Tony Michalski's Master Key Coaching

Focusing our thoughts to one specific purpose or aim is paramount to achieving anything of lasting value. More often than not, many of us “scatter” our thoughts, never concentrating on one goal and following it through. When we learn to keep our thoughts focused on one aim, then – and only then – will we see results.

Need proof of this? Listen to or read about what people say when they describe the people who “made it.” Every time those people are described by friends or associates, the words, “focused”, “driven”, and “single-minded” are used. In The Master Key Workbook, I quoted Larry Ellison, the billionaire CEO of Oracle, speaking about Bill Gates.

“Bill Gates wants people to think he’s Edison, when he’s really Rockefeller. Referring to Gates as the smartest man in America isn’t right … wealth isn’t the same thing as intelligence. One thing everyone will say about Mr. Gates, though, is the fact that he is driven and has a laser-like focus when he sets to do something.”

Being successful does not require lots of intelligence. If one focuses what one has to a certain definite aim, then one can accomplish anything! As it is said in the Bible: “Faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains.”

Here is how Haanel described the power of concentration in Week Twelve of The Master Key System:

Week Twelve is enclosed herewith. In the fourth paragraph you will find the following statement: “You must first have the knowledge of your power; second, the courage to dare; third, the faith to do.”

If you concentrate upon the thoughts given, if you give them your entire attention, you will find a world of meaning in each sentence and will attract to yourself other thoughts in harmony with them, and you will soon grasp the full significance of the vital knowledge upon which you are concentrating.

Knowledge does not apply itself; we as individuals must make the application, and the application consists in fertilizing the thought with a living purpose.

The time and thought which most persons waste in aimless effort would accomplish wonders if properly directed with some special object in view. In order to do this, it is necessary to center your mental force upon a specific thought and hold it there to the exclusion of all other thoughts. If you have ever looked through the focusing screen of a camera, you found that when the object was not in focus, the impression was indistinct and possibly blurred; but when the proper focus was obtained the picture was clear and distinct. This illustrates the power of concentration. Unless you can concentrate upon the object which you have in view, you will have but a hazy, indifferent, vague, indistinct, and blurred outline of your ideal and the results will be in accordance with your mental picture.

An example of concentration or focus is to think of sunlight. As the sun pours its light onto the Earth, it gets scattered by the atmosphere. We can gather that light with a lens, though, and focus it into a ray that will readily and easily start a fire.

In The Master Key Workbook, I devised a little exercise to help you exercise the power of concentration. It’s fun and a little rewarding.

This week, you are going to have some fun – and make some money! You are going to put into action what you have been learning. By the end of this exercise, you may be a few dollars wealthier than when you started. Sound good? Good.

Visualize a quarter in your mind. Imagine it vividly and in detail. Keep it ingrained in your mind. Take as long as you want to visualize that quarter, perhaps a few minutes or so.

Next, vividly visualize that you are going to find that quarter on the street. 

Imagine the scene of you taking a walk and finding a quarter somewhere, perhaps when you are walking the dog or maybe strolling through the mall.

Look for the quarter when you are walking. Every time you are taking a walk, visualize the quarter.

How long did it take you to find the quarter?

You can use this exercise for just about anything! How about finding a parking space in a crowded mall parking lot? Or traversing heavy crosstown traffic? When I use this technique to find a parking space or to get through traffic, I visualize a warm knife sliding easily through butter and I say to myself “I will move through this traffic like a hot knife through butter.” I then mentally (and sometimes physically) repeat the word butter, almost performing a mantra.

It usually works! I do have great “luck” with finding parking spaces. And getting through traffic easily happens with a decent regularity. (Another time I will explain to you how I think this actually works. Believe or not, I do not think that it is the “Law of Attraction” per se.)

So, give these exercises a shot. A true, honest shot. Concentrate. Visualize.

Get for yourself the best of everything.

--
© Anthony R. Michalski/Master Key Coaching | Print This Article | (0) Comments

When I drive, I look at the signs and businesses that line the roads and streets. Recently, I asked myself a question that revealed a fatal flaw in my thinking – a fatal flaw that just may be the difference betwixt wealth and insecurity, becoming what I wish to be and remaining in my current position.

Whilst looking at the sundry businesses – at the many different ways people were creating wealth and personal prosperity – I asked myself a simple question and one, I am certain, you probably have asked yourself a plethora of times.

What is the difference between them and me?

Perhaps you did not use that exact wording, but the spirit of the questin is the same. On that night, like many uncountable nights, I wondered about the people of commerce and industry and power and ideas. I wondered why Sam Walton could create his line of stores, yet so many are left wallowing in positions that they could barely stand – and which kept them barely above water.

While I had asked myself that question many times in the past, on this particular night I had a revelation. I followed with another question:

Why am I looking for differences when, intrinsically, no real differences exist?

The differences I saw and noticed weren’t the real factors that contributed to anyone’s success or failure. It wasn’t a matter of brains or brawn, capital or ingenuity, push or pull. Rather, it was a matter of doing things – at least, just doing something. Anything!

It has often been the nature of popular business books and pop psychologists to earn their sheckles by keeping us in shackles with endless ramblings about what makes the successful successful. In other words, most of the common literature on the subject of success has been mired in putting our noses in our somehow unglamourous values and habits rather than showing us what really counts: Doing it!

I have a passion for reading biographies of historical or successful people. In all of the biographies that I have read, there has always been one common element: they are all crazy. When I say crazy, I mean completely nuts, bonkers, whacked. The “successful” have so many idiosynchrosies that to name all of them would be to name every speck of sand on a beach. For now, I will just list a few that I find most amusing:

Steve Jobs: Control freak and not very nice to underlings. Not to mention the drugs.

Donald Trump: Can we safely call him an egomaniac?

Larry Ellison: Braggart, egomaniac, BS-er.

Bill Gates: Do I have to mention his business practices?

Alexander the Great: Delusions of grandeur.

Napoleon: Another one with delusions of grandeur.

JD Salinger: Reclusive.

Lord Byron: Womanizer and scandal monger.

Ted Turner: Speaks before he thinks.

Just by looking at this miniscule sampling of famous personas, it becomes obvious that probably none of them read How To Win Friends and Influence People or The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. All of them have had scandalous exposes written about them. All of them were majourly flawed in one way – or many. All of them pushed the envelope and just did what they did.

That, it turns out, is the deciding factor: doing what one wants to do. There is no preparing, no training, no self-improvement necessary. How big would Microsoft be today if Mr. Gates simply welcomed competition with a smile? What would the news industry be like if Ted Turner kept his mouth shut and minded what he said? I can answer that: kinda dull. His brashness earned him billions.

I do not write this as a vindication for all of our vices and failing points. I do not write this to stop people from reading self-improvement books and attending seminars. I write this for the people who do those things again and again and again. Those people must realize that the difference between them and the successful is merely the ability to dig in one’s heels and get to it.

Too often, I speak with a person who continually reads the books and attends the seminars and always has a plan or scheme for self-improvement. Listening to them is like listening to a Dead Head recant all of the shows to which he’s been. “I saw Tony Robbins in Atlanta, ‘99; Dr. Phil in Boston, ‘00; I was to Chopra’s book signing in New York last month…” and the litany continues ad nauseum. The kicker is that the person still isn’t particularly happy, fulfilled, or successful. Do these seminars and books make the person happy? Yes, like crack makes a drug addict happy. The person catches his buzz and feels that in doing so, he is doing something. In the end, though, he is not.

All of the speakers and motivators say the same thing: Do it! All of the books reiterate that simple, yet poignant, phrase. There comes a time when a person realizes that they do not need to be completely organized or a polished speaker or a flawless person. Instead of studying the books, they should take what they learned and apply it to real life by working on their dreams. Or if not their dreams, then something – anything!

Or, as Haanel wrote

“You must first have the knowledge of your power; second, the courage to dare; third, the faith to do.” 

You have the knowledge of your power (if you don’t, then keep reading this blog and get The Complete Master Key Course – you’ll get it!); the courage to dare will come to you, if you don’t have it already, as you take those first steps toward your goal. All that’s needed is for you to have the faith to do. To get that, forget what you’ve heard and read; instead go boldly forward with what you know.

There are no real differences between us and them. The “differences” that certain authors and speakers like to notice are just fluff. I may have been a tad hasty when I said that their are no differences, perhaps there is one:

The successful know that they are flawed, but they just don’t care. They just do it!

--
© Anthony R. Michalski/Master Key Coaching | Print This Article | (3) Comments