The Key to Preparing for Competition

The Key to Preparing for Competition by Denis Waitley

Self-knowledge has always been the key to preparing for competition. Knowledge of your attributes, abilities, interests, strengths, weaknesses and traits is essential to riding the front end of the wave of change into the new century. To fully assess your own talents, realize that studies confirm that what we love and do well as children continues as our latent or manifest talent as adults.

Examination of your weekend or evening interests might reveal a gem of potential you can apply to your vocation. I strongly suggest you don’t unthinkingly relegate what you love to do for yourself solely to hobbies. You might make it, or at least integrate it into, your life’s work.

The acquisition of knowledge, which is the new global power, is a lifelong experience, not a collection of facts or skills. Not long ago, what you learned in school was largely all you needed to learn to secure a career. With knowledge expanding exponentially, this is no longer true. Hundreds of scientific papers are published daily.

Every 30 seconds, some new technological company produces yet another innovation. Your formal education has a very short shelf life. Lifelong learning, once a luxury for the few, has become absolutely vital to continued success. Continue gaining expertise and avoid thinking like an expert.

Action Idea: An excellent benchmarking exercise is to spend a weekend with key associates or family members and dust off your childhood memories. Remember what you really enjoyed and wanted to do most as a child. The next activity in assessing your interests is considering your current ones. What do you most enjoy after work? What do you most want to do on weekends and vacations? What are your hobbies? Can you bring more of what you enjoy into your business life?

Action Step: Increase your reading, writing and vocabulary proficiency. One of the most important qualities of successful leaders is an ability to express thoughts and knowledge. Research by management and human resource experts confirms that no matter what the field of employment, people with large vocabularies – those able to speak clearly and concisely, using simple as well as descriptive words – are best at accomplishing their goals. Well chosen, carefully considered words can close the sale, negotiate the raise, enhance relationships and change destinies.

In a world of e-mail, fax dispersal, voice mail, sound bites, concise reports, business plans and meeting briefs, the individuals who can articulate their goals, substantiate their claims and support their visions will own the future. In the 21st century, literacy will be the major difference between the haves and have-nots.

Why do fewer than 10 percent of the public buy and read nonfiction books? One reason is that many would rather get home than get ahead. They are motivated to get by and get pulled along by the company, the economy or the government.

Another reason is that many individuals believe that information found in books, computer programs and training sessions has no value in the business world. How self-deluding!

As the new tools of productivity become the Internet, the DVD, direct digital download of text, audio and video, and the combination of the interactive computer with telecommunications, the people who know how to control the new technologies will acquire power, while those who thought that education ends with the diploma are destined for low-paying, low-satisfaction jobs. In almost the blink of an eye, our society has passed from the industrial age to the knowledge era.

Increase your reading by 100 percent. Decrease your television watching, and that of any children in your family, by 50 percent. Surf the Internet and subscribe to book summaries, or download free chapters from different sources. By reading book summaries, you can gain the essence of all the top business books in a very brief period of time.

Action Idea: Read at least one book each month, and listen to at least one additional audio book or education series during your commute or downtime.

-- Denis Waitley

Communication On The Internet 

Sex Transmutation

I start each of these review email with a few paragraphs of "Introduction". If you've gotten the past reports, just skip the intro and go straight to the Review section.

Note: All past reviews are now archived at

http://www.directyourmind.com/tgr/

... so you can get current on where we are now in these capsulized chapter reviews.

INTRODUCTION

I'm involved in a MasterMind group that is creating a Home Study "Think and Grow Rich" Course where...

Every Wednesday (began Wed the 5th of Jan) and for 8 successive Wednesdays, the MasterMind group will be digging into a different chapter or chapters of the book via private teleconferences.

These teleconferences are being recorded and will become the backbone of the Home Study Course.

I'll be reporting to you each Thursday, following the Wednesday teleconference about the highlights of what the MasterMind group discussed.

Understand that these private teleconferences are open only to the investors in the product (Home Study Course) and a few invited "specialists" and therefore I'm writing these brief reports to keep you "in the loop".

You may find all previous reports archived at:

http://www.directyourmind.com/tgr/

This session of the MasterMind Group started by discussing the virtues of what a MasterMind Group is and how and why it works.

Napoleon refers to the MasterMind as "The Driving Force".

He goes on the say that PLANS are inert and use- less without sufficient POWER to translate them into ACTION.

POWER may be defined as "organized and intelligently directed KNOWLEDGE." Makes sense.

Hill even declares, "No individual may have great power without availing him (or her) self of the "Master Mind"".

So you can't get where you're going... at least all the way to "great power"... without interfacing with others.

And, you know, I agree with that.

My experience with MasterMind groups is that a group of like-minded people (same interest topic) get together. Most of mine have been through phone meetings.

The first meeting is organizational, and then the good ideas start to flow. Over the next few months, uninspired people start to fall out...

and the group seems to dissipates.

BUT I ALWAYS come away with having bonded with one or two individuals that become longlasting members of my PERSONAL MASTERMIND (as I call it).

The relationships I have with these close businss friends ... well you just can't put a value on it.

You'll always get an honest answer (a unique power of a MasterMind), they are always there for you .. and WHY?

Because you're always there for them!

And now on to the most misunderstood chapter in the book... Sex Transmutation!

The premise of this chapter is that, if you harness your natural energies - the sexual drive being the MOST powerful of human desires - to express yourself, you can accomplish great things.

The meaning of the word "transmute" is, in simple language, "the changing, or transferring of one element, or form of energy, into another.

Sex Transmutation means the switching of the mind from thoughts of physical expression (having sex, flirting, etc.) to thoughts of some other nature.

Napoleon goes into much detail about the importance of a woman to a man (and man to a woman) and sites many famous examples.

My wife knows when I do things to become more successful.. yes, I'm doing it for me... but I'm more deeply doing it for "us".

I think that's the connective power that he's talking about.

Hill identifies Sexual Energy as the most powerful of human energies, followed by Love (which Hill says "moderates and helps direct" sexual energy)...

... and 8 others energy sources.. including alcohol!

In order to connect with the higher consciousness, you need to harness this energy.

In essence, Napoleon wants you to grab the energy from these sources (sex energy being the most power- ful) and transmute it into energy directed to create your desired reality.

You see, it's energy that causes action... thought action then concrete reality.

About 20 years ago, I took an "advanced" sales course that likened a prospects emotions during a sales presentation to a pendulum...

and the salesperson was instructed to get the pendulum swinging (create energy)... and it didn't matter if it was swinging "away" from the sale.

The only thing that mattered was that you got the pendulum swinging and the energy going.

So, I'd approach a prospect and they always seemed to just sit there... and they wanted me to dump information on them.

Well, I'd get the pendulum going with..."Now that I'm here, I realize this product may not be for you..."

Silence.

The prospect would say something like, "You called this meeting with me and you don't think I can use your product?!" ... with an angry look.

Mission accomplished... pendulum moving.

Then I'd say... "Well, let me ask you..." and I'd go on building the energy and swinging the pendulum... evenutally ... my way!

So, I can see Napoleon's point on energy and the transmutation of such. I was taking "anger energy" and transmuting it to "buying energy".

I guess, the notions of sparking energy in combination with my understanding of the importance of tapping into the "sixth sense" shows up in some of my company's products today...

Like the "Developing a Closing Instinct" mental training session in our SalesMind Software, which helps sales pros to get more of their desired outcome - sales!

Anyway, this Sex Transmutation chapter is one I'll definitely come back to, and probably, so should you.

Please tell anyone that you think can benefit by these uplifting discussions, to download their copy of Think and Grow Rich at:

http://www.directyourmind.com/think-and-grow-rich.html

With the past reports now archived, your friends and relatives and business associates can now catch up on these reviews and get right in the flow.

Keep reviewing, a couple of times a day, your Written Statement of your Desire for Money.

Norman Hallett

954-757-8722

http://www.directyourmind.com

TIME MANAGEMENT

One day an expert In time management was speaking to a group of business students and, to drive home a point, used an illustration those students will never forget.

As he stood in front of the group of high powered overachievers he said, “Okay, time for a quiz”. Then he pulled out a one-gallon wide mouth jar and set it on the table in front of him. He then produced about a dozen fist sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time, into the jar. When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, “Is this jar full”? Every one in the class said, “Yes”. The expert said “really”

He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. Then he dumped some gravel in and shook the jar causing pieces of gravel to work themselves down into the space between the big rocks. He asked the group once more, “is the jar full?” By this time the class was on him. “probably not”. One of them answered.

“Good” he replied. HE reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in the Jar and it went into all of the spaces left between the rocks & and the gravel. Once more he asked the Question, “Is this jar full?’. “No!” the class shouted. Once again he said “good”.

Then he grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in until the jar was filled to the brim. Then he looked at the class and asked “What is the point of this illustration”? One eager beaver raised his hand and said, “The point is, no matter how full schedule is, if you try really hard you can always fit some more things in it”.

“No”, the speaker replied, “that’s not the point. The truth this illustration teaches us is: If you don’t put the big rocks in first, you’ll never get them in at all.”

What are the “Big Rocks” in your life?. Your children…. Your Loved ones….. Education….. Your dreams….. A worthy cause… Teaching or mentoring others….. Doing things that you love…. Time for your self….. Your health ……. Your significant other….

Remember to put these BIG ROCKS in first or you’all never get them in at all. If you sweat the little stuff (the gravel, the sand) then you’all fill your life with little things you worry about that don’t really matter, and you’all never have the real quality time you need to spend on the big important stuff (the big rocks)

Ask your self this question : ‘What are the ‘big rocks’ in my life? Then, put those in your jar first.