Modern Jedi NLP Mind Mastery

Posts Tagged ‘success’

It’s like alphabet soup out here in the land of Transformational Techniques.

Let’s see….NLP, EFT, EMDR, CHT, PDQ, LMNOP….Sheesh!

Well here’s the scoop: EFT stands for Emotional Freedom Technique. It is weird. And it WORKS! In my humble opinion EFT is one of my best NLP tools and you can’t really think about NLP success without having EFT in your transformation tool kit.

Check out the Video to learn more

or

click here to Get Your Free EFT Starter Kit

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

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

please help me spread the word about NLP! "Digg" or "Stumble" this or share it with a friend.