It’s interesting how we tend to receive certain messages right when we need to hear them most. Perhaps it is just cognitive awareness, like when you buy a new car and suddenly everyone seems to have one. Your brain wasn’t programmed to look for it before.
Unlike the new car phenomena though, the idea that we simply tune in to needed messaging suggests that our brains are proactive. We don’t seek out the timely advice we receive; it’s not as if you bought a book on the issue and then started hearing the same ideas everywhere. The message seems to seek us out, as if carefully packaged and timed just for that moment in your life.
David Blanchard, CEO of The Og Mandino Group, was in Salt Lake City yesterday and shared advice with a group of entrepreneurs.
What is the key ingredient shared among all successful entrepreneurs? Well, in order to quit your day job, rely on your own ingenuity, and start something brand new, you probably need an enormous vision. Entrepreneurs have a special, innate ability to connect with potential; to see, smell, and touch something down the road as if it is was right in front of them.
The pitfall? As with all things, this talent can be productive or unproductive. Blanchard pointed out the obvious: visioneers can get stuck in fantasy. The business registration forms have been submitted and we’re counting our millions.
Big vision requires big results. Even if you aren’t an entrepreneur, many of us have enormous expectations of ourselves. We can taste the future and it is sweet. There is a visceral need to make it reality, right now.
But what happens when we fall short of the giant shoes we set out in front of ourselves each morning? For anyone with a few pairs in the closet, “What’s wrong with me?” is a familiar thought.
Blanchard has been down the road a few times and is passionate about training your brain to dump the negative dialogue that will undermine your next steps. He uses the concept of two chairs: one where you stew in fear and self-doubt and the other where you act as the rational observer who can respond with empathy and creativity. After all, creation is at the core of an entrepreneur’s being.
The core concept in his newest book, The Observer’s Chair, Blanchard encouraged those in the room to avoid the chair of despair and get back to creation:
- Start your day with uplifting and stimulating reading to firmly ground yourself in creativity and positivity
- Repeat affirmations specific to your present being (not your hoped for future) to rewire your brain.
I am a great listener and listen through the lines to hear how I can help.
I am honest and act with integrity in all my relationships.
I believe in others and skillfully draw out their potential.
- Challenge yourself with three questions:
What can I create?
How can I create that?
How will this serve?
Imagine your life without vision; without your ability to see what is possible to such an extent that you not only know it is possible, you know you will achieve it. Is this not the one discriminating factor between those who live a life of meaning and discovery and those who conform to even the smallest of limitations?
How are you using your single greatest gift?
The Og Mandino Group is offering a complimentary assessment to help you better understand your own unique thought process and how to wire yourself for success.
[post_ender]
This was an incredible article, and just as you said, “The message seems to seek us out, as if carefully packaged and timed just for that moment in your life.” This was a message I needed today!
Thank you so much for posting this – I am also going to start my day with an uplifting reading, as suggested, because that really does seem to be the best way to start a productive day off right!
I’m glad the content targeted what you needed. What a compelling idea that as we share our own experience of being impacted, we might deliver a perfectly-timed boost to someone else in our network. Keep it going!