I recently gave this presentation to an audience of business owners, called the Success Strategy. Everyone is alsways looking for the formula for success, the secret or the magic potion. Well in this post, I’m going to share with you the strategy that could change your business and life. However a word of warning, for this strategy to be successful, YOU will need to look inward at yourself, and challenge what you believe to be what works for you.
Everyone is always BUSY – but does that mean successful?
I want to show you why being busy is not the path to success, and that there is another way.
This is the internal success strategy that got me to where I am today.
But let me tell you just how much and how long I struggled, success seemed so elusive to me. It was like I was on the outside, looking in. It was like everyone that had it, and had made it, were somewhere that I couldn’t get to,
It was like they had climbed a wall or over a fence that I just couldn’t seem to get on the inside of. And it really did elude me for so long. And that was really hard because I thought I was really smart. And I thought I was working harder than anybody. And it was when I realized that it’s not just intelligence and work ethic that will attribute to your success. And that was a difficult lesson to accept at the time.
The Old Way
Now our ego has us thinking that the only thing missing is a lack of actions. That if you just do more actions, different actions, and add on more work, you’ll be successful.
Your ego is hiding something from you, hiding you from looking within, looking towards yourself, looking in the mirror, and realising that is the last place we look. The blind spots, prevent us from getting to where we want to be.
As long as we look at what to do, we can look externally – that is, tell me what to do – I need to do something different – get me to work. The comfort zone!
And then we use busyness as a distraction from introspection and awareness. And that’s how most people end up living. This is what I call default living or conditional living.
You may have heard this before – this is what we call living from have, do, be.
And this is exactly what I was doing. I had decided that once I have something, then I can do what I need to do. So I can finally be what I want to be.
Time and the Success Strategy
So what am I talking about – once I have the time, right?
Once you have enough time or once the time opens up, or once you have a certain amount of money, or once you have that certification or permission or results or following, or website or branding or photo shoot, then I can do the things that I need to do.
So I can finally be successful, be ready or be enough, be that expert. Okay. This is what we call default.
It’s the default because it’s like autopilot. Like your life is on autopilot and you didn’t even know that you switched it on. Autopilot because you’re on autopilot, right?
And this does not work. Why, why does this not work?
The answer is simple. We are living by the external variables and factors in our life. And we have decided that we will change when those things change.
When there’s more time, when there’s more permission, more results, more availability. When my kids are older, when we move into the new house, when all these things outside of me, change, I will change.
What we have done is we’ve given our power away to things that we have little power over. And when you do that very little changes, You become the effect of life, not the cause.
This is why I call it conditional living, because you have conditioned your life on the external factors and variables that you have little to no control over.
This is a wonderful strategy for staying safe because it practically guarantees that nothing will change. And part of safety is understanding familiarity. Something can be safe, even though it’s unwanted,
It can be safe because it’s familiar.
Default Programming
Spend the time to identify and write down at least one default program that you have been operating from, especially in your business. That is, this conditional way of being, like one continual thought belief, script, or program that you have been operating from that you’ve been saying “once I have…”
So what is it that you’ve been telling yourself needs to change before you change, before you take action?
Once the kids are older or once they go back to school, or once I take this program, once I get this, Or once I finish this other thing, once I do this, then I can do that.
We have to become more aware – once I have this, then I will do that, so I can finally be this, write that complete sentence down.
Then I want you to write down what future will this create for you, so this could be like once I have the time, then I can launch my course and I’ll finally be successful.
What is the most certain default future?
The most predictable future running from that strategy. From that story or programming. What is it costing you?
Ok, now that you are thinking about that, I want to share a story.
The Origins of the Success Strategy
I remember reading this story. It was an interview with Tom Watson. If you don’t know Tom Watson, he was the CEO of IBM back in the heyday. He took IBM from a couple million to like a gazillion dollars. Right? And some reporter asked him when he retired, what’s your secret to success?
Like there’s just some magic secret, right?
Well, there was, and Tom actually gave an answer.
He said, step number one. The secret to success is I realized before we did anything, we had to get clear now on what the done business we are building looks like.
Step one. What does the done business look like?
How do we know when it’s done? Most people out there today, they’re just building a business.
You don’t talk to an architect and say, what are you doing? Oh, I’m just building. No, they say I am creating a home. And here’s my finished plan. I’m not just building and staying busy. There not just wanting to keep hammering nails and building walls and stuff.
So step one, a done picture of the business. Like, what does that mean to have a done business, our revenue, team size, what your vision is, what you do, offers, price points, etc
Formula Steps That Make All The Difference
OK, then he said, step number two.
Once I got clear on what that done business looks like, I have to get clear on how that done business acts,
How they act as a company, how we act as a team, what we do, and how we show up in the world. And he started getting really clear on that.
Now, this sounds pretty simple, pretty basic. You’re probably still following me, but it was step three that blew my mind and changed everything for me.
He said, then I realized that if I ever wanted to have that done business if we ever wanted to achieve those results, we didn’t just need to have a clear picture of the done business. We didn’t just need to know how that done business would act. He said, if there was any chance in hell that this was ever going to happen, I realised one thing…
We would need to act that way.
When he changed that, that changed everything.
You see at the beginning, I told you that my experience of this elusive success was that everyone else had it on the other side of the fence and that I needed to have, do, be something else before I could be on the inside.
Once you realise that there is no fence, everything changes.
So if HAVE DO BE is the old broken default ineffective way that most people approach business success or any endeavor in life, let’s talk about the new way
The Success Strategy Formula
BE, DO, HAVE
Stephen Covey said in seven habits of highly effective people, that we need to begin with the end in mind.
First, we write down a specific result, any specific result in your business that you want to obtain. You need to be able to measure it. It’s something you want that you don’t have.
Second, you write down what do I believe this will give me?
What does a million-dollar-a-year business give you? What does having more money give you?
And eventually, if you keep asking, you won’t land on an internal state, you will land on some sort of value or some internal feeling or experience that is important to you.
It’ll give me a sense of freedom. Like It’ll give you a sense of happiness or accomplishment.
The third question to ask is What is required to get the result,
What is required to make this happen? And it’s obvious, right? Action.
It’s about the right actions, the right way. It’s not about the most action with the most intensity. It’s not about being busy. The right actions.
People tend to separate being, and acting, into results. The being in the doing.
But what neuroscience has shown is that the neural patterns related to our way of being and our actions are actually networked together.
They are correlated. They are consistent with each other, your way of being isn’t the source of your actions like most people think, but rather they are in a dance together.
Conclusion
The results that you’re getting currently in your business or life are the natural expression and manifestation of who you are in the world.
You are in the driver’s seat and you are at cause in your life. And the results that you’re getting are the natural by-product of this.
And it’s either the default way, or it’s a conscious, caused way.
Therefore, the goal is not really the goal at all.
The goal is for the result that you want – to become the natural byproduct of who you are and do, because you are now.
And that is BE DO HAVE! The Tom Watson way to success.
If you are ready to apply the success strategy to your wealth goals, claim your no-cost smart investor call with me where we will identify what’s holding you back and outline a strategy to move your toward your wealth goals. Click here to schedule a time now!