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“Do not let yourself be a slave to chance, but let your dauntless mind shape the triumphant future you choose.”

~ Chandell Labbozzetta (paraphrase of William Shakespeare)

You: A Walled Fortress

In one of her essays, Simone Weil, Jewish-French philosopher and holocaust survivor reflects on the role of walls in our lives. When I read her thought-provoking reflection, I was reminded of many clients I’ve worked with over the years. Some used walls as an excuse to hide, others used them to communicate, still others smashed the walls wide open.

This is a paraphrase of Weil’s thoughts applied to people I know and clients I’ve worked with – including the ones who choose NOT to CHANGE.

When you are shut up in a row of cells, there is a wall that separates you from the prisoner in the next cell. Sometimes prisoners develop codes for communicating with other prisoners, creating a sense of community in their suffering, Sometimes ,prisoners are able to tunnel under the walls and communicate secretly, but more extensively. Sometimes, a miracle happens, the walls disintegrate, sunlight enters, and the prisoner is freed.

When that happens, the question is: how will the prisoner respond to freedom?

My goal (and the purpose for which I built LifePuzzle) isn’t to ‘influence’ people.

It’s to create change!

I’ve seen too many people who had all the resources, gifts, talents, and time they needed, choose to stay inside the walls of their self-confessed prison to think that ‘influence’ will be enough.

The Cost of Security and Self-Protection

For a prisoner, a wall can be frustrating as it stops them from building relationships and achieving their dreams.

So… Maybe you have built walls around you like a fortress, for protection from your fears. Unfortunately, the walls that shut others out, also shut you inside and stop you from achieving your dreams – or even setting your feet on the path toward them.

I’m not suggesting that you ignore precautions and recklessly go out in search of danger. Fear is an appropriate response to danger. The challenge lies in learning to trust yourself enough to distinguish between the fear that tells you to run from danger, and that which you need to over face and conquer.

The Call of Freedom

The history-makers of this world – those dauntless men and women who refused to be tamed by fear, bullied into silence or suppression of their gifts are the ones who are free. Free to serve others, free to share with others, and free to change and grow.

There is a price to be paid for that tantalising prospect of freedom. That price is CHANGE.

Do YOU want to be free?

Like anything else that is worthwhile, the price is high.

I train people to speak in public as well as providing sales training. In the context of developing both of those skills, I frequently share the statistic that over 70% of the population fear public speaking more than they fear death.

It’s an interesting contrast… because both of those dreaded outcomes involved a willingness to change, to grow, and to face the unknown. Neither of them ignore the reality of fear, but they both involve applying dauntless courage to that fear and moving forward in the face of it.

That is the cost of freedom.

Dauntless: Overcoming Fear

What is stopping you, from being, doing, and having everything you want?

It’s usually fear. That might be fear of:

  • failure,
  • others’ mockery or criticism,
  • yourself,
  • hunger, misery, poverty…

BUT… Imagine what YOU could accomplish if you were dauntless – experiencing fear, but not letting it tame you.

  1. What goals would you set?
  2. What risks would you take?
  3. What tasks would you accomplish?
  4. What would change?

And finally…

What is stopping you from being that person and doing those things?

All it takes is a willingness to step out and be yourself with dauntless determination.

“Momentum is what makes an avalanche so dangerous, a galloping horse so unstoppable, and social movements so powerful.”

~ Chandell Labbozzetta

Your Three Minds… the Key to Your Success and Achievement

In Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) we illustrate the concept of your three minds with three intersecting circles shown below:

The3minds 768x744

The 3 Minds

As shown these three minds are the critical faculty, the conscious mind, and the unconscious mind and at the intersection of these is our true self which grows and develops in accordance with our decisions to trust and honour ourselves (which leads to growth) or to distrust ourselves (which leads to diminishment).

Any time you successfully harness the power of all three minds in your efforts, you create a degree of momentum that virtually ensures successful completion. So, the question becomes…

How does each of these three minds contribute to my success, and what steps do I need to take to shift from striving to achieving?

Your Conscious Mind: Goals, Plans and Actions

Setting goals has to do with vision and it’s helpful if your goals have a sense of inevitability. An avalanche heads downhill, following the line of least resistance until its momentum is exhausted. A galloping horse runs for the horizon until it can run no further. A social movement grows in noise and power until it achieves its object. In the same way, your goals, plans, and actions provide you with a destination and a path to follow.

The biggest reason why people don’t make progress toward their goals is that they lack a clear picture of their destination and path.

This leaves their conscious mind without direction and makes them easy to distract.

Your Unconscious Mind: Motivation and Emotional Connection

Have you noticed how much harder you are to distract when you are intent on getting an answer or achieving something you really care about?

One of my colleagues is always jumping around and never seems to get anything done when you ask her to submit reports and complete administrative tasks. However, put her in front of a room of c-suite executives to sell her ideas, or ask her to prepare a sales presentation and she is focused, insightful, and 100% engaged.

What’s the difference?

The difference is the emotional connection between her actions, goals, and effort. When she is preparing a presentation or delivering a sales pitch she is totally invested in engaging the audience and delivering a result. Admin is just a chore.

With her permission, we decided to run a test and create an emotional motivational connection between submitting those reports (which are tied to her presentations and sales results). The difference was phenomenal!

Your Critical Faculty: Formed and Filtered by You!

Psychologists tell us that until the age of seven our minds uncritically accept whatever ideas they are fed. After that we develop the ability to filter ideas and decide what to accept and what to reject. However, we are still dependent on the outside world to present ideas to us.

You’ve probably heard people talk about the echo-chamber effect – which can be exacerbated by AI on the internet. Facebook uses this extensively and it is the reason why you see more of certain people and related ideas and less of others. Every time you respond to a post, you increase the probability that you will see more posts and products along those lines. The problem with living in an echo-chamber is that your critical faculty is being conditioned to only accept certain lines of thinking.

This also presents an exciting opportunity for you to determine where your thinking will take you. The more you present yourself with material that affirms your goals, supports your belief that they are both possible and desirable, and directs your course of action towards them, the more probable (even inevitable) it is that you will achieve them easily and effortlessly.

Your True Self: Integration of Desire and Reality

Fantasies are fun to indulge… But Fairy Tales are even better because they could actually come true.

When you harness the power of your three minds, deliberately set out to design your success and create a path that leads to that success, you are creating your own fairy tale and making yourself deliberately lucky.

You have more control over your future… and even your present… circumstances than you imagine.

What will you make of them?

“Energy flows where attention goes so focus on what you WANT to see realised.”

Angles, Perspective, and Results

One of my hobbies (and teaching techniques) is drawing. When you are drawing something or composing a picture (or a photograph) it’s fascinating to see how what you see and the meaning you attach to it changes when you look at the same subject from different angles or perspectives. When you move close to a glass of wine and look up through the bulb it looks quite different from the way it looks when you back away and set it behind a vase of flowers or something else.

This principle is equally true when it comes to the angle from which you view events, people, and circumstances. A new angle provides new insights, learnings, and opportunities.

Several months ago, I attended a personal development course and we were exploring our attitudes and reactions through a series of games that challenged us to shift our focus. The exercise forced me to look at particular behaviours from a different angle, and that caused my behaviour to change… in an empowering way.

What fascinated me, is that the change was brought about not by focusing on the behaviour itself, but simply by shifting my point of view.

This is just as true in my coaching and sales training courses. Sometimes a person will come in with the ‘been there, done that, teach me something new’ attitude.

I love that! And what gives me even more joy, is at the end of the session or quarter, when they say, “I may not have learned anything that is stunningly new, but the way you helped me see and do things has transformed my outcomes and made selling effortless.”

Deep Cleaning Does Wonders

Most years I run a workshop early in January to help people release the previous year and set themselves up for the new year. One of the most powerful sections of this workshop is the one that uses Time Line Therapy® practices to release the emotions and limiting beliefs that many people picked up over the past 12 months.

This year, that practice was especially transformative given the turmoil of 2020 (global pandemic anyone?) and the uncertainties we still face at the start of 2021.

This makes complete sense when you think about it.

You know how, when you are applying those 3M sticky pads to a surface, or putting a screen protector on your phone, they instruct you to clean the surface thoroughly first?

If you ignore those instructions, things don’t work out so well – the adhesive doesn’t stick as well or else there are annoying bumps and irregularities on the screen that don’t show up until after you’ve applied the protector, but then they are incredibly obvious.

Well, your goals and plans are like that, too. When you acknowledge and clean up the negative emotions and failures, affirm your positive results and progress, and celebrate your wins, it’s like cleaning the surface before applying a new screen protector or placing a sticky pad: you can see more clearly and plan and act more decisively because you have more angles to view from.

How Could this Be Different?

As I’ve been discussing goals, planning, and habit practices with business owners and sales professionals over the years, I’ve noticed a few common approaches that you may recognise:

  • Everything is changing so fast that systems, plans, and habits are only marginally helpful – you really need to do everything on the fly and you’ll be disappointed if you have clear goals;
  • There is so much turmoil and uncertainty around that you need to exert iron control over the only thing you can – your routine and habits must be set in stone and your plans and goals non-negotiable;
  • There are no guarantees about anything, especially in business so I’ll just do what I feel like and hope it works out;
  • I know that what worked before will work again, so I’ll just keep on doing it even if I don’t see the results I’’m used to seeing.

Actually, there’s a place for most of these attitudes in your success – the challenge is to get the right mix and you can only do that if you are able to see from a variety of perspectives.

What’s Stopping You Cold?

Often there is just one thing that is stopping people from achieving their goals. Usually, it’s something that other people can see, but you can’t.

It might be a:

  • Habit
  • Relationship
  • Limiting belief
  • Lack of skill
  • Lack of resources
  • Mistaken focus
  • Distraction of overwhelm

In my experience, it’s usually something that you are completely unaware of, because as soon as you become conscious of this particular thing, it ceases to be a problem.

Nathan couldn’t work out why he kept getting appointments with people, but was never able to close the sale until we worked together while his colleagues were easily able to sell to the same prospects. By the end of the first session, I knew why he couldn’t see the product: every unrehearsed word that came out of his mouth screamed, “This is way overpriced!”

He didn’t have a clue about what he was really communicating until I pointed it out to him. Once he saw that, he was ready to drop his attitude about ‘lousy prospects’, ‘poor sales scripts and tools’, and ‘no money’ and he quickly became the company’s star sales person.

What Will You Do?

You can blame your misfortunes and lack of success on other people.

You can get angry with the WHO, the universe, and your political leaders.

You can grit your teeth and keep doing the same old things.

You can quit.

OR

You can find different ways of seeing, new angles and approaches to old problems, and solutions that really work and make selling effortless.

Sometimes, you need to learn from someone new because your existing teachers have become too familiar. Sometimes you need to make an appointment and sit down with an experienced coach or mentor who will help you see old problems in new ways. Sometimes, sitting with a group of people like you and hearing their problems, perspectives, and solutions are what it takes to get unstuck.

If you’re interested in a new approach my program, Confident Conversion: 90 days to More Cash, More Clients, More Impact, offers 3 different levels of engagement.
Schedule a call to learn which one is best suited to your needs.

“The formula for disaster is: Could + Should + Won’t.”

~ Jim Rohn

… When Life Throws Curve Balls!

Do you like it when everything runs smoothly and you can pat yourself on the back and tell yourself what a great job you did and celebrate your achievement?

I do… But that doesn’t always play out for me.

Frequently, just as I’m gearing up for a challenge something happens that makes me wonder what I should do. I could give you lots of examples (some of them are funny in hindsight) like the time where:

  • My computer crashed just before an important presentation and I had to present without any slides or visuals. I thought about rescheduling, but my colleague told me to go ahead any way and I closed the deal. In fact, the client said that is was my determination and readiness to innovate that was the clincher.

Or when:

  • I was on a plane headed up to Sydney for the day to speak at a conference without a change of clothes and my seat mate spilled her meal tray over me. I was able to hide clean most of it up and borrow a shawl to hide the rest and I learned to always pack something to change into for emergencies.

Or when:

  • My internet cut out part way through a webinar – everything just died and the platform I was using wouldn’t let me restart using the same link so I knew that even if I got back online with my phone I wouldn’t able to restart it in the same room. That was the time that I received a flood of emails telling me how valuable my teaching had been and asking how they could work with me.

Last year threw most of us a number of curve balls… and I’m willing to bet that this year will probably be eventful, too.

Are you prepared for that?

The Formula for Success is…

Could + Should + Will!

In the examples above, something went wrong that I couldn’t control so I asked myself three questions:

  1. How could I approach this situation?
  2. What should I do in response to this situation?
  3. What will I do now to resolve the situation, make things right, or get things moving?

This formula for success, achievement, and happiness is available to everyone. Many people are good at finding answers to the first two questions, but a lot of them stumble when they’re asked if they’re willing to do what it takes next.

Why?

Well, it’s like people’s answer to the question: “Do you want to be rich?” Around 90% of people will say yes, but there is only a small percentage of those who will do what it takes to achieve their desire ethically.

How could I approach this situation?

This is about exploring options and it is deliberately a ‘how’ question.

There is rarely only one way to solve a problem, so as you consider this question be prepared for objections and energetic discussion. In fact, if you can only find one viable solution then you are almost certainly kidding yourself.

If you have the opportunity to discuss your situation with other people, you should be looking for several possibilities and taking as much time as you need to pick holes and find advantages of each different path.

Whether you’re thinking about business problem or a personal one, it’s wise to remember that if you can only think of one solution, then you need to ask others for help because when you broaden your thinking you increase the chance of finding a solution that you are willing to implement. Many Victorians faced this last year during the lockdown – most came up with innovative solutions with potential to kept them afloat.

What should I do in response to this situation?

This is the time to come up with your preferred approach and to think about your strategy… the steps and actions you’ll take, people to talk to, and so on.

Your goal here is plan a ‘best approach’ that will take you from your current position to your desired goal. You don’t want to over-complicate your approach, but neither do you want to over-simplify things to the point where you can’t actually arrive at your destination, or to the point where you create massive headaches for your colleagues.

Once you get to this stage, you really need to commit to a single approach – you will get in trouble if you keep zigging and zagging around. Of course, if new information comes to light and you realise that you need to change course that is one thing, but that is all the more reason to consider a variety of possibilities at the start.

What will I do now to resolve the situation, make things right, or get things moving?

This is the step that divides failure from success.

You thought about your options.

You chose your path and developed a plan.

Now it’s time to execute: will you? Or won’t you?

There’s a catchy saying: “If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail.” It has a certain amount of truth in it, but and even more potent saying would be: “If you fail to act, then failure is certain!” It doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, but it is 100% true.

Plans without action aren’t worth anything at all and decisive action simply doesn’t happen unless you choose to say, “Yes, I will execute this plan.”

Are You Ready to Create Your Own Success?

If I asked you whether you had the support and information you need to make this year incredible no matter what curve balls are thrown, would your response be, “ABSOLUTELY!”

If not, I’d like to invite you to make this the year you stick your neck out and ‘go for gold’?

If you’d like some help on the business side of things, you may be interested in my new online Confident Conversion program. Discover the details here: 

“If your habits don’t line up with your dream, then you need to either change your habits or change your dream.”

~ John Maxwell

Too Big, Too Small, or Just Right - Why Size Matters.

Recently, I was reflecting on a comment that Brittany Smith, a cognitive scientist with ADHD, made about habits that reinforced something I had already realised.

If your ‘habit chunks’ are too small, you don’t see any change and give up.

If your ‘habit chunks’ are too big, you get overwhelmed and discouraged.

BUT…

If your ‘habit chunks’ are just right… you get results that keep your motivation high and find yourself kicking goals week after week!

I see this frequently with my coaching and training clients:

Right habit chunk size = SUCCESS

Wrong habit chunk size = FAILURE

So, how can you know if you’ve picked the appropriate chunk size for each of your habits?

Signs that Your Habits Chunks are Too Small:

Habit chunks that are too small are usually related to pre-existing habits in any area of our life. We all have habits that drive how we act and react in every area of life and these are so much a part of us that we are hardly even aware of their existence.

The beauty of these tiny habit chunks is that when we decide we want to change something we can simply expand the habit we already have in place no matter what it is.

***

Sandra was extremely frustrated because she was trying to grow her referral program and couldn’t get the traction, she wanted so she started looking around for yet another tool or strategy to help her.

When we looked closely at what she was doing to generate referrals it was clear that she didn’t need to start over, she simply needed to amplify her existing referral strategy with one additional step. Once that was in place, the referrals started to flow.

***

It happens in every area of life:

  • Exercise programs;
  • Diet & nutrition;
  • Learning and retention;
  • Budgeting and saving;
  • Productivity…

If you feel frustrated with the results you are seeing and know that your strategy has worked for other people, then you can often see the transformation you want simply by amplifying the habits surrounding it.

If Your Habits Chunks are Too Big, Then...

…You’ll probably quit before you see results!

Oversized habit chunks are usually part of a new habit that you’re trying to establish to reach an important goal. Many habit-tracking apps will alert you if you consistently miss your goals and suggest that you edit the habit in order to succeed and you should pay attention to these alerts.

***

Al read the book Shorter and decided that he wanted to restructure his workday and test the hypothesis because the idea of accomplishing more important work in 30 hours than he was currently doing in 60 hours appealed to him.

He plugged the habits he wanted to establish in order to accomplish this into his habit tracker and got down to business… only to discover that day after day he was failing to check off half of the components he’d identified.

When we pruned those habits back to a smaller milestone goal and he was accomplishing them all, Al’s sense of accomplishment and confidence grew and he was soon ready to add another chunk to his habit, and then another.

The habit of success motivated him far more than his failures had and now he does have all the components of that original habit chunk in place.

***

When Your Habits Chunks are Just Right, Then…

Like Sandra and Al, you experience success – not just in achieving the outcome, but in the personal satisfaction of accomplishing a goal. This gives you the same kind of dopamine hit that some people get from checking Facebook, the news, or drugs.

Skipping your habit one day isn’t a disaster, but looking at your week and realizing that you’ve skipped more days than you’ve executed creates a negative neuro-feedback loop that actually saps your motivation to stick to your habit. That’s why you want a habit tracking mechanism that allows you skip days that you choose to without giving you a sense of guilt.

Contrary to popular practice, guilt is a terrible motivator. It’s when you feel good about your accomplishments that confidence grows – and with that confidence the ability to achieve even more.

Habit Transformation Challenge

Habits are such an important aspect of building lives and businesses that serve our goals. Habit-creation tools are one of the most powerful aspects of NLP because once established, habits run on auto-pilot and enable us to progress towards our goals faster and with less friction.

At LifePuzzle, we consider habit transformation so important that it is a part of many of our courses and trainings (both paid and free) including:

  • Periodic 5-Day Habit Transformation Challenges
  • NLP Mastery Academy Group program
  • NLP Certification courses
  • Confident Conversion Sales Academy
  • Outsourced Sales Manager and In-House Sales Trainings

If you are interested in our habit transformation resources, fill in the form below and we’ll let you know when we are running our next course.

I’m Interested in Habit Transformation

“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

“Today you have the chance to ask: What’s next? And to answer that in a way that creatively plays to your strengths. Of course, you can also stay in your comfort zone…

And pay the price of complacency.”

~ Chandell Labbozzetta

The Speed of Change

This has been an extraordinary year, but don’t let the drama of 2020 blind you to the radical changes that have been taking place all around us for several years and the possibilities they hold for the future.

A few months ago Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler published their latest book, “The Future is Faster Than You Think” in which they talk about the converging technologies that are transforming our world at an unimaginable speed. The book is worth reading if you are feeling complacent about where you are today and what you have already achieved.

Here are a few interesting facts to reflect on when it comes to the future:

  • Almost all the companies profiled in the business school bible “In Search of Excellence” of the 1980s and 90s are no longer in existence.
  • Since 2000, 52% of the Fortune 500 have either gone bankrupt, been acquired, or ceased to exist.
  • Today, the world’s largest media company does not create any content; the world’s largest taxi company owns no cars; and the world’s most valuable retailer has no inventory.

If those facts don’t make you stop and wonder what’s possible for you, then they should.

Business, Career and Future Proofing in a World of Change

One of my Confident Conversion graduates has taken the idea of playing to her strengths and making her own rules to double her income in the past 6 months by focusing on the things she does well and delegating or dropping tasks she doesn’t enjoy.

Like Uber, Facebook, and Alibaba she stopped looking at what everyone else in her industry was doing and asked what was possible for her to accomplish and then shaped her own reality around those goals.

You may not want to be the ‘biggest’ anything and that’s fine… But if there’s one thing we’ve learned this year, it’s that addiction to comfort may be our biggest threat to survival so we need to rethink our approach to business and career and focus on:

  • Learning new skills,
  • Evaluating existing skills and modes of thought,
  • Searching for new technologies and opportunities that are revolutionising your industry.

Complacency is always dangerous. Now it’s a death sentence

Selling Yourself

If you were brutally honest with yourself, why would anyone (employer or client) hire you?

If you don’t have a persuasive answer for that question, then you have some work to do.

It’s increasingly clear that most people are far less interested in your qualifications than in your  network, motivation, experience, and skill-development potential. This is a completely appropriate response to the rapid pace of change.

The good news is that, in many fields, you can create opportunities for yourself through self-directed learning and by demonstrating your openness to new technologies and methodologies. A growth mindset (as described by Carol Dweck) is one of the biggest selling points because it demonstrates that you are open to evaluate (rather than mindlessly adopt) something new. When this is balanced by passion, proven diligence, deep thinking, and perseverance, then you become worthy of consideration.

So,…

Can YOU demonstrate those qualities?

And if not, what do you need to do and learn to be able to showcase your credibility so that you open doors to the future.

In my book, Confident Closing: Sales secrets that grew a business by 400% in six months and how they can work for you! I made the comment “We’re all in sales now whether we like it or not.” That sentence attracted a lot of negative feedback from people who think of sales as sleazy or pushy, but it’s really not a question of “Will you sell yourself?” But of “How will you sell yourself?”

Once you come to terms with that reality, you discover how important it is to work on your selling skills for the new era.

Making a Plan for the Next Stage

What is next for you both personally and professionally?

If you threw out all your existing blueprints, what would you love to do that would have value to others?

How could you do it in a way that was insanely profitable?

The end of the year is always a good time to re-evaluate your goals and dreams, and a disruptive year like we’ve just had is a particularly important time to do so.

“Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.”
~ Nelson Mandela

“Now is the only time you have to get back on track and work towards success.”
~ Teresa Labbozzetta

Why Do People Wait Until New Year to Create Change?

A few weeks ago, Andrew was panicking about his cash flow and sales. His team just weren’t closing the deals, all their most promising prospects had muttered excuses about ‘waiting until January’ to move forward, and he didn’t feel as though he could count on the outcome.

“I can’t afford to just sit around and wait and hope that things improve in January, Chandell. You taught me that. But I don’t know what else to do! If you think you can help me, I’d like you to start working with my team ASAP.”

If you’re in business, I’m sure you’ve heard this kind of response before and wondered what is going through people’s heads when they make that comment. After all, a successful business demands a proactive approach.

When I hear these words, I have a series of questions that help me discover what’s behind the delay and identify the real reasons. After all, if you’re seriously considering a key business purchase that will increase your profits or effectiveness in November, why would you wait until January to do so?

On the surface that suggests that either:

  • You aren’t sure about the value; or
  • You aren’t sure if you can afford it.
  • Neither of those issues are timing issues.

Here’s the question I worked on with Andrew’s team in our first sales team training.

Why Do People Wait Until New Year to Create Change?

We spent some time together working through scenarios and asked some hard questions about the clients, about the product they were selling, about outcomes and values, about handling objections, and about attitudes and beliefs. After that, Andrew’s team went back to those promising prospects again using an approach that we worked out together and closed 5 new clients – an even higher percentage than he had hoped for – and then moved onto some of the ‘not so hot’ prospects and got some results.

Suddenly, the end of the year looks extremely profitable and he’s looking forward to celebrating rather than worrying over whether his cash buffer will last until business picks up in February.

I teach this same method of building value and presenting your sales proposition in my Confident Conversion course and clients are astonished at how it increases their conversion rates even though they haven’t changed anything about the product’s price or elements, they’ve simply helped prospects see what not making a decision is doing to their business.

Why Not Now?

As I write this, we’re half way through November and many business owners and sales teams have already given up for the year. To be honest, that says more about them than about their prospects. Some of my clients do have highly seasonal businesses, but they don’t just sit around waiting for the next season to roll around. They are taking action in season and out of season… and it shows in their balance sheet!

Honestly, it’s mentally refreshing to start again on January 1st and I’m a big proponent of monthly check-ins to measure where you are against your goals and reset whenever necessary, but every week is a new week, every day is a new day.

So… If you need to dig in and finish a project, or you need to accelerate your sales to meet targets…

Why not now? Today?

What Are You Going to Do to Create What You Want?

“What do I need to do to make the next 2 months the most profitable and encouraging ones I’ve had this year?”

Last week I was talking to Jenni who was overwhelmed by the work she still needed to accomplish on a project. It felt impossible and, as a result, she was procrastinating and making things worse.

We sat down together virtually, discussed the project and problem, and did some Time Line Therapy® to clear away some of the mental blocks. She still needed to do the work (and because of her procrastination that involved some late nights), but once the miasma of inertia was swept away she was shocked at how smoothly it went.

When I talked to her after the weekend the project was completed to her exacting standards and she was on track with the next milestone as well.

Just like Andrew’s sales team, all it took was a mental reset, some hard thinking, and strategic work to get results that were way better than Jenni expected.

That’s true of almost any goal you set, or milestone you need to reach and the longer you delay taking action, the worse your problem becomes.

What are you putting off?

What investment, project, or goal are you delaying as you wait for a better time?

Just STOP IT! Now.

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

You may already know what you need to do, but lack the confidence and skills to move forward… Or perhaps you are confused by all the possibilities and not sure of the next steps. Confident Conversion is designed to address both the practical and mindset issues that are standing between you and the income and profits you would like to see.

If you’d like to take action today and reach your goals faster, then check out my online program. Like Andrew and Jenni, the answer may be simpler and results faster than you ever dreamed was possible.

Learn more about Confident Conversion Online

“Start with the problem they already know they have – especially when you’re talking to gatekeepers.”

~ Chandell Labbozzetta

Life Without Gates and Fences

One of the things people complain about these days with so many people working from home, is that it’s harder than ever to get past gatekeepers.

It’s not actually a new problem because over the past few years many sales people and business owners have found that it’s increasingly difficult to talk to the decision-makers and get them in the room for a presentation. In fact, it may not be a problem at all – if you use this behaviour to your advantage.

Think for a moment about life without gates and fences. You would have a constant onslaught of demands, messages, opportunities, and so on and you would never get any of your own work done because you would be at the mercy of OPE (Other People’s Emergencies) – and some of your colleagues may work that way. However, if you’re not in customer service you should have gates and fences around your own time, energy, and availability and I assume that you already do.

Imagine the decision maker who doesn’t have anything stopping the onslaught of messages. Unless you are a business or development coach that probably isn’t someone you want to work with because you already know a few things about them:

  • They are easily distracted;
  • They are inundated with options;
  • They are probably not going to be fun to work with.

AND…

If you are looking for coaching clients then you absolutely need to make certain that the person with no gates or fences in place wants to change that situation and is fully aware of the price they are paying for their ‘open door’ policy.

In my experience, the person with an effective gatekeeper makes a fantastic long-term client once you have the opportunity to talk to them.

Entering the Conversation in Their Heads

One of my team members has the amazing gift of solving problems I didn’t even realise that I had. She makes my life so much easier because she anticipates problems in advance and solves them for me.

That is an awesome gift for a team member, and I hope that each of you has someone just like her, but it’s a terrible sales tactic!

That’s what gatekeepers are there for: to help you solve the problems you already know you have.

Here’s the reality:

  • Prospects are busy.
  • Their receptionists are busy too.
  • Your call is seen as an interruption.
  • Unless…

You are able to enter the conversation they’re already having in their head and demonstrate that you can solve a problem that is top-of-mind – their mind, not yours!

When you do that in your opening sentence, suddenly you find yourself talking to decision makers and prospects almost 100% of the time. You may not always get a sale, but you’re far closer to one than you can possibly get if you never get past the gatekeeper and no-one returns your voicemails.

Open Doors and Invitations to Engage

In a recent Mastermind we were talking about this problem and I shared my own, virtually infallible method of handling this situation.

Another participant laughed and said, “Yes. I remember when you used that to get to me. My very well-trained PA put the call through and said that I had to take your call now… And I’m so glad she did!”

You see, my elevator pitch and sales system was designed to open doors to people who were already wrestling with the problem I solved. I learned this strategy back in the days when I was the star sales representative and then led the highest performing teams in the corporate world. My colleagues were amazed at my call to appointment rates and shocked at my close rate. I knew that if people didn’t respond to my pitch, they were either not going to buy at all, or they were going to be difficult clients.

I even had a voice mail message that got me a high percentage of call backs.

You Do Leave Voicemails Don’t You?

Many gatekeepers and professionals have a habit of blocking unknown numbers if the caller doesn’t leave a voicemail… And a great many people have developed the habit of letting calls go to voicemail if they don’t know who is calling.

An intriguing voicemail message that resonates with your ideal client enough that they call you back when they are able is an extremely effective sales tool. It means that they are calling you, and that they have enough interest in your product to do so.

This is one of the most popular modules in my Confident Conversion online course. Students find the simple technique I teach for crafting a voice mail that will get people to call you back more than pays for the price of the course… AND, it makes calling prospects fun!

Confident Conversion Online

Life Puzzle’s Confident Conversion group study course has proved its effectiveness over and over again. Over the past few sessions we’ve had people from all over the world sign up just so they could listen to the recordings, and we’ve had other people ask if they could start right away.

In response to this interest, we’ve made a self-study version available for you to start when you’re ready, and complete at your own pace. The popular group study versions will run twice a year with strictly limited number to ensure that every participant gets the personal attention they want.

For more details visit: https://bit.ly/CC-90days

“Change before you have to.”

~ Jack Welch

Are You Looking at the Right Numbers?

In the midst of all the drama around us, it’s easy to look at how your business is doing right now and think “I don’t need to worry about the economic impact later on. I’m OK.”

The other day, I was in a coaching session with a client who sells medical technology. His story was that business was booming, his sales team could hardly keep up with appointments, and orders were flying out the door… which was all true.

But then we compared this year’s numbers with last year’s – and the year before that – and noticed a worrying trend…

… Appointments and sales were always booming at this time of year…

And they trailed off mid-December.

Then… He panicked and worked his butt off from the start of February to around August… when he started to feel complacent.

He’d been looking at total monthly sales rather than a comparison of monthly sales year-on-year.

In fact, when you looked at the situation from that angle, this year did present a challenge: sales were lower than they had been at this time in any of the preceding 3 years.

I suspected that that was what we would find, because I could vividly remember my first conversation back in March of this year, shortly before he brought me on board to coach his team.

I wasn’t trying to be unkind, but I needed to focus his attention on the real problem he faced so that we could solve it together.

Are You Looking at the Numbers Right?

As we looked at his cashflow projections for the coming months (which were scarily lean), I could hear the note of desperation rising in his voice, and see the tension in his shoulders: “What am I going to do, Chandell? I can’t deal with this roller coaster any longer.”

As a sales trainer, I saw these numbers from quite different angle to my client’s perspective. He was looking at it from his past experience on the feast or famine rollercoaster in the face of which he felt like a victim. I saw those same numbers as a sales challenge that could be overcome.

In my experience, when you see yourself as a victim it’s almost impossible to take appropriate action to solve potential problems. Numbers can be your friend if you use them as a springboard to decisive, strategic action. They’re only your enemy if you let them shape your emotional response to an ‘unchangeable’ future.

What Are You Going to Do Now?

I told my client about the plan of action I had already set up for the sales team and went through my cashflow projections on the basis of their implementation. I also had to explain how I had reached those numbers because his initial euphoric reaction had been based on one view of the numbers and with that euphoria shattered he was uncertain about all numbers.

Some years ago, I was in my client’s position – so excited about strong monthly sales that I didn’t see my February cash crunch coming until mid-December. When I finally realised how bad my cashflow projection looked, my first response was paralysis and despair. Fortunately, my coach pointed out that there was still time to change those projections. I leaped into gear and implemented this strategy for myself and ended up with my best month ever, plus a full pipeline stretching out for over 9 months.

What Are You Going to Do Next?

In my case, things worked out OK, but it was terribly stressful and I vowed never to do that to myself or my team again. Now I schedule what I call a “Cash Flow Projection Reality Check” in October each year when I still have plenty of time to change the situation rather than doing it at the last minute.

My client is going to be OK, too. His sales team are hard at work and he’s pushing those numbers upwards and has a solid flow of orders well into the middle of next year…

What about you?

Have you looked at your historic sales and your cashflow predictions for the coming months as well as your total sales? If not, I strongly suggest that you look at them while you have plenty of time to take decisive action without panic.

Confident Conversion: 90 days to More Cash, More Clients, More Impact – Now with a Self-paced Study Option

Solve your cashflow rollercoaster once and for all by following this proven program and set your sales on a predictable road to growth and prosperity. Visit Confident Conversion: 90 days to More Cash, More Clients, More Impact Online to learn more. https://lifepuzzle.com.au/confident-conversion-online/

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