Success Speaks

Many a renowned authors have written on the subject of positive thinking, and the power that someone with a positive mental attitude can have in shaping their own future. Some have even tied these powerful ideas to wealth such as Andrew Carnegie and his book Think and Grow Rich, which I, myself, have found to be true. You vastly increase your chances of success by thinking positively. I’ve never heard of anyone who made his or her fortune by walking around thinking “well I guess I’m not good enough” or something along those lines. However, I’ve met so many people that think little very little of themselves, and don’t even know how to begin to change their thinking.

The secret is what you say not what you think. I know that this statement goes against the grain, but I’ve found it to be true in my own life. Several years ago, I started representing a new service in the marketplace for a NYSE company (I won’t mention any names) that had a fantastic service that was offered. I started out like a wildfire and within just a few days I had reached stardom within the company and it was great. About a year into it, I started to work with this young lady who couldn’t seem to help herself; saying the most negative and defeating things I’d ever heard in my life. Eventually, I found myself repeating the very same defeatisms she’d committed to memory. It began to take its toll on me, which resulted in my sales dropping and my shining stardom fading away, and I couldn’t understand why. It’d gotten so bad that I’d stopped functioning properly, and when I finally got the opportunity to present my service to a group (of only thirty people) fear completely enveloped me, and my mouth went so dry that my lips literally stuck to my teeth.

At first, I allowed myself to say negative things about others, and then after some disappointments, the tables turned and I began to say those things about myself. Before long, I had talked myself into being a failure. Did it happen overnight? No, it snuck its way into my life; little by little. I’m sure you’re wondering what I did to get out of that hole that I dug for myself. I started to talk myself back into being successful; I printed lists of positive things to say about myself. For example, things like ‘I’m a successful salesperson; I’m talented; I’m great at helping people. I created as many affirmations about myself as I could. Most of which, I came up with by writing down the exact opposite of what I felt about myself at the time.

This is called the perception of truth; whatever you believe to be true is true. Let me give you an example: You’re forced to work overtime at the office. You get home and give your spouse a hug or kiss; she smells the faint smell of perfume or cologne on your shirt each time you come home. You explain it with the traditional “I don’t know what you’re talking about”, which does nothing but raise the suspicion that you’re cheating. And to top it off, you were at the office alone, so no one can corroborate your story. Whether you did or didn’t cheat is irrelevant. If they believe that you cheated, then to them you did unless and until you can change their perception of that truth.

The same is true about what we believe about ourselves. In order to achieve anything in life, you have to first believe that you can achieve it; in order to believe that you can achieve you have to think its possible; in order to think its possible you have to tell yourself it is. Of course, there are other factors involved and this has its limitation— especially if you’re telling yourself something outrageous like, “I’m going to be the best NFL quarterback in history” when you’re 45 and have never played a professional sport in your life. However, within reason this will work! If you’re a number four salesperson in your company and you want to be number one; then start convincing yourself that you can be number one by telling yourself that you are. Yes, it will take time for you to get to a place where you finally believe you can accomplish what you set out to achieve, but the first person you have to convince is yourself. I dare you to write positive things down about yourself and start saying them to yourself every morning, at lunch and just before you go to bed for the next 30 days and see for yourself the difference that it can make. You have nothing to loose except the negative and that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.