Chapter 1
From The Bench To The Playing Field
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Today's Empowering Quote
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"I have brought myself by long
meditation to the conviction that a human being with a settled
purpose must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will which
will stake even existence upon its fulfillment."
-Benjamin Disraeli
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Today's Empowering Question
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"What am I willing to give up in
order to reach my objective?"
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Today's Fast Session
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Since I've had so many requests
about how I went from a real bum to being able to write to tens of
thousands of friends all over the world, here's the story.
It's...interesting.
Up until early 1987 I regularly
used to beg the gods for an answer to the question of why I couldn't
get myself to do what I needed to do to get my simple goals met.
Why was I so lazy and miserable? I was just... a bum.
I got fired from countless jobs.
I flunked out of college. And then got fired some more.
Finally, after reading some very
popular books on selling and motivation over and over...
...I continued to fail, not making
one single solitary thin dime in my commissioned sales job for close
to TWO more years. If it weren't for friends and then my
trusty Ford Econoline van, I literally would've been living "on" the
street.
One day, during this period, while
sitting in my van, a man walked up and started talking to me.
He was brilliant. He went on to tell the story of when he, as
an announcer, covered the World Series back in the late 60's.
He had all the names; he knew stats like it was yesterday. His
voice was clearly that of a broadcaster. But the thing that was most
incredible was...
...He was pushing a shopping cart,
which carried all his earthly possessions.
He was homeless, too. Living
on the street. I couldn't believe it.
He told me that he just got sick of
the daily challenges. One problem after another. He
literally became unable to function in any capacity. Very
quickly he had lost everything. At the end, it was by choice.
Sadly, I could identify with THIS
guy more than anyone I had met in a while. I was very low, but
fortunately, I hadn't quite reached that level...
...Yet.
I did want to get off the "street"
and stop being a bum. So I found this great bookstore around
Hermosa Beach that had comfy chairs, and I started spending a lot of
time there. Ultimately, I had gotten very familiar with a
number of self-help change methods, including NLP, self-talk and
Accelerated Learning techniques. Like I said, I had a lot of
time on my hands.
I soon came back to Upstate New
York, got a menial job and started to create my own Superlearning
tapes with three cheap, borrowed tape players. Only instead of
learning a language or factual data at lightning speeds, I figured
I'd teach myself new attitudes and instruct myself to do things that
sent tremors of fear through me... actions that could change me from
a loser to someone I'd be proud to be.
So from every sales, biography,
motivation, NLP and don't worry, be happy book I could find, I
pulled out all the lessons, the beliefs and the attitudes of life's
top performers. I turned them into self-instructions, and
recorded them onto tapes with very specific baroque music passages
playing in the background.
It was quite a setup. I was
desperate and willing to do anything. I couldn't be getting
fired more from any more $5.00 an hour jobs.
In what seemed like just a few
days, I began to feel differences. In my new job, I started
working lots of hours putting coin-operated TVs together and
installing them. Soon, I was making telephone calls to
prospective customers, large travel plazas with big restaurants.
These early TV boxes were downright
ugly, but I was able to convince the presidents of nearly every one
of these huge corporations to let us tear up their nice dining rooms
to put these things in. It was wild. I mean, I just got
in a frenzy of conviction before each call.
The more I listened to my tapes
while I slept, the more fanatical I got about reading and learning.
Among my recorded self-instructions were ones that told me I loved
learning and that I was the greatest salesman in the world.
Ha!! I put in that the more I succeeded, the more success I
wanted. Talk about a vicious cycle, huh?
Well, soon I had exhausted the
company's inventory of TV's. And since the revenue each one
made wasn't that high, the company had no money to buy the parts to
build hundreds more. Even though it proved to be a dead end
job, it felt good not being fired.
So I left to start selling hearing
instruments. I just got scary good. In an industry where
20-25% closing ratios were typical, I was selling 95%. In just
about 4 months, that self-instruction about being the greatest
salesman in the world was eerily coming true... at least in that
industry. Soon I was going seven days a week. Missing a
sale was just not an option.
I continued to listen to my tapes
and develop new ones. Considering where I came from to where I
was now, I figured that anything was possible. I researched
and made tapes for everything from diet practices to anxiety.
I had gone from being scared of everything to feeling like I
couldn't fail.
I used to use double negatives when
I spoke. "I didn't do nothing" was a famous line. This drove
people around me crazy. So I researched communication and
public speaking and made an accelerated success tape.
Whenever I wanted to eliminate a
block, get good at something, or feel better about myself, I looked
for the top professionals, researched their findings, uncovered lots
of conflicting data, found what made sense and made a tape in the
accelerated learning format.
I've found there wasn't anything
that I couldn't literally install into or rip out of my mind.
And with the right thoughts and instructions, you could create an
endless loop of success, each good outcome fueling in you the desire
to keep the positive change and to improve even more.
In short, that's the early part of
the story that leads me to today, getting to talk to you.
I hope this answered a few
questions and inspired you to believe that no matter what you're
going through right now, you are truly magnificent. All you
have to do is release your blocks and embrace your unlimited
potential. There's enormous power within you. It might be
buried, but it's there.
I know, I know. If that seems
a little beyond what your belief system currently allows you to
accept, I understand. That's OK. Keep reading and
repeating your self instructions.
You'll become a believer soon
enough.
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Today's Winning Beliefs
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-- Every success I achieve fuels in
me the desire for more
-- I can achieve anything that I can imagine
-- I have the ability to visualize every aspect of my success
-- My ability is greater than any challenge I could face
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