How do you win the inside job?

So I had coffee on Friday with someone I met in my earlier networking days. She used to be a mortgage broker and just made $250,000 in the past 12 months on a different business venture. I always like to hear what people are doing right so I asked her what she attributed her success to.

“Personal growth” was her response.

I wanted to hear more, so I said; “what do you mean?”

She went on to describe what she had been reading, how much helping others succeed was a part of her work and, most importantly, how critical it was to keep learning about yourself. “My confidence has grown so much in the last year and I feel like I can do anything now. I don’t think I’ve even touched the surface of my potential.”

I don’t know about you, but I don’t hear people say that. It was VERY EXCITING to hear someone so passionate about our one stay here on Earth (which is why you always want to talk about where you’re going in life even when it feels a long way away). It reminded me why so many accomplished people tell you to hang around people who are going places and to avoid the energy vampires.

And, by coincidence, she had had lunch that same day with another contact from my earlier networking days. He is not where she is YET but is on an exciting path, and he attributes his high levels of motivation to – guess what – “personal growth.” So when something like this keeps hitting you over the head, I decided to say to myself: who cares if - on paper - it has little to do with referrals, it matters a LOT and will impact your business outcomes significantly.

Since 95% of everything we do each day is based on habit, what about those non-business habits? After all, Brian Tracy argues that successful people are “simply those who developed successful habits.”

 Why win the Inside Job?

General Electric CEO, Jack Welch, says:
“If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.”

Stephen Covey calls it sharpening the saw: the balance between your physical, mental, social/emotional, and spiritual needs. His analogy is you can’t keep productively ‘chopping down trees’ if your blade is  getting ever more blunt.

Actress Lily Tomlin wrote; “The road to success is always under construction.”

It’s Jack Canfield’s Success Principle #20: Commit to Constant and Never-Ending Improvement.

I admit many people do not talk about the value of personal development. My take on that is many of these people are innately good at the thing that made them well-known. They were raised with a great work ethic so think little about how they became successful. I find that most top performers do NOT recognize that they THINK differently from most people. Part of this may have been how they were raised, part of it may be lessons that were engrained early in life and they know no differently. ALSO, most people are not very self-aware and do not even realize what they do right that others do not do – or wrong for that matter!

The bottom line is that most of us have to learn how to improve ourselves from those who have been there and done it and believe we can!

What are you doing to win the inside job?

This is all that matters.

1. Brian Tracy urges you to turn your car into a university on wheels.  Why would you not? Given the rate of change in our lives, I don’t think you can afford to spend most of your time listening to music. Raid your public library first for great sales and personal development content. Then seek out the latest material as your income allows.

2. Read 3-5 times/week. Start with 15 minutes; then work on longer. There is NO WAY you’ll find this wasted time and you’ll be surprised how quickly you incorporate what you learn into your life. What you learn will make you more money one way or another.

3. You MUST work on your beliefs. Without any thought, list 10 responses to the question: Who am I? Build on and develop a grander vision for the positive ones. AND re-write the unhelpful ones into something empowering. All I will share is that posting them in a visible place where you see them every day has helped me enormously over the years and taken me from someone who spoke for free to service groups in one community to presenting to large audiences all over the US and UK in just four years.  I still have my most recent beliefs list posted above my kitchen sink. Here’s the challenge and here’s the key:

“Because so many of today’s products and services promise overnight perfection, we’ve come to expect instant gratification – and we become discouraged when it doesn’t happen. However if you make a commitment to learning something new every day, getting just a little bit better every day, then eventually – over time – you will reach your goals.” (Jack Canfield)

It might take two years before these beliefs change – it might take two weeks – but change they will.

4. Understand that REPETITION is what we need.

A common mistake is to skim a book (or even these 5 points) and say “heard that before.” That’s not the point. Are they engrained habits for you? Even if they are, what kind of results are you getting from each habit? I find it helpful that many different successful people say the SAME thing. That makes it easier to take the leap of faith and do it when no one else around you is.

One thing that is surely true: successful people do the thing unsuccessful people do not like to do. Successful people do not like to do those things either but their self-concept and confidence grows when they do it anyway!

It reminds me of a great quotation (that I have used to make more prospecting calls) from an Olympic swimming champion who said: “I only have to work out twice: when I feel like it and when I don’t.”

5. Our deepest fear is in fact that we are capable of remarkable things.

But too worried about what everyone will say. Right now they are NOT thinking about you.

Fiona Harrold notes: “You have no limits because you know that absolutely anything is possible.”

Who else would appreciate these polite reminders? Forward this on and spread the wealth.