You can get as enthusiastic as you like about being successful generally but it seems to me that after a while you will get fed up unless you are pursuing something you are really passionate about. The goal of undefined success can only keep you going for so long.

You might have a goal of making a lot of money but if you don’t enjoy what you do to make it then how long can you keep it up? We hear a lot about the astronomical sums being made by people in the banking industry but most of the ones I speak to (or see on television) are dreaming about retirement. Where’s the quality of life there then?

I was thinking about this question recently and it reminded me of a song from the 1970s by a band called Eddie and the Hot Rods called “Do anything you want to do”. To help you meditate on what it is you really want to do here is a video (not very high quality picture, I’m afraid) of Eddie (Barry, actually) and the boys doing their stuff.

Do you remember a television show from the 1970s called “Happy Days”? In case you’re too young to remember, or so old that you’ve forgotten, it was about the Cunningham family, who lived in 1950s Milwaukee: Mr & Mrs C, and the kids Richie, Joannie and Chuck (who didn’t last long). The Cunninghams had a lodger who lived above their garage, called Arthur Fonzarelli, also known as The Fonz.

The Fonz was cool and made all the girls swoon. Also, he could never admit he was in the wrong, struggling to get the words out – “I was wr…, I was wr…, I was wr…” – and never quite managing it. Was this because he believed he was always right maybe?

A race on the river in Montreal

What’s this got to do with anything though? At the weekend I was watching the F1 (Formula One) Grand Prix motor race in Montreal (only on TV, unfortunately) when I heard a story about someone else who couldn’t admit they were wrong. And it really made me think.

A team-mate who was never in the wrong

A hot topic of discussion in F1 over the last couple of weeks, ever since the two Red Bull cars collided in Turkey, has concerned team-mates crashing into one another. Former F1 driver David Coulthard was talking about his experiences of colliding with his 1990s team-mate Mika Häkkinen. According to Coulthard, even when it was obviously his fault, Häkkinen wouldn’t admit he had made a mistake and apparently couldn’t think of a time when he had ever been wrong. Was this the reason that Häkkinen went on to be world champion and he hadn’t, Coulthard speculated. Admission of blame, even to yourself, was maybe a weakness in this type of situation.

Do you blame yourself for things that aren’t your fault?

So how often do you feel in the wrong and to blame for things? How often do you blame yourself when something bad happens, even when others are possibly more culpable? Taking responsibility for yourself is obviously an important thing to do and being accountable for your actions is essential, but blaming yourself for things that aren’t really your fault? Not a good idea.

Let it go and don’t beat yourself up so much

There’s no need to go as far as The Fonz or Mika Häkkinen, but don’t beat yourself up over things so much.  Develop your own personal no-blame culture, realise that it’s not all your fault and let the past go. Move the pictures you are making off into the distance and replace them with happier images that make you feel the way you want to feel. Aaaayy!

I’m not poor, but…

If you’re already rich, or at least have as much money as you want, then this may not be for you. However, if you see people doing things that only your lack of money prevents you doing, then read on. A lot of people who couldn’t be described as poor have their enjoyment of life limited by a lack of money. I agree there are worse things in life than a lack of money, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to make more.

I know it can be done, but I don’t think I can do it

You will see enough displays of wealth to know that it can be done – houses, cars, boats, holidays and so on. But what if you don’t really believe that you can do it? You have bills to pay, a job to hold down, family and other commitments that stop you from taking the action needed to make a lot of money. Here’s an idea – in the list of obstacles to making money above is the word commitments. Why not make it one of your commitments to make more money. Start thinking about the first thing you need to do.

Money is the root of all evil

Ah, but rich people are bad people. Aren’t they? Doesn’t it say in the bible that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man (or woman) to get into heaven. This is a big part of the problem that some people have with money. They think that making or having money will make them bad somehow. Yes, a lot of bad people do try to make money, but you don’t have to be bad to do it.

Can you see it?

Self image is one of the biggest problems that people have where money is concerned. Imagine having a job that doesn’t pay as much as you would like. What do you think about that? Do you think you are worth more? Do you really believe you are worth more? Would you ask for more? If not, why not? It’s probably because your self image isn’t that of someone who is worth a lot of money. This is a good place to start in trying to become wealthy – you have to believe in yourself. If you don’t, why should anyone else?

Take a test

Look at the following amounts and think about how much money you would like to make each year.

a) $100,000

b) $500,000

c) $1,000,000

d) $10,000,000

Well, which did you choose?  The question was very simple, how much would you like to make each year? If it was anything other than $10,000,000 then why did you choose that? Did you think, “I just want to be comfortable”? or maybe, “$10,000,000 a year is just greedy”? This is not helpful thinking if you would like to be rich. Plenty of people make over $10,000,000 a year and they are not greedy, they are not bad and they are probably happy (although this is not guaranteed). It was just about how much you’d like to make, so there’s no reason for choosing less than the maximum here. Is there?

How do you make the big bucks?

The reason some people make over $10,000,000 a year is because they believe in themselves and they add a lot of value in whatever they do. Other people recognise the value they add and are prepared to pay for it. It isn’t greedy.

Some pointers for getting started.

1) The Why

Have a reason why you want to make money and be rich. It may be a simple as the old joke about life being like a shit sandwich. That is, the more bread you have the less shit you have to eat. Seems like a good reason to me. Whatever you come up with, be clear about why it’s important and write it down.

2) The Belief

Build a belief in yourself making money and being wealthy. Picture yourself being confident, looking good and being rich. If you can’t see it you won’t do it.

3) The How

What are you good at? There is a temptation when looking for money-making ideas to change direction and search for something new. It’s better to list all the things you can do well (or even quite well) and think of ways to make money with them. But don’t give up the day job just yet – that income will ease the pressure enormously in the early days.

So what are you waiting for? Let’s get started.

This video is a few of years old now but most people I tell about it haven’t seen it, so maybe you haven’t either. It’s a speech that Steve Jobs gave at a Stanford University graduation ceremony and it’s one of the most inspiring things you’ll ever see.

Three stories

In the video Steve tells three stories from his life that provide us with a fascinating insight into the things that he sees as being instrumental in his enormous success. As insipiring and thought provoking speeches go I don’t think it gets much better than this. He talks about the things that seemed like problems and mistakes to him at the time, but with hindsight turned out to be great opportunities. His take home message is that we should all “stay hungry, stay foolish”.

There’s a form of farewell used by Londoners that fascinates me. “Be lucky”, they say as you are parting. Although similar to saying “good luck”, “be lucky” suggests that you have some choice in the matter and that you can decide to be lucky. But can you?

What is luck?

You can find all sorts of definitions of luck, but most people would agree that you know luck when you see it. It could be something good that you didn’t expect to happen, or something bad that you expected that didn’t happen. What about bad luck? Just the opposite I suppose.

Do I feel lucky?

Luck seems to be concerned with the way you feel. If you feel lucky, you will be lucky. If you don’t, you won’t. How does this work? People who have a lot of positive experiences, or positive thoughts and feelings about the experiences they have, will tend to feel lucky. Would an impartial oberver consider them lucky? It’s hard to say, but generally we accept it if people tell us they are lucky (or not). This is possibly because only they know their actual circumstances.

Can you make yourself luckier?

Napoleon Bonaparte famously wanted “lucky” Generals. He prized luck over intelegence, training, skill or experience, and it worked for him (up to a point).  Several studies have been done on luck – often looking at the differences between people who consider themselves lucky and people who don’t. Most people would agree that being lucky is better than being unlucky, so here are six things that may make you luckier.

1. The harder you work the luckier you get

This saying is usually attributed to Gary Player the South African golfer after a comment was made about how lucky he had been during a tournament. You can see his point – it wasn’t luck, it was all the practice he put in. So you know what to do.

2. The more people you know the luckier you are

In a study comparing people who considered themselves lucky with people who didn’t, the “lucky” ones seemed to know more people (they were given a list of first names and asked how many people with one of those names they knew). There are a number of ways to interpret this. For example, people who consider themselves lucky are more outgoing, or maybe knowing more people presented them with more opportunities for good things to happen. Whatever the reason, work on increasing the size of your network.

3. Keep going, don’t chop and change, and let luck come your way

In his excellent book “How to get rich”, Felix Dennis talks about a friend of his who he says is much more capable then him but never became rich. He tells us that this is because his friend was always changing course with his businesses and never gave luck an opportunity to come his way. So stick with it and give luck a chance to find you.

4. Expect good things to happen

If you expect good things to happen you will do things to make it more likely that they do. If you expect bad things to happen you will avoid doing anything at all so that they won’t, and good things won’t happen either. Some people talk about visualising what you want and the Universe will make it come to you. I’m not sure I buy into this, but the more you have positive expectations, the more things you will do to make good outcomes more likely.

5. React positively, whatever happens

It’s not what happens to you but how you react to it that matters. Choosing to respond positively to events, no matter unfortunate they are, is a skill worth developing. This is what those positive thinkers mean when they tell us that there are no problems only challenges. There are several techniques from disciplines like NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) that can help with this, and there is plenty of material that you can use to get started.

6. Relax

I’m sure people who feel tense don’t feel lucky. I know I don’t whenever I am tense. You only have to watch nervous people tripping up, knocking things over and generally having a difficult time to see this. So stop worrying about trying to be lucky and luck will be more likely to come your way.

Be lucky!

Are customer objections buying signals?

A lot of sales training courses teach us that objections from customers are an indication that they are interested and that we should treat them as buying signals. We are then taught a range of objection handing techniques that will overcome the objections and lead us to the sale. But are customer objections always buying signals? Maybe it’s better to avoid objections altogether, rather than learn how to handle them.

Sales success – who, what, where, when, why and how?

Most sales training is provided by former superstar salespeople who offer to pass on their expertise, usually for a fee. But a lot of these people may not be aware of why they were successful in the first place. Just like successful sportspeople, they may not understand what it is that they do and so may not understand what it is that they should be passing on in their training. This is the approach taken in a well known book by Neil Rackham called “SPIN selling”, which reports on his studies on what produces success in the sales process. He concludes that the cause of sales success is often not what you might think.

Why are they raising objections?

When customers raise objections during a discussion of a product or service you are offering, does it demonstrate interest and is it a buying signal, or are they just objecting to something you have said? The conclusion in “SPIN selling” is that objections are raised because the seller hasn’t built sufficient value before offering solutions. This is especially true in larger sales.

So rather than learning how to handle the objections that come up, maybe we should learn not to jump in with solutions before the buyer has had a chance to think about the issues they hope we can help them with. After all, that’s why they agreed to see us in the first place, isn’t it?

Two ears, one mouth

One thing that you are certain to hear on a sales training course is that “you have two ears and one mouth – and you should use them proportionally”. This is good advice, but the part where you use your mouth needs a little more thought. Often, we listen to what the customer is saying about the problem they would like us to solve, then we immediately tell them how our product or service can solve the problem.

Successful sales people build value

Instead of this, successful sales people are more likely to ask further implication questions. They acknowledge the customer’s problem and ask them more questions about how that problem affects them. Then they ask more questions about the implications of the previous implication. The customer has now explained to you (and more importantly to him or herself) what the problem is and what the implications of that problem are. You are now much more likely to reach agreement with the customer about how you are able to help them.

So listen, discuss and build value

The message here is to take more time to find out exactly what the customer needs and how you can fill that need. Often the customer doesn’t know exactly what problems they need to solve, and part of your role as a sales person is to help them with this. Also, you will now have a customer who is really grateful for your help, who will be more likely to ask for your advice in future and recommend you to others.

Handling objections doesn’t achieve this level of customer satisfaction. The customer feels sold to, may resent the money they have spent and resent you for talking them into it. So learn how to explore implications with your customers, and help them help you to build the value of your offering.

If you’re not a fan of football (or soccer as it’s usually called in North America) you may not realise what the title of this post refers to. It’s the word “goal” screamed at top volume by a South American commentator when someone scores a goal, and it’s intended to last as long as possible. Try it – it’s a lung buster. The World Cup is being held in South Africa this summer, so there will be plenty of opportunities to hear these guys in action. (If this is new to you check out the video at the bottom of this post.)

So what’s this got to do with anything? Well it’s about your goals, and you need to set some.

Why though? Well if you want to get somewhere you need to know where you want to go. In football the players can see the goal and they take actions to get them closer to it so they can score. In life we need to know what the goals are so we can take actions to move towards them.

Written goals do the trick

There’s a famous study that was conducted at Harvard University in the 1970s, which looked at the effects of goal setting. When students were asked about their goals in life, only 3% had written goals and plans, 13% had clear goals and plans but had not written them down and 84% had no specific goals or plans at all. Ten years later the researchers caught up with these same students and interviewed them again. Amazingly, the 13% who had clear but unwritten goals were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84% who had no clear goals.  The really incredible part, though, is that the 3% who had written down their goals and plans were earning, on average, ten times as much as as the other 97% put together. You may already know about this study but it does emphasise the importance of having clear goals and plans and writing them down.

Imagine the actions you will take

Okay, so having goals and writing them down is important. But what about carrying out the actions that will move us towards out goals? We have all not followed through on those in the past haven’t we? Fortunately, help is at hand. In “Switch” by Chip & Dan Heath (I do seem to like that book, don’t I?), they have some suggestions for ways to follow through with our plans more effectively. They suggest using “Action Triggers”, which involves imagining the time and the place where you will take your action. This has been shown to motivate people to actually do the things they need to. For example, if one of your goals was to lose weight and one of the actions was to go out for a run, then  imagining the time you will go for your run and where you will run will make it more likely that you will do the exercise, which will move you closer to your weight loss goal.

Let’s get started

So what to do first? Decide what you want to achieve and write down your goals in detail. Don’t worry too much about how you will achieve them initially, just write them down. Then write down the actions you need to take to move towards your goals. Remember to imagine when and how the actions will be taken, which will make it more likely that you will carry them out. We’ll talk about using all your senses to imagine your goals and whether those goals are right for you in another post. For now just write them down and imagine when and where you will take the actions that will move you towards them.

A great example of a goal shout! World Cup final 2006.

In Susan Jeffers’ famous book of the same name we are told to “feel the fear and do it anyway”. This is a great piece of advice since it enables us to act in the face of our fears, making it more likely that we will be successful in any endeavour. But how realistic is this for most people most of the time? How long can we keep doing it if we feel the fear?

The mahout can only take so much

In another excellent book, “Switch” by Chip & Dan Heath, a distinction is made between the rational and emotional parts of us, with the emotional part likened to an elephant and the rational part to a rider that is trying to control the elephant. You may have heard of elephant riders referred to as “mahouts”. They point out that the mahout can only control the elephant for so long and when trying to act in the face of our fears the elephant will finally win and we won’t act any more. It will pretty difficult for us to start taking action again too. Wouldn’t it be better, then, if we could avoid having the fear in the first place?

What are we afraid of?

Where does this fear come from and what is the fear about? It is fear of failure, fear of embarrassment, or as Tony Robbins tells us, fear of pain in all its guises. So, what if we weren’t worried about all these things? Martial artists focus on a calm mind that cares nothing about the outcome. Why? Because that way you have nothing to fear and your anxiety about your performance, winning, not losing or whatever, disappears.

This is important. In “Switch” the authors talk about the rider having to direct the elephant and the rider getting tired easily. If the rider didn’t have to control the fear elephant, he or she would have much more energy to focus on their goals without dealing with constant doubts.

What can we do about the fear?

So how do we let go of this fear, or better yet not feel it in the first place? The martial artists mentioned earlier spend years trying to develop an empty mind, where everything they do comes automatically and they aren’t worrying about the outcome. The Japanese term for this is Heijoshin, which can be roughly translated to “ordinary mind”. This means to keep the state of your mind as it is normally – not worried, fearful or stressed, but calm.

Fortunately, unlike martial artists, most of us aren’t preparing to defend ourselves from a physical attack. This means that most of our fears come from the voices and pictures inside our heads that constantly criticise, introduce doubts, or present worst-case scenarios resulting from our proposed actions.

Words and pictures

There are techniques that we can use to help us maintain an “ordinary mind” in these situations. For example, listen to the voices and think about what kind of voice it is – loud, soft, rough, smooth? Where is it coming from? Now, change the voice so that it is a high pitched comedy voice – it doesn’t have the same authority any more.

You are also probably making pictures in your mind of the thing you are afraid of. If it is something that really frightens you the pictures are likely to be huge, up close and in vivid colour. Try shrinking the picture down to the size of a small photograph, drain the colour out of it and push it a long way away. That should take the emotional impact out of it and let you move forward and take action.

Techniques like this can take a bit of practice but it is worth the effort. We are much more likely to do “it” if we are not feeling the fear in the first place.

Here the “You” is not you, it’s the person you are talking to. Read on and hopefully all will become clear.

How often have you met someone at a networking event, business mixer or just socially who talks and talks about themselves and their business and never asks about you or gives you an opportunity to talk about yourself? That person is losing the “You Game” badly – they are only interested in winning the “Me Game”.

What is the You Game?

The You Game is a game you play when you meet new people. The other person doesn’t know they are in the game but they can only benefit from it because the aim of the game is to find out all about them first. Showing an interest in people (a genuine interest, mind you – no faking it here) lets you find out how you can help them and being able to help is a major step in developing a business relationship. Helping them doesn’t necessarily mean they buy something from you; there are many different ways you can help them.

The You Game helps to break the ice

A lot of us have a morbid fear of meeting new people and this can harm our chances of business success. We risk missing out on opportunities to meet new business contacts. What are we afraid of? Well, often we claim that we are worried about what to say when we first meet these new people. We worry about having something interesting to say and of looking foolish if we aren’t interesting. But remember, by being interested in the other person you are automatically interesting to them.

Stop worrying and ask some questions

So why not take all the worry out of it by just walking up to them and saying “Hi, I’m (whatever your name is)”, then ask them a question. Nothing too complicated; old standards are fine. How about “have you been here before?”, or, at a business mixer, maybe be more direct with “what kind of business are you in?”. At this point you’re straight into the You Game as the clear leader and the conversation is under way. The ice is broken and the conversation is going well because you aren’t worrying about what you are going to say – you are just listening and asking them about themselves. Don’t forget, everyone loves talking about themselves with people who are interested.

What if they don’t ask about you? It doesn’t matter – it’s their loss. You know you’re the winner.

Play the You Game in the right spirit

Don’t think of the You Game as a manipulative way to get people to ask about you so you can deliver your pitch. Do it in a spirit of genuine interest and helpfulness. People can spot someone who is not listening and who is only waiting for their turn to speak, so if you don’t do this out of genuine interest in the other person it won’t work. Practise being interested in other people that you meet and don’t worry about what’s in it for you. Also, don’t grill them – it’s not an interrogation. If you meet lots of people and they get to know, like and trust you then the business will follow, either directly from those people or others who are referred to you.

A lot of people have a dream of starting their own business. They may be bored with their job, feel under-appreciated or just have a desire to be their own boss. They may even see it as the path to riches. Whatever the motivation, a lot of people want to go into business for themselves. It’s even reported that Karl Marx, the father of Communism, wanted to start a buiness when he was living in London (but I can’t find the quotation at the moment).

A lot has been written on the subject of starting a business and there is plenty of information available for those of us looking to take the plunge. Here are some ideas adapted from various sources that we think are helpful and, in some cases, wish we had paid more attention to in the past.

Don’t give up the day job

When we are keen to get going with our new business we can be tempted to leave our current job to focus on it 100%. If our new business is well financed and a clear plan is in place this may be an option. However, in most cases we will be investing “sweat equity” and it is probably more important to have a steady income to support us in the early days. We can always make more time (we won’t find more time, we do have to make it) by not wasting it watching television, for example.

Have a business plan

It’s important to plan our new business. Often, we start businesses based on a vague idea that we can’t explain easily and we can get quite annoyed if others ask us inconvenient questions. Be able to explain the business simply; for example, what are you selling, who are your customers and what’s in it for them, how much do you charge, how much will you sell and how much profit will you make?  Watch successful business people on television (Hey, I thought we weren’t watching it any more?) and you will see that their ability to make money is based on these types of question, rather than any technical skill they might possess.

Start a business, not a job

There’s an excellent book by Michael E. Gerber called The E-Myth. The “E” in the title stands for entrepreneurial, and in it the author talks about how people with a technical skill start a business with that skill and the result is misery. The problems stem from the entrepreneur having a job on a self-employed basis that leads to them being more trapped than they were working for someone else. A proper business plan helps to avoid this trap. Set the business out in the plan with a proper structure so that all the job functions are clear, and you avoid doing everything yourself. This also helps you to see how the business will scale as it grows so that you are managing a business and not a job. Remember, someone may want to buy a business but they won’t want to buy a job.

Who are you selling, rather than what

When planning your business, start with who your customers are and what problem you will solve for them. When you know there are enough people with a problem you can solve, think about why they would want you to solve it for them rather than letting someone else do it. Don’t start with something you can do because no matter how great you are at it, if no-one wants it you won’t be in business very long.

Stick to what you know

Focus on starting a business based on what you know rather than something you know little about. People often start businesses that are completely new to them and this can make success less likely. Reasons for choosing to move into another area of business could be the desire for a complete change from what they have been doing or hearing that the new area is lucrative. Starting in a familiar business makes it easier for us to plan, we are more comfortable talking about it and we have more credibility with people who know what business we were in before.

It’s who you know (and who knows you)

People buy from people. We can go further; people buy from people they know, like and trust. Whether you are selling your product or service (and you will need to sell it) face to face, online, by mail order or whatever, your customers need to know something about you and that they can trust you. On top of this, even if they know and trust you, if they don’t like you they probably won’t buy.

Tell everyone

Remember the importance of your customers knowing, liking and trusting you? Tell everyone who will listen what you do, how you do it and why you are the best in your business to choose. Don’t be shy.

Adapt and don’t give up

As things develop be prepared to adapt to circumstances and keep going. We need a bit of luck if we are going to succeed in business and in some cases we need to keep going until luck comes our way. Giving up or changing to something completely different as soon as the going gets tough means that we don’t give ourselves a proper chance of success. This is why we need to hold on to that day job for as long as possible to give us the financial backing to see us through the tough times.

Start today

Well, what are you waiting for?