The information age is a double-edged sword.
On one hand we have access to unprecedented amounts of information. A couple of years ago I read the average person today is exposed to more information in a day than someone living at the beginning of the 20th century was exposed to in a lifetime. That’s an eye-opening shift in just over a century.
But it comes at a price.
Namely distraction.
Constant distraction.
A certain form of chaos comes with constant distraction. Not the kind that conjures images of riots in the streets, or an office ceiling-high in paperwork where everything is evidently falling apart around your ears. No, this is a far more subtle, far less obvious, yet equally as destructive kind of chaos.
It’s organised chaos. In the mind. Yeah, I know…an oxymoron in and of itself. Nevertheless, it’s real and it’s much more of a problem than most people care to admit. A mind constantly distracted is a mind constantly (and significantly) handicapped – its creative powers diluted.
Einstein allegedly said, “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer”. In a world awash with distraction, staying with anything for long enough is a major challenge, as many people can testify.
What differentiated Einstein over sixty years ago is even more relevant in today’s distraction-rich environment. Successful people are less distracted. They’re aware of what’s most important to their success, they prioritise those activities…and stick with it.
They live increasingly by the 80/20 principle which states in any given system a small number of causes lead to a hugely disproportionate number of effects. The point being, some activities – and the ratio isn’t always 80/20 but the principle still carries – are far more valuable to us in terms of return than others.
Life’s perennial strugglers and underachievers aren’t aware of what’s most important to their success and consequently prioritise activities which are, on the whole, meaningless. They’re too busy being busy and getting distracted by the latest “shiny object” to think into life at that level and focus on the most profitable activities of all.
Here’s the perfect example. “The 4 Pillars of Mastery” and the all-important, mind-expanding coaching questions which have powerfully transformed the lives of business owners in over 150 countries.
That’s an 80/20 activity. And most people don’t do it. Even a large proportion of those who do, only do it once, because they’ve been programmed by the traditional education system into thinking once you’ve “completed” an exercise you graduate from it. You never graduate from self-improvement. You never graduate from the constant need to raise your self-awareness and improve the quality of your thinking you bring to your business and your life.
Not if you’re in the business of constantly improving your results.
Yes, the information is still the same as it was. Yes the coaching questions are the same. But you’re not. You’ll hear things in the material you didn’t hear before and discover things from the coaching questions you weren’t ready to discover back then.
I ask a question. On face value the gravity of the question can be easily missed.
I ask:
What do you believe about your potential?
Notice I don’t ask what do you think about your potential. I do so with good reason. Because what you think about your potential, or what you’d like to think about your potential, is utterly irrelevant. The world isn’t short of people with piss poor and mediocre results convinced of their own potential. And yet when life calls them on their conviction – when opportunity to invest time, money and energy in their potential comes their way…
…they find every excuse under the sun not to do it.
The most common of all?
“The timing’s not right”.
Yeah, that old chestnut rears its ugly head over and over and over…
The only reason the timing isn’t “right” is because the belief system isn’t. They do NOT truly believe in their potential, and their actions prove it. No one invests in what they don’t believe in.
TRUTH
Whatever success looks like for you, it isn’t coming your way unless you’re willing to take a long hard look at you and within you.
Results don’t lie.
They can’t.
If your results aren’t what you’d like them to be (and most people’s aren’t) the culprit’s staring you right in the face…from the mirror.
On the tip of the tongue of that reflection five words bide their time…five words that have sabotaged untold amounts of opportunity life’s brought your way to become everything you claim to aspire to in your life.
“The timing is not right”.
It NEVER is. Every successful person will tell you the same.
The smartest thing you’ll do today is think. And if you’re to think into anything, I strongly recommend you take a look at the results in your business – profit specifically – then look at the results in your personal life – start with your income – and answer this:
What do your results reveal about what you TRULY believe about your potential?
Know the TRUTH and the TRUTH will set you free.
Enjoy your day.
Christian Simpson is the UK’s leading coach and mentor to business owners and entrepreneurs. For COMPLIMENTARY ACCESS to tried, tested and proven entrepreneurial success strategies, click here
