When the practitioner students and I were up at Stony Ranch for the Ropes course in November, we witnessed an interesting phenomenon. Stony Ranch has numerous animals and birds: miniature horses, goats, guinea hens and one peacock. This story is about the guinea hens. Right before the barn there is a fenced field holding the horses. It is rather large field enclosed by an iron fence. The fence is 6 feet high except for the gate which is 4 feet high.
As it so happened that day, the group of guineas was gathered at the fence by the gate. Two of the guineas flew up over the top of the gate and landed inside the field. The rest of the guineas looked on. For the rest of our observation time, the remaining flock of the guineas saw the other two inside the field and tried to find a way to get inside the fence with the other hens by (get this, instead of easily flying over the shorter gate) running hurriedly along the 6 foot fence away from the gate and eventually turning the corner of the fence and traveling up the far side of the field along the fence. Of course, they were never going to find an opening in the fence so they were relegated to the outside of the field while their mates were inside the field. The hens’ behavior gave a new meaning to the phrase, ‘bird brain.’
The irony of the behavior of the guinea hens struck me immediately. People behave in very much this same way. The majority of people act like the majority of the guineas. They watch what a small minority do to be successful and then choose to do something different. They think that they can get the same outcome by doing it differently but end up with a life of difficulty and struggle. They watch as others get what they want but somehow foolishly think that what they are doing will work and ignore the clues to success.
Here are the points:
• If what you are doing up until now has not yielded your goals, you may not get there by doing the same thing as you are now.
• If you do not have a clear outcome, you will not get what you want. In fact, being disappointed in your life only means that you have some expectation that is not being met. So you do have outcomes, they are not well defined.
• If you continue to do more of what doesn’t work, you will continue to get the same results.
• Large goals are the progressive realization of smaller goals.
• You have to continually monitor your thoughts to keep them in the direction you want to go.
• NLP studies what highly successful and effective people do, regardless of career or situation. NLP studies patterns of behavior, communication and language, and learning strategies. Most people get caught up in content. It is the patterns that have the clues, not the content.
• If you want stellar success and you are not addicted to mediocrity, you have to study what success is and what successful people do. If it doesn’t come naturally, then you’ll have to study what works.
• Success is not random, nor is it luck. Successful people have beliefs and values that support their behaviors.
• Successful people are great modelers of other successful people. They use people as guides. It is a waste of time and resources to “reinvent the wheel.”
• Successful people are mindful and pay attention to the correlation between their thoughts, behaviors, and actions.
• Successful people are curious.
• Successful people are risk takers.
• Successful people do not generally care that others will think they are crazy or stupid. They do what they think will work.
• Most successful people are not arrogant. They have an inner self assurance and self confidence.
• Successful people are not afraid to fail because they look at failure as feedback.
• Successful people find the ways to make it work and don’t make excuses for why they cannot do/have something.
• Successful people don’t get stuck in the “it’s the way it is or it is the way I am.”
• Successful people do not consider spending money on their own development as a loss. They consider it an investment in their future.
• Successful people compete on value not price
• Successful people use things and value people; most people use people and value things.
• Successful people receive help gratefully along the way.
2012 is rapidly approaching. Remember that if you value something you’ll find a way to make it work. If not, you’ll find an excuse.
How to change your experience:
1. Get curious
2. Change what you spend money on
3. Invest in yourself and your knowledge and skill
4. Study successful models; Choose one
5. Get help and hire an expert guide to help you AND take their advice.
6. Be fearless and take calculated risks
My brilliant friend and coach, Steve Straus, once said, “I spent years doing an inadequate job with cheap tools. I found that when I invested in better engineered tools (that cost more money) that the job took half the time and I did a much better job.” There is a reason why something cost more. A tool is skill whether it be used to mow the lawn or sell a product or service or invest money. Spend the money on what will count to get stellar results. You’ll be a lot happier and get a lot more of what you want.
In the Treasure Board workshop on January 12th we’ll discuss the 3 peak principles of high achievers and how to set goals so that they will happen. Essential Mind Power Training (Jan. 20-22) (developed from 50 years of mind research) helps you develop the skills to use your mind to create the success you want while developing your intuition. NLP Level 1 teaches you the skills to expertly and successfully communicate with anyone. Leadership Practitioner teaches you the skills to get clear about what you want and get out of your own way. Mastery gives you the skills to manage every aspect of your life and communicate like the most persuasive and influential people in the world. Are you ready to leave the flock and fly with the eagles?
Showing posts with label success. Show all posts
Showing posts with label success. Show all posts
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Asking for Help and Other Differentiators that Support Success
If you learn a path through a forest, you have only one way to get to the other side. If you learn about the whole forest, you will have a thousand ways.
Asking for Help and Other Differentiators that Support Success
I won't go so far as to say that people are winners or losers or successes or failures. This would go against the NLP model that says that People work perfectly to produce the results they are getting and there is failure, only feedback. As a Certified Trainer of NLP, I look at what is working or not working; getting the results wanted or not.
Asking for help:
I had a meeting with a woman the other day who is looking for a coach. In our discourse over the hour she said something to me that caught my attention.
I ask for help early and often.
This woman is a renowned expert in her field with years of experience. In an age when people, especially but not exclusively women, are taught to be independent and stand on their own; that asking for help could be construed as a sign of weakness, I thought this was very telling.
My point: we do not live in a vacuum; we do not learn in a vacuum; we do not succeed in a vacuum. Everyone I know who became an expert, a leader, a president, etc. had the help of other people. The world and universe work in a system as does everything in it, people included.
We are not our behavior, what we do for a living, or what we have.
Here are some other documented things that successful people do than others do not:
Characteristics of a successful person:
By the way, people didn't start at the top and then start doing these things. These are the things they did to become successful.
Focus on solutions – instead to focusing on the problems, which intensify the problems, they set outcomes and work at achieving those instead of solving problems.
Take responsibility – they look at the choices they have and take appropriate action when something doesn't work instead of blaming others or situations, like the ECONOMY, for what is happening to them
Find opportunities in crises – there is a silver lining in every cloud. Often challenging situations gives rise to creative ways of doing things differently
Enjoy being in the present and what it has to offer instead of dwelling in the past. "If only it could be like it was 5 years ago. I'd like to get back to the way it was." OR If I had only taken that job at ABC company, things would be different today." are "whines" of the unsuccessful. In each moment we have available choices that are creating our future. The life you have today was created years ago. If you want something different and better years from now, today you will have to make different choices.
Make commitments and keep them no matter what. Whenever we make changes, those changes can challenge us to go back to the way things were – the pain we know is somehow better than the uncertainty of what we don't know. Making commitments and keeping them come out of our value systems. If we are unable to follow through on one commitment, it generally says we will falter on others. This doesn't foster reliability in people. Make it work, if you committed to it, if you want to be seen as an outstanding business person.
Focus on outcomes and what they can achieve – rather on excuses why they can't do something.
Focus on mastery rather than performance - Attending to doing things right without any failure leads to the imposter syndrome. Performance is key and it better be perfect. If it can't be done perfectly, it won't be tried. This goes back to the fear of failure. The only way to fail is to not do something. Take the time to learn something thoroughly. My trainer taught, "train as if you will never master training."
Make personal development a priority – I've never known a successful person who used money as an excuse not to do something. They think of things in terms of possibility, choice and how (process). If you focus on the possibility of how, it is amazing HOW things come about. Using time and money as an excuse is the hallmark of a person who is struggling and not getting what they want in life. When a successful person wants something, they find a way to do it.
Face fear, accept it and take the leap – qualify: educated leap. Gather information and talk to people who have already done what you want to do. Success leaves clues. Avoid missing any.
Expand your comfort zone – the wider your comfort zone, the more flexibility and choices you have. If all you have is a muddy dirt road to travel on, the more likely you will get stuck.
Respond to new ideas with curiosity. There is always something more to learn – success is built on curiosity. Belief in knowing it all is a dead end road.
Plan and take action – action without a plan is frantic activity; can mimic ADD. Plan without action mimics 'sitting ducks.'
Realize they have a choice in strategies if something isn't working – it is not if something doesn't work, it is when. This separates the 'wheat from the chaff'. Everything changes. We live in systems. Systems are dynamic. Changing with the times doesn't mean you have to have the "latest" technology but you probably need to make some effort to upgrade occasionally. Also, if you only have one choice, you are a robot.
Learn from mistakes and take feedback as a way to adjust the next step to get results– A mistake is a miss take. Do learning in reverse and do a Retake. Being defeated by failure is the hallmark of a perfectionist. Learn to be imperfect. You'll be happier and learn more. Listen to what others are saying who know more than you (not necessarily your parents). If I had listened to my parents, I would have moved home when I lost my first job. They did give me some good suggestions also. When I wanted to quit college, my dad convinced me to stay in school. Good choice.
Persist until something works. If the outcome is achievable then all that remains is to take action and change what you are doing until it happens
Help others – share your knowledge with those who wouldn't ordinarily be exposed to it. There is great benefit from teaching others. It helps you learn at a deeper level.
Hang around people who are like minded and want success also – so many of my former NLP students are returning for 'brush ups.' Being around people who are learning and growing supports us in getting what we want. You speak a common language. With so much hopeless desperation that has infiltrated many people, it is nice to be around people who have an upbeat perspective on life. And it is a perspective. We are all in the same boat. Some of us looking at it as a yacht; some are looking at it as a row boat without a paddle.
By the way, research on optimism and pessimism shows that optimists, even though they may see things a little unrealistically good, are healthier physically and mentally than realists and pessimists.
The successful person is largely differentiated by their WAY OF THINKING! Humm…where have we heard that before? I'm talking about the way we perceive situations. It is all a perception anyway, choose one that makes you happy. Now THAT is a choice!
Life is Good.
Asking for Help and Other Differentiators that Support Success
I won't go so far as to say that people are winners or losers or successes or failures. This would go against the NLP model that says that People work perfectly to produce the results they are getting and there is failure, only feedback. As a Certified Trainer of NLP, I look at what is working or not working; getting the results wanted or not.
Asking for help:
I had a meeting with a woman the other day who is looking for a coach. In our discourse over the hour she said something to me that caught my attention.
I ask for help early and often.
This woman is a renowned expert in her field with years of experience. In an age when people, especially but not exclusively women, are taught to be independent and stand on their own; that asking for help could be construed as a sign of weakness, I thought this was very telling.
My point: we do not live in a vacuum; we do not learn in a vacuum; we do not succeed in a vacuum. Everyone I know who became an expert, a leader, a president, etc. had the help of other people. The world and universe work in a system as does everything in it, people included.
We are not our behavior, what we do for a living, or what we have.
Here are some other documented things that successful people do than others do not:
Characteristics of a successful person:
By the way, people didn't start at the top and then start doing these things. These are the things they did to become successful.
Focus on solutions – instead to focusing on the problems, which intensify the problems, they set outcomes and work at achieving those instead of solving problems.
Take responsibility – they look at the choices they have and take appropriate action when something doesn't work instead of blaming others or situations, like the ECONOMY, for what is happening to them
Find opportunities in crises – there is a silver lining in every cloud. Often challenging situations gives rise to creative ways of doing things differently
Enjoy being in the present and what it has to offer instead of dwelling in the past. "If only it could be like it was 5 years ago. I'd like to get back to the way it was." OR If I had only taken that job at ABC company, things would be different today." are "whines" of the unsuccessful. In each moment we have available choices that are creating our future. The life you have today was created years ago. If you want something different and better years from now, today you will have to make different choices.
Make commitments and keep them no matter what. Whenever we make changes, those changes can challenge us to go back to the way things were – the pain we know is somehow better than the uncertainty of what we don't know. Making commitments and keeping them come out of our value systems. If we are unable to follow through on one commitment, it generally says we will falter on others. This doesn't foster reliability in people. Make it work, if you committed to it, if you want to be seen as an outstanding business person.
Focus on outcomes and what they can achieve – rather on excuses why they can't do something.
Focus on mastery rather than performance - Attending to doing things right without any failure leads to the imposter syndrome. Performance is key and it better be perfect. If it can't be done perfectly, it won't be tried. This goes back to the fear of failure. The only way to fail is to not do something. Take the time to learn something thoroughly. My trainer taught, "train as if you will never master training."
Make personal development a priority – I've never known a successful person who used money as an excuse not to do something. They think of things in terms of possibility, choice and how (process). If you focus on the possibility of how, it is amazing HOW things come about. Using time and money as an excuse is the hallmark of a person who is struggling and not getting what they want in life. When a successful person wants something, they find a way to do it.
Face fear, accept it and take the leap – qualify: educated leap. Gather information and talk to people who have already done what you want to do. Success leaves clues. Avoid missing any.
Expand your comfort zone – the wider your comfort zone, the more flexibility and choices you have. If all you have is a muddy dirt road to travel on, the more likely you will get stuck.
Respond to new ideas with curiosity. There is always something more to learn – success is built on curiosity. Belief in knowing it all is a dead end road.
Plan and take action – action without a plan is frantic activity; can mimic ADD. Plan without action mimics 'sitting ducks.'
Realize they have a choice in strategies if something isn't working – it is not if something doesn't work, it is when. This separates the 'wheat from the chaff'. Everything changes. We live in systems. Systems are dynamic. Changing with the times doesn't mean you have to have the "latest" technology but you probably need to make some effort to upgrade occasionally. Also, if you only have one choice, you are a robot.
Learn from mistakes and take feedback as a way to adjust the next step to get results– A mistake is a miss take. Do learning in reverse and do a Retake. Being defeated by failure is the hallmark of a perfectionist. Learn to be imperfect. You'll be happier and learn more. Listen to what others are saying who know more than you (not necessarily your parents). If I had listened to my parents, I would have moved home when I lost my first job. They did give me some good suggestions also. When I wanted to quit college, my dad convinced me to stay in school. Good choice.
Persist until something works. If the outcome is achievable then all that remains is to take action and change what you are doing until it happens
Help others – share your knowledge with those who wouldn't ordinarily be exposed to it. There is great benefit from teaching others. It helps you learn at a deeper level.
Hang around people who are like minded and want success also – so many of my former NLP students are returning for 'brush ups.' Being around people who are learning and growing supports us in getting what we want. You speak a common language. With so much hopeless desperation that has infiltrated many people, it is nice to be around people who have an upbeat perspective on life. And it is a perspective. We are all in the same boat. Some of us looking at it as a yacht; some are looking at it as a row boat without a paddle.
By the way, research on optimism and pessimism shows that optimists, even though they may see things a little unrealistically good, are healthier physically and mentally than realists and pessimists.
The successful person is largely differentiated by their WAY OF THINKING! Humm…where have we heard that before? I'm talking about the way we perceive situations. It is all a perception anyway, choose one that makes you happy. Now THAT is a choice!
Life is Good.
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