It’s All About Strategy

It’s called having stars in your eyes.

Some naivete.  Some youthfulness.  Some self-imposed pressure.

All normal.

During a recent trip to LA (land of movie stars and actors), as I was leaving a hip café, I came across a young man who asked me in a sheepish voice “Excuse me, can I ask you where the nearest bus station is?”  He looked young and his tone was very weak, almost to the point where I wanted to ask him if he was ok or if he had eaten in days.

Instead, this turned into one of the most incredible encounters of my so-far life.

After some conversation (an hour and a half worth) my friend (who was walking with me) and I discovered that this young man was not only not at all dangerous, but rather, an 18-year old kid from Macedonia who had lied to his parents about backpacking through the States, and instead got duped into giving some “actor” $5000 so he could stay with him, and get introduced to major studio execs so that he could “make it big in Hollywood.”  This kid had true stars in his eyes, and told me with every ounce of conviction that he is the most talented actor, singer and dancer in his hometown and that he just knew that if he could get in front of a studio exec, that he could hit it big.

Only problems were: he had no money, no contacts, and as this “actor friend” of his just kicked him out, he had no place to stay either.  He said he was perfectly fine sleeping on the street.  I wasn’t about to let that happen.  Instead, even though it was 2:30 in the morning, I sat this kid down and the teacher and life-coach in me kicked in.  I gave him some true lessons on life and how it’s perfectly wonderful (even essential) to have a dream and to go after it and take risks – the only part he was missing was the idea that he needed a strategy.  He had no idea how he was going to do anything.

He continued to talk about how he was going to have millions and live in a great mansion (Hugh Hefner-style).  Again, I had to remind him that true successes doesn’t actually happen overnight, but that he needs to plan and strategize how he was going to do something.

I really tried to say things in such a way as to not discourage this young man from having a dream, but I wanted to instil some reality and need for strategy into his young, impressionable mind. 

At the end of our conversation, he couldn’t stop saying how much I helped him, and how he just received so much information.  He also couldn’t stop talking about how he still had so much to learn, but how grateful he was that he met me.

I think I was the one who was grateful to have met him.

The Brain Is Our Most Powerful Tool….We Just Never Got The Instruction Manual

Something incredible that I learned from the study of excellence, NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) is that the brain is the most powerful tool in the universe; it just depends on how well you use it. 

Just Ask Your Brain
See, what I have learned through NLP is that we are all looking for answers to certain questions and so it's the QUALITY of the questions we ask ourselves that are most important.  And the beauty of this finding is that it can be applied to any and all aspects of life….especially education.  Upon researching this further, I came to discover that our brains are so incredibly powerful, it's just that no one ever gave us the user's manual for it, so we haven’t been able to properly utilize it!

 

NLP…..Not Taught In Schools

Another thing is that NLP is not taught in schools, mainly because it is considered to be “too much” for kids.  Well, I disagree.  Students would benefit tremendously from any and the interesting thing is no educational institution teaches it, except for the Learn Today Program (www.learntoday.ca)  We not only explain to parents, guardians and students what it is, but we APPLY it as well…and this makes for a really amazing difference in our work and in the results shown for students’ performance (whatever age).

We are essentially, always searching for answers, and since our brain is going to do all this work anyway, we might as well be sure of the quality of the questions we are asking. 

Bear In Mind

Some things to bear in mind when asking your brain a question:
1) Give it detail and be specific.  It isn’t very helpful to just ask "Where can I get a job"...be specific and give details such as what are the things you would want in your perfect job?
2) Give it some time - your brain is searching for the answers for you, just give it some time to come up with the perfect answer.  Don’t like the answer, ask it something else.
3) Once you get your answer, jot it down so you don’t forget it.

Give Your Kids The Best

As many parents and guardians out there know, we MUST empower our kids, tweens, teens and young adults to ask themselves great questions and they will be utterly amazed at the responses.  We need to get them used to USING and APPLYING NLP in their studies.

For more information on what NLP is and how we use it, email me (Christine) at Christine@LearnToday.ca or call 416-522-3162 or come to our informal greet and chat on Saturday June 25th @ noon to the Second Cup at Bayview & Laureleaf.

Before even setting a goal, make sure that your reasons for setting that particular goal is good and valid before expending all that energy on attaining it.  At the end of the day, if your reasons for doing something aren't strong enough and dont reflect what is important to you, you may take action for some time, but you will not commit to those actions in the long-term (the amount of time necessary for any real changes to occur.) 

Here are some questions you need to ask yourself before proceeding:

WHY am I doing this?
WHAT am I aiming to achieve with this goal?
WHAT needs to happen for me to count myself as successful with this?
HOW am I going to measure my progress and level of success with this?
HOW am I going to make absolutely sure that I make this goal a priority in my life (instead of just saying it's important or going through the motions of saying it's important)?

One of the biggest mistakes people make with goal setting is that they say or claim that attainment of this goal is very important to them, but then they dont make it a priority.  You will really only make the attainment of the goal a priority if it is genuinely important to you and fits into your bigger picture of what you ultimately want for yourself.