Are you working on something to change the world?

No?

That’s OK - 99.9% of people are not.

But have you ever stopped to wonder - why not?

It’s a big question.

A worthwhile question.

One that reveals a lot about each of us, if we’ll answer it.

Dreaming big and then making it happen (or not) is a product of our training.

Training you do everyday, automatically by how you relate to yourself.

The thoughts you have.

The conversations that go on in your head.

(Yes, all of those processes are training.)

The feelings that come up when you think of trying to do something beyond the story you hold about yourself and your capabilities.

What are you and I truly capable of?

I don’t know.

It’s an adventure to discover.

And one that hopefully will never end.

Because everyone has room for growth.

Unfortunately many students never take the time to apply NLP to themselves because they’ve bought in to the idea that somewhere ‘out there’ is an even shorter shortcut ;-) or techniques for success that if only they knew everything would be different.

I can understand why people think this way.

It’s baked into popular culture.

Working on truly bettering yourself is hard.

So people choose the easier option.

They think if only they could learn…

• the productivity strategy of Elon Musk
• the investment strategy of Warren Buffet
• the communication strategies of Oprah…

their life would be set.

But that’s not what you need to be more successful.

If you try to plug and deploy another person’s strategies without understanding:

… the context within which it operates

… the function it serves in pursuit of whatever goal it’s being applied to

… and how their thinking works to create the outputs they are seeing…

You are at serious risk copying the wrong things!

Which means you’ll waste a lot of time trying to implement things that won’t work as good for you as it does for them.

In fact, they may even be entirely the WRONG things.

So what’s the solution?

That’s a bigger conversation for another day but for now I recommend…

Rather than focusing on the observable tools and tactics (the external things) that self-help authors wrap a convenient narrative about why someone is successful…

… e.g. successful people rise early, they embrace challenge, they exercise, they use PDQ time planning tool…

(The things that make the rounds on various blogs and article sites.)

… instead focus on discovering the internal strategies - the thinking that drives their behaviour, choices and ultimately what they do.

Far more important (and useful) than the tools or tactics someone uses to create success, are the patterns that drive how they think and act.

The stuff that practically no blogs, books or podcasts actually cover.

So what’s all this got to do with changing the world?

Everything.

The goals you set for yourself are a function of how you think.

So are you thinking big enough to create the life you want?

Not 10% bigger but truly BIGGER.

It doesn’t need to be Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos big, but BIG for you and what you want out of your life.

Are you choosing the easy things over the hard?

What’s something that you’d like to do that fills you with a sense of deep excitement and a decent dollop of dread at how ambitious it is?

Maybe today is the day to just get on and do that!

Put one step forward.

Jeff Bezos did. Elon Musk did. Oprah did.

They all overcame significant obstacles.

You can too.

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