I don’t need to inform you or state to you that we are living in a time of immense fear. You probably hear it all day long; “ Worst economy since the great depression.” “Unemployment at an all time high”; the media plays this tune right now on and on. Well here’s the thing if you listen to this information all the time and believe that things are as bad as they are; I don’t know about you but I become fearful and stop doing the things I know work.
I don’t advocate hitting your head against a brick wall because rarely does the wall lose in that situation. I think it’s important to make sure you position yourself well in the current market. Asking yourself questions such as: “ Does my product / service still provide value in the marketplace?” ; “ Am I targeting the right demographic?” “Is there new avenues of marketing my product / service that would cost me less than what I am paying now?” You should ask yourself these questions to make sure that you are setting yourself up to have success; Sometimes you do need to change your product or service to make sure you are still competitive in the market place
Once you have answered the above questions; it’s time to realize that fear can paralyze you and kill your potential in doing what you do. Fear unless it’s something drastic is usually a waste of time to think about. The only thing that can overcome fear is action.
Think of a time you were afraid of a situation or an experience (calling a person you were interested in, calling a prospective customer, fear of doing a presentation, etc.); if you pushed through that and you failed. You still felt unbelievable because you realize that you can conquer the fear. When you have that feeling of personal victory you realize that it’s really not that hard to push through your fear. To be honest most people build up situations in their mind to be worse than they really are and it usually paralyzes them.
Simple steps to use for your fears:
1. Visualize past victories
2. Read
3. Practice
In closing, I was recently with wildrej from http://www.wildrej.com. Throughout the trip he stated the story of Walt Disney had inspired him to learn more about the man, I looked him up on good old Wikipedia and found out that his breakthrough came during the Great Depression: http://bit.ly/GZgEp. Walt Disney pushed through his fears and made it in the toughest of times because he had a vision for adding value to children and families all over the world.
Realize that you can only move forward or go backward (by doing nothing) on a daily basis. Let your actions speak louder than your fears.
Please comment or link on your blog if you found this helpful.
Right now as I am writing this article I am sitting at Panera the person to my left is taking an online exam of what seems like an endless amount of questions. The individual to my right is preparing for another exam that is going to be filled with questions she doesn’t know yet but has to prepare. It’s odd to me how I learned to prepare and learn the art of answering questions for school but didn’t realize the power of questions in my own life, asking the right ones and finding out how to answer them. Questions are considered the foundation point of all knowledge cause the question drives the individual to seek the information, which might lead to other questions or help find the truth.
A couple of years ago I read a great book by John Miller called the Question behind the question. It was a simple book on how asking the right questions can change how you look at situations and life. The main theme of the book is that people ask themselves the wrong questions and get the wrong answers. The mind is such a powerful tool that whatever questions you ask yourself your brain will go out and seek the answer.
Example in point: Have you ever heard a song and one of your friends asks who is the person who sings that song? You know that you know the answer but can’t recall it but you do later on. “Ohh that was by Frank Sinatra” What has been explained to me is that the question goes into your subconscious brain and starts scanning all the files that you have in your brain to find the correct answer.
When I heard this information I realized that I had been asking myself wrong questions and getting the wrong answers and leading to wrong actions that led to wrong results. An example of the wrong questions that leads to the wrong answers: “What’s wrong with me? “ The only plausible answers for this question are going to be self-defeating answers; “I don’t have the smarts”; “I am not as sharp”. I am not saying that there isn’t room for improvement in certain situations but more often than not people ask themselves self-defeating questions.
Types of Questions to ask yourself:
1. Direct the questions inward; because the main focus of these questions must be you.
2. Only ask What and How Questions directed inwards that can actually give you the answers you are looking for
a. E.g. don’t ask yourself questions : How come I suck at making money? ; the only answers you will get are limiting answers.
i. How to rephrase that question would be “How can I improve my ability to make money?” or “What can I learn that will help me make more money?”
These are just a couple of tips that should help you in your journey of asking yourself the right questions.
I have attached a great website from the author of Question behind the Question; John Miller. The book he has written helped me ask the right questions and it’s a fun read if you are interested in finding a good book on the subject.
http://www.qbq.com
Comment or share this article if you found it informative
Hunger
Several years ago I was talking with my father about his life story. My father is a typical rags to riches type-story that you hear. He had lived in Kenya all his life and took a leap of faith after getting a job in Canada (Newfoundland; where it snows all year round from what I hear). His objective was to get into America and he knew if he could get to America he would be able to have the opportunity to make the life that he wanted. The thread in the whole story was the obstacles that he had to go through over and over again. I won’t go into them here but why is it that immigrants have a 4x higher chance of making it than people who currently live in the states? I think the answer boils down to how do you view situations and hunger.
Since this post is about hunger I will talk about that and deal with perspective in a later post. Hunger for more (income, justice, spiritual consciousness, etc.)seems to be the thread in the story of all successful people I have met. Once you figure out what you want and why you want it , the question now turns to how bad do you want it. Don’t get me wrong I am not stating that you keep hitting your head against the wall until something breaks (most likely your head in this situation). I am stating that when you hit a wall you learn how to get around it by learning from your failures and keep going. No one has achieved great success in their life without serious obstacles , but they refused to let the obstacles stop them. Above the post is and audio file of the story of Sylvester Stallone told by Anthony Robbins. I love this story and my best friend John Mashni (http://www.wildrej.com) was gracious enough to record it into an audio format. Let me know what you think by commenting on ths post.
Jeffrey Gitomer was introduced to me through some Sales People that I have come to know and respect over the years. To be honest I can’t get enough of his sales rants and he does have a ton of books on sales if you are interested.
I know I have posted another video on attitude and outlook but I can’t get across how important this is right now for you or your business. If you have a bunker mentality (i.e. the world is going to end , life sucks, economy is dead or done) right now that will communicate not only to your customers but your partners, employees, and everyone else in your life.
One of my main purposes of this blog is to inspire people to be more than they are currently. If you take that bunker mentality you are doing yourself and everyone around you a disservice. Take check of your attitude on a daily basis and follow Jeffrey’s 5.5 tips on developing your attitude.
If you want more detailed information on your attitude and how it can affect you during this time in the economy here is a great article by Mel Robbins (Mel Robbins is a nationally syndicated radio talk show host, CNBC contributor, spokesperson for Microsoft and serial entrepreneur) : http://bit.ly/LvGo
Check out the video and the article and comment if you found something useful or it sparked something with you.
If you don’t already know of Gary Vaynerchuk he’s the founder of Winelibrary (http://tv.winelibrary.com) , bringing wine to the internet. I saw this video on his personal blog and found it relevant to the people I have been talking with these past couple months.
I suggest we take the attitude that he exhibits here and have an attitude of gratititude for what is already going well in your life first before thinking about what’s going wrong. A Mentor of mine said to me that your attitude determines your altitiude, so be a thermostat not a thermometer (thermostat changes the temperature of a room and the thermometer doesn’t :-)). Hope you enjoy the post and comment if you found it useful or helpful
One of the great equalizers for all people is time. Time is the one thing that has an equal amount of everyday. If you think about it Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, Tim Ferriss, etc. all have the same amount of time that we do. The only difference is what they did with what they had been given. The reason I am writing this post is that recently I have been hearing people state they don’t have the time to do things that they know they should do. I have heard this many times in my life but a couple of years back I heard a speaker lay out why not having enough time is not really true.
He drew it out like this :
168 hours for the week
80 hours for work (max.)
14 hours for commuting (if it’s one hour each way every day)
56 hours for sleep (8 hours every night)
10 hours misc. (dry cleaners, grocery shopping, church, temple, etc.)
________________________________
160 hours out of the 168 hours is used up …but the key is that you have 8 hours leftover
What are you doing during those 8 hours a week (probably more) to do the things you know you should do?
Good video by Brian Tracy on Organizing your Time : http://bit.ly/xgZX
I recently saw an ad for AT&T stating that they found the internet in the most remote region of the world with their new 3g connect card. In some planes around the country now the internet is available for you to check your e-mail and surf while flying (sounds dangerous because it is). In the age of noise , the key is to know when to turn off the noise. I know I know you are thinking I am crazy “Turn off my BLACKBERRY?!?!” ; “STOP BEING ON FACEBOOK FOR 3 HOURS !?!?!”
The key is here is that less is more in the digital age. I am not stating that you should totally unplug but decrease by 10% and you will be amazed at the results that you will begin to get (Peace of mind, getting other projects around your house or office done). The fear you have that you will not be there for the immediate e-mail you have to respond to is actually a fear that is rarely realized.
I have attached a great video from Tim Ferriss and a good link to Zenhabits.net; I found the video to be unbelievably helpful in understanding how to be more productive with less, and the blog is a good understanding of the productivity systems of one of the most successful bloggers on the net.
Video
Zen Habits link
It has been stated that America has had an increase of average household income every year since the 1980’s and the happiness level has stayed the same. It has only been recently but everywhere you look there is Yoga classes, spiritual teachers coming in town, increase in gym membership. From studies and observing human behavior fulfillment comes from who you become on the inside and contributing to something you care about. In a way the idea that happiness comes with more success is a half-truth, it’s about both fulfillment and success.
I recently heard a great speaker talking about how the two parts of life that we have to balance the Science of Achievement and the Art of Fulfillment. The reason that Achievement is a science is that it’s measurable and predictable based on the laws that you follow (e.g. Law of Averages) but Fulfillment is an Art cause it is based on the individual. In other words what fulfills you might not fulfill the next person. He was stating that countless books and seminars have been devoted to the Science of Achievement but the place where society is moving is towards understanding the Art of Fulfillment.
Here are some great videos and blog links that will help you understand this at a deeper level
Success Magazine Article on Tony Robbins : http://bit.ly/XBDu
Blog Post with video on Art of Fullfillment : http://bit.ly/2cm9iz
This post hopefully should help with a nugget that I found helpful recently our current situation with unemployment. I have been reading the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell and came across a good nugget. Malcolm Gladwell referenced a 1974 study that was titled Getting a Job. In the study out of all the people that were interviewed (over hundreds and hundreds all over the country) the results were :
-56% got their job through a personal connection
-18.8 % used formal means (i.e. headhunters, and adv.)
-20% applied directly
That is not the interesting part of the study ; because we have all heard it’s not what you know it’s who you know that makes all the difference. The researcher delved into the Personal Connection (56%) response to find out more information. The individuals who stated that they used personal connections they were mostly “weak ties”. Here was the breakdown of the numbers:
This was a powerful point to me because with the era of social networking and linkedin this is doable for anyone now. Here are some simple questions you can ask yourself to get to know the right people
- Who haven’t I talked to recently in my network that I usually don’t hang out with?
- Who do I know that works in a totally different industry than me that I have heard about but not talked to ?
Sorry for the long post but I wanted to make sure that this point got out there, so for all you jobseekers out there ….start messaging on LinkedIn, Facebook, Orkut, etc.
Short little video (under 1:30) to give you some ideas on networking : http://bit.ly/44x6cX
Until next time I will keep the chai brewing.
Well it looks like the new year is here and now that you have actually gone through the status updates on facebook, and your sitting down thinking what do I want to accomplish next year. I would like to suggest some research before setting new year’s resolutions.
I love the idea of new beginnings and the New Year brings in that idea better than anything else, but unfortunately it seems like many people have a difficulty to make change lasting. This post is just a little bit on how goals work and what needs to be present for goals to be effective. Once again I am no master but I am just sharing what I have learned that has helped.
What needs to be present for goals to happen:
1. Hunger – the hunger you have will lead you to discipline yourself to hit your goals
2. Clarity of what you want – If your goals aren’t clear as a beautiful summer day it will be tough to achieve them
Video that explains goal setting in under 2 minutes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iDbs3vh6KM
Book Recommendation by the same author :
http://tinyurl.com/92g7fv
This should help with your goal setting endeavors and I wish you the best of luck….until next time
