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My new blog address is www.teamshinstock.com/masterminds/JoeShinstock/MKMMA

Come see what’s new!!

Joe

Persistence – Week 11

For the last day and a half I have been struggling with what to discuss this week regarding PERSISTENCE.  So many topics have been swirling in my mind.  Possible topics would include:

• A video from the movie “Rudy,” where Rudy Ruettiger, an undersized, under-skilled football player, aspires to play college football for Notre Dame University.  After four years of studying and playing for the ND scout team, he gets the opportunity to play in one game and succeeds.
• A video from the movie “Pursuit of Happyness,” where Will Smith tells his son…”don’t ever let anyone ever tell you you can’t do something.”  “If you want something, go get it.  Period.”
• A conversation about how I shared parts of the persistence scroll with members of our team.

For a bit of entertainment and a little inspiration, I am including the Will Smith video below.

As far as I can tell, the common thread between these three topics, as well as any other possibilities is that persistence follows purpose.  Without a Definite Major Purpose, persistence is nothing.  If Rudy hadn’t established a definite major purpose of playing for Notre Dame, he wouldn’t have been motivated to persist through all the pain and strife to achieve his success.  If Will Smith’s character hadn’t established a definite major purpose of providing for his family, he never would have persisted long enough to succeed.  I know that working with my team to establish their definite major purposes, we will have nothing to motivate persistence to success.

The thing I love most about this course is that it has helped me to identify common threads in everything I encounter wherever I go and whatever I do.  I am aware.  I am focused.  I am moving forward.  And, I persist.  I will succeed.

Joe

Value of a Compass – Week 10

About 4-5 weeks ago we were given the task to acquire a compass and replace your clock with it.  The intended goal was to focus on your direction as you make changes to your subconscious blueprint as opposed to the time spent making those changes.

I got my compass.  I set it on my desk.  I thought, “forget about the time; focus on where you are going.”  Sure.  That’s all well and good, but I think I missed the point initially.  It’s not only focusing on the direction you want to take, but the activities in which you engage and the mindset you create during the journey that matters.

For me, there is some good news and some bad news.  The bad news is that it took me about a week of reading the third scroll of the Greatest Salesman in the World before I realized the shortcoming.  The good news is that I got that revelation!!  If you never understand, you will never make changes and move forward.  I am moving forward and hope this post assists you with your own revelations.

The key phrase that caught my attention in the Greatest Salesman is as follows:

“Henceforth, I will learn and apply another secret of those who excel in my work.  When each day is ended, not regarding whether it has been a success or failure, I will attempt to achieve one more sale.  When my thoughts beckon my tired body homeward I will resist the temptation to depart.  I will try again.  I will make one more attempt to close with victory, and if that fails I will make another.  Never will I allow any day to end in failure.  Thus will I plant the seed of tomorrow’s success and gain an insurmountable advantage over those who cease their labor at a prescribed time.  When others cease their struggle, then mine will begin, and my harvest will be full.” - Last paragraph of page 66

Bottom line:  Never end on a failure.

It only makes sense.  Who cares about the time?  Your success and your life depends on your commitment to planting the seed of success for tomorrow.  As a side note, I remember back when I was in college and my friends and I played basketball every day.  Never did I leave the court without making one final shot.  If I took the shot and missed, I would try again, but I would never leave the court following a failure.  Some people called it superstition, but deep down inside I knew that success begets success and I was going to make it happen.

Peace!

Joe

I can be what I WILL to be. – Week 9

I just thought of this.  Not too complicated.  I will likely follow up with another post later in the week, but I figured I could knock one out quickly without much effort.

This past weekend I heard an interesting story about Jack Nicklaus (one of the best golfers in history – 115 total wins including 6 Masters Championships, 4 U.S. Open Championships, 3 Open Championships, and 5 PGA Championships).  A fan walked up to Nicklaus and asked what he was thinking after he made a bad shot.  Repeatedly, Nicklaus responded “what bad shot?” Come to find out from his caddie, “Jack doesn’t even acknowledge bad shots.  They don’t exist in his mind.”

Talk about the epitome of the mental diet.  Negative thoughts don’t even exist.  Everything is positive.  Then I saw this video and it drove home the point for me that even in the face of great adversity, success is always within reach.  Not just any success, but vast, life changing success.  Enjoy.

Mental Labor = Greatest Returns – Week 8

Last night I got to be the featured speaker for a newly established networking group for local small businesses.  My presentation focused on the outcome and potential impact of the November 2010 elections in California on small businesses.  I had a great time earning Recognition for Creative Expression (one of my two PPNs)!!! Thank you Diane for getting me the gig.  I am so invigorated.

The topic of this post, however, comes from the conversation Diane and I had on the drive over to the event last night.  We were discussing the “value added” by this 26 week course.  Many of our friends are small business owners and are looking for ways to improve their lives and businesses.  Many of them and have recently attended or engaged in motivational seminars to help change their perspective on life and business.   AND, they are gung-ho about how beneficial the seminars were for them.  But, we also notice that their circumstances don’t necessarily change.

I couldn’t help but think of something Mark said during the first week of this endeavor…that seminars and motivational presentations will only provide short bursts of inspiration, but don’t change the underlying blueprint of our lives.  I’ve been told, “You don’t have to change your blueprint. All you have to do is choose to do something differently.”  So…they go to a weekend seminar, get hyped up about making different choices, make different choices for a few days, and then revert back to their old ways.

WHAT WENT WRONG?

Paragraph 15 of week 8 specifies that “Constructive imagination means mental labor, by some considered to be the hardest kind of labor, but, if so, it yields the greatest returns, for all the great things in life have come to men and women who had the capacity to think, to imagine, and to MAKE their dreams come true.”

Mental labor, not just for a weekend, but consistent mental labor.  With this program, we are laboring to change something that has been built into our subconscious for decades.  I am 36, so I have been building my existing blueprint for at least 30 years.  I can’t expect to change my ways, my habits, by going to a weekend seminar.  MKMMA is a full-frontal assault of positive thinking, not just over the weekend, but intended to create new positive ongoing habits to change the future.

All angles. All positive.  All the time.

• Service cards to initiate the habits.
• Daily readings to manage and maintain habits.
• Activity cards to transition behavior.
• Definite Major Purpose to identify the ideal.
• Dream Board to visualize the goal.
• Press Release to engage our imagination to create the goal.

I wish there was, but there is absolutely no way a weekend seminar can even hope to provide the “value added” to the MKMMA.  Paragraph 19…“You can not entertain weak, harmful, negative thoughts ten hours a day and expect to bring about beautiful, strong and harmonious conditions by ten minutes of strong, positive, creative thought.” MKMMA co-mingles and integrates all of these activities with colors, shapes, stories and sounds.  We bombard all of our senses so as to develop and full and complete picture of what we want and what is to come.  Sight. Sound. Touch. Taste. Smell.  I am kind of curious to know how we are going to integrate taste and smell in to the mix.  Not sure we learn using those senses, but why not?

We are 2 months in to a 6 month, full-frontal, intensive yet precise attach on our subconscious.

Peace and success be the journey.

Distance from Ear to Ear – Week 7

In the sport of athletics, the four-minute mile is the running of a mile (exactly 5280 feet) in less than four minutes.  For many years, this achievement eluded all professional middle distance runners.  The average human male runs between 6 and 11 miles per hour.  The four-minute mile equates to running at the speed of 15 miles per hour, which makes it quite a feat for anyone.

Bannister

 

For years, running the mile in less than four minutes was “impossible.”  Many tried and many failed.  It was common knowledge that a human could not run the distance of a mile in four minutes.

Then, in 1954, a runner by the name of Roger Bannister succeeded in running the distance of a mile in 3 minutes and 59.4 seconds.  The ‘four minute barrier’ was broken! Since that time, the four-minute barrier has been broken by many male athletes, and is now the standard of all professional middle distance runners.  In addition, over the past 50 years the mile record has been lowered by almost 17 seconds.

So what happened?  Did they reduce the length of the mile making it shorter?  Did they change how we measure time to extend the length of four minutes?  No….

“The only thing that changed was the distance between his ears.”

 

Part 7 is germane to this story.  Idealization. Visualization.  Materialization.

Bannister saw the end before a single step was taken and knew what the harvest would be (paragraph 6-idealization).  He saw the picture more and more complete and saw the details to unfold the ways and means to achieve is goal (paragraph 7-visualization).   “Thought will lead to action, action will develop methods, methods will develop friends, and friends will bring about circumstances…” (paragraph 7-materialization).

Paragraph 18 – Make the Mental Image — Clear. Distinct. Perfect.  Hold it firmly. Supply will follow demand.  Ernest Desire will bring about Confident Expectation and this in turn must be reinforced by Firm Demand.

Roger Bannister created an ideal that made the world within beautiful and opulent and the world without expressed the condition.  He made the impossible, possible!  As noted above, once Bannister broke through the barrier (demonstrating the possibility), many other distance athletes were able to do the same.  The distance for them did not change.  The length of a minute didn’t increase.  The only change that occurred was in their minds.

I’m in an industry that rewards hard work and a little luck.  I have heard the success stories, so I know that it is possible.  The only thing standing in my way to success is myself.  I will nourish my Ernest Desire and reinforce my WILL.

It is possible.  So, I will do it.

I have borrowed the underlying story about Roger Bannister “reducing the distance between his ears” from Jason Domingo, Master Distributor for LifeVantage.

My Mental Diet – Week 7

This is a 7-day challenge to recognize and eliminate all negative thoughts from my mind.

Sunday night I was thinking, “I can do this!  No problem.”  Besides, every evening for the past 6 weeks I have been reading the following words out loud:

“I eliminate hatred, envy, jealousy, selfishness, and cynicism because I have developed love for all humanity;  I know that a negative attitude toward others can never bring me success.”

Now…two days in…I have already restarted the clock so many times I cannot count, and I am still looking at the first four hours of my diet as my most successful (from 6am to 10am on Monday morning).  The “big” things are easy.  It’s the little things that are tripping me up…getting upset at someone walking too slow across the street, a snarky comment about someone’s hairdo or the goofy look on their face, frustration with another person’s poor leadership skills.  The list is long.

I am a little disappointed in myself.  What will “the guy in the glass” say?  It’s been two days and I am still tripping up.  In an hour or so, I will be reading The Guy in the Glass and I am sure he is going to give me that “Come on, Joe!  Really?!” look.

“YOU’RE BETTER THAN THAT!”

I am better than that.  I can be what I will to be!  And, that includes anything that I set my mind to do.  The “guy in the glass” will be proud of me.  He will be pleased.  He will believe in me…because I believe in myself.  I will complete the 7-day challenge.

Can you complete the 7-day Mental Diet?  Ask me about it if you want more information.

You can be what you will to be.