When I taught elementary school, we were encouraged to give our children “pre-learning” experiences before embarking upon a new area of study. The idea was to prepare the brain for learning the new information by starting a new “track” in the brain on the new topic. That way, the brain would have hooks upon which to hang the new information. A recent study by MIT researchers reveals that we indeed can remember better when our brains are prepped for the new information. The following article excerpt comes courtesy of http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/ready-to-learn-0819.html. Our... (Read More ...)
“Just Say Yes” featuring Dr. Richard Cialdini Opener: “All my life I’ve been a victim of various kinds of sales appeals or appeals from charity organizations asking me to contribute to their causes. “Even when I didn’t want what was being offered or I had never heard of this particular cause, I would find myself contributing. And I thought to myself, “Well, wait a minute, there must be something other than the merits of what was being offered to me that was getting me to comply-to say yes. “It must be something about the psychology of the presentation... (Read More ...)
Don’t Feel Like You Know It All When It Comes To Your Business, But Still Want A Team Of Interns? No Problem! I take it you understand the power of a team of employees working diligently to build your traffic streams, your networking, your viral marketing. And you know interns would work for you for free, right? So what stops some sincere entrepreneurs from taking that next step, securing these free interns to grow their business exponentially? First off, there’s the mindset issue. One of my friends, realizing the power of interns, and getting prepared to hire her team, suddenly became... (Read More ...)
James Allen writes, “A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.” Your character – your reputation – results from your thinking. You know this already. I know it, too. So why don’t we leverage the power of positive thought more often? A friend of mine used to say, “Perception is reality.” How you perceive your life is largely how it turns out. St. Paul encourages us to “set our minds and hearts on things above”. Imagine how different one’s life would be if he centered his life around the golden rule, on loving... (Read More ...)
Let me share with you a quirky little story about desperation helping me reach a goal. I’d fallen and fractured my left foot. I’d actually been walking around on it for three weeks before I finally went for an x-ray. The doctor said I needed a cast and at 4:00 that afternoon, put a stylish purple one on me. It stayed on 12 hours. I’d never broken a bone before. My foot felt like it was swelling and had no where to go. I started feeling really panick-y. That evening in bed I tried every psychological trick known to man to get calm. Deep breathing. The peaceful visualizations…... (Read More ...)
First, if you want to achieve, you must be willing to go at it with all you’ve got. I’m talking about approaching this activity with the ferociousness of a tiger. Nothing will stop you. Nothing will get in your way. That’s over half the battle right there. How many times I’ve set piddly little goals that I could have cared less about. Guess how much I accomplished? Say you’d like to learn a new language. Don’t fool with listening to little tapes for 15 minutes a day. That’s not desperation. If you want to learn Spanish, you can volunteer at an authentic Mexican restaurant... (Read More ...)
A simple plan for achieving your goals will be all you need. And if you don’t already have a book on goal setting, you can find numerous resources at your local library. Or try out this “reverse engineering” plan. Work Backwards Think of how your goal will look when it’s completed. For instance, let’s say I want to become fluent in Spanish. What’s it going to look like? Well, I’ll be talking and laughing and interacting with my friends who speak Spanish. So how do I get there? I ask myself what has to happen just before I’m interacting so easily in the language. I’d... (Read More ...)
Let’s take a moment to identify certain thoughts that decrease your chances for success. List at least three negative thoughts you have on a fairly consistent basis. (For example, “Oh, great! I knew this was going to happen!” “What on earth was that idiot thinking?” “I can’t take this anymore!”) 1. 2. 3. Now, I’d like for you to come up with the exact opposite thought that you can use to counteract each negative thought you wrote down. For example – “Oh, great! I knew that was going to happen!” might end up having this counteractive thought – “Wow! Look... (Read More ...)
Get Ready For Success in a F.L.A.S.H. Are you convinced that right thought can change your life? Let’s talk about a simple technique I call Success in a FLASH First of all, in order to change your thought life… 1) Focus: Stop and think. 2) List: Identify what thoughts are inhibiting success. 3) Annihilate: Kill the negative thought immediately by… 4) Substitute: Substitute (forcefully and passionately!) the opposite thought and repeat it. 5) Habit: This is what we’re after. Practice makes successful thinking a habit. Finally, you’re living with the mindset of a successful... (Read More ...)
I love what Robin Sharma says in his book Megaliving. He asks how long it takes for a person to change. Really change. His answer may surprise you! It threw me for a loop. He said, “One second.” That’s how long it takes for someone to decide to do something different. It takes one second for us to change our minds. I don’t know about you, but that’s the very answer I need to hear! I don’t want to take half a lifetime to learn the secrets to success. Trying to achieve goals without building a success mindset first is like trying to run a marathon before learning to walk! ... (Read More ...)