Every day I’m busy doing it, doing it. It seems like if I’m not doing something I don’t feel like I’m accomplishing anything. Is there any way out of this frustrating mode, or am I doomed to continually repeat it and never gain the freedom I want?
"When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." You may be familiar with this quote. I’m not sure where it stems from, but it is something that is often painfully true for most small business people who established a business during their entrepreneurial seizure.
Unless you’ve had a successful mentor, family member or have captured how to be an entrepreneur through some innate natural ability this is the most critical step in helping any business owner achieve the personal and financial success they want.
Leadership begins with the owner. This past week I met with a coach who is working with my lead generation/marketing person and a client who offered me some valuable lessons that reinforce the work we do in the business development process. The first lesson was how the business reflects the owner. If you as an owner don’t believe a particular effort, method or tool is going to work, can you really expect your employees to? Cold calling is a process I have never been too fond of especially when I was in the sales process full time. Yet it is frequently a required activity for most small businesses. The coach who is working with us noted that my attitude about prospecting had a very huge impact on the person I’m asking to conduct this process. It was revealing and also self affirming that I needed to adjust my attitude and improve upon it especially around her. At the very least I need to have an open mind.
The other occasion that reminded me of the importance of leadership and the ability to change w, as a new client who was working on his Primary Aim. He’s had significant success with just about every business he’s started or purchased. One of his strengths is hi, s ability t, o look at any situation or person and always see, the good in them. Many of us focus on the negative. Often times, the doing it, doing it mode perpetuates that. Few of us can get beyond the mental state of feeling we have to be involved in the process. This actuates the law of belief and attraction. The law of belief simply states that what you believe will become your reality and the law of attraction similarly states that what we think about we attract into our lives.
This gentleman (client) has an innate ability to see any situation and see the good in it. Failure isn’t the same to him as it is to others; it is temporary and a chance to change his method of operation. He believes he will be successful if he simply continues to work at it, make the changes necessary and remains positive.
These are not new rules. They’ve been around for many years from Napoleon Hill’s "Think and Grow Rich" and Claude Bristol’s "The Magic of Believing." They suggest that the way to break out of our trials is to think and believe differently. It’s perhaps especially discomforting to realize that most of our frustrations are the result of faulty thinking.
Imagine what might happen for you if in just 15 minutes each day, sitting down quietly and thinking differently about the outcomes you expect and wish to occur in your life can materialize the results you want. Don’t believe that’s possible? I assure then that you still believe the only tool you have is your hammer.
Matthew Ferry is one of my clients who is a significant and successful coach himself who has developed a series of CD’s and training around effortless selling. Similar to our business development coaching it suggests that the first place we all need to start to get the results we want is between our ears. It is appalling to realize that the problem with doing it, doing it, doing it, is all part of your belief system. In fact it is what propels you every day to continue in this fashion. Yet a few minutes each day, thinking differently, reacting differently, imagining different outcomes could provide a whole new vision for yourself and your business.
I’m not saying this will come easily. For some it can, for many we are talking about changing programming that we have had hard wired into our minds simply because we have seen others, especially our parents follow the rules that we now believe to be true. They are not. There is another better way of doing business, and it all begins between your ears. Are you ready to think differently and achieve the success you always imagined you could? Let us help you create some new tools in that tool chest of yours and replace that hammer!
