Blog Post

Hello everyone,

In the first of many NLP blogs to come, I wanted to begin with the topical issue of how to stop the doom and gloom and refocus on growing your business. Part 1 of this blog discusses your focus, while part 2 shares a specific NLP technique to assist you to focus on positive outcomes and part 3 discusses strategies for creating your own certainty in business.

One of my clients summed it up well recently by saying, “We (as a society) are talking ourselves into a recession”. You need to realise that in business and in life you get what you focus on. If you focus on what you want, you will get it; and if you focus on what you don’t want, you will get it too. If you think about what you don’t want, you will probably feel worry, stress, anxiety, fear, etc. Remember that anxiety or worry is simply a warning from your mind to remind you to focus on what you do want.

Too many people are so focused on what they don’t want and what they want to avoid, that they miss seeing what they can have and the opportunities before them right now. How often do you think about worst case scenarios or what could go wrong, then when it happens you say “I knew it was going to happen”? It became a self fulfilling prophesy because it has been proven scientifically that your mind is unable to differentiate between what you vividly image and what is real. The same applies on a larger scale in the economy.

As an economist for nine years during the 1990s, I have seen economic forecasts become self fulfilling prophesies. When enough consumers and businesses buy into economic forecasts and adjust their behaviour accordingly, the forecasts become true. Both consumers and businesses adjust their spending and investment based on their level of confidence about the future. When economic forecasts of doom and gloom abound, confidence decreases, consumer and business behaviour is adjusted accordingly, and spending and investment decreases. In contrast, when forecasts of boom times abound, confidence increases as does expenditure and investment, and as a society we create boom times.

I recently observed how the doom and gloom attitude of the staff in retail stores impacted on their behaviour, and on how poorly they served their customers. Even at networking events I have observed some business owners, when asked about their business, go into a doom and gloom dialogue. So instead of focusing on building relationships with other businesses and creating referral and cross-promotion opportunities, they completely miss those opportunities because of their obsession with doom and gloom. They are creating their own self fulfilling prophesy – after all, who wants to do business with or refer business to negative people!

Like attracts like. If you want to attract positive people and opportunities to you, first you need to be positive yourself! So watch your and your team’s attitude particularly at this time. If you lead a team, ensure that your attitude remains focused on what you want (and assist them to do the same), so that their service levels towards existing and new customers stay high. This has become more important than before in differentiating yourself from your competitors. With a positive attitude, you will also see and be better placed to act on opportunities as they present themselves. Which self fulfilling prophesy would you like to create for your business?

For more NLP techniques to fast track your business success and for your FREE gifts, visit www.qttransformation.com today.

(c) Qt, 2000 - 2010.