Success is a Social, Not Individual Construct

Perhaps the most important concept someone can gain today is that success you achieve in life happens with the cooperation, competition and in response and reaction to the environment and human beings around you.

Specifically this means that like consciousness itself, the further out of your mind you can connect with the positive and negative behavior of others the more in tune you are with what is necessary for you to be successful in the way you choose.

Because success is not “all about me,” it’s really all about “me and my interaction with others at some level, good or bad, positive or negative.”

And of course when you’re dealing with others many people intentionally and purposefully look success in the eye and decide that they are entitled to something. These people of course make lousy parents, partners, husbands and wives and they behave in a fashion that is 100% inconsistent with achievement or positively impacting others.

Whether people value “success” or not, here is the fact: Successful people are reliable, loyal, and are good to their word (under the definition of success I will put forward later). I’ve shared with you in the past that being right on time is a big factor of trust and how will you be successful if the people around you can’t trust you?

“I slept through my alarm.”

I’ve literally seen this up close and personal. I’ve watched a person snooze while sleeping through a fire alarm sound on the phone to wake them up to go to work… It woke me up.  The question is if an 80dB fire alarm can’t get them out of bed how will they get to work on time, be seen as reliable, trusted and know they are successful. Obviously they can’t.

Success in part is about having the means to take care of problems. Means can be brains, brawn, resources (money, education, street smarts, strategic thinking, etc.). And everyone needs a couple of these things if they are going to be successful in life. After they have acquired said skills, they have to be able to consistently use them day after day until habits form over time and create the newer, better, you.

Algorithms are in part a sequential set of steps with all kinds of contingencies for road blocks and other obstacles. My favorite example of this is google maps. Google maps has a built in adaptation algorithm that continues to get people from A to B as efficiently as possible. It interacts with the environment and experience of thousands and millions of others to get you to B as quickly as possible.

You plug in your destination, google finds where you are and tells you where to go with your chosen mode of transportation. It maps out your course and tells you where things will be slow. When circumstances change, google sends you on an alternative route to get to your destination more quickly.

Knowing What You Really Desire

I have an outcome in mind.

I will show you how you can develop the focus and courage to reach ever higher levels of achievement than you’ve ever accomplished.

Success and achievement are in large part processes that begin and end in your own mind. While your actions and outer circumstances obviously have a huge impact on your success, success is not so much about “what” you do, but HOW you do it.

Lots of people go to work or “try” to make a sale…that’s not the deal. The deal is HOW you do those things every day.

If you change your actions, you will change your results. If you change your thoughts, you will change your results. Change both today and achieving most things is within reach of most people.

Let’s get remedial for just a moment.

The first step is to figure out what you want to be successful AT. What do you want to achieve? What do you want to do?

It is possible to become successful at nearly anything you do. In fact, you may know people that seem to have a magic touch – practically everything they do is a roaring success.

Like David Copperfield, it is an illusion that there is a magical touch.

Legend Point: People who do just about everything to the end of success or achievement simply understand the link between actions, thought, plan, contingency and adjustment.

They seem to effortlessly attract amazing opportunities, while others brood jealously from the sideline.

They have no trouble making whatever amount of money they choose, while others freak out daily over paying basic expenses.

THINK OF THIS:

People who understand ‘action, plan, think, contingency, adjustment’ can start with zero next to anyone else and move to the finish line at just about anything…and they will move quickly, effectively and make it appear effortless.

Why? They have a genuine drive or passion for what they are doing and the PROCESS of doing it, while others feel lost and confused.

How do they do it? What do they have that the public doesn’t?

It’s not as amazing as you might hope….

They know who they are and what they really want!

Even though I just confirmed it’s possible to become successful at almost anything you do – it is MUCH MORE LIKELY that you’ll become successful at something you truly like to do.

In fact if you think about the things you like to do, think about doing them or something similar and getting paid alot of money for doing that.

You might think, “Oh you can’t get paid to travel and sit on the beach, Kev….”

Really? I know people who do just that.

How do you get paid to do what you love?…for real…

Legend Point: What are a few things you like to do and would do daily especially if you got paid what you are getting paid now? (Write these things down.)

I’m not really interested if YOU think that this is realistic or possible, I guess I’m more interested in what I THINK YOU CAN DO.

The successful people in your life have developed a strong relationship with themselves, become very clear about their passions in life, and made the choice to follow them with enthusiasm, drive and persistence.

Legend Point: They don’t have to force themselves to work on their goals each day. It’s either habitual or better, they look forward to it!

The results speak for themselves. These people AUTOMATICALLY attract lucrative opportunities, wealth, and even more passionate endeavors to dive into. It doesn’t seem like work to them because they are having the time of their life!

In the last two years I’ve been contacted to be on a number of national prime time television shows. I’ve turned them all down, even though, “We really want you.”

They will keep calling.

Why?

Because they see what they want. They know it will sell. They look at you and me and the guy down the street as products and stories. Good stories are told forever and Starbucks will be around when you and I are collecting dust…

OK, Time for success…and money… 

Evaluate Your Past Success

Question: What goals have you set in the past, and how did they turn out? Were you successful?

Did you make the decision to move toward something that wasn’t right for you because someone else was achieving success doing the same thing?

STOP.

Just because attorneys CAN make a lot of money and just because doctors CAN be successful in NO WAY means you should pursue these things.

Did you let your parents or teachers talk you into a certain career because it paid well or offered “job security”?

There is no job security. There is only YOU SECURITY.

OK, the thing you set goals toward…How did it turn out for you?

You may notice something important as you complete your review: even if you were able to achieve a certain level of success at something, it didn’t matter if you weren’t happy doing it!

The First Thing You Need to Remember About Making Money is that it is NOT About the Money.

Money is just paper. (Well at least since 1972, when President Nixon took the United States off the gold standard where dollars were actually real money…in those days, money was ….money. It was worth something.)

That isn’t the case anymore.

Today money is an illusion and a belief (or as close as you can get).

Oprah goes on TV, talks for an hour and earns roughly a million dollars that day.

John Doe goes on TV that same day and talks for an hour and earns $200.

What’s the difference?

It’s not obvious and you’d better know…

Success Factors

One is perceived value. One is connection. Another is belief. Another is reputation and credibility…in fact there’s a lot of stuff that goes into getting paid a specific dollar figure.

The best answer is that John asked for and accepted 200.00.

Oprah asked for one million and accepted that.

Now just because you or I ask for a million in no way means we will get that. Life isn’t “The Secret.”

The difference is that Oprah knew she would ask for a million 10 years ago so she did all the things necessary to be ready to accept one million today.

Baby is born today.

That is not the result of something that happened today.

It’s the result of an event that happened about nine months ago.

YOU GET PAID TODAY FOR WHAT YOU PRODUCED NINE MONTHS AGO. (give or take)

Do What You Love

The true essence of success is doing what you LOVE.

Prosperity is a naturally-occurring BENEFIT.

Successful people are that way because two years ago, they liked what they were doing and knew that if they got better at it and if they became the best, they would get paid for the work they were doing…then…in two years or three years.

Understanding the Success Time Horizon

A big part of success is understanding time horizon.

Time horizon is all about planting, harvesting, repeat, repeat and THEN get paid.

If you need to get paid NOW, you will never be successful.

You MUST want to get paid in TWO years for what you do today.

I opened the mail yesterday and my The Psychology of Persuasion book translated into the German language was staring me in the face.

Today I opened the mail and found…my The Science of Influence book translated into the Thai Language…staring me in the face.

I wrote the Science of Influence 4 years ago. It pays me today.

Think like that and you will be successful.

Need to get paid today, and you will fail.

Therefore:

If you want to be successful, take some time to get to know yourself. Figure out what you really feel passionate about. Don’t look only at the activities themselves, but the underlying essence of what they involve.

For example: you may love sports, but you’re not really sure why. Look at the various aspects of sports-related activities and consider which of them appeal to you most. Do you love the thrill of competition, the challenge of strategy, the spirit of teamwork – or perhaps the sense of accomplishment that results from honing your mind and body into a fierce athletic machine?

When you understand what you feel passionate about, what you really want, and WHY, you will be heading in the right direction.

Sounds sooooo easy…but HOW do you do it?….

Plotting Your Course and Planning Your Strategy

Are you feeling a bit clearer about what you REALLY want to be/do/have?

If not, take a little more time to get clear about your passions.

Be sure, it is time well-spent!

Legend Point: You can’t get where you want to go if you don’t KNOW where you want to go!

Once you have an objective in mind (whether it’s a new career path or a personal goal), you need to figure out the simplest and most effective way to achieve it.

That means creating a solid plan, identifying key action steps, and planning for the unexpected and your contingencies when the unexpected happens.

STEP ONE: Breaking it Down Into Smaller Goals

Everything you build in life needs a foundation. Whether you’re constructing a physical building or a new attitude, you need a solid base upon which to build.

If your new goal is to create a lucrative career as a professional singer, you need to know where to start. You might ask yourself questions like these:

• Do I have the image necessary (young, attractive, unique)?
• Do I already have the skill and talent needed?
• Do I need formal training?
• Am I good enough to be a professional singer?
• Do I have any connections in the music industry?
• How can I get my music out there so people will know about me?

The answers to these questions will determine which smaller goals you should work on first. And maybe, determine that you should NOT pursue this path.

STEP TWO: Identifying Specific KEY Action Steps – and Taking Them!

There’s a lot of people I don’t coach, that are still friends, people I’d like to see succeed.

They start a business or are working on their success plan but they are only running on a new treadmill that goes nowhere.

What are you doing?

“Working on my website.”

What are you doing to your website?

“Cleaning it up, making it look nice.”

Destined for failure.

What are you doing?

“Working on my new business.”

Like what?

“I’m learning more about my product.”

Did you finish contacting all the business clubs in town and setting up speaking engagements?

“Tomorrow.”

Destined for failure.

What are you doing?

“Organizing my portfolio so my presentation is more organized.”

Destined for failure.

People will do EVERYTHING except the things that will CAUSE them to be successful.

There are very, very FEW specific daily actions NECESSARY to be successful but, people avoid them like the plague!

Why would anyone avoid easy things that cause success?…

Legend Point: They’d rather make their website prettier or edit something or perfect something else, or …anything aside from finding the path from the potential customer to them.

People new in business (people who have made less than 250,000 take home in business are new in business) NEED A MENTOR to point out that they had a hard day and did NOTHING.

…Once you’ve broken down your larger goal into smaller ones, you should see a clear series of actions that you need to take in order to achieve your goal.

Your mentor will if you don’t.

One of the core questions to ask yourself is this:

Am I spending 8 hours each day causing possible customers and clients to come to me instead of someone else?

NOT whether they would find a pretty website when they get there.

NOT whether you are organizing, cleaning, fixing, learning.

ARE YOU SPENDING EIGHT HOURS EACH DAY CAUSING POSSIBLE NEW CUSTOMERS AND CLIENTS TO COME TO ME INSTEAD OF THE COMPETITION.

Earlier on, we saw that these steps already have an obvious order. For example, if you have no training or you aren’t that good, you are probably in the wrong place.

You would be wise to work on those aspects of your plan before you try to get your music out to the public or network with people in the music industry.

Once there, you want to CAUSE FANS TO BUY YOUR NEW ALBUM.

PERIOD.

Doing anything else is a promise to go broke.

…Simply keep things in order, and you will steadily and surely move toward the achievement of your goal.

However, be sure you are working on the FOCUSED action steps that count. Don’t let yourself be sidetracked by procrastination or fear and into doing the thousands of things that make it a “hard long day” and cause nothing to happen.

Don’t miss STEP THREE in the process…

STEP THREE: Planning for the Unexpected

While you’re identifying your key action steps and forming a plan to tackle them, you MUST begin to plan on all the obstacles that will pop up – and alternate plans to work through them.

If you want to be a pop singer, my first question is do you weigh 130 pounds or less as a woman and 180 pounds or less as a guy? If not, you have just taken a tough field and magnetized yourself to failure.

If you aren’t thinking about the CUSTOMER and what THEY WANT TO BUY, you don’t get success.

Your success is ALL ABOUT SERVING PEOPLE.

The more people you serve and make happy (or the equivalent), the more successful you will be.

Here’s a good way to do this: consider one step of your plan. Think about the complications or obstacles that will or can arise from taking that step. Then come up with additional steps you can take to overcome those complications.

Example: One step of your plan involves getting your music out to the public. You decide that getting a job singing at a local club that will give you some good exposure. Dandy.

But what will happen if you can’t get a local singing job? By thinking ahead, you can come up with alternate plans, such as building a website with audio clips of your music, gathering other musicians together and renting a space to hold an informal musical event for your community, or researching local establishments that have open-mike nights.

You need to appear before thousands so hundreds will buy your album.

You don’t have to give this stage of planning an excessive amount of thought.

Too many goals are easily derailed and dreams crushed when obstacles appear and the goal-seeker doesn’t know what to do, so they do nothing. They give up. Don’t let that be you.

The Power of Beliefs

Beliefs aren’t everything but they are so important that people ram airplanes into buildings filled with innocent people because of them…

It took me almost a million years before I figured out that I could change my beliefs or strengthen them by choice.

Beliefs matter…beliefs shape how success and failure will happen, or whether they can happen at all.

Believe that you can visualize it, get a good feeling about it, be grateful for it and watch it materialize = Failure rate approaching 100%.

Add action to that equation and the failure rate approaches 99%.

Follow the proven results in this series of articles and you can turn that around and have a Success/Achievement rate approaching 100%.

Why the almost 200% divide?

The Impact of Beliefs

Your beliefs impact everything you do (and more importantly what you don’t do).

You may wonder what beliefs have to do with anything. They’re just thoughts after all, right?

Yes, beliefs are indeed thoughts, but they often determine your actions and reactions – and they have the power to hold you back from doing what will make you happy.

And beliefs are imbued with emotion, usually raw emotion of which you cannot easily control.

• Actions create beliefs.
• Beliefs trigger and loop with emotions.
• Emotions direct the body which our brain/mind reside.
• Thought sometimes comes into play to save us from the above.

Imagine that you have a belief that you don’t deserve to be happy and successful. Such a belief would cause you to nonconsciously sabotage any plans you make. Or more likely could cause you to not try at all because you believe it would be a waste of your time and energy.

…or worse, “try” once and fail so you know “it” doesn’t work.

How do you know if you have nonconscious beliefs that might be holding you back?

Here’s some help.

Print this Quiz

It’s simple. Your beliefs and emotions are either driving you or you are choosing what you want with your prefrontal cortex. The two don’t go hand in hand very often.

NOW STOP.

This is where almost everyone quits. Are you going to be that everyone??

As soon as people feel that their mind needs to be running the show, that they are responsible for what is going to happen in their lives, they close the book, shut the door and go to bed.

Guilt is the appropriate feeling when someone does that.

Pride is the appropriate feeling when they keep reading.

Changing Existing Beliefs

OK, How do you change existing beliefs?

Obviously, acting in spite of your feelings and beliefs is the single most powerful tool you have.

The other happens in your mind.

You replace old beliefs and with more empowering beliefs.

Let’s use this statement as an example:

“I am ready to tackle any challenges that I may face.”

If, when you read that statement to yourself you feel uneasiness or dread, then you know you have a doubt about your ability to handle challenges. Your job is now to persuade, even coerce yourself that you DO have the ability to handle challenges.

Think back to any challenges you have faced in your lifetime. How did you handle them? Did you buckle down and do what needed to be done, or did you cave under the pressure? If you can recall even one challenge that you were able to handle and overcome, you have solid footing to change your belief!

You simply need to keep convincing yourself (sometimes hour by hour) that if you handled one challenge successfully, you can handle others.

And indeed that is a fact.

The more frequently and passionately you can reinforce this concept in your mind, the more quickly your underlying belief will change.

The more often you can ACT on the concept, the faster and deeper the emotions imbuing the new belief will be.

But what if you can’t recall any challenges you’ve overcome successfully in the past? Is it time to give up?

Yeah, right….

Instead, think about opportunities to tackle a challenge now. Pick one simple thing that would be challenging for you, and do it!

That may sound intimidating, but you will surprise yourself as long as you don’t let yourself go to bed until it is DONE.

Most often, we are capable of MUCH MORE than we give ourselves credit for. You won’t know until you actually experience it.

After you handle even one small challenge, you will feel your confidence growing and you’ll be eager to take on more.

I kid you not. Little actions in the right area, can trigger HUGE CHANGES.

In the Inner Circle this is one of the key strategies I use to cause people to move in the direction they need to move. Sometimes it’s subtle…sometimes not…it’s always effective.

Remember that changing your beliefs is a process but if you keep at it, it won’t be long before you start to notice a big change in how you view and experience life.

And like so many other things in life, the more you practice the strategy, the better you’ll get at it.

Stopping Self-Sabotaging Behaviors

I’ve written a lot about stopping self sabotage. Without question the best two programs,  independent of the new Success Algorithm course, to deal with this, are Lifestorms and The Millionaire Mind.

It’s NOT easy to stop self-sabotage because it can be elusive.

Hopefully by now you are feeling much clearer about what you really want, you’ve come up with a solid plan to achieve it, and you have been evaluating your beliefs in an effort to build your confidence.

Let’s look at some common problems that could derail your plans if you’re not mindful of them: self-sabotaging behaviors.

Have you ever done something that caused big problems for you and seemed to be in direct opposition to what you thought you wanted? Like consistently shown up late for work even though your boss warned that you were treading on thin ice? Or perhaps you kept feeling compelled to eat junk food even though you were trying to lose weight and get in shape?

Why do you do these things? You would think that setting a goal and creating a plan would be enough to get us where we want to go, right?

No, that’s ‘The Secret’. Works only in some kid’s stories.

The author of ‘The Secret’ tells us to avoid looking at fat people so we don’t get fat.

Oh….if it were that easy…even with the arrogance.

Fact: The nonconscious mind is on autopilot.

Fact: The nonconscious mind acts first and you figure out what it has done shortly thereafter, leaving your conscious mind to make up excuses for what “you” have done.

The nonconscious mind can and does work against both you and me except in fields and areas of expertise. Then the opposite is true.

Even if you consciously believe you want something, it doesn’t mean that you will pursue “it.”

The answer usually comes down to a feeling or emotion.

Fear….or guilt…or shame….or something close.

Take a look at these behaviors and ask yourself whether they have ever derailed your plans:

The programs mentioned above (Lifestorms and The Millionaire Mind) show you in great detail how self-sabotage happens, why and how specifically to unplug it.

Here’s the remedial version.

• You are on a diet to lose 50 pounds.
• You wake up in the morning ready for the day and your diet.
• You handle things brilliantly all day long!
• You even have a modest dinner.
• About two hours before bedtime you wear down and break down and begin to eat…eat…and eat…
• When you walk in the bedroom, you think, TOMORROW, I’m REALLY going to do this.

What happened?

The remedial version?

Your mind ran out of gas and your feelings and emotions took over. Your “need”, the hunger in this case, eventually overtook conscious thought and shoved it aside.

And so it is with pretty much everything.

Want to sign a contract that will promise that you will do something that is good for yourself? First thing in the morning or last thing at night.

That’s when people want to change the most.

But our conscious mind is only so strong in contrast to the nonconscious mind.

Procrastination

If you’ve ever found yourself holding back on doing something even though you kept telling yourself you really wanted to do it, you were procrastinating. You may have felt drawn to watch endless hours of television, or felt compelled to suddenly clean out your basement, or caused dramatic episodes with friends and family members for no apparent reason – all so you wouldn’t have to do something that would truly matter in life.

You were trying to distract yourself. Why? Believe it or not, procrastination usually is found somewhere between laziness and avoidance. Most often, you are trying to avoid an underlying fear or resistance that you don’t feel ready to handle.

Why? And is it easy to change if you want?….

Habits

No matter how fired up you are about your goals, your old, ingrained habits are as solid as concrete. The biggest mistakes people make are often in underestimating the amount of energy that will be required when we first start making changes.

Doing that which you are familiar with takes little NEW energy and is rarely overridden by anything else.

We’re used to doing things a certain way and if we try to change those comfortable old routines, we feel nervous and out of place.

Part of the survival instinct that isn’t all that necessary anymore….

In order to become comfortable with new habits, you need to stick with them long enough so that they become second nature.

And that’s a lot easier said than done. (Much easier visualized and gratefulized than materialized. Sounds like a self-sabotage script to me.)

Remember, that’s how you got comfortable where you are – even if it’s not exactly where you want to be.

A significant amount of leverage, action, focus and will is needed in order to change old habits, but once changed, like cement…yep…. they become nonconscious and semi-permanent.

Stay tuned.

There’s more to share….it’s going to get exciting!