CHRISTINA GUIDOTTI’S SECOND book The True Believers was released in 2014. Sharing an extract, she demonstrates how the courage and conviction of a ‘true believer’ can overcome inertia when it comes to achieving in real estate.
ONE YEAR AT the Australasian Real Estate Awards, I remember sitting with my team watching the winners go up on stage and feeling inspired. We decided we wanted our office to have that success. We had a vision that we would get there.
But although the desire was strong, there was an underlying fear and doubt as the current reality was so different to our belief for a better tomorrow. There was fear of whether we could do it and fear of the disappointment if we didn’t get there, particularly considering that our starting point was a sales office that had never exceeded $75,000 net profit per year.
My new appointment as leader that year brought opportunity, but there were doubts. Regardless of these doubts, we set two specific targets:
- To reach $300,000 net profit by the end of our first financial year.
- To win The Most Improved Office of The Year at the next awards.
We had a lot of work to do but it all started with the belief that it was possible, followed by the decision to act. It was a challenging year but we pushed through. After 12 months the sales team of three made an astounding 412 per cent increase in net profit, or $384,000, and we won The Most Improved Office of The Year award. What a great result! The net profit increased further, to $518,000 the following year in the sales department alone!
Believe it’s possible, allow self-doubt to exist and act anyway.
There are four steps to manage doubt and cure mental paralysis: they are my four Ds:
- Decide what you want.
- Act with discipline regardless of self-doubt.
- Keep moving in the right direction.
- Focus on your vision – your destination – daily!
Even when we know what we want, stress – often caused by doubt – can overwhelm us and ‘freeze’ our ability to achieve. As we push through our fear a new mental state can emerge, bringing with it greater conviction and hope. It’s not self-belief that’s essential to success; it’s having the courage to act in the face of self-doubt until self-belief turns up. Self-belief is a by-product of taking action, and action is what takes us to our new reality. And what bridges the gap between our vision and our new reality is hope.
POSITIVE DELUSION: FEEL IT IN ADVANCE
Delusion is a belief held with conviction, regardless of the strong evidence to the contrary. In most cases you will hear about delusion in the context of a mental illness. But there is a type of delusion that is not an illness, and that is positive delusion.
Positive delusion allows us to remain in a positive state in our own mind, contrary to the reality around us. This is the key to maintaining the vision. This overconfidence – believing you are better than you are in reality – has its benefits, as it serves to increase your ability to persist towards your vision and to influence outcomes.
This positive delusion, where we hold the dream alive, bridges the gap until the reality shows up. Visualisation, where we feel the desired outcome in advance, combined with positive delusion, helps to fast track the outcomes we want. With positive delusion we are creating positive narratives to hold us until success shows up.
In the words of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.” Think about your current reality for a moment. Now imagine what it could be. Close your eyes and feel what it would be like to live in a new and different reality – the one you really want. Using visualisation we can create a mental image of what we want and feel the emotion as we move closer to our vision.
When the inevitable doubt arrives, what helps us to focus back on our belief is our ability to feel our vision in advance. This quality of feeling it in advance provides us with the resilience and trust we need to manage fear and doubt as we go in relentless pursuit of our goal.
There can be a gap between making a decision and overcoming inertia, and arriving at your vision or destination. What often sits in this gap is either trust or lack of trust.
Trust is an essential and powerful ingredient for our belief and momentum. A lack of trust can bring doubt and paralysis. How many times have we given advice to a client who has decided they want our help and yet they question, they doubt, and consequently don’t take action? How many times have we done that ourselves: appointed an advisor, made the decision to invest time and dollars yet don’t take action?
It’s often not labelled as such, but inaction can be a lack of trust. What binds together all our learning with relentless execution is trust. Trust in the process, trust in the advisors, and above all, trust in yourself.
Bridge the gap between decision and action with trust. Trust and take courageous action in the face of fear and self-doubt until the evidence of success and belief shows up. True believers cure mental paralysis with physical action!
