You have won before you have started
Tim Sanders, bestselling author and former executive of Yahoo, has such a story. In his book Today We Are Rich Harnessing The Power of Total Confidence, he told the compelling story of his grandmother, Billye, who raised him with great care and love. Sanders shared, “Though she didn’t have much in the way of worldly wealth, she imparted to me an ‘abundance mindset’ that proved to be far more valuable.” Billye deliberately handed this down to Tim via street-smart, uncomplicated insights.
Armed with Billye’s homespun wisdom, Sanders built his confidence and succeeded in his endeavors. He accomplished so much in so little time. Everything moved as he wanted it, until one day he received a depressing and stressful call — his father was murdered, which caught him completely by surprise. Flabbergasted and furious, he discarded everything his grandmother had ever taught him. This unexpected, discouraging event started him on a “sideways journey” that went on for over a decade. But one day, looking at a dusty water tower, he woke up from his paralyzing despair and realized he needed to go home to his rock — Billye. He remembered what she had imparted. He wanted to get back on the right track, so he called her and solicited her counsel. Billye asked him a reflective question: “What are you not doing today that you were doing when you were on top of the world?”
What Sanders rediscovered as he began to answer the question was a set of practices that turned his life around and, in less than four years, propelled him to financial security and an officer position in a company at the center of the Internet revolution.
Sanders repossessed a confident outlook and performed at his peak. He believed in himself again, the people he relied on, and somebody ultimately greater than himself. From there he was able to do again what he once thought was impossible. He averred, “Confidence is a function of lifestyle, driven by a guiding set of principles.” And from there, he carved up his grandma’s acumen in this series of seven principles:
Feed your mind good stuff. This doesn’t mean you stick your head in the sand, stop reading current-events coverage, and consume only inspirational or spiritual materials. You just have to be selective about how you stay informed. Read broadsheets with an editorial style that’s intended to enrich your point of view and give you necessary information that’s also relevant to your life — snapshots of the real world and constructive knowledge that helps develop critical thinking. Listen or watch broadcast programs that bring great content — insightful, helpful and positive in tone and intention. Take the “book habit.” If your mind diet is slanted solidly toward reading good books, you’ll enlighten your perspective and gain wisdom overtime. A recommended mix in your mind diet includes 25 percent media, 50 percent books, and the remaining 25 percent social and work stream — offline and online.
Make other people happy. It’s a diet staple that will feed your mind correctly. Regardless of your life’s alleyway, you have the prospect to caringly infuse affirmative thoughts from others — even strangers. Sanders observed, “For example, for most people, the airport is a stressful place where harried moms and business-class bulls can easily negative you out. But if you are willing to twist your conscious mind’s ‘noticing knob,’ you can also discover families reuniting, kids enjoying themselves and laughter.”
Move the conversation forward. “Conversation is a game of circles,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. A conversation is useful but is made complex by each player’s agenda. And yet, through this highly interactive process, you shape your attitudes and beliefs. You’ve got to build a conversation around solutions, not problems. As chief solutions officer at Yahoo, Sanders’ conversation, just like The Wolf in Pulp Fiction, starts with “what’s going right.” He tells people to avoid opening meetings by punching people in their gut and squeezing something out of them and then wondering why they don’t respond well for the rest of the meeting. This principle sounds like a huge change in how you look at things, but you’ve got to flip the conversation forward.
Andrew Carnegie used to ask his people, “What’s the good word?” which is a much better opening question than “How’s it going?” In every conversation you also need to eliminate “weak” words and phrases from your personal vocabulary, bring in a positive tone, be a collaborator — a builder of ideas, not a destroyer of dreams, and focus on creating opportunities for yourself and others. With these, you move the conversation forward in action and change the future for the better.
Exercise your gratitude muscle. Gratitude is a muscle, not a feeling. If it’s a feeling, you’d feel it all the time. Sanders illustrated the point: “If you’ve just hired somebody, who hasn’t worked for a year and a half because he got laid off from a job when everything went down, he would most likely be so grateful that he’s been hired, and on his first day he would feel cocky, he’s free, he can’t believe it, he loves the job, and he sniffs his business cards, and says, ‘I’d do this for free.’” If you are a leader in the company, you have to properly manage such a display of gratefulness — continually recognizing his efforts or giving him challenging jobs. If you don’t do this, two years from now when he’s become a veteran at the company he’ll most likely pacify the new hire that’s walking around strutting, saying, “This is a great place to work” by saying, “You need to calm down. You’re making us look bad.”
That’s what a lack of attention to your gratitude muscle can do. Gratitude, then, is a capability built through exercise and focus. It’s an ability to perceive, receive and produce the positive emotion of thankfulness. To strengthen a muscle — physical, emotional or spiritual — you need to work out your gratitude muscle to produce gratefulness as your dominating thought. You need to tune in, dig deeper and say “thank you” as often as you can.
John F. Kennedy said, “As we express gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” If you feel fortunate, let it change you as a person. Turn this newfound energy into generosity. Gratitude will give you a desire to give back, so act on it, because when you give from a heart of thanks, you are ready to be rich.
Give to be rich. There are two kinds of rich. That’s why the book is called Today We Are Rich. There’s “money rich,” or if you run a business, there’s “profit and loss rich” — it’s on paper and it comes and goes and sometimes the market takes it away from you. And then there’s rich in meaning, and that pertains to your belief that there’s enough to share or there’s enough to invest in others. When you do this, you’re worth something and you get a lot of meaning out of that and no one can take that away from you. When you give, whether you’re mentoring somebody at work or you’re giving time or money to help people that are that are in need, it redirects the mind to focus on what you have. Giving is a proactive move. It redirects the mind based on what you have, not on what you lack. “The best way to respond to adversity is to give what you think you lack and find somebody worse off than you, then help,” Sanders proclaims. Truly, one of the ultimate means to refresh your spirit is to give a sip of joy to someone in need. As a French philosopher mused, “That which you cannot let go of possesses you.”
Prepare yourself. Confidence comes from preparation. Real groundwork changes your outlook, and it is this outlook that will make you successful in a given circumstance. If you believe you’re going to flourish in a given situation, so much more of your brain becomes available to help you ideate, create, solve a problem, or lessen your worry. You also become more charismatic, and gain more clarity in your communication. Preparation is all of these things — acquiring specialized knowledge, rehearsing fully before your performance, re-experiencing success or recollecting a success experience in the past and being inspired by it, and minding your body. Assess your preparation methods so that you take care of your mind and your body. A healthy mind will send good chemicals to the body, which will cause it to relax. A healthy body will send good chemicals to the brain, which will enhance its capabilities. It’s a symbiotic process that results in faith and confidence in one’s self.
Balance your confidence. You shouldn’t be overly confident or overly humble, and the best way to do that is to follow a purpose. When you follow something bigger than yourself it allows you to naturally balance your ego against your purpose. Leaders who don’t follow something bigger than themselves will eventually become drunk with a false sense of power. Keep your purpose alive, and employ it when you need a boost. It produces an internal pep talk that is convincing and energizing. The next time you hit the wall, think about the why behind your what. See the purpose and picture yourself on a hero’s journey to serve it.
Promise made, promise kept. If you don’t keep the little promises you make you will not believe in yourself. Integrity is all you have and your subconscious judges this question —“Am I a person of my word?” Focus on being 100-percent accurate on keeping promises or paying the price if you fail. Abraham Lincoln enthused, “We must not promise what we ought not, lest we be called on to perform what we cannot.”
If you feel like you have remained stagnant, unmoving for quite some time, or need a whack on the side of your head to wake you up and regain confidence, Sanders’ tome can provide guidance. His principles will reawaken your spirit, rekindle your dreams, and allow you to see your thought patterns turn largely optimistic, helpful and constructive. Marcus Garvey declared, “With confidence you have won before you have started.”
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