One of the biggest myths that exists in the personal development industry is that one idea is all you need to be successful.
“If you just embrace positive thinking, you’ll avoid the failure that comes from negative thinking and you’ll be successful,” some say.
The truth is that success in any area requires several factors, and one idea alone will never allow you to achieve success.
Imagine that success is like a combination lock with 7 numbers. You need to get all 7 numbers right to open the lock and achieve success. Given that you’re alive and able to read these words, you’ve probably already got a few of the numbers already keyed in to open the lock. Maybe all you need is just one or two more.
For those who have everything they need to succeed except the habit of positive thinking, positive thinking is exactly what they need to open the lock. Someone in that position may suddenly skyrocket to new levels of success in achievement in a very short period of time after learning the habit of positive thinking.
Their friends and colleagues may be amazed at their sudden rise to the top. That person may even tell everyone that it was positive thinking that allowed them to achieve such incredible success.
But always remember, that there’s more to the truth than just a single idea, and success requires more than just one number to unlock its rewards.
Positive thinking for that person was simply the final number needed for the code to success. Without it, success would not happen. But the same thing could be said for all the other numbers in the code.
If you want to find the code for your own success, you need to do more than just find one idea and pray it’s your lucky 7th number.
What if positive thinking is not enough to open the lock for you?
One Thing is Never Enough
A common trap people fall into is thinking that what is true in some situations is always true. For someone who finds positive thinking to be the key to their success in closing their first multi-million dollar deal, positive thinking is everything! What else could possibly be as good for you as positive thinking?
But in some situations positive thinking will get you killed!
All those positive thinkers who invested in real estate in 2004-2006 while the market was red hot soon found out that positive thinking won’t save you when the tide changes.
In some situations, positive thinking will earn you millions of dollars and have you swimming in a glorious pile of cash. In other situations, positive thinking will lose you millions of dollars and have you swamped in debt.
Same skill + different situation = different results.
When you begin to look at the world from this perspective, you begin to see that there are multiple moving parts in life, and it’s imperative that you get all the moving parts in the right place if you want to make it work.
There are skills, like positive thinking and negative thinking.
And there are situations, like the US real estate market in 2006 and the US real estate market in 2009.
The real trick is learning to use the right skills in the right situations (or at least learning to NOT use the wrong skills in the wrong situation).
In writing, the only difference between the 2006 and 2009 real estate market is the difference between a 6 and a 9.
In reality, the difference in those markets could have cost you millions or earned you millions, depending on which skills you used at the time.
2006 was a bad time for people who only knew how to use positive thinking when investing in real estate, but it was a perfect time for those who knew how to use negative thinking. Michael Burry used negative thinking to earn himself a tidy sum of more than $100 million by betting against real estate while many positive thinkers lost everything.
2009 was a bad time for negative thinkers who stayed out of the stock market after the bottom on March 9th of that year, but it was a perfect time for those positive thinkers who invested while the negative thinkers sat around and twiddled their thumbs.
Necessary, Maybe, but not Sufficient
There are far more skills and ideas in life to master than just positive thinking and negative thinking.
Take any personal development idea or theory, and you can look at both sides and see that both sides have merit depending on the situation at hand.
For example, a common idea tossed around in the personal development industry is that “it is better to give than to receive.” These people would have you believe that giving, giving, giving is the secret to success and a happy life.
And they’re right (kind of).
Giving will help you feel good about yourself. It will attract other people to you and the projects that you decide to work on. Nothing will attract people to you faster than giving!
Yet, we’ve all seen people who give too much. They spend all their time taking care of their family, helping the homeless, or serving their customers, and they have no time, energy or money left over to take care of themselves, their families or their business.
These people are not successful (at least, not sustainably), because sooner than later they burn out and become incapable of helping themselves, let alone helping anyone else. They are like a hammer always looking for a nail. When they finally find out they have a few screws loose, it’s game over. The whole house comes crashing down, and they have to rebuild it from the ground up with new tools and new skills if they want it to stay up this time.
They’re good at giving but they haven’t learned how to receive (and they haven’t learned the skills that lead to actually receiving like how to ask for what they need and want).
People like Mother Theresa and Gandhi were not great people who achieved major philanthropic results because they were great givers. They were great people because they were able to give and to receive, to ask for what they needed and to ask for the needs of those who did not have the skills or opportunities to ask for themselves.
Their multiple skills allowed them to help millions of people. They have become legendary human beings not because of a single skill (like giving, for which they are often most remembered) but rather because they learned to master both sides of life – giving and receiving, listening and asking, caring for others and caring for themselves.
Blind Spots are Where You Must Look
Values and beliefs are another great place where looking at both sides can reveal some fruitful insights about life and success.
Let’s talk about sales.
When I first started in sales, I was afraid of being seen as “salesy” or “pushy.” This is a common fear that most people are confronted with when they first get started in sales.
I soon learned from those who were successful and much wiser than me that selling something that will improve someone’s life is a service, not a nuisance.
If you’re broke and I sell you a book that helps you turn your financial situation around, that’s a gift not a nuisance. Sales done the right way is a gift to the customer.
If you have a product or service that truly improves the lives of your customers, some would say you have a duty and obligation to sell as much as you can as fast as you can for the greater good.
Sales done the wrong way is a massive waste of time, money and energy. The management at Enron were good at selling their company to investors, even when they knew it was the stock they were selling would soon be worthless. They were skilled at selling, but not at building a sustainable company. We all know that’s a bad thing.
Yet someone like Steve Jobs who builds a great company for customers, investors and employees needs to be skilled at sales in order to succeed. If anything, we should all wish that good people be far more skilled and effective at sales and persuasion, so that they can better differentiate themselves from the scammers, con men and fake entrepreneurs.
A world in which good people were better at sales would be far more enjoyable and profitable for all of us. The reverse could be said for a world where bad people were better at sales.
If you push someone off a cliff and he dies, you’re a criminal. If you push someone off a cliff, and he flies, you’re an angel.
Sometimes we all need a push from an angel.
Thus, when good people like you and me feel ashamed about selling something, we must ask ourselves, “Am I selling a product, service or idea that will make the world a better place?”
If the answer is “yes,” we better get as good at selling as possible for the greater good.
If the answer is “no,” we ought to immediately stop what we’re doing and find something that will help make the world a better place.
Selling + good product = good
Selling + bad product = bad
Selling + mediocre product = waste of time for everyone
If Nothing Changes, You’re Already Dead
In life, you’re either growing or dying. There is no middle ground.
If the grass in your lawn doesn’t grow a little bit today, it’s dead. That’s how nature works.
If you want to be successful, it’s not enough to rely on one skill or perspective. We must look at both sides. We must master all the skills required for our mission at hand. And we must have our hearts in the right place and work for the greater good.
If this all sounds a little too touchy-feely, just imagine a world where everyone was a master salesperson selling horrible products and investment scams. That world would be awful for everyone, even the greatest salesperson in the world. I’d rather live broke in this world than be the richest person alive in that world.
We may not be able to control what others do, but we can sure as heck control our own actions. So why not act in the best interest of ourselves and everyone else?
Ambitious people are those who work hard, greatly benefitting themselves and others through their efforts. Mother Theresa, Gandhi, Steve Jobs and countless others named and unnamed fall in this category.
Their hard work allowed them to live lives most of us only dream about. Yet for all the billions of dollars, accolades and awards they earned, it was only but a miniscule fraction of the wealth these great people spread across the entire planet.
Greedy people, on the other hand, are those who wish to benefit themselves at the expense of others. They are like viruses that threaten our very existence. The more wealthy a greedy person becomes, the poorer the rest of us become, because that wealth was simply transferred inefficiently from one place to another (algorithmic traders come to mind).
But like viruses, they can help inadvertently improve the strength of our collective immune system. When we got rid of Enron, we all became a little wiser and more cautious. Congress even passed a few laws to help avoid such situations in the future (whether or not those laws actually work as intended is another story).
The great thing about humans, though, is that we can all learn from our own mistakes, and the mistakes of others.
What I love about personal development is that it encourages us to learn, to grow, and to evolve.
Above all, I believe the ability to learn new ideas and to change our existing ideas and beliefs is the greatest skill we can acquire.
The real estate market changed from 2006 to 2009, and if you didn’t change with it, you may still be suffering the pain from that experience. Change is constant, and more change is coming.
If you want to do better in the future and avoid major pitfalls, you’re going to need more than just positive thinking. You’re going to need more skills.
Questions to Keep You on Track
Here are a few questions to help keep you on track no matter what happens. Grab your notebook and write these down. Copy and paste them into Evernote or on your blog.
Keep them with you and refer back to them when you’re feeling stuck, or uncertain, or when you’re tempted to fall into the “positive thinking will solve all my problems” trap.
Are you keeping up or falling behind with the important changes in your world?
Are you constantly learning new skills?
Are you looking at your current situation objectively or with drunk goggles?
Do you see both sides? What if everything you think you know about this issue is completely wrong?
Are you selling something great, mediocre or bad to yourself, to your customers, and to your family?
Are you ambitious or greedy or just plain lazy?
Are you creating wealth, simply moving it around or destroying it?
What areas of your life are you not paying enough attention?
Where have you become complacent and accepted mediocrity instead of striving for greatness?
What could you do today that would dramatically improve your life?
If you only had 90 days left to live, what’s one thing you would want to do for others before you go?
About the Author
Tom Corson-Knowles is the international bestselling author of more than 20 books including The Kindle Publishing Bible, founder of TCK Publishing, an independent publishing company specializing in digital marketing, and host of The Publishing Profits Podcast Show. He is also the creator of EbookPublishingSchool.com, a free training program that shows authors how to publish and market their books professionally.
Tom believes that every day is a gift, and you might as well make the most of it (even if your grandma did give you another ugly sweater for Christmas). When you realize how precious life really is, you must ultimately realize that the only sensible course of action is to find something worth creating and working your ass off to make it happen. If you want to learn how to make it happen, check out Tom's breakthrough video training course Unleash Your Creative Genius.
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