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Lesson Two – Succeeding Against All Odds

                                                           By Randy Ross

Behind every successful person or event there is a story, often a long story of how the success was achieved. From the outside, many times it appears that someone has just arrived to the position of CEO or sports hero in an instant. That is seldom the case. Imagine watching a runner win an Olympic gold medal. You will see two glorious moments. The first, when the runner actually wins the event and the second, the moving moment when the runner stands at the top of the podium. The national anthem plays, the crowd cheers and the runner beams with pride. The runner has just succeeded against all odds. He/she has beaten back the fiercest competition in the world. This fantastic moment of fame did not come without a price. Chances are there were twelve grueling years of training preceding the award. Training that had to keep its momentum going through rain, snow, injury, depression and personal tragedy. Somewhere deep inside this runner is an unfaltering beacon of energy that drives daily towards unstoppable success.

I call this energy your “personal competitive advantage.”  It allows you to pull out in front of the pack and kick out the last quarter mile after a very long race. It means that you are centered, focused and clearly able to articulate what you want and how you are going to get it. It means that you are prepared, even over prepared and in the best mental and/or physical shape of your life.  It means that you are standing in the flow of opportunity waiting to seize your moment.

For the majority of goals that you will want to achieve, competition will immediately be encountered. You may have to compete against others that are bigger, smarter and faster You may be competing for limited financial and physical resources. Perhaps even more daunting is that you may be competing against your own low self esteem, lack of confidence or deficit of skills. To become an unstoppable force against these competitive elements you must understand the language of positive thinking and success. Positive thinkers see the big picture and speak in definitive statements. If you focus on the big picture then the day to day setbacks and annoyances won’t derail you.  They may slow you down, but you will always keep moving forward.  Imagine that you are taking a sailboat from San Francisco to Hawaii. Consider it a guarantee that you will hit swells, storms and strong tides. Each of these challenges, with effort, can be overcome if you stay focused on the final goal.

Consider these two examples.

Here is the first. You are interviewing a consultant to market your website. The consultant looks at his shoes and says glumly, “Probably I can make this happen, let me see what I can do.  A couple of my other clients liked what I did.“

Here is the second example. You are again interviewing a consultant to market your website. The consultant is impeccably and appropriately dressed, makes direct eye contact and greets you with a firm handshake. She says “I can deliver all of your requirements in 15 days. In fact, I will add a couple other features at no charge to create an even greater impact for your clients. Your success is my success.”

Chances are you will be more compelled to hire the person in the second example. The difference is that she has projected positive energy, promised added value and shown self confidence. 

We have little or no control over the thoughts that pop into our heads. We do, however, have lots of options between when the thought appears and when we take action. I like to think of our mind as a thought scrubber. In any given situation hundreds of different thoughts are triggered. Chances are these thoughts span a continuum from negative to positive. If we use our mind as a thought scrubber, we can acknowledge the negative thoughts, scrub them out and then project only the positive thoughts and actions.

I recently tried an experiment and you can do the same. I resolved to speak with the next 50 people that I met. This was meant to be more than just a hello, the idea was to actually start up a real conversation. The first thing I noticed was that there are a lot people I don’t normally speak to. I have to say this came as a surprise to me. Perhaps they were too old, too young, looked like hoodlums, wore very conservative clothes or didn’t meet some other silly criteria of my safety zone. However, I stepped out of my safety zone and had conversations with people at the gym, in the grocery store and while waiting in line at Costco. I had good posture, made strong eye contact, gave a warm handshake and in all cases I initiated the conversation. I smiled and my interest was sincere. My expectation was that I would get snubbed about 80% of the time. Surprisingly, quite the opposite happened. I was snubbed a few times, but 97% of the time people welcomed the conversation. If fact, seven or eight people wanted to continue the conversation at length.  What is the point? The point is that opportunity can come from almost any corner of our life. If you are filtering out about 90% of the population because they are “different” than you, there is a lot of opportunity being missed. Take a chance – stand in the flow of opportunity!

The next few lessons we will be digging deep into what it take to create a real competitive advantage, the best attitude and how to go toe-to-toe with world class competition.

          Lesson One |  Lesson Two    |  Lesson Three | Lesson Four   | Lesson Five

          Lesson Six  |  Lesson Seven | Lesson Eight   |  Lesson Nine  | Lesson Ten

1) To project success you will need to change some of the words floating around in your inner voice that chatters all of the time. Start thinking positive phrases like some of these examples below. Try reading these phrases out loud five times. Read them each time with more and more voice inflection and passion. Read one very loud and  the next very soft. If you are like most people, your energy level will be surging when you complete this exercise. Think about the Rocky theme song playing and Rocky bounding up to the top of the long staircase after endless hours of grueling training.  Think about running the victory lap at the end of the Olympic marathon race while the crowd cheers.

·         I will not be stopped!

·         I will not be thwarted!

·         I will not stand down!

·         I will not be blocked!

·         I will not be delayed!

·         I will not be denied!

·         I will solve or go around each roadblock!

·         Failure is not an option!

·         Obstacles will not stop me!

·         If I am knocked to the ground I will jump up twice as strong!

·         If I feel pain, I will move twice as fast!

·         I will clearly articulate at each step in my journey what I need!

·         I will not settle for mediocrity!

 2) Are there people you routinely never speak to? Are you willingly to take a chance

     and initiate a conversation with:

·         A hippie with dreadlocks down to his waste wearing a Bob Marley t-shirt

·         A person of different political affiliation

·         A person outside of your comfort zone that is too black, too white, too fat, too thin, too old, too young, too liberal or too conservative.

  3) Work on projecting positive energy. Tomorrow I would like you to:

·         Stand tall

·         Dress for what feels like success to you and is appropriate to the situation

·         Generate a big smile

·         Make real eye contact

·         Be genuine and sincere  ( For example, don’t emulate the new car salesman chasing you across the parking lot with a big fake smile.)

·         Have a firm handshake

·         Speak positive comments about the situation.

·         Take the initiative and start the conversation

·         Notice how you feel after you take these actions. Better? Worse?

       4) Critical Thinking – Choose someone that you admire? Were they really an   

            overnight success? Analyze what made the difference in their life to rise

            above the masses.

         Lesson One |  Lesson Two    |  Lesson Three | Lesson Four   | Lesson Five

          Lesson Six  |  Lesson Seven | Lesson Eight   |  Lesson Nine  | Lesson Ten

        Note: Educators and Webmasters, you are welcome to use and modify this

        lesson material without charge as long as credit is given to the author (Randy  

        Ross) and the website name (unstoppablesuccess.com).

      Copyright 2006 Randy Ross  http://www.unstoppablesuccess.com

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