What ‘precisely’ are you trying to do? After four and a half decades in business I have distilled the main driver of ‘attitude’ as having a clear, measurable, idea of what you’re attempting to achieve in life. 95% of people I’ve met have only the foggiest of ideas where they want to get to: a bigger car… some more money…a better job….a nicer house. Whereas the constantly ‘lucky’ 5% retain a precise hard-edged picture of the future they’re aiming at: 5 million Dollars in the bank by the end of 2012….. a 3 bedroom apartment in Davis Street Mayfair London… ..a red Jaguar XK with a fold down roof…
..to be the brand leader in Worldwide Sales Training by 2015 turning over 15 million each year. Which one are you?
Try this test:
Say I enter your bedroom at 3:00am in the morning and shake you out of a deep sleep asking “John (or Jane) tell me now, where exactly will you be in three years time?” Do you think you could tell me clearly what you will have….what you’ll be doing….where you’ll be in three years? Usually the answer is quite vague.
Now change the scene and see me waking Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Michael Bloomberg and asking the same question. Do you think they will have a much clearer answer? Yes? …Yes of course they will. They are only human like you but unlike most of us they simply have a very (very) clearer picture in their head of what they’re going to do.
Sports psychologists who get athletes and other top sports people to perform at the top of their game all confirm that a clear visual picture, in your brain, of the goal(s) you’re after is extremely important. The human brain, being unable to distinguish between real and imagined events treats any clearly imagined future event as having already happened. If these mental images are regularly re-imagined -and so reinforced- on a daily basis a subconscious belief is automatically built up. But the added extra fire that ignites those clear mental images is ‘action’.
Actions? Action really is the missing link in all the guru ‘luck’ books. Just reading, thinking, imagining and dreaming is like revving a highly tuned racing engine on the test bed…Despite all the noise and power it is not going anywhere.
The first lucky-break action, identified by my own experience and verified by academic research, is mainly to do with other people. Lucky people are always out and about communicating with other humans. They are constantly and habitually expanding and maintaining their network. At the Post Office, in the SuperMarket, on the plane and on the train. Wherever they go they talk to other people. A past sales manager of mine used to constantly remind us: “There are NO customers in the office” and whilst
relating this story to a seminar in Chicago recently a young lady in the audience agreed: “Yeah like there are no boyfriends in the apartment”. So if you want to ‘get lucky’ you have to get out there, on a daily basis, and consciously communicate with other people. Who? ANYBODY……you just never know who you’re going to meet.
The second ‘lucky break’ action has to do with your reaction to the inevitable failures barriers and challenges that life will throw at you. Like the roulette- losing-optimists at the start of this piece every set-back in your life must be treated not as a failure (giving you the excuse to throw in the towel) but as a ‘lesson’. Such set backs only become failures when you make the same mistake every day and learn nothing from it. One of the defining characteristics of madness is doing the same things every day and expecting a different result. So next time something goes wrong for you instead of going down with it and citing it as an excuse for your failure…stop! Now pause and think what lesson you’re learning from this apparent ‘disaster’; now you’re thinking like winners do. Every time you have a problem think, ‘What could be good about this?’ or as William Shakespeare said five hundred years ago: “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so” So finally here’s your simple 3 step, 30 day remedy to kick-start all the success you ever wanted:
1) Get a clear measurable picture in your head of the life goals you want for yourself. Visualise them every day and your brain will automatically begin believe the reality you’re placing there; it can’t help it.
2) Get out and communicate with other people constantly. You really never know who you’re going to meet next. (Also be amazed…read about the ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ experiment; you’ll find it through on the Internet via Google )
3) When inevitable disasters strike don’t use them as excuses for ‘giving up’. Most humans do this not because they’re stupid but because they’re lazy. Instead ask yourself what you would do differently in the future to avoid the same problem.
Just take these simple steps……This is beyond ‘Positive Thinking’. Even better keep a little diary of your daily experiences when you do start taking them. Like at least 90% of the other people who have travelled the same road, you will discover a marked, rapid and measurable change in your good fortune. I know it works…it’s what I do
Bob Etherington Managing Director –The Bob Etherington Group
www.bobetheringtongroup.com
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