This Week's Insight...

LIFE’S GREAT CHALLENGE
Quite a number of my clients have talked to me at length over the last few weeks about the challenging times we live in.   Business and economic life is challenging.   For those of us trying to offer a guiding hand to teenagers, life can have its moments!   Many find themselves in challenging relationships.  And the secular nature of modern life makes the spiritual life challenging.   

But these are not challenges – these are things that are sent to try us.   They are no more than the choppy seas of ordinary everyday life.   Surely, if you were embarking on the Volvo World Yacht Race, you’d do so expecting to encounter heavy seas – and you’d be prepared.    In our ordinary everyday life, we need to be adequately equipped to take those choppy seas in our stride.

To do so, we need to rise to what is, in reality, life’s only challenge – how we manage our mind.   In other words, the challenge is not what’s going on around us, but within us.   If we retreat into normality we will react to each external stimulus in the knee-jerk way that will only make matters worse.   If we rise above normality we are then capable of taking real action.  As a result, we will appropriately deal with each external “challenge” head-on, effortlessly.

With a clear and focused “abnormal” mind, regardless of how choppy the seas might be, we will sail them on an even keel.

What a strange title for an article given all the gloom and doom that’s doing the rounds at present!  Most interestingly, how did the word “Effortlessly” get into the title?   Surely, hard work is a virtue, God loves a try-er and you have to work hard to be a success.    All these statements are wrong.  

I’ve been working with big business leaders and business owners – large and small – for over thirteen years.   Without exception, they all understand, appreciate and experience the difference between the “hard work” that “normal” people do, and the “unbelievable” success that comes from knowing the right business strategy to adopt.

So, before we go any further, let’s get some common misconceptions out of the way.   “Hard” work , just like the word “trying” is a give-away – anyone using this type of language thinks work is hard – and that useless thought makes the word hard.   Anyone who is “trying” is trying hard because they don’t believe that they can simply achieve what they’re trying to achieve.   Useless thoughts that get in the way of doing what you’re supposed to be doing, make it more difficult to do it (this, by the way, is simple logic), so that whatever you’re doing requires more effort, is more difficult, takes longer to do and, in the end, proves to you that your useless thought was right – because the work becomes harder!    Decades of psychological research proves conclusively that useless thoughts turn out to be self-fulfilling prophecies.

Why not have self-fulfilling prophecies that have you leap out of bed each morning – eager to embrace today’s opportunities – opportunities that you cannot spot if you think your work is difficult or you have to try hard.   Again, psychology proves that we only see what we expect to see – so if you expect that you have to work hard to be a success, you’re never going to notice the opportunities that can make things effortless for you.   Again, this is simple logic, based on how the “normal” mind works.   Sadly, this is how at least 96% of people “live” their repetitive lives.

So, what “effortless success” business strategies am I talking about?

Number One – you need to describe your desired outcome to your subconscious mind – the part of your mind that dictates your behaviour, reactions and, as a result, your version of “reality”.   Your subconscious does not understand things like sales pipeline, monthly management accounts, sales targets, financial projections, competitor analysis or ROI.   You might as well try to explain your goals to your subconscious in an ancient Mayan dialect!
Your subconscious mind’s native language is that of your five senses.  If you can describe the achievement of your desired business objectives to your mind in this way, then your subconscious mind’s cybernetic ability will automatically dictate different behaviours and reactions and, in time, create a different “reality”.

Number Two – you need to believe that desired outcome.   As you might be beginning to understand, “believing” is not wishing, hoping, wanting, planning or strategising, believing is seeing, feeling, hearing, smelling and tasting.   At a recent session with the full senior management team of an extraordinarily, abnormally, successful company, we all talked about what success looked like – where they might be having their end of year celebration – what it sounded like – party music with the background sound of lapping waves on the shoreline – what it tasted like – sparkling bubbles of champagne (or beer!), tasty food – what it smelt like – the pine-scented breeze mingled with sea-saltiness – and what it felt like – the warmth (outer and inner), the sand between the toes.   You get the picture?

Number Three – because that’s what your subconscious needs – a picture.   A number of years back, a Fortune 500 survey found that, almost without exception, the greatest business leaders are visual people – they can see the outcome – they’ve got the picture.   Your subconscious mind is visual – it needs a picture, painted for it using your five senses.  Now, obviously, you cannot take a picture of something that hasn’t happened yet.

Number Four – write down your desired outcome, in the language of the five senses, in the present tense as if you are experiencing the outcome now.   There is simply too much psychological research around that proves that writing down what you want, as if you already have it, works!   But, a word of caution (and one that I’ve had to explain to some of my clients more than once) – you have to hand-write your desired outcome – the hand-eye coordination employed in hand-writing engrosses your subconscious mind’s attention and, in being so engrossed, your subconscious mind “snaps” that picture.

Number Five – well that’s for my next article!   But, at this point, you might be beginning to understand how so many businesses have to strive hard to achieve even mediocre success – they don’t know how to visualise the outcome that they want.  And, until Wall Street analysts demand major companies’ visual outcomes, little will change.   But, you can change it for you and your business – big or small – just let it be your little secret!

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