Recently
I attended New Media Expo.
It’s a huge conference attended by bloggers and podcasters from all over the United States and the world. I was struck by the fact that the big keynote speaker they had on the last day was not a blogger or podcaster but rather a hypnotist and personal growth instructor named Marshall Sylver.
Just a few months earlier, I attended bestselling author and speaker Brendon Bouchard’s Expert Industry Association annual event. Every one of the speakers mentioned how much money—between $25,000 and $100,000 per year—they spent on personal development, whether that meant a personal coach, a coaching program or some sort of training program or programs. All of them attributed this expenditure, and the time and focus on personal development, to their own success. These programs ranged from business coaching to transcendental meditation.
At the first event, the attendees wanted to succeed as bloggers and podcasters. At the second event, the attendees wanted to create success in the expert industry, as authors, speakers and online marketers of courses, but they also might have blogs and podcasts. At both events, however, the message was the same: Success has less to do with what you do or want to create and more to do with how you think.
It’s All in Your Mind
The reason the speakers stressed the importance of personal development can be found in the fact that almost every book, course or program focuses on learning to manage your thoughts so you get different, meaning better, results. Why have a hypnotist and personal development trainer at a new media conference? Hypnosis reprograms the brain—the thoughts of an individual. What better way to learn the importance of controlling the mind if you want to succeed—or learn to influence others?
Let’s just take a look at Sylver. By educating people on the power of subconscious reprogramming, he motivates people to take action in the present moment and change their lives in a positive way forever. His book, Passion, Profit & Power, even offers a technique you can use to do just that on your own, and his courses help you reprogram your thinking so you can becoming a millionaire (he claims).
In classic personal development style, Sylver says, “Thoughts are things…treat them accordingly.”
Additionally, if you want to program yourself for success, don’t use the words “can not.” These two words, he claims, are “the most negative and destructive programming word you can ever use.”
Most of personal development asks us to look at our life and decipher why we do what we do—to discover the life experiences that have created our negative thoughts and beliefs. “An experience creates a thought; when reinforced or repeated, it becomes a belief or program. Our beliefs (programs) create our habits, and our habits become our life,” explains Sylver.
But we don’t have to continue with that old life. We can change our lives, change our successes by reprogramming our thoughts and our beliefs. “Personal programming is the ability to observe or be aware of what you are getting by what you are doing. Through making adjustments based on what you observe, you will then start creating outcomes in the way that you want them.”
Think Like a Successful Person
Recently Bouchard began a hit podcast called The Charged Life. In the third episode, “How Successful People Think,” which is also featured on his blog, he says unsuccessful people get stopped in their tracks by three thoughts, which cause them to say three things to themselves: “I don’t know how to do that. So they stop. I don’t have those things. I’m not like those people. So they stop. I’m not like that. So they stop.”
On the other hand, according to Bouchard, successful people say, “I want to do that, but I don’t know how, and instead of stopping they say, then my job is to go learn that. They take their current limitation and put it on their agenda as a job to do, as a thing to figure out and make happen. Instead of saying, I don’t have that. They say then my job is to go build that. Or, I’m not like that than they say my job is to go become more of that, become that person who could accomplish those things.”
It’s all about attitude, about the thoughts we think and the things we tell ourselves. As Bouchard says, we to know that if we want to achieve success, then the thing we seek—that new thing—must come from within. We must tell ourselves, “I’m going to become a better person. I’m going to become a person who is more optimistic, more confident and more driven, not because I am that now, but because we can grow.”
Personal development is all about personal growth. It’s about how we grow so we can achieve our potential. And that’s how we truly succeed.
Don’t Just Learn, Change
Every day I’m faced with the need to learn new things to succeed at my business which straddles the expert industry and the blogging/podcasting industry. However, the one thing that I know has helped me more than anything to achieve my current level of success and that will help me achieve higher levels of success is constant personal development.
It’s been said that your current habits have only helped you achieve your current level of success. To achieve a different level of success, to obtain your goals and dreams, you need to change your habits—change your thoughts, your beliefs, your actions. That’s when your results will change.
And that’s why each of these conferences offered the same message: Learn the essentials of how to do what you do. But, more than that, become the type of person who can succeed. Focus on personal growth and development.
Nina Amir is a contributing blogger for JenningsWire.
JenningsWire.com is an online feature magazine created by National Publicist, Annie Jennings, of the PR Firm specializing in providing publicity services and book promotion to authors, speakers and experts. Annie’s firm offers the famous pay for placement publicity program as well the powerful radio talk show campaign that comes up a guarantee of performance, bookings on big radio talk shows in major cities as well as unlimited media training.
