Three Simple Steps: A Map to Success in Business and Life (26 page)

Perhaps the most intimidating thing we started doing regularly was to make appointments with realtors to view multi-million dollar homes at a time when we could barely make the monthly rent on our little cottage. Again, it was important to touch everything, to sit in the media room, to test the temperature of the swimming pool, and take in the views.

Think of it as window-shopping. The objective is to live like a millionaire as often as you can but without the expense. This is a critical part of making Intentions into reality, and it is a lot of fun when you treat it as a game.

My wife was far better than I at this practice. She is used to window-shopping. I struggled at first to overcome my frustration at seeing something I wanted but knowing I could not yet afford it. When I realized I was just window-shopping for the future, I also started to relax and enjoy it. I continue to do it, except whereas I was once viewing expensive houses and cars, now I am looking at private islands and jets. What a blast!

Successful wizards have certain characteristics, which I detail below.

Discipline:
to train oneself to do something in a controlled and habitual way

In more than twenty years in business practice, I have met very few people who understand the importance of discipline. Most confuse it with determination, which is the fixing of a purpose. Determination requires discipline, not the other way around. I have always been determined in that I intend things to happen, but I think it is my sense of discipline that has kept me on the right path.

Changing any behavior requires doing something different long enough for it to become a habit. Most people who start a new behavior fall back to what they have always done the moment a challenging or stressful situation appears. That is not a criticism, and I am no different from anyone else. It is a fact of life. I don’t think we are born disciplined, but I know it is a characteristic that can be learned.

Our modern world provides lots of tools and devices that can help us be disciplined so that we stick with something until it becomes natural. The three simple steps require daily adherence. That sounds straightforward, but the challenge for us is that the methods are not hard at all. They take but a short time. They don’t mentally confuse us, and we don’t have to fight any battles. Consequently, our natural tendency is to postpone or skip them whenever something more challenging intrudes in our daily lives. The characteristic of discipline can help you avoid slipping up.

Skip them once, and the tendency to skip more often grows. Eventually, we forget them and go back to our old ways. Soon, we find ourselves back in the quicksand. Then we blame the techniques for our failure.

The way to become disciplined is to schedule everything like a formal business appointment . . . but with yourself. Set a time each day to take quiet time and try to make it the same time every day. Book your time in nature.

The way I have done this in my life is to imagine I am two people: the conscious person everyone interacts with and the subconscious person that only I know. When I make schedules, I imagine I am meeting with the hidden part of myself. That way I keep my personal growth formal and reverent and so avoid the temptation to lessen its priority.

For instance, taking a long walk in the country is such a simple thing that you would normally feel silly for scheduling it on your calendar. If you don’t, however, that time may get allocated to some other task, most likely one that will not impact your ability to create success. You could put off the walk for another day, then another week, and then forget all about it. I schedule it with my subconscious self just like a business meeting.

Everything covered in the program needs to be a priority. From now on, the rest of your life must work around the three simple steps. So into your life add the tools of discipline such as whiteboards, calendars, and notepaper. You’ll need to use them daily. Plus, you never know when those great ideas will pop into your head. I always have a scrap of paper and small pencil tucked away in a pocket.

Most of you are probably familiar with the common warning given by airline attendants shortly before takeoff: “In the unlikely
event of the cabin losing pressure, an oxygen mask will be released from the compartment above your head. Pull the oxygen mask to release the flow of oxygen, and place your own oxygen mask on your face
before
assisting others!”

Self-interest is placing one’s own needs or desires above the needs or desires of others. It is in some ways alien to the way we humans have learned to behave. It certainly contradicts the selflessness recommended by many a self-help guru. I remind you though that most self-help gurus had not tasted success before writing about what it took to succeed.

As we have discussed, you can only control your own destiny, and this trip is a solo journey. Intentions can only be for you. You are in charge of your mentality control. You have to put taking quiet time above the needs of those around you. Whether they like it or not at the beginning, they will come to love you for it when the rewards show up.

Whenever two people interact, a connection occurs, and energy is transferred, flowing from the higher vibration to the lower. Whenever you encounter someone stuck in quicksand, energy can get sucked out of you quickly. We can all think of someone who leaves us mentally drained after we spend time in their company. I think of these people as energy vampires whose subconscious knows its host is in desperate need of an energy boost. Survival instincts kick in, and it sucks it from you. The person does not mean to steal from you. Nature obeys its laws.

Protection of energy drain starts with accepting responsibility for the current situation in your life. Blame sets up connections to those things, and anything you are against drains your energy. Being in debt is not the fault of the people who loaned you money. Being in a lousy job is not your company’s fault. You chose to work there. Being overweight is not McDonald’s fault for super-sizing. You chose to eat too many calories and not exercise enough. Simply accept it, start thinking only of those
things you are for, and you’ll switch off the energy drain.

Self-interest also requires an understanding that you cannot improve someone else’s situation without them requesting your influence. It seems counterintuitive to the way we have been brought up, but we struggle to understand the needs of our own soul, so what right do we have to assume we understand what is best for someone else?

This raises the issue of the differences between Intentions and prayer. An internationally recognized spokesperson on the science of spirituality, Lynne McTaggart takes the ideas popularized in
What the Bleep Do We Know?
to explain that thought generates its own palpable energy, one that you can use to improve your own life.

In her book,
The Intention Experiment
, she summarizes the hundreds of prayer studies that show no positive correlation. In some cases, even a negative influence on the recipient of prayer was demonstrated. In a few studies, those prayed for had more post-operative complications than those not prayed for.

Formally studying the effect of prayer is fraught with complications in the first place, but she also shows that remote healing has been well studied with a 75 percent positive correlation.

One of the reasons for the difference in the results for prayer and remote healing may come down to the exchange of information between the person performing the prayer or healing and the recipient of the effort. When we pray, it is often in a somewhat vague way. Usually, we have scant knowledge of the person or situation being prayed for.

As a child I used to pray for my mother to get well, but because my family environment was one of denial, and open discussion about her illness forbidden, I had only a vague notion about her condition. I wasn’t allowed to discuss it with her to gain greater understanding of what it felt like to have cancer. I was never able to imagine the cancer cells growing or the treatments destroying
those cells. The detailed knowledge was missing which possibly made the ability to pray for her healing less effective.

Remote healing follows the rules of Intention setting. With Intentions, there is a high degree of detail. Using our imaginations and visualizations, we develop an intimate knowledge of that which we desire. In remote healing, there is usually considerable information exchanged between the parties with both having a detailed understanding of the desired outcome. These days, when I pray, I try to have detailed knowledge of what I am praying about.

A second reason for the poor results in the prayer studies may be that the person being prayed for often did not ask for help and was not aware that they were being prayed for. The opposite is true with remote healing. In that situation, the person wanting to be healed has usually asked for help and sought out a specific healer.

Keep your head when all about are losing theirs and blaming it on you
.

Wizards are calm in a crisis, because they know the law of attraction means nothing will ever be sent their way that is beyond their ability to handle.

When I was a young, junior-level manager, I was intimidated in the presence of executive management. In the military, those at the top are usually there on merit. They are very good at what they do. In business, I wrongly assumed that was the case as well, and behaved with them the same way I would have if I were in the presence of an admiral.

Using the three simple steps, I found myself on a fast track up the corporate food chain. To my surprise, I soon discovered that many in leadership roles were not there because of any particular talent but more because they were golfing buddies with
someone higher. I also discovered that many senior executives had not received any more training than the people they managed. Most people seemed to be making things up as they went along. One time, when I worked for a top biotechnology company, the vice president of marketing confessed to me how much he lived in fear of being found out. He had previously been an accountant and received no marketing training whatsoever. I was shocked because I thought of him as one of the best marketers I ever worked with and still do.

I often found myself in unfamiliar places and roles, faced with complicated data for which I had no training or experience. I realized that once the curtain is pulled back, most jobs have the same principles at their core. Each position requires a similar set of skills.

As a district sales manager, I worked with a handful of salespeople. As a regional sales manager, I managed a few district sales managers. As national sales director, seven regional managers reported in to me. As vice president, my team consisted of six directors. As CEO, I had an executive team of seven. The people changed, but my responsibility for handling a group of people remained the same. I didn’t learn some insider secret along the way that magically transformed me into a CEO. I just did the same thing over and over but with a bigger budget and a fancier title. This allowed me to remain unflappable in any situation.

The majority of people want to be told what to do. If you have ever observed an accident, you probably noticed that most people stand around paralyzed by fear. One person, often the youngest or most inexperienced in the crowd, usually steps forward and gives orders to the rest, who are glad to be given something to do.

Thinking as an individual using the three simple steps, you need neither instruction nor praise. Others, however, believe they need both. When you find yourself catapulted up the corporate ladder, remember to tell people precisely what you need
of them. When they do it well, praise them for it. You will always be respected and considered fair-minded.

The three simple steps can change your life so quickly and so dramatically that it is easy to feel overwhelmed. Keep in mind that life will not place you in a situation that can cause you harm and that there is a reason for everything that’s happening to you. It is impossible to connect the dots when projecting into the future, but it is a blast when you connect them behind you as I have been doing in some of the stories in this book. Keep a calm head and all will be revealed.

Guilt
is an affective state in which we experience conflict at having done something that we believe we should not have done or, conversely, having not done something we believe we should have done. It gives rise to a feeling that does not go away easily. It is like an elastic band that stretches tighter the farther you move from the quicksand. It feels like a nagging in the mind of “I want to, but I can’t” or “I have to, but I don’t want to.”

Once you leave the madding crowd in the quicksand and begin this trip, you have to keep on walking. Do not even look over your shoulder. If someone behind you calls out, you might turn just as guilt is thrown your way. The moment you put out your hands to catch it, you’ll find it attached to an elastic band. That elastic band will snap you back so fast that it will be a long time before you gain the strength to have another go at leaving. I made this mistake of catching guilt thrown by those around me so many times early on that I thought of changing my name to Bungee Boy.

Courage and discipline are required for us to step out of our comfort zone. What we do not often consider is that we also step outside the comfort zones of all the people around us. Our bravery forces them to review their own situation, which can
make them feel insecure. Because they all tend toward security, they react in a way that can make you feel guilty. The people we most expect to support our decision tend to be the strongest throwers of guilt. This is usually a surprise when people first leave the quicksand and one of the main reasons people return to their old bad habits quickly.