Vision board and succeed

Vision boards – get what you want
I recently attended the National Speaker Association’s mid-year conference. I took away many awesome ideas about branding, presentation skills and new technology.  My biggest takeaway was to accelerate your success, get a vision board.

In the early 1990s, I always had a vision board, in my office, at my branding agency in Houston.  A large black bulletin covered with pictures of situations, places and things I wanted to experience, share or own.  When I made something happen or achieved a milestone, I removed the item from the board. By the late 90s, my vision board was empty and I had manifested a bunch of amazing stuff. I credit that board of pictures as an important tool that kept me laser focused on my goals.

Last week, a good friend of mine who had also attended the NSA conference and heard the same speaker recommend, “Get your vision board up. If you can see it, you can achieve it.”

Friday, my friend texted me a picture of her newly completed and hung vision board. It was really cool to see her dreams. It got me thinking—it’s time to have a new visual board again too.

Today it’s easy, free and fast to create a vision board. With the internet you can find pictures of anything in seconds, versus mine in the 90s. I had to buy tons of magazines, dig through hundreds of pages to find the perfect images that represented my wish list.

My new board is in my office. My friend put hers in her bathroom. Put yours where it works best for you.  Include everything you want to achieve. Look at your vision board often and do what it takes to make it happen. There’s not much that a determined person can’t do, especially if you live in the USA.

Another powerful picture – get over rejection
I’ve been reading, How to Get Unstuck by Barry J. Moltz. Barry’s a successful entrepreneur and leads an angel funding network that helps start-ups succeed. This book is really good. As it points out, no one is immune to getting stuck.  In a well-organized style, the book addresses how many entrepreneurs and business leaders often feel. They work hard, put in crazy hours, and it seems they are on a treadmill going nowhere—Barry provides straightforward answers to fix this.

What I love about How to Get Unstuck is that it addresses typical scenarios that growing enterprises experience. From days when you hate your customers, want to kill your employees and vendors, to selling based on features, to not managing rejection well and operating like everything’s an emergency instead of from a pragmatic and proactive game plan. Barry offers up simple steps to get back on track, along with snippets of truth from real companies that were stuck and got unstuck.

I’m telling you about this book for two reasons. One, it’s a worthy read and it can make a meaningful difference in how you run your business.  Two, Barry shares another visualization technique that was a huge game changer in his life.  In chapter nine he covers how dealing with rejection can keep you seriously stuck, or using that rejection as a way to put you on a fast track to accomplishing great results.

You see early in his career he was in sales, making over a hundred calls a day and immersed in rejection. People would not return his calls, gatekeepers would not let him get close to the prospects and his self-worth was feeling below low.  Then one day he came up with a strategy.  He positioned a picture of his family in front of his phone. Every time he made a call and got the BIG NO, that visual reminded him, that if he didn’t make the calls and land business he could not take care of his family.  That was a powerful visual aid in motivating Barry.  From there, he calculated how much he made on each sale and the number of calls that were needed to close a deal. This calculation showed Barry that even when he was rejected, he was earning $2.50 for every dialed call. The bottom line of this math showed Barry that he was earning money even when he was being rejected. Fast forward to today’s branded, relationship selling—every time you send a prospect a relevant news article or share something insightful on social media you can use this method. Making a strong visual, tied to your goals and utilizing this same calculation will get you over your fears.

These two fast, free and effective methods can make a big difference in your life today.

What are you waiting for?