I mentioned in a previous post that if you were to look at the photos and videos that come from your company’s annual winner’s trip, whatever it’s called, you would quickly realize that the secret to winning is not looks or talent or degree’s or pedigrees (privileged background).

Here in chapter 3 Art reveals the secret to winning. The secret is desire, the will to win, or you may just call it basic “want to”.  You can have all four of those traits mentioned above, but if you don’t have desire, you will still fail.

Think and Grow RichI have always been an avid reader, especially of books that feed my mind. I have used reading as one way to always be a “student of the business”, in every industry where I’ve worked. Years ago I read a short book written by Napoleon Hill, called Think and Grow Rich, and in that book Hill studied successful people, looking for the common denominators they shared. In the book he lists a simple six-step plan that I will list for you here:

1. You must have a specific goal

2. You must have a specific time in which to achieve your goal

3. You must write down your goal

4. You must develop a plan to achieve your goal

5. You must decide the price you are willing to pay

6. You must think about reaching your goal every day

Regardless whether you are in sales or perform another function within your company, these six steps can’t be overlooked. I know they work, and they will work for you. Your success won’t happen overnight, but if you want it bad enough, you can become somebody special.

Let’s look at desire in order to understand why it’s such a powerful force.

Desire gains strength when it has a concrete form

That’s why I always ask salespeople to set a sales goal at the beginning of each month, because it forces them to construct a game plan for achievement. When you apply your company’s activity system of appointments, proposals and closes to that goal, you have a solid game plan. This way you can’t cheat, which makes a big psychological difference.

Desire becomes obsession

Writing it down, reading it over and thinking about it constantly insures that your goal becomes a part of your daily life. This is the exact process young athletes follow in order to become Olympic gold medalists.

Desire becomes a commitment

At this stage you go beyond thinking and dreaming and you devote your time and energy to achieving the goal. But Art says that everyone that’s done this typically has gone through three stages before reaching the final commitment level necessary to see it through to the end.

The first one is The Lying Stage. This is where deep down you really don’t think you can do it so you walk around lying to everybody you talk to. You tell everybody how you are going to really do something great but when you look yourself in the mirror at night before you turn off the light you say to yourself, “Who are you kidding”. You really want to make it bad, but you don’t believe you will.

That one is followed by The Quitting Stage. After fighting through the lying stage and working like crazy for months, you hit the wall and go into a sales slump where everything you touch goes south. You finally tell yourself that you’re not cut out for this and you begin to look for a “good job”, until you realize there aren’t any “good jobs” out there. You suck it up and re-double your efforts only to hit another wall a few months down the road. After repeating this vicious cycle several times you make the final commitment to do whatever it takes for however long it takes to achieve your goal.

That third phase is The “DO IT” Stage. This is where you turn the final corner and begin your real road to success. Talk to anybody who has been there and they will tell you these three stages are as real as death and taxes, and are quite normal.

Desire then becomes endurance, which is that extra ingredient that insures victory, considering that succeeding in business is a marathon and not a sprint.

Whether at your current company or elsewhere, you might as well plan on everything possible happening negatively. I can name countless salespeople who have been “shooting stars”, doing really well for two or four or six months, only to get washed out of the business after a sales slump rocked their confidence. Because they had no endurance, they never made it a full lap around the track.

EnduranceOne of the best examples of endurance I can think of is the most successful international golfer of all time, South African, Gary Player, the only golfer to win the British Open in three different decades and the oldest player to make the cut at The Masters (1998 at age 63).

One day at a tournament a man came up to him and said he would give anything if he could hit a ball like Player. Usually a very polite person, Player looks the man in the eye and said, “No, you wouldn’t. You’d give anything to hit a golf ball like me if it was easy. Do you know what you’ve got to do to be able to a golf ball like me? You’ve got to get up at five o’clock in the morning, go out on the course, and hit one thousand golf balls. Your hand starts bleeding, so you walk up to the clubhouse, wash the blood off your hand, slap a bandage on it, and go out and hit another thousand golf balls. That’s what it takes to hit a golf ball like me.”

So if you are really looking for the secret to winning, it’s not a secret at all; it’s right here in front of you. It simply boils down to, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

Will you Speak Your Mind and comment below about Art’s “3 stages”? Has there ever been a time in your life when you have gone through these stages and endured to come out the other end?

 

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