In working with clients one to one, face to face — either from the stage during a presentation, or in a workshop during teleseminars and Webinars over the internet — I see the most dangerous flaw that is all-to-common in many who never seem to have the success they profess to crave. They are delusional and they blame everyone but themselves. That means they choose to see things the way they want to see them and hope to change that which is distorted reality into something else by wishing and wanting it were so.

“Ah, but if only wishing and wanting could make it so.”

They need tough love.

The best thing they can do is to take off their rose-colored glasses and look at the way things are. It’s only through seeing things as they really are rather than hoping how they should be that the valuable assessment needed for change can take place.

Whether the current situation they’re in is not what they would want it to be or downright bad, a business plan in writing is needed to move them in the direction they want to be.

If you suffer from the same affliction and your company isn’t what you envisioned when you started it, what will you be willing to do to change to get more of what you want and less of what you don’t want?

It all starts with the truth!

But how can you see the truth on your own? Well, if you do budgeting, the numbers don’t lie. If you measure things like call count, that doesn’t lie. If you’re tracking how much per call you’re making, that doesn’t lie. If you have a high callback ratio, that doesn’t lie.

The first step is to really see objectively the way things are at your own business and the business environment around you. But if you can’t see it because you’re blocked by emotional viewing (aka “you see what you want to see”), you need to hire someone to come in and give you the honest assessment about where your operation is weak and strong and what steps you’ll need to take to make things better.

Frankly, the assessment can be bleak. That’s still something you have to face. The longer you stay in denial the less options you’ll have. Even if you learn you should close the doors to your shop, that fact has a seed of hope which would, on the surface, appear hopeless.

The “Power of Knowing the Truth” is what sets you and your company free.

Only from acting on what is real and what’s not can you formulate a plan that you can execute with a firm timeline. If the urgency and commitment isn’t enough to move you, then it is time to throw in the towel.

Remember: “When you put the car in the ditch, the first thing you need to do is stop spinning the wheels.”

You don’t have to own a business or do the work you’re doing today. You don’t have to do things the way you’re doing them today. And if you’re doing things and wishing and wanting a certain result but you don’t get it and nothing changes, you need to look in the mirror and see who is probably at the root cause of the problem. You!

But, it’s much easier to blame the bad economy, the malcontented staff, the complaining customers and just about everyone else but you.

No! It’s still you. You’re at the wheel and ultimately it’s always you who has the power to put the car in the ditch or out there motoring along the highway to success.

The toughest job I have from time to time is to hold up that mirror to a client and show them that they are ultimately causing the problems and the obstacles to their own success. It’s not fun and it’s not easy, but I do it when called upon; I do it because I owe them that.

Most times they’re resistant to change, they defend the status quo, they don’t accept responsibility for their actions and they are wired to say they want success but they don’t do the things that will bring them the success.

So, who are you?

Are you someone hoping, wishing and wanting success? Or, are you someone who is willing to do the uncomfortable, the unpopular and the toughest of things, which is changing yourself and your company to reach success?

Look in the mirror and the answer will be revealed.

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