Many years ago I was in a sales training class room and learned a simple and remarkable formula that I have never forgotten. I want to pass it along here.
Step 1. The instructor told us to write down on a piece of paper the amount of income we absolutely had to have for the year. He was very specific on the issue of this wasn’t what we "wanted" or "desired" but how much did we have to have – no matter what. The irreducible minimum. Step one was for us to figure out what really was our personal bottom line. He said we have to know this number before we can proceed to step two. He gave us about fifteen minutes to figure it out and waited until each of us let him know we had the amount and had it written down on the paper.
Step 2. Look at that number.
That was it. He announced that we each were going to make that amount of money. Most of us groaned and protested. He said that unless we changed our ideas of how much we really had to have the number on the paper was going to be our income for the year. As you might imagine, it turned out he was right.
What allows income to change is the DEMAND FOR INCOME. Not "want". Demand. The same is true for savings or net worth. There is an amount of money that is "right" for you to have. Get much below that number and something must be done about. Now. If the amount on hand rises much above that set point you will see the person obsessively get rid of the "excess" money on hand. The amount that is just right – the correct amount – varies from individual to individual greatly. It has precisely nothing to do with intelligence or I.Q. It has everything to do with the considerations of the person.
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The most interesting things I have ever learned on this subject were ideas I learned from L. Ron Hubbard. Change a person’s acceptance level and you have just changed the thing that actually matters. People are not impressed (for long anyway) with what they have. If they already have it (and can keep it) they aren’t looking up at it – they are looking down or across. This issue, acceptance level, is the monitoring factor in one’s income, wealth, really their environment in general. Want to know the person’s Havingness Level? Just look. What do they have? You’ve been to someone’s home at some time, wondering how could anyone live like that, in that condition of squalor. That level of squalor is what they can accept. Same thing in the relationship department. We’ve all seen the man or woman who leaves a nice and decent person so they could run off with a tramp. They could not "have" a nice and decent person. What they could have was a tramp.
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What is fascinating (at least to me) is the realization that the person usually does not wait until he physically receives the thing he can’t easily accept to then waste it (customers, money, relationships). The most common point of waste is prior to receiving it. What I am about to write in this paragraph is so obvious once you see it that it will seem like you’ve always known it. Lets take money as an example. Most of us are currently wasting HUGE amounts of money. That is correct, you are actively wasting a huge amount of money. For example, how much could you make if you really applied yourself? Really. With what you know and what you have at your disposal right now (nothing new to learn, nothing major to buy or acquire to make the change possible) how much could you make right now if you did the things you know you "ought to be doing"? Nothing here I’m telling you to do. You already know this and no part of it is new data or a new insight. So subtract the amount of annual income you currently make (last 12 months) from what you know you could make if you did the things you know you could and should do; isn’t that quite a bit of money? That is the amount you are currently wasting.
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There are actions you take which are your Dollar Productive Activities. When you are doing those actions you are making money, lots of it. For a Realtor a primary method of wasting income (never receive it) is to spend time (fill the day) working on things that – even when done correctly – do not lead to getting more listings or getting a buyer into escrow. Most agents spend the bulk of their time working on things that don’t even have the charm of deliberate nonsense. Deliberate Nonsense can be a lot of fun. And it has its own very desirable product. I believe that if you are not going to work on something that matters (leads directly to getting and keeping customers) in your business you are better off to goof off. Literally. Know that you are not working and that you are not pretending to yourself to be working.
This isn’t "work hard, play hard" – whatever the hell that means. It is DO WHAT YOU ARE DOING WHILE YOU ARE DOING IT. That is also from Hubbard and that is a recipe for success. Do what you are doing while you are doing it and know that you are doing that thing. If you’re not working, don’t work. If you are working, work. None of this is to imply that work – even hard work – can’t be a lot of fun.
You can factually change your income by changing your viewpoint of "how much you really have to have". I understand that seems simple. It is. Actually, it is really the only way one ever does change their income. They change their mind about what is "necessary". Then there is the other part: DO WHAT YOU ARE DOING WHILE YOU ARE DOING IT.
The future is yours.