The New Year’s resolution....

New Year’s Eve!!

New Year resolutions are all over the place. Why? It gives us a chance to think about the things we did, the things we did not do and what we want our new priorities to be.  We all want the very best for our selves, family, friends, and for those who are in need of things we might take for granted. With that being said, we need to write down our resolutions and stick to them. Remember that for every goal we accomplish we get closer to our ultimate goal.

One step at a time will take us very far. We have to put all of our energy in achieving all of our goals. If it helps to write them down to remind us everyday then so be it. Scratch out the ones we got done. Ah that feels great! Doesn’t it? YES! Now on to the next one!

Conditioning our minds to accomplish the things we have challenged ourselves to do is critical. When it comes to goals, you know I always say that it is a new point of beginning that we set. We take the first step and enjoy the ride to achievement.

If for some reason you cannot reach your goal DO NOT GIVE UP! Break the goal down and take it one step at a time. Set realistic goals, don’t make things difficult. Remember one step at a time. New Year’s is a time to mentally reset. Resetting is the best thing you can implement in our everyday lifes.

We all know that stress can get to us. It makes us think and do things out of desperation. However we need to learn how to stop, think and reset. If you weigh out your options and try to reason, you will have a greater chance overcoming the issue. OK, I will keep this one short J please remember to enjoy and give thanks for what you have. What you want will come with proper preparation. Do not reach out for things that might hurt you in the end.

Try to stay out of debt and achieve your goals so you can reach the next level and live comfortable. We can achieve anything if we put our minds to it, so let’s avoid hurting ourselves and be all we can be. Do what you say you are going to do. Make a list. Scratch out what you have accomplished. When things get too stressful, do a mental reset and move on.

Accomplishment makes us feel so good and happy. When you are happy with yourself, only then you can make others happy. On that note May all of your wishes come true for you and your loved ones. Best wishes from the heart.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Working hard vs. Working smart

Have you ever heard the saying, don't work hard work smart? We can look at this in many ways. I am a believer in working smart. However, with that being said, we have to look at what it is that we are working on and how far in we are on what we are trying to achieve. It does not matter if you are working hard or working smart because it takes hard work to work smart. So when I say I am working smart, its because I have worked hard and put in all my effort into simplifying what I do without cutting any corners. We need to put in 150%  either way it being hard or smart.


Especially now a days with the economy being what it is. We have millions of people that are ready, willing, able and qualified to do the same thing you do. In fact they are ready to work harder and for less than you might be willing to. Now as the population grows and economy crumbles this number of people with your same qualifications keeps growing at an outstanding rate. Now there is a reason for all of this. However, that is a whole different topic and we will not be discussing that in this blog, but one in the near future.


Every time I hear a sales person tell me I don't work hard I work smart, I agree with him/her. However, my mind is conditioned as a trainer to see the results of that sales persons remark. I immediately look at that sales persons numbers for the last and present year. Many times I already know them because it is one of the things I look at when I do a company assessment.


Now one thing that I have learned about sales people including myself through out my career in sales is that if we are new in sales we tend to work harder in the beginning and pay more attention to detail. After a couple of months we tend to lose care and try to put less effort and expect the same great results. Why? Because your mind becomes conditioned on its own without you even realizing it. We try to take the path of least resistance and become lazy. Now, we believe that we have it all figured out and we start prejudging  and under qualifying our clients. We tell ourselves we are working smart.


Now how did this all happen? Well, let me give you one example of many, why this may happen. Our mind conditions itself with what makes you feel more comfortable. When you believe you have a great product and see people everyday inquiring about it, you are going to get clients that want and need your product. You will deal with about 10 buyers in most cases in a week. Out of the ten you might get 2 lay downs. A lay down is what we refer in the sales industry as someone who has no care on how much it costs. They just come in and say I want that, that and that. How much is it? Do you take cash or credit and the deal is done and paid for. You made a full pop deal which means you made the highest commission possible on that particular deal and it feels GREAT! Good job.


How much effort was put in? Maybe a good meet and greet.  Then  he or she told you what they were looking for and the deal was done. Now there is nothing wrong with this scenario. The problem is when you begin to look for the deals and start prejudging your clients. You might start telling yourself, this person is taking too much of my time and its a small deal anyways, I work smart and close big deals. In other words, I am too lazy and want to make easy money without putting any effort into the sales process.


The majority of sales reps do not realize they have a problem until it starts to hurt their pockets or even worst, they are about to be cut (fired) or sent to me for re-training. We will blame the world before we have to re-train and bring it back to the basics (reset). However, a true sales professional is always looking for ways to improve and new ways on how to overcome obstacles. They come to me even if their closing percentage are high. Maybe just to ask how they could have handled a situation that never came up before or go to seminars if they don't have a training department. They may even look to their team leaders or share thoughts with top closers on their team. The idea is not to fall behind and always look how to continuously better yourself, not only as a professional, but as a person as well.


Please remember that we all have to work hard in order for us to be able to work smart. The harder we work in understanding how our mind works and conditions itself, the smarter we become in overcoming obstacles and become better problem solvers. We all have goals. However, we need to learn how to travel in straight lines and not take shortcuts that will take us further away from our goals.


Please keep in mind that my blogs are intended to be more generalized to be applied differently in our everyday way of living. I hope you enjoy my blogs and I thank everyone for giving me your time and reading them. If you feel that it would make a difference on anyone you know, please feel free to forward it to them. Be a friend and follow my blogs. Thank you.


AC LINKS TRAINING SYSTEM

The power of thoughts.

So what are thoughts and how do they influence our everyday behavior and social lives? Why is it that I react to things so rapidly and half of the time I’m not happy with the end result or worst yet, what if I am not aware of what I am doing wrong unintentionally? Why do I get upset easily? Why? Why? Why? We can keep going for days here!

So let look at this in a different perspective. The question you should be asking yourself is: am I in control of my thoughts or are my thoughts in control of me? Some of us are not aware of our thought process. Now being aware of your thoughts can make or break you believe it or not. It can make your personal life better or worst. Even get you or cost you that promotion you have been waiting for. In other words if you are in control of your thoughts you can make great changes in every aspect of your life.

So let’s see how the thought process works. We have a subconscious mind and a conscious mind. The subconscious mind can have thousands of thoughts at any one given time while the conscious mind can only handle one thought at a time. In my training seminars I refer to the subconscious mind as a lottery machine and the balls inside as all the thoughts bouncing around. If you have ever seen a lottery draw, you would notice that the balls (thoughts) are drawn one at a time. I then refer to this as a thought reaching the conscious level.

Now that we have a good idea on how the thought process works. Let’s take a look on how it affects our body. If you take a moment and think about something that you have experienced that wasn’t very pleasant at all to you and you continue to think about it, you will notice your breathing change, For instance taking deeper breaths or breathing faster. You can also notice your heart rate rising, feeling warm and blood pressure elevating too. All we are doing is thinking of something that is in the past and still it can make our body react to these thoughts in so many different ways.

Now let’s think about something positive. Watch a funny movie or even watch an old video of a memorable vacation we took with our family. Wow doesn’t it feel great to be happy? And it didn’t take a lot to get to that state. You have taken the first step in taking control of your thoughts. That is the power of thoughts.

The good news is that we can condition our minds and control our thoughts with practice. This can be very simple. All you need is a little effort and allow yourself to be aware of your thoughts. You will be amazed on how you will start looking at things in a more positive way.

But what about how I feel about my neighbors or that annoying co-worker

That I can’t stand? How do I deal with people? Well that’s the easy part. When you are in control of your thoughts, you are also in control of your emotions. This will send out positive body signals. Your posture is different. When you are always entertaining negative thoughts, your body posture is different than when you are entertaining positive thoughts. Negative: head down, tiered, shoulders down, minimal eye contact, seclusion and so on. Positive: straight body posture, more body movement, head and shoulder back, chin up and most importantly laughter.

When you laugh you send more oxygen to the brain. This will make you more alert, aware and give you more energy. Now people begin to notices the change in you and start asking you questions like, why are you always in such a great mood or I like being around you. Now you see why I say to deal with people is the easy part.

First we must look with in and control our thoughts and emotion. This will then make us a more positive and happier person. Now all of this energy will shoot out of your body and radiate all around us. Believe me, people will notice and change.

Steps that will help achieve thought control:

Do not think about a problem for 30 minutes. Focus on solutions instead.

Do not entertain negative thoughts for more than 2 minutes

Use a thought interruption to interrupt negative thought.

Begin a different and positive chain of thoughts to overcome the negative ones

Cancel any thought where its outcome would be negative

Remember that to become successful and happy, we need to be better problem solvers. The more successful you are the bigger the problems and the better you must get to solve them. So on that note, Control your thoughts and emotions, do not let them control you. I believe that we all learn something every day. I try to. All I hope for is to help at least one person with my blogs, so if you like it please pass it on. Thank you.

AC LINKS TRAINING SYSTEM

AC Cruz

I believe I can. So whats wrong?

Belief is to exist and a creation of a vessel. If you don’t believe in yourself or anything for that matter, you begin to fade as a person. It is only when you combine belief and action where you create a reaction to give motion and direction to your beliefs. We all know that belief and faith are one. However we will concentrate on goals and achievements here for now. In other words belief in itself will not take you where you need to go.

 You have only created an existence or a point of beginning if you will. It is only when you apply action in your belief will it then create the force of a reaction that will move you to where you need to be. Yes we are talking about “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”. As a sailor I learned how to use the wind to move my vessel in the direction I wanted to go.

 So let’s look at this a little bit closer and please remember that preparation, mind conditioning and research will come in handy in any journey. In fact it is a must. Every great journey starts with one step; however there are cases where it takes almost a life time to plan one out. Let’s just hope this won’t be the case here. With that being said, there are times in our lives that we wish for miracles. The belief is present however we put no action into it because we want things to just happen with no effort. 

 Now we all know and heard of miracles. We have probably experienced many in our lives, I have. However in reality we all know that unanswered prayers outweigh miracles. This is why I’m writing this. Sometimes we need to put in a little effort or work hard to makethings happen. 

 My Dad taught me how to sail. The very first time we went out I hopped in the boat and said to my dad LETS GO Daddy, with a big smile in my face. Then he said we have to get the sails ready and push off. I was like huh? I noticed boats coming in and out of the docks without having to push off or put sails up. 

 Well here is what I learned from all of this, think about you and the vessel being belief and in order to get moving you have to take action by putting the sails up. Now you want to know where the wind is coming from in order to pick up or reduce speed. The best way of doing it is when the wind is coming from behind. Keep in mind you can position the sails in other ways to pick up speed but let’s just keep this simple.

  Now the wind is coming from the opposite Direction and it is pushing you forward (an opposite reaction). Now if you tried to go against the wind you will go nowhere in a hurry. You also need to know in what direction the current of the water is going because this will also either slow you down or speed you up. Ever heard the sayings “don’t go against the current”? 

 You can also think of wind and water as people that surround you in your everyday life, family, friends, co-workers or even a stranger. We always meet new people throughout our life time. Some bring joy. Some bring pain. Some bring confusion and some change your life. It is up to you to surround yourself with success and weed out the negativity. Do yourself a favor and never entertain the negative. I know you may think that it would be hard but someone that is focus on their goals, they do not entertain negativity. 

 Beliefs need planning, being informed, taking action and utilizing the reaction to your favor. Go with the flow, however be aware on where the flow is taking you. Even if it takes you half the way you have succeeded. It is only the creation of a new belief and a new vessel along with a new point of beginning that will take you to your ultimate goal. Always remember to enjoy every journey. It is not only about getting from point A to point B in life. It is all about how much you enjoyed the journey getting there. 

 Thank you for reading my blog.

 AC Cruz

AC LINKS TRAINING SYSTEM