The Resilient Mind - Go from Average to Extraordinary - Jack Canfield

Episode Date: August 9, 2022

Jack Canfield is an American author, motivational speaker, corporate trainer, and entrepreneur. He is the co-author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, which has more than 250 titles and 500 million copies in print in over 40 languages.Take action and strengthen your mind with The Resilient Mind Journal. Get your free digital copy today: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Download Now⁠⁠  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So let's jump into these six steps of success that we're talking about here. Step number one, you have to decide what you want. Now, that sounds so obvious. But so many people go through life not being really clear about what their goals are, what their vision is, what their dream is. I have a cartoon at home that I have above my desk, and it's a cartoon of two spiders sitting at the end of a sliding board of the kind that kids slide down.

There's a big spider web across the place where the kids would come off. And one spider's looking at the other, and he says, you know, if we pull this off, we'll eat like kings. And even though it's a little gross, it makes a point that I want you to have a big vision, a big vision. I want you to go for everything it is you want in life. And to get in touch with that from your heart, so we were told a lot of us you can't have that, you can't do this, forget all that.

If none of that mattered and anything was possible, what would you want? So one of the phrases I have is ask what, not how. because many of you don't know how you're going to get it. And if you don't see how you can achieve it, then you're afraid to commit to it. Well, I can't see how to have a perfect relationship with my husband, so I don't want to commit to that because I don't want to be a failure. I can't see how I could ever get in medical school,

given the income we have, so I don't want to commit to that. What I'm going to teach you here is if you'll make the commitment and do these other steps that we're going to talk about, the how will show up along the way. See, in my ideal vision, there's no drive-by shootings in Los Angeles. In my ideal community world, there's no hunger. There's no illiteracy. There are no gangs.

People say, oh, that's impossible. Well, it's only possible if we start to visualize it, decide this is what we want. And once we commit to it, as I said, the how will show up. And finally, are there any accomplishments you want to have before you die? Maybe you wanted to get that Ph.D. Want to write a book or publish a letter to the editor in the newspaper or make that trip around the world. Whatever it is for you. Now, don't let your mom.

tell you it's not possible. I want the inner child in you. You know, the one that says, come on, mommy, I want to buy that. You go, we can't afford that. Okay, I want the little kid in there to think anything is possible to decide what you want. And a spiritual part of this comes in, I believe that in your heart, you really know what's for your highest good. And if you let yourself go there, then you're going to be lined up, the old not thy will, or not my will, but thy will. And so I want that energy to come through as your life purpose. We can't go into that in like great depth in a small seminar here that we have in terms of time. But again, this is not about your ego needs.

It's about what you really need to do to feel fulfilled, to feel filled full of yourself. And if you'll go there and trust yourself, then you get a level of satisfaction you can't believe. The last part of this is you've got to tell other people what your vision is. Now, a lot of teachers out there say, oh, don't tell people what your vision is, because they'll rain all over your parade and, you know, then you'll lose your enthusiasm. Remember, surround yourself with positive people. And if someone does rain on your parade, just say, thank you for your contribution, right? Because they're doing the best they can to be of value to you. Maybe they think you can't do it. Just say, thank you. Move on. Go to someone else. Okay. But as you start to share your vision and your dreams with others, some people are going to just go, I have that same dream. You know, I hope you. Martin Luther King stood up and said, I have a dream. A lot of other people went, hey, I share that dream. Let me line up. I'll march with you.

And eventually something started to happen in terms of fighting racism in our culture. But it had to be someone that stood up so other people could attract to it. And you'll be surprised who will become attracted to your dream. The second step to success is so critical is you've got to set specific goals and objectives for your vision or your dream. It's a nice thing to say, I want to want to win. winter home in Hawaii. But that won't do it. It's got to be measurable. It's got to be in time and space. How much do you want by when? Now let me give you a good example of this, why it's so important to make a list of goals. I tell people in my seminars, you want a goal or an objective,

a measurable thing for every part of your vision, and I think you want to have 101 goals. We really go for it. Now, John Goddard, who we wrote about in our first chicken soup in the soul book, When he was 15, he set a list of 127 goals that he wanted to achieve. Now, he's sitting in his dining room with his dad, and all these people are coming over to dinner. These are the big successful people in town. And he's listening to him, talk to his dad as a successful businessman, saying things like, you know, I wish before I'd started my business,

I'd traveled around the world because now it's too late. Or I wish I'd spent more time with my children. Or I wish I'd read the encyclopedia. Or I wish I'd learn music. I wish I'd learn to play an instrument. And he said, I don't want to live my life and get to believe 50, 60, and go, I wish I had. Or to live on what one of my friends call Someday I'll, right? Someday I'll do this, someday I'll do that, and you never get there.

And so he made a list of 127 goals. Now, these were not minor goals. These were things like Visit the Great Pyramid in Egypt, visit the Great Wall of China, visit the Vatican, meet the Pope, learn three languages, read the encyclopedia, shoot out a candle with a 22 rifle from 100 feet, fly an airplane, learn to control a boat, learn to type 150 words a minute, all these different things. And he's achieved 115 of those 127 goals. The last one he just accomplished was learning to play polo.

Now, the guy's in his 70s, and polo, I understand, is a pretty strenuous sport. In his polo class was Sylvester Stallone, the actor. What a neat life. I mean, this guy's the real Indiana Jones, right? He's doing all this stuff out there. His next goal that he's training for is to start at the mouth of the Yanksy River or the beginning of it and sail all the way down, all the way through China. And he's getting ready to go do that.

So he wakes up every morning and he knows exactly what he's working toward. He's got a blueprint for his life. What about you? Do you have a blueprint for your life? And if not, why not? Let's look at this idea of specificity for a minute. Like a winter home in Hawaii. Very nice.

But if I say I will own a two-bedroom beachfront fill on the west coast of Maui, Hawaii by June 1st, 2003, does that sound a little more clear? Yeah. And until you get specific like that, the creative part of your brain won't jump in and decide how to help you get there. And that's why a lot of people never get their dreams because they don't make them specific enough. You've got to get real nitty-gritty. break it down. How much by when? I want a better relationship with my husband.

What does that mean? But if I say, I want to spend an hour or a week sitting opposite my husband talking about real things that matter, no TV on, eye-to-eye communication, that we can measure. Did you do it for an hour?

Want to have more fun. What does that mean? What if I say, I'm going to listen to comedy albums twice a week for a minimum of an hour? You're probably going to have more fun. So make it specific, make it real. Some people say, you know, I want our business to increase.

Well, how much, by when? Want the reading scores to go up in a school. How much, by when? Until you have that, you're not going to make progress. And so many people's dreams never get completed because they're not clear about the specific number of how much by when. I told you earlier in the program, we said we're going to sell a million and a half books in a year and a half.

And that directed our behavior. Recently, we just said, we're going to sell a million books in one day. We had 101 bookstores involved in a book signing. We're going to try to be in the Guinness Book of World Record for the largest book signing ever done. Now, I don't think we sold a million books. Maybe we sold a couple hundred thousand. But by holding that question and trying to figure out how to do it, it moved us toward that goal. Now, maybe it'll take us two years to figure out how to sell a million books in one day.

But it gets the thinking to expand out into that arena. Is this making sense? Okay, so you want to have those goals. Now, the other thing you want to do is break your goals down. Many of you have big goals and hunger in the world. That's a pretty big goal. You know, have world peace, achieve a certain level of spiritual oneness with God or life. Big goals.

When you first look at it, it's kind of overwhelming. What if we were to break that down into little steps? It says, okay, I want to go to college and get a PhD. Gosh, I'm only a high school student. But the next step would be finish the math class, get an A in this, write for a brochure from a college, get a catalog, pick one or five colleges that I want to apply to. You know, just keep breaking it down to little steps and then figure out how to get all those steps done and put a date by each step and then start doing the plan. Someone said, if you fail to plan, you're planning to fail. Does that make sense?

Yeah, absolutely. Some of one of my friends said, Success by the yard is hard By the inch, it's a cinch. We just break it down in the small pieces. I was reading the Guinness Book of World Records because we were thinking about being in there. And this guy set a goal

to eat an entire bicycle. Tires and all. Now, how do you do that? Right? Well, it took him 17 days. But what he did is he kept cutting the bicycle up and then melting it down into little swallowable pieces and he ate them.

I don't know how much stayed in, but he ate them, right? But the point being, anything can be done if you break it down small enough. Make sense? So don't let the bigness of a goal overwhelm you. Now, finally, what's the purpose of all this? The purpose of all this is not to get the million dollars, the Rolls-Royce, the best-selling book, all of that. That's nice.

But have you ever known people that had all that and weren't really happy? And have you ever known people that had all that and then lost it? You know, Donald Trump was really wealthy for a while. while and then he lost it and now he's coming back and all that well that happens it's not the result that's important it's who you become in the process of achieving the result jim ron said set a goal so big that in the process of achieving it you become someone worth being isn't that an interesting concept because it's not the result if you set a big goal three things are going to show up in your life one is called considerations all the thoughts about why it's not

possible, all the fears that you have about going out there and doing that thing. And finally, there are real roadblocks out there in the world. There are laws and things that maybe it's not legal to do that yet, or it's not zoned for that, or all those kind of things. You're going to have to learn how to overcome those roadblocks and learn how to quiet the considerations in your head and learn how to overcome those fears. But if you ever done something that was really scary, and then the next time you did it, it wasn't quite so scary, and then the third time And pretty soon it's no big deal. Like the first time I did TV, it was scary.

Now it's not such a big deal. But you have to go through it. Right? And when you're done, you get to have something in your life called mastery. And that's the goal. The goal is mastery. Mastering your fears, mastering your thoughts, mastering your behaviors, so that you can do anything you want.

That can't be taken away from you. A friend of mine's house burnt down. He was an author. Lost all his manuscripts, all his research. his computer melted, everything. Nothing was safe. And you would have thought maybe he'd have committed suicide at that point. But he didn't. What did he do?

He said, look, everything I learned about being an author still in my head. You can't take that away from me. I know how to talk to editors. I know how to write. I know how to outline. I know how to write book proposals. I know how to go on talk shows. I'm no longer afraid of that.

So what you want to do is create goals that are so big and so full of your heart. that when you achieve them, even if you lose the result, the best-selling book, they always fall off the bestseller list. My publisher over here will tell you that. They just don't stay on there forever. But the reality is you become a master in life. Now, step three is you've got to visualize the results that you want. This is probably the most important step of all the six steps. Maybe the second most important. It's one of the top two. What does that mean? You've all heard people say, visualize the first. the goal is if it's already achieved. Think about this. Have you ever known a kid like a high school kid

he's into skateboarding or something? And he go into his room and a whole wall is covered with pictures of skateboarding. It's like he's surrounding himself with this image of what he wants. People say I can see it so bad I can taste it. You ever heard that phrase? Yeah. Well, they literally can see it. And because they can see it, it creates something inside of them that moves them toward the goal. Let me demonstrate this with you. Could I have everyone stand up right where you are for a moment? And you at home, Would you stand up to? Good. Now, we're going to do a little exercise that is intended to literally blow your mind,

to open it up at such a level that you'll never be the same again in terms of this technique we're talking about. So what I'd like you to do is just watch me for a minute and then we'll do it. In a moment, I'm going to ask you to put your right arm out in front of you and have your feet about 12 inches apart, nice solid stance. And then I'm going to ask you to turn as far as you can. And when you can't torque your body anymore, notice where your hand is pointing. Mine's right to the right-hand side of that pillar there. And then look to what's to the right and left.

I see the blue window. I see the wall there with the painting on it. Get a clear picture and kind of lock that in like a photograph. Pretend there's a little laser beam pointing off. Now, if you're turning here in the studio and there's somebody there, bend your elbow, keep turning. Don't whack them in the head, but also don't stop. I want your turning to only be stopped by your inability to torque your body

any further. Okay? Everyone ready to do this? Put your right arm up and go ahead, turn as far as you can. And when you can't turn any further, notice where your hands pointed. See what's to the right, what's to the left, get a real clear picture, and then come on back to the middle and lower your arm. Okay, good. Now, if you're willing, what I'd like you to do is to close your eyes, close your ice. And just imagine that you're lifting your arm up. Imagine you're moving it across your body the same direction you went last time. This time when you get to the spot where you stopped, you're going to go another foot or two further without any stress, no strain, no pain, no effort. You're just able to go further. Notice where your hand will be pointing now. Use the power of

your imagination to create a very vivid, clear picture. Make it real. Make it vivid. Make it clear. Make it bright. Excellent. Then imagine moving your arm back to the middle down to your side and go ahead and open your eyes. Okay. Everyone, raise your right arm again. And we're going to turn again. This time go as far as you can, see how far you can go.

And then come on back to the middle. And by show of hands, how many of you went further? Take a seat for a minute and we'll talk about why that happened. Now, let me explain what happens here. you had in your mind an experience of reality called how far you went right and then i asked you to put a picture in we'll call it the vision of something you wanted which was to go further that you hadn't really experienced and when you hold those two in your mind simultaneously it creates something in the brain called structural tension it's a mental tension that mental tension wants to resolve itself

can only resolve itself one of two ways either you give up on the goal or the goal has to become real. Now, what happens in your brain when you do this and you hold that structural tension? Remember we talk disciplines of success? This is something you do every day as a discipline. And when you do it, you visualize the goals you want as already achieved. And that structural tension makes three things happen. Number one, you start to perceive things out in the world that we're always there that can be resources to help you achieve your goals. things that you just didn't even notice before, but they were there. Second, you're going to start getting creative ideas.

Oh, I could do that. Third, you're going to feel motivated to take action. Now, this perception thing, how many of you've ever thought, gee, I'd like to go to Hawaii, and then you're at a party, about three days later, and across the room, a room full of 100 people, you hear someone say, Hawaii. You ever hear that experience? It's like the Red Sea parts, and you go walking. Did you say Hawaii?

You have a condo over there? Do you ever let people stay in it? It's like, how do we do that? Well, the reticular system in our brain opens up and we perceive more. Do you think some people see more resources out in the world than you do? More solutions to problems. More entrepreneurial opportunities than maybe you do. More people that look friendly they can get a hug from. More money that's available for loan.

See, everything's out there. All the solutions to your problems exist. but we don't see them. And partially we don't see them because we've never learned this concept of how to get our brain to open up and let this reticular system in the back let that information in.

Do you ever drive down a street and notice a house and go, where'd that come from? And your husband or wife goes, honey, that's been there for three months. And literally you just didn't see it. It was like a blind spot. But what happens when you learn this technique,

all of a sudden you start seeing more. 1983, the Australian sailing team. had never won an America's Cup, ever. And the coach had a new idea. He said, let's try this visualization stuff. And he made a tape. And on this tape, he did a narration of the Australian team beating the American team.

And it was something like, you know, we're going around the last buoy, we're three boat lengths ahead of the Americans. And they had all this sound effects in the background, the wind and the sails, the water going by and the little lines hitting the mass, and all that stuff that you associate with that. And this tape went on for about 20,

minutes. It was a little faster than the actual way. And they would imagine beating the Americans. Now, he made the team listen to this tape every day, twice a day for three years. Someone just said, oh my gosh. Now, when they finally went to race the Americans, it was like, not them again? How many times do we have to beat these guys? It was like, of course we can beat the Americans. Their whole attitude was totally different. And in fact, they came in and they won the America's Cup. So the idea is that you can use this in any aspect of your life, whether it's sports, whether it's, you know, losing weight, whether it's getting better grades in school, learning three, whatever. When we come back from the break, I'm going to show you how

to use this power of visualization in education. I'm going to show you how it was used, for example, in New Orleans. To take a school where to dropout rate was 86%. The kids never graduate high school and they turn that around in five years to 16% using this technique. So stay with us. Okay, let me demonstrate to you more than anything I can think of the best way to do it. The next step, step number four, because it's really critical that you get this. All these steps kind of have to happen together, all right, and this could probably be the most important one. The one that if you were to do this alone and pay attention to,

the feedback would probably get you where you want to go. I have here in my pocket, I believe, a $50 bill. If this $50 bill were available, and it is, I'm going to show you the one secret that separates winners from losers more than anything else. Okay? So if this was available, who would want it? All right. Now, don't go away yet.

Come back. Tell us your name? Debbie. What did Debbie do that no one else in the audience did? She got up and she took action. See, too many times we sit around and we wait and we hope and we dream and we affirm and we pray and we meditate and we do all that. And all that's important. It's part of the process.

But at a certain point, the opportunity shows up. And if you don't act, you get to sit and not have $50. Okay? So step number four is what? Take action. Take action. One of my favorite quotes is by Henry Wordsworth Longfellow. He said the heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight,

but they while their companions slept were toiling upward in the night. What does that mean? You got to work. You got to do some doing this. You can't just sit around and hope it'll happen. One of the steps, one of the actions you need to take is called asking. And many of us, see, we wrote a book, Mark and I wrote a book called Dare to Wim. And it was a book of all these kind of things, and people went out and they read the book,

and still a lot of people weren't successful. And we thought, what's the problem here? And as we began to analyze and interview people, we realized one of the main things that was blocking most people was the fear of asking for what they wanted. They wouldn't go up and just say, can I borrow money? Will you support my dream? Will you volunteer for school?

Will you lend me your car? Whatever it is they need. They were so afraid of being rejected. And so we wrote a book called The Aladdin Factor, how to ask for and get everything you want. And we were doing all that research. We ran across a girl named Marquita Andrews. And Marquita Andrews was the living example of what we call

Ask, Ask, Ask, Ask, Ask, Ask, Ask, Ask, Ask, Gas, Gas, Gas, Gas, Gas, Gas, Gas, Gas, Gas, Gas, Gas, Gas, Gas, Gas, Gas, Gas. Because you're going to have to ask a lot of people. And Marquita, her mother, when she was a little girl, came up to her and said, you know, Marquita, I have a dream. My dream is to travel around the world, but I also have a dream for you. I want you to graduate college. Problem is I'm a waitress. I don't see how I can underwrite both dreams on a waitress's salary, but I'll make a deal with you. If you'll go to college and agree that after you graduate, you'll take 25% of your income for the first number of years and put that in savings to send me around the world, then I'll pay for your college education.

But if you're not willing to do that, then I don't know if I want to pay for your college education. Well, what is she? She's like seven or nine at the time. She goes, sure, deal, you know? Well, later that year, she joins the Brownie Scouts. And the Brownies are part of the Girl Scouts, and they came out with their annual cookie drive. and they had a contest that year. A girl who sells most cookies wins tripped for two a wrong world. Marquita says, I'm getting out of this one easy. So she starts selling cookies like you can't believe.

Now in her first year as a Bronny Scout, she sold 3,526 boxes of Girl Scout cookies. Someone just said, no way. Most women who've sold Girl Scout cookies, if you sell three or 400 boxes, that is a big deal. 3,526. How'd she do it? Ask, ask, ask. Gas, gas, gas, gas, gas. She lived in New York, high population concentration, right?

She would go into high-rise apartment buildings and condos, and as people would come down in the morning and back from work, she would just be there. Do you buy your cookies yet? Do you buy your cookies yet? Do you want to buy cookies? And if she bought one, they said, we want to buy two? Don't you know people?

She would just ask, ask, gas. Then one day she finds herself at 14 years old. She wrote a book called How to Sell More Cookies, Condos, Cadillacs, Computers, and everything else. And she was the keynote speaker at Radio City Musical, call to the million dollar roundtable of insurance salesmen, all people who had sold over a million dollars in commissions and all this stuff. And she's up there talking to a thousand people. At the end of her talk, she says, I want you all to look under your seat, you'll find a three by five

card, take that out, and write a number between five and ten on the card. So everybody did. And she said, that's how many boxes of Girl Scout cookies I want you to buy for me today as you leave here. That day, she sold 7,000 boxes of Girl Scout cookies. She's in the Guinness Book of World records. Before she retired, she sold over 32,000 boxes. Isn't that astounding? Hasn't been beaten yet. But what does she do? Ask, ask, ask, ask, ask, ask, ask, ask, ask, ask. Very powerful tool. Now, she had one final clause. A little phrase, she says, SW, SW, SW, SW. What does that mean? Some will, some won't. So what? Someone's waiting. So if you ask enough people, eventually someone's going to say yes.

If I asked everyone in this room, do you have a red car? Eventually someone would say yes. It doesn't matter. If you ask enough people, you're going to get your dream there. Now, we're going to come back in just a moment. And when we do,

I'm going to teach you a word that's going to get you out of the problem of what happens when you ask for something and people say no. And this one word, if you knew this word and you learned it and you used it, can actually get you.

you anything you want in life. I'd teach you one word how to deal with no when you get a no from somebody. And again, I'd like you to write this down, write it in your brain if you don't have anything to write it with on paper and so forth. Here's the word. It's very simple. When someone says no to you, what I want you to say to yourself real loud inside your head is the word next. Let's just practice that. So if I say no, what are you going to say? Absolutely. One more time. No. Next. Now what does that mean? Ask somebody else. Absolutely. Absolutely. How many people live on the planet? Five billion people. Someone wants to do what you want to do. Someone wants to get involved in your dreams. Someone wants to support you. You may have to ask a lot of people. Remember, ask, ask, ask, ask, ask, ask, ask, ask, ask, ask, ask, ask, ask, ask, ask. So when they say no, and here's another clue most people don't realize. If you ask somebody and they say no, does that mean you can never come back and ask them again? No. Little kids are so good at it. Mommy, can I go to the store with you? No. Oh, come on, Mom, please let me go to the store with you.

They go away. Mom, you are going to let me go to the store with you. And they wear you down, you know. So that's another thing. You can next time can be, right? So don't let no stop you. No just means get creative. Get going.

Now, what stops people from asking? What stops people from doing? It's something called fear. We're all afraid. We're afraid we're going to look stupid. We're afraid we're going to get rejected. I love this person who did the acronym F-V-A-R, stands for fantasized experiences appearing real

or false evidence appearing real because when you close your eyes and you fantasize something like you're not going to be able to pay your bills or they're going to take your house or are you going to flunk out of school then your body reacts like it's real I was flying to Orlando in a plane not too long ago

and this woman was sitting next to me and as we took off she started like lifting herself out of the seat I said what are you doing? She said I'm making myself lighter so the plane will take off Now, I knew we'd had a failure in American physics education, right? And I also noticed her knuckles were all white, and I said, are you a little afraid? She says, yeah, I guess I am.

I said, well, we're headed, Orlando. I guess that's where I'm going. You're going. I said, where are you going down there? I'm going to Disney World to visit my children. They're going to be there and my grandchildren. I said, well, close your eyes for a second. Induljury me.

I'm a psychologist. She said, okay. So she closed her eyes. I said, what are you imagining right now? She said, well, I see the plane blowing up in a fireball at the end of the wrong way. I said, well, no wonder you're scared. You know, this would make anyone crazy. And so then I had her close her eyes and imagine being at Disney World.

And I said, what's your favorite attraction? She said, it's a small world. So I said, imagine you're in the little thing and you're going through it. It's a small world. And I actually started going, it's a small world. And all of a sudden, she relaxed or breathing deepened. And this was what was so powerful. Nothing outside of her had changed.

We're on the same plane going down the same wrong way, but what she changed was her response. She started visualizing a positive outcome rather than a negative outcome, and her physiology reacted. Same thing we've been talking about all along. Now let's look at this fear, the biggest fear I think that stops most people from asking is the fear of what? Rejection. So let's say that I ask, what's your name? I go over to Susan, I say, Susan, would you have dinner with me tonight? Let's say she says no. I go, oh, everyone goes, oh, Jack's been rejected. It's so sad. But let's look at it objectively. Did I have anyone to eat dinner with before I asked her?

Did I have anyone to eat dinner with after I asked her? Did my life really get worse? No. Stayed the same, right? If I apply to Harvard and don't get in. Wasn't in Harvard before I applied? I'm not in Harvard after I applied. And most of you have spent your whole life not going to Harvard and survive just a lot. fine, right? So it's not a big deal. I worked for an optical company that makes lenses. Half the lenses in your glasses, they have 50% of the market, so half of you are wearing them. And I was the first guy that ever brought in as an outside speaker for their sales meetings. And I got there early in the day, and I went out there were some guys golfing and stuff. And I went out to people and I said, do you know who the top two or three performers in the company are? And they'd all go,

oh yeah, it's Bob and Mary and Joe. And I say, well, great. Why, that night I went into the group, about 300 people, and I said, do you all know who the top three performers in the company are? Everyone said, oh, yeah, it's Bob, Mary, and Joe. I said, so you all know who's like selling many, many, many, many millions of dollars more than you are. They went, oh, yeah. I said, now, by show of hands, how many of you have ever gone up to them and asked them to show you what they do, to sell so much? You know, not one hand went up in that room with 300 people. Isn't that interesting? They knew who had the information, but they wouldn't ask them. I said, well, why don't you ask? well, they might not tell me.

I say, well, you already don't know. So if they don't tell you, you still don't know. How did it get so bad? You know, it's not so bad. But they were so afraid that they might say, oh, you're stupid, I don't want to share with you. What I found, and I think most of you've probably found, too, if you tested out, most people are willing to share what they know.

They like to teach. They like to share. They like to be a mentor. Not everyone will. But if they say no, what are you going to say? Next, there's lots of top performers out there you can go to. We've got to get over this fear of rejection. Don't let it stop you.

It's not a big deal. Just keep asking the questions. Ask, ask, ask. Say next. Move on. Nothing happens if you're rejected. Fear of rejection. Fear of failure.

Fear of looking stupid. Fear, fear, fear, fear, fear stopping us. Let's look at how to overcome any fear. There's a couple different techniques, but let's look at what I think is probably the one of most powerful ones. How many of you have seen the book, feel the fear and do it anyway? Remember that? Susan Jeffers wrote this book. Well, think about that. Feel the fear and do it anyway.

I'm going to do a little demonstration with you here to show you how this works. I'm going to take this chair here. I'm going to pretend this is a diving board. I'm going to stand up on the end of the diving board. How many of you know how to dive off a diving board? Can you remember when you had to learn to do that? You're standing on the end of the board. See, here I am. I'm on the end of the board. There's my dad down in the water. He says, come on, jump. and I'm dead. He says, it's only two feet to the water. I says, yeah, but it's another nine to the bottom of the pool.

And it's five from the feet to the head here. You know, and it's a long way down. He says, come on, just jump. Now I'm scared. Can you relate to that? How many of you at that point said, you know, Dad, I think I'm going to get off the board. Go see a child psychologist.

I'm going to deal with my fear of jumping into liquids from high places. And when I handle that, I'll come back and jump in. Did any of you do that? No, what did you do? You felt the fear and you jumped anyway, right? And this is really the principle that works for anything in life. You're going to feel fear. It's going to show up. So what? Most people let fear stop them. And I say, well, obviously, then I shouldn't do this thing. I'm going to say to you, feel the fear and pretend it's like a two-year-old. Take the two-year-old with you. You know, it doesn't want to go certain places, first day of school. So what? Take it. You're the adult. Teach your fear like a little child. But don't let it run you. You're bigger than that. You're bigger than that. The mastery

comes from what? Handling the fear. Now, I had a teacher, very profound spiritual teacher, teach me once how to take this and even make it deeper. So here's what I'm going to teach you too. I want you to take your fingers and join your two four fingers together like this. Can everyone do that? Okay. And what I want you to do is repeat after me. Is everyone ready? Okay. It goes like this. A little chant.

It goes like this. Oh, everybody. Oh, what the heck. Go for it anyway. Let's do that together one more time. Oh, what the heck. Go for it anyway. Very good.

See? If you can remember that when you're scared, oh, what the heck, go for it anyway. then you'll take that action. It won't always be the perfect action, but if you get an action, something's going to happen, which leads us into step five, which says respond to feedback. See, when you take a first action, is that necessarily going to be the right one? No.

But you can't get feedback unless you take the action. And some of us are so afraid of doing the wrong thing. We wait until like 18 doves fly over our house in a sign of a cross. Oh, it must be the ideal, auspicious day, and then we take action. Well, they don't fly over that way too often, right? So we just have to take in action and see what happens. But there's two kinds of feedback. What are they?

Positive and negative. Which one do you like best? Positive. Right. Positive feels good, right? You know you're on track. But have you ever had negative feedback and it was valuable? Yeah.

Right. So there's two kinds. Now, how many of you actively solicit feedback in your life? You say, hey, I want feedback. how to be a better parent or a better teacher or how can I be a better salesperson how can we serve your company better right most people don't ask for feedback why don't they ask they don't want to hear it but let's say you're a teacher in school and you don't ask feedback how i can be a better teacher the kids go home do you think they're talking about how you can be a better teacher oh man that teacher

she doesn't let us do this and she's so mean and yada yada well everyone in town knows but you everyone's talking about it you're the only one not in on the secret If you're not getting along with your wife, she's called her girlfriend, her mother, her sister, told the people in the office, everything that's wrong with you. But guess who she hasn't told, perhaps? You. So it's very important to ask for feedback. Now, I'd like to demonstrate how this works. I need another volunteer from the audience.

Who will be willing to play with me? Okay. What's your name? Mercedes. Okay, here's a microphone. What I want you to do is stand right here by the plants. and if you would face me over here. And what I'm going to do

is I'm going to walk toward you in a moment and you're my goal. As I'm walking toward you, 100% straight on, I want you to say on course. You're like a feedback system. On course. I'm on course. If I go even off five degrees,

you say off course. Okay? And you're going to be doing it like stream of conscience. On course, on course, on course, off course, off course, off course, on course, off course. Got the idea? Okay, are you ready? Okay, go.

Why aren't you giving me any feedback? Because you haven't do anything. Because I haven't do anything, exactly. Here's the deal. If I don't take action, I don't get any feedback. See, that's why the action is so important. Now, we'll start again. You ready?

Okay, here we go. On course, of course, of course, of course, of course. Of, on, off, on, off, on. Now, did I get here? Was I on course or off course more of the time, according to her? It was about even, wasn't it? Yeah. See, I could, and actually I could be off course more than I'm on course

as long as I respond once I get back on course. So the key here is if I take action and listen to feedback, eventually I, what? Get to my goal. Now, let me show you how a lot of people deal with feedback. It doesn't work. Stay here. And again, real fast, on course, on course, off course. If I'm moving toward you and off course if I'm not.

Are you ready? Okay, go. Here's how one person I know deals with feedback. On course, on course. Of course. Now, do you know anyone that gets negative feedback? And then he instantly just cave in. Yes, you've seen that.

Here's another way people deal with negative feedback. See if you've ever seen this one. Are you ready? Okay, here we go. On course, on course, of course, of course, of course. Bitch, bitch, bitch. You are so negative. Can't you say anything nice?

Now, have you ever seen anyone get angry at the source of feedback that was really useful for them? Exactly. Now, here's how one person I know, he actually bankrupted three companies, three divorces. This is how he deals with feedback. Ready, Mercedes? Okay, here we go. Of course, of course, of course, of course, of course. Right?

His favorite phrase was, my way or the highway. As long as you live in my house, you'll live by my rules. He was not open to feedback because he would rather be right than successful. You know anyone like that? Yeah. So the key here is to what? Ask for feedback and when you get it, listen to it, then correct and keep moving toward your target. Step number six, the last step.

Perseverance. Keep on, keeping on. Never give up. Never give up. If you've got a goal that's important in your heart, don't give up. As I said earlier, we would have self-published our book if no one else would have published it. You've got to have that kind of commitment to your goals. You may not know this, but the average millionaire in America goes bankrupt three and a half times before they come a millionaire.

I don't know how you go bankrupt to half a time, but you can do that statistically. Walt Disney went bankrupt five times. Henry Ford went bankrupt three times. Remember, we did chicken soup for the soul. 133 publishers said no. When they did the guy that wrote the book, MASH, that became a TV show, took him seven years. He was a high school teacher. He wrote at night.

Remember, persevere a little bit every time. Break it down. Every night he wrote. What happened? Turned down by 18 publishers until Moore bought the book. Jonathan Livingston Seagull turned down by 19 publishers. Louis Lomore, the great author, is 200 books in print. Got 300 rejections before he ever sold a piece of writing.

Alex Haley, who wrote it. roots got a rejection slip every week for four years 200 rejections before he sold his purse piece of writing see it takes perseverance Fred Astaire goes in for his first screen test what do they say can't act bald dances a little he had that framed in his living room after he went on to become what one of the greatest dancing actor singers we've ever seen in our history you don't let other people determine you persevere you hang in there So if you'll make your dreams a priority and if you'll surround yourself with positive people,

if you take 100% responsibility for your life and decide exactly what you want, and set specific goals and objectives and visualize your goals that's already completed, take massive and repeated action to respond to feedback, make corrections on course, off course, never give up, and I promise you it will start to live an amazing life full of dreams come true.