The self-improvement market is a $13.2 billion dollar industry. So why aren’t more people who invest in any personal development or self-improvement course more successful or wealthy?
Statistically, around 10% of everyone who attends a course in personal or business development, or self-improvement training apply the training successfully. That’s right, only about ten percent of the people using someone’s promise of financial freedom or personal or business success methods will go on to reach their objective. The majority will revert back to old patterns and behaviors.
Why?
Simple. Because the majority approach any new training, tools, methods, or secrets with the same mindset that has kept them stuck for so long.
Most people looking for any real change in finances or business success, unfortunately, will continue to use a rational mindset that’s primarily geared toward survival thinking, a scarcity mentality, or they rationalize why something might not work.
In fact, when we read about someone’s master training program with the promise of success or financial opportunity, what’s the first thing we all think? Before we commit investing even one dime to their program, we think, ‘What’s the catch?”
And you know what? That’s a fair and honest reaction because there are so many sites out there that want your money in exchange for their master secrets.
The problem with this is that these secrets may have worked for the trainer, but they won’t work for everyone.
Again, we have to ask ourselves, why is that?
It’s because they were in a different frame of mind than the rest of us… a completely different mindset than the average person uses, and this allowed them to make the necessary changes in their life that gave them their edge and new perspective.
Tony Robbins says that people make these types of radical life changes when they are either in a lot of pain or highly motivated and passionate enough to want noticeable change.
The one constant I will keep mentioning, again and again, is that to make any real change and significant progress in your life, you have to work on developing and cultivating your intuitive mindset. This is where your real genius resides.
The intuitive mind is where the biggest changes occur. People who foster their intuition are able to see bigger and better opportunities and are willing to push harder toward reaching those opportunities.
It’s why we envy and marvel at people like Steve jobs, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and others of the same ilk.
And let me clarify something that might be holding you back.
I am not asking you to forgo your rational mindset. It is a necessary part of who you are, and it has some valuable tools for thinking strategies that help to move you forward. It’s why Sherlock Holmes used analytical analysis, logic, and sound reasoning to investigate cases.
But it was his ability to think divergently in order to see the bigger picture, to see the unobvious that was hidden from everyone else.
Rational should not be your dominant thinking style, and in order for you to get the best results from your rational mindset, you will first need to nurture and strengthen your intuitive mind to become the more dominant of the two.
This is where the best, biggest, and most profound, life-altering changes come from.
Think of it this way. To get physically fit you don’t just work on one set of muscles. You develop them all.
And because we’ve become a materialistic society that reveres the rich and famous, we have become a society that chases money and success rather than attracting it.
We’re enticed by the person sitting in his luxury home, surrounded by exotic cars and boats, promising to share his or her secrets of wealth, fame, and fortune.
All that glitter, all those shiny objects, all the promises of living that same incredible lifestyle suddenly seem within reach. So, we too want to learn their secrets for success and figure out how to use those tools for our own personal gain.
And honestly, very few of those stars, celebrity athletes, or financial brokers who selfishly chase money, ever maintain it for very long. There are always pitfalls down the road.
But the real people who’ve figured out and have learned to grow and continue to develop their successes to stay at the peak of their game, without the get-rich-quick shortcut schemes, have learned how to develop the stronger mindset that keeps them there.
We can learn from their experiences, mistakes, and struggles, but we can’t truly learn how they succeeded until we decide to develop the same mindset that got them to reach their biggest goals in the first place.
Look, I’m not suggesting I have the secret to wealth, power, and fame. But I do have the tools to unlock your personal genius, which resides within the intuitive mindset, and that is what I will always provide for you.
Many who are reading these articles are still doing so with a rational mindset. How do I know this? Because you are approaching this with one of two rational attitudes.
- That you’ve already heard something similar in the past and it hasn’t worked out for you.
- That you are approaching what I am offering with pragmatic, conservative reasoning and logic.
KEY: They are Bold in Their Thinking.
That’s it. That’s the secret.
And here are the simple principles behind that secret:
- Their thinking is intuitive, divergent, and imaginative, rather than practical, convergent, and rational.
- They don’t worry about what others think or say.
- They don’t know the outcome but know they have to take a risk and pursue their unique ideas to the very end.
- They push past any fear, doubt, or any rationalized limiting thinking they have.
Yes, the intuitive mind takes risks. There is uncertainty, unfamiliarity, the path unknown, illogical supposition, and untried methods, but this is how and where you really build a stronger sense of self, heightened confidence, and personal development. This is the realm of The Hero’s Journey.
If you want safety and security I don’t know where to point you, because, as we all know, these days, no job, financial opportunity, or degree is any assurance that you will be able to provide for yourself.
I need to state here that if someone desires the promises of a 9-5 job and all it offers, then that is what you should do. But that is not what I teach.
And let’s be clear, Oprah Winfrey once said that having money does offer certain freedoms and choices that being financially strapped does not, but she also said there is never a guarantee that it will last, or that no matter what we do, we will ever have financial security by working within that system.
My sole focus is unlocking your untapped potential and providing the tools necessary to choose what you do with that potential.
One of the key insights I provide is the awareness that these genius Disruptors use the same attributes that children between the ages of one to ten use.
This is the mindset that hasn’t been disturbed by outside influences and instead has remained open to curiosity, discovery, and exploration.
Pablo Picasso once said that it took him four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.
Children live in a delightful space somewhere between dreams and reality. They taste color, hear shapes, and see sounds.
We all should have such special gifts. And we can.
But the majority of us are raised with limiting thinking, constraining belief systems, and a sense of scarcity of losing it all. Very few of us learn to swim in the realm of taking bigger risks, based solely upon a willingness to trust in one’s own intuitive thinking, creative ability, and disruptive idealism.
This is because we can’t immediately see rewards from being creative, so instead, we are taught to work hard, keep our noses to the grindstone, do what everyone else does, get a degree, and hope for a successful outcome.
Yet when someone becomes a breakout performer, a highly successful entrepreneur, a radical Disruptor, or is considered unique, daring, gifted, genius, or uber-talented within their field, we immediately want to figure out how they achieved that success, if we too could be able to replicate their methods, and why they naturally think so differently from the rest of us.
Again, this is limited perception that comes from a rational mindset, requiring verifiable proof, concrete evidence, and a sound methodology that can be replicated.
This is not what the intuitive mindset offers. Being an intuitive genius is bold and daring, but it can be lonely, counterintuitive, ungrounded, and yes, even scary.
Everything, and I mean everything that is valuable to us, was once just someone’s ungrounded thought or idea that they saw to the very end. And the risk is high. Sometimes their ideas didn’t lead anywhere. Sometimes they died broke. Sometimes their ideas didn’t come into existence until after they died.
But more often than not, many of their ideas became wildly successful, highly profitable, opened up many job opportunities, and lasted for years and years and years.
Is it Worth the Risk?
There is nothing risky about learning to develop a strong and powerful intuitive mindset. It takes time, trial and error, patience, persistence, and effort. But then, doesn’t anything worthwhile?
And is it worth the risk? Ask any artistic or creative person if it’s worth it. Ask an entrepreneur if it’s worth the risk, the long hours, and the sacrifices. Ask the breakthrough athletes, actors, writers, designers, engineers, unique scientists, explorers, builders, and adventurers if the effort and time invested were worth it.
You already know the answer. The real question you’re not asking yourself is, “What if I fail?” That’s the question that is really keeping you stuck.
A leap of faith isn’t a sure thing. Neither is taking a chance on yourself. While there seems to be more safety and security in a sound, secure occupation that can provide for you and your family, nothing is for certain, not job security, not health, nothing.
By cultivating a strong, intuitive mindset, you are not giving anything up, but you are gaining something valuable. You are strengthening muscles you haven’t used for a very very long time. How much of a risk is that really?
Genius seems so aloof because for so long we have equated it to high intelligence. This is not the case. There are many geniuses who were not highly intelligent, yet they had something inside that drove them toward their goal.
Genius is really one’s ability to pursue something that sparks their desire and drives them, fills them with wonder and curiosity, keeps them up at night, makes them restless enough to want to pursue it, then goes out and uncovers its mysteries to the very end, and see where it leads.
It’s about one’s willingness to trust in him/herself and see what one discovers about their pursuit and about themselves.
It’s that simple. How much do you believe in yourself? And how much are you willing to invest in yourself and find out what you’re truly capable of? And if you fail? Well, then the choice becomes, do you give up or do you pick yourself up and go again?
People have a terrible time with the word try. “There is no try.” But actually, there is. When you fail you must try and try again… Edison, Faraday, Curie, Musk, Jobs, Van Gogh, and so many others all picked themselves up and tried and tried again until they got the results they were after.
So… How much are you really willing to invest in yourself?
Remember, Coca-Cola’s history began in 1886 when the curiosity of a small, unknown Atlanta pharmacist, Dr. John S. Pemberton, took a chance on creating a distinctive-tasting soft drink that could be sold at soda fountains during prohibition. He concocted the formula through trial and error, an imaginative thought process, and a vision to invent something unique, using an intuitively unusual formula mixed in a three-legged brass kettle in his backyard. He sold the brass kettle and the recipe, written on a tattered piece of paper to Asa Candler. From there we know the history and success of Coca-Cola.
It wasn’t guaranteed, it wasn’t based upon previous successful models, it wasn’t a sound, recognizable product at the time, and there was no proven market demand yet. It was just a notion, a creative thought, a fantasy, the pursuit of an unrelenting idea to see where it led.
No one is asking you to create the next iPhone, Internet, television, or rocket ship. But what harm is there in learning how to master and access your most natural thinking style, intuition?
IQ is not keeping you from genius or discovering who you are and what you are really capable of. When Napoleon Hill wrote the best-selling book, Think and Grow Rich, people assumed that rich meant financial wealth. The real surprise was that he meant to grow rich in your thinking, your natural ability, and your opportunities.
So, I invite you to get in touch with your latent intuitive mind, your potential for genius, and to use your gifts to think and grow rich.