...or better yet: How important is it to be recognized by someone senior to yourself? It could be your parents, your boss, someone you admire, a renowned expert, in the media, on the web or simply by a crowd of people that knows who you are and with whom you spend much of your time?

That's what this quick poll is about. Provided you're a LinkedIn user already, this will only take three clicks to respond to.

See what others have said about the importance of recognition and check if your respons is in line with the majority of people "out there".

Are you a successful person? That might be a difficult question to answer, and our response may vary depending on what we have in mind, too. At times we all like to think that we're successful. However, when we're at a low point, and everybody hits rock bottom sometimes, we may feel like failures. What is the true measure of success?

Success can be measured in many ways. Yet, if we are to go to the heart of the matter, it's really not that difficult. Success lies in people. Other people. Of course we can be successful as an individual, but essential to any success is our relationship with and dependence - or rather interdependence - on other people.

If other people is the deciding factor of success, then sooner or later we need to understand two most basic facts: 1) Each person is unique. Success is built one person at a time. 2) People require constant effort. We may have a great relationship with someone, but unless we respect and nurture the connection, the relationship will quickly deteriorate and become counterproductive and hurtful.

When I do training I always find one of the most rewarding moments when people begin to realize the power of one-on-one. In fact, I try not to highlight our company name too forcefully when in a training seesion. Why? Because, at a certain point during interaction, someone inevitably says something like this: "So what you're saying is - influencing one person at a time is much more effective than trying to convince two or more at the same time?" That's when it's fun to remind them of our company name.

The following quote is so fitting in this respect:

It is more noble to give yourself completely to one individual than to labor diligently for the salvation of the masses. (Dag Hammarskjold, Past Secretary-General of the UN - quoted by Stephen R. Covey.)

When we concentrate on individuals we have a real chance of practicing long lasting influence. It is when true influence reaches one person at a time that the masses are set in motion through the ripple effect of "the one-on-one principle". One-on-one is the true measure of success!

Conviction is the fruit of effective influence. To effectively influence someone, you need to send signals on three levels. All people pick up these signals, even though they may not know they do. What are these signals, and how do they work?

Regardless of how complex communication, teaching, selling, conflict or any form of human interaction may be, it always consists of three basic elements. And these elements are the solution to how we can find, reach and inspire each other.

The process always begins inside with "inner conviction". Then it extends to include other people through "shared conviction". Once we truly and humbly understand each other, then channels of external inspiration are opened to "discovered conviction". It's only when these convictions are in place that we come close to reaching our full interdependent potential.

				PASSION: Inner Conviction Inner conviction precedes all else. To convince others you first need to be truly convinced yourself. Inner conviction is evidenced by "the heart being on fire" (PASSION).
				CONNECTION: Shared Conviction Once the heart is right, other hearts may be reached. The purpose of shared conviction is to establish an atmosphere of trust. Shared conviction is evidenced by hearts and minds being knit together, and you can feel it (CONNECTION).
				INTUITION: Discovered Conviction To reach true commitment it is not enough to understand each other. Understanding and connecting is merely the means to an end; to create something new. Through hard and patient interactive labor people sometimes tap into intuitive powers. When their talents and abilities are joined they can make groundbreaking discoveries, which is evidence of discovered conviction (INTUITION).

Passion, Connection and Intuition are each channels through which we send signals to those around us. Only as strong, clean and in sync these signals are will we find true and solid conviction; conviction that is:

1. deeply rooted inside
2. altruistically shared and
3. emotionally owned through the experience of mutual discovery.

That's when a message has power!

Principles are often best shared by means of a story or analogy. Here's one that offers depth to the value of individuals and how the fruits of networking are but a fringe benefit of what really matters: Caring for others!

Once when a Lion was asleep a little Mouse began running up and down upon him; this soon wakened the Lion, who placed his huge paw upon him, and opened his big jaws to swallow him. "Pardon, O King," cried the little Mouse: "forgive me this time, I shall never forget it: who knows but what I may be able to do you a turn some of these days?" The Lion was so tickled at the idea of the Mouse being able to help him, that he lifted up his paw and let him go.

Some time after the Lion was caught in a trap. Tied down by strong ropes the Mouse heard the Lion's roar. Coming to its rescue and seeing the sad plight in which the Lion was, immediately it went up to him and soon gnawed away the ropes that bound the King of the Beasts.

When freed, the Mouse said to the Lion: "You ridiculed the idea of my ever being able to help you, expecting to receive from me no repayment for your favor; now you know that it is possible for even a Mouse to con benefits on a Lion."

From a sales perspective, Aesop provides us with a great number of lessons. Some of these may be:

• Never abuse power when you are in a position to do so. Only realize your position allows you to offer mercy you yourself need more than whoever you are offering it to.

• Never be intimidated by the power or authority of others. Only realize that some time in the future roles may be reversed.

• People have value regardless of who they are. Positions have no impact on success in the long run,

• ...but you never know who's who around the next bend.

• Ignore every indication of relative importance among humans,

• ...but maintain a clear view of how the world around you perceives rank and importance.

It is when you rise above, that you begin to grow your ability to influence influential people, becoming one yourself.

I found a charming multimedia presentation on the Lion and the mouse fable. Maybe you'll enjoy it as much as I did?

"I can't help it, that's just how I feel..." Well, that's not good enough! You are in charge, even in charge of your feelings. That may sound harsh, but being in charge of your feelings in large measure decides how successful you are.

Yes, I know. Feelings can't be helped. Sometimes they just come, don't they? In fact, they pretty much do so all the time. Of course there's no simple answer. However, maybe we're not so much a victim of feelings after all?!

Feelings and emotions are a direct result of how we perceive the world around us. For instance, let's say a colleague turns to you and says: "Aren't you turning a little fat and out of shape?" Would that trigger feelings? What if there was a way to filter and help us steer those feelings in a desired direction even before any type of stimulus is allowed to trigger them?

Any type of stimulus is a form of energy							We have good news for you. Such a filter does exist. It's readily available to us. All we have to do is apply it. For the sake of keeping it simple we've divided the subject into three parts. There are three different types of stimuli that trigger feelings and emotions. We call these stimuli "sources of energy". Every kind of stimulus is a form of energy. Had it not been energy, it would not have reached us in the first place.

Energy can be witnessed all around us, but most energy (if not all) is invisible. Invisible or not, these energies broadcast their messages to us through what we might call channels. Let's briefly consider each of these three groups of channels.

Passion

Passion is energy from within. The first channel through which we receive inbound energy and powerful stimulus is from the inside and ourselves. One example of this kind of energy could be "self talk". All of us have a constant conversation going with ourselves. What messages are you giving yourself? Is there a way to filter self talk and be in charge?

Connection

Connection is energy from others. Another channel through which we receive energy is from the people around us. Did you ever distinguish between so-called good and bad vibes from someone? Of course you did. Having a conversation with any person allows us to pick up signals, but a lot of times we misinterpret them. What kind of stimulus are you experiencing from other people? Are you always correct in your interpretation of what they're passing on? And for that matter, do you think they always consciously know what signals the sending you?

Intuition

Intuition is energy from other sources. Maybe a largely underestimated channel is the stimulus we receive from undefined and unknown sources. Did you ever experience a sudden but powerful impression? How does it feel when a groundbreaking idea just hits your brain. Just the fact that it can leave as quickly as it came appears to me as evidence that it's indeed from the outside. Did you ever sense that there is more than just ourselves and the people around us that influences us?

Pick any book on sales, influence, communication, negotiation or even "success" in general, and you'll see that it's about at least one of these three channels. 3E is about mastering all three channels of influence.

Do you want to know how each of these can give you greater control of your emotional life? Do you want to know how they influence the people around you - your family, colleagues, customers? Passion, Connection and Intuition work both ways. That's when the subject gets interesting! Make sure to subscribe to this blog and read my comments about each of those channels coming soon.

Much has been written about success, maybe almost to an excess, thus possibly making "success" unclear and difficult. Is there not a way to keep it short and to the point? There is! This blog post answers - simply - those two questions sought after by so many: 1) What is success, and 2) what does it take to be successful?

What is success?

The core of success is threefold:

1. Discovering what you want - PASSION
2. Consistently working with others to get it - CONNECTION
3. Refining skills and application of principles to adjust to reality - INTUITION

When applied, each step quickly becomes a cyclical pattern that ever brings us to higher levels. Once you've visited each of them, maybe step 1 transforms into "discovering what you should want", step 2 into "working with others to get what they want" and step 3 into realising that you actually "enjoy the journey of development itself" ...and so it keeps lifting you and those around you to higher, continually greater, satisfaction and self awareness.

Whoever is rich, famous or even dramatically gifted may not be successful at all! Success is a process, not a final destination. Thus, people may find sudden superfluous "success" without the required process, only to find neither the happiness nor the satifsfaction they expected.

And here's the icing on the cake: Success becomes increasingly more generic the more you experience it. We gradually sense that the essence of success looms much higher than money and "the things of this world". Ultimately, success is freedom from external conditions and is more a feeling and awareness than anything else. Wealth may be, and sometimes is, an outward expression of something that was created inside long before it became visible on the outside.

Interestingly, not only do Passion, Connection and Intuition define success. Passion, Connection and Intuition also explain how we can be successful.

What does it take to have success?

PASSION

More important than anything else is an inside drive to withstand opposition and natural tendencies. When you decide to have success (in any specified way) you're instantly faced with breaking out of old patterns. Passion helps you stay at it!

CONNECTION

We need to find individuals that not only can help pull us in the right direction, but who also care about us enough that they actually will. The world is interdependent and there's no other way than to succeed with others. Connection binds us together!

INTUITION

Success does not immediately pay off. This is the nature of big worthwhile achievements. It takes time! Doing small and simple yet significant daily actions takes discipline. Acquiring skills takes discipline, and discipline takes skill. However, listening to the inside voice is ultimately what really makes the leap to tipping-point results. It's knowing that you didn't do it on your own - not even together with others. Intuition does exactly that!

Conclusion

Success is best summarized in three words: Passion, Connection, Intuition. They tell us both what success is and how it can be achieved.

PASSION is energy coming from the inside. CONNECTION is energy shared between us. INTUITION is energy coming from the outside and the unknown.

Passion, Connection and Intuition are each a type of energy - they are the 3 Energies (3E). 3E is what success is all about. In this setting they are especially applied to sales and influence, but eventually they apply to every aspect of life.

Success - keep it simple!

If you want to truly connect with people and become influential, you need to master what we call the Opinional Dialog. A lot of sales people believe Connection is about building rapport. Well, it certainly is a lot more than that. How do we start connecting the right way?

In -- any type of conversation -- communication takes place on at least three levels. We refer to these three levels of communication as dialogs. For a conversation to be successful each of these dialogs need to be running in sync, i.e. they need to carry messages that are aligned with each other - they need to correspond. If they don't correspond, the other person will be hearing conflicting signals. When we send out conflicting signals influential power is lost.

One of these three dialogs is the Opinional Dialog, which is foundational to establishing efffective connections.

Three levels of communication each unleashing energy through which information flows

As the above model illustrates the Opinional Dialog is the type of dialog that makes up the second level. This means that it's dependent on the first level - the Operational Dialog - which precedes it. What does this mean? Simply put, one cannot really have a good second level dialog without having the first level dialog in place. Why?

...because the 3E levels deal with:

1. What both parties perceive about your POSITION (level 1)
2. Who you TRUST and who they TRUST (level 2)
3. How WORDS and SUBLIMINAL MESSAGES run in sync with position and trust (level 3)

Let's quickly illustrate with an extremely simplified example:

What you've just communicated to Peter may be heard and perceived by him as: "You're ranking higher than me - being equal to Bob, my superior. However, you consider me an important part of solving the problems Bob wants to have solved."

In other words, whatever you say after this may more easily allow you to establish a relationship with Peter because he's open and ready to listen. We're aiming for higher communication levels where it's safer to exchange feelings and honest opinions. That's the basic paradigm of the Opinional Dialog. It's where opinions are freely exchanged without manipulation.

Note the basic principle of how communication on one level necessarily precedes another.

To summarize: Operational Dialogs (level 1) lead to Passion, meaning it triggers a sincere interest and opens up the other channels of Connection and Intuition. Therefore, before Connection can be established Passion first needs to be in place. If we try to change the order, building a relationship of trust will be very difficult to do.

Asking WHO

The Opinional Dialog is about asking and working with WHO:

• Who has influence on (e.g. final decision)?
• Who needs what we have to offer?
• Who understands our message?
• etc

Once we've answered the WHO-questions we're ready to build a good relationship with the right people.

Next time I'll say more about the third level of communication where we move into HOW by more closely scrutinizing words and phrases. This is when language -- finally -- begins to matter. What traditional sales training usually tends to focus on as "the real deal", The 3 Energies Behind Sales Success merely lists as number three and of least importance.

In June this year we began organizing what is now known as a worldwide group of Elite Sales Professionals. Today we are more than 1.000 high performers and a powerful group of competent people. LinkedIn serves as the initial connection and meeting point, but it will soon be complimented by smart online solutions. These solutions will allow members three basic privileges:

• An evolutionary collaboration model for tipping-point results
• A network of quality people to visualize business opportunities
• An online framework to innovate new money generation activities

The current group definition reads: "High performing sales people with experience in strategy and positioning, network and relations as well as pure skills and customer centric concepts such as innovation and product development. Trustworthy and competent professionals able to create value balancing people with business and money."

Once we've reached critical mass and the beta versions of the online solutions are in place, the Expert Panel behind this group will introduce a second round of qualification. This is when we'll experience the long planned "explosion" of the quality network we're only witnessing the small beginnings of today. Let me assure you; the Expert Panel is not without ambition with this worldwide undertaking! (And yes, the Expert Panel is yet to be formally introduced.)

We can control our subconscious mind to become more influential. Here's a brief blog post about how you can make the subconscious mind work for you. It can both influence you and then others without manipulation.

				Thoughts precede actions I've long been a fan of James Allen's small book "As a Man Thinketh". The subject matter is that thoughts precede our actions - always. We are what we think. However, there is a deeper level. Thoughts, too, are merely the result of deeper choices we've already made.

Scientific background

Benjamin Libet's groundbreaking scientific research indicated that while we believe our actions are conscious decisions, the subconscious has already guided us in how we respond. This may seem to be in contradiction with Stephen Covey's maintaining there's a "gap between stimulus and response", meaning we can decide for ourselves and be proactive. How do these seemingly opposing views add up?

Desires precede thoughts I believe where it all starts is with our deepest desires. What we want is what determines where we spend our "thinking engine". So even though, actions are a result of thoughts, and thoughts are a result of desires, we can indeed make up our minds as to what we want.

Sales people, in particular, have ample reason to pay special attention to how we apply the subconscious mind in this respect. If, for instance, we simply want the money and the sales bonus, but don't care much about the product or service we offer, then it will shine through. Our desires affect our thoughts, our thoughts affect our behavior - and this is the key point - our behavior is read by the subconscious mind of the customer (Their mind will read: "insincerity" and "you don't really care, as long as you get your bonus and money".)

The customer may think he or she makes conscious decisions about you and your offering, whereas what really takes place is the projecting of your deepest desires onto them.

Decide NOW what you want! You're already getting what you didn't know you already want.

Taking notes is not a common habit or lifestyle. Taking notes is in fact rarely seen spontaneously among people being trained or even while sitting in meetings. That's very unfortunate - for them - for those sharing their intelligence and energy - maybe even mostly for those not present. Why? ...and what happens when people take notes?

Taking notes is one of many forms of interactive rhythm. Let's just briefly consider three elements of "notes taking" as a subject, and then our own contemplation may help us discover more than what this short post can contain:

(1) Taking notes to improve dialog

When people take notes you can quickly spot a difference in attentiveness and concentration, openness and sharing, innovation and creativity, participation and dialog, involvement and ownership, ability to learn and apply and many other traits crucial to interaction that will lead to change and results.

(2) Taking notes the right way

Learning how to take notes is therefore a major competency few are aware of or ever learn. We take different kinds of notes in different kinds of settings. (My next post will be about taking notes in a sales meeting.). When taking notes is done well, the value increases dramatically and we feel a strong desire to keep them safe from harms way or loss.

(3) Taking notes to extend memory and feelings

Taking care of notes is important for safekeeping of new learning, discoveries*, commitments and maybe most important - the feelings and emotions we have. When was the last time you wrote down what you felt or what impressions you had besides what was actually being said e.g. in a meeting? Can you imagine why that would be important?

Good notes taking extends our memory. Strictly personal notes and the more profound "lessons of life" - I think - should be kept in a journal. Individuals who actively write and keep a journal appear to be more mature. Maybe it is because it leads to a kind of constant therapeutic exercise and self evaluation that's healthy for all of us. It increases self awareness.

So many times we make the greatest discoveries while we venture to write down in words what we just discovered. Spot the pattern of your notes during the past year. Where are they? Do you browse through them sometimes? Are they in a safe place? Will they be available in 5 or 10 years?

(4) Taking notes to influence others

The habit and principle of taking notes will enhance your lifestyle in ways you cannot understand until you actually start doing it. It's interactive rhythm and will - over time - add to your ability to be more persuasive, yes, even charismatic! Without further ado or elaboration, I am today who and what I am, very much because of the notes my closest peers took while I was not there. Consider what your notes may some day do for someone else.

I encourage you to a) carry a notepad with you, b) think through what and how you will write and then c) work on the habit of constantly doing it. Take notes!

* Ideas and discoveries disappear usually as quickly as they appear. Having a notebook handy always is as valuable as the impressions you may want to retain.