Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Mr and Mrs. Mediocrity

This is a concept that I learned selling books door-to-door with The Southwestern Company. Current President Dan Moore used to speak about the concept of Mr. Mediocrity and how it effects success.

I am using Mr and Mrs. Mediocrity :)

So who are these creatures? These are the little voices that say "I'll do it tomorrow" or "I've already had a good week in sales, let me just take the rest of the week off; I deserve it", or “it’s too cold/hot outside, I’ll go to the gym another day”. Etc etc etc.
The thing is that we are all familiar with Mr and Mrs. Mediocrity, yet so many of us are unaware of the impact that they have on our lives.

I believe that successful people, top sales people, for example are able to ignore Mr and Mrs. Mediocrity and even excel when they are pushing their hardest. People like Michael Jordan and Joe Montana are well known for their 4th quarter production and last minute heroics. Do you think it’s because they were tired or their body ached any less than the rest? They are just as human as the next player, yet there are 3 key components that I believe defined their greatness: first they prepared and worked harder and longer off the court/field, both mentally and physically, so that they were better during the game; secondly they knew to push their hardest when things were the most challenging.

I believe, that the first step of your advancement is being aware that Mr and Mrs Mediocrity exist, and are not impossible to defeat. I believe the next steps are mentally training yourself to anticipated scenarios in which laziness, procrastination, doubt, etc, all of Mr and Mrs Mediocrity’s methods, will strike. Once you are able to anticipate these attacks you can simply ignore them. Get it? If you are ready for them, then they become non-factors.

Think about this and try it out yourself…

Monday, January 11, 2010

Visualization of the Plan

I have been speaking a great deal about this lately. The idea that if you are able to visualize achieving a goal, then you are 100% capable to manifesting it in real life. Here’s the analogy that I use. We all know the steps of getting to work in the morning. We get up brush our teeth, take a shower etc etc. Many of us take the subway to work, some drive, others use alternative forms of transportation. My point is that we all can close our eyes and visualize this commute. And well, I believe that achieving success and building businesses are the same way. If you are able to visualize this you are able to achieve it .

So what does this mean exactly? Does this mean if I close my eyes and picture stacks of cash sitting on my bed that it will magically happen? Of course not! What it means is that if you take the time to plan and visualize the logical steps, many of these steps you may have already physical walked through, achieving this goal is now simply a matter of execution.

Take a moment to think through this concept and test it out for yourself. I believe that you will be surprised.