Lesson One FEELING OVERWHELMED . . . HOW TO TURN IT AROUND Often in life, events occur that we truly can't control The company we're working for "downsizes" and we get laid off. Our spouse leaves us. A family member becomes ill, or someone close to us dies. The government cuts a program we've depended on. In these situations, we may feel as if there is simply nothing we can do to make things better. Maybe you've had the experience of trying every- thing you knew to get a job, to help your family, to find your soulmate, or just to feel happier. But nothing seemed to work. When we try a new approach, try our best, yet we still fail to reach our goal, often we fear trying again. Why? Because we all want to avoid pain! And nobody wants to fail again. Nobody wants to give his or her all, only to be disappointed. Often, after many of these experiences of disappointment, we stop trying! We get to the point where we believe that nothing will work. If you find yourself at the point where you're not even willing to try, you've put yourself in a place called "learned helplessness." You've literally learned-or taught yourself-that you're "helpless." The good news is that you're wrong. You can make things happen! You can change anything in your life today by changing your perceptions and changing your actions "I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt dis carded is another step forward. " -Thomas Edison30 Anthony Robbins Notes from a Friend you learn from it, and you find a way to do it better ing my dishes in the bathtub, I had to keep reminding next time. Colonel Sanders certainly used his personal myself of these kinds of stories. I had to keep reminding power! Instead of feeling bad about the last restaurant myself that NO PROBLEM IS PERMANENT. NO that had rejected his idea, he immediately started focus PROBLEM AFFECTS MY ENTIRE LIFE. THIS TOO ing on how to tell his story more effectively and get better SHALL PASS IF I CONTINUE TO TAKE MASSIVE, results from the next restaurant. POSITIVE, CONSTRUCTIVE ACTION. I kept think How many times do you think Colonel Sanders ing. "Even though my life looks terrible right now, there heard no before getting the answer he wanted? He was are many things to be thankful for, like the two friends I refused 1,009 times before he heard his first yes. He have, or the fact that I have all my senses, or that I can spent two years driving across America in his old, beat- breathe fresh air." I constantly reminded myself to focus up car, sleeping in the back seat in his rumpled white on what I wanted, to focus on solutions instead of prob- suit, getting up each day eager to share his idea with lems. And I remembered that no problem affects my someone new. Often, the only food he had was a quick entire life, even though it may look like it right now. bite of the samples he was preparing for prospective So I decided I would no longer believe that my buyers. How many people do you think would have gone whole life was screwed up simply because I had financial for 1,009 noes-two years of noes!-and kept on going? difficulties or emotional frustrations. I decided that there Very few. That's why there's only one Colonel Sanders. I was nothing wrong with me, but that I was simply in "lag think most people wouldn't get past twenty noes, much time." In other words, I knew that if I were to continue less a hundred or a thousand! Yet this is sometimes what nurturing the seeds I had planted-continue doing the it takes to succeed. right things-I would make it out of this winter of my If you look at any of the most successful people in life and into spring, when I would reap the rewards of history, you will find this common thread: They would years of seemingly fruitless efforts. I also decided that not be denied. They would not accept no. They would doing exactly the same things over and over again and not allow anything to stop them from making their vision, expecting a different result was insane. I had to try some their goal, a reality. Did you know that Walt Disney was thing new, and I had to keep on until I found the answers turned down 302 times before he got financing for his I needed. dream of creating "The Happiest Place on Earth"? All the My message to you is simple, and in your heart you banks thought he was crazy. He wasn't crazy; he was know it's true: Massive, consistent action with pure a visionary and, more important, he was committed to persistence and a sense of flexibility in pursuing making that vision a reality. Today, millions of people your goals will ultimately give you what you want, have shared in "the joy of Disney," a world like no other, but you must abandon any sense that there is no a world launched by the decision of one man. solution. You must focus immediately on the actions When I lived in my crummy little apartment, wash- you can take today, even if they are small ones
