By: Shantanu Das Sharma, Sr. Associate Editor, ICN Group
Quick recap of what we have covered in Part 35
Do Your Values Sabotage Your Success?
The Ambitious Career Counselor Who Had Conflicting Values
Spiritual Growth and Money Do Not Mix?
Love and Freedom Make for Conflict
Happiness Means Everything Going Her Way!
Do You Have Rejection As One of Your Away-From Values?
Change Your Values, Change Your Life!
My New Values
Change Your Definition of Your Values… and You’ll Make Major Changes in Your Life
Are ‘Away-From’ Values Useful?
Create a Propulsion Effect
How to Lock In Your New Values!
TO DESIGN YOUR OWN DESTINY
‘Some dream to escape reality, some to change it forever’
– Soichiro Honda
Together we have gone through a whole range of tools to produce literally any result you want. You have learned powerful strategies to re-program your brain, change your habits and drive yourself to take consistent action. You are now aware of the true potential that lies within you which, when unleashed, can create astounding results. What you must now do is to channel all this knowledge, power and energy into a single direction by asking the question, ‘What do I really want? What do I want to achieve and create specifically in my life?’
Now this seems like a pretty straightforward and obvious question. However, the plain truth is that most people have no clear idea about what they really want. Most of the time, people will say they want to be successful, they want their life to improve, they want more money, they want better relationships, they want to be happier or to have peace of mind. The trouble with all these ‘wants’ is that they are too vague to become achievable results. You have also learned that ‘happiness’ and ‘peace of mind’ are nothing but states that we can create at any time! If you want to be ‘happy’, all you have to do is to focus your internal representation on what you have and are grateful for, and simultaneously adopt a physiology of happiness!
Remember that you are in control of your states. So, ‘happiness’ is not a goal. Many people think it is, so they go after things which they think will make them happy, like money. At the end of it, they may have all the money in the world, but still feel miserable. Why? Because if you cannot learn to be happy now, you will never be happy. Happiness is a state of mind. Success may seem like a good result to achieve but when I ask the question, ‘What must you achieve specifically in order to succeed (in your chosen field)?’ I normally get a ‘I don’t know response.’ Or ‘I’m not sure, I haven’t really thought about it!’
Surely it is no wonder that most people never get what they want. They can’t because they don’t even know what they really want. If you don’t give your bio-computer a clear and direct command of what to execute, there is no way it can direct itself to attain it. This is because if you are not absolutely clear about what you want to achieve, there is no way to design a specific strategy and plan to get there. Most people desire to make more money and become rich. Why is it that so few ever achieve it? Again, it is because they don’t have a specific goal to focus on. If you do not know what you want specifically, you cannot develop a specific strategy and action plan to get there. For example, the strategy and action plan to earn Rs.12,00,000 a year is totally different from the strategy and plan you need to earn Rs.2 crore. It would be different again if your aim is Rs.10 crore and vastly different again if your target is Rs.100 crore a year!
If you want to make Rs.12,00,000, what should your strategy and action plan be? You could well achieve this target by being promoted to a senior management position in a medium to large company. What if you want to make Rs.2 crore? Would the strategy be different? Of course. The only way to make Rs.2 crore a year would be to own your own company or be in insurance or real estate sales. What if you want to achieve Rs.10 crore a year? Could you achieve this by running your own small company or being in sales? No way! No matter how hard you work it would be impossible to achieve this figure! How then would it be possible? The only way would be to expand your company by opening up many branches or creating franchises across the country or around the world. With this leverage, you can possibly make Rs.10 crore a year. Now, what if you want to make Rs.100 crore a year? Again, this goal requires a completely different set of skills and approach. There is no way you can make Rs.100 crore through sales, salary or even profits from your own company. The only way is to sell shares in a company you own which is publicly listed on the stock market. This is how the billionaires in the world become so wealthy.
Now, although I use money as an illustration, the same thing applies to anything we want to achieve – be it better health, relationships, contribution to society or even spiritual growth. My point is this. Once you know what it is you want specifically, you will be very clear about what it is you must do to get there. If you want to achieve Rs.2 crore, you must get into a sales line or start your own company. If you want to make Rs.10 crore, you need to expand your company’s products or services into international markets; and if you want to make over Rs.100 crore, you must get your company listed on the stock exchange where its value will be multiplied many times. But when we are unclear and vague about what we want to achieve, we are not able to focus our ideas, energy and effort on anything tangible.
Everything is Possible; It is Only a Question of Strategy
Here is a true-life example of how I helped a management executive clarify his goal and hence develop a clear strategy to achieve his outcome. When JC first came to my training program, he said that he was going nowhere after being in the profession for seventeen years. There were no visibility for him to get promoted in a new product space in an elevated position as there were no such products in his current organization.
He said, ‘I don’t know how some others become so successful. I work just as hard but I don’t seem to be very successful.’ ‘Well, what do you want to achieve specifically?’, I asked. ‘To make good money and to qualify for a deserving promotion!’, he replied. I realized at this point that because JC was not focused on a specific outcome, he could not focus his time and efforts on any specific action plan. Finally, after lots of questions, JC set as his goal attaining the ‘Management Thought Partner’ qualification, by being a disruptive innovator which requires him to create a policy document for a merger & acquisition proposal for his organization. This came as an opportunity to his being alert to the need for expansion of his organization being linked to his promotion. This policy document was an outcome of market research in his organization’s domain as in which units are the best options to take over to create a new product division in the company. He did his research with market feasibility of sales projection vs market demands for five years if the suggested sick units are taken or bought over by his organization. His recommendations were to expand the product span of his organization with this merger & acquisition and create substantial revenue feeding the genuine market demand in the country by creating a new product division in his own organization.
As he worked on this plan and submitted his recommendations, the merger & acquisition fell through. As an end result JC was entrusted being the CMO of the new products division. He was promoted exactly the way he dreamt to be!
Success Rarely Happens by Chance, Success Happens by Design
I believe from my own life’s experiences, and studying the lives of hundreds of successful people, that achieving success rarely ever happens by chance. The roll of the dice never made anyone rich for long, or happy. It always begins with a clearly defined outcome fueled by a passionate desire. These were the findings of a study conducted at Yale University in 1953. That year, the graduating batch of students was surveyed and in this batch only 3% had their goals written down. The goals of this 3% of graduating students included: ‘being a best-selling novelist, starting a computer company and taking it public, running for President etc…’97% of the students had no clearly defined goals written down. Many of them chose to adopt the ‘whatever will be, will be’ mindset.
Twenty years later, a follow up study revealed that the 3% of students who wrote down their goals earned a combined income three times greater than the combined income of the 97% that
had no goals written down. That surely shows the incredible power of goal setting.
No Plan?… then You will Fall into Someone Else’s Plan
I can tell you that if I did not sit down 7 years ago when I left my job at Singapore and design my life the way that I wanted it to unfold through my work as an NLP Lifestyle Master Coach & Strategic Interventionist, I certainly wouldn’t have achieved what I have right now. I would be somewhere else, probably doing something totally different. Very often, if we don’t have a clear plan for our life, we will fall into somebody else’s plan. Most often it would be our parents’ plan: ‘Be a doctor, be a lawyer, be an engineer and make plenty of money’…and while it would be (in their view) for our own future good, it would be trying to live out their expectations and sometimes their own unrealized dreams. Or if we are in a public or private corporation, do we expect our boss, the company, to chart our goals and our future? I can tell you that if they do it, it will be for your benefit only if that’s in line with the company’s targets.
Now, don’t we all want the freedom to do and to be whatever we choose to become?
When I was invited to be a judge to choose the best innovation team at the Tech Fest of IIT Madras as a 50-year old NLP Lifestyle Coach & Trainer whose speaking fee was Rs.10,000 an hour, many of my friends asked me how I was able to command such a high fee within two years of beginning my new career as a coach and trainer. Well, by 50, two years after beginning my new career as a coach, trainer & speaker, I had written a bestselling book, started and ran a training co, spoken to hundreds of people all over the country and made over a couple of lakhs of money. Most of my peers were either looking for their first job or working for other people for about Rs.30,000+ a month. The irony is that many of these peers and friends were probably just as intelligent, just as talented and hardworking as I was. The only difference between them and me was the fact that at age 48 (highly charged by motivational gurus), I sat down and scripted out a detailed life plan as I switched my career. I wrote down exactly what I was going to achieve in the next ten years of my life (this is what I will be getting you to do, whatever your age, wherever you are in your life’s journey, at the end of this series).
After scripting out my life plan, I took action and each action I took enabled me to focus all my talents, my intelligence and energies like a laser beam. I use the analogy of a laser beam because I was so energized; I felt I could cut through anything that was in my way.
Often it’s our die-hard habits that stand in our way!
Now, remember, things that come up and seemingly stand in our way are often our own die-hard habits. It’s so easy to hang around with a bunch of friends, whether it’s at a coffee club or swank private club and while away the time. Getting on with our goals, forging ahead, definitely calls for what initially appears to be ‘sacrifice’ – using the time you would have spent ‘hanging out’ purposefully making ‘cold calls’, reading, studying the market and researching. Most of these are solitary pursuits but so necessary. So, armed with my detailed life plan, I went all-out and did what I needed to do to make my dreams a reality. It was because of what I had designed (in that plan) that made me start collecting notes and writing a book. Nothing was by chance, everything was according to plan. Starting my first business (life coaching) at 48, attending personal development programs and reading hundreds of motivational, self-help and business books, were all in my plan. Even spending whatever free time I had (outside of my work) speaking in public in toastmasters club or selling something was part of my success strategy. The goals drove my decisions and my actions. If I did not have a clear plan, I would have followed the crowd, doing what everyone else was doing (just getting my education) and getting what everyone else was getting.
If you do what everyone else does, you will get what everyone else gets!
Do you have a home computer? Yes? What software does your computer run on? If I bet that it runs on Windows, I will be right eight out of ten times. Why? Because over 80% of personal computers run on some form of Microsoft software. Did this happen by chance? No! This is the result of a very clear goal that Bill Gates set when he first started Microsoft, three decades back. His vision was ‘a computer on every desk and every home, running Microsoft software’. In fact, this goal was set at a time when it was uncommon for homes to have personal computers. Just a few years earlier, in 1977, Kenneth Olsen, the President of Digital Equipment Corp remarked, ‘There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.’
Gates thought otherwise. He made it his specific goal and mobilized his team to create what is now taken for granted; home computers that are as common as telephones.
When Milkshake Salesman Ray Kroc Set a Mega Goal of Going Global…
Do you know which company collectively owns the biggest spread of real estate in the world? It’s McDonald’s Corporation. Anywhere in the world, in any major city, you will find a McDonald’s restaurant. In fact, many major cities like Los Angeles, California, Hong Kong and London have a McDonald’s almost every five blocks.
Earlier, during McDonalds’ massive expansion phase, outlets were being opened at the rate of one restaurant a day, all around the world! This phenomenon did not happen by accident. McDonald’s dominance around the world started as the result of a clear vision that McDonald’s Franchise owner Ray Kroc had back in 1961 when he first acquired the worldwide rights to build McDonald’s restaurants around the world. In the beginning, McDonald’s was just a small diner in America operated by the McDonald brothers. At that time, Ray Kroc was a salesman who sold milkshake mixers. When he saw how the diner was operated, he was amazed at its service and efficiency and the consistency and cleanliness of the food it offered its customers. Kroc manage to get the brothers to sign over to him the rights to franchise and build exact replicas of the McDonald’s restaurant around the world.
As salesman Kroc flew back home with the newly-signed document in his hand, he knew he had a struck a goldmine as he envisioned how hundreds of thousands of these McDonald’s restaurants would be created all over the world, in every country, and in every city. Again, it was this specific mega goal, fueled by passion that led to it being a reality. Today, a new McDonald’s restaurant opens somewhere in the world every seven hours: a tally of 20,000+ outlets in 90 countries serving 29 million people every day.
(I facilitate Thought Leaders, Change Makers; Professionals & Business Owners translate NLP concepts into actions to achieve and elicit personal excellence. I conduct NLP Lifestyle Coaching Certification programs for individuals, corporate and celebrity clients. In the next article, you will learn about Why You Must Start Setting Goals. And after that you will come to know in subsequent articles, how you can utilize concepts of NLP+ in all walks of your life to replicate the success blueprint of a winner mindset to win through life. So, stay tuned every Monday & Saturday and fasten your seat belt to ‘Enhance Your Lifestyle With NLP+’)
Shantanu Das Sharma, Creator of the concept NLP Lifestyle Coaching with NLP+ and Founder of Neuromind Leadership Academy is an Amazon #1 Best Selling Author, NLP+ Lifestyle Master Trainer & Coach, First Certified Social Panorama Consultant in Eastern India directly trained under Dr. Lucas Derks, Clean Language Facilitator & Strategic Interventionist. To explore about NLP+ Lifestyle Coaching you may visit http://shantanudassharma.com/nlp-lifestyle-coaching/
