Belief as a Business Strategy
World-class doctors use "belief" as a powerful medicinal. What's good enough to use for issues of life and death should be good enough for us to use in the world of business too.
Physicians refer to the curative powers of "belief" as "the placebo effect." This describes the phenomena of curing a patient by giving that patient an inert substance (ex. a sugar pill) by having an accepted authority figure (i.e. doctor) tell them that the pill contains medicine that will cure their ailment. Patients given a placebo are healed at levels equal to or greater than those patients who receive actual medicine.
The religious and new agers amongst us will clearly see similarities between their world view and the placebo effect. The religious explain the phenomena as the power of faith. New agers call it the "law of attraction." Regardless of what name you attach to it, it does appear that when an individual truly believes 100% in something, without hesitation or doubt, that something transforms itself from a concept to reality.
And it doesn't seem to matter whether what you truly believe is "good" or "bad", that which you believe is what gets manifested.
It doesn't surprise us that people like Warren Buffet get wealthier during an economic downturn, because we know he 100% EXPECTS to get wealthier, because he KNOWS (a word for absolute belief) that economic downturns will produce acquisition bargains that he'll uniquely be able to identify and take advantage of, further growing his Berkshire Hathaway empire.
It also doesn't surprise us when our "know it all" neighbor, who is obsessed with reading news of the economic disaster and never misses an opportunity to tell anyone who will listen how terrible it is out there, takes a financial hit during these times. Why is it never these "doom and gloomers" who get a fortunitous break during these times? I believe it's because it goes against the laws of how the universe works. They expect to take a hit, that creates them taking a hit. Buffet expects to find a hidden gem (as he did in his recent partial acquisition of Gold man Sachs), so he finds the hidden gem.
So what do you believe is going to happen in your business in the upcoming year?
Your answer to that question is likely the most important determinant as to whether you're going to be successful or unsuccessful in these times.
If you're not happy with your answer, you need to stop what you're doing and consciously work to find the evidence necessary to change what you believe. I know you can find lots of evidence to back up your answer. That's precisely the problem. Do you want to be right or do you want to be successful?
If you own a business or manage others, you need to start providing your team with lots of evidence as to how they can believe (or hopefully get to the point of absolute knowing) that your organization is going to thrive and be successful.
It's very simple, what happens in the world is one thing. What happens in YOUR world is another.
Physicians refer to the curative powers of "belief" as "the placebo effect." This describes the phenomena of curing a patient by giving that patient an inert substance (ex. a sugar pill) by having an accepted authority figure (i.e. doctor) tell them that the pill contains medicine that will cure their ailment. Patients given a placebo are healed at levels equal to or greater than those patients who receive actual medicine.
The religious and new agers amongst us will clearly see similarities between their world view and the placebo effect. The religious explain the phenomena as the power of faith. New agers call it the "law of attraction." Regardless of what name you attach to it, it does appear that when an individual truly believes 100% in something, without hesitation or doubt, that something transforms itself from a concept to reality.
And it doesn't seem to matter whether what you truly believe is "good" or "bad", that which you believe is what gets manifested.
It doesn't surprise us that people like Warren Buffet get wealthier during an economic downturn, because we know he 100% EXPECTS to get wealthier, because he KNOWS (a word for absolute belief) that economic downturns will produce acquisition bargains that he'll uniquely be able to identify and take advantage of, further growing his Berkshire Hathaway empire.
It also doesn't surprise us when our "know it all" neighbor, who is obsessed with reading news of the economic disaster and never misses an opportunity to tell anyone who will listen how terrible it is out there, takes a financial hit during these times. Why is it never these "doom and gloomers" who get a fortunitous break during these times? I believe it's because it goes against the laws of how the universe works. They expect to take a hit, that creates them taking a hit. Buffet expects to find a hidden gem (as he did in his recent partial acquisition of Gold man Sachs), so he finds the hidden gem.
So what do you believe is going to happen in your business in the upcoming year?
Your answer to that question is likely the most important determinant as to whether you're going to be successful or unsuccessful in these times.
If you're not happy with your answer, you need to stop what you're doing and consciously work to find the evidence necessary to change what you believe. I know you can find lots of evidence to back up your answer. That's precisely the problem. Do you want to be right or do you want to be successful?
If you own a business or manage others, you need to start providing your team with lots of evidence as to how they can believe (or hopefully get to the point of absolute knowing) that your organization is going to thrive and be successful.
It's very simple, what happens in the world is one thing. What happens in YOUR world is another.
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12/23/2008 11:32 AM
Pastrami to Publishing wrote:
Most people couldn't. Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, isn't most people.
At the time, the hit Apple II computer was running out of gas and Jobs was passionately pursuing a pet project that would eventually become the Apple Macintosh. While he pursued the Macintosh with mesianic zeal, he needed a more orthodox chief executive to
run the company. A respectable face who could sell Apple to the investment community and corporate America. He wanted John Sculley.
But Sculley, who had joined PepsiCo as a trainee and became the company's youngest ever VP of Marketing in 1970, had little incentive to make a change. ... -
12/23/2008 11:57 AM
Pastrami to Publishing wrote:
Most people couldn't. Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, isn't most people.
At the time, the hit Apple II computer was running out of gas and Jobs was passionately pursuing a pet project that would eventually become the Apple Macintosh. While he pursued the Macintosh with mesianic zeal, he needed a more orthodox chief executive to
run the company. A respectable face who could sell Apple to the investment community and corporate America. He wanted John Sculley.
But Sculley, who had joined PepsiCo as a trainee and became the company's youngest ever VP of Marketing in 1970, had little incentive to make a change. ...
You know honestly it can sometimes be just as simple as believing in what you do. It's not always easy to be confident but, if you can't achieve it, if you don't believe it. That's what I always say.
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