How To Start Leaping & Stop Climbing

In yesterday’s post, I talked about how things change quickly in business and how these changes can alter your life strategies. Now let’s talk about an unhelpful image called the ‘ladder of success’.

Think ‘Leap’, Not ‘Ladder’

One of the points that I made at my 2-day Consulting/Coaching Business Boot Camp is that the ‘ladder of success’ is an unhelpful image. It may be one that has been rather firmly implanted in your subconscious. “Climbing the ladder of success” is the idea behind all academic and corporate and association hierarchy, engineered to give those at the top authority and power over those beneath them.

It is wholly inappropriate to the entrepreneur. In fact, he operates entirely outside such structure, denied whatever benefits there may be to it (such as ’security’, sick days, etc.), and since he is denied all benefits, he should deny its authority. I suppose I have been as positively influenced by Robert Ringer’s writing on this subject as by anything else I’ve read in my life.

I have been emboldened and grown rich almost entirely due to thinking “leap” rather than “ladder”, to leaping, not ladder climbing, again and again.

In comparable context, most business owners think in terms of incremental growth and sequential activity, in effect, ladder climbing. In my coaching group, for example, I have a franchisor who thinks about adding the next franchisee and perhaps adding one a month; he is unable to contemplate adding a hundred in a month. He is a ladder thinker, not a leap thinker.

I work with authors and speakers who think of the next book or audio album they might complete, not an entire product line. Ladder, not leap. I could cite dozens more examples, but you get the point.

I pay attention to Leapers and you should too.

Mark Victor Hansen who was a speaker at the Mega-Conference, has always been a Leaper, and the Chicken Soup behemoth is the result.

Hillary Clinton, a daring Leaper; from no elected office, not even school board, right to the U.S. Senate.

Two good questions for you – how many Leapers can you name? Which Leaper are you studying at the moment?

Others – how have you been a Ladder Climber? How have you been a Leaper? Are you somehow Ladder Climbing now when you could and should be Leaping?

Author Info:  Dan Kennedy is internationally recognized as the 'Millionaire Maker,' helping people in just about every category of business turn their ideas into fortunes. Dan's "No B.S." approach is refreshing amidst a world of small business marketing hype and enriches those who act on his advice.