I got into a nasty habit a while back relating to the words I used to use. Basically friends, colleagues and associates would ask how I was going and my standard response would be something along the lines of “I am so busy I can’t do anymore. It’s ridiculous, I am working really long hours, not sure if I am getting where I am going and certainly not looking for any more clients”. I developed this response from being a very busy person for a number of years.

A few things started to happen that made me realise I was heading down a dangerous road. One day I actually listened to what I was saying when a friend asked me the question and I realised I answered in my standard tirade without even stopping to think how I was going. Their eyes glazed over as the tirade began, my brain went off somewhere else and this funny but negative little interaction continued. I was reinforcing this belief and now I realised it.

The second most notable thing to happen was that people stopped referring me clients. I noticed that my referral rate was dropping and at first I thought that maybe I was doing something wrong – well I was but it wasn’t what I thought. I asked a few close colleagues whey weren’t referring new clients to me, expecting to hear some bad news. They looked at me quite surprised and said “Andrew you are always so busy and we didn’t want to send you any more clients because you made it clear you didn’t want any more”.

What a realisation? I had to rebuild my entire thought and speak process and retrain myself. To do this I made a list of the words, phrases, terms or quotes that I used that were negative and there were quite a few on the list. I made a commitment to myself to stop using them from that day on and I did. In fact as soon as I started to use a “standard response” of any kind I stopped talking, regained my thoughts and then continued.

Eventually I didn’t need my list, so I took it off the wall and burned it and I suggest you do the same. If we tell people often enough that life is horrible, its so hard to run your own business, staff are terrible, the market is terrible or we are doing it tough financially, we materialise these thoughts into reality.

If you turn these negatives into positives, the results are astounding. My rate of referral has gone through the roof and I will never moan about how busy I am ever again.

What can you do today? Make up your own list of negative terms, words, phrases or quotes that are limiting you. Make a conscious effort to eliminate them from your life and replace them with positive, energetic and enthusiastic responses. Then when you are ready, burn the list of the old limiting words, you will never need them again.

You gain the advantage in any situation through one medium: time
You can do things before they need to be done.
You can position yourself ahead of time in the best place.

Think ahead of any approaching action.
Make a plan and you will always have the advantage.

Let your advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.
The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.

In life, as in chess, forethought wins.

THE DAILY GURU

Just as we have developed negative thoughts patterns that are reinforced by negative language, there are often people in our lives who further reinforce these beliefs and literally bring us down by what they say and do.

We all have friends who make us cringe when they walk into our business. Within five minutes they will have us completely depressed and it feels like there is nothing you can do. Their lives are desperate, sad, tragic, bored or whatever the case may be and odds on, you have a sympathetic ear so you listen and they keep coming back to tell you more.

Do you know why? Because it makes them feel better. You want to jump out of the nearest window and they leave whistling and sniffing flowers. Now this is crazy.

If you are surrounded by people like this, it’s not going to be hard to change it’s going to be impossible. Sometimes it may be hard to get them out of your life simply because they might be your biggest customer, or a relative or business partner. But whatever you do, you really do need to draw a line in the sand. If more of people you mix with are negative than positive, you have a problem and it will get worse over time and keep you trapped in your world of overwhelm.

I made a very conscious decision a number of years ago about the type of people who I will have in my life. I wanted to be surrounded by energetic, enthusiastic and positive people who are getting on with their lives. I don’t care what they do for a living, how much money they have or who they know. All I care about is their zest for life. These people inspire me and motivate me to be the best person I can be and they are supportive of any decision or change that will help me to achieve this goal.

If I fail, they are the first people to support me and say at least I gave it a go. If I listened to the negative people I wouldn’t do anything because life is clearly so damn messed up that there is nothing I could possibly do to make mine any better.

There is no malicious intent with these sad people, its just a reflection of where they are in life at the time. And that is sad, but we all need to decide if we want to be equally as sad. I made the decision not to and that was that. I suggest that you develop a way of keeping these people at arms length.

Some won’t like what you are doing and they will tell you so. So be prepared for some repercussions but stay resilient because the pay off is big. If you don’t know where to find positive, energetic, enthusiastic people, ask around. They are normally busy people who are getting on with life. The ones sitting around coffee shops and bars all day long clearly have too much time on
their hands.

What can you do today? Identify those people who fit in the negative category and start making a plan on how you will get them out of your life or at least minimalise the impact that they have on you. At the same time, make a list of the places that you might be able to meet and mix with positive, like minded people.