Before words are spoken thought takes place

Most of the time the thinking is unconscious. Usually, it’s automatic. The thinking and the speaking of the words individuals use have a profound effect on mental STATEs. This state dramatically affects everything in our lives. The state is the zone we operate in. If we postulate the possible, many good things can happen. If we focus on negative outcomes, we usually wind up there.

It’s interesting to note that this works from the outside in and the inside out. We can think the thoughts and then form words based on those beliefs, or we can say the words over and over and our thoughts will align with the words. It’s not necessary to go into all the science behind these facts, just find out how it works for you.

Below are four words that are poison because they kill everything that they touch including initiative, action, positive outcomes and innovative spirit.

Lose

“LET’S WAIT AND SEE.”  

Everyone has said these words. Too many of us say them too many times in our lives. STOP. RIGHT NOW. DON’T SAY THEM. This has nothing to do with pausing for a moment, taking a measurement, adjusting course and then moving forward in business or with life in general because in that case, you’re still moving forward. If you’ve been infected with Let’s Wait and See syndrome, you stop dead in the water and don’t move at all.

We all have reason to wait and see… in our business lives as well as our personal lives. It’s never the right time. It’s always inconvenient. There is definitely a reason not to do anything.

Here is a selection of some reasons

• I’ll have to wait until I’m feeling better.
• We can’t start selling. Let’s wait until the advertising kicks in.
• Let’s wait until the new brochures are ready.
• I have to wait until I get thin enough.
• I should wait until my husband, wife, friend, cousin, colleagues approve.
• I should wait until I find a good trainer.
• I’ll wait to adopt that puppy until I see how my friend does with hers.
• I’ll wait to volunteer until next season.
• I’ll wait to sign up for the marketing course until I read more reviews.
• I’ll wait to get involved until the timing is right.
• Let’s wait to take a vacation.
• Let’s wait to get engaged.
• Let’s wait to have (adopt) a child.
• Let’s wait to redesign our website.
• Let’s wait to go to market with our idea.
• Let’s wait to see what (whoever or whatever) is doing.

How many LWS excuses can you think of? Most of us can think of hundreds or thousands. The LWS words and thoughts are truly the dark sides. They’re the negative mantra that’s guaranteed to hold you back. Guaranteed to leave you where you are. Here’s the secret – the timing is never perfect. The stars are never perfectly aligned. Someone (usually many) will urge you to wait for something to happen. The outcome is you’re always where you were. Nothing changes.

The process to change is so simple

Here it is. If you believe in an opportunity, a person or a goal, DON’T WAIT AND SEE. Take action. Massive action (as Tony Robbins suggests) is best. However, so many are afraid of massive action that they take no action. Why? Great question for all of us to think about.

In speaking to clients and students, I find the answer is rarely laziness. It’s usually fear and ego. Fear of trying something new and failing. The ego thing is actually the most ridiculous. For so many, it’s like we’re back in high school and all the “cool kids” are going to make fun of us because we tried out for some team or club and looked bad because we did not make it. Fear does that… drops us back instantly to our most vulnerable states.

Here’s the solution

Get over it! Nobody cares whether we try something new and fail or succeed. There are no “cool kids.” Most of them are all gone – old, bald, fat and floundering in their own set of self-made problems.

Or maybe they’ve become the successful business owners, club members and community leaders that you would like to be. They’ve learned how to cure LWS syndrome before you have. But you can join the club because as you will see shortly it’s never “TOO LATE” as long as you’re still breathing. Here’s the trick… now that we aren’t in high school forget about looking foolish. Force yourself to take action. Even a small action. Don’t wait for anyone or anything.

Do something. Anything. When you start with one small action, it starts that ball rolling. It’s the “journey of 1,000 miles starts with one small step philosophy.” Once you see you can do one thing in pursuit of a goal, you can do many things. It’s amazing because you find out that you can rack up a small success without affecting your job, your family life or your ego. Wait, take note here. You will get the best ego stroke when you take that little baby step and find out something good happens.

A few good things lead to a lot of good things. The fears and insecurity start to melt away because you learn immediately that you were afraid of being afraid. In other words, you were afraid of nothing. What’s the worst thing that can happen? You try. You don’t like what you try. And then you try something else. It’s really not that hard. Don’t make it tough. It’s not.

Don’t take my word for it.

“Nothing happens until something moves,”

said Albert Einstein. He also said,

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.”

No LWS for Albert Einstein. He thought great thoughts, taught by example and always kept moving.

Final thoughts from Einstein, “Don’t wait for miracles, your whole life is a miracle.”

As Albert says, the one thing not to do is wait and see. If you do, the only thing you will see are the achievers, the doers, those who give it a shot, those who try something new, and the success stories in the making, all of them not the least bit better than you, passing you by as they make their way to fulfilling the dreams and goals that you had, but waited on.

Three words that freeze you in place. Lose:

“IT’S TOO LATE”

We’ve all seen that Science Fiction flick where the hero takes some kind of remote control device and stops all of the movement of all the people in a room. All are completely frozen in place. Nothing moves. That’s not a good situation for them. It’s also a bad situation to be in if you want to move forward in your life and business if you want to start to get to your goals and head toward your definition of success.

“It’s Too Late” is the ultimate freezing formula. It will freeze you in place and make sure you stay there.

There’s a time when it’s really too late. That’s when your relatives are looking over at your coffin as they lower you into the earth. Then you’re done. Really and truly done. It’s too late.

Before that time, it isn’t, within reason. You can’t start preparing for a pro career in skiing or golf at age 47 years old. But you can learn those sports and enjoy every aspect: exercise, competition, socialization and just plain fun. With the Internet at your disposal, there’s so much to access and so much you can accomplish.

It’s easy to take a course, start a home business, scale your existing business, check out the dating world, find and join likeminded groups, volunteer in your area of expertise or find your spiritual connection with the universe.

Below is a list of names of people who started late. I use the list because you may recognize the names. But that’s not the issue here; it’s the fact that they did not say, “IT’S TOO LATE.”

If I wrote about Johnny Cacciatore who started taking a wood burning class at 55 and who, by 58, gave up the accounting career that he hated, and now loves his work and his life, it wouldn’t mean much because you don’t know him.

The folks below are people you might recognize who I hope to serve as examples. However, there are hundreds of thousands who have pushed through later in life and felt the joy of doing what they always wanted to do. They got it because they did it. They shook off all the reasons why they should not; never believing “IT’S TOO LATE.”

Here are a few examples by the numbers

NAME	KNOWN FOR	AGE
Charles Darwin	Origin Of The Species	50
Harry Stanley	Morgan Stanley	50
Leo Goodwin	GEICO	50
Ray Kroc	McDonalds	50
Chung Ju-Yung	Hyundai Motors	51
Gary Burrell	Garmin	51
Julia Child	The French Chef TV Show	51
Carol Gardner	Zelda Wisdom	52
Joseph Campbell	Campbell Soup	52
Estee Lauder	Estee Lauder	54
Ferdinand Porsche	Porsche	59
Harland Sanders	Kentucky Fried Chicken	65
Marina Abramovic	Performance Artist	66
Duncan Hines	Cake Mixes	73
Grandma Moses	First Painting	78

Bottom line, “IT’S TOO LATE” when your state of being is horizontal. Otherwise, it’s never too late. The two-word trap. This is not multiple choice. Lose both.  “I CAN’T” or “I’M NOT”  “I CAN’T”

If you ever say I can’t, you’re correct. Put any words after I can’t and you won’t. That’s just the way it is. You cannot. You will not. It won’t happen. Period. It’s over. So there it is. Rather, there it’s not!

Sometimes it’s appropriate to say I can’t. That refers to negative things like hurting yourself or someone, crushing some endeavor, project, or someone’s spirit, doing something illegal and any irrational actions. However, in reasonable situations, then – I can’t – philosophy ends possibility. It puts you in the No Opportunity Zone.

I can’t doesn’t even let you get to “Let’s wait and see” or It’s too late. It freezes you out before you can be frozen in place. Never use those two words, period. Rather, choose not to do something or do as much or little of something as you’re able. It’s easy to reframe a conversation in your mind or with another person to make this philosophy work. If someone suggests a five-mile run, don’t say I can’t make that distance. Reframe your answer.

“I can do a one-mile run and a two-mile walk, then we can meet at the coffee shop.”

(You could preface the one-mile answer with “I can’t make that distance, yet” but always prefer positive framing of thoughts and words.)

In a business context, someone might suggest you give a 30-minute speech on creating a sales funnel. Don’t say I can’t do that because I don’t have the detailed knowledge. State it in a positive way. “I’ll open for Mark, who can do a deep dive on sales funnels. We can all learn a lot from his presentation.”

Framing the conversation in a positive way changes everything. The words are huge. You go from a negative state to a positive one. It’s not about limitations. We all have them. It’s about your limiting beliefs. Erase the limiting beliefs by using the correct words. “I’M NOT”  The line for the excuse department forms behind the “I’M NOT” sign.

Here are some that always win the annual NOTTIE awards.

I’m not:

• Tall enough
• Skinny enough
• Good enough
• Well enough
• Serious enough
• Spiritual enough
• Religious enough
• Fast enough
• Agile enough
• Tough enough
• Careful enough
• Flexible enough
• Smart enough
• Strong enough
• Admired enough
• Computer literate enough
• A programmer
• Rich
• A success
• A Lover
• A poet
• A business person
• A teacher
• A Dancer
• A writer
• A speaker
• A mentor
• A volunteer
• An athlete
• An artist
• A cook
• A musician
• A magician
• A repairman
• The real deal
• Smart
• Educated
• Lucky
• Wise
• Romantic
• Ready
• Strong
• Talented
• Pretty
• Handsome
• Likable
• Happy
• Perfect
• / Ms. personality
• / Ms. sensibility
• / Mr. clothes horse
• /Mr. wonderful

There are thousands more. This is just a small list but you get the idea. The important thing to remember is that every person who gets to where they want to go started at “not.” They just didn’t carve it in stone and into their brains. They added the word that makes all the difference and changes that entire negative mindset and makes possible a positive action set.

Here is the silver bullet word. Choose: “YET.”

Add that one word and you turn a sad fact into a hopeful and very possible future. The folks who get it just right say: I’m not   ____________, yet. It signals to the entire world, but mostly to their own minds that they’re on the way. You should get on the way. Just add a “yet” to the negativity and get on the pathway to achievement. How you start is: do one thing that gets you one step closer to being the thing you’re not. Force yourself. Feel stupid. Feel embarrassed.

Take the first slow jog for five minutes. Go to the store and ask the salesperson to help find a flattering shirt or blouse. Read three pages of that book about marketing. Write two paragraphs of a blog, book, marketing piece, journal or letter to your children. Take a business class. Begin to make one piece of artwork.

Look at Funny or Die on the Internet and laugh. Buy someone you love a beautiful gift card and send it. Call a person who you haven’t spoken with in a while and tell them you miss them. Join a Mastermind Group focused on something that interests you and adds some value. This is how you begin to go from “not” to “not yet.” You’ll eventually get to I am a _________ now. But the important thing is to get on the way.

Here is the secret

Once you take a single step in the direction you want to go, everything changes. Even though it may be embarrassing you’ll find that you didn’t get hit by lightning. Even though you may have felt a bit silly you didn’t melt into a pool of goo. No one laughed. No one cried out. You didn’t make the front page of anything because sadly nobody much cares.

The only thing holding you back was the person in the mirror that morning. Now the only person who is on their way is that same person. The only one who really cares. The only one who should care. The only one that counts when it comes to making sure you don’t get nominated for a NOTTIE AWARD this year!

One word that makes so many afraid, they never try at all. The headline for all stillborn dreams, the word that results in all the “I coulda and I shoulda” late in life. It’s the dreaded B word. It takes great courage but Choose: 

BEGINNER

Yes, it’s okay to be a beginner at 14 or at 94. All the folks that jump on the It’s too late bandwagon are afraid to be labeled a beginner. All the people that say, ‘Let’s wait and see’ don’t want to begin anything and all of those who “can’t” never begin.

All the people named in the “by the age numbers” chart began something late in their lives. They may have been in the company of people 30 years younger. That wasn’t an issue for them and it shouldn’t be for you. People who want to achieve their personal definition of success are proud to start something and be labeled as a beginner, no matter what the situation.

Folks who are afraid of that B word need to take some EGO Ex-Lax and relieve the blockage that’s holding them back. Never be afraid to play the fool in the pursuit of beginning something. Wear it like a badge of honor because it is. Being a beginner demonstrates you’re brave, bold and beginning anew.

Losing negative words clears pathways for the solid positive ones. You only need to choose a few to use as building blocks to get on the way to achieving your own success in business and personal life as well as adding positive outcomes for clients, students, family members and all those whose lives you touch.