Cory Halbardier
I was chatting with a skeptical real estate broker today when he raised the question, "I want a Gulfstream airplane (price somewhere around $4M), how do I get that, Mr. Coach?!?" He was skeptical, which is fine. It's a good question.
How does anyone afford something so luxurious? If I were your coach, the first thing we would do is investigate your motives. The conversation might look like this:
Q: What's the motivation behind wanting this jet?
A: Because I don't want to have to go through airport security.
Q: If I could guarantee that you would never have to go though security again, would you be fine without the jet?
A: No.
Q: What other reason is there?
A: I want travel to be convenient.
Q: If I could promise that travel would be convenient from here on out by having a private chauffeur take you to the airport where you could rent a plane for the day and it was always convenient, would that be sufficient?
A: No.
And so on until all motives are explored.
Assume we were able to deduce that he really did want a Gulfstream (for reasons that could only be satisfied by owning this jet), what's next? There are many possible routes to achieving one's goals, but the one I wanted to discuss today is known as Positive Association.
Get into the Group
Positive Association involves surrounding yourself with people who are more successful than yourself. If the people around you all share the same standard of living as yourself, you may never be motivated to move any higher. It is common that an individual will seldom outperform his environment, so they must change their surroundings in order to achieve more.
Scientific Backing
The concept of Positive Association is backed by the science known as NLP or Neuro-Liguistic Programming. The basic principle is that groups of people, subconsciously, tend to conform to each other.
You can verify this concept with the following experiment. The next time you are talking to someone with their arms crossed, try to mimic them. Position your body as they do. Pay attention to breathing rate, hand position, feet, body, eyebrows, mouth, eyes, nose, etc. As soon as you match them, un-cross your arms and open up your body. Pay attention to what they do next.
Because you have mimicked their behavior, your bodies became in-sync. Now that you have moved, his (or her) body will want to match yours. I know you don't believe me so get up and go try it right now.
In the same way their body naturally moves to match yours, your habits will move to match those who are more successful. In addition, the conversation with them will push you outside of the realm of what you thought possible.
Picking the Group
How do you pick one of these groups? Peruse your list of contacts and think about what groups you would feel uncomfortable joining. If you feel comfortable joining the group, then it's not the right group for this purpose. Push yourself into a group where you would say, "I have nothing to contribute here." That is a lie you tell yourself. You always have something to contribute because there is no other person at that meeting like you. Another way to interest them is by becoming interested. Be a good listener.
Also, try logging on to the internet and find local groups of people who have already achieved what you want.
The epitaph of Andrew Carnegie, the man with the highs salary in the country at the time, said, "Here lies one who knew how to get around him men who were cleverer than himself." Let's replace "cleverer" with "more successful" and we've hit gold.
Copyright 2006, Cory Halbardier
About the Author:
Cory Halbardier is a performance consultant and coach with Peak Performance Coaching and Consulting. He works with leaders and salespeople who want to be more successful and generate more income by improving their performance. Please visit his website at http://www.PeakPerformance-CC.com for more articles on how you can run at peak performance.
