Okay, we're off to a different topic this week, and it's a rich one and one that can change your life on an ongoing basis. The topic is transformation.
The funny thing is, transformation cannot truly be accurately defined and cannot be understood, but we can shed some light on the subject so that you can get a sense as to what it is and what it isn't.
Perhaps the best way to define transformation is by saying what it isn't.
First, transformation isn't change. Often people use the terms synonymously (and some I've heard blend the two together with the term "transformational change.")
Transformation isn't even a lot of change or massive change.
The reason why this is the case is because change references the past. If you are producing poor results and then you decide to work harder and produce much better results, that is change, not transformation.
If you begin to do things differently, that is also change, even if you do things much better than you used to.
Transformation, on the other hand, is more of a "shift," often referred to as a "paradigm shift," in which the world you're in after the shift bears little resemblance to the one you were in before the shift.
Transformation happens in an instant, and it can permanently, directly and positively affect the quality of your life. Often, a transformation, occurs in your consciousness, then begins to make itself known in the real world through your actions. These actions are usually distinct from the actions you had been taking in the past (or in the results you were producing, compared to the past).
In this sense, to the outside world, your transformation and the results that stemmed from it occur as "change," because that's really what happened from others' points of view.
To put it another way, transformation is said to have happened when the world instantly begins to "occur" differently in your mind, even though nothing "out there" has really changed.
A quick example: A man has almost always had a distant relationship with his mother, feels that she abandoned him, and was quite upset that she focused most of her time on his brother, who was several years younger. One day he is talking to his father, and his father tells him that his brother was born quite ill and had to be taken care of nearly around-the-clock for the first few months of his life.
"Click." Something shifts for the man, and he gets that his mother did what she had to do, given the circumstances, and that he would have done the same if he were in the same situation.
His mother was instantly "different" for him, but she hadn't changed at all!
How is this important to sales? Because you're only a transformation away from better performance -- performance with more freedom and power -- without having to work harder or faster.
Stay tuned; this is a deep subject, and we'll talk about different ways to get access to transformation.
Send any questions, comments, stories, or sales problems to
dan@optimumbizdev.com, and I'll personally send you a response!
LAST WEEK'S HOMEWORK: Did you notice any Expressives last week?
THIS WEEK'S HOMEWORK: Can you remember a time when you underwent a transformation? What happened, and when? How did the world occur before the transformation, and how did it occur afterward? How did it affect your life?
Please take a minute and let me know how you're doing out there. How have these tips been helping you?
