If you want to be successful at whatever you want to do, whether it be designing gift baskets, marketing, or writing descriptions for your website, you’ve got to put one piece of nonsense out of your head. It doesn’t take Talent! Now let me explain why.
Sure, some of us have more of a “natural ability” in some areas. But there are many people with no natural ability that are successful. And there are many people without a so-called “natural ability” that are very successful. Like a foot race, this natural ability just gives you a few feet head start over the ones behind you. It’s what those in the starting position do — with or without that natural ability — that makes the difference.
To understand what I am talking about, you have to understand a little bit about the brain and how it works. No, this isn’t going to be a science lesson — but it could be one of the most important things you will ever learn.
What does the brain do best? The brain recognizes problems and figures out a way to overcome them. If you’re walking up the stairs and encounter a closed door at the top, your brain would tell you what to do and you would automatically try to open that door. You’ve encountered a lot of closed doors since childhood and your brain learned that you could either open them or you had to turn around and go back. No matter how many closed doors you come to, you would try to open it.
Now, if you reached the top of those stairs and instead of a closed door you found a huge snake blocking your way, your brain wouldn’t know what to do. So it panics. You either turn and run down the stairs or you freeze and can’t move or even scream. Your brain doesn’t know what to do so it shuts down instead of telling you how to react.
For those of us who are writers, it is referred to as “Writer’s Block”. But this same thing affects all of us, regardless of what you are trying to do.
You sit down to try to write a sales letter. You try to tie a bow for the first time. You stand up in front of a group to talk about your business. You try to build a website. You make a cold call to a corporate client that you hope to impress. You go to a networking function for the first time. Anytime, you try something new, the brain goes into panic mode. It quickly scans through all your memories for a memory of success at doing this. And it fails to find one.
Instead it finds failure. And fear of failing again. And you believe that you can’t do it.
Everyone else is just born to write a good sales letter, speak in front of a group, make a cold call, build a website or whatever it is you are trying to do. They are the talented ones. You have no talent.
But what you fail to understand is what the brains of these so-called “talented people” are doing. And why. The secret that successful writers use to overcome Writer’s Block is the same secret that you can use to overcome “Cold Feet”.
Those who are successful at doing what you are attempting and failing at has a brain that has
- A memory of success
- And it’s not just success that happens occasionally or sometimes.
- It’s success that is a direct result of having structure, a mentor, and a memory filled with success.
They didn’t just sit down in front of the computer and write a great sales letter on the first try. They weren’t always dynamic speakers. That first website that they built was pretty pitiful.
They’ve been through the drill before. In the process, they learned the techniques needed to acquire the skill they were striving for. And these “talented” people had a teacher or a mentor (or even a book or manual) that helped guide them past the obstacles that lead to failure. The more the drill is repeated, the more it became ingrained as a part of their memory process. As a result, they’ve built a structure that makes it possible for them to succeed each time. And they’ve created a memory bank of successes.
And then suddenly it happens. You need to build a website that gets results. You need to stand in front of a group that is looking to spend lots of money on gift baskets. You call on that corporate client that has a huge holiday budget.
And, if you’ve been through it before, you have the structure and techniques instilled in your memory. And the memories of success become the dominant ones. Your brain no longer goes into panic mode. Instead it whirls through all the memory banks and pulls up just the right one — without your even being aware of the process.
This is the same way that you learned just about everything in life. It’s how you learned to walk. Watch a child take his first steps. He falters and falls. Mom encourages him to try again. He pulls himself up using the coffee table for support and tries again. Over and over until he is walking, then running across the room. And now, you don’t even think about the techniques, the structure required to walk anywhere you want to go.
Remember when you learned to swim for the first time. How about riding a bicycle? That’s why they say, “Once you know how to ride a bicycle, you never forget.” Actually your brain pulls up that earlier success from your childhood and, even though you may falter a bit in the beginning as the memory of the techniques are whirled into place, you climb on that bicycle and ride away.
So if you’re sick and tired of having cold feet and feeling the fear of failures, stop believing in this myth called “talent.” Do what the so-called “talented ones” have done and create your own memory bank of success.
There are mentors ready to help you, to teach you the techniques, the path to follow and those to avoid. That is the very reason why I’ve created this website, why Gift Basket Network exists, why we’ve created Gift Retailers Connection magazine and the Gift Industry community and forum , and why I’m continuing to create new opportunities for you to create those memory banks that mean you don’t have to have talent to be a success!
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