Category: lifelong learner

Spelunking and overcoming fear

by chuckfasnacht, posted in lifelong learner

It seemed like a good idea, lets go spelunking! Climbing into a cave was something I had never done before, and when my brother in law said he was going to do it it was my style to be willing to try any challenge so I wanted to come along for the trip. It was a mid to late summer afternoon so there was plenty of daylight left and I dressed in jeans, sneakers and a t-shirt. Similar to my brother in law and his friends.

After parking the car we had about a 1500 meter walk to get to the site, and then climbed carefully up the side of a steep cliff. About 40 meters above the ground there was a hole in the wall of the cliff and when we got there they pointed at it and told me I could go in first. As I shimmied my head, chest and arms into the black hole, armed only with a pencil thin flashlight, I started feeling it. By it, I mean the anxiety and fear gripping me like a belt tightening around my chest. I pulled back out. “Are you sure about this?” I asked, trying to hide my fear. “Yes, we’ve done this several times, if you want we will go first.” So I slid to the side, and one after another they disappeared into the small black hole like a turtle pulling his head into the shell. “Come on”, they beckoned, “you will see its really large inside.” I tried it again, sliding head first, inching my way in, but again I stalled. “I will wait for you all.” They nodded and said, “if you want you can go down and wait by the car.” Going to the car meant to face the humiliation of climbing back down the 40 meter cliff, alone. Then walking the 1500 meters back to the car, alone. As I played the movie out, I realized that I would feel like a coward, or a loser, definitely not myself. “Let me try one more time to keep up with you,” I blurted out.

As I slithered my way back into the tightened crevice, I looked straight in front of my face, two inches away from the floor of the access hole. If I can just move one more inch, and then without looking at the entire distance to cover, looking at the floor in front of my face, slide just one more inch.

I remembered hearing a motivational speaker saying one time “inch by inch it’s a cinch” and so I found. One more inch became another, and another and soon I was in a cavern that was 10 meters high! with beautifully colored rock formations and a small slip of water streaming across the floor. I was filled with awe and so thankful that I didn’t quit.

Whenever in a difficult situation and I feel the fear overcoming me. One where I don’t know what to do or how to do the next step, I remember this lesson. One more inch. One more moment. One more effort. My faith tells me that my God will help me, take the next small step. But only one step at a time. When we arrive at the destination, the feeling of overwhelming awe and experiencing the beauty that only He can provide. As we look back over the progress made, it will be more than we ever imagined.

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Never Quit on Yourself

by chuckfasnacht, posted in lifelong learner

Never consider giving up on a worthwhile goal. The only way you will fail at achieving a goal is to quit. If you continue to hold your goal in mind and continue to work and evolve toward achievement of that goal, you will progress toward the ultimate achievement. A short-term failure or mistake is merely an educational lesson, and you will find that as you get more experienced and better at setting and achieving your goals, your educational lessons will become more and more expensive.

I remember the first time I lost $500 in an investment I was crushed! Then a couple years later, I learned a valuable lesson through making a $5,000 mistake. Years later, I again learned what NOT to do and lost $50,000 in one day! But each time I lost, I learned something that took me closer to more achievements and bigger numbers in income.

Making mistakes taught me how to identify red flags so I can hopefully prevent that mistake from happening again. Every time I recovered from the lesson learned, I more than made up for it on future efforts. I don’t fear making a mistake or losing because I compare it to the cost of a college education. I know the lessons I learn when I make a mistake will provide me strength and insight to achieve even greater successes. And creating and achieving more success will enable us to be a blessing to others!

Do well and be a blessing!

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Why WOULD they?

by chuckfasnacht, posted in lifelong learner

Selling Is Merely Helping Someone Do What They Want to Do!

Why would someone want to buy anything? If it is a thing, what will that thing help them do or be? People don’t buy a drill or other tool because they want the tool as much as what they want the tool to do for them. In the case of an electric drill, the buyer wants to make a hole!

If what you’re selling is a service, what will that service provide as a benefit to the buyer? And most importantly, why now, and why should they buy from you and not someone else? An excellent way to think about the career of sales is to think about it as a job to help people get something that they want, or maybe help them understand the benefit of something they didn’t know they wanted.

I remember a sales coaching situation with a salesman who was discouraged and struggling. In context, this same salesperson had great success early in his career and now found himself unsure of himself, and getting more no than yes. Getting a yes or a no is many times a function of timing, connecting on key needs and because it will provide a feeling or outcome the prospect desires. If we just consider the selling ratios and compare calls to closed sales, in this case the closing ratios were high early which gave a false impression to the salesperson. The compensation for early success is when the “no sale calls” begin to catch up later.

We were calling on a prospect that had already said no to the opportunity we were presenting. These are some of my favorite calls, because most of the time the prospect has already let there defensive walls down, because we acknowledge the no. Our goal is to have an open and honest discussion.

During the planning phase I asked the salesperson “why would the prospect want to buy our service?” to which they responded “he doesn’t want to buy, he already said no!” But “Why WOULD he want to buy?” After several iterations of this question the point was getting through. What outcome would having our service provide for the prospect that the prospect would understand could help them achieve some of their personal and professional goals. It wasn’t about our service as much as it was about how our service would help them achieve a goal they already were struggling to achieve.

In our call we started with “I know you are not interested in our service, but was hoping you could help us understand what we could present differently in the future.” Upon discussion, we learned more about the current state of operations and the struggles that the management team was having to cover all their responsiblities. As the prospect declared his lack of manpower to do current assignments he pointed out that another assignment would just make it worse. Need identified.

Apologetically, we missed the need. It was clearly our mistake for not understanding the customer and tailoring the presentation to show how our service (1) pay for the manpower to convert to the new systems, and (2) create additional savings for adding even more manpower. Through alignment of systems and processes, reducing some of the fixed costs, and increasing the output of the existing team, the service would help the management team achieve their goals quicker and more completely.

It won’t work for every time or every person, but understanding why a prospect “would want to buy” will be a big step toward creating a mutual win-win solution. Listen to the prospect and they will tell you what you need to know! Why they would want to buy!

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When in Doubt, Be Patient

by chuckfasnacht, posted in lifelong learner

When change happens or when you want change to happen, be patient. In time the dust will settle, and your doubts will either clear up and vanish or they will be borne out by your continued efforts during the waiting, working, and watching period. This doesn’t mean you should quit working at your goal or quit trying, but keep pedaling the bicycle and keep working toward making progress. By being patient, you will eventually have enough of the necessary facts and you will know it’s time to decide. Then do the next right thing! You wont have to make a hasty decision, but when it is time for action use the wisdom of Teddy Roosevelt who said,

“In any moment of decision, the best thing to do is the right thing, the worst thing to do is nothing.” —Theodore Roosevelt

Because you are thinking big, you may find that as you progress toward achievement of a goal, you find out new information. It is okay to adjust your goals after you set them if you find out new information. This isn’t intended to let you off the hook of a big goal, but it will help you identify nuances and minor direction changes as you develop your future. An example is an airplane flying from New York City to Dallas may start off with a compass heading. As the flight continues, there will be forces on the airplane that will cause a need to change the direction of the flight. These changes don’t require the plane to turn around and start over, but they will require that there be some fine-tuning on the heading the pilot selects to continue progressing toward the goal. When the plane safely touches down, it will be a result of paying attention to the external forces, weather, and winds that became part of the trip. Likewise, as you progress toward your goals, you will make fine-tuning adjustments to make sure the final outcome is the one you have in your vision.

Set a big goal and make progress toward it daily!

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Overcoming a plateau

by chuckfasnacht, posted in lifelong learner

When you think about what you want to do, remember that good enough isn’t good enough. What do I mean by that or what is another way to say it? Good is the enemy of the best. As you determine the direction and the goals you want to set, don’t be afraid to think of what you would want to do if you KNEW YOU COULDN’T FAIL. What would your goal be then? Because the truth is that whatever goal you set and fix your mind on, you will eventually achieve. Earl Nightingale said, “whatever the mind can conceive and believe, with certainty it will be achieved.”

How will this apply to your situation? If you have an expectation, or self image, your performance will equal that image. People perform to the level they feel comfortable. If they expect to earn $100,000 per year, they will find ways to not exceed their comfort level. Self-sabotage can take the form of oversleeping, missing appointments, or generally not being focused on the customer. Likewise, performing below your comfort level will cause you to become laser sharp to find ways to achieve your level of comfort. So how do you break through into a new “best” for yourself?

Imagine setting your goals like setting a thermostat. When you are performing below your acceptable range the heat will kick on, and when you get too high, the cooling will calm you down. So changing the way you see yourself, and see your outcomes is the first step to sustainable growth.

There are two major ways to overcome these personal limitations through (1) developing habits that will no longer require active conscious planning and thought, and (2) using helpers to sprint alongside you to pace yourself for a larger goal.

Developing habits so your mind is free to expand into new areas of thought and personal development should be a first step. Anything that you do on a routine basis can be put into a habit, or scheduled in your personal planner. If you want it to be a habit, make it a routine you can schedule and stop thinking about. This could be a much longer discussion but for now lets set it aside and move to the next level of breaking through your plateau.

The example of Roger Bannister breaking the 4 minute mile is a good example of the sprinting concept. The four minute mile was mythically elusive and many people of the day thought it to be “scientifically impossible” because of the mechanical structure of humankind. It surely was a psychological barrier but it WAS possible to run a quarter mile in under a minute, and a half-mile in less than a two minutes. With his attention to training and thinking about how to break the record, Roger Bannister found 2 people who could run alongside him and pace him. He was able to break the “impossible” 4 minute barrier on May 6th, 1954. A short six weeks later the record was broken again by another, and today there are hundreds of people who have run the mile in under 4 minutes with the record time currently under 3 minutes and 44 seconds.

If you have a big goal that requires you to do something that you have never done before, consider finding short sprints that ARE possible and believeable, and begin to string them together. You too, along with people who can partner with you and run alongside, can do something that you once thought impossible.

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Where you look you will go

by chuckfasnacht, posted in lifelong learner, startup

Recently, I received accident avoidance training, which I recommend by the way. In this training event, the teacher was a race car driver, and he said when you are in a spin or if you feel like you are about to lose control always “look where you want the car to go.” He used examples of NOT looking at the ground, or NOT looking straight ahead in a turn. In the case of driving a race car or avoiding an accident, it is important to NOT be looking at the other cars.

The example the trainer used that was the most profound for me was that of a field with a tree in the middle of it. If you were driving through a field and you looked at a tree, saying, “I have to miss the tree…I have to miss the tree…” the premise is that you would indeed draw closer and closer to the tree until you hit it! By looking where you DON’T want to go, your eyes will draw your hands to a position that will create movement in the direction of your gaze.

Conversely, when you want to avoid an obstacle, it is important to look where you want to go. It works when you are going through a turn, and it works for when you want to avoid an accident. It works because our body follows the direction of our focused attention. Whether you are riding a bicycle, a motorcycle, or driving a race car, Look where you want to go!

What a fantastic analogy to goal setting!

If you have read other personal achievement books, you will recognize that we humans have a reticular activating system that will cause us to gravitate toward the focus of our attention. If we are focused on successfully completing the writing of a book, we will find ways and ideas to help us along that path. Likewise, if your goal is to generate more impact with your chosen work or talents, such as a self-directed business, your mind will work to find a way to help you achieve the goals you focus on. Regarding the way our brain works while goal setting, your body will try to create that which the mind is focused upon.

Choose your focus!

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Believe in your success

by chuckfasnacht, posted in lifelong learner

Have you ever succeeded at anything before?

Think back to a time that you set out on a new journey or attempted something new. How often did you think about it? A lot? All the time? Were you obsessive? Most likely your new effort was so mentally absorbing that you found yourself driving to work and forgetting how you got there. You were moving along on automatic while thinking about your new shiny new idea. Using the analogy of being a birth mother, it is something that they will think about every day continuously until giving birth. Then they find out that they can’t sleep without being totally engaged in the well-being of the baby.

So it is with starting a new business—no matter how much help you get, and no matter how much the systems and processes have been fine-tuned to allow you to make it happen! It will require a commitment of your psychological attention, as well as your resources of time and money. It will become your baby! Being in a well developed franchise system affords you access to the tools and processes but it will still require YOUR investment of time, energy and focused effort.

So, going back to the earlier question, what have you succeeded at before? You learned to drive a car. When you first started, you had a goal of passing the test, but then found out that passing the test was only the first step in mastering the driving experience. Then comes the continual improvement of your skills and the ability to build on previous knowledge. Pretty soon you were driving across the country and experiencing the freedom that comes with ability to control your own destiny.

So take the first step, you can do this!

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Underway shift colors

by chuckfasnacht, posted in lifelong learner

Casting off the lines is a term used when getting a ship underway, and the announcement is “underway, shift colors”. The flag being flown when at rest is exchanged for the underway flag so everyone can see who you are and that you have an intended direction and purpose. In contrast to staying moored to the pier, or anchored at rest, when you cast lines off you are declaring your intention to begin movement. If on a ship, in addition to changing the flag, there is an accompanying blast of the ship’s whistle to let everyone know that you are free from restraint and in motion, subject to the forces of wind, waves and under your own propulsion. This is a great image to hold of getting started, especially as you enter the new year. Make a declaration, change your flag, blast the whistle and get moving!

A ship that doesn’t leave the harbor will never arrive at its new port of call, and the person that doesn’t start out on their path will not reach their true potential. So where do you want to go? A good place to start is to consider what it is that you do well. Is there some way for you to improve what you currently do well, and capitalize on an incremental idea or improvement?

What is an incremental improvement? Or better yet, how can you apply your best skills in a completely new field where they will be better rewarded? This is how many new ideas develop into new products, new businesses, or new services. A skill that is being used at less than maximum value is reassigned to a new idea and, behold, there is a magnificent outcome. Sometimes the new idea is something that nobody ever knew they needed until it became available. Think about the i-Pod for music, and the i-Pad for portable entertainment. Think about what you already know and how you might be able to apply it to a new frontier. You are worth it! Invest in yourself.

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Goals or plans

by chuckfasnacht, posted in lifelong learner

There is a Proverb that says, “we can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps” – Proverbs 16:9 NLT

I think this is a good point to start a discussion about having goals. I have always been a believer in goal setting and have set goals my whole life. Everything from which girl to date, what car to drive, personal achievements in sports, academics, family and financial goals. Early in my goal setting experiences, my goals were written down and reviewed periodically. They included measured progress and a clear plan of how to get from my starting point to the goal line. As time has gone on, I have continued to set goals but now I use electronic means to track them with spread sheets and comparisons. Some things have changed but some things will never change. Goal setting is important to have a direction for your life purposes.

As we grow in experiences and knowledge, how we think about goals and goal setting should also be a constant evolution. We can set goals that more and more carefully fit into our lifestyle choices. A goal properly set will include a mental picture of what it will feel like when you have achieved it. How you will know you have completed it. Will you be living in the home of your dreams; driving the car; surrounded by friends and family or sharing it with a special someone? What will it look like, smell like, and who will you bring along with you on your journey. The emotional aspect of achieving the goal will give you motivation and power behind your “why”. Why you want to achieve it.

The goal may have a plan attached to it, but while plans and steps to achieve you goal will change, the goal decision should not change unless you find it is no longer a worthwhile goal.

PLANS CHANGE BUT GOALS REMAIN

When a ship leaves port it has a direction and a goal. Along the way currents of the seas, shifting winds and sometimes obstructions will cause a change in steering direction. A change in heading or course steered doesn’t change the goal of when and where you shall arrive. The change in steps, or course settings are a reflection of the recognition that change will happen. Outside forces will impact the ship, and the course will need to be adjusted to overcome the effect of these outside forces.

Like the ship, when you make a decision to arrive at a goal and set a time and state of being that will in fact be your goal, it becomes your focal point. There will be changes to you personally, your environment, the tools you have available and other influences to make you adjust your steps and intermediate course settings. In the achieving process, have the humility to recognize that God may have a better way to achieve your goal and keep your eyes open for changes or opportunities for a better course selection.

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Seeing eye to eye in a pandemic

by chuckfasnacht, posted in lifelong learner

Have you ever heard about meeting with another person “eye to eye?”

Meet your customer or prospective customer eye to eye is a very descriptive visual. It is easy to imagine looking into another persons eyes while talking. When you do, it is the most engaged conversation you can have with true authenticity and vulnerability. This is a very powerful way of sharing a moment of communication.

A smile is the welcome mat to your face, and the eyes are the window of the soul. Being willing to look someone in the eye is a critical ingredient to building trust and rapport. Conversely, lack of eye contact can be a sign of deceit, or insecurity. If the other party notices that you avoid their eyes they may perceive that you are being deceitful or at least insecure. If they give you the benefit of the doubt and assume it isn’t outright deceit, they will wonder what it is you are insecure about. It could be something personal, or is it the product or service you’re presenting? These seeds of doubt will cause a lack of confidence and will often break a sales process.

Meeting eye to eye can also connote the ability to get a common understanding. Another way of saying it is “being on the same page.” Coming to agreement in language, terms, and conditions. This applies to relationships as well as the sales or negotiation process. Whether it is your spouse, your partner, your children or your friends, you will want to see them eye to eye. As a descriptive visual expression of agreement, it follows all good relationships.

In this day of pandemic and limited ability to personally meet with people, it is important to remember that it is still possible to remain connected. It may not be as easy to get together as it was in past, but the concept of reaching out to people, and communicating as thoroughly as possible, can still enrich our lives. The eye to eye meeting may not happen in physical proximity, but we can still communicate. We can still ask questions, and listen to the answers. We can still be involved in the lives of others. We can still care, and share ourselves with those who we love. Fortunately, eye to eye can still happen even when we are physically distant.

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