YOU NOW HAVE THE COURAGE TO...DO IT!! (Whatever IT is!)

THIS is your CONFIDENCE POPPY!
What IS CONFIDENCE?
What KIND of CONFIDENCE are you searching for?

 This is one of my favorite stories. 

CONFIDENCE - Author Unknown

The business executive was deep in debt and could see no way out. Creditors were closing in on him. Suppliers were demanding payment. He sat on the park bench head in hands, wondering if anything could save his company from bankruptcy.

Suddenly an old man appeared before him. “I can see that something is troubling you,” he said. After listening to the executive’s woes, the old man said, “I believe I can help you.”

He asked the man his name, wrote out a check and pushed it into his hand saying, “Take this money. Meet me here exactly one year from today, and you can pay me back at that time.”

Then he turned and disappeared as quickly as he had come. The executive looked down and saw in his hand a check for $500,000 signed by John D. Rockefeller, then one of the richest men in the world!

“I can erase my money worries in an instant!” he realized. But instead, the executive decided to put the uncashed check in his safe. Just knowing it was there might give him the strength to work out a way to save his business, he thought.

With renewed optimism, he negotiated better deals and extended terms of payment. He closed several big sales. Within a few months, he was out of debt and making money once again.

Exactly one year later, he returned to the park with the uncashed check. At the agreed upon time, the old man appeared. But just as the executive was about to hand back the check and share his success story, a nurse came running up and grabbed the old man.

“I’m so glad I caught him!” she cried. “I hope he hasn’t been bothering you. He’s always escaping from the rest home and telling people he’s John D. Rockefeller.” And she led the old man away by the arm.

The astonished executive just stood there, stunned. All year long he’d been wheeling and dealing, buying and selling, convinced he had half a million dollars behind him. Suddenly, he realized that it wasn’t the money, real or imagined, that had turned his life around. It was his new-found self-confidence that gave him the power to achieve anything he went after.

Yes you may, thanks for asking. I'd be proud to be featured on your site. 

Confidence, Courage & Coaching

by Jim Cathcart - With permission from Jim - "Yes you may, thanks for asking. I'd be proud to be featured on your site. "

Last week one of my coaching clients showed me his published works and told me about his goals. As a subject expert and consultant he had risen to a high level in his industry so he wanted to kick it up a notch.Despite his ambition I noticed that he was thinking rather small so I recommended that he raise his sights and go for a national prominence instead of just an industry niche. At first this seemed foreign to him and he clearly didn’t believe that he could qualify for that level of distinction…yet. 

That’s when I noticed that he needed the confidence and courage to see himself as a bigger resource. So I shifted my coaching away from imparting information and started helping him to discover how valuable he can be to his clients. I showed him how he had already done, in his limited market area, the same things that he could do on a national scale in multiple industries. It’s not that I just got him to raise his sights, I got him to understand and FEEL that he was already qualified to take on the bigger challenges. 

What keeps us from doing all that we are capable of doing is usually not a lack of skill, instead it is a lack of belief in our ability to be a greater resource to the world. 

We are all capable of making a greater contribution than we currently do. And the world will reward us in direct proportion to the amount of value we give to others. This can be emotional value, monetary value, intellectual value or something else but there are more things we can do for others. 

Some argue, “I’m already giving more value than I’m being paid for!” I disagree. You may think that you are giving value but until the recipient thinks of it as valuable, then it doesn’t carry much weight. It’s not what you and I think of our work that counts in the marketplace, it is what the receivers of our work think of its value. That is what determines its true worth. Think of a Snickers® candy bar. There may be other candies that are “better” but none is more popular. So, in the buyer’s mind, Snickers® has great value. It’s the buyer’s perception that measures the value. 

The world will reward us in direct proportion to the amount of value we give to others.

I once coached a team of salespeople in an insurance agency and during a workshop one of them said to me, “Jim, I must know more about the way this new product works or I can’t sell it.” For a little background, this was a highly educated man with a powerful public reputation and three advanced degrees. I was showing the group how to sell a new package of Estate Planning products and he was resisting until he totally understood the product from a technical standpoint. 

I challenged his statement. I said “Bill, with all due respect, that is just not true. You are one of the most capable salespeople in this agency and you could be selling these products today if you approached it in the right way. You could even sell these products if you knew NOTHING about them.” He was shocked, how could I say such a thing? How unprofessional! To sell a product without understanding it fully just seemed unethical to him. 

So, I proposed an experiment. I asked him to work with me, on faith, for the next week in the following way. “Leave all of your product information in the office this week and call on people with simply a blank note pad. Tell them that you want to assure that they get the best plan they can get and you want to stop the product discussions temporarily while you get a more clear understanding of exactly what they want their estate planning to achieve for them. Then ask them to tell you what they hope this process will do for them. Listen intently and truly empathize with them. Determine what feelings are driving their choices and help them see the outcomes of making better choices about their finances. 

I warned him to resist the impulses to teach or discuss specifics. Don’t sell them and don’t get into a comparison of various products, just listen, really listen like never before. Then come back to the office and speak with the product experts about how you can best help them people achieve exactly what they deeply and truly want. Bill agreed to try this experiment for one week. It wasn’t easy for him because he was a detail guy who loved to educate his customers, but he gave it his best and each day he improved as a listener and guide for his clients. 

At the end of the week he seemed like a man transformed! He glowed with enthusiasm, smiled broadly and wanted to tell everyone else in the office about his experiences. Everyone in the office noticed the change. I asked him how it was going and he burst with enthusiastic descriptions of his experiences. “Just this morning I walked into a client’s office and started to listen and probe. When I did this my client dropped all of his defenses and openly shared with me some of his deepest personal concerns. In doing so I was able to build a level of trust like never before. In fact, he gave me a signed blank check and asked me to just let him know how much I had filled it in for and what he had bought! A blank check! Jim, I’ve never had this kind of bond with my clients. This is great!!!” 

Bill went on to achieve even greater levels of trust with his clients. A few months later he made a sale that netted him a personal first year commission of $300,000.00. It was the largest sale in the entire company (out of 125 agencies). From that day forward he never went back to his old patterns of selling. He became so successful that he got regular requests to speak for other agencies to show them his secret sales techniques. 

You and I often limit ourselves unknowingly through wrong thinking. We limit our performance without realizing how happily successful we might be with just a few minor changes. Let me know if I can help you achieve a breakthrough. You have much more to give and the world needs what you bring to the table. 

Jim Rohn - The things I found to be easy to do, they found to be easy not to do.

People often ask me how I became successful in that six-year period of time while many of the people I knew did not. The answer is simple: The things I found to be easy to do, they found to be easy not to do. I found it easy to set the goals that could change my life. They found it easy not to. I found it easy to read the books that could affect my thinking and my ideas. They found that easy not to. I found it easy to attend the classes and the seminars, and to get around other successful people.

They said it probably really wouldn't matter. If I had to sum it up, I would say what I found to be easy to do, they found to be easy not to do. Six years later, I'm a millionaire and they are all still blaming the economy, the government and company policies, yet they neglected to do the basic, easy things.
In fact, the primary reason most people are not doing as well as they could and should, can be summed up in a single word: neglect.

It is not the lack of money - banks are full of money. It is not the lack of opportunity - America, and much of the free World, continues to offer the most unprecedented and abundant opportunities in the last six thousand years of recorded history. It is not the lack of books – libraries are full of books - and they are free! It is not the schools - the classrooms are full of good teachers. We have plenty of ministers, leaders, counselors and advisors.

Everything we would ever need to become rich and powerful and sophisticated is within our reach. The major reason that so few take advantage of all that we have is simply, neglect.

Neglect is like an infection. Left unchecked it will spread throughout our entire system of disciplines and eventually lead to a complete breakdown of a potentially joy-filled and prosperous human life.

Not doing the things we know we should do causes us to feel guilty and guilt leads to an erosion of self-confidence. As our self-confidence diminishes, so does the level of our activity. And as our activity diminishes, our results inevitably decline. And as our results suffer, our attitude begins to weaken. And as our attitude begins the slow shift from positive to negative, our self-confidence diminishes even more ... and on and on it goes.

So my suggestion is that when giving the choice of "easy to" and "easy not to" that you do not neglect to do the simple, basic, "easy"; but potentially life-changing activities and disciplines.


To Your Success,
Jim Rohn