Are Your Beliefs and Mindset Extraordinary?
Both John F. Kennedy and Carlos Lopez made pretty extraordinary and audacious claims.
In 1961, John F. Kennedy announced that the United States would put a man on the moon before the end of the decade. You know the rest of the story.
What’s fascinating to me is that Kennedy made this declaration before the technology required to pull it off even existed! It was his belief in the extraordinary that propelled the vision toward reality.
You probably don’t know Carlos Lopez, but he was a high school classmate of mine. In 1979, I played the role of Jud Fry and he played the role of the peddler man in our high school musical, Oklahoma!
Shortly after the wrap-up of that show, Carlos announced that one day he would dance on Broadway. Being typical high schooler’s we all laughed.
We thought this was a ridiculous idea and we let him know it. But, you can probably guess what happened. At the time of this writing, Carlos has performed in numerous Broadway shows.
In both cases, success began with an extraordinary belief.
My business coach, Dan Sullivan, founder of the Strategic Coach program, puts it this way: “If you want to accomplish something extraordinary, you have to make the extraordinary normal.”
Too often when we suddenly feel inspired we think of the extraordinary, but then it scares us, so we back off. We come up with rationalizations as to why it cannot be done.
We do this because the extraordinary seems completely impossible to us. It does not fit into the normal context of our thinking.
So if we want to achieve the extraordinary, our first step is to normalize that accomplishment in our brain. We must make the extraordinary normal.
This is what vision casting does. It’s not about pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking. It’s not about self-affirmation. It’s about trying on something new and wearing it until it becomes comfortable.
I am currently lamenting the San Jose Sharks loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Stanley Cup Finals (that’s an ice hockey reference for those of you who do not follow sports). The Sharks had never gone this far in the NHL playoffs, but this season the team had a new coach, Peter DeBoer.
DeBoer had one primary coaching objective: to change the player’s mindset. His strategy was to make the extraordinary normal. And what were the results? His team made their first trip ever to the Stanley Cup Finals!
It’s important that we understand this crucial principle: our actions and behaviors will always follow our beliefs and mindsets. I cannot stress this enough.
Do you want to achieve
top producer status? Do you want the best of the best? Do you want to achieve the extraordinary? Then begin by making the extraordinary normative in your mind. Make greatness a part of your mental narrative.
See it. Believe it. Normalize it. Achieve it.
