Three Simple Steps: A Map to Success in Business and Life (23 page)

In Western society, things are changing toward a better balance but far too slowly . . . especially in America. When I arrived at my first management meeting in the United States in 1994, I was shocked to find that among fifty managers, only three were female. It is, therefore, no surprise that of the 1,011 billionaires in the world in 2010, men accounted for 665 of those with self-made fortunes (as opposed to inheritance). In stark contrast, only fourteen women on that year’s
Forbes
World’s Billionaires
list have amassed personal fortunes of their own. It is time to address that imbalance.

The warrior’s tool for success is goal setting via small steps that increase belief. The wizard’s way to success is setting Intentions. The art of creating thought energy out of nothingness and turning it into something requires creativity rather than conquest.

This is great news for women who may already be more in tune with their creative sides, and perhaps they won’t have as much remedial work to do to see the benefits of the three simple steps. Men need to eradicate many centuries of having their brains rewired the warrior way. By utilizing the three simple steps, men can create new neurons so that it now becomes more natural to create via the wizard’s way. Those new neurons have none of their previously learned behaviors. Getting to a state of knowing can become a more common experience.

The skill uses natural laws like the law of attraction and the law of allowing. Those laws exist and work all around you, whether you believe in them or not. Belief is not a requirement for wizardry success.

Now hold onto your hats for what I am about to say. Every inspirational book I have ever read speaks to the power of belief. According to even the most well-known books, it is necessary to believe in something before it can be achieved.
Three Simple Steps
is based on a different fundamental philosophy.

The laws of nature exist whether you believe in them or not. Trust in the physical laws of the universe that have no choice but to turn your thoughts into real experiences and let life take care of the details. When you were in the quicksand, the negative
thoughts you had every day became your entire life. At no point did you believe you would get more of what you didn’t want just because you thought about not wanting it. It just happened to you because you did not understand the way it worked. The same is true in reverse. Positive thinking returns good things to your life whether you believe it or not. It just happens.

When you trust in the process, you become an enthusiastic creator. When you succeed a few times, belief replaces doubt and hope quite naturally, and you grow into an active creator. Eventually, belief is replaced by a sense of knowing that whatever you desire you can create, and you are a wizard with the ability to have anything you want any time you want, with a little focused imagination.

Most books use the same evidence to justify the benefits of goal setting. A famous study, performed at Yale in 1953, supposedly proved beyond doubt that goal setting is the secret to success. This study showed only 3 percent of surveyed graduates set goals. Twenty years later, it is said there was a follow-up survey. The results showed that the 3 percent had a higher net worth than the rest of the graduation class in total. Some self-help careers are based on this research.

It is a compelling story, but it is fiction. No such data exist. In 2008, a Yale research associate reported that, after a flurry of articles citing the study in publications as diverse as
Dental Economics
and
Success
magazine, she was prompted to undertake an exhaustive search of Yale alumni archives. She concluded:
We are quite confident that the study did not take place. We suspect it is a myth
.

When challenged by a well-known debunker organization,
self-help gurus who had written books based on this study were unable to produce evidence. One famous expert in the field of human potential who has based his career on the power of goal setting in the sales environment was quoted as saying:
Well if it is not true, it damn well should be
. What kind of advice is that?

There is, however, real and solid data in Dr. Lewis Terman’s longitudinal investigation of 1,528 gifted children with IQs at the genius level. An American psychologist, Terman was a pioneer in educational psychology in the early twentieth century at the Stanford University School of Education. He is best known as the inventor of the Stanford-Binet IQ test. The objective was to gain a better understanding of the relationship between human intelligence and human achievement. It continued for decades and became world famous for its discovery that intelligence was the lesser of several factors that determined achievement.

Discipline and self-confidence were found to be more important than intelligence for achieving things. By far the most important factor, however, was a tendency to set goals.

I like that phraseology because a tendency is a habit. If your habitual reaction to a circumstance is to set a goal, then you can be sure you have mastered the three steps. Your mentality is so under control that your thoughts are about what you are for, and your habitual reaction is to launch an Intention to get it. As stated previously, an Intention is a goal with all doubt about its attainment removed. Intentions have three key properties.

        
Because the power of getting to a state of knowing is in the detailed understanding of the Intention, one of
the tricks is to imagine yourself transported into the future, immediately after experiencing what you desire. That causes your mind to try to recollect what took place; that in turn increases the detail and familiarity with the desire . . . because you already achieved it. You experience in your imagination what it felt like to have that desire. Your mind automatically starts to fill in the detail of what it took to get there.

        
Words have immense power, so keep them positive and with hyperbole. For instance, if being slim is an Intention,
I lose weight
would be the wrong way to word it because the word
weight
creates a negative thought and
losing
is an
against
emotion. More of it comes back to you. The more powerful use of words would be
I am fit, slim, and healthy. People have complimented me on my great figure
. Keep in mind the need for the Intention to be
for
something you want, and not
against
something you don’t want.

        
Intentions cannot be used to interfere with other lives. They can only be for
you
. You can have responsibility and accountability only for your life experiences. The body, mind, and soul connection is too complicated for anyone currently living to comprehend, and we cannot assume that we know what is best for someone else. We don’t know their purpose in this life, where they came from, or where they have to go to fulfill it.

        
Many years ago, I learned about a married couple who were excellent physicians and set a goal of getting their son through the best medical school. It consumed
all their energy, but the son never wanted to be a doctor, and hadn’t the courage to tell his parents. He became an excellent doctor but deep down was unhappy. He died of cancer in his thirties. Many years later, the son spoke through one of this country’s most gifted mediums who did not know any of the family or their history. He explained that the internal conflict of having to do something that his parents intended, when he did not want it for himself, set up a physiological energy conflict that caused his illness.

        
Intentions are as powerful as a magic wand and we have to exercise caution in how we use them. They are in the first person such as
I have, I am, I won, I got
.

You selected a favorite, private place for the essential moment you made a commitment to change. A similar reverence is important when you set your Intentions.

I schedule one half-day, always in January, for setting my annual Intentions. I look forward to it all through the holiday season, because when one has these three simple steps down cold, every day can be like Christmas, and you are basically writing your own Christmas list for the coming year. I think of my pen like a magic wand.

I prioritize this yearly start-off meeting and monthly review meetings so that I am never tempted to skip the ritual. I take a pad and pen, but the most important provision I bring to the place is my imagination.

The process for setting Intentions is simple. It is the opposite of goal setting. In that technique you decide what you want, and then think about how to get it. With Intentions, doubt is removed.
You already have the result, and the process is about getting ready to receive the benefit, so the trick is to imagine you already received what it is you want. Imagination becomes the key element.

There is nothing I find more delightful than lying back to imagine what it feels like to achieve some dream. Daydreaming is my favorite personal pastime. When we were young, daydreaming was the most natural thing in our lives. Later, people told us it was a waste of time and that we needed to be more practical. Now, we need to go back to being a kid again. It is one of the secrets to success.

When I was poor, I imagined what it was like to have traveled abroad. When I was in debt through no fault of my own, I daydreamed about what it felt like to be a financially independent person who was free to choose what work I wanted to do. I imagined what it was like to have eaten in Michelin-starred restaurants in France and to stay in five-star hotels in Tuscany. I imagined the sounds of the ocean from my bedroom window and the new-car scent and roaring engine sound of my super car.

To speed up the time between imagining and experiencing, think about something as already achieved. That way you can walk yourself through the experience with the same detail as a regression under hypnosis. Because there is no difference between thought and matter, you can think in reverse, and analyze what steps and decisions got you that success.

Exaggeration in imagination also works wonders. Years ago, when my only means of transportation was a bicycle, I had to ride the seven miles to and from my place of work. Being the northwest of England, it was invariably raining.

While I was cycling, however, my mind was in a different place. I imagined I was piloting my motorboat across a sunny bay. The smells of the ocean and the feel of wind in my face as I looked out from the open bridge to my private island intoxicated my senses. My heart beat faster and, at the very least, it made the soaking commute more enjoyable.

Years later, I got to live the experience for real, and as I powered my boat across the bay in Sarasota, Florida, I had a sense of déjà vu because I had imagined it in such fine detail so many times.

In your special place, start by clearing away the energy cobwebs using the same technique we used for taking quiet time. Do the breathing and relaxation steps.

Start by taking yourself back to your happiest memory, one from any time period, but the one that stokes all your senses. We recall great detail about the things we remember most fondly. Relive it in your memory in as much detail as possible. Let it cover you in emotion and satisfaction. Use all your senses to bring back the smells, tastes, and joyful feelings of the event. This is just a practice exercise to fire up the correct neural pathway. A happy memory is usually something we would want to repeat again given the chance. So, the neural pathway that is energized by the recall is the one that can open us up to receive other things we want. Now, as the memory fades, let it slip away. Take a few deep breaths, and then ask yourself this question:
If money were no object, if absolutely nothing in the universe could prevent my success, and all I have to do is point my right index finger to the sky one time to receive my Intention instantly, what is it I really want?

Lie back and let your mind wander and wonder. Do not attempt to work out how something could happen. Just imagine it has and enjoy some time immersed in that dream. What is it you would have if there were no impediments? Let your imagination soar because you are now in the act of creation as your neural pathway is correctly aligned. I want to suggest things you could be dreaming about, but I have no right to place my limitations on you. No one can restrain your dream. It is taking all my willpower to leave the keyboard alone, and let your own dream unfurl without guidance.

You may find the reality of your current situation tries to intrude. Do not get irritable. Smile and thank your ego for the reminder. Let the thoughts float away, and return to an even bigger dream.

Coming out of these dreams can be like waking from restful sleep. Often, reality hits quickly, and doubts are immediate. Don’t worry about that because you don’t need to believe at all. Energy does not need you to believe in its existence. At least now you have your dream and the universe is privy to it. Once you know what it is you would have if anything were possible, write it down. Here’s an example: