I loved it when she disagreed with the Prime Minister of Australia Kevin Rudd who had called her a ‘hero’, and she didn’t agree with the hero status and that she had simply applied her skills and determination to achieving a dream (that’s my interpretation of what she said).

This week I’m practicing the affirmation “I have more than enough inner strength to help me through the tough times.” 

A mate of mine Mark Horton wrote a great book called “Power To Choose – Challenge To Change.  In the book Mark writes “Life is not a matter of being dealt a good hand but, more so, the ability to play a poor hand well.”  Mark was dealt a pretty poor hand when he was diagnosed with both diabetes and multiple sclerosis, and yet his ability to continually deal with the hand he had been dealt is and will continue to be a source of inspiration to me.

When the customers aren’t calling, the referrals aren’t coming, or the repeat business is dropping off, we have the power to choose proactivity and the challenge to change whatever it is we are or aren’t doing that will help us achieve our goals.

Have you ever played the Blame Game?

It’s easy to play the blame game, and easier still to get distracted by our ‘coping activity’ (you know what I mean….all those other things we get sucked into doing other than the goal producing activity we know we need to do more of).

To what extent do you believe that you have more than enough inner strength to help you through the tough times?

It’s a great question to ask, because if our answer is no, then it just says we’ve got some work to do on our skills, knowledge, attributes or motivation….and when we constantly work on our competence, our confidence grows with it.

Are you spending a minimum of 60 minutes each week on your own development?

I heard this fantastic quote recently when in Wellington New Zealand.  It was from the actor Tony Barry…. “If you don’t go looking for personal growth, it will come looking for you.”

Wow!

Book time in your diary right now…..make it a 60 minute meeting with yourself….make it as best you can a not negotiable meeting, one that you will commit to having.  At the meeting with yourself  use the following as an agenda (this is the agenda I recommend for my SalesCoachCentral.com members – if you’re not a member yet, now’s a great time to join):

Personal Growth Weekly Meeting Agenda

1. Note your sales, marketing and personal growth weekly wins
2. Note your sales, marketing and personal growth setbacks over the week
3. Note what you will do to have more wins and less setbacks next week
4. Note what you need to learn
5. Read your SalesCoachCentral.com SalesCoachTips newsletter
6. Note your action plan based on the SalesCoachTip
7. Read, watch, listen to an eClass from SalesCoachCentral.com
8. Note what you will Start, Stop, Continue to do to achieve your sales targets
9. Confirm your find, win, keep clients strategies for next week
    (Who will you contact, what about, why, and when?) – are your proactive sales
     and marketing activities in your diary?
10. Share your findings/learning with a trusted friend(s), colleague(s) or manager

This will be one of the  most important meetings you’ll have every week, and it will certainly help you to develop the inner strength to handle the tough times and make the good times even better.
Let me know how you go.

What does it take to have true enthusiasm for something?  What happens when we are truly enthusiastic?  To what extent do you have enthusiasm for what you’re doing on a daily basis?  These are the questions I am pondering on this week.

One of my favourite quotes comes from Emmerson who said something like

“Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful, and you will accomplish your object. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”

Beyond Self Belief

I remember Ron Willingham, one of my long time mentors in life telling me about a conversation he once had with the late Dr. Maxwell Maltz – the author of Psychocybernetics.  Ron asked him what does it take to have true enthusiasm.  Maltz told him that you need to have two things.  The first was self belief.  A strong belief in who you are and what you stand for.  The second was a belief in the value you create for others when you do what you do.

As I write about my affirmation of intention for this week, I reflected on the last few days and realised that this affirmation is very timely for me.  It is so easy to become a little apathetic about all of the good in our personal situations.

Sure there are always concerns and things that just aren’t exactly as we would like them to be, but (and I’m certainly only speaking for myself here), I have so much to be enthusiastic about in life, it was a bit of a timely wake up call and reminder to me to remember to be enthusiastic.

Focus on the value we create for others

But it was thinking about what Max Maltz told Ron Willingham that got me charged up with enthusiasm this week……focusing on the value I create for others.

Another of my mentors is Dr. Joanna Martin and one of her key reminders for me is to have an expanded awareness and keep focused on our higher purpose.

I know that for some people reading this that having a higher purpose or a bigger intention isn’t necessarily something that ‘rocks their boat’.  What I do know though, is for those of us in sales especially, when our clients see our enthusiasm for wanting to create value for them (and not just being enthusiastic about winning the sale), this brings stronger levels of emotional and intellectual connection and builds trust.

I have so much to be enthusiastic about today, and as I reflect on my life, if I try hard enough, I could always find something to be enthusiastic about.

If you think this is all a bit ‘soft’ then I make no apologies, and simply challenge you to think about the truth behind the idea that people want to buy from people who are genuinely enthusiastic about making their clients lives and situations better.

I’m happy to take your feedback.

One of the wonderful joys of this life is that it offers so many opportunities.  There are so many ‘shiny stars’ to chase, all that look interesting, enjoyable, and potentially distracting us away from the important things we need to be working on and completing.

Staying Focused

I don’t know about you, however, for me, staying focused is a continuous challenge. It is a constant battle for me to not get distracted, and I have far from mastered the art of time management.

That’s why this week’s affirmation of intention is going to be tough for me.

To practice this week’s affirmation I have returned to the age old ‘to do’ list.

But how do you make a ‘to do’ list practical and workable?  This is my challenge.

Goal Clarity

To help me, Liz and I have revisited our goals for this year.  We’re really quite clear on them, and that’s a bonus, and also my first piece of advice in this message – get clear on your goals in all areas of your life, and then prioritisation becomes easier.

What Liz and I are discovering, is that although we’re clear on our goals, relatively clear on most of the strategies we need to be pursuing, it’s a case of us holding ourselves accountable to complete the strategies where we sometimes fall down.

Why?  Because of the ‘shiny star’ syndrome.  It’s so easy to be distracted by phone calls, emails, creative thoughts, and so on it goes!

So, back to the old to do list.

Although Liz and I have goals other than business goals, for the purpose of practicing this week’s affirmation of intention, I’m focusing on business goals, and specifically building business goals.

A twist on an old classic

We’ve divided our classic ‘to do’ list into the three major categories of Find Clients, Win Clients, Keep Clients, and we’re simply asking ourselves, what will we be doing this week to find, win and keep clients.

If I find myself working on anything other than these three areas of business development, then I have a question that is posted above my desk to remind me to keep focused….the question is one that was taught to me by a long time mentor of mine, Ron Willingham, and the question is “What am I not doing right now, that if I was doing it, would help me achieve my goals?”

So, I’ve listed my activities for this week….not just for today….but for the week…..and with Liz supporting (not nagging) me to keep focused, I’m confident that it’s going to be a very productive week.

Then it’s simply the challenge of doing this again and again and again.

Easy to say…..I’ll keep you posted of my progress.

If you’d like a copy of our ‘To Do’ list to keep you focused on Finding, Winning and Keeping Clients click here to download it!

How are you doing? 

Do you have any tips on being able to keep focused, remove distractions and avoid the shiny stars syndrome?  Let me know.

 What does it mean to be ‘in the flow’ or ‘in the moment’?

 My favourite definition of ‘FLOW’ comes from the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, where he suggests that:

 “Flow is an optimal state of human experience in which individuals are fully engaged in creative endeavours, experiencing fulfilment, happiness and well being.”

Let’s take a moment in this post to consider this, and to consider how we can be ‘in flow’ more often.

Optimal State of Human Experience

Don’t you just love the idea of being in an ‘optimal state of human experience’?  I know I do.  I’m not sure I really know what it means, but I certainly like the sound of being in ‘it’!

 Let’s start our analysis of this definition with ‘individuals are fully engaged’.

Individuals Fully Engaged

I don’t know about you, but for me this is tough.  I will be the first to admit, that with all of the external distractions around me and despite having digested The Power of Now by Eckhart Toll, and as a self admitted ‘mind traveller’ (I’m constantly taking journeys of thought and possibility without leaving my chair), that to be ‘fully engaged’ in anything is tough. 

And yet, ‘fully engaged’ seems so aspirational.

Creative Endeavours

What about this idea of ‘creative endeavours’?  I know some readers would potentially wonder how often we get the luxury to choose creative endeavours of any kind.  Most of us are just struggling to get our jobs done.

And yet, isn’t conversation in and of itself a creative endeavour?  Two people, each with their own experiences and views of the world, start to converse, and all of a sudden something is ‘created’ from the conversation.  It could be a strategy, a goal, a suggestion, an idea or solution to something.

And for those of us in sales……

So stay with me here, because the definition for those of us in sales is starting to get a little exciting.

Is there potential for us, to be ‘in flow’ more often by pursuing ‘fully engaged creative endeavours’, (where the conversations we have with our potential and existing clients are the creative endeavours), and that this will produce experiences of fulfilment, happiness and well being for ourselves and our clients?

That’s pretty good don’t you think?

This week, my affirmation is to be ‘in the moment’ more often.  I’m trying to remove as many distractions (my own internal ones as well as the external ones), so that when I’m on the phone, sending a text, writing an email, or speaking face to face with someone, that I am truly in the moment, fully engaged in the creative endeavour and looking forward to the reciprocal experiences of fulfilment, happiness and well being.

I’m enjoying these affirmations……are you?  Let me know!

Relax though, I’m not about to get on my high horse and start lecturing you about the value of exercise – I certainly don’t see it as my role to do that. 

That special feeling

What I want to talk about in this post is a parrallel feeling that I experience when exercising – not just physically exercising, but also when exercising my sales contact initiation activities.

If you’ve attended one of my presentations or workshops you’ll be aware that I am a long distance runner.  Although I’ve cut my weekly jogging distance back from around 80kms a week to now jogging around 50 to 60 kms a week, the sensation that I experience when in the flow of running has not changed.

So what does it feel like and why should you care?

Apart from the physical side of things – usually exhaustion, I get an amazing rush of clarity of thought….that’s it….I think better when I’m exercising.

Big deal I hear you say!

Exercising Your Sales And Marketing Muscles

But here’s the thing, when I’m exercising my sales and marketing contact intiation strategies, in other words, when I’m committed to my ‘sales exercise’ the same sense of clarity of thought occurs.

I reckon it’s when we know we are doing something that is good for us, we get clear about what needs to be done.  It ignites our creative juices and helps us to plan better, to think better, to do better.

What sales and marketing contact initiation activities are you going to be exercising today, this week, this month, this year?

It’s too easy in sales just to go through the motions, rather than planning and proactively ‘exercising’ our sales and marketing contact initiation activities.

Following the core elements of a successful business that SalesCoachCentral.com is focused on, Find Clients, Win Clients, Keep Clients and Manage Me, I recommend that you have a reminder on your desk that keeps you focused on these core elements…..and ask yourself…..

What am I doing to Find Clients today?

What am I doing to Win Clients today?

What am I doing to Keep Clients today?

What am I doing to Manage Me better today?

If you’d like a template for my SalesCoachCentral.com To Do template, CLICK HERE.