Tag Archives: self help

D.E.A.D. Principle (part 2)

Welcome back for the second part of the D.E.A.D. principle.

Diving right in, the “E” stands for enthusiasm.  The second component, enthusiasm, builds nicely upon the first which was, desire.  Let’s face it, if you aren’t excited about your products or services, why should your customers be?  In fact, if you are just joining me in this series, you might want to stop right here and go read part 1.  The reason is that if you have read and understood part 1 with regards to desire, then enthusiasm should be a natural progression.

For the sake of example, I will continue sharing the scenario of a car salesperson.  You can adapt the particulars to whatever industry you are involved in.  Remember, it is the principle you are looking to learn.  Once you learn the principle, application will fall into place naturally.  So, if you are following your desire to participate in the lucrative world of automotive sales  you will want to consciously have a very enthusiastic mindset.

How will this look in practice?  As a sales professional you will want to eat cars, drink cars, sleep cars, breathe cars, etc.  You will need to completely immerse yourself in your product in order to gain the knowledge it takes to intelligently communicate their every benefit, feature, and have a command of ever bell and whistle.  You will want to get so excited about the cars you sell that it literally is infectious!  Of course, your enthusiasm will show in terms of excitement and love of the vehicles, but you will also be armed to address every question, comment and concern that comes your way.  Also, you will be so intimately familiar with what you sell that you will instinctively know what is the right car for your customer.

There are so many different ins and outs with this idea that I could go on for pages and pages!  I believe you likely get the idea though.

True success comes to those who diligently pursue it.  It doesn’t just happen.  Making certain that you are following your desire will lead you to a place of proper levels of enthusiasm.  Be a good student of what you are selling, promoting, building, or teaching.  Learning everything you can will be one of your biggest assets in the pursuit of success.  Be sure to be real.  Enthusiasm is a wonderful and contagious thing, but, forced or fake enthusiasm shines like a beacon telling your audience you are not genuine and, therefore, not trustworthy.  Don’t make the mistake of equating enthusiasm with over-the-top craziness!  You don’t want to come across as a clown.

Enthusiasm is best served with a smile, and what I like to call controlled excitement.  You don’t want to explode on people.  You do want your excitement to be leading your customer somewhere.  Think of it this way—if your customer is at an excitement level of a 4 on a scale of 1 to 10 you probably don’t want to come across as a ten!  Stay a couple steps ahead.  Lead them, don’t drag them.

Genuine enthusiasm will ultimately create a follow me scenario where people will gravitate in your direction.  Just make sure your enthusiasm is following your desire and you will be well on your way to following the D.E.A.D. principle.

D.E.A.D. Principle (part 1)

I decided today to introduce you to the D.E.A.D. Principle.  This is an amazing principle that a close friend of mine shared with me a few years ago.  Cliff Maynard of Success Innovations in Charlotte, North Carolina works in the automotive industry and recruits and trains sales and management professionals.

This principle will be valuable to you whether or not you make your living in the sales arena, as the principle applies nicely to all walks of life and therefore, in my opinion, is perfect for everyone who wants to be more successful in whatever they do.

As I’m sure you guessed already this principle is an acronym made up of four separate but complimentary things you must have and focus upon if you are to be a success.  My plan is to break the D.E.A.D. Principle into a series of at least four blog posts.  I think this will serve you best in that it will essentially give you four progressive lessons from which you can learn and apply.

The first “D” is the most basic and, frankly, foundational of the four and it stands for “Desire.”  Rule or principle number one of the D.E.A.D. Principle is desire.  No matter what you do you must have a high level of desire associated with what you are doing if indeed you expect to achieve any amount of success.  If you are a car salesperson, then cars and everything to do with them need to be incredibly important and motivating to you.  They need to get and hold your interest.  You need to want to be in a place where you spend all day long every day learning about them, test driving them, talking about them and so on.  If you don’t have this level of desire, you probably will eventually fail.  Apply this to other fields and you will find the same to be true.  If you are in ministry, you had better not only love studying Scripture, but you need to love people.  You have to care for them, counsel them, teach them and be willing to stay up late and wake up early to minister to their needs.  This must be your overwhelming desire in order to be a successful shepherd.  What about if you have decided to go into the marketing field?  Then your desire must be to study and know your products or clients you are promoting.  You need to love to dig deep and learn about the demographics that would most likely want and need to use your clients’ products or services.  You will have to have a deep desire to work in a fast paced world and make lots of phone calls and send and receive a lot of correspondence and track and measure efficacy of your campaigns.  If not, you are likely going in the wrong direction!

You can easily see how regardless of the situation, the “desire” must be there.  Without this key element you are just fooling yourself.  It is not to say that you couldn’t fake it for a time.  Maybe you are in a place where something you truly desire is not available or even possible.  You may find yourself marking time and collecting a paycheck in order to survive.  My advice to you if you find yourself in this situation is to let the desire for that paycheck be all the motivation you need in order to keep food on the table and a roof over your head.  Simultaneous to this fake or drummed up desire, find the time to seek out, find, or create the position you are truly and naturally passionate about and actually desire.  What you naturally desire is key.  I’m talking about the desire you don’t have to work at or stir up, it is always there!

Are you where you truly desire to be?  If the answer is yes, fantastic!  Let this lesson serve as a reinforcement to what you are hopefully already experiencing.  If the answer is no, then it is likely time to make a plan and set some goals and hold yourself accountable and go after your true hearts desire.In a couple days we will take a look at the “E” of the D.E.A.D. Principle.  Come back and check out part 2

Failure is Not the Problem You Think it is!

I believe it was Thomas Edison who famously said that he had not failed, he had merely discovered ten thousand ways that don’t work. Is that not a beautiful take on perspective and determination?

There are many more famous examples of people who have literally failed their way to success! It doesn’t seem at first glance that the two are compatible, but indeed they are a close kin. Look at it this way, if all we do is dream about what it would be like to do something big, but never take a step towards the dream we are absolutely guaranteed to fail and never realize the dream. Truth be told, if we take a chance and step out in faith towards our dreams there is no promise of attaining the goal or even being any closer to the goal after we try. So why try at all if this is the way it is? There is something so amazing and surprisingly satisfying in our best attempts that makes the effort worth the while.

Speaking for myself, I know that there are enormous heaps of failure in between each success I have experienced along the way. You can say that when measuring the failures compared to the successes that overall I’m a failure right? If we are simply counting the numbers of failures versus successes, then I suppose, but who does that? The runner who competes and fails to place in race after race could be deemed a failure. However, the training and preparation that goes into each race strengthens the runner and puts them in a place where even though they may have lost this race, they are poised to improve the next them they try. Plus, lessons learned through the course of failure refine their approach next time. For some, simply being able to complete a race is reward enough regardless of winning or losing! But just imagine the exhilaration of the day that runner crosses the finish line first! Do you think at that moment they are looking back over their years of failure and accepting that because they failed more than they won that they are in fact a loser somehow? NO! Absolutely not! In that moment the first success is realized, all the failure is now nothing more than mere preparation that lead to this now sweet moment of supreme accomplishment.

I dare say that this scenario applies to me and you no matter what our ‘race’ of choice. It doesn’t matter how many times I got rejected trying to get a job in broadcasting. When I finally landed my first job, I wasn’t crying about all the missed opportunities, but instead, was celebrating the fact I had one now! When I found my beautiful wife and mother of my two amazing children I didn’t look back at all the failed relationships and label myself a social failure. No! I rejoiced in the fact that I now basked in the glorious success of finding the one for me! As an author, I don’t look at all the failed attempts to write a book and think of me as a failed author. No! I look at my book, “Power In Perseverance” and the lives that have been changed and the blessings that have come through the open door of radio & TV interviews because of it, and I see a resounding success!

We have to choose what we focus on. How do you like that? Another visual pun from a blind man! I can choose to focus on failure, but then my negative outlook will feed upon itself and become a self fulfilling prophecy of sorts and I will continue to live in failure. Or, I can choose to focus on my accomplishments and the joy they have added to my life and allow myself to be defined by them instead of the failed attempts.

If this blind, cancer survivor, heart patient can overcome the obstacles in my life, then why can’t you? What is your excuse? What is holding you back? If it is your attitude and perspective that’s easy to change, just make the decision. If it is a disability or other life challenge, that’s ok, you can still overcome it and get to where you want to go. You just need to find someone like you who has done it before. Solomon said there is nothing new under the sun. I believe that! If someone, anyone like you or me has done something before then so can we!

For more information, or if I can be of any further assistance to you, please do not hesitate to reach out. My email is throttleup@jeffgrillomedia.com

Below are some suggested links to help you grab hold of other ‘Throttle Up!’ outlets that will encourage, empower and inspire you to reach beyond your current circumstances and become all you were created to be!

Podcast: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/jeff-grillos-podcast/id984981881?mt=2&i=339792930
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YamzUDTAj1w

Please SHARE this post! I want as many people as possible to be helped and learn from my experience! Thank you!

Focus is Critical

Our goals and desires in life, if meaningful enough to us, will drive us to do whatever it takes to succeed.  There are times that this drive and raw excitement can for many of us turn into a crazy and at times seemingly out of control ride.  We spin in all directions, firing on all cylinders and appear to be amazingly busy.  When pursuing our goals, however, busy is not necessarily good all the time.  Here is what I mean.  Don’t get me wrong, we need to be busy that is how things get done, we just don’t need to be so busy that we have our hand in so many things nothing really gets accomplished in the end.

Let’s look at the differences in focus.  I like to liken it to the shooting range.  Believe it or not, I enjoy the shooting sport.  Hard to believe, I know, but even with severely limited sight I can still hit certain color and size targets from fairly close ranges, usually 10 to 20 feet or so.  If I had a silhouette target set about 20 feet in front of me and decided todo some target practice there are two types of guns I might be inclined to try out.  One may be a handgun of some sort with a laser pointer on it.  I don’t actually own one, but for illustration of making this point I will ‘pretend!”  I think most people using a laser-sighted gun can hit the target nearly every time if their pull is firm and steady.  With laser focus you can stay on target and reach the goal, in this case scoring a bullseye!  Then, perhaps we might think about trying the shotgun on the next target.  The shotgun will also enable you to hit the target, but in a much different way.  The shotgun sends out a spray of pellets that become more and more spread out the longer the distance they travel.    With the handgun and laser I can put several rounds within a tight grouping in and around the actual bullseye center of the target.  With the shotgun, I may very well hit the target, but there is no guarantee how many of those pellets will get anywhere near the bullseye.  Out of say 9 pellets that go down range maybe only four of them hit the target.  Out of those four pellets one hit the copyright information way at the bottom of the target, off the silhouette.  A second pellet hit high and left of center.  The third pellet hit the edge of the paper where it was taped to the wood, but not actually on the target itself.  Maybe the forth hit several inches right of center.  So while the shotgun approach in general helps you to have a tactical advantage in real life, on a paper target, it is actually not advantageous at all!  Aside from the thrill of feeling the powerful kick of the shotgun, there is little value in target shooting.

This relates to our personal lives in the following ways to varying degrees depending upon your specific situation.  Firstly, if we focus our energies in a single endeavor we are more likely to hit what we are most focused upon.  If we have too many things we are attempting to achieve at one time the likelihood of any real success at any o them is greatly reduced.  Better to have singular purpose and one by one pick off your goals.

In my life, this seems to be the case.  When I am focused on something and I can give it my full attention, success is close at hand.  If I find myself juggling too many things at once, frustration is usually by my side.

Habits

 

Volumes have been written on the topic of habits, both good and bad.  In this post I will share what I know to be the two most important things you need to know about habits.  I will not only point out the two most important things and show you why they are important, but I will explain why they are extra critical to those facing major life challenges.

My experience and research have revealed hard truths to me.  It all boils down to two things.  Habits are created from actions repeated over time.  Habits, regardless of how they became established in our lives, can be changed!  That is the bottom line!

We know that actions repeated over time become habits.  We must also recognize that actions always result in consequences, sometimes negative and sometimes positive.  If we find ourselves at a point in our life where we are re-evaluating the quality of our current state then we must examine the sum total of our actions which have become habits.  If we find that we are currently in a great position in life then the examining of our habits and actions of the past should reveal what we are doing right, and therefore ought to continue to do.  In fact, even in  such a situation we can fine tune the good habits to become great habits and thus ensure an even brighter future.  If, however, we find less than satisfactory results have been achieve then we are forced to examine the actions and habits that have developed which have put us in this undesirable state.

I have heard it many times throughout my life that studies show it takes 28 days of repeated action to develop a new habit.  That is not too long!  Most of us can make changes, even challenging ones and keep it going for 28 days!  Man, even the biggest of habits can be broken if we choose to look at it this way.  You can do it standing on your head for crying out loud!

Massive change isn’t always necessary either.  Sometimes even small or basic change made consistently can yield fantastic results.

Now that the light has shone upon this monster, what are you going to do about it?  Examine your habits that hold you back.  Start with the more obvious habits, or start with the easiest ones and correct them.  In only four weeks you can start to see real change.  Conquer even one bad habit at a time, just do something!  Get at it!  Get going!  You may find the results to be so gratifying that you become a monster of sorts yourself, hunting down and destroying these dirty little varmints that have held you back for far too long!

This leads me of course to the point that habits indeed can be changed.  They are conquered by a simple but focused choice of will.  The power is in your hands.  My two points about habits are summed up in one simple word…”choice.”  Make the choice to do things differently in order to reap the prize of a better tomorrow!

Is the Decision Maker in?

 

If you have ever been a sales person, or simply been on the receiving end of a phone call, you have undoubtedly heard this many times before.  Don’t worry, and please refrain from any flashbacks, as I am not selling you anything!

I want to take you for a moment and focus in on a very important and all too often overlooked fact in life.  In society today it is en vogue to play the blame game.  No matter what the situation, and no matter the circumstances we find ourselves in, many of us like to look outward rather than inward when it comes to responsibility.  It is so easy to blame others, or chance for our lot in life.  WE easily and quickly place blame, inadvertently at times as well, when things do not go our way and we do not get the desired result from a particular effort.  This is the easy default setting we can sometimes find ourselves preset with in our minds.  It is insidious and can cause us irreparable harm if we allow it.

Rather than taking this approach, I want to instead suggest that you look inward as your first reaction.  A mature person responds while an immature person reacts.  So, truly I want you to respond inwardly to put it more correctly.

No matter what point you find yourself on your own life journey, if you are not satisfied with whee you are it is time to ask yourself a question.  Who is ultimately my decision maker?  Plenty of good, Bible minded people will quickly jump to saying the Jesus, or the Father are ultimately the decision maker in our lives.  As a believer myself, I can understand that logic, however, there is a key idea you must consider before even answering that way!  That pesky little thing called, ‘free will.’  Uh oh, Jeff!  You just took away a crutch I lean on!  Yes, I did!  Yes, the Almighty is supreme in all things, however, he has given us final say in the choices we make in our lives, right down to where we spend eternity.  So, now that I have stolen that excuse from you, let me ask the question again.  Who is the ultimate decision maker in your lie?  If you answered, ‘me’ then I say you have answered correctly.  If you are not incarcerated this is true.

It is funny, out of all the videos I have currently posted on my ‘Throttle p Radio’ YouTube channel, the one with the least views by far is the one on ‘Personal Responsibility.’  I had a feeling that would be the case, but I am blown away by the fact that even weeks after its release I literally have had two views on that one!  Near the top is a blooper segment I put together!

You must, if you want to improve your life and your future, understand that you and you alone are the one upon whom all and ultimate responsibility alls for all your decisions!  That is a staggering thought for many, I know.  Don’t let it overwhelm you, though, simply accept it and get in touch with what you can do to make things better.

Find yourself a mentor or life coach to help you.  What is the difference?  A mentor is a person with specific expertise in an area you want to master.  For example if you are looking to become a better public speaker then you will want to find a mentor who is very successful in that area of life and is willing to share with you what they know.  A life coach is a person who may not necessarily be an expert on your specific area you are trying to overcome, but have enormous value in helping you become the best you can be.  They use typically non-judgmental techniques of listening to your needs and setting forth an actionable plan you can follow to greatly improve your results.  They also give you tremendous accountability and help to keep you on track.  The important thing is that you find a person with credibility that you can trust and who has overcome great challenges and help you to overcome yours!

A little news update here in closing.  I am nearly down with the process of editing my second book and will announce soon it’s release!  Be looking for that.  Also, remember always I offer three platforms by which you can get some of what you need to overcome your challenges, and they are all absolutely free!  Naturally, there is this blog.  Please also take advantage of my podcast and YouTube channel.  Together these three, free resources can help you greatly to move forward and overcome your challenges and achieve greater things in your lie.  If you are looking for even more help than this, I would suggest you get a copy of my paperback book, “Power In Perseverance,” which can be found on my product page at www.jeffgrillo.com.   If you are still wanting more, you can contact me through my contact page at my website or email me direct at jeff@jeffgrillo.com .  Let me know your specific situation and what you are wanting help with.  If I feel I am the best match for you and can greatly assist you in reaching your goals, then I can arrange a free initial consultation.

Whatever your path that you choose, remember, YOU CHOOSE!  You are ultimately the decision maker in your life.