Winners are Valuable

Being a winner has nothing to do with your performance or salary, it has to do with your value and whether or not you have owned it. When you embrace your own personal value, when you are secure in who you are, then you become a winner.

How can we do that?
1) RECOGNIZE your value: No matter what has happened or what will happen, we never lose our value as human beings. Nothing can take that away!

2) ACCEPT your value: How many times have you heard someone says "He has issues"? Let's face it, all of us have insecurities and issues, some things we can change, some things we can't.... Maybe you weren't born with the looks you like, you aren't as tall as you wish. Your genes dealt you a hand that you have to accept ---- either that, or you reject your personal value and waste your time wallowing in self-pity. You will never win with people if you don't win with yourself.

3) INCREASE your value: James Belasco (1990) described how trainers shackle young elephants with heavy chains to deeply embedded stakes. That way an elephant learns to stay in its place. Older, more powerful elephants never ever tried to leave, even though they have the strength to pull up the stake and set themselves free..... their conditioning limits their movements, eventually, they stand in place even though they only have a tiny metal bracelet with small (or even no) stakes. MANY people are bound by restraints of previous conditioning. DON'T LET THAT HAPPEN TO YOU. Don't mindlessly accept restraints on your abilities. CHALLENGE them and keep growing!

4) BELIEVE in your value: Don't sell yourself short. If you don't believe you have something great to offer to someone --- namely yourself --- you will never win with people. Who you are is the greatest asset you'll ever possess.

FORGET ABOUT:
Whatever makes you feel insecure

ASK:
How can I increase my value to benefit others?

DO:
List a things you can do to improve yourself + ways to do it

REMEMBER:
Your relationships can only be as healthy as you are!

------ Today's gems are from my favourite author, John Maxwell

You are the Master of your fate, the Captain of your soul

English poet, W.C.Henley wrote "I am the Master of my fate, the Captain of my soul". An excellent example we have today is Steven Spielberg, one of all-time great motion picture directors. He dreamed of being a movie director since he was a child. He began making amateur films with a primitive camera when he was still a kid. How did he become who he is today?

Spielberg took a Universal Studios Tour, an attraction that enables visitors to see what goes on inside the movie business. Steven sneaked out of his tram and hid behind 2 sound stages until the tour ended. When he left, he made a point of saying a few words to the guard. DAY AFTER DAY, he went back to the studio for 3 months. He walked past the guard, waved at him, he waved back. He always wore a suit and carried a briefcase, letting the guard think that he was one of the students with a summer job there. He made it a point to befriend directors, writers, editors. He made it his business to get to know Sid Sheinberg, head of production for the studio. Sheinberg was impressed with Steven's work and put him under contract. His first full length film "The Sugarland Express" received critical aclaim and won best screenplay in 1974 Cannes Film Festival, but it did not do well in the box office.

His big break came when he discovered the book JAWS. The studio had already chosed a well-known director to film it, but Spielberg desperately wanted to make this movie. His self-confidence had not waned despite his failure of The Sugarland Express. He managed to persuade the producers to dismiss the chosen director and give the film to him. It wasn't easy as trouble loomed and it ran into technical and budget problems. When JAWS was released in 1975, it broke box-office records and critics loved it! Within a month, it had taken in $60 million. Then Steven directed Indiana Jones, E.T., Jurassic Park (which brought in $1 billion in toys, merchandise)

I learned that SUCCESS COMES TO THOSE WHO BECOME SUCCESS CONSCIOUS. Our brains become magnetized with the dominating thoughts we hold in our minds. These magnets attract to us the forces, the people, the circumstances in life which harmonize with the nature of our dominating thoughts.

As Earl Nightingale puts it "You become what you think about all day long".

The bridge between positive and negative

I cringed as my dear friend is trying to cope with her situation at work. Surrounded by negative people and ridiculous situations it is hard to grow. (Fad, stay strong!)

In work life, most people focus on what CAN'T get done rather than on what CAN get done. They handicap themselves mentally by telling themselves "I can't get him on the line".... "I forgot".... "I didn't have enough time"....

Negative people are worse than negative occurrences! Here's some on-the-job things we can do to FOCUS and change our direction:
1) Stop blaming circumstances for your situation
It's not the rain, or the boss, or the product, or the person.... It's YOU. You have a choice in everything you do. Don't blame the path, CHANGE the path. Don't blame the situation, CHANGE the situation.

2) Stop blaming other people for your situation
Take responsibility for yourself and your actions.

3) Know your customer better
It prevents problems. If you can't get anyone on the phone, it's your fault! Know the right time to reach people, know when a decision is to be made, double confirm every commitment.

4) Know where you are and where you should be
Manage your time, keep perfect records.

5) Work on your skills everyday
Improve your knowledge base and read more books, attend seminars

6) Become solution-oriented
Instead of wallowing in the problems, use that time to work on solutions! Every obstacle presents an opportunity ---- only if you are looking for it. If you are too busy concentrating on the problem, the opportunity will pass you by!

7) THINK before talking
The goal is a positive response/result.

"You've been given a bag of cement and a bucket of water. You can either build a stumbling block (a concrete barrier) OR a stepping stone (a bridge to where you want to go).... The choice is and ALWAYS has been YOURS."

------ Words of wisdom from Jeffrey Gitomer ------

Your relationships can only be healthy as you are

You can't be happy unless you are healthy, and there is a lot more to health than not being sick. One of the oldest psychological truisms in the world is that you cannot give what you do not have. Which I feel is really true! How can you give the best to others when you don't have the best? If the best you have isn't any better than what those 'others' already have, you'll never take them any higher than they already are.

Are women that complicated???

Who's important in your company?

The company decided to expand its hiring practices, so the company hired several cannibals. Each attended the company orientation. They attended all the classes and were given all the employee benefits. However, they were told in no uncertain terms that they were not allowed to eat any of their fellow employees. Each cannibal agreed.

Weeks later, the human resource director noticed one of the administrative assistants had disappeared. She approached the cannibals but they all denied any knowledge of the disappearance.

When the director left, the cannibal leader asked, “Which one of you did this?” A hand went up. The leader screamed, “You idiot! For weeks we’ve been eating the salespeople and not one person noticed! But you ruined it all by eating someone important!!!”

-- by Zig Ziglar

How a customer wants to be treated...

To all sales people... actually, all of us are in SALES.. :)

How a customer wants to be treated:
1. JUST GIVE ME THE FACTS. Get to the point.
2. TELL ME THE TRUTH.
3. I WANT A TRULY ETHICAL SALESPERSON.Your actions will prove your ethics.
4. GIVE ME A GOOD REASON WHY this product/service is best for me.
5. SHOW me proof.
6. SHOW me I am not alone.
7. SHOW me a letter from a loyal customer.
8. TELL me and SHOW me how you will serve me after you sell to me.
9. Tell me and SHOW me the price is fair.
10. Give me a consultative recommendation. Tell me what would you do if it was your $.
11. REINFORCE MY CHOICE, give me confidence
12. DON'T ARGUE WITH ME.... even if I am wrong.
13. DON'T CONFUSE ME.
14. DON'T TELL ME WHAT I BOUGHT OR DID WAS WRONG. Be tactful if I goofed.
15. LISTEN TO ME... I'm trying to tell you what I want to buy.
16. MAKE ME FEEL SPECIAL.
17. MAKE ME LAUGH. Put me in a good mood.
18. TAKE AN INTEREST IN WHAT I DO. It's everything to me.
19. DELIVER ME WHAT YOU SELL ME -- WHEN YOU SAY YOU WILL
20. HELP ME BUY.... Don't sell me. I hate being sold, but I love to buy!

---- Insights from Jeffrey Gitomer, Sales guru ----