I aim to assist all readers who visit my site, so I will be posting a series of PAUL’S 5 P’s blogs.

The purpose of the PAUL’S 5 P’s is to Prompt and Prod People to Prepare a Plan!

Of course, the original 5 P’s saying is supposed to be:

PROPER PREPARATION PREVENTS POOR PERFORMANCE

But I have re-defined this to be:

PROPER PLANNING & PREPARATION PRODUCES PROSPERITY

My Philosophy is simple, but the idea is so powerful – something I learned this from one of my greatest teachers.

I Provide information that I would want to know if our roles were reversed.

I work with business owners to take their business to the next level, and there are three ways I do this:

• I Promote local business with free social media Business Feature posts (click to book yours!);
• I connect People through our online directory and business networks to grow our local business community;
• I work with business owners to increase Profits in two complimentary, but different, formats:
  1. 1-to-1 High-performance coaching – for rapid transformation of business results.
  2. 1-to-Many Group coaching – that is educational (and fun!) as you learn to solve $20K problems in your business each month to improve your profit – and yes, every business actually does have these $20K problems! (It’s the best $50 per hour you’ll ever spend with a business coach – working ON your business.)

One of the P’s is PROPHECY.

This may sound a bit strange at first but here’s a key point:

Attitude is a key determinant in your performance. This is true of elite athletes; it’s true of the spider that Robert Burns famously watched (“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.”); it is also true of business owners. If failure is the strongest of the self-fulfilling attitudes that humans exhibit, we would all still be living in caves with no fire to cook food, and no skins to keep us warm.

No. The attitude we bring with the will to survive, has been the key to human progress. Since this is clearly what lead to the fittest passing on their genes, we can count ourselves lucky that our DNA actually has the right attitude programmed into it.

Being positive and certain, is a work in progress. The attitude is reinforced by making the right choices, people that have this positive feedback loop can be confident that they are on the right track. People that have experiences that seem to reinforce the negative side of that learning are able to make changes, but the shift to “see” the positive and successful elements may only be possible when they are open to learn that there is a balance and an opportunity exists for every adversity.

It was Dr. Wayne Dyer who said, ‘Change the way you look at things and the things you look at will change.’

Remember: you are the only one who can choose your thoughts.

So, where does Prophecy fit in?

Prophecy is really about foresight.

It’s about anticipation, expectation and attitude. Our caveman forebears survived if they stored enough food to get through winter. The extinct Neanderthal species was more about brawn than brain, probably believing that they could still club to death some poor (slow) beast – even in the middle of winter (perhaps their downfall was simply the lack of foresight – a failure to understand that the herds migrated…?).

The Homo Sapiens learned to use foresight. Their anticipation was for a harsh winter; their expectation was survival; their attitude was the driving force to work hard at building stores through the good times.

It would be fair to say that most business failures come about when business owners fail to achieve what they set out to achieve simply because they planned poorly, set unrealistic targets or just gave up.

So what does Prophecy hold when people who are prone to “Drama” start to take notice of drama appearing around them? If the economy starts to get media attention, business owners begin to justify themselves with reference to that particular event. When the GFC hit there were countless stories of doom and gloom: World economy collapsing; bread lines everywhere; business failure and so on.

So many business owners who were expanding changed their plans, shrinking their business, cutting back, dropping their prices… REACTING to the drama – without foresight!

If they had just made their plans that took account of this foresight (Prophecy) they would have been able to ride through “unexpected” changes with confidence and certainty.

If you hear a business owner getting caught up in their own BS with comments like, the economy is really bad, the internet is killing this, no-one is spending money, etc, etc where do you think that conversation and stinkin’ thinkin’ is taking his company??

The essential antidotes to free you from that victim mentality and place you on a path to prosperity are:

1. Plan. Plan. Plan! Do not ignore this basic step. You must use a plan to map your desired destination. Even a simple business plan with clear objectives and milestones will yield results.
2. Stop the flow of negative information immediately! Seek opportunities, not adversity, in the doom-and-gloom media and, importantly, remove yourself from the conversation that is harmful to you.
3. Change your conversation. Associate with people who are focused on what they want to achieve, regardless of the environment. Look for people who are open to new ideas and new learning, who don’t take no for an answer, who are always looking to better themselves, who don’t care about recessions or booms.
4. Ghandi said, “My thoughts become my words, my words become my actions, my actions become my habits, my habits become my destiny.” Eliminate thoughts, words and actions that lead to a self- perpetuating cycle that drags you down.
5. Use thoughts, words and actions that reinforce the self-fulfilling prophecy of success.

Of course, you would be wise to reach out for assistance if you think that this makes sense but don’t know where to start.

Regards

Paul

Paul Manning is a Perth based Business Coach and the Local Director of The North Coast Business Network and works with business owners in that group, or one-on-one, to deliver rapid and lasting business improvement and readiness for business sale.