I make no apology for referring to my many years serving in the infantry with the concept of keeping one foot on the ground. This refers to the tactic used when either advancing or tactically withdrawing from contact with the enemy. Where one section of your patrol will engage the enemy while the other section moves under cover of the other. In a business context this means, do not lose sight of what is right in front of you while concentrating on what comes next.
Your thoughts, attitudes and actions must always regard the real world around you; they must be based on a combination of the reality of the situation balanced with the vision you have for the future.
Keeping one foot on the ground at all times is essential to success. If you focus only on the vision, it will become nothing more than a dream. If you focus on the present and the reality of today and nothing else, it can stagnate your creativity and pull you into a relentless routine of simply working in your business rather than on it, which is where the magic happens.
The smart money is to follow my lead. Balance your thoughts in the knowledge that thoughts become things. Balance them between what needs to be done today and your vision for the future. But rather than focus on today and work toward the vision. Consider the vision. Imagine already being in a position where you have achieved that ultimate dream, and then think about how you got there? Think about all the actions you will have had to have taken along the way? Follow that process back to the reality of today. Now turn it all on its head and start working on the execution of that list today, with the first action being the last task that brought you back to the reality of today.
Don’t think for one minute that this is something I have engineered or invented; that is certainly not the case. I have simply listened to my mentors and those who have already been on the journey that I am on and have completed it.
I have listened to them, learned from them, applied the lessons, and made them my own. This is your chance to do the same for your personal development and the development of your business.
The right mindset is not overtly positive to the exclusion of the real world. The right attitude is one that is a blend of dreams of the future tempered with the realism of what is going on right now in your life. Embrace life to its full, the good and the bad. Use failure. Reconcile in your mind right now that failure will be part of the journey. Embrace failure as a learning experience, one that will help you shape what is yet to come.
Any setback you may and will experience is simply the beginning of something else. It might be a change of direction; it might be a change of speed, it might be a full pivot to something else; either way it is learning that will lead to positive outcomes. It is knowing that will lead you to fulfil your vision, no matter how wild that may appear today.
Keep one eye on the dream and the other on reality and find the balance to live together, resulting in progress. Remember all the time that you will become what you think about most. So make sure you’re thinking about the right things at the right time in the right balance.
If you still have any doubt about the power of the mind, let me share another anecdote from my past. When I was doing leadership training with the Army, a group of us were asked to walk the length of a scaffolding plank placed on the grass in front of us. The reason behind it was not explained, and we, as soldiers under training, simply obeyed the command and walked its length.
This, as you can imagine, was no challenge at all for any of us. But then the DS (Directing Staff) changed the brief. This time they drew our attention to a similar plank, with the exact dimensions, only this one was raised off the ground more than ten feet. The same people were asked to walk the plank again. This suddenly became a completely different exercise. But why? It was the same in every regard except for the distance from the ground.
The answer was the power of the mind; each individual looked at this plank differently, now that it was raised just high enough to be a threat to our welfare. Some in the class did not let this phase them and treated it the same way as the plank on the ground. They believed with no doubt that they were more than capable of walking the length of the plank, and its elevation was nothing more than a distraction to be blocked out of their mind.
Others immediately let their thoughts focus on the possibility of falling or losing their balance and therefore putting themselves in harm’s way. Some that thought about losing balance fulfilled that prophecy.
If you tell yourself, you can’t, you significantly improve your chances of failure. If you doubt your balance, your balance will be affected. While I appreciate that this example requires physical action, the principle is the same. If you think consistently that you cannot do something or that you are not good enough, the results will reflect this. If you feel consistently that you can, that you are good enough, your actions are more likely to result in positive outcomes. You do become what you think about most.
So, in essence, this all comes down to you thinking the right thoughts consistently so that they start to have a tangible impact on the actions you take and the outcomes you produce as a result. Doing this for those in the habit of doubting themselves for the majority of the time is a challenge, but then nothing worthwhile is ever easy. It may appear so to some, but they’re the lucky few. We have to put some effort in, the rest of us mortals.
There is another area of developing the right mindset that I would like you to consider. This all helps to set the right cadence for your business. As damaging as constantly telling yourself you can’t is the belief that you are always right.
Success can do that too. It can make you believe that you are infallible. The cold hard fact of the matter is, nobody gains true success on their own. There are always others involved, and that is why you need to take such care when selecting the people you choose to spend your time with.
Keeping your ego in check is, therefore very important. To be clear, surround yourself with people at the top of their game who have the right mindset and the right attitude. That will create and challenge the status quo for all the right reasons.
Here is a good tip for keeping your ego, thinking, and attitude on track. This will require you to think about why I am right, as opposed to I know I am right. Bring some humility into your life and look for the evidence to support what you are doing, rather than letting your ego tell you all the time that you are right. Of course, it may well be the case that you are right, but you lose nothing by taking the slightly different stance of asking yourself, ‘why am I right?’ Think about this just for a moment…
I found the perfect solution in mastermind groups, but not just any mastermind group. In a world full of commercial opportunity it is no surprise that the idea behind what we might class as the original mastermind group has been over-engineered by many into a money-making venture.
These do not work as there are too many commercially based distractions. If we turn the clock back to the 1930s and look at mastermind groups of the day, in the era when they first became popular, this was not about money or charging fees to be part of a group. It was based on a peer-to-peer desire to learn, share and develop, with people you had carefully selected and build a trusting relationship filled with quality rapport.
I cannot emphasise the high esteem I hold good quality mastermind groups in, and with good reason. I should explain briefly why I rate them so highly when used correctly.
- They encourage you to consider other points of view.
- They allow you to share your view.
- They offer a range of alternate futures.
- They help to create enduring relationships.
- They encourage collaboration based on mutual understanding.
- They provide new business opportunities.
- They open the door to a more comprehensive network.
- They provide a balance of reality over vision.
This is just one of the reasons I have taken the time to ensure mastermind groups are readily available to our Rainmakers Club members. We operate this on the same understanding that I am sharing with you now in this book.I am constantly asking myself, why am I right with the assumptions that I am making? It is the mastermind group that I will often lean on to gain the answers I seek, to either prove I am on the right course or to offer me an alternate view.
When forming a mastermind group, here are the cornerstones that I use on this platform. You too can use these for your mastermind group. You can use these to answer various questions centred around finding out if you are right in what you are doing or thinking of doing. But remember to select with care and invite those who will challenge, not those who will simply agree:
- Look to align yourself with the most intelligent people you know, who will not shy away from explaining why they disagree with you.
- Give them the space to talk, don’t share your opinion yet, instead listen intently and evaluate.
- Collate and develop opinions based on the broader views and create new principles with which to work.
- Find ways to balance the risk you will be taking, exploit the upside and reduce the downside.
The key to this is to seek out alternate views all of the time and be completely open- minded and willing to listen to other ideas. You may stay the course you have already decided on, and that is fine as long as you know that you have been open-minded and listened to the opinions of others you know are intelligent and worth listening to.
In other words, I am suggesting you build around you not an autocracy or a democracy but the far more healthy and valuable meritocracy. This environment encourages thoughtful discussion, disagreements and explores the full range of possible futures in proportion to the individual merits. I call it the mastermind mindset and believe it to be of significant value to any business entrepreneur.
The mindset is so much more than it first appears and does and should involve others. We are not solitary creatures.I honestly have no doubt about the benefits of your mindset in working this way. But there is another consideration that you need to address before you can take full advantage of this version of the mastermind.
It brings us back to the question of making adjustments to the way you think.You need to embrace your strengths and recognise your weaknesses for what they are. You need to expel the negative self-talk that can get in the way of your progress. This may mean seeking the help of others qualified in the art of mindset change.This is so important a point that I have made sure one of the first collaborations made in the Rainmakers Club was to align us to relevant experts in mindset change and leadership.
The more you surround yourself with the right people, the more your mindset will change. You need to steer clear of the naysayers who simply want to rain on your parade, usually because they do not have one of their own. Steer clear of those who will load your gun with the damaging self-doubt bullets.
Better still, recognise that many people, by their very nature, will load your gun for you with their snipes, gossip and in some cases lies, but it is your personal choice to squeeze the trigger. The loaded gun does not cause damage. It is when it is fired that damage is caused. So don’t squeeze the trigger!
Another critical component of the right mindset is to make some effort to understand the people you have around you and connect with before you judge them or what they are saying. Doing this simple thing can make all the difference to how you feel, how others feel about you and the responses and outcomes you will attract.
When people see things differently from you, the better you understand them, the more you will understand their points of view and the potential value in their opinions. This will give you a much richer perspective on many aspects of your personal and business development. You will then find it far easier to gain value from the direct input of others. In my own business, I have learnt that there are three critical elements to this that will all enhance your outcomes, they are:
- Always be prepared to share your honest thoughts with those you choose to converse with (that makes the proper selection of people even more critical).
- Do not shy away from what I call thoughtful disagreements. you want to encourage your people to be candid with you. This will promote a shift of opinion as we learn from others.
- Encourage outcomes from your discussions too. you should always be seeking progression in some positive way, not just for you but also for those you communicate with.
Let me share what I have found in my businesses, as we apply these techniques to help develop our mindset. To create the way we think, act and therefore the results we attract. I have found a much needed and welcome by-product of all the work I have done on my own mindset and attitude towards others to learn more and change my outcomes.
This outcome has been the creation of greater transparency.This transparency is so essential to learning, innovation and creating thinking. Let me tell you the opposite is simply not going to be good enough for you or your business. Without transparency, the people around you will just spin whatever is being said or done to suit their own needs and interests, which is not the road to quality development. Without transparency, problems will be hidden instead of being brought to the surface to be dealt with and resolved.
Imagine how much better you would feel if this was the case? How would that bring value to the mastermind? How that would create a very positive impact on your mindset in general.Improving how you think will improve the results you create and attract better outcomes altogether. Not just for you but those around you too. Business owners who do not understand this dynamic, who make no effort to understand the way others feel and think, will still experience success, but it may not be as long-lasting and beneficial, and they may not experience the same levels of satisfaction and happiness.
We have one life and we are living that life right now; the life we are living in this moment deserves our full attention. We should do all we can to be the best we can be, and enjoy it, our life, as much as we can by doing the right thing and acting in the right way for the benefit of everyone we know and value, including ourselves.