I just watched a video where this marketing guru talks about some of what is different between high performers and everybody else. I really like what I heard and I thought I would share my own interpretation of the 4 pillars to success.
The First Pillar is Psychology
What you think about, what you think you can do or can’t do greatly influence your performance. You heard it before. What your mind can believe you can achieve.
What are your values? Do you think that helping others and giving is more important than receiving? Zig Ziglar, one of the greatest sales trainer and motivational speaker that I know, said that you can achieve success (ie: get what YOU want) if you help enough people get what THEY want.
What are your beliefs about yourself, others or even success? Do you believe in yourself? Do you believe and are you passionate about something? If you are passionate about something, it will show in your body language, the sound of your voice, the pitch… You will NOT be able to contain the excitement.
Are you surrounding yourself with people that also believe in you or are you living in a toxic mental world when you have to fight to convince everyone that your idea has value. Now, you do need some constructive criticism and discernment to make sure you are on the right track. You may have to add a few skills to your ‘toolkit’ to become successful and that’s OK. But, do you have at least one person, when everyone else gives up on you, that believes in you? (If you do, you are a very fortunate person and make sure you treasure that relationship). If you don’t, then you need to get a tough skin and make sure you stay on course. I call this ‘rhinocerology” and I’ll write about this in a later post.
Finally, do you have clarity of purpose? Do you know what it is that you “were born to do”. If not, you need to find out as soon as possible. Once you do, your life will change. Here is a warning that I must give you, you will not be able to stay still any more, your life will change despite you.I run a two day seminar on self-awareness to help people discover their “life keys” and I always start with a warning that they will not be able to stay the same after they become self-aware. They may want to start a new business, change career or at the very least become much better at what they do.
The Second Pillar is Physiology
You are what you eat. Are you healthy? I am not writing about fit to run a marathon, but are you at least healthy enough to have the stamina and energy to last the day. Can you put in a good day doing what you are passionate about? If there is a health issue, and you can do something about it, you need to do so. Maybe it is weight, then you can start by walking half a block the first day.
High Performers have enough stamina to last the day. They have this contagious energy that spreads to those around them. Also, referring back to the previous post, it is a fact that when you are doing something you are passionate about, time goes by quickly and you always have enough energy to do it. I am reminded of that fact when I ask my teenager to do something and he is too tired to help but, a few hours later he goes for a long ride on his mountain bike. Where did the energy come from? It came from his passion of riding the mountain bike -contrary to his aversion to cutting the grass 
The Third Pillar is Productivity
It won’t do much good if you have the energy, the passion and the skills needed if you spin your wheels all day. I won’t say much about this in this post as this is one of the main topics of this web site. Productivity and the ability to get things done is critical to success. You need to be able to sort out priorities and make sure that what you are doing at any moment is what you should be doing at that time. You also need to come to a point where you are also comfortable with what you are NOT doing at that moment. Remember, you can’t be doing everything at once -just one thing at at time, then the next one… until you all done.
Anyway, like I said, I’ll be writing more about this in other posts.
The Fourth Pillar is Persuasion
This pillar is about marketing and persuading other to buy what you sell. Unlike many Internet Marketers, I do not believe that there is a magic wand to make any product or idea sell on the Internet. However, I do know that marketing is a science with proven laws and techniques. Also, although it is true that extraordinary salespersons are born, great salesperson are trained. Salesmanship is also a skills that has proven techniques, laws and therefore it can be learned. With the basic skills, and practice, most people can “sell”, a good salesperson can become great.
I have a few great book to recommend, which I will review in length in other posts. One that comes to mind right away is ” Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive ” by Noah J. Goldstein, Steve J. Martin, Robert B. Cialdini. It does prove my point that marketing is a science more than an art.
With passion (psychology) and the stamina (physiology) needed to last the day and a few basic sales and marketing tools, this pillar is rather easy to achieve. People love to deal with people that are excited about what they do, people love to believe in people that believe in their products, People love to be around people that believe in themselves and it them.
So, this is what I think about what are the four pillars to success. Naturally, I will need to expand and develop these pillars more in future posts. I would love to hear what YOU think.
Until the next post, Seize the Day!
