Wooden – Success

John Wooden is the best!  Here is a great 20 min video of Wooden. If you have only a little time listen to the first 5 min.  I love what his pops told him about success.  Never try to be better than others, always learn from others, never cease to be the best you can be that’s what you have control over….

http://www.ted.com/talks/john_wooden_on_the_difference_between_winning_and_success.html

Matthew Linklater, Sales Trainer, Personal Coach and Business Mentor Expert, Publishes a New Article Explaining the Benefits of “Perception is Projection” for Attracting Luck.

Matthew Linklater, author of Quick Witted: Saying the Right Thing to Win Big and trainer in the areas of business and personal success, writes about leveraging techniques in repositioning the context of circumstances to change its meaning for better.

Chicago, IL – SEPTEMBER 17, 2010- Matthew Linklater, certified practitioner and coach of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, expert in Time Line Therapy^TM, hypnotist, speaker and author, recently published an article on his website (www.thelinklater.com) about a scientific study’s published findings on the elements of producing lucky outcomes in our lives. The article, titled “Perception is Projection: Make Your Sales Team Luckier,” delves into the three pillars of becoming more lucky – seeing chance opportunities, interpreting our circumstances positively and reframing our minds when things don’t go our way.

Linklater writes, “Isn’t luck something you either have or don’t have? Don’t things seem to simply go well for some, while others struggle to get life to go their way so they can achieve what they want? … if you are typically an unlucky person, then how can you experience outrageous success in your corporate sales or management position?”

“After teaching the communication model of “perception is projection” in my business sales training program, professionals in my courses have become more likely to experience “luck” because their more positive thoughts lead to more success-driving beliefs in their abilities and talents. Your actions will reflect those beliefs, and you’ll see the sales results that you’re longing for,” argues Linklater.

Matthew Linklater, and his business partner and fiancée, Denise Wayman, specialize in Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Time Line Therapy® and hypnosis. They help clients with personal development, positive thinking and action orientation – teaching others to effectively identify and grab hold of their dreams. The dynamic success mentoring team also works with individual clients on their career goals and business teams on sales and performance goals, to manifest extraordinary success for top-line growth and bottom-line profits. Together, Matthew and Denise have a revolutionary Live Your Vision process that aligns mind, body and spirit in the right direction for success.

The entire article can be found at http://thelinklater.com/2010/09/perception-is-projection-make-your-sales-team-luckier/

About Matthew Linklater:

Author, Speaker and Success Coach, Matthew Linklater, offers powerful business consulting and high-impact personal coaching. He has trained business leaders to increase in the critical areas of sales coaching, building instant rapport with others, 3D Communication for negotiation and conflict resolution, motivation of team members, goal achievement, product scripting and leadership. His personal coaching methods incorporate powerful NLP techniques, Time Line Therapy®, the Live Your Vision experience and the Ericksonian Hypnosis method. Matthew Linklater is the author of Quick Witted: Saying the Right Thing to Win Big, and can be found speaking, training or writing the final pages of his upcoming book, Basic Training: Sales Boot Camp.

To learn more about Matthew Linklater, please visit www.thelinklater.com.

Perception is Projection: Make Your Sales Team Luckier

Isn’t luck something you either have or don’t have? Don’t things seem to simply go well for some, while others struggle to get life to go their way so they can achieve what they want? Does it seem to you that your goals are met successfully and your challenges are easily overcome – or alternatively – that your hard work doesn’t always pay off like you had expected? Here’s a more important question… if you are typically an unlucky person, then how can you experience outrageous success in your corporate sales or management position?

I have an answer for you, but first, think about a specific scenario involving chance and luck: when you go to a business function and the company collects business cards to throw in a bowl for a highly desirable grand prize drawing of the latest Apple technological device, what are you thoughts? Would you be more likely to be filled with hope and excitement, with an open-minded perspective that you could possibly be the winner? Or rather, do you shrink back with the overwhelming certainty that since you never win anything, you couldn’t possibly win this time either?

According to a recent Reader’s Digest publication, scientific study results conducted over the course of 10 years show that most of the time, our pre-determined destiny of being “lucky” or “unlucky” is all really just a matter of perspective. “Lucky people,” Richard Wiseman reports, are more likely to be found “seizing chance opportunities; creating self-fulfilling prophesies through positive expectations; and adopting a resilient attitude that turns bad luck around.” The most astonishing test of chance opportunity that Wiseman conducted was asking his 400 test subjects to count the photos in a newspaper that he gave them. The people who considered themselves to be lucky completed the test in a matter of seconds, rather than the several minutes that “unlucky” people spent. Why? The lucky people found a boldly printed message on page two that said they could stop counting photos and win $250 by reporting that they found that message! People who are considered “lucky” have a mind that is more open to possibilities and opportunities. However, unlucky people focus too strictly on what they are searching for, rather than recognizing the obvious potential right before their eyes. Clearly, tunnel vision was not rewarded in this newspaper test!

We see how seizing chance opportunity leads to luck, so how can we cultivate the other two pillars of being lucky – positive thinking and resilient attitude – in our lives to positively affect our business success. In my sales force training courses, I use an affective tool that actually parallels both of these concepts. It’s called “perception is projection”: altering the meaning or value of something by changing the context. Consider with me for a moment that you are pitching a new product to a big client, and you lose the sale. You could easily slump unto a downward spiral of thinking, in which you fret over your failure. You think in your mind that this just confirms that you are generally unlucky anyway. You consider their answer of maybe to be a no, because the outcome did not meet your expectations.

But what if, instead, you reconsidered your initial interpretation of the exchange you had with your potential client and change your perception of the outcome. Perception is projection! Change the situation in your mind to consider the possibility that you might be ahead. You might consider that they need to consult with other team members before making a final decision. Perhaps these clients are highly analytical and tread very carefully before committing to a contract, whereas you are generally accustomed to clients who make more on-the-spot emotional decisions.

After teaching communication model of “perception is projection” in my business sales training program, professionals in my courses have become more likely to experience “luck” because their more positive thoughts lead to more success-driving beliefs in their abilities and talents. Your actions will reflect those beliefs, and you’ll see the sales results that you’re longing for. Even after losing a contract… by changing your perception, you will be more likely to focus on the learning experiences you’ve gained and the relationships that you’ve built from that. Adapt your perception in your mind to reinterpret your work and life more positively. You’ll project what you perceive and when you perceive great results, you have a better chance of reaping great rewards!

Resources:

Wiseman, Richard. “How to Get Lucky: Scientific proof that you make your own breaks.” Reader’s Digest Online. 10 Sept 2010. http://www.rd.com/home-garden/how-to-get-lucky/article27664.html. Accessed 18 Sept 2010.

Business Sales Training Expert, Matthew Linklater, Publishes New Blog Revealing Effective Uses of Metaphors to Change Others’ Thinking.

Matthew Linklater, author of Quick Witted: Saying the Right Thing to Win Big and sales team training expert, writes about leveraging the powerful influence of metaphors to bridge the gap between a business problem and its solution.

Chicago, IL – September 20, 2010 - Matthew Linklater, certified practitioner and coach of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, expert in Time Line Therapy^TM, hypnotist, speaker and author, recently published a blog on his website (www.thelinklater.com) about Chick-fil-a’s marketing approach using catchy metaphors of fire control to change customers’ associations of their products. The blog, titled “Chick-fil-a’s Successful Spicy Chicken Metaphor,” delves into the company’s use of catchy marketing stories to create change in the minds of their customers, helping them to see the fast food stronghold in a new light.

Linklater writes, “Analogies. Comparisons. Parallel associations that bring out meaning through an easily understandable story. I’m talking about metaphors: a tool of communication that helps others to see, hear and/or feel something for a better understanding of something that they may not have understood before. It’s a tool of breakthrough for the person or people that you are interacting with, where you are able to change something complex into something simple.”

“By utilizing fun-filled marketing metaphors for fire-starting flavor innovations, Chick-fil-a has solved a new product sales problem by successfully revolutionizing its customers’ thinking to associate the company’s product offering with a newly diverse range of spicy and non-spicy options,” argues Linklater.

Matthew Linklater, and his business partner and fiancée, Denise Wayman, specialize in Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Time Line Therapy® and hypnosis. They help clients with personal development, positive thinking and action orientation – teaching others to effectively identify and grab hold of their dreams. The dynamic success mentoring team also works with individual clients on their career goals and business teams on sales and performance goals, to manifest extraordinary success for top-line growth and bottom-line profits. Together, Matthew and Denise have a revolutionary Live Your Vision process that aligns mind, body and spirit in the right direction for success.

The entire blog can be found at http://thelinklater.com/2010/09/chick-fil-a/

About Matthew Linklater:

Author, Speaker and Success Coach, Matthew Linklater, offers powerful business consulting and high-impact personal coaching. He has trained business leaders to increase in the critical areas of sales coaching, building instant rapport with others, 3D Communication for negotiation and conflict resolution, motivation of team members, goal achievement, product scripting and leadership. His personal coaching methods incorporate powerful NLP techniques, Time Line Therapy®, the Live Your Vision experience and the Ericksonian Hypnosis method. Matthew Linklater is the author of Quick Witted: Saying the Right Thing to Win Big, and can be found speaking, training or writing the final pages of his upcoming book, Basic Training: Sales Boot Camp.

To learn more about Matthew Linklater, please visit www.thelinklater.com.

Dynamic Presenting!

How do you make a presentation interesting?  You have great information, but you do not want to bore them with too much.  You also do not want to be so abstract that you give them nothing.  You need to find the right logical level of a global perspective to make it interesting while giving them enough specifics to give them actionable ideas.  Be more flexible with your thought!  Quick Witted gives you the techniques to be able to instantly go from a global perspective down to the specifics.  Myers Briggs calls this intuitors (Global) and sensors (details).  Successful people are great at thinking intuitively or global and brining the ideas down to the practical.  The best presentations and trainings are ones that find the right level for the most effectiveness.  The easiest way to start getting more flexible is to practice the simple ideas of chunking up, down and laterally with your thought (techniques from Quick Witted).

Chick-fil-a’s Successful Spicy Chicken Metaphor

Analogies. Comparisons. Parallel associations that bring out meaning through an easily understandable story. I’m talking about metaphors: a tool of communication that helps others to see, hear and/or feel something for a better understanding of something that they may not have understood before. It’s a tool of breakthrough for the person or people that you are interacting with, where you are able to change something complex into something simple. Let me give a business example, to explain how this can be leveraged for corporate success.

Chick-fil-a’s June 2010 roll-out Spicy Chicken Sandwich is somewhat of a revolution for the company’s trustworthy line of low-spice mealtime favorites. The sandwich, in development since 2008, is the first new menu item on the fast food restaurant’s menu boards since the 1989 Chargrilled Chicken Sandwich. That coupled with the company’s reliable history since its incorporation in 1964 makes big changes especially monumental for the company. The problem was… while the company’s marketing research showed that the customers were demanding a spicier product, they still had the challenge of ensuring that the new product roll-out was successful with gaining new customers as well. Rather than going to another restaurant when in the mood for a spicy chicken lunch, Chick-fil-a had to significantly alter the minds of their customers to ensure that people associate the restaurant with regular and spicy chicken sandwich options. How did they do it?

The company’s Vice President of brand strategy and design, William F. “Woody” Faulk, worked within the company’s already-lighthearted marketing approach and used fun metaphors of fire and firefighters to convey the message that their menu has really “heated up” with the new item. Easily recognizable Chick-fil-a cows were designed in printed marketing pieces like promotional signs and billboards, wearing fire fighter hats to encourage safety when eating a “fired up” Spicy Chicken Sandwich. Product packaging was designed with light hearted message warning customers that their lunch “may start mouth fires”. Restaurant table toppers showcase a pretend fire alarm lever for putting out those “dangerous” mouth fires. The marketing metaphors changed the product associations in the minds of the company’s customers.

You see, with metaphors, you’re able to resolve a problem with an easily digestible and comprehensible solution. (notice the metaphor: problems cannot be literally “digested” in our stomachs like Chick-fil-a Spicy Chicken Sandwiches can, but similarly, problems can be broken down in our minds into smaller pieces so that we can process them and come to a solution more quickly).

By utilizing fun-filled marketing metaphors for fire-starting flavor innovations, Chick-fil-a has solved a new product sales problem by successfully revolutionizing its customers’ thinking to associate the company’s product offering with a newly diverse range of spicy and non-spicy options. I encourage you to think about how you can leverage the marketing and communication technique of metaphors in your business to simplify sales problems!

The Gordian Knot

The Gordian Knot is a legend of Phrygian Gordium associated with Alexander the Great. It is often used as a metaphor for an intractable problem, solved by a bold stroke (“cutting the Gordian knot”):

At one time the Phrygians were without a king. An oracle at Telmissus (the ancient capital of Phrygia) decreed that the next man to enter the city driving an ox-cart should become their king. This man was a poor peasant, Gordias, who drove into town on his ox-cart. He was declared king by the priests. This had been predicted in a second way by a sign of the gods, when an eagle had landed on that ox-cart. In gratitude, his son Midas dedicated the ox-cart to the Phrygian god Sabazios (whom the Greeks identified with Zeus) and either tied it to a post or tied its shaft with an intricate knot of cornel (Cornus mas) bark. The ox-cart still stood in the palace of the former kings of Phrygia at Gordium in the fourth century BC when Alexander arrived, at which point Phrygia had been reduced to a satrapy, or province, of the Persian Empire.

In 333 BC, while wintering at Gordium, Alexander the Great attempted to untie the knot. When he could not find the end to the knot to unbind it, he sliced it in half with a stroke of his sword, producing the required ends (the so-called “Alexandrian solution”). That night there was a violent thunderstorm. The prophets took this as a sign that Zeus was pleased and would grant Alexander many victories. Once Alexander had sliced the knot with a sword-stroke, his biographers claimed in retrospect that an oracle further prophesied that the one to untie the knot would become the king of Asia.

We all cannot do what Alexander the Great did and walk around waving a sword at our problems.  The great thing is that you have “Quick Witted”!  QW gives you the techniques to become more flexible in your thinking and become a better lateral thinker and problem solver.  Just like Alexander the Great walked with a sword to slice through his problems, so can you.  Put “Quick Witted” by your side to slice your problems.

Personal Coach and Business Mentor, Matthew Linklater, Inks Publishing Deal With CelebrityPress To Release “Counter-Attack”

Matthew Linklater, personal coach, author and public speaker, has recently signed a publishing deal with marketing and business book publisher, CelebrityPress, along with nationally recognized speaker, author and consultant, Brian Tracy, to release the book “Counter-Attack.”

Chicago, Ill. – September 8, 2010 – Master Coach, Practitioner and Trainer of Nuero-Linguistic Programming, Matthew Linklater, has joined with CelebrityPress and noted business development expert, best-selling author and speaker, Brian Tracy, to publish a new book titled, “Counter-Attack: Business Strategies for Explosive Growth in the New Economy.” Celebrity Press™, founded by JW Dicks, Esq. and Nick Nanton, Esq, is a business book publisher that publishes books from thought leaders around the world.

Personal coach, business mentor and success-seeker Matthew Linklater is an accomplished motivational speaker, author and life-changer. His multifaceted approach uses his expertise as a certified practitioner and coach of Neuro-Linguistic Programming in conjunction with Time Line Therapy® and Hypnosis to help Live Your Vision.  Matt is also the author of Quick-Witted: Saying the Right Thing to Win Big and the forthcoming Basic Training: Sales Boot Camp.

Matthew asks his clients, “What is the one thing, professionaly or personally, which if you had it now you would live the life you dreamed?” Matthew’s goal is to help others to “stop dreaming about your goals and start living your dreams.”

Brian Tracy is Chairman and CEO of Brian Tracy International, a company specializing in the training and development of individuals and organizations. Brian Tracy has consulted for more than 1,000 companies and addressed more than 5,000,000 people in 5,000 talks and seminars throughout the US, Canada and 53 other countries worldwide. As a Keynote speaker and seminar leader, he addresses more than 250,000 people each year.

The forthcoming book, “Counter-Attack: Business Strategies for Explosive Growth in the New Economy” will feature Matthew Linklater and Brian Tracy along with leading experts from around the world across diverse fields of business.  The book will feature business lessons that business owners can use to fight against declining revenues and learn the secrets of success in the new economy.

To learn more about Matthew Linklater, please visit http://www.TheLinklater.com

To learn more about CelebrityPress™, please visit http://www.CelebrityPressPublishing.com

About Matthew Linklater:

Personal coach, business mentor and success-seeker Matthew Linklater is an accomplished motivational speaker, author and life-changer. His multifaceted approach uses his expertise as a certified practitioner and coach of Neuro-Linguistic Programming in conjunction with Time Line Therapy® and Hypnosis to help Live Your Vision.

Matt prides himself on his congruent lifestyle, excelling both personally and professionally and living the healthiest life possible. He knows that when you point the mind, body and spirit in the right direction, you will manifest exactly what you desire.

Matt is the author of two essential books: Quick-Witted and Basic Training.

Quick-Witted: Saying the Right Thing to Win Big. Matt believes the key to success and becoming the go-to person is be creative and a problem solver.

Basic Training: True Sales Training (Coming Fall of 2010) Matt offers state of the art communication technologies to communicate and sell more effectively.

As a speaker, Matt is full of an infectious energy, a passion for life and a gift for high-energy storytelling that captures audience attention and draws them in. Matt leaves the audience wanting more and with actionable usable strategies.

Through Success Coaching, Matt, along with his fiancée Denise, can help reach your dreams through their Live Your Vision coaching process. They believe strongly that the only thing holding us back is the quality of our thoughts. Matt and his beautiful fiancée Denise currently reside in Chicago. When they’re not inspiring people around the globe they can usually be found reading, learning and experiencing life to the fullest.

To learn more about Matthew Linklater, please visit http://www.TheLinklater.com

About Celebrity Press™:

Celebrity Press™, founded by JW Dicks, Esq. and Nick Nanton, Esq, is a business book publisher that publishes books from thought leaders around the world. Celebrity Press™ specializes in helping it’s authors grow their businesses through book publishing. Celebrity Press™ has published books alongside Brian Tracy, Ron Legrand, Mari Smith, Kelly O’Neil, Alexis Martin Neely and many other of the biggest experts across diverse fields.

If you’d like to learn more about Celebrity Press™ or to see if we’re a good fit for your book project, please visit http://www.celebritypresspublishing.com/contact-us

The Goal & The Journey

A couple of years ago I had the great opportunity to hike the Sierra Nevada Mountain range in Yosemite National Park. The hike was to the peak of Half Dome. Half Dome is a 4,737 foot / 17 mile hike. This piece of the Sierra Nevada’s was deemed “perfectly inaccessible” in the early 1870’s. Then in 1875 a man by the name of George G. Anderson accomplished this “perfectly inaccessible” feat. Anderson was followed by, a novice hiker in 2008, by the name of Matt Linklater.
We started the hike at 9am. The first leg was a thigh burning mile walk on a paved path. Next was a stair like climb up The Mist (is a vigorous flowing waterfall). The stair like climb was more like a rugged boulder suicide staircase. That capped off the first 4 miles. The next 2.5 miles was not all that bad. It was a flat walk through sand. The sand instantly began to fill my shoes. The sand walk was followed by another 1 mile leg burning uphill dirt hike. Finally the end was in site. The final mile up was a switchback rock stair case climb. The last 400 feet was a straight up climb along a flat rock surface. To help us to the top were two cables bolted into the rock for us to pull ourselves up. Finally, at about 2 pm we made it to the top of Half Dome. A sense of accomplishment and relief swept over me. That feeling was short lived because I realized that I had to hike the 8.5 miles back down to the base. 3 hours later I was finally at that base. I immediately went to the bar and started to self medicate my aching body.
Although, this climb in hindsight was a great experience, doing it was a little bit of a different matter. The emotional rollercoaster was tougher than the actual task. The uphill climbs, followed by short downhill walks, knowing I will have to only walk back up. I thought of Anderson back in 1875. I doubt he had state of the art hiking boots. I doubt he had a camel back with 3 liters of water connected to a straw inches from his mouth. I doubt he had power bars packed with nutrition. Lastly, I doubt he had cables to ascend the final 400 feet.

This account is how the attainment of any worthwhile goal feels. The greatest joy is the completion of a goal that literally and metaphorically seems to be so far off in the distance. Set the goal, surrender the goal, and take action. With every piece of action and triumph along your journey keep your clearly defined goals in the background. Stop dreaming about your goals and start living your dreams!

Neuro Pathways

Two weeks ago my fiancé and I hiked Mt. Whitney in California. The hike was 22 miles round trip, 6000 feet in elevation and peaked at 14,600 feet. The hike was as exhilarating as it was difficult. Along the way you have many thoughts as you can imagine. One of the things I noticed was the great mountain seemed to form perfect grooves and pathways from water, snow and glaciers traveling down the mountain for thousands of years. The interesting thing is that with grooves that vast, the water must travel in the same way time after time. As I hiked I began to think that we emulate those mass grooves with our nuero pathways. We have such vast nuero pathways inside of us that operate exactly like the mountains pathways have developed. The same way the water travels repeatedly down the same pathways, so do our behaviors. We often wonder why our results in our lives do not change. We wonder how we get stuck in the same circumstances. We may have even ramped up to relative success, and we cannot break through to the next level.
The reason is deductive versus inductive thinking. The reason our results never seem to change is we get caught in our own heads and our own version of how the world works. We always think we have the right way and resist change. I believe it was Einstein that said, “Absolute certitude, absolute exactness, final truth, and so on are figments of the imagination!” This statement is the basis of Quantum Physics. So how do go from deductive thinking and trying to make everything fit so nicely inside your box (your head) to more inductive ways of thinking to create new nuero pathways? Therefore, you can create bigger and better results for your life.