Pressure-Prosperity Link

In the past couple years, most business owners have had to battle an unfriendly economy, and must now adjust to an evolving "New Economy." This is harder for some than others, but the path to success is the same for all: not permitting any conditions or circumstances to dictate results. Not to embrace any excuses for not doing well. Excuses sabotage creativity and initiative.

As an entrepreneur, you are going to screw up. And you are going to have bad things happen on your watch that you actually had no hand in, or feel you couldn't possibly prevent. That's a given. What's important to understand is that the world watches and responds to the way you handle these situations. If you blame others, blame circumstances, offer up excuses, you telegraph weakness. If you step up, accept responsibility, offer no excuses, and roll up your sleeves and work, you telegraph strength and command respect. With excuse-making, you may obtain some sympathy and pity but at the price of respect. And wealth is never transferred based on pity. It moves based on respect. Wealth attraction power has a great deal to do with self-respect and respect of others, and that has a great deal to do with your acceptance, even your embrace, of responsibility.

Bill Rancic spoke at one of our Glazer-Kennedy Insider's Circle™ Member conferences. You know Bill because he was the first season winner on Donald Trump's TV show The Apprentice. Bill was a very successful entrepreneur pre-Trump, and had many valuable insights and experiences to share from his other businesses as well as his year with The Donald. One such story was about one of his earliest businesses, as a kid, cleaning and readying boats in a resort area for the seasonal arrival of their owners. Things went horribly awry, and, as he said, most kids would have cut and run or blamed the circumstances involved. He did not. He took an arguably unjustified 100% of the responsibility for himself, with the direct result of impressing and keeping all his customers, but also the more important indirect result of strengthening his overall wealth attraction power. It paid off in the short-term in customers retained, renewed the next season, and in referrals. It paid off even bigger in the long-term in strengthening Bill's overall wealth attraction power.

If you remember the wonderful Pink Panther moves with Peter Sellers, you'll remember his Asian houseboy, who he paid to attack him without warning, to keep him on his toes. I've been told by good authority that the boxer Mike Tyson once hired a man to walk behind him saying "You the man, Mike, you the man." (There's a clue, how Tyson could zip through a hundred million dollars and be broke.) A fine investment would be hiring a big, strong guy to walk around with you for a month carrying a stout baseball bat and every time you voiced an excuse, hauling off and knocking you into next week. I imagine you'll be unwilling to make that investment, so, instead, you might try keeping a little notebook in your pocket, to keep a diary of every excuse you catch yourself making for the next month, as well as every excuse you get from anyone else. Awareness automatically improves performance, so just the act of keeping the diary, and stopping whatever you're doing each time you proffer an excuse will have positive impact. Getting whacked silly by the strong man with the Louisville Slugger would have more impact but admittedly the side effects are problematic.

If you recall the cartoon character "Popeye,," you'll remember that he pumped up his strength and power when needed by gulping down a can or two of spinach. I think of that as a visualization analogy; for the entrepreneur, responsibility is spinach. If you want to turn on wealth attraction power, gulp down some more.