How To Think Successfully

We’re still on the topic of “How To Be Your Own Consultant” and in the last blog post, I gave you a couple examples of how companies look for a new way to package their product or a new type of product or service that would appeal to their existing clientele. I also pointed out that another good strategy it to find an entirely new way to market a product or service you already have.

Now I want to switch gears a bit and talk about thinking. More specifically, thinking to succeed.

There’s an excellent scene in an old motivational film by Dr. Eden Ryl titled, ‘You Pack Your Own Chute,” that illustrates the problem with most thinking and the way you have to think to succeed. Dr. Eden Ryl draws a 1 and an ‘X’ in the sand and challenges a friend to turn it into a six with one line. He tries several possibilities, putting a one behind the ‘X.’ Finally she draws an ‘S’ in front making the drawing into the word ’six.’

Her friend protests saying that she indicated it had to be done with a line but an ‘S’ is nothing more than a curved line it’s just that we think of a line as being straight. We need to be able to step outside the confines of conventional, habitual thinking.

A classic example of the problem, of course, is the railroad industry. They mistakenly thought they were in the railroad industry instead of seeing themselves in the transportation industry.

What business are you in? As your business grows and prospers you’ll probably redefine that business many times. McDonald’s, for example, began as a hamburger stand. Today among other things McDonald’s is a huge and powerful commercial real estate company investing and building a property empire with franchisee’s leases as funding.

Continual frequent rethinking of what your business is, should be, can be and will be is a great success strategy. I tell my clients: if you are striving to stay in the same business you are in, you’ll be out of business altogether, sooner not later. The desire to preserve the status quo and avoid the risk, learning curve, work and cost of change is a very common mindset – which tells you it can only guarantee, at best, very common income.

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.