It's tough at the top.. and even TOUGHER at the bottom!
A Critical Understanding of: The Personal Cycle of Life & Business Success
by Trevor Nel (first produced 1996 under different title & still as relevant in current times)
Having now worked with many thousands of entrepreneurs, whether in private consultation or in large group seminars, I am continually struck by the biggest weakness I perceive in 95% of the people I talk to: Almost everybody is looking for an instant formula to a problem-free life of never-ending success.
Now,?let me make it quite clear, I firmly believe that we all live in a God-given world of unlimited abundance and opportunity.
And, I believe that the secret to living a great life is really quite simple.
As it is really quite simple to operate a profitable business by adding enormous value to the lives of your consumers.?
But, before you accuse me of living in cloud-cuckoo land and being totally insensitive to the true-life experiences of many hard-pressed people in our country, I want you to understand that if there is one thing I do know about this life, it is this:???
Life is tough!!!?
Yes, life is extremely tough.
In fact, in my experience of many, many, years of highly entrepreneurial endeavor, from the very bottom of the business pecking order and all the way to the top, I have learnt that?it is incredibly tough at the top.
But, here’s something that most people don’t realize - it’s even tougher at the bottom!
It really amazes me how many people are not prepared to do the things in their lives that are necessary to enable them to climb off the bottom and up the ladder of success.
Why are people seemingly content to stay at the bottom?
Well, in my experience, it is because many, if not most people, have tried to break-free from the bottom of the pile and have very quickly begun to experience the pain and discomfort of new challenges and problems.
These new challenges and problems often appear to be insurmountable and too much to bear when one is not prepared for them.
Almost always, the easy painless path of least resistance is the first chosen.
Some have said that failure is the path of least persistence.
It is always far easier to give up than to persevere and persist.
Why? Because we all have an inherent fear of rejection by others. A fear of humiliation. A fear of failure.
We are all governed by excessively over-stated egos that don’t want to be bruised by the ridicule of others.
And for most, the easiest way to never fail, to never be pained by the hurtful comments of others,?is to never try.
However, the really successful people in life will tell you that you only fail by giving up!
The true fact of the matter is that the tougher you are on yourself, the easier life will be on you.
Success takes self-discipline, personal control and planning. Success takes an incredible amount of mental toughness, physical toughness, and spiritual toughness.
To be successful you have to be prepared!
Prepared? Prepared.. for what?
Well, to my way of thinking, the greatest tragedy in life and in business is that people are not prepared to learn the lessons of nature and what they teach us all about how to really enjoy our lives.
Just look around you at our great mountain ranges. Every mountain has a peak.
But the entire world is not made up of peaks. To get to each peak you have to travel through just as many valleys.
As a mountaineer you have to travel through the low points to reach every different peak you aim to climb.
Now, isn’t this just similar to our own lives?
Has anyone ever experienced some ups and downs in their own lives?
Has anyone ever experienced some lows, some setbacks, some disappointments in their lives?
Of course we have! Every single one of us has.
Keep looking around you. As sure as day follows night, as summer follows winter, as the tides rise and fall, and as storms give way to the sun, nature leaves us with the clue that nothing ever remains the same on this planet.
Every low point will eventually transform into a high.
And, every high point will eventually fade away into a low.
Everything is in a state of transition.
Yes, for me the greatest tragedy in life is that people are not prepared to ride our roller-coaster of life.???
That’s right, Life is a roller-coaster ride!
No one has ever experienced a perfect life. Not even the most successful people in the world that you might just be a slight bit envious of. In fact, it is my bet that if you knew what their problems were, you wouldn’t want them.
Everyone who has ever lived has had their ups and downs. Everyone has lows. Everyone has setbacks. Everyone has disappointments. Everyone has problems!
Let’s study this phenomenon a little closer. Take a look at the unemployed in our country and ask them what their biggest problem is right now.
Their answer: “No work! I would do anything just to have a job - any job!”
Go off and talk to an average group of employees in a smoke-filled canteen and ask them what their biggest problem is.
Their answer: “My work! I hate my job. I just hate this work. I wish I could retire.”
What other problems do employees have?
The answer: “My boss! The boss always wants me to work harder. I wish I could be the boss, then I’d have no problems.”
Does the boss have problems? “Oh yes! - my employees! The lazy-good-for-nothings don’t want to do any work and they want me to pay them for it. I wish I could retire!”
Go and talk to all those retirees out there. What’s their biggest problem?
“Boredom! Give me some work, a job, a small business to run, anything! Just give me something to do before I die of boredom”.
What about successful people?
Successful people are successful because they create problems!
Problems which they recognize they have to solve.
Edison’s problem was how to create a source of light using electricity. It is said to have taken him over 10 000 failed attempts before he solved his problem.. and gave the world the electric light bulb.
The Wright brothers problem was to take to the air in a man-made flying machine.
Henry Ford set himself the problem of motorizing transport. Thank goodness he did, and he became one of the wealthiest men in the world.
Bill Gates’ problem was to get a personal computer on every desk in every home and business.?
Interestingly, Bill Gates has hardly even begun to overcome this problem despite over 20 years of intense effort. Yet, working at solving his self-created problem has made him one of the two wealthiest men in the world, worth over $18 Billion (back in 1996).
And, he hasn’t succeeded yet!
It strikes me that the bigger the problems created by the committed?entrepreneur, the more successful that entrepreneur seems to become as a solution is worked upon.
Sometimes I think that the reason that many of us are not more successful is because we don’t create big enough problems for ourselves!
Isn’t it also interesting how the most unsuccessful people in the world always seem to be those who want to run away from their problems.
If you are still not convinced, let’s look at the accepted top achievers in life - presidents of countries and CEO’s of major listed companies!
Do you think they don’t have problems?
How would you like to have President Mandela’s.. or Bill Clinton’s..?problems?
Yes, everybody has problems!
So who are we, you and I, to think that we are owed a problem-free life?
Only the foolhardy can think that life is meant to be perfect and problem-free.
Personally, I believe it is the way in which we prepare to meet and respond to the inevitable problems we are all going to face every day - some small, some big - that prepares us for our ultimate destiny.
And, we only truly find out what that destiny is on the day that we die. Are you prepared for it?
The Bible says that if you aren’t prepared for this day you might just be in line to face the mother-of-all-problems for the rest of eternity. Yup, it’s a hell of a problem!
If you can’t handle the problems of this life, can you just imagine, if the Bible is right - which I believe it is - having to spend eternity with the biggest problem of them all.
And, if I’m wrong? Well, you won’t have to worry. You’ll have no more problems.
You’ll just be dead!
The story goes that a wise old man recognized that the only human beings without problems lie in the cemetery - six feet underground. Exclaimed this wise old man in a cry of anguish: “Please God, just give me some problems!”
So, if everybody has problems, just what is it that separates the successful from the rest of mankind? Why do they not look as if they have serious problems in their lives?
Their secret lies in the fact that they recognize that everything is in transition, that life has its cycles, and that problems have a limited life-span.
Now, what this does not mean is that, if you stick your head in the sand, your problems will disappear.
All they’ll do, in this instance, is sneak up from behind and give you a swift kick in the rear while you’re not looking.
Successful people realize that problems can, and have to, be managed and massaged until they eventually are resolved.
Zig Ziglar taught me that successful people also recognize that each problem generally results in one of two responses: a negative reaction (much like what happens when you take the wrong medicine); or a positive response (like when you take the right medicine).
The one can prove disastrous to your health, and the other, a major tonic for your life.
So, do you react to your problems or do you respond to them?
Personally, I believe that it is easier to respond to problems when you view them as challenges.
I’ve never seen anybody react to a challenge. People generally respond to challenges, or do nothing at all.
So for me, all problems are challenges which can be overcome by a positive response?in full expectation that it will come to the end of its own life-cycle if it is managed closely.
Given that everybody is affected by problem cycles in their lives, I am often asked what it is that separates the super-achievers from the non-achievers in life.??
My answer is simple. In my experience I see?three types of people?in this world:
Type 1.?The Prophets of Doom?(PODs) who are stuck in a downward-angled falling life-cycle where each new high is considerably lower than the previous high in their lives.
And their new lows are considerably lower than any previous low they have ever experienced.
For them life is just progressing from bad to worse, and today can only be a thousand times better than tomorrow!
领英推荐
These are the people who never have a kind word for anybody, any business, or anything.
They always criticize everything and are generally up to their eyebrows in debt, drowning… where it is only the depth of their despair that varies.
These are the people who will be only too pleased to drag you down to their level with them, to keep them company.
Avoid them like the plague!
Type 2.?The Spectators of Life.?These are the people who continually choose to sit on the sidelines of life.
They really get excited about the potential of life, and love watching people play the game of life and succeed.
But, they themselves never choose to take the risk and step onto the field of play themselves.
These are the nameless, blurred, ‘play-it-safers’ of life. Never risking much. Never achieving much.
Their life-cycle just meanders slowly sideways, with their lows never too low, and their highs never too high.????
For them life ends up becoming a bore and they can’t understand why the excitement of life, that other people experience in their lives, has just passed them by.
“What did we do wrong!”, they exclaim.
The fact is, they never did anything ‘wrong’, they never made mistakes, they never took risks, they never did anything different.
They get out of life precisely what they put in - very little!
Theodore Roosevelt - famous President of the United States - once explained his disdain for Types 1 and 2 in this famous quotation:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out where the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred with dust and sweat and blood. At the best, he knows the triumph of high achievement; if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
Type 3.?The Achievers in Life.?
My favorite kind of people. Their upward-angled life-cycle resembles a jagged path to the top of a mountain. Their new lows are almost always considerably higher than their previous highs.
In fact their lows are generally far higher than most others highs.
When they get stuck in a depression they just stop for a rest and ponder the marvelous view of the world around them.
Once they are well rested, they begin their climb again to higher peaks.
For them life is always great, because they know how to respond to life’s cycles.
It should come as no surprise that all three types find their way into business.
Simply because almost everybody needs to make money in our modern world, and starting your own business seems, to many people, to be an easy enough way to make money.
But, if you think it is frightening when ordinary people are not aware of nature’s clues to life, for me it is pitiful to note how so few people understand the necessary cycles for business success.
No matter who I have worked with, whether it be sales-people, franchisees, independent distributors, business entrepreneurs or corporate CEO’s, I have always been amazed at how quickly the majority of these people lose their enthusiasm for whatever they have chosen to do.
The saddest fact is that these people don’t know the true reason why they lose their enthusiasm and end up blaming their company, the product, the market, the economy, or some other convenient reason.
These people end up hopping from company to company, opportunity to opportunity, job to job, always unfulfilled and disillusioned with their lot in life.
Having studied this phenomenon closely, I have developed a little model of The Personal Cycle of Life & Business Success?which has helped many people to understand the secret of life and business success.
Almost every business career starts off with some initial training in the?7 Major P’s?of any new business, product, or opportunity.
These cover an understanding of:
As I watch people leaving their first orientation training program on any new business or product, I note that their enthusiasm and excitement knows no bounds.
At that point they are convinced that what they have at their finger-tips is the greatest thing since peanut-butter.
Then something amazing happens.
Just when they’re at the very?peak?of their enthusiasm, they?procrastinate!
They sit back and wait. They spend their time at home or in the office just?piddling about, pretending that they are busy.
It is precisely at this point of the slippery slope that their minds turn to looking for?problems to justify why they shouldn’t be leaving the safety and comfort of the office.
For one who understands these cycles, this is the point where one learns to?pause.. and?ponder?what has got you to this first low point in your cycle of business success.
Whether you like it or not, everybody goes through these cycles. But most people do not understand this or recognize that such cycles actually exist, and they never get past this first low point.
Most job-hop to a new opportunity looking for a new trainer who will do a better job, little realizing that they are going to go through the same cycle all over again.
At this first low point in the cycle, I advise my delegates to get out and meet with the most?positive people?they know who are succeeding in business.
Now this is easier said than done, for there are very few genuinely positive people in life.
But when you do find them, they will confirm that you have to be totally prepared for success and they will get you to review your?7 Major P’s?to try to understand why you were excited in the first place.
As you review your first orientation training program you will again sense the?possibilities contained in the business opportunity.
You will soon develop a clearer?picture?of yourself being successful, and guess what, you even begin to?perform?and start selling your business concept to others with a measure of success.
However, it is just at this second peak of enthusiasm that?panic?strikes once again.
Someone asks a few smart questions that you can’t answer, someone criticizes your product, someone questions your integrity, and?paralysis?sets in.
I’ve seen it time and time again.
People at this point find every excuse to stay at home or in the office.
Most people begin looking for a?parachute?to bale out.
And again they start focusing on all the potential?problems?to justify their inactivity.
Now here’s what’s exciting about understanding these cycles, when you start focusing on problems you know you’re almost at the end of your downward slide.
And now you know that, again, the only solution is to?pause?and?ponder?why you were enthusiastic in the first place.
By the way, whenever I have entered into this pause mode in the past, I would take the day off and relax alone on the beach, or paddle-ski in the surf, or play golf on a picturesque golf course, or just have tea and relax in a park.
Some of the nicest days of my life have been spent pondering my problems.. and I’ve had many of these days.
This second low is easier to handle than the first, if you know that it is coming, and it IS coming, purely because you have your first low experience to go on.. and you have the experience to recognize that you came out of that with renewed enthusiasm.
You also know that you need a?‘pick-me-up’?and you’ve got to, again, search out those?positive people?who will remind you to review your?7 Major P’s.
In my experience, it is only after your third major review of your entire business that you start to develop a?passion?for what you are doing.
You also begin to realize that there is a pattern to this ‘success in business’ thing.
You’ve already come through two highs and two lows, and you have now noticed that, each time, the problems you were focusing on have diminished in importance.
And, you must also have noticed that the highlighting of problems is really the key indication that you are approaching your next low.
You also now know that you can take control over the length and depth of this low by?pausing?and?pondering?what is happening, and seeking the input of?positive people.
It is when you realize that you have control over your response to these cycles that your passion for what you do begins to?percolate.
Now you are operating with a?permutation?of three essential factors: knowledge of your business; passion; and personal power; which is when you begin to reach the peak of your performance in this exciting cycle.
You do know what’s going to happen next, don’t you?
Yes, new problems begin to appear once again.
You don’t feel like leaving home or the office.
What do you do?
You?pause, you?ponder,?and you seek out?positive people.
As you get through this third low, you are really beginning to learn one of the true secrets of success -?Persistence!
So back you go to your?7 Major P’s.
President Coolidge once wrote:?“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not. Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not. Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not. The world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence, determination and hard work makes the difference.”
It is only at this point that you realize that your business career is really an extension of your personal philosophy in life.
This is where you develop the total belief that your product or service truly makes a meaningful difference in the lives of your customers.
Until you have reached this point you will never be successful in business.
With this level of confidence you develop the next most important trait for business success -?PATIENCE!
Patience with yourself, patience with your customers objections, and patience for the delay in the rewards that will eventually come from your increased?performance?in climbing to a new peak in your on-going cycle of business success.
My model of?The Personal Cycle of Life & Business Success?serves to remind everybody that the ultimate objective of every business career is, surely, to help you attain your true?purpose?in life.
Unless you know what your true purpose in life really is, you can never be truly happy in your business endeavors.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Above article is an extract from:?www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/confessions-serial-entrepreneur-ch11-useful-business-trevor-nel/
Regards
Trevor
Trevor Nel
CEO
FOURWAYS Community Chamber of Commerce
SMS/WhatsApp: 084?332-4421
the former without doubt. but let.me think about that again....rethink.... ok now I think the answer is situational
Thank you Chief Contemplation Officer. Your mountain climbing analogy is ideal. This post has my head spinning as I am very capable of making something simple. complex. When I return from da bush I will delve into your circle of life model.