“What? That’s crazy!”, or “No, can’t be done.  I’ve never done it before!” or “No way, this’ll just take me off track!”, because at first, it doesn’t seem in alignment with what you’re currently doing, or what you perceive to be what you need?

What happens when we are introduced to something new is that we look at this opportunity with our current mind and not with a mind that gets excited when something new crosses our path.

There is a saying that, “A mind once stretched can never return to its original proportion”, it becomes like a rubber-band – stretch a rubber-band and it stays more expanded than it was originally.

Nevertheless, as human beings, we have a subconscious mind, and its job is to keep us happy and in our comfort zone, until we make it quite clear to it, that we REALLY want to make changes in any particular area.

You need to prove to your subconscious mind that you are open to new material and innovation. Because, you will have tried to make many changes in the past and not stuck with these attempts.

It has been said that the subconscious minds needs a three-time convincer when you try to change or replace a habit with a new habit.  That is, that you need to reinforce this new method of behaviour, this new thinking, three times.

Personally, I’ve found that, if I’m trying to develop a new habit to replace an old one that has been ingrained into my ‘deepest me’, it takes a bit longer till my subconscious mind ‘gets it’ that I really mean it this time.

Unless you deliberately initiate a paradigm shift on the subconscious level, you’ll keep looking at opportunities with a non-stretched mind.

Are you looking at new offerings with your foveal vision or have you allowed your peripheral vision to access and invite new opportunities through your filters?

Are you asking the Cartesian logic questions introduced in Focus on Expectations?
 
Once you get used to asking these questions, it doesn’t take long for your subconscious mind to come up with answers that are congruent with your conscious mind who wants to make the changes.

Remember do something at least three times and the subconscious mind knows what’s expected of it when you revisit that process.

Once you really get your subconscious mind and your conscious mind to work together, you’ll be amazed at what surfaces from your mental archives. You will make enormous strides to, not only replacing an old habit, but opening up even more doors to possiblities you would never have thought of or previously allowed in to your consciousness.

After a while, you’ll become so used to it, you’ll actually take what’s happening for granted.

If a solution doesn’t come quickly, you’ll ask yourself, “Okay, what have I still got to learn about this situation?”, “What am I missing?”

Then, you’ll have ideas surface that will assist you.

If this is new to you, you’ll just need to trust me, and do it for a while. It really does work.

Every new skill needs an incubation period for it to become a part of you, that is, at your subconscious level.

Remember, you always attract into your life what you need at that point in time.

Your free will and strategic plan to achieve your goals determines upon what you’ll linger your focus.

After a while, with a quick skim of new material, you’ll intuitively know what is going to keep you on track and what will take you away from your desired outcomes.

Have fun with this, you’ll be amazed at the opportunities that come to you.

1. Expectations

2. Opportunities

Here I’ll deal with Focusing on Expectations.

What expectations of success or non-success do you focus on:

a) when you hear a new opportunity for the first time?
b) before you contemplate a new venture?
c) illustrated by your reaction to a new idea?
d) when you begin a new venture?

Are you the sort of person who in the first instance focuses on the magnificent opportunities that will arise from this new venture or idea? OR
Are you the sort of person who immediately focuses on the multitudinous challenges, difficulties, uncertainties, time constraints?

 Who instinctively says: “No, not for me!”

Not all opportunities we hear about are meant to take up 100% of our involvement in them, but they are worthy of our consideration.

The degree to which we focus our time is our personal choice, based on our developed subconscious mind

Do you make comments such as:

• Wow, this is going to be hard
• I’m not sure this is possible
• I’m really going to have to learn new skills, because at this point, I haven’t a clue what to do, how to start
• I don’t have the time
• It’s not in my field

You know the type of phrases and questions I mean? Don’t you? OR

Are you the kind of person who says:

• Wow, this is new to me, how exciting!
• I know I have skills to do this, all I have to do is access them from within
• This is fabulous information. How can I integrate it into the work I’m doing?
• I know I have unlimited potential, if I’m given this challenge, it means I’m ready for it
• I’ll look into it
• Bring it on!

Do you get the picture? Can you hear yourself making these comments? How do you feel, when you read these comparative questions?

It’s this focus I’m talking about. It’s more than ‘seeing the glass half full or half empty’.

It’s part of your Global Values System. It’s your philosophy of life in general.

We can limit ourselves with what our concept of Focus really means.

There exists a concept that says: “The person with the greatest behavioural flexibility will always succeed, whereas the person who doesn’t have behavioural flexibility will be limited by their own perceptions”.

Do you look at new opportunities with you peripheral vision or you foveal vision.

Do you look at new challenges with the same conscious mind that is comfortable with the expertise you now consider you have?

If you asked friends and colleagues what strengths you have, would what you think you have agree with their point of view?

No, it wouldn’t. We undervalue our capabilities. OR
Do you look at new challenges with your subconscious in gear working congruently with your conscious mind?

When faced with a new course of action, do you ask yourself a series of questions such as:

a. What would happen if I did?
b. What would happen if I didn’t?
c. What wouldn’t happen if I did?
d. What wouldn’t happen if I didn’t?

This is known as the Cartesian Quadrangle, Cartesian Model, or Cartesian Logic.

Use this strategy, and you’ll never have issues identifying possible solutions to challenges with goal setting.

You are free-spirited, unshackled, without blinkers on the sides of your eyes.

Everything is new, you try it all. Stumbling, falling, nothing stops you.

Even if the adults around you have already lassoed you into their perceptions of who they think you are, you are still free – until about the age of 7, the Imprint Period.

However, the tell-tale signs are already making their mark. You are copying everything you see and hear that your carers are saying and doing – everything.

I’ve heard little girls arguing over, whose chocolate cake was the real chocolate cake, as each of their mothers had garnished it and finished it differently.

How broad is your focus even now about what you can and can’t achieve, honestly?

I don’t want to hear the garble of positive thinking clichés.

How big is your world? 360 degrees?

Most people live in a dark world of their own creation only having as lighting a little pencil-torch.

Everything outside the radius of that little pencil-torch is dark; it’s outside their focus, therefore it’s not part of their world.

Their world is enclosed like a horse in a race. The horse cannot see anywhere but straight ahead; its eye-blinkers prohibit peripheral vision.

These people have foveal vision, tunnel vision.

Open up the floodgates with a humongous floodlight, and be like the Samurai Warriors who could reportedly almost see behind them while facing forewards.

Look at a baby and very young child, their eyes are looking up, to the sides, they are constantly looking around. Their head and eyes are always moving, they are curious, inquisitive.

Where do we look as adults, mostly straight-ahead. Our necks get painful because we are mostly in the one position.

Do you just look  straight ahead?

Or are you open to new possibilities, crazy as some might seem on first encounter?

I grew up in a family where fear was the dominamt emotion, that meant, sticking to what you know was that the only safe thing to do.  Needless to say, my parents kept a very narrow view of life throughout their life, missing out on may happy moments.

It took me years to open up to things that at first seemed extraordinary and outside my comfort zone.  Now, there is nothing I wouldn’t at least listen to, opening my mind to what could be.

Are you living your world in your reality or in the Quantum soup of Pure Potentiality which is your birthright, and which is still the REAL you?

1. Adopt the philosophy of behavioural flexibility

2. Visualise  your desired end result

3. Be well prepared

4. Never accept the first offer

Now, we’ll look at the final four in your developing negotiation prowess.

5. Be the Questioner not the Respondent

As a rule, people talk too much.  They prefer to talk rather than listen.  Even worse, is that they prefer to give their point of view as though their word were law.

Talking by asking questions however, is entirely different.  That is a very constructive use of your vocal chords.

It is more important to know what the other person thinks, which direction they are planning to go, what their agenda is.  Find out what the other party wants.

Concede only after you have asked for time to consider, this will deter them from asking too many concessions which would hold up the proceedings.

In other words, you also need to be a good listener.  There is a delightful saying, “We were given two ears and only one mouth for a reason.”

6. Break each step in the negotiation process into small, measurable goal points

It is extremely important to have short-term, measurable milestones so that you have a point of achieved agreement when a snag in the negotiation process surfaces.  You can then go back to when you were in agreement and then, work forward again from that point.  If no milestones occur, you may need to go too far back, or even go back to the beginning. This is when tension will mount and rational discourse will not eventuate.

7. Believe that you can achieve what you desire

Aim high. Believe that you will succeed. You will enter discussions with the attitude of a winner rather than that of a prospector.
What you aspire to will be the determinant of the end result.  You have two options, to aim low or to aim high.  Which will serve you best?  To aim high, of course!

8. Always be sincere and ‘above board’

An atmosphere of trust reduces the amount of time required to create win-win outcomes.

You should always come from a position of wanting a win-win outcome.  That is the only way that the outcome can be guaranteed to be auctioned for the long-term.

If anyone feels that the final outcome leaves them at even the slightest disadvantage, or they feel they were coerced into accepting it, the terms of the outcome will not stick.

Be honest, fair, and come from a position of integrity. This will ensure that each person will feel that they have been listened to and that their needs have been met.

Avoid abrasiveness, sarcasm, belittling and combatitive behaviour as such behavior will only result in a breakdown in negotiations.

Negotiating, like any skill, is learnt through practising in non-threatening environments.  Daily, you negotiate in family situations, utilise the above skills, and see what works best.

At work, ask to participate in negotiation scenarios where you can get feedback to hone your skills, and then ask for increasingly difficult situations to lift your game.  Once you feel comfortable with all above eight points, you will develop other methods of your own as these are outlines of introductory ways to start developing your negotiation prowess.

Have fun, everything is always easier when you enjoy it.

Here we’ll discussing the first four points, and Part 2, the remaining four points.

To begin with, it’s very important to keep in mind that everything is negotiable to some degree.

So let’s get going.

1. Adopt the philosophy of behavioural flexibility

Never narrow yourself down to a single issue and stubbornly stick to it, allow multiple options as part of your negotiating repertoire so that you always have room to move should your counterpart/s come up with something out of left field. 

This will build your self-confidence.

There is a saying that, the person with the greatest behavioural flexibility is in control of any situation, meaning that you won’t get bogged down; you’ll have a lot of cards up your sleeve.

2. Visualise  your desired end result

Days, even weeks before you meet up with your counterpart/s, you need to know how you want the negotiation process to end.  What is your preferred outcome?  Is what you hope for ambitious or is it realistic?

Visualising a successful outcome, actually being in the picture of success is one of the most powerful weapons for success.  I’m not saying that you ‘see’  yourself successful, I mean actually ‘feeling’ and ‘seeing’ the success through your own eyes, that is what is called being associated in the picture.  When you see yourself in the picture, it’s referred to as being dissociated, which is not quite as powerful as being associated.

3. Be well prepared

It is nothing short of suicidal to go into a negotiation without having brainstormed all the possible scenarios that your counterpart/s could come up with.  Normally, one person cannot do this important preparation alone, there need to have been multiple inputs from which you can draw, that is brainstorming with other stakeholders in your company.

You will then negotiate from a position of strength, appearing to be in control of every situation you are faced with.  If you show that you know what you are doing, give the impressions that you know what you might expect, are aware of all potential counter-proposals presented, your counterpart/s will be less likely to ask you to compromise.

4. Never accept the first offer

It is fair to say that you should never accept the first offer.  Even if the first offer is what you would be happy to accept, aim for something more because your expectations may have been too low.  Having said that, this will hardly be the case, but it is possible, and it’s best to be prepared.

More often, the first offer will be to test your position on key issues.

The next posting will continue with the remaining four points to get you on your way to negotiation prowess.

Do practise the above four before you receive the others as it’s better to practise new material in small chunks than to try them all at one time.

Even just concentrating on one element per day will be better than focusing on all four at one time.

By the end of four days, you will have time to put them all together.

Whether you are an employee yourself and you feel like you are always pulling the weight of the other people in the office or if you are a boss who is wondering how you can actually get some people on board who can do the job, you know that great employees are at a premium. But what exactly makes an employee great?

These ten top things are guides to bosses looking for greatness in a new hire and for employees trying to get noticed in the workplace and be the kind of employee who has the potential to move up in the company chain.

So, what makes an employee great and stand out?

1. They are always dependable

Great employees do the job they are supposed to do every time, and no one has to worry that they don’t deliver the goods. A great employee can be counted to always have their work done right, when it is supposed to be done – it is a forgone conclusion that they will, and no one else has to spend any time worrying about it.

2. A great employee is a team player

A great employee isn’t one who is constantly looking for attention or hogs the spotlight.  Instead, a great employee works with everyone else to make sure that the things that need to get done do get done, for the good of the company.

3. They know how to take direction

Great employees know how to take critiquing, direction and advice gracefully and make it work for them when doing their job.

4. A great employee can be trusted

They don’t spread office gossip and they don’t dish company dirt.  Likewise, they always tell the truth to their employer, even if it lands them in hot water.

5. A great employee respects confidentiality

She or he always guards the confidential nature of their business dealings and protects everyone’s privacy.

6. They participate in the day to day life of the officework functions

They don’t bow out of meetings or skip the office birthday celebrations.  These things may not be a fun part of working life, and everyone involved knows that everyone else has some place they would rather be – but a great employee wouldn’t be any place else.

7. A great employee gets along with other employees

Every office has one person that is in everyone else’s business and talks too loud on the phone and generally stirs things up and gets under everyone’s skin.  This kind of employee zaps office morale – a great employee is a good co-worker to everyone.

8. A great employee has good working skills

It may sound obvious, but a great employee has the abilities needed to do their job, and they constantly seek ways to improve,  like going to training seminars or seeking further education. Great workers have great skills.

9. A great employee is  tactful and acts with decorum

If there is a problem in the office, a great employee doesn’t make a scene in front of everyone else.  A great employee will deal with such issues with privacy and diplomacy.  Furthermore, a great employee doesn’t tell tasteless, political or religious jokes, nor do they send emails that tell these kinds of jokes.

10. A great employee has a great attitude

Bad attitudes bring everyone down.  A great employee helps make work great for everyone else by having a good spirit about their job.

Although, the discussion has been on being a great employee, we can use the above strategies in every walk of life.  This will show the respect we have for our fellow person and, it will also illustrate the respect we have for oursleves.