Feed Your Mind - Seven Steps of Self-Mentoring from Secret Selling Tips

Feed Your Mind - Seven Steps of Self-Mentoring

For many of us, summer is the most cherished, least stressful season of the year. It is an opportune time to relax, enjoy a warm evening, take inventory of your successes and reflect upon the positive aspects of your daily life. It is also the ideal time to reassess your short-term goals and aspirations. (This process can be done in any season.)

Start by revisiting one of the 'keys' to success for any sales entrepreneur: Acknowledge your responsibility to remain competitive and embrace self-mentoring (positive inputs) and self-motivation (positive outputs).

Self-mentoring is the prerequisite to self-motivation, because self-motivation is not something you do when you’re up; It’s what you need to do when you’re down, personally or professionally. It is the antidote against the barrage of negativity and adversities you experience in a typical day. If untreated, this barrage escalates into an emotional oil spill that impacts all areas of your life.

By practicing a program of self-mentoring, you accumulate an inventory of healthy confidence and esteem to draw upon when the need for self motivation arises. I compare self-mentoring to your bank account … in order to make withdrawals you must make timely deposits. If you don’t, the resulting overdraft only fuels feelings of anxiety, uncertainly, and high stress. Your sales will experience a gradual slump. Know this: In you lie the major causes and the major solutions of everything you are.

Point to Ponder:

"Know this: In you lie the major causes and the major solutions of everything you are."

Success has its price tag. Hold yourself responsible for building, growing and nurturing your inventory of positive perceptions. Invest in yourself and feed your mind with the wisdom of others. When you need to make the inevitable withdrawals, your positive outlook will help offset the adversities life tends to deliver. No one is immune to “poop happens”. Successful people refuse to surrender to adversity. They have the ability to cope with misfortune and the resiliency to bounce back and regenerate themselves.

To build your bank account of healthy perceptions, I offer you seven strategies of self-mentoring.

SEVEN STRATEGIES OF SELF-MENTORING; BUILD YOUR “MOTIVATIONAL ACCOUNT"

1) Read motivational, self-help material. Business topics and/or specific skill areas make for an excellent read. Sadly, only 15 per cent of Canadians purchase self-help books and of that 15 per cent, only 10 per cent actually read them. A good target is to read a minimum of one book per month. So take action and purchase your book for August / September!

Recommended Resources:
1. Life is an Attitude! ~ Elwood Chapman
2. Take this Job and Love it! The Joys of Professional Selling
(book or audio) ~ Tim Breithaupt
3. The Power of Focus ~ Canfield/Hanson/Hewitt
4. Think and Grow Rich ~ Napoleon Hill
5. How to Win Friends & Influence People (book or audio) ~ Dale Carnegie
6. Man's Search for Meaning
~ Viktor E. Frankl
7. The Six Pillars of Self Esteem ~ Nathaniel Branden
8. Jim Rohn Audio Programs
9. Who Moved My Cheese? ~ Spencer Johnson, M.D
10.Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff at Work (book or audio) ~ Richard Carlson PH.D
11.Adversity Quotient ~ Paul Stoltz

2) Listen to educational CD’s in your car or at home. Turn car time into productive learning time. Feed your mind with positive stuff. Begin by pushing the “power” button on your cell phone and pager. You’ll enjoy the break! Even having some quiet, uninterrupted “think” time is refreshing.

3) Enroll in a continuing education program and/or attend seminars during the day. Most companies will pay for such an initiative, but less than two per cent of employees take advantage of this opportunity. Treat yourself to the gift of knowledge.

4) Join a breakfast club or a networking group and hang out with upbeat, like-minded people. It’s a great way to kick start your day.

5) Banish the “toxic” people and the chronic whiners in your life. These are the people who think “balance” means having a chip on each shoulder. You choose those with whom you hang out, so perhaps it’s time to reassess your circle of influencers. Only invite the fun people into your sandbox.

6) Reward yourself. Catch yourself doing something right, feel good about it, then reward yourself…nobody else will! Refocus on the many successes within your day and quit beating yourself up, expecting life to be a perfect performance.

7) Invite mentors into your life. Approach people whom you respect for their opinion and accomplishments and ask them if they would make themselves available to you for questions and answers. Have more than one. Build a fortress of go-to people. Resort to your mentors often as these are the people who will: - acknowledge and reinforce your positive attributes. - act as a catalyst to help you focus on positive vs. negative thinking. - support you when you find yourself in a downward spiral.

Success is not a solo flight

Your attitude makes all the difference in any strategy you pursue. As I discussed in my book, attitude forms the cornerstone of success. Attitude means “choice”. Nurture a positive outlook and see your life from the plus side of the ledger. We have an abundance of opportunities so choose to “Make it a great day”.

Success is a Matter of Choice, not Chance

WARNING:
Use of these strategies may result in positive changes to your behavior. Use at your own discretion.

Footnote: These strategies are not exclusive to summer. Apply them as often as necessary, regardless of the season.

Tim Breithaupt's competitive edge is his innate ability to connect with his audiences. His delivery style is referred to as entertrainment - a lively blend of logic, simplicity and humour.

As a leading expert in the area of business development, Tim has been published in local, national and international publications.As founder and president of his own business training company, Tim has worked with numerous companies sharing his unique formula of success with thousands of professionals.

With a Commerce Degree from the University of Toronto coupled with twenty seven years experience in the business community, Tim Breithaupt delivers real-world wisdom to foster a level of confidence that will boost results to exciting new levels.

Feed Your Mind - Seven Steps of Self-Mentoring by Tim Breithaupt

Feed Your Mind - Seven Steps of Self-Mentoring
by Tim Breithaupt