Two advisors start their careers with comparable financial and social advantages and connections, and identical training and education. One becomes highly successful. The other doesn’t. How do we account for this?
If we examined their situations more closely, we would see that the highly successful advisor constantly takes intensely focused action to get where he wants to go, while his less successful counterpart usually makes excuses for why he can’t get there. Since the knowledge they each possess is evenly matched (as are their other personal assets), the maxim “Knowledge is Power” proves to be inaccurate. Knowledge, by itself, is NOT Power. Applied knowledge is power.
What, then, causes one of these advisors to apply his knowledge in action and the other to use that knowledge at a much lower level of intensity?
If we could look inside the minds of these two people, the critical differences we would find would fall into one or more of these three areas:
1) How they are occurring to themselves,
2) How other people are occurring to them, and
3) How the world in general is occurring to them.
The more successful of the two is where he is because he occurs to himself as an Action Hero—someone who deserves success, and someone who is achieving the success he deserves. His world occurs to him as a place where he can thrive.
The less successful of the two is where he is because he occurs to himself as someone who has to struggle to be successful—someone for whom success is elusive and who needs to try hard for every rare gain. Other people might occur to him as having important opinions that help keep him from the success he wants, or as prospects who need to be ‘sold’, and his world occurs to him as a difficult place to navigate.
In each case, the outward manifestation—whether or not he’s successful—is perfectly matched to how the advisor views himself, others, and his world.
Advisors reveal their “inner stance” to a coach through the language they use. When I coach attorneys, financial advisors, and other professionals and business owners, I listen closely to how they speak about themselves; their business, their friends and family, their clients and prospects, and their general lot in life. The way they describe their situations tends to provide a good look at how their world is occurring to them.
The successful professional doesn’t stop until he has what he wants. He talks about his world in a positive way. The less successful advisor talks about the things that keep him from getting what he wants and the people and conditions in the world that are holding him back.
Most people in the position of the less successful advisor throw themselves into learning even more, believing that they DON’T already know enough.
“If I had a better handle on (whatever is holding him back), I’d have a better outcome, and income!” they think. “If I had better training in my sales skills, I’d have more clients.”
But all the training and knowledge in the world cannot change his results until his foundation—his inner stance—changes. As his “self-talk” reveals, his real issue is the barrier to action that his worldview creates.
If you’re not where you want to be in your business or career, it probably isn’t because you don’t know enough. Rather, your “inner stance” is likely to be holding you back. Listen closely to what you’re saying about yourself and your world, and start shifting away from the negatives. We tend to believe what we tell ourselves. Tell yourself a different story about your world, and you’ll get different results.
Better still, talk with a coach who can help you change your stance. If you’re ready to charge through your barriers and put the knowledge you already have into action, contact me now for a brief conversation with no strings attached.
In the meantime, keep REACHING…
