What happens when we do not get the response that we want? We have two choices!

We can choose to blame the other person for not being receptive, for being unreasonable, close minded, stupid etc… But you know what?..]]> How do we become a master communicator, someone who is always able to influence others in a powerful way?

What happens when we do not get the response that we want? We have two choices!

We can choose to blame the other person for not being receptive, for being unreasonable, close minded, stupid etc… But you know what? By doing this, there is nothing more we can do about it! We have shut the door on them.

For traditional communication theory, when two people communicate, both have an equal, i.e. 50% responsibility, for the success of the communication.

In other words, if A is talking and attempting to sell B an idea. A can do his best to communicate, but 50% of the success of his communication lies with B

If B has a closed mind and does not want to listen, the communication can never be successful. So is B to be blamed for the unsuccessful communication?

Unfortunately, people who accept this theory never become effective communicators. Why? Because by accepting this theory, we will always be limited as communicators. We will not always get the result we want! In fact we will seldom get the results we want.

Does this happen to you? You motivate your staff to work harder, they don’t respond positively, so you give up!

You try to motivate your children to study harder, but it doesn’t work, so you say, ’What’s the point? They are just lazy."

You do your best to sell a product to a group of prospects, they don’t buy, so you say, "I guess they are just not interested in this product."

A study of the most influential and impactful communicators in the world, revealed that they always took 100% responsibility for the success of their communication.

For example person (A) communicates an idea to person (B), and B did not respond successfully, still, person A would not lay the blame on person B.

Person A would take responsibility by accepting that his own communication was not effective. By doing so, A has the power to change the communication, until he gets the desired response.

Such great communicators adopt the belief that the meaning of their communication was the response they got, regardless of their intention.

To describe this further, if they attempted to communicate their sincerity, but the other person felt that they were insincere, they would take responsibility accepting that the meaning of their
communication was ’insincerity’, even though they intended to be sincere.

It could be their tone of voice or body language that made them seem ’insincere’. They would then change their communication strategy until they got the response they desired, i.e. being sincere.

We must understand that different people perceive the world differently. Everybody has different internal filters. When you tell a joke, a group of people may laugh while another group does not think of it being funny.

This does not mean the second group does not have a sense of humor. It is just that they perceive humor differently. As a great communicator, we must take responsibility changing our communication (joke) until we make our audience laugh.

The power to communicate is one of the most important tools we have as human beings. In fact, our ability to achieve our goals largely depends on our ability to communicate and influence other people.

Taking responsibility and having extreme flexibility is the key to being a master of influence. Taking responsibility for the way we communicate and for the results we get, we attain absolute power over the effect of our communication.

Nike paid Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan millions of dollars to don the ’Nike’ cap and apparel. Were they crazy?

No!..]]> Have you ever wondered why Sports brand Nike pay sports stars millions of dollars to wear clothes brandishing the famous swish logo? They do it because they understand the power of anchoring.

Nike paid Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan millions of dollars to don the ’Nike’ cap and apparel. Were they crazy?

No! They were aware that by having them put on the Nike equipment,consumers would associate ’Nike’ with similar intense states of motivation and inspiration that is projected by these two famous sports personalities.

When people watched Jordan and felt incredible, they would see the Nike Swish. Sure enough, seeing the swish gave people great feelings and states of power, motivation and confidence which were anchored to the visual swish logo.

By using the power of anchoring, Nike has become the largest and most successful sports apparel company in the world. When Nike first started paying millions of dollars to sports stars, many of their competitors thought they were mad to waste so much money but at the end of the day it is Nike who is laughing all the way to the bank.

Don’t get manipulated…create your own powerful anchors!

If advertisers spend millions of dollars to constantly anchor powerful states in you to their brands, isn’t it time you took control and started creating powerful anchors for yourself?

Do you know how couples fall deeply in love? They get fantastic feelings of love anchored to a person’s face and voice.

As time is spent together, anchors of all these great feelings start to be linked with their partner’s face and voice. So, every time they think of each other, they feel wonderful!

Conversely, why do people often fall out of love after a while? It is because the positive anchors eventually collapse and are replaced with negative anchors.

When you are in a relationship, you are bound to have
misunderstandings and unhappy moments. The danger comes when you see your partner’s face while you are feeling these negative emotions.

After some time, those negative feelings of hurt and anger get linked to that person’s face, voice and touch.

Over time, just thinking of that person brings up all those negative feelings. This is why many people, once so in love, reach a stage when they cannot see each other without getting upset and fighting. As a result, they eventually fall out of love and break
up!

Anchoring is a process that we all are subjected to, all the time. We must understand the power of anchoring for two reasons.

The first is to install powerful anchors so that resourceful states can be accessed at any time we need to perform at our peak.

The second is to understand how negative anchors limit us. This way, we can collapse them and stop them from controlling us.

Once you understand how anchors can work to help you tap into your most resourceful states, you can use it to move you faster towards your goals!

So make use of of the power of anchoring now to lead you to success.

The answer to this question is that all of us are naturally motivated...]]> One of the key things that people always complain about is that motivation only lasts for a few days or a few weeks. They say that they get motivated for a while and then it stops. This includes people who’ve attended our seminars before.

The answer to this question is that all of us are naturally motivated. All of us have got certain hot buttons. And our motivation is activated when our hot buttons are pressed.

These hot buttons are categorized as "Towards Values" and Away-From Values".

The first section is on "Towards Values".

"Towards Values" are pleasurable emotions; when pressed; they will motivate you into taking action

Using myself as an example, the key reason behind my motivation to write my books and articles is due to one of my "Towards Values"; my love for sharing.
The moment I think of sharing my ideas, it hits my hot button. So that is what keeps me going.

Another example I have is a friend of mind who loves it when people says he’s smart.

He loves it when others recognize him. Thus recognition is one of his "Towards Values". That is what drives him and keeps him motivated into taking actions towards his goals.

The next section is about "Away From Values".

"Away From Values" are painful emotions that trigger an individual into taking action as well.

Once again, using myself as an example, I hate to feel inferior and it is one of my key "Away From Values".

How this happened is because ever since I was young, people used to look down on me. They used to laugh at me saying that I was someone who failed my tests; someone who came from a lousy school.

All these remarks made me extremely angry. And it was this anger that drove me to want to prove them wrong. That’s the reason why inferiority is one of the hot buttons that drive me.

So whenever I see someone who’s better than me, or someone who can write a better book, I get more motivated into wanting to be better.

Because that’s one of my values and it triggers me.

Another one of my "Away-From Values" is poverty. I have a fear of being poor.

What happened was that my dad didn’t really like to buy me stuff. And so I hated it when I wanted to buy a toy but was not being able to buy it. I hated that feeling. I told myself I will never ever be in a situation where I will be unable to buy something because I cannot afford it.

Therefore poverty is another one of the hot buttons that drives me.

Therefore, for us to constantly keep ourselves in a motivated state and taking action, the key is to find our key "Towards & Away From Values". Knowing what our hot buttons are and knowing what drives us will keep us in a motivated state naturally.

The reason is because over 80% of personal computers run on Microsoft software. Did this happen by chance?..]]> Do you have a home computer? Yes? What operating system does your computer run on? Eight out of ten people would answer that it would be the Windows operating system. Why is this so?

The reason is because over 80% of personal computers run on Microsoft software. Did this happen by chance? No!

This is the result of a very clear goal Bill Gates set when he first started Microsoft, two decades back. His vision was to have a computer on every desk and every home, running on Microsoft software’.

In fact, this goal was set at a time when it was uncommon for homes to have personal computers. In 1977, Kenneth Olsen, the President of Digita Equip Corp remarked, ’There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.’

Gates thought otherwise. He made it his specific goal and mobilized his team to create what is now taken for granted; home computers that are as common as telephones.

Milkshake salesman Ray Kroc set a mega goal of going global…

Do you know which company collectively owns the biggest spread of real estate in the world? It’s McDonalds corp. Anywhere in the world, in any major city, you will find a McDonalds restaurant.

In fact, many major cities like Los Angeles, California, Hong Kong and London have a McDonalds outlet in almost every five blocks.

In the early days, during McDonalds’ massive expansion phase, outlets were being opened at the rate of one restaurant a day, all around the world!

This phenomenon did not happen by accident. McDonalds’ dominance around the world started as the result of a clear vision that McDonald’s Franchise owner Ray Kroc had when he first acquired the worldwide rights to build McDonalds restaurants around the world.

In the beginning McDonalds was just a small diner in America operated by the McDonald brothers. At that time, Ray Kroc was a salesman who sold milkshake mixers.

When he saw how the diner was operated, he was amazed at its service, efficiency and the consistency and cleanliness of the food offered to its customers.

Kroc managed to get the brothers to transfer over to him the rights to franchise and build exact replicas of the McDonalds restaurant around the world.

As salesman Kroc flew back home with the newly-signed document in his hand, he knew he had a struck a goldmine as he envisioned hundreds of thousands of these McDonalds restaurants being created all over the world, in every country, and in every city.

Again it was this specific mega goal, fueled by passion that led to it being a reality. Today a new McDonald’s restaurant opens somewhere in the world every seven hours: a tally of 20,000+ outlets in 90 countries serving 29 million people everyday.

When you set your mind to it, your goal will become a reality. So starting aiming high and I’ll see you among the stars!

Does this mean that we will produce the exact result we envisioned? Not all the time...]]> When we believe that something is possible, we will summon all the resources within and around us have to support that belief. We will open the tap to our creativity, energy and resources.

Does this mean that we will produce the exact result we envisioned? Not all the time. Still, having a belief of possibility will allow us to produce results far beyond what we can achieve than compared to having no belief to begin with.

Our beliefs not only affect our performance and results, they also affect the people we interact with as well. As a teacher, parent or boss, the beliefs you have about your students, children and employees will affect how you treat them, how they respond, ultimately resulting in their performance.

Have you ever heard of the Pygmalion effect? This psychological phenomenon was first presented by Robert Merton, a professor of sociology at Columbia University in 1957. It is about how our expectations of other people can create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The study involved a teacher who was instructed to teach a new class of gifted students for the school year. In truth, these students had been tested and found to be of low I.Q. Moreover, they had behavioral problems.

Sure enough, when she started teaching, the students started misbehaving not caring to learn or respond. Because she believed they were students with high IQ, she figured that she was the cause of the problem, not the students!

She started to take responsibility for their misbehavior and disinterest in learning. She reflected that it could be due to her teaching style being too boring not stimulating enough to capture the attention of these gifted, demanding children.

Experimenting and changing the way she taught, she started to encourage them, arouse their curiosity, challenging them with games and activities, nurturing them along the whole process. The more she treated them like gifted students, the more the students responded.

At the end of the school year, the academic grades of the students jumped tremendously. And when retested, their IQs measured a 20-30 point increase on average.

She literally created gifted students! (Think of how supposedly slow learners languishing and under performing because of uninspiring teachers?)

In his work called ’Social Theory and Social Structure’, Merton said the phenomenon occurs when "a false definition of the situation evokes a new behavior which makes the original false conception come true."

In other words, once an expectation is set, even if it isn’t accurate, we tend to act in ways consistent with that expectation.

Often and surprisingly, the result is that the expectation, as if by magic, comes true.

At the same time, if we believe that a particular goal or desire is beyond our reach we shut out all possibility of ever achieving it.

Choose empowering beliefs, beliefs that will drive us forward calling forth the inexhaustible resources we all possess, turning on the tap of our potential power.

As a result, increase in shareholder value and hence the share price...]]> A good business is a business which you can more or less predict with confidence that over the long term, its going to increase its earnings, its profits every year.

As a result, increase in shareholder value and hence the share price. In other words, the share price will go up not because of speculation but because the company is worth more.

Look at past historical performance. If you look at a company records for the last 10 years, and if earnings have been increasing steadily and consistently, then its more likely they continue to do that in the future. Its not a guarantee, but it’s more likely to do so.

Rather than a company who has had erratic profits in the past, look for a company which is consistently increasing in earnings.

The next thing is to look out for is the USP or unique selling proposition. It’s the same for private businesses, same for listed companies. Does the company have a strong unique selling proposition that gives it a competitive advantage?

That when even if rivals and competitors come in to cut prices, they can maintain their margins because they’ve got a unique positioning. The unique positioning could be due to a patent they hold. It could come from the brand they have.

Take for example, Nike. If 10 other companies were to start and compete with Nike and they come up with a brand called Niko, instead of Nike. Will Nike lose all their market share? No, they won’t. Why? Because people buy because its Nike. Because it’s a USP.

One question to ask yourself, "Does this company have room for growth? Can it continue to grow? Are there new markets it has not explored yet?"

So lets say it’s a fantastic education program that has been working in the States, could it work in China? And that gives you growth prospects. Does the company have conservative debt financing, alright. Can it pay back all its long term debt in 3 years?

The next thing is the management that’s in place. For the management, do they hold a lot of shares in the business? If they do hold a lot of shares in the business, they are more likely to hold a vested interest in making sure the company works, rather than siphoning off money for their salary which could happen.

Here’s a final tip, a company can make a lot of money in profits, but you may never see the profits, because it is channelled back to sustain current operations to renewing and refurbishing plant and equipment.

So I always advise investing in businesses where, in which you they don’t have to maintain plant and machinery. Take for example, insurance businesses. Another example, Nike, doesn’t even own their factories. They own the brand.

These are some of the key pointers that you can follow to choose the business to invest in. May it help you to picking the right investment!