Why the 1% Exists in Salons Too…

Lightning rarely strikes.  In fact, almost any achievement is simply a function of doing small, often difficult steps until success is finally reached.  Unfortunately, most people are unwilling to do the small steps or are simply “unaware” that they exist. 

I remember some time ago, a salon owner gave me a set of “motivational” tapes (ok…I’m old) from a guy named Bob Proctor.  Bob Proctor was a famous self-help guru that worked mostly in the insurance industry and became famous for his work in “The Secret”.  He was a very charismatic speaker that possessed an innate ability to explain things. 

I remember that I used to listen to Bob on my way to salons.  And I would listen to the same tapes over and over again.  And eventually, the concepts stuck (in my subconscious brain…I guess).  

Well, I remember one particular tape that always stuck with me and I wanted to tell you about it.  In fact, Bob used to say “you don’t really know something unless you can explain it to someone else so that they know it.”  So here goes… 

Let’s take a person that makes $50k/year.  That person doesn’t make $50k/year because they want to make 50k/year.  They make $50k because they’re “unaware” on how to make $100k/yr. 

The same is true for the salon owner making $100k/yr.  If you ask them if they would like to make $200k/yr it’s a good bet that they would raise their hand.  But they’re “unaware” on how to identify and break out of those $100k/yr habit patterns.  (ah-ha…very important point). 

You see…our habits form our life’s destiny.  And repeating easy tasks again and again doesn’t get you very far.  And “going for it” in the hopes of hitting a home run rarely works either.  No…what really works…can best be described as an endless series of difficult (but achievable) hills. 

 I read this from the brilliant Seth Godin in his blog awhile back.  He can say it better than I…

“Just about all of the stuck projects and failed endeavors I see are the result of poor hill choices. I still remember meeting a guy 30 years ago with a new kind of controller for the Atari game system.  He told me that he had raised $500,000 and was going to spend it all (every penny) on a single ad during the Cosby show.  His exact words, “my product will be on fire, like a thresher through a wheat field, like a hot knife through butter!” He was praying for lightning, and of course, it didn’t strike.

There are plenty of obvious reasons why we avoid picking the right interim steps, why we either settle for too little or foolishly shoot for too much. Mostly it comes down to fear and impatience. 

The craft of your career comes in picking the right hills. Hills just challenging enough that you can barely make it over. A series of hills becomes a mountain, and a series of mountains is a career.” 

So, the moral of the story is this.  Become “aware” of what it takes to double your income over the next year.  Form the hills that you can barely make over.  Look…there are plenty of people making twice what you are right now.  Ask…what are they doing differently.  What are their habits?

PS. You can get Seth’s Blog for free…it’s well worth the read.  Just Google his name. 

As always, aim high…and dream even higher… 

Steve Sampson