Modeling Success

IT IS ALWAYS BETTER TO IMITATE A SUCCESSFUL MAN THAN TO ENVY HIM.
– Napoleon Hill

Modeling successful people is what will make you great. Napoleon Hill, Tony Robbins, Richard Bandler built their success by finding out what successful people do to become successful. NLP is founded on modeling success.

Get Better & Stay that Way

Sports psychologist and executive coach Graham Jones 5 Leadership Lessons as published in Harvard Business Review

1. Learn to Love the Pressure
“I never made any sacrifices; I made choices.” – Greg Searle

Dan’s comment: pressure is what forges us to become better. Pressure focuses us on the importance essence of who we really are. Link to J.K Rowling about getting to her essence by hitting rock bottom.

2. Fixate on the Long Term.
Long term success is paved with small achievements

Dan’s comment: without the perspective of long-term success you will never get through the short-term pain. You must start with the end in mind or you will quit before you get there.

3. Iron Sharpens Iron.
Train with people who push you the hardest.

Dan’s comment: If you hangout with people who don’t push themselves to greatness you will never get moral support from them to push yourself to greatness. Cultures have benchmark ideals and if you want to be bland hangout with bland people. If you want to be great, hangout with other people who also want to be great.

4. Reinvent Yourself.
While it’s good to feel challenged, you need to make sure that any feedback you get is constructive.

Dan’s comment: Tony Robbins calls it the power of CANI; Continuing and Never-ending Improvement. You will never be able to hit 100% potential because once you hit your perceived benchmark you are capable of being better. But in order to become better you have to look at the situation differently and come up with a new plan to become better. You can’t get there from here. What you are doing is getting you the results you have. If you want different results you have to do things differently. It is the Law of Attraction, what you have is what you really want. If you really want something different you will change to get different. The difference between what you really want and what you think you want is the battle between your real values vs. ego driven desired and perceived values.

5. Celebrate the Victories.
The very best performers do not move on before they have scrutinized and understood thoroughly the factors underpinning their success.

Dan’s comment: Celebration is to release the past and move on toward future goals while understanding the now. Using the power of CANI to understand that you are capable hitting or smashing your goals. Celebration is empowering yourself to reinforce victories and to remember how you did it so you can recognize how to get to that sweet spot in your mind and to see a future goal that will happen just as easily.

You Must Complete Your Desires

IF YOU WORK AS HARD AT THE TASK YOU DESIRE TO DO AS THE TASK YOU MUST DO, YOU WILL GO PLACES. – Napoleon Hill

Take action, that is the only way to get things done.

As Tony Robbins says, turn your shoulds into must musts or you will be shoulding all over yourself.

Too many people take as much time talking about what they want to do as it would take to get it done. Many people and Politicians, including John McCain, think that talking and making people feel good is the same thing as getting things done.

Our brains have a part of memory called mirror neurons. Mirror Neurons help us relate to each other, mirror neurons help with empathy. Mirror neurons also can make people think they are part of teams or clubs they aren’t part of. One of the reasons people get so involved in TV Sports is because their associations caused by their mirror neurons in overdrive. Instead of getting a rush of accomplishment from playing the sport of football they are getting the same rush from wearing the jersey and yelling at the TV while beer in hand.

Take the time to break the bonds of talking the talk and start walking the walk. The same amount of time and effort goes into both, why not have completed the task instead of saying, someday I’ll get around to it.

Build a Frame for Change

Vision + Skills + Incentive + Resources + Action Plan = The Type of Change You Want

Change happens all the time but many times we aren’t in control of that change. Blaming your problems on others won’t change your life much. It’s much easier to change yourself than someone else. It’s so easy to make yourself feel better in the short-term to blame someone else for your problems. If you want long-term happiness you have to take control of your life and shape your own good luck.

Vision: What is your Vision of your future? What do you really want?

Take the next 5 minutes to come up with 5 things that you really want in your life. Prioritize them in the order of what you want most. Scratch out the bottom 2. Now prioritize them to the ones that would make the biggest impact on your life if they happened. Scratch out the bottom idea. Now prioritize the 2 you have left into the 1 that could happen the soonest if you really put an all out effort into making it happen. You now have your Vision for the change you want.

Skills: What do you call an activity you are passionate about, but have no skill in? A hobby! Now that you have your vision you must find out what kind of skills you have toward your vision. More importantly what skills you need to learn in order to get your vision. This is ego check time. You might want to be Mr. Basketball star but you may be 5’4″ like me. Yeah, Spud Webb made it but who else.

Incentives: What pleasure will you get from this goal? What pain will you avoid if you get this goal? What pleasure have you gotten in the past from not getting this goal already? How much pain will you still be in if you don’t get this goal?

Resources: Who can mentor you through this change? Do you have friends that will morally support you through this change? What alliances can you build through networking that will help you get your goal? Do you have enough money to get your goal? Do you need to get certifications or have prerequesites for your goal to happen?

Action Plan: Tony Robbins calls it a Massive Action Plan. Tony asks 3 very important questions so your Action Plan can become Massive. Tony Robbins Massive Action Plan starts with a tangible purpose and is results based. The MAP you build to get you to destiny will involve chunking ideas into groups of no more than 4. The majority of people can only hold onto 4 ideas at a time. David Allen has a system he calls Getting Things Done that organizes these chunks into logical steps that will make you successful.

Dreams can become reality if you wake up and put your plan into action. Change happens either to us or because of us. Take control and be the change that you want.

YouTube Video: Inspirational life coach, Tony Robbins, is on The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos

Tony Robbins RPM Method

Do people really know why they are doing what they have set out to do?  The RPM method will let you see why you are doing what you are doing.  RPM will also make you build a plan.  Instead of dreams, you will build a map to a realistic future.

R Results

P Purpose

M Massive Action Plan

What is your Purpose for your goals?  Ask & write down the answers.  If you want to lose 15 pounds write down the the why.  Most people want to burn fat to look and feel better.  Write down every reason why you want.

If your Result needs more than 1 sentence to describe it, your result is too broad and needs to be narrowed down.  Your result will only be a dream unless you put a time limit on it.

Now that you understand what you want and why you can build a Massive Action Plan.  This plan will easily succeed because you will put together easy steps to get what you desire.  If your MAP involves more than 7 steps you might be bitting off more than you can chew.  Studies show that people can only actively remember 5 things plus or minus 2 & more reciently science says Mind’s Limit Found the limit is 4.

Napoleon Hill’s 14 Secrets to Success

1. I render more service than I ask people to pay for.

2. I engage in no transaction, intentionally, that does not benefit all whom it affects.

3. I make no statements that I do not believe to be true.

4. I have a sincere desire in my heart to be of useful service to the greatest possible number of people.

5. I like people better than money.

6. I am doing my best to live, as well as to teach, my own philosophy of success.

7. I accept no favors from anyone without giving favors in return.

8. I ask nothing of any person without having a right to that for which I ask.

9. I enter into no arguments with people over trivial matters.

10. I spread the sunshine of optimism.

11. I never flatter people for the purpose of gaining their confidence.

12. I sell counsel and advice to other people, at a modest price, but never offer free advice.

13. While teaching others how to achieve success, I have demonstrated that I can make my philosophy work for myself as well, thus practicing what I preach.

14. I am so thoroughly sold on the work which I am engaged that my enthusiasm over it becomes contagious and others are influenced by it.

from The Magic Ladder to Success

Tony Robbins @ TED with Al Gore in the audience