When we hear about other people's achievements, credentials and successes we often think I could’ve done that, that should’ve been me, I want that.
The fact is they did it, they got it and you didn’t.
The good news is it’s easy to flip the script!
you can either sit back and say oh well next time
or you can get up learn the skills acquired the resources develop the habits perform the hard work that it took that person to achieve those things.
Pondering...
“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask… for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.”
— Einstein
The point of this very famous quote is, you’ve got to figure out the crux of the matter—the essential problem or question to be addressed—before focusing in on answers.
Einstein thought questioning and curiosity were the key to learning.
All too often we spend so much of our time seeking answers, mostly for questions that don’t matter. Success and achievement are derived from asking the right questions, not by answering any question.
Thought-provoking...
Enneagram
You have a type, but you are NOT a type.
The Enneagram of Personality Types is a modern synthesis of a number of ancient wisdom traditions, but the person who originally put the system together was Oscar Ichazo. Ichazo was born in Bolivia and raised there and in Peru, but as a young man, moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina to learn from a school of inner work he had encountered. Thereafter, he journeyed in Asia gathering other knowledge before returning to South America to begin putting together a systematic approach to all he had learned.
After many years of developing his ideas, he created the Arica School as a vehicle for transmitting the knowledge that he had received, teaching in Chile in the late 1960's and early 70's, before moving to the United States where he resided until his recent death.
In 1970, When Ichazo was still living in South America, a group of Americans, including noted psychologists and writers Claudio Naranjo and John Lilly, went to Arica, Chile to study with Ichazo and to experience firsthand the methods for attaining self-realization that he had developed.
The Enneagram symbol has roots in antiquity and can be traced back at least as far as the works of Pythagoras. 2 The symbol was reintroduced to the modern world by George Gurdjieff, the founder of a highly influential inner work school.
"We have to distinguish between a man as he is in essence, and as he is in ego or personality. In essence, every person is perfect, fearless, and in a loving unity with the entire cosmos; there is no conflict within the person between head, heart, and stomach or between the person and others. Then something happens: the ego begins to develop, karma accumulates, there is a transition from objectivity to subjectivity; man falls from essence into personality."
Oscar Ichazo (July 24, 1931 – March 26, 2020) was the Bolivian-born philosopher and originator of Integral Philosophy.
The Enneagram is a system of personality typing that describes patterns in how people interpret the world and manage their emotions. The Enneagram describes nine different personality types and maps each of these types on a nine-pointed diagram which helps to illustrate how the types relate to one another. The name Enneagram comes from the Greek: Ennea is the Greek word for nine and Gramma means something that’s drawn or written.
The Nine Enneagram Types
The Rational, Idealistic Type: Principled, Purposeful, Self-Controlled, and Perfectionistic
The Caring, Interpersonal Type: Demonstrative, Generous, People-Pleasing, and Possessive
The Success-Oriented, Pragmatic Type: Adaptive, Excelling, Driven, and Image-Conscious
The Sensitive, Withdrawn Type: Expressive, Dramatic, Self-Absorbed, and Temperamental
The Intense, Cerebral Type: Perceptive, Innovative, Secretive, and Isolated
The Committed, Security-Oriented Type: Engaging, Responsible, Anxious, and Suspicious
The Busy, Fun-Loving Type: Spontaneous, Versatile, Distractible, and Scattered
The Powerful, Dominating Type: Self-Confident, Decisive, Willful, and Confrontational
The Easygoing, Self-Effacing Type: Receptive, Reassuring, Agreeable, and Complacent
For a deeper understanding read The Everyday Enneagram by Lynette Sheppard
Enneagram (pronounced any-uh-gram) is an ancient means to discover self as well as understand and relate to others. Lynette Sheppard's new book, The Everyday Enneagram, is a practical tool, manual and guide about using this compelling information to work, love and live better.
Lynette takes the reader to a full understanding, indeed a map describing the motivations and worldview underlying behavior and traits. You will learn the nine basic personality types---and how we sometimes let our personalities run us. The Everyday Enneagram
then enables us to choose how to perceive or respond to a situation---so putting the power back into us.
The Everyday Enneagram has focussed chapters about how to best use these dramatic and life-changing concepts for personal growth and self-mastery, relationships, family, workplace and, yes, establishing a higher consciousness.
Wisdom/What I'm Reading...
Flip The Script expands on his first book (Pitch Anything) and introduces new concepts to teach the reader how not to sell your product, but to have the buyer desire your product.
Today buyers buy, they aren’t sold.
This is why it’s important to drive a process where the buyer voluntarily creates their desire to do business with you. Buyers have changed but the way in which we try and sell hasn’t! This leads to missed opportunities, frustration and failure.
Today technology allows us to connect with thousands of people, but what’s the point if we are unable to covert the lead into a sale.
Conversion is key, not working hard.
Flip The Script is largely about how to take a buyer through the process of buying from you, where you’re controlling the process, however they feel comfortable and like they have autonomy to move forward, move backwards, leave or go into the deal at any time.
plant your idea in the mind of another so they will discover it, appreciate it, and fall in love with it on their own.”
Oren begins the book by introducing and defining the term Inception, which is implanting an idea in someone’s mind so that they think it’s their own. His main thesis through the book is that today’s products are bought, not sold. Traditional sales tactics don’t work in today’s world whereby the buyer is armed with more and more information.
Oren introduces tools in his book for you to create Inception:
Status alignment
The Flash Roll
Pre wired ideas
Plain vanilla
Buyer’s formula
The concept of status alignment is best described when you are trying to sell to a business leader, unless he/ she believes you are also a decision maker, they will not take you seriously.
Status management matters more than features, price and benefits. Status delivers Trust.
Becoming reliable
Features and benefits don’t matter until your prospect understands you have the competency.
The buyer doesn’t want to know all the technical jargon. What they do care about is that you know what you are talking about, that you’re an expert.
What you do is incredibly hard, your product matters in the context of survival of companies
You have to make sure that you are an expert and that you speak their language. They must believe that this is incredibly hard and that nobody else can do it at the level you’re doing it. Lastly, you need to put in a survival context or you change the context.
There is no point in explaining the features and benefits until all that is baked in. You try to establish all those three things mentioned earlier then you explain the benefits.
There are probably other vendors who will be pitching the same things and they’ll start with the benefits and the features. You need to be different by coming in and showing that you’re an expert in the industry. Build your character and the character of your business then you go to the features and benefits.
“Set up the rules instead of playing the buyer’s rules. If the buyer doesn’t play by your rules, then he isn’t allowed to buy from you, thus creating the strong idea that they should buy from you”
— Oren Klaff
Klaff is a gifted writer. The book reads easily, like an adventure novel. Each new concept/idea/technique has a story attached, where this new technique is shown in full use.
Oren Klaff is the author of Pitch Anything, a required reading throughout Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and Fortune 500 companies. Oren is the world’s leading expert on sales, raising capital, and negotiation and has written for Harvard Business Review, Advertising Age Entrepreneur, among others. He is also an investing partner in a $2 million private equity investment fund.
He invests in companies, buys companies, and he trains the salespeople in these companies to raise money. He knows this works because companies tell him that their sales averages have doubled, that they’re closing deals, and that they’re raising money effectively. He isn’t an academic who dives into the numbers and writes a study about it. He is the one who dives in and takes action.
Widget Of The Week...
Maya Nut
Some of the most popular wonder foods of today like chia seeds, quinoa, and acai berries were dietary staples of the ancient Aztecs, Incas, and Mayans. These “superfoods” gave ancient indigenous peoples of Central and South America the strength and endurance they needed to survive in their often harsh environments.
In Costa Rica the Brosimum alicastrum tree grows natively in abundance. The seeds of the tree are often referred to as Maya nuts and boast an array of health benefits,
In Costa Rica, they call it ojoche.
Scientifically the Maya nut is not actually a nut, but a drupe, which is any fruit consisting of an outer skin, a pulpy middle layer, and a woody innershell enclosing a single seed.
Maya nuts are nutrient-dense and are 100-percent free of gluten, dairy, pesticides, nuts, and common allergens. They are also completely caffeine-free and high in potassium, fiber, calcium, iron, antioxidants, zinc, protein, and vitamins A, B, C, and E.
Maya nut powder is a caffeine-free, nutrient-dense alternative to coffee that can be prepared in the same manner. The flavor is mild with notes of cinnamon or mocha; it does not have a bitter aftertaste, and it can be made hot or iced. Even though it is caffeine free, people report a natural energy boost after drinking Maya nut drinks.
You can read more information about Maya nuts and the Brosimum alicastrum tree at The Maya Nut Institute where their mission is to “find balance between people, food and forests.”