We ALL need coaches, advisors, mentors, but most people focus on LACK rather than opportunity and ABUNDANCE.

The ABUNDANCE they want.

The ABUNDANCE they can create.

The ABUNDANCE that is within reach.

The ABUNDANCE that is right there, but out of sight because the focus is on something else.

The ABUNDANCE that is literally UNLIMITED and BOUNDLESS.

The ABUNDANCE that turns work into play and a life into a lifestyle.

The ABUNDANCE that is ultimate freedom and independence.

The ABUNDANCE that is the foundation of peace and serenity.

The ABUNDANCE they will never have – UNLESS they shift their focus and mindset.

You get what you focus on… So choose your target carefully!

This e-mail response is only slightly edited:

In a BUSY week, I:

• Told [  ] about the benefits of your program
• launched my blog and published my first blog post!
• Updated my website ………………
• Travelled to [     ] and back in a day to visit my dad
• I have connected with Kevin Francis (copywriter) several times
• Got on your conference call
• Lit a fire under [    ]
• Told [    ] the results I’m getting!
• Kept a plethora of clients happy
• Haven’t thought about the recession at all this week!
• Looked for a new office manager
• Administering personal matters for a family member
• Rugby training
• Made a video about one of my key products (that I will put up on YouTube!)
• Been to puppy school info night (woof!)
• Interviewed a new employee
• See accountant for tax year 07/08 & 08/09
• Driving lessons for my 17 year old and steer him into the first XV
• Take him to hospital (concussion) and appropriate medicos
• Helped my18 year old with his commerce engineering degree assignment. I am sending him to you, for a fee of course!
• Will work on the BBQ at rugby tomorrow AM and try to watch their three games
• Will indulge myself with our last race regatta for the season tomorrow arvo
• Measure and select a new kitchen for “investment” house
• Arrange finance for the business
• Deal with various solicitors
• Paid invoices
• Go to puppy school Sunday arvo
• Digest plenty of emails
• Prepare for next workshop

I am with you for guidance.
I love it.
No ifs, buts or reasons, I do want results.
I knew from the moment I saw you at the Hilton last year you were the person to steer or mentor me.
If I had 1 tenth of your skills my business would be national.
You have a great sense of humour, but please don’t forget I am human.
If I sometimes seem a little sluggish, I am!
I am on juice plus and trying to get up earlier to “get fit”
Beyond all that you’re a good bloke.

Thank you!

Someone very wise drew this for me in my early twenties (and I can’t for the life of me remember who it was…). I’ve quite a few really good mentors and I didn’t note who said what – I just committed WHAT they ALL said to memory…

Dr Marc Dussault - Then And Now

But here’s the thing…

What my mentor told me is that IF you think ahead (something I now call 20/20 foresight, all you need to do is KNOW where you want to be THEN and plan for it NOW.

I know this sounds complicated, but I’ll give you a very specific example. When I took a sabbatical to finish my doctorate degree, I decided to go work for a company that I selected according to a 20+ point ‘checklist’… One of the conditions I set for myself was that I would be there for 3 years and once I attained my financial and personal goals, I would leave.

It took 3 1/2 years instead of 3, but by the time I left, I had:

• Acquired a post-graduate law degree, an intellectual indulgence that was a ‘reward’ I wanted to give myself if you can believe that. I love learning and love the structured academic environment that forces you to learn things you otherwise never discover on your own – like jurisprudence, the rule of law and its role in the formation and management of society – the Australian Constitution… I could go on…
• I acquired a corporate governance diploma from the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD). This was an accreditation I wanted to bolster my CV and my skill set to determine if I wanted to serve on company boards. I tried it and realised it’s a bureaucracy and ‘agency’ relationship I don’t enjoy.
• I got fit, lost 10 kilos transforming from a casual to an elite athlete winning not one, but two squash tournaments out of the first three I entered.
• I expanded my understanding of databases, IT integration, health informatics systems, object oriented and relational database programming as well as web services, XML and a whole bunch of other three letter acronyms (TLAs!).
• I was sponsored by an employer to become a Permanent Resident of Australia and intend to become a Citizen very soon.

What’s the point?

I set out to achieve ALL those outcomes BEFORE I ever applied for a job. I knew THEN what I would want ‘NOW’ 3 years later. I made a pact with myself that I would not ‘sell myself short’ for a job. That wasn’t the outcome I wanted.

With 20/20 foresight it’s easier to PLAN FOR SUCCESS than it is to look back with regret.

I am not saying YOU have regrets – what I am saying is that some people do end up where they don’t want to be and for many, the ONLY reason is because they never set out to be anywhere or anything else.

They ‘evolved by default’ rather than ‘revolutionise themselves by design‘.

It’s easy to hit a target you can see and KNOW what it looks like…

Nearly impossible when you don’t know WHERE it is or WHAT it looks like.

If you’d like to start planning NOW to achieve your life goals and dreams, take a look at my programs – I’ve designed them to be accessible for everyone with a model to fit any budget. Go to www.ExponentialPrograms.com and take a look around at both the Business and Internet Mastery Membership Programs.

I have a very unique and exponential way of seeing the world – it’s a mindset I can teach you, so you start

“Live a life of revolution by design rather than

evolution by default to avoid extinction by stagnation.”

– Dr Marc Dussault  –

I started my first company in February of that year. I was so successful that we were operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I had to do something. I decided to automate the digital printing process for CAD (Computer Aided Drafting) files.

I worked 44 hours over 3 days. Literally only stopping to sleep and eat.

44 hours over 3 days. That’s +/- 15 hours a day over a 3-day long weekend.

My friends at the time spent the LONG WEEKEND going out, partying, sleeping in, going to dinner with family, cleaning out the garage, washing their cars, shopping, etc.

I invested in myself and my company. It didn’t kill me (since I am alive to tell the story).

The moral of the story is that I invested 44 hours that weekend and over the next 3 years I sold my ‘SuperCad System’ to over 50 companies across North America that generated more than $500,000 in sales from that ONE WEEKEND OF EFFORT.

7 years after-the-fact I reviewed the SOURCE CODE files and 90% of the files had NEVER BEEN UPDATED = that’s how good the programming was THAT WEEKEND.

What does this mean to you and my friend who is struggling to get a breakthrough?

You are your greatest investment – if you don’t invest in yourself, no one else will. BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE CAN!

If you don’t push yourself, you’ll never do great things.

If you don’t do great things you’ll never get the rewards.

It’s a vicious circle that STARTS AND STOPS WITH YOU.

Now to be crystal clear – I AM NOT ADVOCATING to do this EVERY WEEKEND – God forbid you’d want THAT MUCH SUCCESS…

I am just advocating that if you are struggling with a BIG BREAKTHROUGH, take care of it NOW rather than later and REAP THE REWARDS.

Just in case you thought this was a one-off, it’s not.

I completed my Doctoral Thesis in LESS than 3 months.

By the way, my 500-page thesis included more than 1,200 references, 46 summary tables, 19 figures and a whopping 8 appendices! The file size was so big, Microsoft Word kept crashing forcing me to put the appendices in a separate file! My thesis was reviewed by two International examiners and accepted as-is without a request for any revisions!

3 months.

Now, I was on a sabbatical at the time, but I often worked 36 to 42 hours straight without sleep. I created 110 MAJOR revisions and DOZENS of updates for each one of those revisions, updating and refining it more than 1,000 times.

That was a MONUMENTAL EFFORT is a very short period of time – MOST Ph.D. students spend 2 to 3 YEARS writing their thesis, that’s 24 to 36 months = 8 to 12 times LONGER than I took.

Bottom line: When you COMPRESS your learning, you also IMPROVE your comprehension and SKILL LEVEL.

Think about it.

If you play a sport EVERY DAY for 4 weeks – HOW GOOD do you get? I think you’d agree you’d be a LOT BETTER than playing once every two weeks for a year…

Guess what? That’s about the same amount of TIME, but NOT anywhere the same result.

So what are YOU going to do?

The ONLY person who will ever know if YOU let yourself down is…. you.

Psst!

If you have been to Antony Robbins’ Unleash The Power Within event – that’s a 4-day weekend event that changes lives… Why not change your own life THIS WEEKEND?!?!

Juggling 10 Balls and dropping 6 is not the same as juggling 4 balls

Juggling 10 balls and dropping 6 is not like juggling 4 balls.

First of all it’s a lot harder and you don’t look very good dropping the 6 balls even though most people can’t even juggle 3 balls. That’s the point – PUT THE BALLS DOWN AND JUGGLE THE ONES you can handle THEN and ONLY THEN do you toss another ball in the air.

Successful people juggle a lot of balls and the less successful think it’s the way to go – doing MULTIPLE things at a time.

It’s not. It’s a recipe for disaster and makes you look foolish.

Stop it! Re-gain your compose, reduce your stress and improve your results.

That’s it for today – short and sweet.

First and foremost, you need to WRITE your new year’s resolutions down on paper. Then you need to expand on each one to make sure YOU are clear about each one means.

For example, one of mine is something like “Expand my cultural horizons’ which to me means travelling, reading and watching movies that are non-blockbuster style productions.

Last night, walking back from a lovely dinner with the view of the Sydney Opera House, Istopped at one of my favorite bookstores where I picked up about a dozen ‘mini books’ on philosophers, ‘thinkers’, writers… George Orwell, Henry David Thoreau, Thomas Hobbes, Michel De Montaigne, Soren Kierkegaard, Adam Smith, Voltaire, Lucretius, Leo Tolstoy, William Morris. Each book is +/-100 pages on one seminal work from that author. They are practical to travel with and easy to read in transit. Short enough to capture the essence without being too complicated or extensive to get bored if the subject is not my thing.

The point is that I would not have had the thought to buy them had I not written down my new year’s resolutions and my Reticular Activation System (RAS) would not have ‘zeroed in’ on these particular books, “TELLING ME” to buy them.
Further along on my trip back home, we dropped into the Apple store – absolutely beautiful – and I signed up for their 52 One On One tutorials for $129. Yep $3/hour for 1:1 tutoring… The goal is for them to teach you to use your Mac more so you buy MORE. Brilliant!

I will learn more advanced techniques to mix and edit my audio podcasts to inserting music and jingles, then how to edit movies and presentations and other cool stuff that will save me heaps of time…

Bottom line: Get your new year’s resolutions down on paper and define what each one means to you and watch, listen and feel what happens when your RAS kicks into gear.

That’s it for today – nice and easy and simple, as it should be!

The results say quite a bit about how much and how little people value their time.

Interestingly, the results are polarised – either people value their time or they don’t….

More telling is that the higher up the food chain they are, the more they value their time. What do you think would happen if you STARTED to value your time sooner in your career? Do you think that would accelerate your ascension to the top?

The insights continue with older people valuing their time more than younger respondents and WOMEN valuing their time much more than the MEN…!

These are NOT scientific results, just another way of triggering you to THINK about the VALUE of your time. It’s going to be one of the themes of my new Personal Mastery Program and one of the components of the Personal Prosperity Planning System™ that will bring this all together into a power-packed solution.

Stay tuned and keep pushing yourself…

Onward and upward!
Marc

P.S.

To take part in this poll, click on the hyperlink to tell me what you think one extra hour per day is worth to you. More information on the Personal Prosperity Planning System™ will be available on my website – www.MarcDussault.com soon…

But I can usually play a round under 100 which is better than most social golfers.

That is a blog post for another day.

I wrote about the concept of stop doing what’s holding you back in a previous post on my Internet Mastery Blog.

Today’s lesson is the lesson of aiming for the center of the green instead of the hole.

Watch this video to fully grasp the meaning of NOT doing this.

Phil Mickelson is one of the all-time great golfers which proves that even the best struggle with this simple concept.

I often hear of people trying to thread the needle when they can’t even HOLD the needle let alone the thread in their fingers.

Simple examples include:

• Someone focusing on the top 5% when the bottom 95% isn’t working. I remember a friend of mine who worked as a 100% commission-based salesperson who would wake up late, get into work at 9, 9:30 sometimes even 10 AM and try to focus on ‘pressure closing’ strategies instead of getting up early, getting PREPARED and not forcing stuff down people’s throats BECAUSE he had limited time to call them. Instead of building rapport (aim for the center of the green) he was trying to PRESSURE CLOSE the sale (the hole).
• I’ve played B-grade squash players who are going for the kill shot that they are not good enough to hit EVEN WHEN THEY ARE OUT OF POSITION instead of hitting the safe shot, staying in the rally and having a chance of winning the point.
• I’ve had people on the verge of bankruptcy come to me and ask me strategic planning questions while they are on their corporate deathbed. As if it would help to get an extra $10,000 in the bank when it’s overdrawn $100,000 and is running a $30,000/month deficit.

Aiming for the centre of the green reduced my golf score by at least 10 shots, if not 20. It’s easier said than done, but y’know what?

Once you experience it for yourself and win games BECAUSE of this one strategy, you’ll soon get hooked – TO THE STRATEGY (and maybe even golf!).

Onward and upward!
Dr Marc Dussault

P.S.

Stephen Covey of ‘The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People” covered this in his book called “First Things First”. The reason I am posting this lesson for you is because it’s priceless in its simplicity and elegance.

In a recession when the going gets tough, you need SIMPLE and EASY strategies like this one to keep you winning the game of business and life.

Going for the center of the green means creating VALUE for clients and KNOWING that the money will flow. Once ON the green, it’s easier to putt than to chip in from the rough.

One last quick story: I had a friend who was in industrial real estate and for 3 years made $15,000 of base salary with $15,000 in operating costs (car, fuel, repairs, etc.) which meant he made no money. BUT he kept thinking he would make a killing on a big deal (the hole in one). Unfortunately he never got his hole-in-one

By the way, Ruben Putrananda who is a golf enthusiast sent me the golf video – go check out his website www.homedeclutterandfun.com. He’s upgrading it using the 1 percent improvement principle so you’ll want to bookmark it and take a look at it in a few weeks/months as it evolves!

Today’s lesson is so simple but so powerful it’s a classic.

STRATEGY will beat TACTICS 9 times out of 10.

Yesterday TACTICS won the games, but it might not have worked if I was able to apply my STRATEGY and be 2, 3 or 4% tighter with my shots… The games were not runaway victories…

Today was all about STRATEGY over TACTICS.

My opponent today has a TACTIC that he uses and I am sure it works for him – it’s the TACTIC of intimidation with a bump and grind interference game – the goal is to get in the person’s way as much as possible and get lets and strokes awarded and keep the other guy off his game and make sure he never gets to use his STRATEGY.

That works UNLESS someone has a STRATEGY to counter-act this TACTIC.

Growing up playing competitive Ice Hockey, a little intimidation and a few collisions from time to time brings back very fond memories…

So that TACTIC doesn’t work on me.

AND it works against the person who RELIES ON IT TO WIN, especially one who doesn’t have the talent or STRATEGY to adapt.

So I stuck to my STRATEGY and took the match in what must have been less than 15 minutes in total.

In case you want to know what the strategy is…

Just put the ball away from where you are – LITERALLY. That way he can’t be interfering with you if he’s chasing the ball all over the place! BECAUSE this is his TACTIC, he’s not used to running for the ball, so my shots don’t have to be as accurate which makes it EASIER for me to actually win.

It’s a great feeling when you can turn someone’s TACTIC against them – kind of like in Judo when you use the other person’s weight and momentum against them.

Fun stuff when you’re SMART enough to know the STRATEGY and then good enough to deploy it!

Now that I got the squash stuff out of the way, I guess the lesson for business and life is pretty self-evident, but just in case, here it is.

Whenever someone runs a pattern or TACTIC against you, there usually is a STRATEGY that can counteract it effectively – first, neutralising it and second, leveraging it to your advantage. If a competitor is TACTICAL and aggressive about a particular TACTIC, you can learn to counteract it and USE it to your advantage.

Competitors who are TACTICAL usually have 1, 2 or 3 TACTICS at most. With a STRATEGIC approach, you can easily win the game.

That’s Mastery.

Once achieved, you dictate the game, pace and outcome.

Onward and upward!
Dr Marc Dussault

Australia’s #1 Exponential Growth Strategist

P.S.

As I discuss in my books “Get The Best Grades With The Least Amount Of Effort” and the business person’s edition “Get The Best Business Results With The Least Amount Of Effort“, I play squash to expand my Circle Of Influence™.

As I do that in squash, I begin to see parallels and comparisons in my personal, financial, emotional and business lives that until that moment remained hidden. Those awakenings are priceless lessons in self-awareness that make the journey enlightening and rewarding beyond description.

I get to see and be with the best in the world doing what they do best. As I observe, as an ACTIVE PARTICIPANT in the process, I can extrapolate my own experiences, emotions, thoughts and feelings to other matches and situations as I simultaneously interpolate and interpret other people’s experiences within my own new, expanded Circle Of Influence™.

I urge you to do as I suggested a few days ago that you really should (if you’re not already doing it) engage in something OUTSIDE of work that inspires, motivates and empassions you to become the best at it.

This can be a sport, musical instrument, hobby or body of knowledge.

Start today and take one SMALL ACTION and you’ll soon realise you’re on the path to self-discovery that will embolden and empower you to consider boundless opportunities with timeless abandon.

When you’re ‘there’, someone will have to remind you that you’re “45″ and not a teenager running around a white room chasing a little black ball..

But it won’t matter – you won’t care because you’ll be having the time of your life, living it as you should – to the fullest, care free and with child-like abandon!

I played an ‘unorthodox’ player today who wasn’t better than me technically, but came up with the non-tradition shots that I couldn’t respond to due to lack of match experience.

This was the one thing I couldn’t avoid this year because I haven’t played a single tournament in the last two years. With my travel schedule with a lot of weekend events, it just wasn’t something that was possible..

I lost in three games, knowing that there is NO CHANCE WHATSOEVER that this will happen again next year. NONE, NADA, ZIP, NYET, ZERO.

This is why competing at ‘this level’ is priceless. This isn’t a squash blog so I won’t bore you with the squash distinctions, instead I’ll give you some ‘life lessons’:

• You need to know what arena you’re playing in – just like a boxer that gets in the ring, hits and kicks below the belt are not allowed. Today’s match was more of a street fight than a boxing match. I ‘box’ well, now I have to learn to ‘street fight’. I knew that, but it’s so much more tactile and ‘real’ when you get off the court realising you lost the game rather than the other person ‘winning’. In business, if you’re in an industry with scrappy players, you need to know the ‘rules’ people are playing by and elevate your game accordingly as I explain below.
• Strategy, maturity and vision are extremely important, especially at times like these. Like Superman, I knew that if someone showed up with Kryptonite, I had no defence. It’s the luck of the draw and I accept that – THIS YEAR. Next year’s a totally different story. If you know your strengths and weaknesses in business, you can try to avoid your Kryptonite as much as possible, but if you want REAL, ULTIMATE SUCCESS, you must find an antidote. Otherwise the ultimate prize will never be yours.
• Find out what to work on to get the MAXIMUM results. I now know that my fitness is not an issue – I am as fit as I need to be to playing in the top ’32′. I need to focus on my racquet skills and match experience. The former I can work at on my own, the second will require considerable travel to compete in tournaments to get the experience I need. The analogy in business is that as I explained in yesterday’s post “Where you stack up NOW makes a difference LATER“, knowing your strengths and weaknesses as they are now can dramatically improve the speed at which your results will emerge. To stay with the squash analogy, if I fix two or three technical issues with my strokes and/or shot selection, I will start to win games that I am currently losing. If I don’t and just focus on fitness, the only thing that will happen is that I will sweat less after losing the game that I should have won. This is much easier said than done. Without a Business Mentor or a tool like our Marketing Autopsy™, it’s hard to know WHAT TO FOCUS ON TO GET IMMEDIATE RESULTS.
• That’s why great, world-class competition is so valuable. It’s why Formula One racing is funded to the tune of HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS. Car companies can’t test their products any other way…

With all that in mind, I leave you with one thought.

I hate to lose, I really do.

But what I hate more than losing is NOT WINNING. Winning requires that you lose to learn the lessons that make you better. Once you let go of your ego (yes, I know that is not an easy thing to do…) and re-direct your focus to IMPROVEMENT, then and only then can you get back on the ‘winning track’.

I was speaking to a top grade player and she mentioned that everytime she got to the next higher grade, she had to run around like crazy all over again because what worked previously no longer worked at the new, higher standard… That is a priceless insight that’s hard to find anywhere else but at a world-class competition, straight from the mouth of a champion!

That means I have to MAINTAIN my fitness BECAUSE I am going to need it when I get to the next ‘level’!

Onward and upward!
Dr Marc Dussault

Australia’s #1 Exponential Growth Strategist

P.S.

If you know me well, you know today has been a tough day for me, but what keeps me resilient and always ‘setting a new standard’ as Tony Robbins says is that with excellence (outstandingness or extraordinariness in Tony’s terms) comes a sense of confidence that mastery gives you the ability to DICTATE the game.

That is what I am striving for and I know without a doubt I have the talent and ability to ascend to that level.

On a day like today, that’s what keeps me going. I feel the pain, hurt and disappointment like anyone else would – I wanted to win today, but I lost.

I lost because I didn’t have the level of mastery to DICTATE the game.

But I know what I need to do to get that level of Mastery. That’s what I came to discover and it’s CRYSTAL CLEAR to me know – and yes the crystal was green today… very funny!

If you’re a squash fan or addict – the reason I know what I need to do is because at championships like these, there are seeded players and unseeded players. In the first rounds, seeds play players with a lot less talent and ability – yet the ‘unorthodox’ shots don’t win the game BECAUSE they do things SPECIFICALLY to counter-act them…

That is what I didn’t know I didn’t know that I need to know!

By the way, using a metaphor like Superman and Krytonite helps me deal with the situation as I evaluate and assess my progress.

Without metaphors, the Vortex Of Mediocrity™ can have a devastating and debilitationg effect.