Modern Jedi NLP Mind Mastery

Posts Tagged ‘failure’

This video is just awesome. Let me know what your best failure was in the comments below!

Okay, I'll go first. My Biggest Failure?

Bought 4 houses for nothing down at the top of the 1980's real estate bubble. Ended up losing everything. Declared bankruptcy. Got evicted. When all my grand schemes went poof! I ended up doing kids music for local nursery schools for $75 bucks an hour. That led to school performances and adding storytelling...created my DrumSongStory programs...which are keeping me going during this little economic "challenge" we're having now.

Your turn!

"A man is most efficient and will more quickly and easily succeed when engaged in work that he loves, or work that he performs in behalf of some person whom he loves." Napoleon Hill, "The Law of Success" p.80

I've been thinking a lot lately about the journey I've been on and what lessons there may be not only for myself but for those of you who, like me, seek to make a positive difference in the world at the same time that you support your self and your family doing meaningful work that you enjoy and even love.

(I've posted an inspirational song today that relates to this post over at www.MarkShepardSongs.com as well)

In his book "The Law of Success" Napoleon Hill shares a story from his own life. He had turned down many lucrative offers for employment in order to pursue his passion of researching and writing the law of success. His wife and family were opposed to it. There was no steady income. No guarantee. They openly or not so openly insinuated that he was being foolish and selfish.

At one point Hill had a conversation with a prominent business man, Don Mellett, who came right out and asked him. Now that you've done all this research on the Law of Success, how much money have you made?

Hill was embarrassed to admit that he had be so deeply absorbed in the research and writing that he had not turned his knowledge yet to the task of bringing in money. Here was the author of the Law of Success basically broke! He felt like a failure. He felt what we in NLP call "incongruent". He was "walking his talk" but it had yet to show up in a tangible form in his external reality.

"What?" Mellett exclaimed, "a failure?

"Surely you know the difference between failure and temporary defeat," he continued. " No man is a failure who creates a single idea, much less an entire philosophy, that serves to soften the disappointments and minimize the hardships of generations yet unborn."

Mellett and Hill became business partners that day and formed a "mastermind" that literally created the "breakthrough" Napoleon Hill had labored for so many years to prepare the ground for.

The whole point of Hill's essay was two fold.

1. There is truly a difference between failure and temporary defeat.
2. He was trying to express the notion that one should always do more than one is paid for because eventually the law of the universe will return the investment exponentially.

Last Saturday I performed for free at my local Starbucks. There was a time when the background noise and the coming and going of people would have thrown me off. I would have chosen to make myself feel bad about any number of things in the past. But for me last Saturday it was awesome! In every way it was a triumph!

All the personal work I've done with NLP on my internal beliefs and filters were perfectly tested by the evening. What was important was that I sang for 2 hours without a break and it felt like 10 minutes. I sang song after song from memory and the experience was fun. In the past it was like walking on glass. but I actually had fun. Any of you out there who have overcome a major fear or phobia can relate. The old resistance was totally gone. There was no nervousness. I was totally relaxed.

So as I look back over my life I can choose to see 30 years of missed opportunities or I can look back and see that I was doing exactly what I most needed to be doing to prepare me for the moment when "all of who I am" lined up behind the single idea that I was placed here on this earth to share a message of hope, empowerment, healing, love, learning, and transformation with whoever is ready and open to hear it. My music is simply a method of delivery that engages the emotions as well as the ears.

And ultimately it is not the end goal of millions of people hearing the music and the music positively impacting their lives that is the measure of "success" it's the process and journey itself that is success.

In NLP we have a belief "there is no failure there is only feedback" Anthony Robbins made the now famous analogy of the Jet airliner flying from LA to Hawaii is off course most of the time. It gets to it's destination through the constant adjustments and corrections along the way.

So this week I ask you, no I implore you, to have some faith in your own process of learning and growth. Look back at your life and instead of seeing "failures" and "mistakes" see lessons and learnings and experiences that led you to new insights and understandings. Write down what you've learned. And ask yourself again and again the powerful questions that will lead you where you most want to go.

"What can I learn from this?"

"How can I use this lesson to move forward?"

"Why does it work out better than I can possibly imagine?"

We are all in this together. No one has all the answers. No one has it "easy". Our muscles grow stronger through resistance. The "resistance" in your own life and work can serve a great purpose if you will only allow it to.

Napolean Hill went on to make a fortune with "The Law of Success" and his even more famous book "Think and Grow Rich" his words are still inspiring millions long after his passing.

If he had gone the "safe" route and gotten a steady job to satisfy all those well meaning people in his life, the world would have been a poorer place.

So those are my thoughts today. If you found any of this helpful please share it with a friend who could use some encouragement in these challenging times. It also helps to spread the word if you'd take a moment and "Stumble" or "Digg" or "facebook" or "twitter" this post

Courage!

Mark

What is The Biggest, Huge-est, Most GIGANTIC Mistake Business Owners Make?

• It's not about having an inferior product or too much competition.
• It's not having too little capital
• It's not having some wacky idea that no one wants and then trying to get every friend relative and innocent passerby to "drink the kool-aid".
• It's not having a great idea that people don't "get" or a great idea that's ahead of it's time.
• It has nothing to do with how smart or creative you are.
• It's not starting a business with absolutely no clue how to sell (although that's a biggie and if selling is a problem for you check out www.ReluctantSales.com )
• It's not any of the dozens of personal and professional challenges most self employed entrepreneurial types struggle with.

The Biggest, Huge-est, Most GIGANTIC Mistake Business Owners Make is simply this:

Trying to do everything. Not knowing how to delegate. Not having systems in place so that other people can do the things you are not good at. Spending precious time on tasks and projects that could be delegated instead of focusing your energy on what you do best and on what brings in the money.

When you try to do everything in your business you are bound to fail. Even the smallest business is a ravenous, many headed serpent that one person can never hope to keep fed.

Note: Even though a key concept of NLP is that "there is no failure only feedback". In Business, the "feedback" of less money coming in than going out or of the owner rushing around from dawn until the "wee hours" can only go on for so long until something has to change. Either

• the business ceases to exist due to lack of money or
• the business owner gets totally exhausted, burned out or sick or
• the business owner finally wakes up and does something different.

We also have a saying in NLP: "The most flexible communicator controls the system." As the owner of a business (even if you are a Reiki master if you are working with clients you are a business owner), it is your communication to yourself, your clients and the people who work in and with your business that must lead and control the direction of your enterprise...(beam me up Scotty! I just wanted to help people!)

Here's the catch 22!

When you are starting a business on a shoestring and a prayer, how do you get the kind of help that can enable you to grow your business if you have no extra wads of cash laying around?

You need the help to grow your business but you can't pay for the help until your business grows! Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place! (In NLP We call it a "double bind")

Can i share a personal example?

Last year. September of 2007 this idea hit me really hard between the eyes and it wasn't pretty. For 25 years I've been self employed and always struggling. In retrospect I was close to major success and breakthroughs several times but I literally got worn out and burned out to the point where I just couldn't personally sustain things and then it would all fall apart. Then I would give up in disgust and go start a different business from scratch and make the same mistake all over again.

July of 2007 I taught my first full blown NLP practitioner certification training to a small group of students. It was great! I loved teaching the class. I loved sharing the powerful life changing concepts of NLP and Hypnosis and  Time Line Therapy™ but the gargantuan effort of preparing for the class, creating workbooks, cd sets and ordering all the other supplies and finding a place to have the training and getting the students in the seats and all the registration procedures and then correcting the exams and creating certifications and sending them out and then preparing the Master Practitioner level program and teaching that one weekend a month in addition to performing and booking all my own gigs and cleaning my house and seeing private clients and going to networking meetings and taking courses on how to do all this stuff better...

left me...

totally...

and...

completely...

exhausted...

and while I was so busy doing all of that stuff. I didn't always have time to keep an eye on the bottom line and so all of a sudden even though I was working my brains out...I was out of cash flow....oops! (

Does any of this ring a bell with any of you out there? Are you getting the picture? Can you grasp my concept here?

I mean you can have all the Modern Jedi Mind Mastery training in the world, but if you try to run a business, any business, all by yourself you will eventually crash and burn....

Yup. I know what I'm tawking about...uh huh and it ain't pretty...

Now, there is no failure. There really is only feedback and so we "passionate ones" pick our selves up off the ground and dust our selves off and start asking ourselves some really good (if hard) questions.

Like "What is the weakest link in my business?"

"Oh... Shit.

It's..................

....................................................ME!"

Now stay with me here because I will get you to a powerful solution and it's going to solve a bunch of your challenges all at once.

So last year, I started a master mind group. Michael Guerin and Rob Bronson were the charter members and we began meeting every Monday just to run ideas by each other and to challenge and support each other and to learn with each other and to help each other see the stuff that we were too close to see in our own businesses.

And it made a huge difference. It was the first time in 25 years that I wasn't alone trying to figure stuff out. I had a team.

For example: At one point Rob Bronson "pushed" me kicking and whining and complaining to move all of my websites to GoDaddy.com and saved me $6,000 per year. At one point I pushed Michael Guerin repeatedly until he fired his web designer and started taking charge of his online marketing. Mike and I "pushed" Rob Bronson to get his butt out of a really negative situation in his life and business and on and on and on...

So at some point you must form your own Jedi Council or Master Mind Group.

This was so cool that I started inviting some other people to join us and one of them was this amazing woman named Julie Braun, she calls herself the  "Marketing Guru". www.juliebraundesign.com

Julie was doing huge, major, multiple  marketing projects on a scale that made my head spin. She was doing events and PR and entire marketing campaigns for small to medium sized businesses. She was providing services that would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. But she wasn't working with Fortune 500 budgets. She was affordable. How did she do it?

It turns out that years ago Julie mastered the art of engaging INTERNS. UNPAID INTERNS.

Now these are not slaves. These are not college kids who come to your business to do all the yucky work like filing and photo copying (you just may have to pay for that kind of stuff. Do not even think about doing that crap yourself. You can't afford it any more).

Julie was setting up specific projects, real honest to goodness projects and allowing students to truly get hands on experience. So she was able to do often times 10 times the work that she would be able to do alone.

She had learned a way to not only leverage her knowledge and expertise but her time and resources in a way that enabled her to Work "on" her business as well as "in" her business. Her only investment was her time and attention and she developed exactly the skills working with interns that all of us entrepreneurs MUST develop any way if we want our businesses to succeed. The ability to delegate intelligently. The ability to manage other people. The ability to lead. The ability to generate and incorporate intelligent feedback.

All without a huge financial risk putting pressure on your learning curve.

I got so inspired by that I immediately found a Yale student who wanted to learn NLP, he ended up editing my first year's NLP training audio series.  He got to expand his knowledge base and I got a project accomplished that I just didn't have time to do. That was my "big toe in the water experience"

Now over the years, Julie has really fine tuned all of the details and concepts of using unpaid interns in her business to the point where it was just obvious she had to share the goods with those of us who were struggling with this whole "solopreneur" thing.

So Last summer she and her business partner Michelle Demers www.totalbusinessfitness.com created SuperInterns.com it's what I call a "Turbo Booster Zoooom  course" designed to get you up and running with unpaid interns fast.

To be honest, I signed up for the first one but because I was too "burned" out from teaching my 2nd NLP training and some personal stuff going on in my life, I never got to class. BUT they recorded every call and I finished the course later while driving in the car. My point is you can learn this no matter how busy you are.

(BTW Michelle met Julie in a different Mastermind group - are you getting that you need to "mastermind"?)

The Super Interns Crash Course will be offered again in a few weeks and if you are in business for yourself (or if your employer doesn't have the budget to hire the help you need to do your job right) THIS IS REQUIRED. You owe it to yourself to take this.

This is:
"Save Your Business (And Possibly Your Sanity) 101"

Are you with me on this? I know we all have the attention spans of 2 year olds these days but this is vital so PAY ATTENTION:

Whether you take the course or not this is so important that you MUST at the very least know about it. I could not live with myself if I didn't share this information with you. It's that important to your success and sanity.

So I've invited Julie and Michelle to share their stories with me on a telephone call next Wednesday, January 14th from noon to 1:00 PM eastern time.To Register Click Here

They are also doing an informational call of their own that evening, January 14th at 7:00 pm eastern time. to Register Click Here

• The Call at Noon will be me interviewing them (you will also be able to ask questions).
• The call in the evening is totally their show. So you have some choices.

The calls are free and whichever one you can make, it will be well worth your while to take an hour to find out how you can get some relief from the grind of being the sole practitioner or sole proprietor or solopreneur. It could save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars and possibly enable you to truly catapult your business to the moon. It's also one very creative way to move forward even in spite of the dire economic forecast and the worst economy in 100 years.

It is also of interest if you have college age kids or know some college students of any age because many colleges require internships precisely because the right internship could make all the difference in whether your children get a dull, low paying, soul crushing job right out of school because they have no experience in the "real world" or get to work closely with the CEO of a growing international company.

I sat down one day and figured out that I need about 10 interns in my business right now.

so if you know anyone who is interested in or is actively studying these or related fields:

• Arts Management
• Internet Marketing
• Psychology, NLP, Hypnosis, Personal Transformation and Change
• Music,Theater, Storytelling
• Graphic Design
• Direct Marketing
• Sales Skills
• General Business
• Health and Healing
• Peak Performance

Call me! 203-495-8808 or e-mail me at mark [at] markshepard.com

Registration page for 12 to 1 pm call –
“How to Get Free Help for Your Business” hosted by Mark Shepard Click Here

Registration page for the 7 to 8 pm call – “Unpaid Interns to the Rescue!”
(Super Interns general call) Click Here

Just for registering for either/both calls you’ll get a free ebook “251 Great Internship Projects!” .

If You already "get" that you need the course you can click here to: Register for the Super Interns Crash Course: How To Put Unpaid Interns To Work For Your Business - early bird special ends Friday 1/9!

BTW when you do decide to take the course, be sure to mention my name and you will get $50 bucks off of the already too cheap price of the course.

Please leave a comment below and share this with as many people as you can

Thanks!

Mark

Today, I don’t know where to begin. I have a lot to say.

So I’ll just jump in and hope you'll join me for a few moments because this is one of the most important announcements I've ever made.

By now it’s pretty hard to avoid the panic and the fear all around us. It seems in so many ways to be the worst of times...We may know intellectually that within each failure there lies the seeds for greater success but sometimes it’s really hard to feel it. It's a full blown "Crisis".

A wise man once pointed out to me that the Chinese character for "crisis" is a combination of the symbols for "Danger" & "Opportunity".

As the blanket of Christmas slowly gets pulled up around us and the stories of hardship and uncertainty gather like storm clouds, some of it is hitting pretty hard and close to home. For me personally, the holiday season has always been bittersweet. This year even more so.

In fact the very nature of the traditional Christmas is solemn and beautiful and sad.

A family of meager means, finds lodging in a stable. A child is born without proper medical attention who would soon be the target of assassins, and who would grow up to meet a painful and harsh end.

Even if you are not remotely religious, you can not help but relate to the story.

And so in the face of what can only be called a “major financial challenge” I found myself at the end of my savings. All the marketing and advertising I’d done had basically fizzled. Staring at my bank balance and the pile of unpaid bills on my desk felt really bad.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. I’d learned NLP in order to increase my income as well as to clear the junk that was holding me back from getting my music out. Unfortunately it seems like in order to properly honor NLP it would mean putting my music back on hold.

So here I was not feeling very resourceful. It felt like the end of a road that didn’t take me where I thought it was going to take me. Still there was the glimmer that perhaps it had taken me where I needed to go.

As I sat pondering how to pay my past due rent, how to stay positive and hopeful…

As I contemplated how I was going to feed my 3 kids who were coming to visit next week…

As I contemplated how I was going to feed myself…

I got an e-mail.

It was from my friend and mentor, Kathy McAfee, who had commissioned me to do a video of “Motivation” (the song I wrote inspired by her work). She had just sent it out to her list and one of her contacts, Fran Capo, had seen it and wanted a theme song too.

So I got in touch with Fran and began to learn more about her and what her mission and message is.

Get this: she’s the Guinness book of world records “Fastest Talking Female” she also holds the records for deepest book signing (at the Titanic) and highest book signing (on Mt. Kilimanjaro).

So I got inspired. I wrote her a song in a very short time. Because everything about Fran is about speed, and just getting stuff done. And living every day as if it is your last. I sang it to her over the phone and she loved it. By chance, my recording engineer, Joe Mennonna was available that afternoon so I drove over and recorded it. By 6:00 pm the song was mixed and ready to play.

You can hear it here. Listen To Adventure Girl - Fran Capo Theme Song

But that’s not the point of this post!

For me the message was clear. As I was sitting that morning asking for guidance, I was going back and forth between what I thought I “should” do and what my heart was “calling me to do”.

I have worked my brains out the last 5 years to build an NLP practice and an NLP training program. I’ve helped quite a few people and the work is rewarding. But the business model doesn’t work very well. I help people transform their lives and then they don’t need to come back any more! Many of the people I want to help can’t afford me. And I couldn’t help them for free and still pay my bills…In NLP we call that a “double bind”.

The talk therapy business model where the client comes back every week for eternity is much better (at least for the therapist).

But the fact is that when I asked myself a very specific question the answer got my attention.

Here’s the question: “If I had only 6 months to live what would I spend every one of those last precious moments doing?”

The answer had 3 parts:

1. I would record every single one of the almost 400 songs I’ve written that have yet to be recorded. I don’t write the music down so in order to preserve them I need to record them. Even if only my kids were able to listen to them it would be worth it.
2. I would get my butt out and perform every chance I got even if it meant going from Starbucks to Starbucks or finding a street corner.
3. I would spend as much time with my friends and family as possible.

That’s it. Pretty simple.

And I actually am doing that on a small scale. I’ve gone into the studio a lot recently and I just did my first concert in 2 years. But I wasn’t truly giving it 100% because I was so busy with all the other things…

But the main reason I hadn’t given 100% of myself to it was a limiting belief. It was a belief that I couldn’t make enough money to pay my rent and all the other bills I had by merely singing my songs.

But at this point, all the marketing and promotion and advertising I’ve been doing to attract people to my NLP trainings and Anxiety clearing work wasn’t paying the bills either.

In NLP we have a concept that basically says: “You get what you focus on. So focus on what you want.”

So I asked the universe for a sign. What do you really want me to do with my life? How can I serve the most people in the highest way while taking really good care of myself and my family? How can I honor this gift I have of writing songs? (I mean it’s really kind of a “healthy compulsion”. I write songs like a horse gallops or like a bird flies. It’s just totally and complete natural for me. Duh! )

Moments later I got the e-mail that Fran Capo wanted a theme song.

If that isn’t an answer I don’t know what is.

So in the next few weeks I will be packing my stuff away and putting everything I own in storage.

I will be letting go of my beautiful apartment overlooking Wooster square and I will be staying with a series of generous friends and family members (see number 3 above).

And I will be using all of my NLP skills to book myself at coffeehouses, and colleges and churches and libraries and yes…Starbucks.

I’m going to be asking you for your help.

• It may be as simple as asking you to pass a song along to a friend who might need to hear it.
• It might be as affordable as downloading a single song for $2. bucks.
• I’m definitely going to ask you to invest in one or more of my CD's. And when you do I’ll send you a 2nd one for FREE that you can share with a friend. 
  Mark Shepard's CD's Available Here
  
• I’m going to invite you to come see me perform and I’m going to ask you to bring a friend. Please join my mailing list at the top right hand corner of this site so you'll get advance invitations.
  
• If you have a big enough house, I’m going to ask you to consider having a house concert and inviting all your friends. Together we can change the world. Call me today to get started. 203-804-1208

If you've been reading my stuff for a while you know my message is about hope and empowerment and healing and transformation and joy.

Yes, I’m a little scared. Not of performing any more (thanks to NLP that's totally gone) but of moving out of my comfort zone. And that’s a good thing. We all tend to get comfortable and it soon becomes a rut. Eventually a rut can feel like a prison.

So let’ use these challenging times to challenge ourselves. What would you do if you had only 6 months to live? Leave a comment below and let me know.

And ask yourself honestly “How can I start doing that now? How can I start even in a small way living my life on purpose today?”

Thank you for your support and encouragement!

Mark

p.s. Please leave me a comment below and “stumble” or “dig” this or e-mail it to a friend.
Thanks!

An old story: there was a frog that was put in a big cauldron. Because the cauldren was large, the frog felt perfectly comfortable. So even though it could have jumped out at any time, it stayed put. As the pot gradually heated up over the fire...the frog did nothing. The water was warming gradually. By the time the water was so hot that the frog was boiled...he was well, boiled. If the water had been heated suddenly the frog would have had the good sense to jump out.

Ever feel like that frog?

Yesterday we explored the idea of what a "motivation strategy" is. It's an unconscious process or "program" that enables us to move from a state of "not motivated" to "motivated."  For some people and in some situations it may be a challenge to get out of a "procrastination strategy" and get moving towards taking action.

Whether your strategy is working or not may determine how stuck you get in procrastination as well as how long it may take you to break out of it and get started on cleaning the garage or doing that term paper.

By the way, we don't need to be motivated to do stuff we enjoy. We usually need an effective strategy to get to the stuff we do not enjoy doing.

So how do you usually break out of a stuck state? Do you move away from the bad things that will happen if you don't finally buckle down and get to work or do you move towards how good it will feel when you accomplish your task? Or do you do some combination of both?

If you "move away from" how bad does it have to be before you get moving?

If you "move towards" how do you do that?

In other words, do you need the carrot or the stick? And how much of either one do you need to get stuff done?

In working with other people either in leadership roles as managers and team members or as parents and teachers, it helps to know how someone is wired if we want to influence or inspire them to action. Do you need to communicate the cost or the pain of not taking action? Do you need to threaten them with being fired or other dire consequences? Or do they respond much better to the promise of a bonus or a big commission check?

If you use a stick on someone who is motivated by the carrot you risk totally losing them. If you use a carrot on someone who requires a bit of stick to get going it just won't do the job.

In dealing with ourselves, particularly in our careers, becoming aware of this leverage point can make the difference between success and failure.

• To learn more about NLP strategies and how to elicit and change them in yourself and others check out my NLP Practitioner Certification Training
  
• To get all pumped up and motivated Watch my Motivation Music Video

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