The 27 / 37 Plan
So let me give you some real life examples of how this stuff works.
My own story, I call The 27 / 37 Plan. By the time I was twenty-seven, I'd had thirty-seven different jobs. So my truth was, I don't last very long on any given job.
It was causing all kinds of tension in my family. My dad was going nuts. He had worked at the same job for forty years. So he couldn't understand it. He kept telling me, "Get a job at the post office. Do something where you're going to be in one place for a long time."
But that's not quite the way it worked out for me. Even though my dad had been at his job longer than I'd been alive, for some reason, I had the idea that jobs don't last long.
If you have thirty-seven jobs by the time you are twenty-seven, you have to start fairly young. I had my first job when I was only six years old. It may have only been a short-term job, but I started to develop a track record that I was only in a job a short time. Before long, I developed a pattern. And that pattern was my guideline-my Action Map. It looked like this: I would only stay at a job for six months. It didn't matter if it was a temporary job, a permanent job, a summer job, or a long-term job. Typically, it would last about six months, then I was gone.
So once I was on a job for six months, how do you think I would respond? Well, on the first day of the seventh month, I would know something was wrong! Things were not up to par. Something had gone awry.
And then, I'd respond in such a way that I would correct for the error of being there for longer than six months. I'd have to quit or I'd get fired or something unforeseen would happen-except it wouldn't be unforeseen to me. I would've expected it. Things were going along as usual.
Pretty soon, my subconscious process charted out an Action Map for me. So every time I would look for a job, the jobs that would "feel right" were those that probably weren't going to last much more than six months. And when they didn't, my whole worldview would be validated. I could explain it quite easily: "I only keep jobs for about six months. I knew this wasn't going to last." All's right with the world.
I remember my parents calling me up one day and saying, "Hey Jim, where are you working now?" When I told them where I was working, they said, "Hey, you've been there longer then six months. What happened?" Something was off. They wanted to let me know that. They were looking at their own memories of me and I didn't quite match. I seemed to be off-course. So they were quick to point out the differences-not intentionally to have me lose my job, but to maintain the reality of their beliefs about me.
And do you know what happened? Within two weeks, I was fired. I wanted the job, but I had my reasons why it didn't last. Jobs never lasted more than six months anyway, for me. That was my reason for not getting the result I wanted. I was sticking to what I believed about myself.
And, of course, I told myself that it was not my fault. Things happen. I couldn't be blamed for it. I was not the one who was accountable for what was happening to me. Surely, no one could think that!
I found fault with everything else around me. Why? Because my truth was that I didn't last at a job for very long. I didn't stay on longer than six months. So I had to find fault in other people. Surely, I couldn't be deliberately losing my job every time. I mean, how crazy would that be? And yet I did it over and over again on The 27 / 37 Plan. It worked very efficiently.
A great book to help you change your belief about work is Power to Change: You Always Have a Choice. http://www.jimjacksonlive.com/store.php?crn=205
It's easy to say, "Well, we do want more trust around here, but you go first. The last time I trusted somebody, they stabbed me in the back."
If we don't eliminate the fear of what's going to happen when we trust somebody, we're going to create a culture where it's dangerous to trust and dangerous to ask for help.
Trust is one of the things that we all want more of. We desperately want it, but we're afraid something's going to happen. And then what do we start doing? We start using our degree from MSU. We "make stuff up."
Sometimes, we do an MSU that piles up so fast, it can make your head spin! Here's a classic way Making Stuff Up can accelerate:
If I trust somebody, they're going to let me down.
If they let me down, then I'm going to look bad.
If I look bad, I'm going to get a bad review.
If I get a bad review, I'm going to lose my job.
If I lose my job, I'm not going to be able to make my house payment.
If I don't make my house payment, I'm out in the street.
If I'm out in the street, I don't eat.
If I don't eat, I'm going to die.
And it's all because I trusted somebody.
So stop making stuff up! Take a risk, then do it again and again and again. Make deposits in that trust account there and keep trying. Then you will begin to win people over. There are some people you shouldn't trust, but that's OK. You probably don't want to work too closely with them anyway. But here's the key. You need to trust each other and you need to take a risk and ask for help.
Get to know author and top Las Vegas motivational speaker, Jim Jackson
Respect is one of the values that is a gift to yourself and a gift to other people. We often say that we need more forgiveness, more patience, more understanding in our culture, in our society, in our schools or in our workplace. But the first thing you have to do, in order to make this happen, is to respect yourself.
The best way to do this is to realize that you are a gift. You are a gift from God. You are very valuable. You have skills and talents. You have resources that can help mankind grow and be a better resource on this earth.
You respect other people by understanding their differences. I'm not talking about comparing yourself to someone else, because if you catch yourself comparing yourself to others, then there will always be someone better than you and someone worse. That is not respect.
People with high self-respect can be around other people that are better than they are, because they can acknowledge their differences without sacrificing their own self-respect. They can acknowledge that the other person has skills and strengths they aspire to. They can accept that. They can understand that there are differences in the world and there are people who have different skills, talents, looks, personalities, values and backgrounds.
Respect yourself enough to say, "I am different from other people," rather than always trying to fit in. If you don't respect people, then you won't seek out the differences. You won't seek out their strengths. You'll look for their weaknesses, because you want to make sure that you are better than they are.
That is where cultures break down. That is where societies break down. That is where neighborhoods break down. Respect is saying, "I appreciate, I acknowledge, I accept and I value our differences. What can I learn from you?"
Get to know author and top Las Vegas motivational speaker, Jim Jackson
What are you passionate about? What means the most to you? What drives you? What inspires you? What gives you energy? Your vision should be fueled by those passions. Don't settle for a vision that seems like a good idea or sounds like the kind of thing you're supposed to want to do. Pick it yourself! And base it on things you feel more passionately about than anything else in the world. Choose something that is worth the sacrifices you'll have to make, that is worth devoting a lifetime to. Your vision should be big. It should be grand. You don't have to know how you are going to get there. If you follow them, the vision and the passion will take you there.
In my life, I went from sleeping in the back of a ‘68 Ford station wagon to traveling all around the world, helping people raise their self-esteem, helping people to realize their God-given talents. Do you think that, when I was laying in the back of that station wagon, staring out at the stars and trying to get comfortable enough to fall asleep, I said to myself, "I can tell, I'm on my way to becoming an international public speaker. I see a great career for myself, traveling around the world, making people's lives better"? You can bet I didn't. I had no idea how I'd get from that old Ford to where I am today.
It didn't happen overnight. I had thirty-seven different jobs. I wasn't accepted when I was at that think tank, the Pacific Institute http://www.thepacificinstitute.us/v2/. I had to deal with alcohol in my life. I had a lot of debt. I had more than enough reasons to believe I would never become a success. I could easily have told myself I shouldn't have a dream for a better life. But lo and behold, somebody helped me raise my self-esteem. Somebody helped me understand the impact of my negative self-talk, so I could create my vision, then move toward my goals, step-by-step.
How do you follow your vision? You do it one day at a time, one step at a time, one goal at a time. Once I started to see how true this was, I was amazed. There had been times when I wouldn't have believed I would ever fulfill my dreams. But as soon as I realized it worked, I felt a deep passion for helping everybody else change their lives too!
Before long, I would be sitting at a Denny's http://www.dennys.com and hearing people complain about living dead-end lives or indulging in destructive self-talk, getting down on themselves or one another and I would want to jump in there and tell them, "You know, you don't have to live this way! Let me help you understand how to control your self-talk and how to raise your self-esteem, the way that someone once helped me." I had such a passion for sharing this experience that, sometimes, it was hard to stay in my seat!
Recognizing this passion was just the beginning. And as I thought it over, I said to myself, "Why not have a vision for raising the self-esteem of the human race? Why not make it as big as the world?" And I got excited about that. I had no idea how I was going to do it, but I knew I was going to do it-one person at a time or ten thousand people at a time. And that's how my vision was born! It is something I get excited about each and every day of my life. It causes me to read, grow and learn about who I am and who other people are too. It motivates me to constantly study and understand human thought processes.
I believe we all have tremendous resources inside us. Our real challenge is learning how to stop doing the things that block us from being all that we can be.
A vision gives you a map that moves you toward where you want to be and away from where you don't want to be. What is blocking your life right now? What things do you keep doing that aren't really what you want to be doing? They don't seem like you. They aren't in sync with who you know yourself to be. What kind of vision could take you in another direction, away from those things that are blocking you?
Your vision can be anything from being the best truck driver, to the best father or mother, to the best student or employee. The important thing is that it makes your life more meaningful because it's based on the things you truly care about the most-your deepest passions
I suggest you read my book about this amazing journey "Power to Change: You Always Have a Choice." http://www.jimjacksonlive.com/store.php?crn=205
Mike Smukula http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1418979802, a good friend of mine, used to work at the Albuquerque Auto Auction. One day at the auction in 2004, he was run over, when a man, driving a car across the parking lot at 45 mph, had a heart attack and died. The accident fractured my friend's skull, rupturing his brain.
His colleagues from work called an ambulance. When the paramedics in the ambulance saw the seriousness of his condition, they called a helicopter. But when the helicopter arrived, the advanced medical team on board said there was no reason to take him. His condition was too severe. He was going to die. He'd never make it to the hospital-not even in a fast helicopter.
They turned the helicopter off and tried to make Mike comfortable. But his friends and colleagues intervened. "You don't know this guy," they said. "You've got to take him. He will fight this. He will live." They made the medical team turn the helicopter back on and rush him to the hospital anyway. Because they knew Mike was just that kind of person. He had that kind of determination.
And do you know, he's alive right now? He's stronger than ever. He's still in pain and he is still learning how to recover, but he's thankful to be alive. And he keeps asking the question, "What can I learn from this? How can I help other people grow?" He never asks, "Why me?"
He's always talking about how he can help other people overcome the same kind of situation. He's got a powerful, positive mental attitude toward life. At work, he overcame everything that came his way. There's nothing he can't accomplish. All day long, he's saying to himself, "How can I take this and turn it into a golden opportunity to help people learn?" He's a powerful inspiration to me.
Get to know author and top Las Vegas motivational speaker, Jim Jackson
How about you? Are you accountable for your choices? Or are you making excuses? Are you spending more energy on looking for the reasons why you're not accountable than you are on getting things done?
It's easy to blame somebody else. But here's what I want you to say to yourself, "I am right where I want to be right now."
Say it right now, right where you're sitting. No matter what the situation is, you can say, "Hey, I choose to be this way. I'm getting exactly the results that match my Action Map."
That's all well and good, if you're getting the results you want. But what if you're not? What if you say, "But this is not what I want"?
You may not like where you are. But you choose to be where you are. And that's the best news yet! Because, if you had the power to get yourself here, you have the power to get yourself out. You can go wherever your Action Maps can take you.
You always a choice. You have the absolute power of choice. And along with that power comes accountability.
Get to know author and top Las Vegas motivational speaker, Jim Jackson