Let’s talk about fear on this Monday.
Monday Monday, can’t trust that day,
Monday Monday, sometimes it just turns out that way
Oh Monday morning, you gave me no warning of what was to be
Oh Monday Monday, how could you leave and not take me…
Do you remember that song “Monday, Monday” by The Mamas And The Papas? How about these lyrics from another great Monday-related song:
It’s just another manic Monday
I wish it was Sunday
‘Cause that’s my funday
My I don’t have to runday
It’s just another manic Monday…
It’s really interesting. I got an email this morning from a woman who listened to one of my products, but who never went out and did anything to apply what she’d heard on the product.
She emailed me asking me for a refund saying that the product is just “not for her.” I emailed her back and told her that she can’t expect anything in her dating life to change just from listening to something, and that she would have to take action and put what she heard into practice.
Are you someone who listens to products or reads books expecting change to happen to you as you’re on the couch in your pajamas? No matter whose product or book you get — whether it’s mine, Tony Robbins’, Wayne Dyer’s or someone else’s — the answer lies within you (see Saturday’s blog for how I feel about that issue). You can read self-help books until you’re blue in the face, but if you don’t practice what they teach then your life will never change.
Here’s a funny story. A friend of mine worked at a book store and had a gentleman come to him one day and say, “I really want to ask you where the self-help section is located, by if I do then I won’t be helping myself. So let me go and find it.”
Everything I write and put in my products works. How do I know this? I know it because it worked for me, and because it has worked for every single person who has put it into practice.
How many of you were great at reading the DMV manual on how to drive a car, but ended up parked on the sidewalk when you were asked to parallel park during your road test?
I’ve heard it estimated that only about 10% of people who pick up a book actually read it all the way through, and only about 30% ever read past the first chapter. How many of you will pick up a self-help book or program and pat yourself on the back for taking the action to get it, but then will only get through the first volume or chapter (which was probably just an introduction about the author) before saying “This just isn’t for me?”
Then there are those of you who will try what you read or hear in a program, but will only try it ONCE. Then if it doesn’t work that first and only time you try it, you will say “See, it didn’t work!” It’s almost as if you want to have validation that it’s the program and not your failure to put in the effort.
Can you imagine where Mark Cuban would be now if he gave up the first time he failed when he tried a business? If he had this attitude, do you think he would own the Dallas Mavericks basketball team like he does today? Successful people fail every day. Unsuccessful people don’t fail because they often don’t try, and because they usually have either the “See, it didn’t work!” or the “Poor Me” attitude.
So many people pray every day for a miracle to happen in their life. Really, though, the miracle you’ve been waiting to happen is you. It’s you trying everything you’ve learned, and trusting yourself and the person giving you the advice.
For some of you, it’s just another manic Monday wishing it was Sunday. Others of you are praying for a miracle every day.
As for me, I wake up on Mondays with new goals, things to learn and new things to embrace. It’s amazing. It’s all about your attitude, and some of you have an attitude problem.
Some of you are “poor me’s.” You read, you listen and you study. You don’t try, and then you’re determined that it’s not you that is the problem.
It would be like if you want to be a great swimmer, but you don’t want to get wet so you just lay on the couch and envision yourself swimming. You can see yourself stroking through the water, but yet every time you go to the beach you don’t get in the water because the water is too cold, the sun is behind the clouds, or you look bad in your bathing suit. Then you go back to the couch and picture yourself swimming against Michael Phelps in The Olympics.
I used to be afraid of diving in the water as a kid. My counselor at summer camp kept telling me I had to bend all the way down and then I’d be able to do it. (Ahhh, remember the good old days before herniated discs when you could bend all the way down?)
I remember the counselor bending me all the way down and then tapping me on my ass or my back. (Oh the days when they could do that without worrying about being sued or called a pedophile … F&*%’n lawyers!) Anyway, he would do that (in a completely non-sexual way) and I’d roll right into the water. That’s how I learned how to dive in the water and how I got over my fear.
The bottom line is that you have to get off the couch. You have to get out of theoryland, you’ve got to trust . . . and you’ve got to just get out there and do it!
So when I get emails like the one from this woman this morning, I think “Why are you not even trying? Why are you not going out there and even doing one thing to give what you listened to a chance to work?
Fear is paralyzing, but there are certain words I never want to hear any of you say. In particular, I never want to hear any of you say “I can’t,” “I won’t” or “I’ll try.” You should instead be saying “I’ll do it, “I can” and “I will.”
You don’t need a miracle today, and this is not another manic Monday.
