Hurry Up & Be Very, Very Afraid … Get It Over With!

In dark days, people seek glimmers of hope.

When it comes to the commitment, courage and conviction to dedicate you to making long lasting and sustainable change, hope is useless.

Hope is an avoidance strategy, a distraction, a medication preventing you from dealing with the real issues and what you really need to do.

The definition of hope is the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best. In the same vein: “faith without action is dead” – James 2:17

Pardon me for focusing on the negative in this oh so positive thinking instant gratification world.

But I’m happy, I’m happy, I’m happy isn’t going to cut it if your business is running you because you don’t have a vision or plan, you are buried by piles of paper, your mood is up and down with your ever changing cash flow, your marketing plan is non-existent, you are selling the flavour of the month products just to make a sale which is not meeting the needs of your clients because you have not done a needs analysis for your clients which is certain to have compliance regulators knocking on your door and your time management system is Swiss cheese because your clients think you are running a financial advisor drive through expecting 24/7 service.

I am writing this to bring the issues to the surface to wake you up and talk about the consequences of doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results and hoping that things are going to get better.

The less afraid you are, the more likely you are to do just enough to temporarily stave off a catastrophe that lets the underlying problems get worse.

What makes things even worse; “The law of attraction is absolute; whatever you defend against you make real as thoughts are real forces”. In other words, you can continue to make the following worse by pushing them out of your mind, by not dealing with them, you give them more negative energy and hence the laws of attraction keep on attracting more of the evidence that kills your inspiration;

• your business is running you because you don’t have a vision or plan
• you are buried by piles of paper
• your mood is up and down with your ever changing cash flow
• your marketing plan is non-existent
• you are selling the flavour of the month products just to make a sale which is not meeting the needs of your clients because you have not done a needs analysis for your clients which is certain to have compliance regulators knocking on your door
• your time management system is Swiss cheese because your clients think you are running a financial advisor drive through expecting 24/7 service

Learn to make fear your friend by understanding your fear.

When there is no understanding there is fear.

When there is fear there can be no understanding.

When there is no understanding there is judgement.

When there is judgement there can be no understanding.

When there is judgement there is fear.

When there is fear, no understanding and judgement there can be no commitment, courage and conviction to dedicate you to taking action to make long lasting and sustainable change.

This article was inspired by; Be Afraid – The Economist, Oct 1 – 7, 2011