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“When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves.”

~ Viktor E. Frankl

3 Keys to Commanding Your Success

I’ve been thinking a lot about success and ways to control it recently.

The events of the past six months, have shaken many people to the depths of their being and caused them to re-examine their values, dreams, goals, health and relationships – every aspect of their lives, really. Forces outside our control including the actions of governments tempt us to cede even more of our autonomy than is technically demanded which is where I turned to Viktor Frankl. As you may know, Frankl was a Jewish psychotherapist who was sent to a Nazi concentration camp – and, if you remember much from history, you’ll know that there wasn’t much left that you could control under those circumstances! I’m not comparing our situation to his, but it made me ask the question:

What if we accept the challenge to change ourselves before we are unable to change our situation?

As I’ve reflected on this and coached people through the past few months, I’ve seen very clearly that although success is not a one-dimensional affair – as people whose career or travel or relationship plans were disrupted realised – and although everyone has different definitions of success, there are KEYS to SUCCESS that every person can control.

#1 Building Helpful Habits

Did you know that there are scientific studies about the affect of habits on your outcomes in every area of life – including your health, fitness, grades, relationships, career and income prospects?

Some of their findings when it comes to bad habits are pretty scary, too!

I was reading one study that talked about a common habit that most people aren’t even aware they have, that causes their brain function to fluctuate by up to 40% over the course of an average work day and that is often linked to insomnia and other sleep issues. What this means, is that your unconscious habits are controlling and may be silently undermining your goals. If you don’t pay attention, by time you realise what is happening it may be too late.

You see, a few weeks ago, I was talking to one of my favourite clients on Zoom, and Martin told me about a focus habit that he had developed unconsciously that almost landed him on daily insulin injections. He was struggling to follow his doctor’s orders to avoid that terrible fate so we identified the habit that was tripping him up and set up an alternative pathway. The other day I talked to him again and his doctor was SHOCKED!!! to see his numbers in such good shape. Insulin is no longer in his immediate future, but he’s sticking to the new habit chain that got him off the hook.

The thing I love about focusing on habits is that once you get them set up they’ll carry you in the direction you want to go easily and effortlessly until you decide differently. Watching people implement my NLP-powered habit formation technique and seeing the changes they experience is always extremely exciting.

#2 Cementing a Positive Mindset

A person who truly understands the principle that “Energy flows where attention goes;” will focus on positive goals and outcomes and consider the tasks and milestones that will get them to their destination. That person won’t ignore the obstacles standing in their way, but will recognise their ability to figure out a path and surmount them.

You cannot ‘affirm your way to success’, you need to work your way there. If you focus on all the problems and things that might go wrong and might derail your progress, then the work you need to do becomes crushing. There is research on olympic athletes that documents their path from mere excellence to gold medal status based more on their attitude transformation than from any new training regimen.

Cultivating a positive, optimistic, outlook doesn’t remove problems from your path, but it means that you are hyper-focused on solving those problems and reaching your goals. Honestly, I’ve never heard of a pessimist who was also a success because ultimately pessimism saps your will to persevere and diverts your focus away from your goal.

#3 Deciding to Take Control

Ultimately, the choice is yours: You can either let other people control your life, attitude, and outcomes, or you can take control yourself.

Granted, there are things you can’t control, but the things that you can control are the gamechangers.

Here are 3 questions to help you make that decision, and take action to solidify your results:

What does success look like?
What do I need to do to create that success?
What obstacles are standing in my way?

If you feel like you’ve already ‘made it’, here’s a quick tip: studies suggest that people feel happier and more successful when they have a challenge to surmount, so set your sight higher and focus on the positive actions you will take to reach your new goal.

If all you can see is road blocks and obstacles, then it’s time for a positivity check: What is one positive thing you can focus on and one positive action you can take that will move you closer to your goal.

If you do this, I promise that you will feel more refreshed, motivated, and energised and ready to keep pursuing your goals.

NLP Mastery Academy

NLP Mastery Academy meets fortnightly (with a few exceptions over the holidays) to learn, review, and apply NLP techniques in your life. The personal interaction is a fantastic opportunity to explore how these techniques can be used in relationships, personal growth, career and work settings, parenting, and much, much more. If your interest in NLP is more focused on its power to create lasting change than on certification, then this may be the program for you. 

Click HERE to start your application process today!  

N.B. Because of the nature of this program, we have a rigorous screening process.

“Whenever the goal is to improve the quality of life, the flow theory can point the way… By stretching skills, by reaching toward higher challenges, such a person becomes an increasingly extraordinary individual.”

~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Coping with Uninvited Change

When Anna’s boss told her that she wouldn’t be getting JobKeeper because in the face of circumstances he was closing the business she was devastated. How would she support herself now?

Like many business owners, Mark had done the math and decided that it simply wasn’t worth the risk of relying on government to sustain the business. He gave her some sound advice along with the bad news:

“Anna, you’re a fantastic worker and you have more potential than you’ve ever let yourself realise. I’m stepping back to re-evaluate my life and work and determine what I could learn to make my next venture shock proof. I think you should do the same. Take the time that your redundancy pay gives you to think and study before you search for the next opportunity.”

Anna listened.

She carefully calculated what she needed to live on, cut back some expenses to stretch out her window, and invested her time in her own learning. We did one session together to explore her talents, interests, and potential and then she immersed herself in learning and developing the skills we had identified.

Each week she set aside some money to invest in her development and certification, but she waited to spend it until she had clear direction based on her research.

Within six weeks she landed a role that is providing her with experience in her chosen field as well as growth opportunities. Her new employer said that he selected her because she had demonstrated her willingness to invest her own resources in developing in that area and that success leaves clues… In her case a willingness to challenge herself rather than wait for opportunity to arrive on a platter.

#1 The Habit of Investing in Yourself

“Success leaves clues.”

One of those clues is your personal investment in your own professional or skill development. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been in an industry, or whether you are a business owner or an employee, it’s easy to get absorbed in your daily work and forget to look outside your own business, industry, and current competency.

Developing the habit of setting aside time and money to invest in enhancing existing skills or developing new ones will ensure that you never become the ‘dinosaur in the office’ – the person who isn’t even aware of new trends, possibilities or technologies. You may not adopt them all, but you will have good reasons for your decisions and be able to explain the benefits of your choice.

When you have the mindset of growth and development, you will be prepared to meet new challenges and find new ways to add value.

#2 The Habit of Stretching Higher

Ordinary people coast along and rely on past achievements.

Extraordinary people reach for the stars.

Not only does an unending openness to ‘the next thing’ serve you well by keeping your idea bank fresh and full during stable times, it also prepares you to meet change and to act constructively in the face of challenge.

There are always more things to learn and do, new ways of meeting old challenges, and different avenues to explore. Developing the habit of growth will deliver you from mental and emotional boredom and sclerosis and help you maintain a youthful energy and enthusiasm.

#2 The Habit of Stretching Higher

In his famous book on Flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi talks about increasing the value of the time you invest in learning or acting by removing distractions and other sources of friction. He also reminds us that flow is a habit that we need to cultivate, one that improves with training.

Here are four essential disciplines that will enable you to define and develop new habits and make them last – even when your world is falling apart:

  1. Definition: you know what it’s like to start a new habit – you set out bubbling with enthusiasm and certain that this is going to transform your life then reality sets in and you wonder if it will make a difference after all. If you define the habit and your expected outcome in advance, and refer to this definition regularly it will bolster your motivation and action.
  2. Commitment: set yourself a minimum timeframe to practice the new habit (66 days is apparently ideal) and don’t let anything come between you and your habit during that time. At the end of the 66 days you may want to re-evaluate the benefits and measure your results against your definition.
  3. Chaining: In the book Atomic Habits, James Clear talks about the power of linking a new habit to an existing engrained one eg. Get out of bed -> go for a run; stand up -> drink water -> deep breathing. This sets you up for success because you are already doing step one, and step two will quickly become a logical successor.
  4. Linguistics: The language you use to describe your habits and your relationship with them matters a great deal. When you are constantly using words that reflect compulsion or necessity (should, must, have to, ought to), you are programming your unconscious mind to find these things distasteful and difficult.
    That’s why 1. Definition is such an important part of creating and maintaining productive habits. Your definition will help you focus on why you are implementing this habit, and the outcome you expect and create a positive attitude towards your new habit.

Transforming Your Habits, Transform Your Life!

That’s not actually an overstatement.

Making and executing decisions takes an enormous amount of energy, will power, and brain power so it makes sense to conserve that power for key decisions and not fritter it away on everyday matters. Your habits become the path of least resistance and take over when you are busy, tired, or stressed… Why not create habits that support your life goals, rather than ones that undermine them?

Habit development is such an important topic that it figures in many of my business development and sales programs as well as my coaching and NLP training. I also run habit transformation programs a couple of times each year.

If you’re interested in how to build constructive habits and eliminate ones that no longer serve you, use the link below to join my email list and you’ll be notified when my next Habit Transformation challenge is scheduled.

Join My Email List

“Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems.”

~ Rene Descartes

Critical Thinking and the Statement of Your Problem

Sally had just received a warning that for the third week in a row she had missed her sales targets and was required to attend a coaching session. Her boss had hired me as the outsourced sales manager because as she put it, “I can monitor sales results, but I don’t seem to be able to change them. I need someone to train and manage my team for me, without having a full time employee.”

Sally was feeling defensive when we started our session. She had a list of reasons why she hadn’t achieved her targets:

  • Offices were closed and people working from home;
  • Economy was tight and uncertain;
  • Everyone else’s sales were also lower;
  • Struggles of working from home;
  • Personal issues…

It all added up to: “None of this is my fault.”

I could see her point. Actually, that was a large part of the problem. She was bringing her emotional perspective into the problem rather than thinking critically about what her real problem was, and how to solve it.

Andrew had a similar problem except, in his case as the business owner, it wasn’t a question of an external reprimand that kept the problem top-of-mind. The problem was reflected in his bank balance and cash flow issues. He came to me and said, “The clients I get argue over every item on the bill and there just aren’t enough of them to cover my costs and make this worthwhile! What am I going to do?”

Notice that Andrew, as a business owner, was looking for a solution, where Sally (the employee) was mostly complaining about how unfair it was to be held to account for her performance in tough times.

BUT… They were both looking in the wrong place for the solution.

Exploring Solutions Means Analysing the Problem

In another blog IF You Can’t Solve a Problem with the Same Thinking that Created It, THEN… I talked about the reality that you cannot solve a problem with the same level of thinking that created it. In this one, we’ll dive down into specifics.

When I asked Sally some questions about her situation and her sales results I discovered some interesting information.

  • She only knew about her sales rates when she received the weekly sales statistics;
  • She was feeling somewhat isolated and abandoned working from home and missed the face-to-face interaction and daily encounters of office life;
  • She had no clue how any of her colleagues were doing;
  • She had a lot of things going on in her life at home;

However, the key to her problem wasn’t any of those things…

The real issue lay with the actions she was taking (or not taking) on a daily basis which were reflected in her sales results. That gave us a clear plan of action… IF she wanted to change because the problems we needed to address were UPSTREAM from the presenting problem of too few closed sales.

Andrew’s problem was very similar, he started out looking for ways to remove clients’ resistance to paying appropriate prices for his services and realised that the problem lay in his process for attracting clients.

Openness to Change

You’ve probably already identified the real challenge that comes when you correctly identify the problem and track it to its source: Resistance to change!

When I talked to Sally and her boss (and the other team members) about ways of highlighting both activity and outcomes so they had ongoing feedback, they weren’t sure about that kind of change.

We plotted the sales process and highlighted the activities that preceded the sale – looking at percentages and numbers: the change felt uncomfortable.

We talked about alternatives for creating interactions while working out of the office, and different possibilities for making sales presentations. There’s already so much change that we can handle any more…

Andrew had a similar response.

He had a steady stream of clients coming from his existing efforts (even if they did all pressure him about prices, complain constantly, and pay late). He was afraid that any change would upset that balance.

Eventually, they both agreed that the price of stasis was higher than the price of change so they took action.

Formulating an Effective Solution

In the process of working through this, both Sally and Andrew learned how to use some important questions and critical thinking tools that they could use in other situations.

The process of digging beneath the superficial presenting problem to find out more about it became a rule that they were able to apply to refine their approach to personal problems and other business problems.

Realising that the problem they were facing might not be the problem at all, but just a symptom of another problem provided a whole new approach.

Confident Conversion: 90 days to More Cash, More Clients, More Impact

Some coaches like to view their client’s problems as discrete issues to be solved one by one. My approach is different. I like to empower my clients by giving them the tools and skills to apply the process from one problem to another.

In high school trigonometry, I was stumped by transformations.

When my teacher helped me work out an equation using cos, sine, and tan and explain how all the equivalencies worked for one problem, I was stumped when the next one looked different. It was years before I realised that my problem wasn’t that I couldn’t do the mathematics, it was that I didn’t have the right questions to step me far enough back to identify the core similarities and apply a process to them.

Sure, some kids could instinctively see the patterns and work out the transformations, but there were plenty like me who couldn’t do that.

One of the goals of my Confident Conversion: 90 days to More Cash, More Clients, More Impact program, is to give you the tools to solve the business and career problems by sharpening your critical thinking skills. You may choose to have a coach as well (I highly recommend that), but you will also find that suddenly, when you solve ONE problem, you can see the way to solve a handful of OTHER problems that you had thought were unrelated.

If you’d like to learn more about our new self-study program, go to https://bit.ly/CC-90days

“One reason that it’s helpful to talk about your problems with someone else is the unique perspective they bring to bear on it. Did you know that you can teach yourself to do this without the help of someone else? You can. It’s one of the most useful skills I teach.”

~ Chandell Labbozzetta

You Need to Discover New Ways of Thinking and Defining Problems

You may have heard the story about the group of people who were blindfolded, then taken over to an elephant and asked what they thought it was. As they crowded around the elephant, each person described it based on the particular part they could feel. Even though they were all accurately describing the element they were close to, they did not have a clear picture of the whole animal.

Problems in any area of life are like that – including business problems. We see the problem from our own perspective, and we feel it’s effects, but we can’t see all round it. In addition, we’re also often caught up in an emotional response to the existence of the problem in itself.

We’re often just like the people with blindfolds on who were confronted by the elephant when it comes to problem-solving. We see one part from one perspective. Often, that perspective is the reason the problem exists in the first place.

For example, Jim struggled to get his employees to arrive at work on time. He called me and invited me to help him solve this problem. As he described the problem, people were always arriving late, shifting deadlines, making excuses, and generally not acting responsibly.

We arranged to meet at a café at 8am to discuss the situation before heading into the office. At 8:10am he called to tell me he was running late and would be there in 5 minutes. At 8:45am he received a message on his phone from Sam, his accountant: “See you in fifteen minutes.” A quick check on his calendar revealed that he was double booked.

I looked at him as I stood up to leave. “I’ve just solved your problem, Jim. Your staff members may have a problem. You most certainly do, and I’m willing to bet they’re just following your example. Until you sort out your disorganisation, I don’t think you can ask much of your staff.”

Jim did not have a clue that he had a problem until I pointed it out to him. Even worse, as long as he was misdiagnosing the problem, he didn’t have a hope of solving it. When we met the following week, he looked at everything from a completely different perspective.

Calling a consultant or coach doesn’t have to be your first step in finding a solution. You can start to identify the problem yourself using the steps that follow.

Chunk Higher...

People naturally approach problems at varying levels of abstraction. You may be a naturally abstract thinker or a naturally detailed thinker. There’s no right or wrong about it, but you want to be aware of your own tendency because it will affect the way you:

  • Perceive Problems
  • Define Problems; and
  • Solve Problems.

Many people focus on a specific problem (like Jim’s frustration with unreliable employees). As long as Jim was focused on the behaviour of his employees, he missed a fundamental part of the problem which was his own elastic approach to time and appointment commitments.

By asking the questions:

  • For what purpose? And
  • What is this an example of?

you can discover more about what is really going on and where the cause of the problem lies. If you are naturally an abstract thinker, then there is a high probability that you will only discover what you already know, so you need to…

Chunk Lower

Some people instinctively frame problems in universal abstractions (like ‘world peace’, and ‘climate change’, ‘racism’, ‘gender stereotypes, etc). When you do this it’s very had to find solutions at a day-by-day level.

The other side of Jim’s problem was that he was looking at a soup pot of all his employees, every day, in every way. As we dug into his problem later on, it was clear that there was a subset of his employees who meticulously fulfilled their obligations, and a growing number of employees who did not. In order to solve the problem, we needed to delve into the details and ask questions like:

  • What or whom specifically are we talking about? And
  • What are specific examples of this?

These answers will help you identify the extent of the problem more accurately. If you already think in a detailed fashion then you may become overwhelmed and need to chunk higher to uncover the insights you need, or even…

Chunk Sideways

You’ve probably heard of lateral thinking and its modern founding father, Edward do Bono. Looking at problems from the side, or chunking sideways, is one of the most challenging approaches for most people.

As we looked at Jim’s problem with organising his own time and honouring his commitments, he realised that it showed up differently in many areas of his life as well. It wasn’t just a question of switching calendar apps or time management tools or activating louder and more persistent alarms. Nor was it a question of changing just one kind of unreliable behaviour. It was showing up in multiple areas of his life.

Jim had an unusually powerful desire to please people, so his first response was always “yes.” In addition, he was incredibly optimistic about how quickly he could accomplish tasks and how much he could fit into his life.

It wasn’t until we asked the questions:

  • What are other examples of this? And
  • Where else does this show up?

that we realised how widespread the problem was and what it would take to solve the problem.

The really exciting part is that once Jim grasped this approach, he was able to use it to solve several other problems that had been bothering him for years. In fact, a few months later, he was able to help his daughter apply the same approach to her schoolwork and transition from a struggling C-student, to a stellar A+ student at the top of her class.

Confident Conversion: 90 days to More Cash, More Clients, More Impact

This cornerstone program isn’t your standard business growth course that focuses purely on tactical and strategic elements. In addition to those essential elements, our goal is to provide you with the mindset and thinking tools that give you new ways of analysing and solving problems.

You can discover more about it at https://bit.ly/CC-90days

“Let’s go.”

“We can’t.”

“Why not?”

“We’re waiting for Godot.”

~ Samuel Beckett

Paralysis by Analysis and Other Related Problems

I remember my frustration in high school when we had to study this play.

I mean, the chap doesn’t do anything.

He just waits… And waits… And waits… Who acts like that?

Oops! It happens all the time in business and sales and it is incredibly destructive.

Don’t get me wrong…

  • Analysis is important… Especially after you have results to analyse;
  • Quality affects your reputation… But it’s not only measured in one way;
  • Timing is everything… Not yet is deadly.

There’s a popular business quotation: “You cannot manage what you do not measure.”

It’s true. Even more true is this variant: “You cannot manage if there is nothing to measure.”

Let’s use your introduction as an example of how this works because it’s just as true when you are face-to-face with someone at in-person or virtual networking events, connecting with someone on LinkedIn, or calling someone on the phone. Without a consistent introduction (which may vary depending on your context and audience) you will never really know why people don’t pay attention to you.

It’s not until you have a framework that you use consistently that you can evaluate:

  • What interests people about you and your offer;
  • Whether the appropriate people are interested;
  • How you can increase their interest;
  • What the outcome of that interest is likely to be;

This is especially important to growing businesses who want to take control of their growth.

The Bait Trap

There are a couple of key problems you could face with your introduction and this is just as true whether your introduction is verbal, written, or some kind of lead magnet or attraction tool:

  1. Fishing Trawler Syndrome: Casting a great big net and collecting everything in your path is expensive and demotivating. Just like a trawler, you fish until the net is full, then you come back to shore full of excitement, but when you sift through the catch there are only four or five fish that are worth keeping. If your introduction is designed to appeal to ‘everyone’ you’re simply making your work harder.
  2. Wrong Bait: Investing in an exciting new conversation-opener, lead magnet, tool, or opportunity only to discover that the people you talk to aren’t interested at all can be demoralising. It’s even worse when put all your faith in that one thing and don’t stop to check if it’s working by measuring your results.
  3. Wrong Audience: Talking to people who can’t afford or don’t need your solution is frustrating for anyone. If you don’t have a consistent way of introducing yourself, or set aside time to analyse the outcomes you cannot tell whether you are talking to the right people or not.

Once you have a framework, a plan, and some data, you’ll be in a position to analyse the results. Until then, focus on taking action.

I was working with an in-house sales team last year and once we’d covered this 5 of the 8 team members suddenly realised that they could predict the outcome of any conversation within a few minutes. This was especially powerful at conferences and networking events and suddenly their sales commissions sky-rocketed.

Two of the others were struggling to refine their introductions and wouldn’t commit to consistently testing so they could discover what worked. They were frustrated by the success of their colleagues, but couldn’t find the discipline to stick to the process. The last member of the team was fixated on creating the ‘perfect introduction’. At least, that was what she said. For whatever reason, what did was virtually nothing… And her results reflected her inaction.

Commit or Quit

If you have fishing trawler syndrome, then it’s time to QUIT that practice. You can’t afford the financial or energy-sapping drain on your business this causes. What you lose by focusing on a single market (type of fish), you gain in profitability, simplicity, and results. You can add markets later, once you have a system running in the first one.

If you have a bait problem it’s easy to take it personally, but that’s a dangerous road to go down. Make sure the people you are offering it to really are your ideal clients. If they’re not interested determine whether it is the thing itself, the way it is presented, or the hood you’re using that is the problem. Based on the information, you decide to tweak or QUIT your bait.

It’s easy to misdiagnose an audience problem as a bait problem. At one time I thought that mothers who were returning to the workforce would be a great target audience for my Confident Closing course. They certainly had a problem that the course solved, many of them had an interest as well. But they weren’t interested in investing in a solution. When I QUIT trying to talk to the wrong people about the course, I realised that I had had an audience problem. However, I’ve talked to others who completely rejigged their product in response to an audience problem and then discovered that it didn’t help.

When you COMMIT to the research and reinvention it takes to slice and dice your market, find irresistible bait, and focus on the audience who is looking for your solution you transform your results. In today’s world, it’s more important than ever to manage and measure your lead flow and sales outcomes so you’re not dependent on government regulations or other forces outside your control.

What Can You Control

How you introduce yourself and attract attention is particularly important right now. You can’t control the entire sales process, but you can control how you introduce yourself so that you make yourself especially attractive to your ideal prospects and are either ‘interesting’ or ‘repellant’ to everyone else…

Do it right and your ideal prospects will put up their hand and respond to you so that you don’t have to do the chasing…

That changes everything. It means that you no longer have to wait for Godot – or anyone else. You are in control and you can adjust the flow through your sales pipeline however you wish!

What if…

You used existing data to determine your actions so you could quit guessing and commit to a course of action that got results.

When was the last time you looked closely at the way you introduce yourself in a business context and actually used data to test your opinions?

If you’re like many people, it has been quite some time.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

  • If you’re honest with yourself, does your elevator pitch create curiosity and interest… Or just a polite response?
  • Do you actually have a pitch prepared…Or do you just create a response on the fly
  • Can you tell me, with accurate certainty, how many of your introductions lead to appointments, and what the ratio between appointments and sales is?

A powerful elevator pitch is just one of the critical elemental that can transform your ability to attract your ideal clients easily and effortlessly and dramatically accelerate your profitability and business satisfaction.

Stop waiting for the right people to find you…

Set the right bait…

In front of the right people…

And watch the magic unfold.

“The greatest discovery of our generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind. As you think, so shall you be.”

~ William James

Are You REALLY Getting Closer to the Life of Your Dreams?

Time is one of the most powerful creative forces… And one of the most powerful destructive forces. It all depends how you use it.

I could dive deep into the philosophy of growth and decay… But I want to focus on the change you can control so I’ll just say it briefly:

“Every day, you are either moving closer to your dreams or further away. It all depends on the direction in which you are heading. Time can increase the effect of your choice, but you control the direction.”

If you are letting the days slide by without taking deliberate actions – both large and small – to move in the direction you choose then time is not your friend. You know it’s true. You can see it reflected in your:

  • Fitness
  • Weight
  • Education
  • Career or Business
  • Income
  • Wealth
  • House (maintenance and cleanliness)…

You get the idea. If you just let any of these areas go, they usually decline.

The same is true when it comes to building the life of your dreams: it won’t happen without discipline and direction.

Do You Even Know What You Want?

I was talking to a friend the other day about this. Ellie is a successful VP who is earning a great salary, has lots of perks, plenty of room to move up the ladder, a partner who adores her…

BUT when she looks at her life she says to herself, “Is this all there is?”

I asked her what she really wanted and she shrugged and said, “I don’t know. I just know that what I have isn’t enough. You’re probably going to say that I ought to be grateful for having so much and stop complaining… Or write in a gratitude journal or something, Chandell. Please don’t.”

Now that’s a problem!

We’ll come back to Ellie later, but first I want to tell you about Seth. Seth had truly made himself a success. He was the first person in his family to go to university (his father was in and out of prison while he grew up) and he completed his Law degree with high honours. He quickly rose up in his top tier law firm  and he was on the fast track to partnership (a long-term goal of his).

One day he looked around at all he had made for himself: career, relationship, wealth, opportunity, hobbies, respect… And said, “Is this all there is?”

And… one of Seth’s hobbies is hiking. Not just anywhere, but hiking in the mountains where the distant view is always more alluring than the near view.

Seth applied that understanding to set a next goal for himself – not an ultimate goal, but a next goal. He could have said to himself, “I’ve arrived and it’s not all it cracked up to be.” But he didn’t. Instead he took control of his future and the attitudes of his mind.

You Don’t Need to Stay Where You Are!

Wherever you are today and however you feel about that, you don’t need to spend the rest of your life in that place (and I’m using ‘place’ to cover mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual options). You can change and you really don’t need anyone to help you (although a mentor or coach is often a tremendous benefit.

You don’t even need to relocate physically to create momentum and direction in your life. You just need to make that mental switch from a ‘victim’ (with a long list of reasons why), to a ‘victor’ with a short list of things to do and an even shorter list of attitudes to cultivate!

It’s NOT (Just) About Gratitude!

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not against gratitude journals and I think about things I’m grateful for every day and usually write them down. Gratitude won’t help you reach for the stars, though. It’s more likely to keep you earthbound unless you are careful because energy flows where attention goes and if you focus too much on being grateful for what you have, you won’t take the next step.

As Ellie and I continued our conversation she realised that she simply wasn’t all that interested in the next step on the corporate ladder. It wasn’t that she couldn’t do it, it was just that the higher she climbed the less she was involved in the parts of her work she loved.

By the time we finished that conversation she knew what she wanted… And she had a plan to get it… And her enthusiasm and vigour were back in full force.

Externally, nothing changed for Ellie. The change in her attitude has already started to bear fruit.

What About You?

Ellie went through a process called a H.O.W.T.O. Session with me. It’s a 90-minute paid session that brings clarity and helps you focus on what you really want so that you can make the decisions you need to make. In that short time, she was able to articulate and recognise what was really bothering her and do something about it.

If that sound like something you need you can book a session using the button below.

Book Your H.O.W.T.O Session

“Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill is one of the most influential books of the twentieth century. Hill inspired millions of people to step out of the misery or constraint of their existing circumstances and create a future full of unimaginable success, yet at one point he had to sell his typewriter to pay his bills and was rescued by a friend. Why?”

~ Chandell Labbozzetta

It’s Not What You Know, It’s What You Do!

I work with many business owners and sales people who have invested heavily in their education and personal development and who have a deep knowledge of their subject, yet who are not seeing the results they anticipated. In fact, that’s why most of them come to me… they realise that they need accountability and coaching so that they can effectively implement the theory they already know.

One of the things that makes working with people so endlessly fascinating is our different strengths and preferences. I love ideas… and the thing that I love most about them is the possibilities they present for testing in real life.

When I first discovered the power of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) I was fascinated by the theory because of the possibilities of its application in everyday life outside the training room. My response was to practice each technique in every possible situation and to master them all. It wasn’t until I went to my NLP Master Practitioner Certification that I realised how many people who had learned these same techniques had tucked them aside in the ‘knowledge’ part of their brain rather than using them.

The problem with this approach is that your unused knowledge is as effective as ignorance in creating desirable outcomes – that is to say, if you have knowledge but don’t apply it, you might just as well have conserved the time, energy, and money you spent acquiring it.

The Positive Power of Ideas

Ideas are the lifeblood of your personal growth and success. Just as you need to have blood constantly pumping through your body oxygenating and detoxifying your cells, you need a steady flow of ideas to oxygenate and detoxify your business and career so that you remain engaged and flexible.

There’s an old saying: “If your output exceeds your intake then your upkeep will be your downfall,” that applies to many areas of life. It’s certainly true when it comes to the flow of ideas into your professional life. I’m a big fan of developing habits and routines to take the pressure off your willpower but you also need to mix in some new ideas to keep things fresh.

It’s important for every professional to keep learning and growing and to tap into ideas outside your own specialty because that will make you even more effective.

The Persistent Power of Implementation

If ideas are the lifeblood of health and growth, comprehensive implementation and action are the secret of success. Napoleon Hill was a very gifted man whose teaching has revolutionised many lives and who taught the importance of acting as well as thinking. At one stage he was not only highly respected, but also extremely wealthy… Then he lost everything and was rescued from destitution by once of his own students. In an interview later in life he made the following comment, “I defined 17 principles of success and taught others the principle of saving, but I forgot to apply it rigorously myself. In the end omitting to practice just one of these principles cost me everything.”

I’ve worked with business owners who were doing many things right, yet not seeing the success they anticipated. It turned out that the one or two minor things they ignored were their downfall. When they implemented just one or two missing elements consistently everything changed.

If you’ve ever been tempted to say, “I know that already!” when you talked to someone about your problems in life or business, then you’re in good company… It’s what the majority of average people say (and how they act).

BUT… I’d like to challenge you: Are you doing everything you know? Most people aren’t. Successful people are those who recognise that they need help with implementation and find a coach or mentor who will ask the difficult questions and provide the impetus to implement consistently, persistently, and effectively not just in the areas they are naturally drawn to, but across every area of business and life.

Confident Conversion: 90 days to More Cash, More Clients, More Impact

Specially designed for business owners and sales professionals who want to increase their professional standing and impact as well as their income and profitability this course covers the essential foundations that you need to implement effectively and provides accountability and useful tools so you can achieve this easily and effortlessly.

“The root cause of all our problems is our unconscious mind, and the beliefs and behaviours that we store there.  The real problem here is that they are unconscious so it’s very hard to pinpoint them and change them.”

~ Chandell Labbozzetta

The Root Cause of Your Discontent

“I’ve been passed over again!” Samantha’s voice was shaking with anger and frustration. “It doesn’t matter how good my results are, this *** idiot won’t let me move ahead… she’s just like my last manager!”

Samantha is an effervescent extrovert – she is so bubbly that she scares some people. As a high-performing sales professional, this is great because it doesn’t matter how many rejections she gets, she’s always ready to get up and go again. However, she scares off some prospects and her managers sometimes mistake her enthusiasm for naivety and that was holding back her career. This was the fourth time she had been passed over by a manager because of her vivacity and charm and she was desperate for a solution.

During our coaching sessions she quickly realised that while she was genuinely effervescent, she amped it up unconsciously because, as a child she had always been praised for that characteristic. Once she became aware of that, it didn’t take long before she learned how to read and respond to other people better and find more effective ways of communicating with them appropriately.

Because she was truly interested in finding solutions to people’s problems, she quickly learned how to read her prospects better over the phone or in person and to tone down her effervescence when needed and close more sales. Incidentally, that was the last time she was passed over for a promotion.

The Resourcefulness Within You

“You don’t know what you don’t know,” and until you can see a problem it’s very difficult to find effective solutions.

Samantha honestly never realised that her bubbly personality was a learned response to praise.  She didn’t change her personality as much as allow the other side which had always been hidden to shine through. Using some Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) skills for building rapport and strengthening relationships she learned to read other people better and find ways of making them comfortable.

She was excited about the fact that she was able to close nearly twice the number of sales, but she was far more excited by the fact that she was able to build a closer relationship with both her sister and her own son – both of whom were introverts. They’d always got on fairly well, but now they were actually enjoying being together.

Each of us has a unique personality and gifts and we naturally lean more towards people who are similar to ourselves. That’s fine, but it can also be limiting… especially in a business context… UNLESS we deliberately cultivate the skills we need to communicate and work effectively with people who are quite different to us and have their own special contribution to make.

If you find yourself encountering similar situations repeatedly, it’s important to define what is creating them. Often, you have unconscious habits and thought patterns that are triggering other people’s reactions… habits and thought patterns that you have the power to change once you are aware of them. If left untended, these become roadblocks to progress and satisfaction.

Changing Direction and Creating Momentum

I firmly believe that each of us have all the resources we need to make a success of both our business and our personal lives – it’s just that sometimes we get caught up in ways of thinking and behaving that mess us up over and over again.

In a way, we hate to hear this because we like to think that our problems are unique and that’s why we can’t move past them, but if you think about it differently, this reality is quite comforting: – If others have found a tool that helps them change, then I can too.  I don’t need to stay ‘stuck’ in my problem!

The root cause of all our problems lies in our unconscious mind, and the beliefs and behaviours that we store there.  Since they are unconscious, it’s very hard to pinpoint and change them.  When I attended my first Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) training I’d been seeing a psychologist to help with depression for months and going over the same pile of misery every week.  Yet, just 7 short days of training completely transformed my outlook, and I’ve seen the same thing happen over and over again in others.

The key is that while Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) doesn’t teach that your past isn’t important, it does teach that you are not bound by your past and it delivers the tools you need to release the chains that are holding you to your old ways.  It is almost like magic!

Getting Unstuck

For Samantha, the key was our H.O.W.T.O. Session and some subsequent Time Line Therapy® work which showed her the root cause of her behaviour and then set her free to develop the flexibility of communication she needed to move forward. Other people have found similar freedom by discovering the unconscious beliefs and behaviours that keep them trapped in a business cycle of feast and famine, or in a life of poverty, a career or relationship that is stifling their dreams or some kind of addiction or co-dependency. However, while awareness is foundational for transformation, freeing yourself from the emotional traps you set for yourself and accessing the inner resources you need to move forward are also crucial.

If you’d like help with this book a H.O.W.T.O. Session now. You’ll be amazed at how different you feel when you free yourself from the baggage you’ve been unconsciously accumulating for years!

Book Your H.O.W.T.O. Session

“An idea is a feat of association, and the height of it is a good metaphor.”

~Robert Frost

What are Metaphors in NLP?

To avoid confusion, let’s start with a common definition of metaphor that you probably encountered in your high school literature class:

“A metaphor is a figure of speech that describes an object or action in a way that isn’t literally true, but helps explain an idea or make a comparison.”

Your teacher probably went on to demonstrate this with examples of famous metaphors – mostly pithily stated and highly memorable phrases. This is good as far as it goes, but NLP draws on a far older form of metaphor in which example and teaching are embedded in stories that shaped how people were to think about:

  • Friendship;
  • Citizenship;
  • Marriage;
  • Love;
  • Riches;
  • Fame;
  • Adversity;
  • Opposition;
  • Etc.

If you want to see how metaphor works in this way, think about the ancient texts that were used to teach children how to live and grow and respond to their world even more than as tools of literacy. You’re thinking of Homer, Vergil, the Bible, Confucius, the Koran, even Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, and the oral traditions that permeate many pre-literate societies.

This is metaphor… a powerful tool for shaping hearts, minds, and behaviours.

How Metaphors Inspire and Support Change

Metaphors are stories that capture the imagination and harness the will.

In some cultures, stories are forbidden… unless they are part of the received tradition. This is an acknowledgement of the transformative power of story because this response is based on fear, and people fear power, not impotence.

Fiction is not frivolous. It is dangerous when it comes to inspiring change. It’s why news broadcasters and politicians zoom in on stories rather than statements to communicate their message. It’s also a very powerful agent of deep-seated behavioural change that authorities know they should censor and handle with great care because most stories have unintended consequences.

Taking Willpower out of the Transformation Equation

Most of us can remember stories that we were told as children. Some of us were also banned from reading or hearing certain books or stories because well-meaning adults (rightly) feared that we would be subconsciously influenced by them.

But what about the possibility that we could strategically use stories as metaphors that guided us down a chosen path, tools that would carry us forward when our courage or will-power flagged? That is how NLP teaches us to use metaphors for ourselves and for those whom we are coaching or working with.

Like any powerful tool, metaphors have potential to do harm as well as good which is why it’s important to think them through carefully and examine them from many angles before presenting them to a client.

Building or Choosing Metaphors

The principles of building or selecting a metaphor that will help you or your client achieve the desired outcome is fairly straightforward:

  1. Identify the sequence of behaviour or events that you would like to change;
  2. Consider the individual’s consistent behaviours and sequence them carefully;
  3. Identify the desired new outcomes and choices;
  4. Anchor the past and future behaviours in the client’s model of the world and establish clear connections between the client’s situation and the story;
  5. Establish new resources in the client’s mind that will help them engage with the story and create their own identification and momentum;
  6. Resolve the metaphor with some degree of ambiguity and use appropriate verbal cues to ensure continued openness.
  7. Test your metaphor to ensure that there are no hidden pitfalls that could create undesirable outcomes.

When you have mapped out steps 1-3, often you will find an existing metaphor that fits your purpose and only requires some slight additions and tweaks. Once you discover the power of metaphors, you will find more ways of crafting and using them in your own life, as well as for others.

Are You a Candidate for NLP Mastery Academy?

Have you always wanted to dive more deeply into the powerful applications of the NLP techniques and teachings for everyday life than your certification course or books enabled.

The biggest challenge that most students of NLP face isn’t learning what the techniques are. It’s discovering how to use them to empower themselves and others at work, at home, and at school to increase energy and enhance their performance, relationships, and results.

We have developed a ground-breaking course that meets fortnightly to learn and practice NLP  techniques and explore their application so hat we will see the positive effects in all areas of life.

If you’re interested in learning more about this course, email support@lifepuzzle.com.au Use this subject: “Please tell me more about the NLP Mastery Academy” and tell us about your goals and NLP background in the email.

“Ideas confer power, and power causes change.”

~ Chandell Labbozzetta

Do You Believe That a Solution Exists Even if You Can’t See One?

Emily was immersed in her problems and believed that the only possible to solution was to endure her situation (with no end in sight) or take her own life. She was so convinced that this was true that it never even occurred to her to speak to anyone about any of the things that were going on at home or at work.

Her manager had invited me to run an in-house NLP course for his executive and sales team and during one of the exercises her state of mind was revealed. We were talking about finding solutions to problems and the ways in which people respond when they lose hope in the possibility of a solution. I noticed that Emily, who had been engaged throughout the course, was suddenly hyper-attentive as I taught about using linguistic techniques to explore new approaches to familiar problems and as we moved into an exercise I kept a close ear on her group.

The exercise they were doing involved an observer, a practitioner, and a subject who presented a problem. Emily started out as the observer, then went on to display a great deal of skill as the practitioner, before taking her turn as the subject. The problem she shared with the group was clearly a genuine problem, but equally clearly only the teensiest glimpse of the underlying issue.

At the end of the exercise, she asked if we could talk privately.

As she told me, “I suddenly realised when I heard you teach this topic that I was trapped in my own thinking. When I used the technique you taught on Sam and then experienced it myself, I wondered if I was missing something about my situation and I started to believe that there must be a solution to my problem that I hadn’t thought of yet.”

Realising that a constructive and creative  solution must exist gave Emily the hope she needed to look at her situation differently.

You Cannot Solve a Problem with the Level of Thinking that Created It

If we look at history… The history of nations, science, civilisation, economics, social, fashion… it’s easy to see that everything runs along pretty much unchanged and then suddenly something comes from outside and the thinking and solutions leap forward into a new state of normal.

It’s easier to see when we look back than when we are bang smack in the centre of a crisis which is why history is such a potent teacher.

At this very moment, we are caught up in a storm of crises that threaten us with potential drastic consequences. As long as we rely on the kind of thinking that created them we will be stuck in a cycle of one-step-forward-two-steps-back consequences so we need to look outside the traditional approaches.

This takes courage. It takes openness to change and to the possibility that we might need to think quite differently in many areas of life. Often, this doesn’t happen until people are truly desperate… Or until they come into contact with people who have already developed a different approach and ‘jumped out of the box’.

Finding Effective Solutions

The main reason why truly successful people in all areas of life hire coaches is so they can access a different level of thinking and solution-finding.

“You don’t know what you don’t know.” – and ignorance will always limit our progress, our possibilities, and (often) our dreams. We cannot see our own blind spots and so we constantly need to be exposed to people who will challenge our

  • Thinking & mindset;
  • Habits & behaviour;
  • Goals & dreams;
  • As well as the underlying assumptions.

Your current way of thinking has brought you to this place of awareness that there is something more… a problem to be solved. You need outside help to help you find and implement the solution.

That help can come from:

  • Books and media
  • Courses
  • Peers
  • Mentors
  • Coaches

Your choice will be influenced by the urgency of your need for a solution, your other commitments, and your resources. Any of the above solutions can be effective, the principle goal is to open yourself to *new approaches and new ways of thinking that are outside of your current ones.

 *“NEW” here, does not necessarily refer to temporal recency. It is new-to-you-thinking. Some of the most transformative out-of-the-box thinking is based on ancient wisdom.

NLP Mastery Academy

On June 15th 2020 we’re starting our first online NLP Mastery Academy group intended to empower students to dive more deeply into the powerful applications of the NLP techniques and teachings for everyday life.

The biggest challenge that most students of NLP face isn’t learning what the techniques are. It’s discovering how to use them to empower themselves and others at work, at home, and at school to increase energy and enhance their performance, relationships, and results. As we meet fortnightly to learn or refresh our knowledge about the techniques and explore their uses we know that we will see the positive effects in all areas of life.

If you’re interested in learning more about this course, email support@lifepuzzle.com.au Use this subject: “Please tell me more about the NLP Mastery Academy” and tell us about your goals and NLP background in the email.

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