A power greater than positive thinking

The feel-good power of positive thinking has been a profitable force in sales' coaching. However, the allure of programming the mind to rid itself of negatives leads gullible salespeople into the frustration of constantly being at odds with reality. Through the years it's created the irritating robots most consumers now ridicule and avoid. Show me a programmed mind and I will show you stunted growth and the lack of capacity to fully understand the true nature of sales and success in business. 

The problem is that the purveyors of this advice are not stunted and they have the capacity to be successful. The honest "teachers" merely don't know how to teach. They mean well when they try to convey their success to others, but they haven't reached a level of wisdom about their own growth and success necessary to be good teachers -- so they simplify the path to success by creating quick routes to positive thinking, or lists of actions, or logical, but not fully-examined commandments or mottos.

The dishonest "teachers" don't deserve much mention -- they are charlatans preying on the eagerness of people to find quick success. The charlatans tell you that it only takes minutes, one conference, a book, a cd, an infomercial and you too can be successful and rich like the big boys and girls.

The fact is that there are very few teachers who can convey what it takes to be successful. And the few true teachers know that there are limits and that no amount of knowledge will create success in sales for many people. Being a successful salesperson (in our case, a successful real estate agent who not only "sells' but provides service) takes more than a formula, a discipline, a list, etc.

It's not the fault of the well-meaning successful agent who fails to convey to others the formula for success-- just because someone has been successful in business doesn't mean that person understands all it took and is now able to teach others. Just as great success is rare, so are great teachers rare. The great teacher has reached another level where they have meditated on the subject long enough to truly understand and communicate this understanding.

Successful agents usually have natural talents and over a  period of time acquire skills and knowledge that empower their natural talents to achieve success. They are usually people who have a great capacity for understanding the psychology of consumers and are great communicators of value. They establish trust and get things done. I will not address those who happen to be in the right place at the right time and achieve success through serendipity -- that's an anomaly that's not helpful here. The successful agents who can be successful at any time and place have learned something different than the average, struggling agent. I will also concede that some people without natural talents can develop skills and knowledge which enable them to overcome a lack of talent to achieve success -- but it's not accomplished through merely willing and thinking it so.

Regardless of how empowering the idea seems that we can alter reality through our minds, it's not so, and the immature insistence on this idea leads to frustration, delusion and failure. The successful agent takes reality and adjusts to it, he doesn't take reality and manipulate it to his desires. Success requires a very clear acceptance of reality, the so-called "negative" and the so-called "positive" -- actually, it's neither negative nor positive, it's simply what is.

We adjust to reality and deal with it successfully through reason. The idea that perception is reality is flawed. Perception tested and guided by reason is how we find what's real and successfully adjust to it to accomplish our goals. If the market is down, then it does no good to program your mind to think of it as up, the market is down. By accepting the market is down, you have a starting point, a true reference point to begin discovering how you can succeed even in a down market. To obstinatelty forge forward with positive-thinking mantras as if the mantra is going to change reality is delusional and self-defeating. A changing market will require a different strategy, but an agent will not find that strategy if the mindset is stuck in a fictional market created by unchanging, old ideas created in a much different market.

A successful agent who has found a way to be successful for many years through many markets might have held true to certain disciplines, but no doubt they ajusted when adjustment was called for, and this is what is difficult to teach. It's easy to be successful (to varying degrees) when an industry doesn't have a major change for a long period of time -- you can apply a formula and it will work as long as the market is not shifting in a major way. But when an industry goes through a major change and the market is uncertain, the successful agents adjust -- they adjust or they meet a threat to their success. Here we separate the men from the boys, the women from the girls.

So you want to teach someone how to be successful? Then show them how to adjust. We will shortly see how many truly successful agents there are. We have a test. We have a changing industry and a down market -- will you try to fit the square into the circle? Will you insist the old way has proven successful, therefore ignore the changes and stubbornly forge ahead chanting positive mantras, or will you study reality through reason and adjust? Or better yet, will you innovate and creatively lead the way to success? Rather than repeat what has been successful in the past, it would pay to look for ways to be successful in the present and the future. This requires more than positive thinking, it requires creativity, open-minedness and wisdom. How do you teach this?

There's an aspect ( I call it an aspect, but it actually suffuses everything we do if we are connected to it) of success that's mostly overlooked and hardly ever discussed -- the spiritual aspect. Don't get me wrong, I'm not religious in the denominational sense, and I'm not a mystic -- I mean spiritual defined like this. This is the direction I want to take here for a few days starting tomorrow. I'm not qualified to teach, but I will share what it means to me, and what success and change mean to me.

Comments

[Louis Cammarosano]

Its surprising that sometimes the best teachers are not necessarily the best at what the subject they are teaching.
Charlie lau was considered one of the best baseball hitting instructors. I would bet most any player would rather receive instruction from him than Barry Bonds.
To your point barry was a great hitter but probably did not observe his own mechanics for hitting success the way charlie lau did, thus making barry probably not a good candidate to be a batting instructor.

[Mike Farmer]

That's a good analogy. Understanding the nuances and being able to communicate the nuances take different skills, perspective and a different mindset than doers necessarily possess.

I was good at playing pool, but I doubt i can teach that to anyone -- I just played it well from the beginning. But someone who understands the physics and nuances and has studied the mechanics long enough to be able to communicate it clearly would probably be a good teacher -- someone who understands the fullness and zen of pool, so to speak. Also, someone who understands the fullness would most likely be able to suggest creative changes, because they are not stuck in a way that has been done over and over, like in the case of a lot of doers who play mainly by talent and what has worked fairly well in the past.

Every once in a while a Tiger Woods comes along (sticking with sports) who is both a doer and a zen master and who can completely change his approach to go to another level no one has imagined.