Act As If II Podcast

On Sunday I posted an article about acting as if. Simple acting as if you already have something will bring more of that thing to you.

You want to be successful in business? Act as if you are and people will treat you that way. They will offer you more opportunities, more responsibility, and eventually more success.

So what can you do now? If you are spinning your wheels, wondering what can be done to get you out of where you are at, if you are looking for a change what can you do?

I have a little story for you. I told this to my 9^th graders. I hope that you can translate it to something you can use.

I would guess that somewhere in your city there is some sort of financial district. Somewhere that has some really big buildings. You know the nice shiny ones with tinted windows that go right up to the clouds.

If you are in a small city like the one that I grew up in you may have to go to a larger city to find such a place. This will make it even easier since you will not know anyone there.

Go downtown to that area sometime during a normal work day. Make it a Tuesday or Wednesday. Help break up the monotony of a regular work week. Dress nicely but casual. Dress business casual. Dress to make an impression, but be humble, that is the sweet spot.

Look for the suits. They will look like bustling ants scurrying from building to building. Watch them for a few minutes. Look at which building has the most traffic, then follow them in. Ride the elevator up with them. Get out when they get out. Find the largest office on the floor and walk right in.

Now just before you go in look at the name on the door. Companies are proud and they will display on the door their name and what they do. Walk into “KIP Inc. Financial Services to the World”.

There will be a receptionist, secretary, or some other person sitting at a desk right up front. This person is the gate keeper of Midevil times. They will most likely ask if they can help you.

Say “Yes. I would like to get into Financial Services” or what ever else their door says “and possibly work for KIP Inc. I was wondering what I should do to be able to get a job. Is there a manager, or possibly the president that I can speak with for a few moments?”

About 85% of the time it will work. Say it with a smile (see my post on smiling) Stand at the desk and let them call the person in charge, don’t go away and sit down. Don’t leer, just stand there with a nice smile. Act as if they are going to do this for you.

Soon the president or manager will come in. They will probably say something like “Come on in but I only have about 5 minutes for you.” They really don’t but they like to act really busy.

They will probably lead you through the company. Past all the workers at their desks. Casually look around and observe what is going on. This will give you a good idea if you really want to work in this type of company. If you feel good about the people that are working around you then great, you may have found a place that you would like to work. If it is a bit scary for you then that is good too. You may not want to work at this company but you will still get something out of asking the manager for his opinion.

When he sits you down to talk to him simply ask one question.

“What do you do, and how can I do it?”

It is very powerful. Watch the beginning of In Pursuit of Happyness and see what happens. Watch the rest of the movie to see how hard you will have to work to really get what you want.

The manager/boss/president will be very happy to tell you all about what they do and how they got there. You may or may not want to do the same thing, after you ask a few of these people you will begin to see common things come up.

What can you learn? What can you find out? How valuable would this be?

SCARED? Good! How bad do you want change? Try it, it might even be fun.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

There is not a whole lot that I want in life.  I great wife (I have one) a nice tempered dog (got one of those too) and a house on the water (well within reach).

But I don’t want some house on the beach, although it would suit me just fine, I want a house on the water.  Yes a real houseboat.  That would just be too cool don’t you think?

Well guess what I just came across this today, a nice article on MSN about living on a houseboat.  Ahh the nice sunsets, commuting via kyak, the gentle rocking of the boat.  Nice don’t you think?  Or are you one that gets sea sick easily?

Check it out it is a good read.  (http://realestate.msn.com/Buying/Article_bankrate.aspx?cp-documentid=7162126&GT1=35000)

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

You want a really powerful technique that will knock the socks off your competitors and your customers? Just act as if.

Act as if you have already made the sale, you will sell more.

Act as if you have already beat your competitors, they will pick up on that and begin to panic.

Act as if you are already successful and people will begin to treat you that way.

My father was a master at this. He was a great salesman and later a great teacher. We would go to a college campus, or a football game, or sometimes just be out and about. I am always curious and would ask about a building, or I would say out loud how I wish we could go in there.

Off he would go, just pulling on doors to see which one was unlocked. I would get scared, but he would turn to me and say, “Act as if you were supposed to be here and no one will say anything different”.

Guess what? He was right, he was always right. We would get inside the private practice facilities of major sports programs (I will not tell you which). One day we decided to go into the science building of a large university. Before we knew it we were in the reptile lab with several graduate assistance and they were pulling out exotic snakes, lizards, turtles, and things that I did not know even existed.

Why? My father just went in and started asking quesitons. He was genuinely curious. When he asked he acted as if he expected them to answer him. He was not rude or disrespectful. He was not loud and boastful. He was not overbearing. He simply asked and waited for them to answer in a very polite and respectful manner.

You know what? They always answered. They always were happy to answer. No one ever questioned why we were there.

He acted as if. It was great fun, it was harmless, and I got to see many things that I never thought I would see.

Just act as if, and see where it gets you!

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

You know the old phrase, ’smile, it will make people wonder what you are up to.’ Well a simple smile can go a long way.

You ever wonder how that person gets his or her way all the time? You know that person. The one who always gets the best tables, the one who always gets the free give aways, the one who never seems to get in trouble for anything. You know them. How do they do it?

Watch them. Most likely (there are always exceptions to every example) they do not get this through intimidation, they do not get their way through being grumpy and gruff, they do not get their way yelling and throwing a fit. Watch them. They probably have a really good smile and are not afraid to show it.

I admit it, I am a sucker for a good smile. There are students that I have that will get away with a lot more than others, simple because they smile. Not just the girls either, the guys can do it just as well. They will do something silly or dumb. They will bend the rules to the point where I have to say some thing and they will turn around with a smile and say “Sorry, Mr. Coach Kip” and somehow it will be all right. Another kid will do the same thing and I will say the exact same thing to them and they will instead give me an attitude about the whole thing. That never ends well, usually ending with them in the principles office and me continuing on with class.

In the book How to Have Confidence and Power in Dealing with People Les Gibons says

A smile is relaxing, a smile shows confidence. A smile shows that you “just know” the other fellow is going to come through

There are two ways you can apply a simple smile in your every day life.

For You: William James once said that it is impossible to feel pessimistic when you have the corners of your mouth turned up. So smile during your day. You will feel better. This will translate to others. Be happy with you life, who you are, and how things are going. If they begin to turn sour just smile. You will be surprised how this works wonders. Looking at things optimistically will help you solve problems, not add to them.

For Others: Smiling when asking someone to do something for you will almost compel that person to do it for you. A smile will tell that person that what you are asking will make you happy, and is probably not that bad. People want to please others so they will feel compelled to do it. Smiling also takes the sting out of less than pleasing news. Now you wouldn’t want to smile when you tell someone that their Mother has died, but a smile while saying “I am sorry but you will have to do this report over again, I know you can do better” will greatly soften the blow and tell the person that you still believe in them.

A good smile takes little practice unless you have not used it often lately. A good smile does not come from a combination of muscles in your face that turn the corners of your mouth up. A good smile comes from deep down inside. It comes from the heart. Smile from the heart and you will find that life will be more enjoyable, more fun, and a heck of a lot easier.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

We have always been taught backwards. This coming from a teacher.

I remember going into the guidance office and they said “Coach Kip, what would you like to do with your life?”

Heck I didn’t know, at that time I still wanted to be a professional football player. I had no idea what my career was going to be. I stammered “A teacher I guess?”

And so it was, from that point on I was defined by what I wanted to do. I was put in classes that helped me get into college. I was advised on the best colleges for teaching. I went to one of the best Universities in Michigan for teaching, Northern Michigan University. I then promptly dropped out of the teaching program.

Why?

I was beginning to see how that would define me. As I got into my teaching classes I found that students were already getting cynical. I found that I was not getting support for math and sciences in our open discussions in class. I was finding it difficult to write papers on philosophies and issues that I did not agree on. I would not let it define me.

I got a degree in physics instead. Why? I thought physics was cool. I had no idea why. I had no idea what I was going to do with it. I just liked science and physics. So I graduated.

I got a good job but it did not satisfy me. Heck I lived in Russia for four months, I lived in Argentina for a month, and in Dubai for three months (I stayed in the original buildings that are shown with the arrow). Besides that I traveled all over the United States. Still not very fulfilling to me. It was not me. It was not the definition of who I wanted to be. So I went back to school.

I got a teaching degree along with a mathematics degree. I became a teacher. I was lucky. I did not get a teaching degree because I wanted a job, I got one because that is who I am.

So what does that mean to you?

Define - Learn - Do.

The better question that the guidance counselor could have asked is “what do you want to be?” I may have answered a professional football player, but hopefully she would have steered this 145 pound weakling in a different direction. I could have decided who I wanted to be. What I wanted to be. How I wanted to live. What I wanted to have. I could have formed a decision on that

Define

Instead of finding something that you want to do, define who you want to be. Once you define who it is that you want to be the steps are more simple. The steps are also in reverse order that we usually take them in.

Learn

Once you have defined yourself you learn how to become that person. For some it is education, and schooling. For some it may be an internship. For others it may simply be setting a stricked budget to get what they want.

Do

Once you have learned how to get what you have defined for yourself it is a matter of doing it. This can be very difficult because you are bound to make mistakes. Guess what, making mistakes is part of living. It tells you that you are alive. So make mistakes.

Let me give you a little secret. Instead of doing what it is that you think you need to do to get to your definition of life…that sentence and the process is very difficult to understand, I know I have done it that way for a long time…FIND SOMEONE WHO HAS DONE IT BEFORE AND DO WHAT THEY DO.

I am not yelling, just using it for emphasis. Don’t reinvent what has already been done. Just find someone who has the life that you want and copy what they do. Will that make you successful alone? No. But it will get you started. It will then be your task to make it your own. Making it your own, and living the way you want to live will be your success.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Warning: Rant and Personal Views here. Some may be controversial and offending to some.

As some of you know who have been following my blog I am a public school teacher and a football coach. Me and my wife have been looking into many different avenues to be able to teach and give what we have. The current school system just does not let us do this. Why?

They are factories. I am sorry people but not everyone is an expert in schools. One of the problems with schools is that everyone thinks that they are experts. Why? Because everyone has been to school. But they have only seen one or two parts of what school is.

Everyone has seen school from a students stand point. Yes it is boring, yes some of the teachers can seem apathetic. Yes you probably didn’t like it. Why? It was not stimulating enough, it was not interactive enough, and for most of us it just was not challenging enough.

The teachers are not apathetic, they are board to. So why don’t they do anything about it? Because you have not seen the other part of education. Very few have. I know. I have been in schools now for 7 years, early in the morning. You know who is there early in the morning? Teachers and Principles. Thats it. Don’t try to say that you know how things are. If you have had a parent meeting early in the morning you still don’t know what it is like. You still don’t see teachers scrambling to use broken copiers, outdated books, limited resources, and limited time. You don’t see the struggles that many teachers go through.

If you are reading this and you are a teacher who has these resources then you are one of the lucky ones. You don’t have it made, but you are getting closer.

What about after school? Yes many teachers leave within the first 15-20 minutes that school is over. But what do they do at home. Most of the time they leave because school is a very negative place. Teachers like to bitch about the latest problems with Principles, Students, Parents, the School Board, our President, whatever. No one is immune. It is not harmful, it is just venting. But it is extremely negative.

So they take their work home so that they can do it in their own setting. Most teachers have homework. If you are one of the lucky ones (I am included in this) then you have a system set up in your classroom that lets you be done at 2:30 or whenever you school lets out. But it takes years of planning until you get to that point.

Back to the factories. To get to that point it has to be run like a factories. The worst possible system for a school to be run. It just does not work. It is not innovative, it is not creative, it is not real learning. Concepts are being replaced by techniques to get the answer right. True learning is being replaced by memorization. We have the technology and the ability but not the means. It is very frustrating.

Why? Because we are tested. Not just our students. Teachers can be hired and fired from tests. Students just have to take them to pass. Not teachers. No matter what anyone tells you teachers are judged based on how well their students do. It is unfair because these tests take all the learning out of schools and limit themselves to rote learning just to get students graduated so that the school gets enough money to pay the staff and turn on the lights. It is a sad sad time in public schools.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

My Grandmother who was 98 just passed away. It is very sad, but it is also a very happy time. She was ready, and had been ready. I am sure that it was very frustrating for her for the last few years. Her mind is as sharp as ever, and we as a society let them go to waste. She knew everything about everything right up to her final days. How do I know this? I visited her just three weeks ago. It is a long trip about 250 miles (about 402 km), but I am glad I saw her. We are close, probably even closer now.

I do not want to get to spiritual because I know my views are very different from most people, even though I see them as being more balanced, but I know that her spirit is still alive and well. It makes me cry to think that she is with my Grandfather now, who she missed dearly.

It all puts things into very sharp perspective. My Grandmother was a very great lady, living from 1910 until Friday. Incredible. So what does that really mean? What did she do with her life, how did she live it? What happened in history? Heck she was married during the great depression. Her husband was told to stay home during the war to take care of his family and manage factories that supplied the war. One son was in the Airborne Rangers, another in Vietnam. One Grandson is now in Iraq. There were tremendous changes in civil rights, the economy, technology, and even transportation.

But there she sat in her room needing assistance to do nearly everything for the last 5 years. A mind full of wisdom and history, a mind that really needed to be exposed to the world. There she sat waiting for her next visitor, watching the Detroit Tigers. She was very disappointed that Brandon Inge got moved to the outfield this year by the way.

So what can we learn from this? Things that seem big to us really are not. My grandmother lived through all that stuff without anything really effecting her. It is part of life. Things happen, situations arise, come, are dealt with and we move on. It does not really change what life is all about. It does not really change the things that are important. What is important is are you happy personally? Are the people around you happy? Are you contributing in a good and positive manor? Are you making a difference?

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Why do I like golf? To me golf is a meditation. It is a way for me to get away and be free from the day and the happenings around me. Why do we all need a place like this to go?

We all need a simple place to go to get balance back in our lives. In most of the World our lives are very stressful. Meditation is a great way to retain this center. It is a great way to get back to our basics to relax, to enjoy our lives, to slow down.

Life is fast. Many times in the last year I have been in school teaching all day, then coaching until the late evening, I get home and get on the computer and do some web design or some writing. For what? Is that what I really want out of my life? What am I working toward? I am working toward a simpler more free life. A life that lets me do the things I want to do.

Guess what. Sometimes we work so hard to get something that we think we want, or that we actually need that we sometimes overlook the fact that we already have that. Mediation, slowing down, taking time to reflect lets us see things that may be right in front of us.

One of the things that I would like to do is play more golf. It is a great mental and physical challenge. Probably the most mentally and physically challenging games there is. But I have been concentrating so much on working to get toward that goal I have hardly played in the last 8 months. Now that my sites are working and my life is changing and moving toward the goals that I wanted in the first place I have to slow down and play a little golf. I find that after I just go to the driving range I have a much easier time concentrating and getting things done.

Find what it is that works for you. Find your meditation. For some simply sitting in a quiet place with no outside distractions is their meditation. For others it is sitting down with a good book, and for still others it is some other hobby. Find what helps you relax and you will find that you may already have many of the things that you are working so hard to get.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Success is reaching goals that you set for yourself. That is it.

Nobody can know success without setting goals. Success is a measurement. If you don’t know how to measure it you will never be successful.

Success is different for everyone. It is only important for you to know know what your success is. That means that you have to set goals for yourself and not compare yourself to others. Comparing yourself to others is a sure way to disappointment. They are simply not you. You need to know you, and worry about you.

The only way to be unsuccessful is to have no goals. Unfortunately many people go through life without direction, without goals. They whine and complain about how their life is unfulfilling, but they do not have a direction. Do you want success? Then you need a direction.

But is not reaching goals unsuccessful? No! If you do not reach a goal that is OK. You simply change the time frame. The only other way to be unsuccessful is to quit. Quitters are never successful.

There are a few things that we need to learn about setting goals. It is difficult to do without some practice but to set goals properly we have to set big goals that are still realistic. I will talk more about that later.

So can you be successful? Do you know hot to measure it? Do you have goals that you are working toward? What are you focusing on?

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Well it has been quite hectic around here. As most of my readers know we are getting together funds, sponsors, advertisers to purchase a boat so that we can live on it for the next 15 months to two years. It should be a great experience.

My favorite question is where are you going to live? Duh on a boat. We will not really have a harbor to call home. We plan on traveling much of the time, meet new people, and expand our knowledge. (Check us out at TrekkingAround.com).

In doing this it has really made me keep things in prospective. There really is no need to have all this extra junk. It made me realize that I was working for possessions, for junk. Why did I need all that stuff? I have a nice little townhouse that is now for sale. That was good for me. I would have liked to have been in a nicer part of town but I was living on a golf course. The problem was that I was spending all my time working and spending money on possessions that I did not need. Half of the time I would get a bill for something that I did not even know I had. I had no idea why I bought it and I had no idea where I put it. It was terrible. I was working to pay off credit card debt, house debt, student loans, car loans, and trying to keep up with all the bills. Bills are not hard but they tend to change from time to time. Sometimes they change the due date on them, and if you are not paying close attention then you miss that change. Not a very good thing.

So we had a fire sale. Everything must go and what does not go is given away. Yes my wife gave away a little too much but that is OK.

Without all these distractions I have been able to focus. To really focus. With out all these distractions I have become refamiliar with what I really want.

That may be a good practice for you to. Get away from the things that are distracting you. If you are not happy go somewhere so that your distractions are gone. Go to a quiet park, go to the beach, take a drive into the country and stop on the side of a little used road.

Then think. Take a pad of paper and think. Think of what it is that you really want. Think of what you can do without. How bad do you want it? What are you willing to do to make the change? Are you willing to change?

Einstein “Doing the same thing over and over expecting something different is the definition of insanity.”

What is it that I want? I will post more at another time but basically it boils down to this. I want enough money to be able to travel with my wife, play golf, play on a boat, and enjoy life before I have to retire and I am too old to really enjoy life.