How we think controls everything we do. There is no getting away from the fact that what we experience in our lives, impacts our behaviour in some way or another.

Don’t worry I’m not about to start harping on or discuss those inner demons or anything like that so you can carry on reading!

I’m just going to identify some practical methods that can really change your behaviour patterns as an entrepreneur.

By using these strategies you will be able to “Turn Ordinary Business into Extraordinary Business”

I want to start with a little story that happened to me a fair few years ago, that has stuck with me throughout everything I do.

I use to work at a college lecturing Psychology, and in order for our team to improve our students results our head of department had arranged for a Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) expert to come and talk to us. The purpose of the session was to identify the role Lecturers play in developing students to achieve their goals.

I remember the session like it was yesterday! The department I was in contained a real mixed bunch, ranging in age from 24 – 65, all with different experiences, some had been lecturing for years some had just started!

What was apparent was that the older, more cynical members of the group did not really want to be there. They couldn’t see how the session was going to benefit them and their students in any way shape or form.

NLP is all about successful experiences and how by reinforcing those successful experiences we can educate ourselves in self awareness and effective communication.

Two members of the group really stood out for me, both male, mid 40’s, lectured for years and worked with many students.

Over the years they had developed the attitude that it was a lecturers responsibility to inform their students what their capabilities were.

Do you agree with this?

If you were a lecturer would you feel it was your role to tell your students what they could or couldn’t do?

They took the approach that if a student came to them and said they wanted to do a certain subject or pursue a certain career that it was their responsibility to say NO YOU CAN’T DO THAT, YOU WILL NEVER SUCCEED.

I found this pretty hard to stomach and the session turned into quite a heated discussion. I wanted to know why on earth they thought they could dampen someone ambitions in one foul swoop.

As lecturers we have a responsibility to assist learning and encourage development not stop it dead in its tracks.

The session moved on and we were asked to do a variety of tasks one that really stood out for me was that we were asked to stand at one end of the room and imagine a line running from one end of the room to the other.

We were then told to envisage this line was a time line. At the end of it was where you wanted to be in 10 years time.

Once this image was clear in our mind, we were instructed to walk up the time line, identifying at every stage exactly what you needed to do to achieve that goal of where you wanted to be.

The purpose of the exercise was really to get us to focus on our goal and exactly what needed to be done to reach it.

At this point no one knew what each other had imagined. One by one we revealed exactly what we had thought about. One of men I mentioned answered with:

‘To be still at the college and doing what I am doing now’

The other man said something almost identical!

Well for me that explained a few things!

They had stop setting themselves targets, they had no ambition to improve or develop. But what really bugged me the most was the fact that because they had lost that drive this was now rubbing off on the students they were lecturing.

When it came to me, and I was asked what I had pictured, I responded with:

I want a Ferrari, well its not the Ferrari I want but the self fulfillment that means I have achieved everything I wanted to do that might put me in a position to afford one.

And guess what, a sarcastic laugh filled the room. I don’t need to tell you who were the instigators!

To find out more about how to turn ordinary business into extraordinary business download the free Ebook here