For elite performance, you have to think like an elite performer

In his post, Manj W, does a great job at looking at modelling the mindset that fuels outstanding success.

Key 1: The Thinker

Life follows thought; so be careful what you think. Where your thinking goes, your energy flows. There’s no point in setting goals and outcomes and then having uncontrolled thoughts about not achieving them. Make sure your thinking supports the outcomes you desire. Make this a daily practice and activate the positive thinker behind the thoughts.

Key 2: How’s Your Mini-Me?

Watch out for your self-talk. You know, that little voice in your head. I affectionately call it your Mini-Me. Some people hear it consciously more than others; however, we all have one. Get it on your side! Inner monologue/dialogue is a manifestation of the mindsets you have in your unconscious mind.

The unconscious mind, also known as the subconscious mind, is the greater part of your mind and contains your auto-pilot. Neuroscience research states that your unconscious mind controls what you think at a very deep level 95% of the time. Elite performers control how they speak to themselves. If need be, re-train your own Mini-Me, and make sure it only says things that support what you want to achieve.

Key 3: Build Your Ignoring Muscle

When going for your goals, ignore the negative circumstances around you. This is a trait of super-achievers and the high-net worth entrepreneurs that I coach. They do not allow any negativity around them to knock them off course — including negative people. So make sure you put your negativity deflection armour on and keep going. If you find this difficult to do, you really need to implement Key 5 below.

Key 4: What’s Playing At Your Cinema?

Stop referring to failures from your past. If you’re the type of person that does this, you need to stop it immediately. It’s the perfect way to condition yourself for failure and one sure-fire way of sabotaging your goals. Besides, would you go to see a bad movie at the cinema over and over again? Just do the opposite and refer to past successes, no matter how small they may be. Go on, be the star and load a great movie instead!

Key 5: Are You Boring Your Own Mind Cells?

Over the years I have noticed that people can often fail because their goals are too small. Why is this? One reason is that people set small goals to avoid disappointment. It’s a fear of failure and a lack mentality, and will often create the opposite conditions needed for success. A series of smaller goals linked to a big goal is fine; however, small discrete goals run the risk of not getting you excited enough and not giving you enough purpose to reach success.

Have you noticed that super-achievers — from money-makers to inventors to humanitarians — all set big goals that really excite and juice them? So please don’t bore your own mind cells! Set big goals and get something exciting in motion.

Key 6: Mission Impossible?

Successful people understand that the environment they are in will affect and condition their thinking. This includes who they hang around with — their peer group.

It is said that you become the sum of the five people you are in contact with the most. So maybe this is a good time to take stock and have a good look around you? Remember, you may not spend most of your time with your best friends. It may be with work colleagues or others. Whoever it is, do they think and speak in the way that inspires success? Do they support your goals? Are they on the same mission as you?

Key 7: A Little Help…

Richard Branson asked the question: what do he, Larry Page and Steve Jobs have in common? They all, at some time or another, had support from a mentor. Larry Page, executive chairman of Google, said that the best advice he ever received was to hire a mentor. Elite performers, whether in sport or business, often have someone they can turn to. They understand that they do not have all the answers themselves, and they embrace the need for continuous improvement.

There are generally two types of support available in this area. The first is a technical mentor; someone experienced in your field that can give you advice on doing your job or business better. The second is a coach who can help you with your mindset and other areas such as communication, leadership, creativity, etc. If you work for an organisation, there may be an internal mentoring scheme in place. If not, you may wish to make a proposal to have one set up. I also recommend you invest in yourself and look to hire a coach that will support you on the road to future success.

----

Great thinking  - which remind me I must get a coach and soon. 

A survey for a start up in Manchester aiming at Digital Marketeers. Which I am part of.

Are you into digital marketing? Do you use PPC?

Do me a massive favour and answer these questions all about the industry.

I'd really appreciate it - and you get £60 worth of services if / when the idea launches.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

The #IceBucketChallenge, the hype cycle and an experiment we didn’t know we were going through.

As written earlier this week by the Chief Creative Officer at Wunderman UK, in his great piece – on How an Ice Bucket Broke the Laws of Marketing... 

“The latest figures show there have been over 2.4 million #icebucketchallenge videos on Facebook, 3.7 million videos on Instagram, and 4.5 million mentions on Twitter. More than 28 million people have engaged with the campaign on social media (comments, likes and uploads).…In just August, the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Association has collected US$98.2 million in donations (over 36 times the amount donated in the same month in the previous year).”

But apart from the money raised (which is surely the main point) the phenomena is of interest to me from a theoretical POV because it obeys The Hype Cycle (something I love)

Personally don’t believe it breaks marketing rules at all, as Matt B from Wundermann believes, in fact argue there are 12 good reasons why it works so well – many from a marketing POV. But…  

Have we been through the cycle?

However, I have noticed that we have been through the hype cycle. Which has taken a LOT longer than many people think i.e. the ice bucket challenge as a concept started in 2013, which was then adopted by ALS in July 2014 only to really take off with the trigger of tech CEO’s doing it and then celebrity CEO’s and then celebrities. In some respect the whole thing has acted like a perfect storm with lightning striking for the charity.

The concept also managed organically to use such celebrities and techies to “cross the chasm” to go from visionaries (the people who thought this up were sports people mainly – as they have a culture of pranks) to early adopters and techies crossing the chasm with the power of celebrities.  

It is on interest to me as a reporter asked me the other day….

“Did I think the ice bucket challenge, as an idea, was over?”

My reply which wasn’t aired was I thought the concept was over when my mother in law did a challenge last week. (August 26^th). But I may have been wrong – as in silver surfer terms they are very much early adopters (my father in law has his own 3D printer already) so perhaps we are not done yet with the #icebucketchallenge

Key take aways:

• Everything goes through a hype cycle.
• It depends which group you are part of to how you see it.
• Marketing can be the technological trigger which causes the hype – but it is much more likely to be celebrity endorsement – on top of technology and social media.
• The trough of disillusionment creates new opportunities for 2^nd generation idea creators 

i.e. As Matt from Winderman reports:

“In the UK, the Motor Neurone Disease Association was given £2.7 million in just one week (22-29 August) from ice bucket devotees, compared to the average £200,000 donated in a normal week.

Macmillian Cancer Support in the UK responded to social pressure and jumped on this icy bandwagon, raising £3 million.”

What I would like to know is. 

Where do you think we are now with it?

Position 1, 2,3, or 4 and why?

Has your company done it yet? 

Has your grandma done it yet?

Are you bored of it already? 

Is money still being made for ALS? 

Worth remembering - 50 great marketing quotes. Which 3 do you love most?

I love... 26. 37 and 49 (and 50...) What about you? 

1. “Make your marketing so useful people would pay you for it.” – Jay Baer
2. “If your stories are all about your products and services, that’s not storytelling. It’s a brochure. Give yourself permission to make the story bigger.” – Jay Baer
3. “In advertising, not to be different is virtually suicidal.” – Bill Bernbach (Here’s more wisdom from this great MadMan.)
4. “A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.” – Jeff Bezos
5. “Publicity is absolutely critical. A good PR story is infinitely more effective than a front page ad.” – Richard Branson
6. “Stories are how we learn best. We absorb numbers and facts and details, but we keep them all glued into our heads with stories.” – Chris Brogan
7. “The key is, no matter what story you tell, make your buyer the hero.” – Chris Brogan
8. “Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read.” – Leo Burnett (Here are 12 advertising lessons from Leo Burnett that are still relevant today.)
9. “People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.” – Dale Carnegie
10. “Talk to someone about themselves and they’ll listen for hours.” – Dale Carnegie
11. “Good marketing makes the company look smart. Great marketing makes the customer feel smart.” – Joe Chernov
12. “Advertising is what you do when you can’t go see somebody. That’s all it is.” – Fairfax Cone
13. “The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.” – Confucius
14. “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.“ – Peter Drucker
15. “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” – Bill Gates
16. “If you show people the problems and you show people the solutions they will be moved to act.” – Bill Gates
17. “Marketing is a contest for people’s attention.” – Seth Godin
18. “Permission marketing is marketing without interruptions.” – Seth Godin
19. “Good content isn’t about good storytelling. It’s about telling a true story well.” – Ann Handley
20. “Make the customer the hero of your story.” – Ann Handley
21. “Give them quality. That’s the best kind of advertising.” – Milton Hershey
22. “I’d rather spend money on things that improve the customer experience than on marketing.” – Tony Hsieh
23. “We decided that if we get the culture right, most of the stuff, like building a brand around delivering the very best customer service, will just take care of itself.” – Tony Hsieh
24. “Bring the best of your authentic self to every opportunity.” – John Jantsch
25. “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” – Steve Jobs (Here are 7 of Steve Jobs’ Marketing Lessons.)
26. “Quality is much better than quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles.” – Steve Jobs
27. “The worst advice? ‘Don’t listen to the critics.’ I think that you really ought to listen to the critics, because sometimes they’re telling you something is broken that you can fix.” – Stephen King
28. “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” – Stephen King
29. “Marketing is the art of creating genuine customer value. It is the art of helping your customer become better off.” – Phillip Kotler
30. “Companies pay too much attention to the cost of doing something.  They should worry more about the cost of not doing it.” – Phillip Kotler
31. “Marketing is what you do when your product is no good.” – Edwin H. Land
32. “Content is the atomic particle of all digital marketing. Everything.”  – Rebecca Lieb
33. “People share, read and generally engage more with any type of content when it’s surfaced through friends and people they know and trust.” – Malorie Lucich (Facebook)
34. “Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.” – Niccolò Machiavelli
35. “Blogging isn’t about publishing as much as you can. It’s about publishing as smart as you can.” – Jon Morrow
36. “Anyone can start a blog, but the real test is getting readers.” – Jon Morrow
37. “Content Isn’t King, It’s the Kingdom.” – Lee Odden
38. “The consumer isn’t a moron. She is your wife.” – David Ogilvy (Here are5 content marketing lessons from an original MadMan.)
39. “…the most critical part of a successful content marketing program is building your audience….Without the audience, we cannot drive revenue of any kind.” – JoePulizzi
40. “A branding program should be designed to differentiate your cow from all the other cattle on the range. Even if all the cattle on the range look pretty much alike.” – Al Ries
41. “You must make the product interesting, not just make the ad different.”  – Rosser Reeves
42. “Take some initiative and snap outside of passivity; consistent small actions have impact.” – Darren Rowse
43. “Nobody cares about your products (except you)” – David Meerman Scott,
44. “… many organizations don’t realize that they have a much better option—they can tell their story directly to an interested market.” – David Meerman Scott,
45. “The simplest definition of advertising, and one that will probably meet the test of critical examination, is that advertising is selling in print.” – Daniel Starch
46. “If you want to understand how a lion hunts, don’t go to the zoo. Go to the jungle.” – Jim Stengal
47. “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” – Sun-Tzu
48. “To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy.” – Sun Tzu
49. “When it call comes down to it, nothing trumps execution.” – Gary Vaynerchuk
50. “Don’t sell the steak. Sell the sizzle.” – Elmer Wheeler.