Business Success | The Right Book At The Right Time | Part 2

Written by NicolaCairncross on September 1, 2010 - 1 Comment
Categories: Success Thinking

So I’m now getting a bit of head space, with Kelly and Sarah helping me out. Kelly’s on the admin and invoicing, and Sarah’s concentrating on email filtering, happy customers and making my membership site more user friendly.

Sarah is also looking after the new scholarship students (love to give stuff away – like “paying it forward” somehow and something we did in The Money Gym a lot in the early days). We need some specific, outcome orientated, success stories in my membership site, people who are not distracted by the day to day doing (a common problem with business owners) and who are actually hungry enough to sit down and work through the “7 Steps” one by one, applying what they are learning to a specific project.

So we had the idea to take some people who are not too tied up with a real world business and who couldn’t afford to join in the normal way of things, and coach and mentor them through to success. Hopefully.

Either that or they will simply give up and disappear like all the other people who have talked me into mentoring them in return for documenting the process as they go. I hope not, with Sarah’s support. We will see.

A Glimmer Of Hope

So I had realised by last week that writing is what turns me on, writing and speaking. So the particular internet marketing discipline called “pro-blogging” seems to be the way forward for me. I’ve been reading Yaro Starak’s blog http://Entrepreneurs-Journey.com from right back from 2005 which is very inspirational, as is Michael Dunlop’s http://IncomeDiary.com and I’ve subscribed to a few other top blogs (Problogger by Darren Rowse, Seth Godin, Dr Mani) in my RSS Reader, which is stopping the email overwhelm and feels like a real treat, reading truly great writing. Inspirational.

As a side note, I’ve been determined to blog every day, with unique content largely, and in the last two weeks I’ve stuck to that (week days only) but it’s tough! I’ve got renewed respect for Yaro who’s been blogging every day for the last 5 years! No wonder he’s got LOADS of traffic. I’ve realised you have to blog FIRST before you do anything else at all. Or it simply doesn’t get done.

I wrote my ezine, and indulged in a bit of naval gazing over the last two weeks and that very act gave me a bit more clarity about what I love to do going forward.

Clearing The Decks For Creativity

Earlier this year I rewrote my book The Money Gym, for 2010 and re-recorded all the audio, a tedious job that last!

However, I wanted to do it because I can feel a couple more books bubbling up inside me and I wanted to clear the decks by bringing The Money Gym up to date – it won’t be long before I have to take some action on the new ones.

Then I went to stay at my ex-husband’s over the weekend, while he went away for the weekend. He’s always got some great books knocking around, and this time I found, among others, Jinny Ditzler’s “Your Best Year Yet” which I had never read, but remember Judith talking about a few years ago.

Something made me start reading it (yes, even before the new Danny Wallace) and more importantly, I felt compelled to start doing the exercises. It’s a very, very interesting book and a rattling good read, as Jinny shares quite a lot about her life which draws you into the story, and is very illuminating on the points she’s making.

Needing Some Goals / Direction? Not Yet, You Don’t!

The intriguing thing is, before she gets to all the goal setting stuff, there’s quite a few exercises to do before you do that. And I found those early exercises really very helpful.

I highly recommend you get this book – whether you are in a confused place, like I am right now, or whether you are having a great deal of success. I can’t remember any book having quite so much impact on me since “The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People” and that’s saying something.

Or perhaps it’s a case of “The Right Book At The Right Time”?

I’ve always been a reader, we all are in my family. We joke that our Mum taught us to read as soon as we were able to sit up, so that we could amuse ourselves. I used to get four books out of the library on the way home from school and be in the next day to change them for four more.

I’ve always been keen on the “How To…..” kind of books before I even realised they were called “self help” or personal development but when I found “7 Habits” that’s when my life really began to change.

I’ve read LOADS of business success and wealth creation books now, it must be in the hundreds. It’s like a form of meditation for me now; reading definitely sends me into a meditative state, which is quite hard for me to achieve, having a brian that NEVER turns off.

If you don’t like to read, and a third of the population don’t then consider getting audio books and listening in the car, on the tube, at the gym.

Wisdom is contained in books – all the wisdom you need.

I recently wrote out for you, my list of “My Top 10 “Can’t Live Without” Business Books” and I really believe that, if you read all ten, you will know more about business success than most MD’s or most MBA students.

But I digress from the wonderful “Your Best Year Yet”.

I did feel some resistance to doing the exercises but I was a bit bored (X-Factor having finished!), so not able to get my head into anything online, so I pushed the computer away, took up my spiral bound A4 book and favourite pen and telling myself I only had to do 10 of anything Jinny suggested, I started to write.

How quaint.

First up, list all your achievements in the last year. Hmmmm, bit of a tough one, but I managed about 20.

Now, list all your disappointments in the last year – no trouble there! Another 20 or so rattled off.

What did I learn? At least 22 things….which grouped together made about 15 or so.

Jinny then said “Pick 3 ………….things you have learned that would make the most difference to your life, if followed for the next year”.

Tick.

Next, list all the ways I limit myself. Getting a bit uncomfortable now.

List what it has cost me to do so.

Squirm.

In What Way Has It Benefited Me To Limit Myself?

Now………I don’t usually hold with this question. The old NLP’ers trot it out all the time.

Never really got it before, but good old Jinny, working through the previous exercises – and her generous sharing of her own examples – helped me complete this one.

Then she asks a bald question, stating that, if the answer is not YES, you might as well close the book and stop right there.

Well, that’s how I read it anyway! LOL

The question was………….

Are you willing to STOP limiting yourself?

And she throws a little lifeline, saying “even if you don’t know how or even if you are able to”

Yes or no.

Well, the answer has to be a resounding YES doesn’t it?

Was for me anyway.

And I’m now only just ready to move onto the part of the book where you can start to begin to think about what you want to happen in your “best year yet”.

But you know what? I think I’m ready for some goals now.

O no, though. Not so fast Nicola, says Jinny.

I have to complete the question “In what areas of my life am I NOT achieving What I Want?”

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, that’ll be all of them then. I’m not as financially free as I’d like, I don’t have my own place yet, I’m still overweight, I don’t like / do exercise and I’m not in a meaningful relationship. Well. qualify that…. I’m not in a meaningful relationship with someone that wants me in that way.

Pretty poor show all round really.

Another squirmy question, but it’s OK, my soul is bare for my A4 notebook now.

“What Do I Say About Myself to Explain Those Failures?”

This was the most interesting part of the whole thing for me, as it really uncovered some stuff that I thought I had laid to rest long ago and some that I had no idea about.

Even more interesting was the next question which went….

“What fundamental rules have I created in my life, based on my experiences to date?”

One old chestnut trots out as expected, but three new awarenesses arise from the depths here! What a surprise I got there.

Jinny encourages us to create a new, more empowering paradigm to replace the old, not so helpful rules I had previoiusly created and I particully liked this expression she used,as it fit my old Money Gym / Wealth Coaching head a treat.

“I will give truth to a new paradigm that gives me a better return on my investment”

Aha, so now we are talkign my language! I understand about return on investment and you just wouldn’t put your money where it wasn’t giving you the best return, and obviously that is where I’ve been putting my energy.

Because, a bit like putting your money in the bank at the moment, one’s old rules – or paradigms – are NOT giving one a great return on investment.

(Use “I” Nicola, not “one”, use “I” as Val Perry, my counsellor at Lighter Life would say). Hi Val, I know you read this blog sometimes!

Let’s throw out the old rules, that are giving me (lets’ face it) an absolutely shitty return on my investment and rewrite my paradigm.

In short, I am going to learn the art of transformation, shifting to my new paradigm whenever I’m feeling ensnared by the old one.

Well, I’m going to try!