Many of you have been hanging around here for awhile and I appreciate you investing your time with me. When I started out in canvassing I didn’t expect it to be a life-long career pursuit, but it has become my life’s work. I’ve dedicated the majority of my life to developing my skills in canvassing. What I’ve developed and tested with so many other companies and canvassers across the country, I’m sharing with you. Canvassing is a career that is a double-edged sword. The process or system is easy to follow, but the application of it is difficult. Of all the canvassers I’ve trained there’s one consistent difference that separates the successful ones from those that fail; mindset. It matters significantly where the canvasser’s mind is in the game on whether they’ll struggle or soar in this business.
Even more fundamental than mindset, if they don’t have the proper self-image of themselves, what they’re doing or what their purpose is then the scripts, the presentation, fundamentals and mechanics just aren’t going to resonate with them.
I’ve written and spoke of the UCLA study on what contributes to effective communication in any sort of presentation. Non-verbal communication is the most impactful of all communications followed by your voice and word choices. Think about it, when a canvasser is standing before a prospect and they don’t have the right mindset and they have a poor self-image, they’re going to be communicating that to the prospect, even though they’re saying all the right words. When you have passion, purpose and confidence in yourself, it’ll resonate through your voice and body language. That is what separates successful canvassers from struggling canvassers.
Zig Ziglar said that a sale is transference of emotion. Your self-image will be transferred to the prospect. Last month I went over goal-setting and if you go back and review it you’ll see the 4 reasons why people don’t set goals. That’s the subject of today’s article; why people don’t set goals.
It’s the beginning of the year and this is typically the most popular time of the year to set goals and resolutions. From my opening, I think you can probably guess why. Most people don’t set goals because they have a low self-esteem of themselves.
You cannot consistently perform in a manner which is inconsistent with the way you see yourself.
– Dr. Joyce Brothers
We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are. —Talmud
We tend to live up to our expectations.
—Earl Nightingale
The most important thing you can do to achieve your goals is to make sure that as soon as you set them, you immediately begin to create momentum.
—Anthony Robbins
Low self-esteem is like driving through life with your hand-break on.
—Maxwell Maltz
If you see yourself as prosperous, you will be. If you see yourself as continually hard up, that is exactly what you will be.
—Robert Collier
I know that most people want me to give them the tangible tools they can apply and become successful. I have those tools and do provide them every month, however those tools aren’t any good unless you’re prepared to apply and reap the results of what those tools will produce.
Think of it like a hammer. A hammer is a pretty basic tool. Simply swing it, hit the nail on the head and you’ll drive the nail. That’s the fundamental idea behind using a hammer. But, if you don’t have the confidence in yourself to wheel the hammer then the tool will not function as it’s designed.
Here’s an example of how the right self-image and confidence in the canvasser can be so important. This has happened to me and it’s happened to my students when I’ve been with them, and it’s probably happened to you too so you’ll have a good reference of what I’m talking about here (I go into greater detail of the experience on the recording of my live Silver Telecoaching call January 8th, 2014).
You’re walking up a drive or you’ve dropped off a flier at a door and another person approaches or questions you on what you’re doing. You tell them and they say you can’t solicit in the neighborhood. Their tone and body language is protective, even defensive. How do you handle it? I have scripts and rebuttals I teach on how to handle this situation, but If you don’t have the right self-esteem you’re likely to lose control of this situation. You’d begin defending your position on why you’re there. If you do have the right self-image you know you don’t have to defend your reason, rather you can take control of the situation and divert their negative energy and turn it around. The difference is not in the words, but in your ‘position’ and how you handle yourself, the other person and the situation. Having the right scripts and rebuttals is completely irrelevant unless you have a strong self-confidence.
Will power is not the answer, self management is. If you try to ‘will’ a change in your self-image you’ll exhaust yourself. Maltz defines it as the snap-back affect. “You cannot long outperform or escape your self-image. If you have to escape briefly you’ll be snapped back like a rubber band.”
Each individual has true personal limitations. For example, for me as much as I’d like to be an NBA player, no matter how good my self-image I wouldn’t be able to compete on that level. There are however other limitations within us that are self-limiting. As for my NBA dream, the limitations would be athletics and skill despite having the best coaches in the world; then there are self-imposed limits.
The Source of an Inadequate Self-Image
Let me use a student as an example. A student who takes a math test and fails, as a result of the failure, and to explain to themselves why they failed, they might say to themselves, “I don’t have a mathematical mind”, which suggests to them they’re a failure. They’ve identified with their failure rather than saying they failed the test. They take the mental position they’re a failure entirely because they failed the test rather than that they failed the test because they didn’t prepare correctly. These are imprints on our subconscious mind that direct our future thoughts and actions. Maltz defines this thought process as the source of our self-limitations. No one is immune to this thought process.
How Do You Change Your Thought Process Then?
There are 3 factors that will cause a positive change in your self-image
- Authority Sources
a. Who can you study and learn from that has achieved what you want to achieve. Learn their habits, processes and mindset and then follow their direction - Intensity
a. This goes back to what I wrote about last month in goal setting. Why do you want to achieve what you say you want? What’s your true reason why? If you want to make more money, why do you want to make more money? What will this money allow you to have or do? From this ‘why’ the intensity in your conviction and commitment will come. - Repetition
a. Then go and do what you’ve learned, what you’ve been taught and what you’ve been guided to do by the authority sources you’ve identified and connected with.
The value of coaching is that you can model a successful person. Surround yourself by successful people. You’re the product of the 5 people you surround yourself with the most.
I think the most reassuring thing about self-image, regardless of what image you have of yourself right now, it can be changed; a new one, or a better one, can be achieved… through learning. And learning is nothing more than thinking, imagining, remembering, and acting in order. To begin you have to create and develop an adequate self-image and use your creative mechanisms to bring success and happiness in achieving your goals.
If you came here looking for the closes and rebuttals that will get you past the money objection, they’re here, but there’s much more that goes into having and applying the tools. I’ll leave you with this concluding quote to ponder until we meet again next month.
“Each of us deep down wants more life. The experience of living a life unrestricted by self-image imposed artificial limits. Happiness, success, peace of mind or whatever your own conception of supreme good may be is experienced in the essence of more life. When we experience expansive emotions of happiness, self-confidence and success we enjoy more life and the degree we inhibit our ability to frustrate our God-given talents and allow us to suffer anxiety, fear, self-condemnation and self-hate. We literally choke of the life-force available to us and turn back on the gift a Creator has made to the degree that we deny the gift of life, we embrace that.”
_Maxwell Maltz
If you have any questions about this month’s article you can go to www.AskTheCanvassKing.com and submit your questions. I receive them directly and answer each personally.