Most of you know that in addition to being Shaklee Business Leaders we also are psychotherapists and function as Directors of www.BestSelfUSA.com the first nationwide counseling clinic available in the privacy of your own home.
One of the services we provide at Best Self
In the 1970s Rev. Sam Sewell served as a professor of Marketing and Management Science for Sterling College
Dr. Bunny Sewell has owned her own private businesses as well as working for major corporations and governmental agencies. Her management and administrative skills emphasize the practical tools of supervising groups of people and task focused accomplishments. Several executives who were private clients at Best Self USA saw the connection between human relations training done to facilitate harmony in families and the problems executives face in their business organizations. “My family seems to function like my business.” “I have started using what I learned about parenting and spousal communication skills with my employees.” “Would you teach these things to my supervisors?” Out of this need, Best Self USA created a curriculum to deliver to management personnel. Thus Drs. Sam and Bunny Sewell have been delivering private Executive Coaching to CEOs and business leaders for a number of years.
Below is an article from a graduate of Best Self
"The Keys to an Unstoppable Drive"
Sometime back in the mid 80’s I was invited to attend a sales seminar hosted by Don Beveridge. I was fortunate in that I got the chance to sit in on the seminar and I found it to be a memorable experience. He was motivated, and his motivational sales points were strong. The ideas he shared with the audience, with a little bit of license on my part, went something like this: You wake up at 5am. From 5-7am you plan your day, every hour. Be in the office by 7am and by 9am get out, prospect and be in the community. At 5pm get back to the office to do your follow-up with all of your prospective clients. From 7-9pm you do your administrative work. After that, get into bed so you’re ready for 5am again. I heard at least two old saws proclaim, “This guy is nuts.” I thought so too, but in a good way.
There were about 200 sales people in attendance, many of whom were inspired by his ideas. And my guess is that many of the salesmen (there weren’t many women selling in those days) took action after that day because they wanted his results. So they probably started getting up at 5am, and arrived at the office by 7am, and they started making the cold calls they normally had not been making. But pretty soon, within a few days or weeks, most would probably stop and resume their old ways. Their activity levels went back to normal. Why? Because their productivity rose above their self-image and their self-image squashed their productivity back down within their comfort level; a level consistent with their self-image. They took an afternoon off here and there, maybe they watched Oprah, maybe Jerry Springer; hung out in a bar commiserating with other business cohorts, it’s hard to say why. It could be that their actions were becoming inconsistent with their self-image.
Today many will talk about balance in life. Those are thoughts best left to the idealists, and to those who believe the system is rigged, and that we ought to spread the wealth. I believe there is a place for balance all right; mine is in balancing the checkbook and my family life. Making a difference in your life and the lives of those who depend on you is, in its own sense, the important balance. The checkbook and family unit satisfaction are only the scorecards. If your checkbook and family life is where you think it should be, you’re doing fine and don’t need to go further, unless you think you can, in which case you haven’t set you goals high enough.
You will always perform at a level equal to your self-image. Our self-image is the portrait we have of our self; it is the image we have created about our self, and is commonly based on past experiences and environmental influences. So if a new desire for improvement is introduced and it conflicts with our current self-image, it is doomed to fail. I guess I was fortunate in that I had a very successful family and couldn’t envision anything other than success.
Our actions, behaviors, and yes our discipline, are all heavily influenced by our self-image. Even if you force yourself via will power to do things beyond your self-image, you won’t be able to sustain it for very long. You will go back to the old behaviors consistent with your own self-belief, because you believe it, and you act from this belief. What caused the Ali’s, Jordan’s, and the Annika Sorenstams of the world to work as hard as they did? What causes the top 1% in selling to consistently sustain their mind-boggling activity levels? Answer for all: their self-image. If you watched Tiger’s meltdown in the last couple of years and its subsequent effect on his golf course performance, you can see what a blow to self-esteem can do, even if it was of his own making.
Major changes occur in income, production and satisfaction for the average salesperson (in fact all people) when they understand the importance of evaluating, changing and elevating their self-image. Managers and salespeople comfortable with small and average client sizes, but nervous and fearful with the high-end clients, who learn to grow their self-portrait, become more confident and succeed in the large client arena. Let’s not get into a discussion about which type of client you can make the most money on, because you can make plenty off big clients if you set it up right; and if you set it up right, it won’t be you doing the clerical work.
Speaking of clerical work; executives who are most comfortable working clerical tasks instead of leading a group of managers and clerical workers are destined to confine themselves to a mid-level manager’s wage. Not that there is anything wrong with mid-level management or clerical work. If that is what you want to be good at, then be the best. There are many hourly pay rates in business; the highest belong to those who can lead other people in a desperate charge to the top. Job satisfaction is relevant to the position desired and the execution of satisfying your self-image. Life satisfaction is relevant to that self-image, and the life to which that image confines us.
As we raise our self-image we also raise our expectations, behaviors and the discipline we bring to our activities. Learning to change behavior permanently is one of the most important skills a person can develop in their life. Without this skill, any self-improvement intention will result in failure and frustration. All we need to do is to change the portrait by investing time and energy, with guidance, through learning.
Our self-image is held in our subconscious mind. This is the inside part of our brain where all of our habits and beliefs are stored. Many estimates in the field of psychology suggest that we are only utilizing a small part of our brain - generally 5% to 10%. Which means that nearly 90% is untapped and waiting to serve us. Our subconscious mind is this under-utilized resource. It’s the part of the brain that allows our body to do things naturally and consistently with an ease and proficiency that our conscious mind could never match.
Great things that seem impossible become possible when we learn to communicate to and from our subconscious mind. Here’s how: when thoughts and feelings match, and are focused on over and over again, they become accepted by the subconscious mind. When we add pictures or visualization, which match these thought/feeling combinations, we are actually changing our self-image with a new self-belief. We communicate to our self image in pictures, hence the term self-image. When such ‘visualized thought with feeling’ intention is accepted by the subconscious mind it becomes a belief that executes itself automatically.
Follow these steps to a new level of discipline by changing your self-image:
Step one: DECIDE exactly what you want. This is critical. Are you after a habit change or a new goal? Whatever it is, be crystal clear on the outcome you desire.
Step two: DETERMINE the activities that will lead to this outcome. This is an easy step; just determine what you would need to be doing in order for this result to come naturally. It is simple cause and effect. For this step, make sure you choose activities that you could see yourself doing. There are often many paths to an outcome. Avoid the activities that don’t fit your personality, and make sure the ones you do choose will facilitate your goal.
Step three: INVEST 20 minutes a day in focused quiet time, Ten minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in the evening. Here is the place you need to invest the time and energy. In this time, find a quiet place in which you will not be interrupted and close your eyes. With eyes closed, put your attention on the goal. With thoughts on the goal, see yourself doing these activities with ease, day in and day out.
Picture yourself becoming proficient at these activities. Bring more and more clarity into the picture every time you do this. Visualize the time of day and the reaction from those around you; the more detailed the better! And finally, feel the feelings you would experience, as you would engage in these activities; also feel the feelings, with intensity, that you would undergo upon accomplishing this goal. See yourself actually doing the deal!
Successful, productive people produce record results because of their belief in themselves. They grew their self-image by this ‘visualized thought with feeling’ process. Many probably didn’t even realize they were doing it. Whether they intended to or not doesn’t really matter, because this is how it works, and it can work for anyone.
Step four: APPLY this process and remember the importance of vivid images and concentrated feeling. Do this and you’ll never again have to be stuck in undesirable patterns from your past. With new information can come new results.
We’re only here for a visit. If you want to make a difference, you already have. “There is nothing as tantalizingly close as a dream.”
Tim Taylor
CEO Network FOB
Graduate of Best Self
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