When I started my first business 20-plus years ago, I asked a fellow entrepreneur if he had any advice about launching a new company. He said, “You’re going to have good days and you’re going to have bad days. When you have a bad day, pop a Tony Robbins tape into your cassette deck. Believe it or not, those tapes can really help you get through the difficult times.”
To my great surprise, my friend was spot on — the Tony Robbins tapes really did get me through some difficult times.
I’ve been a big fan ever since. And it explains why I was particularly excited to receive a call from the Tony Robbins organization about speaking at his Business Mastery Course in Las Vegas this January. The Business Mastery Course is a 5-day course led by Tony that teaches business owners to re-frame their thinking and improve their outcomes.
The invitation to speak at the Tony Robbins event got me thinking about the most important lessons I’ve learned over the years from his books, tapes and live events. I thought I’d share a few of them with you so that you can apply them to your own business.
Here are 5 important business lessons you can learn from Tony Robbins:
- Ask Better Questions: Tony says, “Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.” Every business situation has a few critical issues that are the levers for success. The trick is to figure out what those critical issues are and then focus your analysis (and your questions) on those levers. By zeroing-in on those issues and focusing your questions around them, you can get to the heart of the matter and apply your energy and focus on what really matters. It’s a deceptively simple technique that has the power to change your career. (Side Note: Want to see this technique in action? Watch Shark Tank on ABC on Friday nights. It’s a seriously-good show for businesspeople. I’m not kidding. You’ll see several people worth hundreds of millions of dollars ask very smart, very insightful questions to aspiring entrepreneurs. I watch it religiously and have worked hard to analyze and understand what separates the “sharks” from the rest of us. Check it out.)
- Use the Split Method: I’m not entirely sure what Tony actually calls his Split Method, but here’s how it works — visualize what you want your life to be like 10 years from now. Be as specific as possible about your career, salary, health, relationships and other important things. Describe your life in great detail, knowing that your goals will change and evolve along the way. Once you’ve described your life 10 years out, split it in half and describe where you have to be 5 years out in order to accomplish your 10 year goals. Once you’ve done that, split it in half again and figure out what you have to be doing in 2.5 years to accomplish where you need to be 5 years out. Then do the same for 1.25 years. Then, break it down to 6 months and then 3 months. By using this methodology, you’re turning your goals into specific and immediate action steps. The difference between successful people and dreamers is that successful people take action towards their goals on a daily basis while dreamers just talk and think about their goals. You want to be someone who takes action.
- Embrace Setbacks: You learn more from your setbacks than from your successes. So, in reality, setbacks are gifts that teach you what not to do. The key is to embrace the setbacks, unravel them, analyze where you went wrong, and then consciously change your behavior. By using that process — embrace, unravel, analyze, change — you improve the outcomes you’ll have in the future. So, in a way, setbacks are gifts that can help you improve your life moving ahead.
- Put Your Fears in the Rear View Mirror: Here’s a technique from Tony that I used many, many years ago to get past a business issue I was facing. During the first year of running my company, I found myself living in fear of losing our biggest client. To be sure, if we lost the client we probably would have had to fold-up shop, but by living in fear of that outcome, I was blocking myself from doing my best work. To get over this, I used a technique Tony teaches in his Unlimited Power series — I visualized my fear (in this case, it was my client) and pictured myself driving away from that fear in my car. I made a point of looking in my imaginary rear view mirror and watching as my client got smaller and smaller and smaller. In other words, I saw my client getting less and less threatening. By putting that fear in my rear view mirror, I was able to figuratively drive away from it and liberate myself from the shackles I had put on myself. Believe it or not, the technique worked — by visualizing my fear getting smaller and smaller, I was able to put things behind me and perform my best. It sounds crazy, but give it a try — you’ll be surprised by the results.
- Model Yourself After a Successful Leader: We all have people we admire in our lives. It may be a business associate, a friend or even a family member. But most people don’t spend the time or effort to specifically model their behavior after the person they admire. In other words, don’t just sit back and admire someone. Instead, analyze what it is that’s working for them, then model your behavior on that. By taking the time to analyze their behavior and thought patterns, you can take a big leap forward and improve your career and your life rather quickly.
I hope these tips are of some use to you. I know they’ve helped me throughout my career. And if you’re interested in participating in the Business Mastery class in Las Vegas this January, you can apply by clicking the link. (Side Note: The 5 day class is very expensive — $9,995. But people who have attended it in the past speak very highly of it, so it may be a worthwhile investment.)
Posted by Jamie Turner, Founder of the 60 Second Marketer and co-author of “How to Make Money with Social Media” and “Go Mobile.” He is also a popular marketing speaker at events, trade shows and corporations around the globe.