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The Four Nicest Words

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Jumping Over a Challenge to Achieve Success

When you’re my age and you bring up entertainers who have been doing their thing for decades, you run the risk of dating yourself. But I think it’s safe to say even younger people are familiar with the late comedian George Carlin. He and a Pacifica radio station single-handedly changed Federal Communication Commission policies by letting us know what the seven filthiest words are in the English language.

There is no beating the comic genius of Carlin, but I can take a different track and offer some of the best words we can use to communicate powerfully and effectively, especially when you’re trying to influence someone positively.

These are things that we sort of already know intuitively: when engaging in conversation with friends or strangers alike, you want them to feel like you know where they’re coming from, even if you disagree with them. You want them to feel understood.

Hence, two of the four best words we can use when communicating: I understand.

If you can get into the habit of responding to every communication with the first two words being ‘I understand,’ generally you will disarm 80% of any negative or resistant energy right there and then. Even if you don’t understand, you say, “Can you clarify that for me just a little bit more?” It’s all about listening, yes? Make them feel heard and understood. Once you’re past that stage, work on the convincing part next.

What else have we instinctively learned about what to say? Well, what don’t you want to say after you’ve repeated back what the other person said yet you don’t agree with it? The dreaded ‘but.’ What usually happens when you say, “Yeah, I see what you’re saying, but …” You know. The other person gets that impatient or irritated look, like you just negated everything they were talking about even though you almost had them convinced that you knew where they were coming from.

The answer is as simple as replacing ‘but’ with ‘and.’ “Yeah, I hear what you’re saying, and here’s something else I was thinking about in addition to that.” It’s as easy as that.

Now what’s that last ‘nice’ word? It’s something that helps us identify with others while still also distinguishing our point of view, without making the other person feel like they’re being distinguished away from you. So instead of saying, “You have a ways to go,” you say ‘we.’

“You know, sometimes we as people have a tendency to make snap judgments even though we don’t have all the facts just yet.” That’s a nice way of telling someone they’re being short-sighted or pig-headed without making them feel bad about it. That’s a great tool in leadership or for anyone who displays openness to being educated.

The beauty of this exercise is that you don’t have to take mine or anyone’s word for it. Experiment with these four words consciously for the next week or so. Notice any differences in how people in your life react to you? Are you able to bring your perspective to others more effectively, or outright convince other people toward your point of view? Can’t wait to hear how it goes for you!

Get in the Game

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Football Win

If you get a chance, see this movie on DVD called “The Blind Side.” Watching it recently reminded me of some of the core values and principles we’ve been looking at lately.

It’s a true story about a kid from Memphis who had—to put it mildly—an extremely tough childhood through no fault of his own. But he had two things going for himself. First, he was huge, which made him attractive to high school sports coaches. But also, when most others saw him as unintelligent, a caring teacher identified his greatest aptitude: his instinctive ability to protect others.

He was eventually adopted by a wealthy family who helped him get stabilized and properly educated, but everyone was dying to see what he could do on a football field as on offensive lineman. What better place for a painfully shy kid to show of his greatest ability, right?

Problem was he had never played any organized sports. So he’s out there holding the defensive guys (which is a penalty), picking them up and carrying them down the field (another penalty), anything and everything accept the right way to protect his teammates—if the defense wasn’t simply running around him and smearing his offensive guys.

According to the movie at least, his adopted mom pulled him aside in practice one day and connected his natural protective instinct with the emotion of protecting his team as he would his adopted family, whom he came to love a great deal. Once that connection stuck, he became an unstoppable machine. Heavily recruited, he could’ve gone to virtually any college he wanted. Today he’s a pro football star.

His story illustrates something important that we have to get straight in business and in life: Get in the Game! Have you ever had a good idea about a business or a project or something, but you didn’t feel like you knew enough about it, or you didn’t feel like you were really proficient at it, or that you weren’t ready? What ended up happening? My guess is you said, ‘I’ll wait,’ and you never did it, yes or yes?

It’d be great to get things right the first time, but how often does that actually happen? Whatever it is we’re good at, we can always get better. In fact, we have to if we want to be successful in the long term.

The young man highlighted above, Michael Oher (pronounced oar), could’ve been a high-ranking officer or soldier, a policeman, a social worker, bodyguard to the stars—all sorts of paths could have yielded high success and happiness just by him using his natural protective instinct and physical abilities. And he had just about everything working against him from the day he was born.

But it wasn’t just the material resources of his adopted family that saved him. He could have easily walked into that socially and culturally shocking environment, been offered opportunities most kids in situations like his will never have, and said, “No thanks.” Or he could’ve given up, but he didn’t. He made a choice to get in the game and stay there.

Not every story of success has to be about multi-millionaires. People are overcoming adversity everyday, in ways big or small. Do you know any true stories of people overcoming misfortune and finding success? What’s your story? We want to hear from you!

How to Take the First Step and Get the Ball Rolling

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Green chrome ball rolling upwards 3d

I believe we are spiritual beings living physical lives, and to make the most of this life we have to take care of, nurture, and more importantly listen to the clues that spirit gives us, mostly through gut intuition and feelings we have.

 

At some point, though, we have to honor the physical side of our lives as well, and that means taking action. To hell if conditions aren’t perfect, or if this circumstance isn’t quite ideal or that person isn’t following through the way they said they would. We’ve got to take all these spiritual principles and put them into action.

 

That’s exactly where a lot of people get stuck, even those with greater awareness and knowledge. You know you want to work out, need to get into better shape for the sake of generating more energy to work your mission. But what step is often the hardest to take? That first one.

 

Depending how long you had been in your last cycle, getting the ball rolling can feel like pushing a boulder uphill, metaphorically speaking. You need to build the next muscle and final spiritual muscle that separates the successful from those still waiting at the gate: momentum.

 

Momentum is that force that makes it easier for someone who’s successful to do what’s right than to do what’s wrong. Momentum is that process of getting that snowball moving. The hardest part about working out is getting to the gym.  Once you get there, it’s not that hard to do.

 

When you’re in motion, that’s when things begin to line up, not before (that goes for you perfectionist!). When in doubt, act. What did everyone else tell you? When in doubt, stop and think about it. No! That’s why I say thinking is dangerous to your wealth!

 

Most people who I know that got rich didn’t think too much. They saw a piece of property: ‘This looks good. Anything structurally wrong? Environmentally? No? Good, I’ll buy it.’ Twenty years later they’re very rich. They really planned that one out, huh?

 

Just as an aside, if you’re really “smart,” chances are you’re not going to be really rich. You’re going to get in your way, a real momentum killer. Those who aren’t too “smart” are open to knowing (A) They don’t know everything the need to know to be rich (B) Will learn how to be rich, even if it temporarily hurt’s their pride to know exactly how far off they were to begin with.

 

A body in motion will remain in motion and a body at rest will remain at rest. What do we want to do? Get into motion! Once you’re there, it gets easier. We already know that. Now we gotta just do it.

 

What in your life do you just need to get started and adjust as you go? What have you been waiting for? What’s the fear? Is that true or did you just make it up?

 

You will make it. Trust yourself. Love yourself and know that you make it all up. It’s your freaking story!

 

Now we want to hear from you! What are some positive momentum-changers that have worked for you?

Opportunities Might Be Your Enemies

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iStock_000010763230SmallEnemies#2

There are so many sayings we say—most of the time without thinking about it—that make absolutely no sense. Yet we say them out of habit and routine, not realizing just how silly we sound.

For example: “Harv, you can’t have your cake and eat it, too.” Well, what the hell’s the point in having the cake then?

Or how about this one: “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” Well, isn’t that exactly what the Trojans should’ve done?

The point here is that success building requires a lot of deprogramming from so many common beliefs and assumptions we’ve come to take for granted as true, even though a lot of the time it’s the exact opposite. We learned last week that a viable way to jumpstart an enterprise is to buy your product by selling it first.

Let’s take a look at another Rule of Opposites: Put all your eggs in one basket.

Most people will tell you otherwise. Why? Because if you put all of your eggs in one basket and something happens—like dropping it—you’ll lose everything. But I have a solution for that; take bloody good care of that basket!

We already know that no one’s reaching the next level without taking risks, yes? But the way we’ve come to think about our eggs and baskets is fear-based; fear of losing.

This truth is already established—if you want to be rich, you’ve got to be great at something. And to be great at something, you’ve got to focus on that something. For goodness sakes that’s where you put all of your eggs!

Rich people are focused. Poor people scatter their energies. Everything is one thing. It’s hard enough to make it in one business let alone divvying it up into dozens of different places!

‘But Harv—I’m constantly coming across great opportunities!’ This brings me to another Rule of Opposites:

Opportunities can be obstacles!

Opportunities can be obstacles if they take your focus away from what’s in front of you right now. That takes your time because you entertain them, maybe do some research and find out a bit more, and there you go again.

If you’ve got something semi-decent growing, put the blinders on and go for it. Not one person ever got wealthy to begin with in more than one business at a time. One business. One basket.

So you’ll have to choose, but then the next question is, ‘How do I choose?’ Look, pick one. It doesn’t matter because it’s the habit that’s the problem. Pick one to focus on. Worse comes to worse, even if you do mediocre with it, you can always let that one go when it’s finally done and get something going that does work—eventually without you. Then you can diversify and add more.

Choose one and get freaking good at it. Got it? I’m not saying you can’t buy real estate on the side. I’m just saying watch out. Every minute you do the other one you are losing time and energy that could have gone into your one basket.

There’re a lot of opportunities within your business. Make sure you’re doing well with one thing. First get rich and then you have the opportunity to go into other things. Get rich first!

Now it’s your turn! Can you identify one new opportunity within your business right now?  Will you take action and explore it ASAP?  Share your thoughts below and let me know if putting “all your eggs in one basket” just might be a lucrative opportunity for you.

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