive

When people think of being competitive, they might think of having the desire or motivation to beat an opponent. While outperforming your competitors might be a part of it, sometimes being competitive means competing against yourself.

The sales landscape is a competitive setting. To continue the sales example, if you want to become the best salesperson at your company, you probably chase the name at the top of the sales leader board. If this isn’t already working for you, then start by competing against yourself. Take your numbers achieved last month and challenges yourself to smash your own sales records.

It all starts with a mindset, you must believe in yourself and your own abilities to succeed.

I think it’s just something that you have to accept the fact that you are, like, literally the best salesperson out there. You have to believe that. And until you actually believe that you are the best at what you do, that you’re never gonna reach that pinnacle. And a lot of people…you know, I used to hear that old adage of, “There’s always someone better than you.” I don’t believe that. Like, you can’t believe that. Like, why would you even walk into a room knowing and thinking that someone is better than you?
Todd Collins

COO, Platinum Reputations

Whether you think it is cocky, or exuberant confidence, it works.

That doesn't necessarily mean standing at the water cooler telling all of your co-workers, “Hey, I am the best salesperson in the world.” It can be a quiet confidence, and a confidence within yourself. Use this confidence to drive yourself, and start believing in your own abilities.

Challenge: Start making goals and targets whether it be sales, fitness, or life targets. Measure your success and work to beat your own targets consistently!

2. Start Reading More

Reading about other people's successes, failures, and life stories has proven to motivate others. Todd Collins was given a book many years ago, and at that time, a light switch went off. Reading can help keep you motivated, and the right book has the power to light a fire inside of you and change your life.

I was given a book called “Think and Grow Rich.” And if you haven’t read that book then I 100% recommend that you read that book. It’s one of the oldest books in the world. It’s probably just as old as the Bible. Napoleon Hill I think was the author of that book if I’m not mistaken, but it just resonated with me. And it honestly was an awakening. I finally had a purpose and I was extremely interested. And I was not as interested about selling cars as I was understanding the psychology and almost the warfare of trying to win the battle of negotiation. And that is what I became obsessed with, and trying to be the winner, and trying to be the champ.
Todd Collins

COO, Platinum Reputations

Reading has also proven to increase motivation and productivity in the workplace.
The more motivated you are about what you do for a living, the more you want to get to work and the more work you want done. I read lots of business & sales books; Most of these books provide specific examples of how someone overcame a complicated sales situation; or how a particular business owner/sales rep was able to break into a key account, and so on. When I am reading this, I actually feel motivated. It makes me want to apply those strategies to my business. In fact, it makes me excited to get to work and start applying some ideas. Let’s face it, Sales could become a grind and you can easily lose motivation – Reading helps me stay motivated.
Nissar Ahmed

Founder, CareerMetis.com

After listening to a captivating motivational speech, or a drawing novel, I often feel an adrenaline rush and a desire to accomplish my goals. IMMEDIATELY.

Challenge: Lacking motivation? Try reading a motivational story or novel to boost your adrenaline and kick your butt into gear. Check out Amazon’s Best Sellers, my favourite being “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***” by Mark Manson.

3. Don’t Just Set Goals, Write Them Down!

Verbally nailing down goals is not enough, and there is research to prove it. If you REALLY want to start accomplishing the goals that you set out to accomplish, be sure that you are writing those goals down.

Harvard Graduate students were studied and asked various questions about their goal-setting strategies for their future. Here’s what resulted from the study:

  • 3% of students wrote down their goals
  • 13% of students wrote down their goals
  • 84% of students had NO goals at all

In 10 years time, the class was interviewed once again. Of the 3% who set goals for their future, their average salary was 10 times as much as the other 97%!

Write down your goals, and have them staring at you every single day on a piece of paper to keep you motivated.

I want the nice cars and I want the big mansion and I wanna roll in it 1:00 in the afternoon and sit in one meeting and then drive away and do something.” I wanted to be a dealer. That was it. I had to do it. And so I just literally started writing everything. These are all things that I started doing myself, right? I started writing down my goals in that book. And I still have the book. I wrote it down. I said, “By the time I’m 30 years old, I wanna own my own car dealership.
Todd Collins

COO, Platinum Reputations

Challenge: Go out and buy a notebook for your desk at work, or your bedside table at home. Write down your goals and be sure to report on progress in your notebook every month to ensure you’re on track. The trick is to have this notebook in a place that will constantly be looking at you, so you continue to examine your goals and stay motivated.

4. Evaluate Yourself: Who Will You Be Remembered As?

When you look back at yourself at the end of your life, who do you want to be remembered as? Todd Collins talks about his struggles with the idea that his children would remember him as a car salesman, not as the great dad that he is.

But at the end of the day, and I always think back to this, at 92 years old or 93 years old or, my God, 85 years old when I’m lying on my deathbed and, you know, my kids are gathered around me, I don’t want them to say, “Wow, my dad was just a really great car salesman.” That is the last thing that I want them to remember about me.
Todd Collins

COO, Platinum Reputations

Collins' motivation in this case was to build himself a legacy in which his kids would be able to remember their dad as MUCH more than just a car salesman. To create a memory for himself as a successful business person, but more so, a great dad.

Make sure that you consider who you are perceived as. By your family, friends, coworkers, and anyone else whose opinion MATTERS to you. Haters will hate, but block out the opinions that don’t matter and focus on the people who do matter.

I’m good with having haters, man. Like, you can hate on me all you want.
Todd Collins

COO, Platinum Reputations

Your motivation should stem to achieve the person you want to be, or want your kids (family) to see you as. Set the goal to become that person, and it might take a bit of a lifestyle change but it is always achievable ESPECIALLY when your motivation is family.  

Challenge: In your goals notebook, take time to reflect on who you want to be known as or remembered as…and then write it down! Think of the most important opinions and people in your life, and examine how you want to present yourself to these people.

5. Accept That It’s Not Gonna Be Easy (And That's Okay)

Simply put, it isn’t easy building your success and becoming a successful businessperson or entrepreneur. Stop thinking that you will find success overnight—every successful person will tell you that this IS NOT how it works.

We recently spoke with Rand Fishkin, Former CEO of MOZ, and he touched on the trials and tribulations of the entrepreneurial lifestyle. Todd Collins echoes Fishkin’s points, in that the entrepreneurial chase is not always a bed of roses.

There’s great times and there’s bad times. And it’s always gonna happen like that. But the thing is is that I don’t think I would be as good as I am if those other things would not have happened to me. Because what drives me is the fact that I don’t want to go back there again.
Todd Collins

COO, Platinum Reputations

Collins found himself at rock bottom, and he worked his tail off to get out of a really dark place. The lows and downtimes are a completely normal part of the entrepreneurial pursuit.
Everybody should realize that…everybody should realize those lows and those failures because that’s what really makes you a much better business person.
Todd Collins

COO, Platinum Reputations

Use the bad times to motivate you. When you’re stuck in a rut, take that moment to feel the struggle, climb out of the rut and work to NEVER feel that struggle again.

Challenge: Shake the mindset that success comes easy. If you are experiencing tough times or struggles, document it. You can use a goals notebook as a diary log to write about your struggles. When you bounce back from tough times, read back about the way you felt while experiencing a dark time. This can keep you motivated to succeed and to avoid the painful experiences you may have faced in the past.

6. Mornings: The Importance of Drive

Productivity can start with the motivation to get out of bed. We all know how hard it can be to leave your cozy mattress and warm blankets in the morning. It is probably even harder if you are getting up every single day to leave to a job or career that you are not passionate about.

Start your day with something you are passionate about, something that will give you a drive to tackle the challenges of each day. Todd Collins gets out of bed and heads to the gym, because for him that is a way to achieve or accomplish something early in his day.

I get up and like I’m ready to go. You know, and before it was very difficult for me to wake up in the mornings. I was like, you know, slugging myself out of bed. I was like, “I can’t make it through another day.” And like now it’s like I can’t wait to get to the gym, man.
Todd Collins

COO, Platinum Reputations

Gary Vaynerchuk talks about making your bed in the morning, each morning, before you have done anything else. But why?

If you make your bed the first thing in the morning, you have accomplished something. Although it is extremely insignificant to some, it can be the motivator that drives you to continue to ride a wave of accomplishment throughout each day.

So find something to drive you out of bed, each morning, and start your day by accomplishing something. Accomplish a workout, accomplish a chapter of your book, accomplish you kids lunch kit meal, or accomplish your bed making routine.

A morning drive and desire is the fuel for the rest of your day.

Challenge: Develop a morning routine that involves accomplishing something early in the day. You will feel more energized and more motivated knowing that you have started your day in a productive manner.

7. Cleanse Your Inner-Circle of Toxic Relationships

Swap your juice cleanse for a cleanse of personalities. If you are surrounded by a group of individuals who do not want to reach the level of success that you do, it can be difficult to motivate yourself. The people around you set examples for you, pave the road, and help to keep you motivated. Just like how juicing (in theory) rids your body of toxins, your social life needs the same to cleanse your mind.

Motivational speaker Jim Rohn has said,

 

“You are the average of the 5 people that you spend the most time with.”


Meaning, the more your hang out or spend time with toxic individuals the more you become similar to their character - whether you know it or not.   

I think Gary [Vaynerchuk] said like, you know, “Get rid of the people that are weighing you down.” Just get rid of them out. You just get them completely out of your circle. Just do it. Like, they’re not even worth having.
Todd Collins

COO, Platinum Reputations

Who motivates you? Surround yourself by the people that give you a constant desire to be the best person you can be. This involves your friend group but it can also involve the relationships that you have online.
Todd Collins and Tony Robbins
Everyone has Facebook friends who consistently spew negativity online, but why are we still friends with them?

Start surrounding yourself by positive influences, kind of like the way your parents told you to make good choices and find nice friends in high school.

Challenge: Social media audit! Your social media channels might seem insignificant, but as humans, we tend to spend a ton of time on these channels. Follow people like Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk, Todd Collins, George Leith and get rid of the negativity (negative people) in your news feed.

8. Work to Deal With Stress

First off, accept that you will get stressed. Don’t try to block out stress, but embrace the fact that when things don’t come easy it is natural to experience stress.

With stress, there is always a solution, and there is always a way out of a trying time.

I just choose what I get stressed about and then I find a solution. Like, I’m not gonna sit there and like cry about it, right? Like, if one of my clients has a problem, just find the solution. Make them happy and move on to the next one. Because you’re gonna have another fire that’s gonna follow up. So you’ve just got to accept the fact that when you wanna be the man, that you’re gonna have things that you’re gonna have to deal with on a daily basis, and you’ve just gotta figure out a solution to it and make it happen. There’s always a solution to a problem and you’ve gotta figure it out.
Todd Collins

COO, Platinum Reputations

In any business, there will be moments where you want to pull your hair out. If you believe that you can avoid stress in your work life entirely, you are in for a tough reality. Stress in the workplace is completely natural. With deadlines, goals and targets weighing you down it can easily become stressful to accomplish everything.

Stress can be used in a positive fashion, as stress often motivates people when faced with a deadline. Stress can be good, but your mindset must also accomodate the way you handle various types of stresses.

Challenge: Use stress as a motivator and start embracing some of the stress in your work life. Not everything is going to be perfect or go your way when it comes to your career or your day-to-day work. You must shake the mindset that work is going to be worry-free or problem free. Stress is normal, and can be used to motivate individuals to meet deadlines, hit targets, and accomplish goals.

Conclusion: Start Believing In Yourself & Your Abilities

famous quote by Confucius
If you don’t believe in yourself, you have to change your mindset. Motivation stems from the mindset that you are able to accomplish anything. Todd Collins does a great job of showing confidence in his own abilities and his own work ethic.

The famous Chinese philosopher, Confucius, touches on the power of believing in yourself. If you believe that you will accomplish something, you are more likely to actually do so. If you don’t believe you can accomplish something, your motivation will die, and you might fall short of your objectives.

I’ll walk into that room here in a few minutes, and I will not be the smartest guy in that room. In my opinion, you might be, but I believe that I’m the hardest worker in the room. And you might believe that you’re the hardest worker in the room and Dennis might believe that he’s the hardest worker in the room and this guy might also believe that, I don’t have that mindset. I believe 100% on any room that I walk into that I will outwork the (****) out of you.
Todd Collins

COO, Platinum Reputations

As Todd Collins does so well, start believing in yourself. Whether that is believing you are the hardest worker in the room or believing in your experience/capabilities to accomplish.

You don’t have to be the most talented, the most intelligent or the most experienced to become the most successful. Those who believe in themselves are more likely to win. Start winning.

For more on Todd Collins' incredible story, tune into this weeks Conquer Local Podcast!

Turn your digital agency into a scalable power house with Vendasta

About the Author

Zach is a former content strategist with Vendasta. He is fascinated by digital marketing, international studies, and exploring the relationship between technology and business.

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