Isn’t it interesting that buying and selling is what makes the world go ’round, and so many entrepreneurs and sales professionals persist in struggling with the whole idea of “having” to sell.

I believe much of this has to do with the Myth of the Used Car Salesman in the Popular Imagination.

It’s the image of a sleazy swindler, trying to take you for all you’ve got.  He’s pushy, manipulative, and is only concerned with one thing, and that’s making sure he makes the sell no matter what.  It doesn’t matter that you don’t even want what he’s selling.

How magnetic or attractive is that?

It’s little wonder people in business for themselves who consider themselves ethical and heart-centered are uncomfortable with selling, and don’t particularly want to refer to themselves as a salesperson.

As I’ve said, I call this the Used Car Salesman Myth.

Is this image true?

Well, myths are considered true or false depending on whose belief system we’re talking about.  For example, we are familiar with the Greek Myths, as in the trials and triumphs of Zeus, Aphrodite, Odysseus, etc.  In modern times, some might refer to the Great Deluge in the Days of Noah as a myth.

For our purposes, however, the truth value of the myth is not the point, or even that important.

It’s the fact that we act as if it were true.

There’s another example I’d like to share with you of this phenomenon.  It’s what I call The Management Myth.

I can stand in front of a group of business managers or CEOs or human resource professionals and put forth the assertion that the tradition top-down, hierarchical, rule-with-the-iron-fist model of management doesn’t work. Rather than motivate, it actually DE-motivates.

When I ask whether they agree, 100% of them affirm my assessment of the situation.

“This is great news,” I congratulate them.  ”But, I can guarantee that most of you — even though you agree with my assessment of the futility of managing in this way — most of you,” I repeat, “will go back to your offices or places of work and manage in accord with this proven ineffective model of management.”

“Either that, or you will fail to manage at all for fear of falling into the trap of the old paradigm I’m calling The Management Myth.”

Does this make sense to you why the truth value of a myth — including whether you and I consciously believe the myth — is of little or no consequence?

So it is with the Myth of the Used Car Salesman.

We struggle with sales and selling because are thoughts and feelings about the matter are incongruent.

We have to adopt a new internal story, a new Sales Myth paradigm.  And that means we must wake up and consciously choose in the moment to do and be something different.

Otherwise, the default is either to act like the Mythical Used Car Salesman acts (How many times have you caught yourself saying or doing something your parents said or did that you vowed you’d never repeat?!) or shy away from effectively selling your goods or services at all for fear you might come across like that Used Car Salesman.

Wake up!  Debunk the Myth!

Choose a new, more empowering sales story for yourself.

Great movie.  It’s a fun and entertaining animated feature for kids, and it is filled with powerful and inspiring messages for both young and older adults.

The Incredibles are a family of undercover superheros trying to live a “normal” life in quiet suburbia, but who discover a plan concocted by a self-made superhero (who calls himself Syndrome) to kill off the real “Supers” and take over the world.

The names of the Superhero Family are Bob Parr (Mr. Incredible), Helen Parr (Mrs. Incredible/Elastigirl), Dashiel “Dash” Parr (Bob and Helen’s son), and Violet Parr (Bob and Helen’s daughter).  There is also Jack Jack, who is the little baby of the family.

If you haven’t seen The Incredibles, here’s a cool trailer on YouTube (just under 2 minutes long) to pique your interest:

I was struck by two related scenes in particular.

The first on is at the end of Scene 4:

Helen is driving her son Dash home from school, following his having been sent to the principal’s office for placing a tack on his teacher’s chair.  Dash had used his superpowers of massive speed to place the tack on the teacher’s seat undetected.

Listen in on their conversation:

“But Dad always said our powers are nothing to be ashamed of, our powers made us special.”

“Everyone’s special, Dash.”

“Which is another way of saying no one is.”

The second scene is at the end of Scene 25:

The whole family (except for Jack Jack, who was left with a babysitter.  That’s a whole story in itself!) has been captured and is in chains, suspended from a wall.   Syndrome, the mastermind behind the plot to take over the world, stands before them.

Just before he exits, leaving The Incredibles chained and suspended, Syndrome eerily echoes Dash’s previously-expressed sentiment:

“I’ll sell my inventions so that everyone can be Super Heroes.  Everyone can be super. “

“And when everyone’s Super (chuckles; dramatic pause) . . . then no one will be.”

Both Dash and Syndrome have got it all wrong.  Even Helen could use a dose of clarity.

This is the problem many entrepreneurs and sales professionals encounter every day.  They tend to stifle themselves and play down their greatness.  Consciously or not, they are ashamed of their ’special powers.’

They don’t want to stand out too much and inadvertently alienate someone.  At the same time, they want prospects to choose them over the “competition.”

Does this describe you?

Well, you can’t have it both ways.  If you refuse to embrace what makes you a “Super” (or you don’t even know what it is that makes you Super) and boldly incorporate that marketing message to the world, you prove Dash and Syndrome’s conclusions right:  Your destiny is to be forever lost in the sea of sameness.

And when prospects place two identical products or services side-by-side, there is only one thing to compete on:  Price.  Unless you’re Wal-Mart (“Always low prices.  Always.”), competing on price is a no-win situation; there will always be someone who can underbid you.

But, when you recognize “Everyone’s special,” the whole idea of competition becomes a ridiculous fiction.  There is no other you.

How can you compete against yourself?

The trick is discovering what Nancy Marmolejo calls Your “Profitable Essence,” and designing your business and your personal brand around that.

Michael Port (affiliate link) refers to it as “Your Quirks”, those qualities, values, and activities you love and are naturally drawn to that make you uniquely you.

After all, there are thousands of other businesses that do what you do.  People don’t do business with businesses; they do business with people.

And those people with whom they do business isn’t everyone on the planet.  You’ve heard it before:  ”People do business with people they know, like, and trust.”

The people who are attracted to you are attracted to YOU.

Didn’t you know everyone else is already taken?

These masterclasses are about $60 for non-members, but my fabulous friend (the Sales Coach & Fundraising Auctioneer) Lori Richardson gifted me this one for free.  (Thank you Lori!)

The topic was “How to Become a Sales Superstar in 2010,” and it centered around Jonathan’s 4-tiered Success Formula Pyramid.  The four tiers are Attitude (the fundamental foundational piece), Skills, Process, and Knowledge.

As we find ourselves beginning the last month of the first quarter of the year, how are you setting yourself up to be Sales Superstar this year?  Where can you improve in these 4 areas?

Here is a graphic depiction of Jonathan Farrington’s Success Formula (Click to Enlarge):

I just learned that you can download (or listen online) this webinar from the Jonathan Farrington’s Blog, or by clicking HERE, but I want to offer a few of my notes on each of these four components to Sales Success Superstardom — a position that is absolutely within your reach.

1. Attitude:  Jonathan says there are two types of personalities:  The “running away” personality, which describes people whose behavior is driven by the desire to avoid pain, and the “running towards” personality, defined by people who are in control, prepared, and allow themselves plenty of time to accomplish what they set out to do.

   Which personality are you cultivating?

   Jonathan puts Attitude at the bottom of the pyramid, the fundamental component of success in sales.  Plan for success by improving and nurturing your “running towards” attitudinal personality, mindset, and action-orientation.

2. Skills:  Sales professionals and teams tend to perpetuate mediocre results because they assume that skills are needed, but have no diagnostic approach to ascertaining exactly what skills are needed, how and when they are needed, and how they will be assessed and measured before and after the training.

   Skills are another foundational component for success, but it must be the right skills at the right time with a specific, clear, and tangible Return On Investment (R.O.I).

   Key Point:  Your training is your responsibility, and it must be continuous and ongoing.

3. Process:  Many sales professionals are resistant to employing process in how they approach sales.  To them, it feels like a time-consuming chose.  Yet, the most successful sales professionals embrace a sales process, which actually saves time.

   In the age of Sales 2.0, exploring and incorporating social media and online tools (examples:  SmartSellingTools.com and FillTheFunnel.com)  in your sales process is essential to sales success in 2010.

4. Knowledge:   Knowledge itself has several components beyond Product Knowledge.  How would you rate yourself in the following additional areas:

• • Industry Knowledge
  • Sector Knowledge
  • Company Knowledge
  • Competitor Knowledge
  • Commercial Knowledge
  • Self Knowledge

That sounds like a lot, doesn’t it?

It is indeed a lot to take in, assimilate, and put into systematic action.  But, do you think you could make just a 1% improvement in 1 or more of these areas each day or each week?

It’s the small, incremental approach to improvement that wins the race every time.

“Every journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step,” quotes Jonathan.  ”Why not take that step today?”

Tom is the CEO of Ziglar, Inc. and the son of the famous best-selling author, sales professional, and motivational speaker Zig Ziglar.

What a tremendous honor it was to interview Tom on the Sales Success Series!

I normally have people register for the specific Tele-Interview they are interested in in order to get access to the replay recording, but for February’s interview with Tom, anyone can access it.

Surf over to http://SalesSuccessSeries.com/tziglar.com/replay.html to listen online or download a copy to your computer.

(Forgive the recording quality.  I learned later I’d forgotten to mute the telephone lines so there a little bit of ‘echo’ and background noise.  But, the content is still great!)

There’s so much of value both to sales professionals and to all of us that came out of the interview, but here are a couple of highlights and quotes from my notes (filtered through me, of course!):

=> “The real economy is between your ears.

=> “Long-term success is impossible without Integrity.  With Integrity, you have nothing to fear because you have nothing to hide.”

=>  We can operate from the knowledge that we’ve already ‘won the game.’  That way we can be bold and step out and not worry what other people think.  We’re responsible to tell the truth, but not responsible for how people respond.  Because of this, we don’t have to worry when make mistakes, which is very freeing.

=> One of Zig’s mentors is Rabbi Daniel Lapin, who said there’s a Hebrew word that represents “solving somebody’s needs.” (Tom didn’t know the Hebrew word itself.  Anyone out there in BlogLand know?)  It refers to two different situations:

1. After someone needs something, you help them
2. You help someone before they know they have the need

So if you are in sales with the right motive (situation #2 above), you’re on a higher spiritual plane because you are anticipating a real need and supplying the solution.

=> Tom’s favorite quote from his dad is:  “You are what you are and where you are because of what’s gone into your mind.  You can change what you are and where you are by changing what goes into your mind.”

=> How can people get started ‘changing their mind’ and incorporating in their lives the Ziglar “Pure & Simple Philosophy”?

• “You can make radical changes in minute steps”
  • start slow and build up: read or listen to something inspirational for personal and/or career development for just 5 or 10 minutes each day (example:  Sign up for the Ziglar newsletter at Ziglar.com)
  • each day find somebody to give an “I Like”.  These gifts of love and encouragement are powerful:  Tom’s dad created an “I Like” pad.  At the top of each pad was “I Like” followed by a blank and the word “Because” and more blanks.  The idea is to fill out and give away one of these each day.
  • if want to change a behavior, decide to make 1 different choice

=> The biggest roadblock to success is not having a goal to begin with.  Decide what want and how you’re going to get it; start small and build up.

5 Core Steps:

1. Write specific goal down
2. Write down the benefits of getting the goal (If the benefits aren’t worth what it’s going to take to get there, you’re not going to do it.)
3. Identify the knowledge, people, and skills needed
4. Create an action plan
5. Execute the plan

=> “Where there’s struggle, there’s life.”  Example of Ty Murray, the bull rider.  Sometimes when a bull rider is bucked off, the rope gets caught and the clowns need to come out and get the un-catch the rope.  The safest position the bull rider can be in is to hug as tight as possible the bull’s neck.  He must literally “Embrace the Struggle.”

=> This story was the inspiration to title Zig Ziglar and his daughter, Julie Ziglar Norman’s new book, Embrace the Struggle: Living Life on Life’s Terms.

Tom also spent time at the end of the call answering great questions, such as:

• How does a person deal with difficulties and remain positive in the face of trials?
• How do you fire a client?
• Why you need to read and apply Seth Godin’s new book, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?
• What is Tom most proud of?
• And more, of course

These highlights just touch the surface of this fine interview.

Be sure to get your copy (and listen for the lesson Tom teaches his team with the help of his homemade hot sauce and the family dog, Max!)

Unfortunately, this simple concept is difficult for entrepreneurs to grasp. They are often found running around trying to be all things to all people, which ironically results in being nothing to no one.

I love the way Stacey Hall and Jan Brogniez use the metaphor of a Lighthouse (In their book Attracting Perfect Customers: The Power of Strategic Synchronicity) to really drive the point home about being a ‘guiding light’ to the (potential) clients who are perfect for you.

Here’s the scenario:

The calm water and blue skies have suddenly given way to rough waters and storm clouds. Boats are being tossed to-and-fro as the waves get rougher. In the harbor is a steadfast lighthouse, it’s beam guiding the way. Its light gets brighter and brighter the darker the skies become.

However, for various reasons, not all of the boats require the light of the lighthouse for guidance.  Perhaps their captains and crews are more confident or better equipped than others to deal with this storm.  Maybe they’ve been down this road before.  Or maybe they feel safer out at sea on their own.

“Now imagine that the lighthouse gets upset because some of the boats are choosing to follow their own path. The lighthouse feels that it is not successful if its light is not guiding all of the boats in the sea. It sprout arms and legs and runs up and down the beach acting like a searchlight, doing its best to catch the attention of all the boat captains, attempting to encourage more of them to depend on its light.”

What’s wrong with this picture?

Hall and Brogniez offer that this sort of behavior ultimately serves no one.  For one thing, the boats who actually need the steady light to guide their way now are put into a potentially dangerous situation, because of the lighthouse’s state of chaos and confusion.

“Other boats might be steered dangerously close to shore so those on board could get a better look at the spectacle (while) others would be perfectly content to stay where they are — out at sea, relying on their own navigational equipment.”

Can you see how refusing to focus only on your Ideal Clients is unfair to everyone involved?

It’s actually both dangerous and irresponsible.

Which kind of lighthouse are you?

Are you running up and down the shore frantically trying to serve anyone and everyone?

(“But my [insert your product or service] can help anyone!  Everyone is my client!”)

Or, are you steadfast and steady so that those who really want and need you can count on you to navigate them safely on their business journey?

In fact, you may find that you are doing more repelling than attracting.

Why is this?

Well, there can be many reasons why the magnetic poles between you and your ideal clients are all askew, but a foundational piece may be a focus solely on what YOU want, rather than what your (potential) clients want.

Of course, you want to sell your products or services.  As an entrepreneur and/or sales professional, that is one of the main reasons your business exists.

But the problem with focusing on making the sale at all costs is the tendency to become blind to the wants, needs, and desires of the client.

Understanding this mentally is easy, but actually catching yourself in the grip of this blinding challenge is another question entirely.

The sales profession is unfortunately set up to orientate and incentivize extreme laserlike focus on quotas at the exclusion of all else, such that the whole game of selling sees leads, prospects, and clients as a numbers game rather than a magnetic, spiritual practice.

You especially see the results of this institutionalized mentality near the end of every quarter.  At this time, you can feel the crescendo of feverish madness, as sales professionals neglect family, food, and fun in the quest for whatever financial or material carrot is dangling in front of them.

This, of course, is counterproductive.

On a conscious or unconscious level, people feel and are repelled by your desperation and have-to-sell-now energy.

I was talking recently with a salesperson who had actually bothered to find out what made his client tick.  He learned what he liked and had even given thought to the perfect gift that would be meaningful to this qualified prospect.

Unfortunately, he lost sight of this as the end of the quarter drew close and the sale remained pending.

The salesperson did not get the sale, and he attributed its loss to this suffocating “pushing” energy that motivated him to go against his intuitive sense to do the right thing.

So what to do?

1. Acknowledge and recognize the tendency to put the blinders on and to forget to inquire about, discover, and engage the prospect or client’s wants and desires.  Sometimes awareness alone is curative.
2. Make a commitment to build into all of your marketing and into your sales process a Client Attraction Plan that actually attracts (rather than repels) your Ideal Clients.
3. Use quotas for guidance and accountability, not as tools to support a winning-at-all-costs attitude.  Quotas should guide your actions and mark your progress, not override your values.
4. Enroll in my upcoming Get Your Year In Gear! Coaching Program where together we create and implement a Magnetic Client Attraction Plan that is fun, sustainable, and client-focused.
5. Have fun!

Another colleague is in the medical field and expressed how much he hates having to sell a client on another visit or series of visits.

It’s a common challenge.  “Sell” is a dirty four-letter word to so many solopreneurs — especially to those who consider themselves “heart-centered” entrepreneurs.

I can understand that.

No one likes the feeling of being manipulated, hounded, chased or hunted down by a too-enthusiastic (to put it nicely) salesperson.

However, provided you have done the research and are connecting with someone who needs and wants your services, clients and prospective clients WANT you to offer them your services.

In fact, if you know your service or product is the best thing for them and you genuinely are interested in their well-being, you are doing them a disservice if you do not market to them and make appropriate offers.

That said, selling the person is really the very last thing you want to be thinking about anyway.  When you go out on a first date with someone, do you immediately ask them to marry you?

(I hope not!)

What is needed is a specific marketing plan, where your prospect sees your message over and over again until they are ready to buy, ready to refer someone to you who is ready to buy, or they tell you to stop marketing to them.

Another possible purpose behind a marketing plan might be to establish and maintain relationships with colleagues, persons with specific industry influence, and referral partners.

In most cases, sales professionals give up too soon.  They don’t have a follow-up system in place that they follow regularly and consistently.

This may be why my friend wondered whether he was bothering people.  Without a system, all efforts to market or follow-up are random, at best, and you really don’t know when and how often you are following up with someone.

Besides that, if you don’t follow up regularly with people who have shown interest, they may forget who you are or that you provide the service they are looking for when the time comes that they need it.

People have so many choices about where to spend their money, positioning yourself so that you occupy a prominent place in their minds requires actively and frequently reminding folks in your target market about how you can solve their challenges.

Gary Keller in his The Millionaire Real Estate Agent points out that over 86% of buyers and sellers (in 2002) met with only one or two real estate agents.  “In the battle for real estate consumer mind share, you’re either first or second or you’re out of contention.”

With most consumers pre-shopping for homes (or anything else, for that matter) on the Internet, I’d wager that this is even more important today.

In almost every industry (not just real estate), there are tens or hundreds or thousands of people who do what you do.  How are you standing out and differentiating yourself?

How often are you reminding qualified folks of that difference?

People want you to educate them and make life easier for them.  They are so busy with family, work, and other obligations that if you give up out of fear of looking like the proverbial “used car salesman”, they will have already forgotten about you.

This personal example I’m about to relate is a little embarrassing because it illustrates how disorganized I can be (and I bet I’m not alone in the disorganization department!), but I’ll share it anyway.

Just last week, I met with Portland, Oregon-based Corporate Shaman, Jacke Schroeder.  For the last several weeks prior to that, Jacke left me several messages via email, social media and phone before I finally got back to her weeks later.

(I told you it would be embarrassing.)

Was I uninterested in connecting with her?  Did I feel she was bothering me?

On the contrary, I let myself become so consumed with who-knows-what-all that I didn’t respond to her efforts to communicate with me.  Still she (thankfully) persisted.

After meeting with her last week, I now know that she and I will be working together in some capacity in the near future.  I’m kicking myself for letting so much time elapse.

What an incredible loss for both of us had Jacke decided she’d had enough of my silly antics!  I may never have called her back!

I imagine all those prospects you let slip through the cracks may have a similar story.  With SPAM filters, multiple inboxes, and having to check multiple voicemail messages, who’s to say your potential client even got your last message?

Of course, no professional wants to feel like they are wasting their time.  Certainly, if a prospect tells you they are not interested (like unsubscribes from your newsletter, for example), I don’t recommend stalking them!

Craig Klein of Sell, Sell, Sell! suggests that sales professionals get to fire their prospects after following up with them a certain number of times without a response.  He even offers a way to do this via a voicemail script (complete with a downloadable pdf tip sheet you can print out and place right at your phone when you’re doing the “firing”!) you can drop right at the end of your follow-up system.

This, of course, assumes you have a follow-up system in place in the first place.

It also assumes that the person you are spending time following up with is really a qualified candidate for your services and likely needs and wants what you have to offer.

If that’s the case, if you do change nothing else, follow up!  Show your prospects you care and are thinking about them.

Your perfect clients WANT to hear from you!

(How’s THAT for illustrating the spreading power of his own ideas?!)

As I mentioned on this blog a year ago, the thought leader in the realm of business, sales, and marketing that he is makes Seth Godin the proverbial E. F. Hutton of our day.

I’m not gonna lie:  That’s why I shamelessly offer Seth’s Random Rules here.

His blog is famously comment-free, but mine isn’t!  Let me know what you think about Seth’s Rules for Worthwhile Ideas That Spread.

Don’t we all want our ideas to spread?

Here’s what Seth Godin has to say (What say you?):

• You can name your idea anything you like, but a google-friendly name is always better than one that isn’t.
• Don’t plan on appearing on a reality show as the best way to launch your idea.
• Waiting for inspiration is another way of saying that you’re stalling. You don’t wait for inspiration, you command it to appear.
• Don’t poll your friends. It’s your art, not an election.
• Never pay a non-lawyer who promises to get you a patent.
• Avoid powerful people. Great ideas aren’t anointed, they spread through a groundswell of support.
• Spamming strangers doesn’t work. Spamming friends doesn’t work so well either, but it’s certainly better than spamming strangers.
• The hard part is finishing, so enjoy the starting part.
• Powerful organizations adore the status quo, so expect no help from them if your idea challenges the very thing they adore.
• Figure out how long your idea will take to spread, and multiply by 4.
• Be prepared for the Dip.
• Seek out apostles, not partners. People who benefit from spreading your idea, not people who need to own it.
• Keep your overhead low and don’t quit your day job until your idea can absorb your time.
• Think big. Bigger than that.
• Are you a serial idea-starting person? If so, what can you change to end that cycle? The goal is to be an idea-shipping person.
• Try not to confuse confidence with delusion.
• Prefer dry, useful but dull ideas to consumer-friendly ‘I would buy that’ sort of things. A lot less competition and a lot more upside in the long run.
• Pick a budget. Pick a ship date. Honor both. Don’t ignore either. No slippage, no overruns.
• Surround yourself with encouraging voices and incisive critics. It’s okay if they’re not the same people. Ignore both camps on occasion.
• Be grateful.
• Rise up to the opportunity, and do the idea justice.

Do you recognize any of these in you?

What small step can you begin to make today to improve?

1. You are desperate to make the sale. Just like the poor old (or young!) sap in the dark corner of the seedy bar starving for a date tonight, the desperate sales professional is guaranteed to go home alone.
2. You hate being sold. Buying and selling are two sides of the same coin.  People hate feeling manipulated, but LOVE being sold what they want and/or need.
3. You have low self-esteem. If this is your challenge, you’re not alone.  Check out my article on The Rapunzel Complex that drives the behavior of many business owners and sales professionals.
4. You do not truthfully see (or are not able to clearly articulate) the enormous value of the product or service you are selling. Without a high level of belief in your product or service, selling it consistently is not sustainable long-term.
5. You fail to understand or embrace the concept that selling can be a spiritual practice.
6. You refuse to define your ideal clients and target market because your service or product “can help everyone.”  This philosophy/approach wastes time, money, and energy.
7. You are learning (and relying on) sales tricks and closing techniques at the expense of real connection and relationship-building.
8. You feel squeamish about ‘asking for the sale.’
9. You don’t want to “bother people,” so you fail to follow-up consistently or at all.
10. You don’t have a clear point of differentiation, so you find yourself always having to justify or compete on price.
11. You have a poor or nonexistent sales process.

(You can view Caelan’s 3-minute-52 second video by clicking the link above or by accessing it here below this blog entry.)

This is an intriguing thought because of its apparent paradox.

Caelan subscribes to the now-familiar-but-ancient-school-of-thought described as The Law of Attraction, the surface understanding of which holds that “like attracts like.”

Is it possible, then, to focus on certain negative emotions (which theoretically a person does not want) and manifest more sales (something that same person probably does want) as a result?

Caelan answers affirmatively to this question, using a personal example to drive the point home.

As he explains in the video, he was working toward a sales award, called Liberty Leaders, that should he accomplish the various prescriptive sales goals by the end of the year, he would receive a sizable monetary award and a trip to Southern California.

Caelan enjoys selling, but absolutely dislikes (It might be safe to say that he HATES it) the subsequent paperwork his company requires that he does in order to actually complete the sale.

He asserts that he’s been focusing so heavily on how distressing the paperwork is to him that he ended up selling 6 insurance policies at once, resulting in him having to come into the office on Saturday to spend 4 hours completing paperwork.

In this way, explains Caelan, he was able to concentrate on what he didn’t want in order to get what he did want (My interpretation).

The first thing I want to say is that resisting negative emotions is never a good thing.  In fact, there is nothing “negative” about any emotions.  They just are what the are.

It is when we resist them and judge them instead of allowing them to naturally flow through us is when we run into problems.

It’s more accurate (and helpful) to think in terms of an outcome that we desire as opposed to one we would rather not have.

What happens when our thoughts and emotions are aligned with what we want is that we perceive corresponding people, things or events that allow us to easily, almost miraculously achieve our desired result.

Focusing on a certain way for what we want to happen (what coaches call “being attached to the outcome”, or labeling an emotion as bad or negative, or concentrating on a result that we do not want in efforts to obtain something else we do want is a recipe for disaster.

First, it sends a signal of confusion to the Universe, and secondly, it runs the risk of setting up contrary intentions (also called “psychological reversal”) which results in a neutral result.

So, was Caelan’s experience an example of using negative emotions to get more sales?

Well, all of us manifest multiple things on an ongoing basis.  We are creating some kind of experience every minute of the day.

In my view, Caelan was more likely using so-called “negative” emotions toward what he didn’t want in order to attract to him more of what he didn’t want, in this case, more paperwork.

He also created more sales.  But that is more likely attributable to his love of sales.  The love of sales naturally led him to situations, events and circumstances that presented him with the opportunity to manifest more of that “loving feeling.”

The truth is (Well, “my truth,” to be exact) that the best, most efficient (and reliable) place from which to manifest is from a place of clean, unencumbered energy.

From this place, the Magnetic Entrepreneur who operates from a place of joy knows exactly what to expect and easily attracts perfect clients and perfect sales/selling experiences.

Here’s Caelan’s video:

What’s YOUR take on the matter?

How are you using emotions in the act of creating more sales?