Jesse Meijers » Becoming Successful

The Pygmalion Effect – Using Self Fulfilling Prophecies to your Advantage!

Jesse Meijers — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 09:03:44 +0000

You have probably heard of the Pygmalion effect, usually called a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is used to describe the effect that when you’ve talked about something bad happening, that it would actually happen. The fact is, this is much closer to the truth than most people realize. And you can use this to your advantage!

The science behind the Pygmalion effect

The reason why self-fulfilling prophecies work, has to do with our subconscious mind. Whenever we talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy, for example when I say that I will be successful, I am imprinting this into my subconscious mind. The brain works in such a way that it remembers better when we repeat this, so every time I say it, this imprint becomes stronger.

An interesting interaction happens with the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. The conscious mind is heavily influenced by the subconscious mind, but we hardly ever realize this. This interaction means that whatever we have imprinted in our subconscious mind, will be picked up consciously and executed.

Using self-fulfilling prophecies to your advantage

Actually, using the Pygmalion effect to your advantage is very simple. The idea is actually very old, in the form of mantra’s. A mantra, which originates from Hinduism, is a form of prayer that has a powerful effect when repeated. As such, it is basically the Pygmalion effect: repeat something, so it becomes imprinted in your subconscious mind.

So the only thing you have to do, is create your mantra (or mantra’s) and keep repeating them. This doesn’t have to be done out loud, you can do this silently too. The key factor is repeating, so your subconscious will pick up the idea and make it grow stronger and stronger.

A word of caution

The nasty matter of fact is that the Pygmalion effect can also be used in a bad way. Have you ever noticed how people who claim that they always have bad luck …. always have bad luck? The key here is to only concern yourself with positive thinking. Stay away from bad ideas, because repeating those will also imprint them in your subconscious!

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It is good to make mistakes

Jesse Meijers — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 10:25:02 +0000

Most people are affraid to make mistakes. This is only logical. After all, no one likes it when they look bad. Because of this, they will often refrain from doing certain things where they feel the chance of success is small. Or rather: they don’t take action. So I wanted to share with you an amazing story that explains how you can increase your success, by not worrying too much about mistakes.

Taking action is more important than taking the right action

First of all, I have experienced that taking action is much more important than taking the right action. Mistakes can be mended. Missed opportunities however, rarely come again.

Let me give you a first hand example. In my first company we had a problem to solve. We didn’t have a good distribution network to sell our product through. When we came in contact with someone who could help us, we made a wrong decision. We took him onboard, while he couldn’t commit 100% to our company.

Do I look back at this as a mistake? I do. Do I regret making that mistake? No I don’t.

If we hadn’t taken action right then and there, we would have missed our window of opportunity. Now we missed our window of opportunity because we couldn’t get sales to work the way it should have. But at least I took action, made a mistake and learned from my mistake.

When I ended up in a similar situation a while ago, I knew exactly what to do. Had I waited back then and not taken in the sales person, the company would probably still have failed. But I wouldn’t have learned such a valuable lesson!

Results within 24 hours

The other week I got back in contact with a friend that I hadn’t spoken to in about ten years. She is currently unemployed and has been looking for a job for a long time. We got talking about my businesses and how I started my current company after I stopped with the previous one.

Since she’s an artist, the conversation shifted towards interesting things in the market for artists. We talked about independent artists and how they work, which business models there are which can be used, et cetera.

Apparently this inspired her, as I got a message from her the next day, telling me she had decided to take action. She had spoken to someone she found through LinkedIn, who started a clothing brand: Supa Dupa. He was very enthusiastic about her artwork, and she is currently starting to do some designs for them!

Talk about fast results just by taking action!

The difference between value and price

Jesse Meijers — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 19:41:48 +0000

All successful entrepreneurs know that there is a distinct difference in value and price. But most people don’t fully understand this difference. If you want to build a successful business, understanding this distinction is simply crucial.

What is price?

Everyone understands what ‘price’ is. It is the amount of money you pay for goods or services. Sometimes price is not as easy to deduct, but in essence it is that simple.

As an example let’s take a simple software system which you can buy, which will cost you $1.000,-. Then the price is simply $1.000,- (sorry if this seems too obvious, it is important to clarify what price is for the next bit!)

What is value?

Value is the actual worth of whatever it is that you are buying, such as goods or services. Value is not easy to deduct and therefore needs some more explanation. Let’s look at a simple software system again. If I can use a software system and it allows me to either:

Increase my sales by $1.000,- per month (for simplicity’s sake we assume no costs are involved)
Decrease my costs by $1.000,- per month

Then the value of the system is $1.000,- per month or $12.000,- per year.

The difference between price and value

If both software systems in my example are the same, then I am able to make a great deal. If I know that this system is saving $12.000,- in costs per year for a company and yet it costs me $1.000,- to buy it, there is a huge difference between value and price!

So remember that value is the perceived worth while price is the actual cost.

Some examples

I have been using this difference for years to build a successful company, and so have many others who understand this principle well. Here’s some examples of ways to use this knowledge:

Warren Buffet – uses this knowledge to buy stocks which have a lower price than they’re actually worth. Knowing this, he is basically buying a bargain and he can be sure that in due time, the price will once again reflect the actual value; leaving him with a nice profit!
Reselling – did you know that Red Bull was a hugely popular energy drink in Japan before it came to Europe? Some smart guy figured that the success of the drink could easily be turned into millions by changing the name to Red Bull. The value was reflected by this smart man’s imagination, while the price of the reselling rights outside of Japan was the price. And much lower than the millions or even billions of dollars it is generating each year!

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Easily increase your turnover … without spending a penny!

Jesse Meijers — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 19:17:08 +0000

If I told you there is a way that you could increase your turnover, without even spending any money, would you be interested? Of course you would! You probably spent money on silly things that promised you extra turnover or profit, but actually didn’t do anything other than costing you money… Well, let me explain how to do it… for free!

Story of the tool salesman

I met a tool salesman once who specialized in a certain area of tools. He sold cutters, picks, drills, etc. Me being from an entirely different market, I obviously asked him ‘what do you do’. And he told me he sells ‘cutters, picks, drills and the like’. The best one he told me, was the drills. Those sold best for him.

When I asked him why he thought the drills were the best selling item, he simply replied: because most people want to drill, and they need a drill. So I explained to him that this was wrong…

Most people couldn’t care less about drilling a hole. What they want … is a HOLE! They would be perfectly happy if the hold magically appeared in the wall at the right place. With the right depth. And width. But they don’t care about the drilling! They only care about the hole; about the result!

Thinking in advantages

The big difference between what I told the man and what he told me is this: the tool salesman was thinking in products. Thinking in products is what most salesmen do; they will explain you that you need the PowerHammer 2000 XTR because, well, it packs more power (and by the way, is more expensive!). So buy that! It is a great product! Just look at all the impressive features it houses! AMAZING!

Thinking in advantages and result is different. You simply ask the person what kind of hole they need. Big? Small? Deep? Shallow? In what kind of wall? How many holes?

This difference goes a long way. Don’t think in products. You are no longer a tool salesman. You are a hole-solution-provider. Present yourself this way!

The result…

This tool salesman actually increased his turnover simply by doing this one, free thing. This simple mind shift led him to more than triple his turnover! That is really how simple it is. Think in advantages for your customer. Don’t sell a product. Sell a solution!

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See one, do one, teach one

Jesse Meijers — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 08:42:53 +0000

Recently I was talking to a friend of mine who has worked for NATO and United Nations. We got talking about learning skills and how rules of thumb which explain methods can help you in easily remembering a process to learn something. In his line of work, the method ‘See one, do one, teach one’ is used. This is a very good method to remember when you want to learn a skill yourself, and to remember when you are teaching someone else a skill.

See one

The first part of this rule is see one. The way to read this is that when you want to learn a skill, it is good to see someone else executing the skill first. Obviously you want the other to be an expert or master in the skill.

The ’see one’ part is all about training your brain to remember what the skill is. Analyze what is going on, and why. Make notes if needed, and think up mnemonics if you can for the hard-to-remember bits. Remember to ask questions!

Do one

The next step is to get your feet wet. Simply executing the skill. Preferable under the watchful eye of the expert or master that you had been observing while ’seeing one’. In this stage it is about getting yourself used to executing the skill. In the beginning this is usually hard (depending on the skill of course), but in time the skill gets easier to execute.

The idea is that your practicing leads your subconscious to take over the execution of the skill. Once this happens, you no longer have to consciously think about all the aspects that you observed while ’seeing one’. The skill becomes natural to you.

Teach one

You have truly mastered a skill when you can teach others the skill. This involves you showing and explaining the skill to others (the ’see one’ phase for your pupil). Answer all the questions your pupil has patiently.

Then it is time to let your pupil ‘do one’ for himself. Watch the process, but don’t give directions. You should only help when help is asked, and even then you must be aware not to give the answer plainly. Asking a question which allows your pupil to discover the answer themselves is a much better learning tactic.

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Work smart, not hard!

Jesse Meijers — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 19:40:20 +0000

“Work smart, not hard”. Isn’t this a big cliche? Doesn’t everyone dream of working smart and not hard? And doesn’t it turn out differently all the time? Let me explain how you too can work smart instead of hard, and make more money while you’re at it! Here’s how I did it…

Let other people do the work

The big secret of working smart and not hard is to let other people do the work for you. That is easily done when you have a big business with hundreds of employees, but how do you start out? Well, let me tell you how my business partner and me started letting other people doing the work for us, and making a lot of money at the same time.

The idea is pretty simple, and can be explained along the lines of an investment. Let’s say you have a project which would mean you’d earn $100.000,-. The project would cost you 10 weeks working full time to do by yourself, so this means you earn $1.000,- per week. Not too shabby!

But we want to make more money in less time! The solution to this problem is to hire someone else to do the work for you, for example, an employee or a third party company. The trick is to find a cheaper way to do this, for example a company or person that can do it in the same amount of time for $80.000,-. Usually you can find a cheaper deal in the form of outsourcing abroad or hiring someone full time (since wages are usually much lower than what you can charge per hour to customers).

How this helps you to make more money

If you would walk this route, your income would suffer, because this solution would only mean $20.000,- in your pocket! While doing it completely yourself would mean a whopping $100.000,-! But the big advantage of having other people doing the work is that you’ll spend far less time on searching a company or person to handle the work (let’s say 1 week) which means your weekly rate is much higher!

Here’s how the numbers work:

	Doing it yourself	Having others do the work
Turnover	$100.000,00	$100.000,00
Third Party Costs	$0,00	$80.000,00
Your Share	$100.000,00	$20.000,00
Time Spent (weeks)	10	1
Weekly Rate (Your Share / Time Spent)	$10.000,00	$20.000,00

As you can see, having other people doing the work can mean increasing your weekly rate with 100%!

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8 Super Tips that will get YOU the Job Position of Your Dreams

Jesse Meijers — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 20:40:28 +0000

Currently I am holding some job interviews for one of my companies. We’ve held job interviews for other positions in the past as well, and there are some things that strike me when I interview these people. Some positive, some negative. Most people do the same thing that all the others do too. So in order to make sure you don’t make those mistakes; I have put together a list of the my best tips.

These tips may well be worth tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars to you. Maybe they will even defy monetary value for you, by giving you something that makes you truly happy: the job of your dreams!

Your action plan

The first thing you have to do is get your action plan straight. Here are 7 steps that will help you get the position of your dreams:

Decide exactly what kind of job position you’re after. It doesn’t matter if it already exists, just make sure you have a description of your dream job.
Choose the company, organization or individual you want to work for.
Study your prospective employer extremely thoroughly, as to policies, personnel and chances of advancement.
Analyse yourself to determine what you have to offer and plan ways and means of giving advantages, services, developments and ideas that you truly believe you can successfully deliver.
Forget about just a ‘job’. Forget about whether there is an opening or not. Forget asking people if they have a job for you. Concentrate on what you can give.
Once you have your plan in mind, put it to paper in neat form and in full detail. You can choose to have this done by an experienced (copy)writer, which is preferable. Make sure you present the full details of your plan to the copywriter, so they can truly understand it and write your brief.
Present your brief to the proper person with authority and he or she will do the rest. Every company and organization is looking for someone who can give something of value, whether it concerns connections, ideas or services. Every company and organization has room for the person who has a definite plan of action which is to the advantage of that company.

What your brief should contain

The brief should at least contain the following information, in full detail and neatly organized so it can easily be read quickly:

Education; state briefly, but definite, what schooling you have had. State which subjects you specialized in at school and make sure to give the reasons for your specialization.
Experience; if you have experience in connection with positions similar to the one you are after, describe them fully. State names and addresses of former employers. Also be sure to bring out clearly any special experience you may have had which would equip you to fill the position you’re after.
References; practically every business firm wants to know all about the previous records, antecedents, etc. of prospective employees who are after positions of responsibility. Attach copies of letters to your brief from:
- Former employers
- Teachers under whom you studied
- Prominent people whose judgement may be relied upon
Photograph of yourself; make sure there’s a good photograph of yourself in the brief. Preferably shot by a professional, in a studio, while wearing the attire suitable for the position you’re after.
Apply for a specific position; avoid application for a position without describing exactly what particular position you seek. Make sure your brief doesn’t apply for ‘just a position’. That indicates you lack specialized qualifications.
State your qualifications; make sure the brief states your qualifications for the position you are applying for. Give full details as to the reason you believe you are qualified for the particular position you seek. This is one of the most important details of your application brief. It will determine, more than anything else, what consideration you will receive.
Offer to work on probation; I can’t tell you how much prospective employees will love this one. If you offer to work for free for a week, or a month, or a sufficient length of time to enable your prospective employer to judge your value to the organization without pay, you will open doors you thought would never open.It seems radical, but it hardly ever fails to at least get you a trial. If you are sure of your qualifications, a trial is all that you need! Make sure you indicate the fact that your offer for the trial is based upon:
- Your confidence in your ability to fill the position.
- Your confidence in your prospective employer’s decision to employ you after the trial period
- Your determination to have the position you seek.
Knowledge of your prospective employer’s business; before applying for any position, do extensive research in connection to the business to familiarize yourself with that business thoroughly. Indicate in your brief the knowledge you have acquired in this field. This will be most impressive, as it indicates that you have imagination and a real interest in the position you are after.

Remember that it is not the lawyer you knows the most law, but the one who best prepares his case, who wins…

Size doesn’t matter

Do not worry about your brief being too long. Even in today’s fast-paced world, employers are still as much interested in purchasing the services of well-qualified applicants as you are in getting the position of your dreams!

The finishing touch

This little tip, which I call the finishing touch will actually make you stand out whether your resume is the worst in the history of mankind or you’re the best qualified person for the job in the universe. It simple guarantees your resume gets the attention it deserves!

When your brief is completed, have it professionally bound and lettered similar to the following:

Brief of the Qualifications of

Jesse Meijers

Applying for the Position of

Private Secretary to
The President of
My Dream Company, Inc.

This will certainly attract attention. Make sure that your brief is printed on high-quality paper, not the laser-printer stuff you buy for 1 buck per 500. A last touch is to hand-sign the brief, preferably on the same page as your photograph is. Make sure your name is stated near your autograph.

Ways to find positions and companies

There are many ways to find companies and/or positions to apply for. Here is a list of ways that I prefer when I look for applicants:

Employment agencies; take great care in only selecting agencies with a good track record and reputation. These agencies will cost money for the prospective employer when they hire you, but if you’re after a position of responsibility; that will be the least of their worries. This strategy will ensure you end up with serious interviews for great positions.
Advertising in newspapers, trade journals and (online) magazines; this is a great way to get yourself known. Place your ad in between job offers. Many prospective employers who place ads in magazines will look them through to see their own ad and also to make a decision whether to place their ad in the first place. That is exactly the audience you need. Make sure you get an experienced copy-writer to write your ad. This will make all the difference!
Personal letters of application; directed to individuals at particular organizations that are in need of the services you offer. This is my personal favorite, if done well. Make sure the letter is hand signed and always address it to a person of authority if you can. Again, have a copy-writer create the letter for you, as this makes a huge difference in results!
Application through personal acquaintances; if possible, this will yield the highest success ratio. Especially when seeking executive positions, this is the way to go.
Application in person; in some instances this may be the most effective solution. Especially when you have a connection with the person you are applying with.

The secret ingredient for success

Jesse Meijers — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 12:37:19 +0000

There is a secret ingredient that successful people have, and others lack, or don’t use. This ingredient is a personality trait. One that you can learn if you are not in posession of it already. And train if it is not yet at the level it should be.

Thomas A. Edison

When Edison was trying to perfect the incandescent light, he ran into a problem. He didn’t know which gas to put into the bulb. But he never gave up … he tried 10.000 different gases. None solve the problem.

Yet, he still didn’t give up. Instead he tried a vacuum, which turned out to be the solution to his problem!

Persistence

Every person who is successful at what they do, is persistent. Persistence is the personality trait you must have to succeed. Since success is only the last step of a long process which includes many temporary defeats.

Luck has nothing to do with it!

In the media you never hear the true story about success. Since success sells, the story of the many temporary defeats people have suffered is rarely given more than 2 lines in a complete cover story. This makes it look easy, or may even cause the reader to think that the successful person was just lucky.

In reality, successful people may be lucky, but it isn’t luck which causes success. It is the persistence those people have when everything seems to be going wrong, which causes them to be successful.

Learning and training persistence

If you want to learn persistence, or train it, there are many exercises you can do. Basically, they all amount to the same simple process:

Find an activity or task of your choice
Determine the edge of your comfort zone
Plan the activity/task in such a way that the goal takes you over the edge of your comfort zone

For example, I like hiking. If I want to use this activity to improve my persistence, I can plan a hike which takes me through terrain which is slightly out of my comfort zone. For me that would be cold environments which means ploughing through snow fields.

If I plan such an activity it means that I can mentally prepare for it. Nonetheless, I will still have to show persistence not to quit after a day or 2 of hiking, because I don’t like the snow or the cold.

I bet you can find an activity that you can use to apply this very simple principle. You can even do this with changing a fosset in your house (if you’re not the DIY type of person for example), as long as it means you have to show persistence.

The most important thing: make a deal with yourself that you won’t give up until you’ve completed your goal. If you have to get creative, call in the neighbour, wait a long time, whatever. As long as you reach your goal and don’t give up!

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How to bring good news and bad news

Jesse Meijers — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 08:12:51 +0000

From time to time we have to bring people bad news. Luckily, we also have good news to bring them now and then, so all is not lost. But how do we make sure that we take advantage of good news, and we minimize the impact of bad news?

Bringing the Bad

If you’ve got some bad news to tell someone, there are a lot of ways to do this. There is the hamburger method (good news, bad news, good news), but that is not what I want to tell you. Mixing good and bad news is fine, but there is something else which is far more important when it comes to bad news.

When you have bad news, the best thing to do is to spill ALL the bad news at once. Get it off your plate as soon as possible. This accomplishes two things:

It will take a load off of your shoulders. Walking around with bad news, not having shared it with the people it concerns, is a stressful situation you do not want to be in.
It makes for a short, effective and efficient way of dealing with the problem. It may not make you the most likeable person at that moment, but it makes sure you don’t have to bring more bad news the next day.

Psychologically, people tend to forget bad news and remember good news. That is why ‘there is no such thing as bad publicity’. In the long run.

In the short run, a heap of bad news is annoying. But the long run is more important. So get your bad news off of your chest as fast as you can, and get it all off.

People have a tendency to drag bad news. If you battle this tendency, you’ll be much more effective at what you are doing and it will also help you build great relationships.

Bringing the Good

Where people have a tendency to drag out bringing bad news, their enthusiasm usually leads them to spill good news all at once. That is a shame, because then the effect of the good news is short-lived.

When you bring good news, you want to drip it. Tiny bits at a time, with time in between the bits. This accomplishes two things again:

It will create a good feeling for yourself, since you have ‘more’ good news to bring than bad news. Each drip should make you feel good.
Other people will pick this up, and the overall picture will be that there is mostly good news. So other people will get a good feeling for the project, business or whatever else it is you are dripping good news about.

Good news thus needs to be stretched to make its impact last longer. Use this technique to your advantage!

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The OTOM principle: Other people’s Time, Other people’s Money

Jesse Meijers — Tue, 18 May 2010 22:15:20 +0000

There is a principle that is widely used amongst successful entrepreneurs, and especially those with the aim of making money. This principle is called the OTOM principle: Other people’s Time and Other people’s Money.

Leverage

The first thing you have to understand about the OTOM principle, is the principle of leverage. In very simple terms, leverage means that you use less to achieve more. The term comes from mechanics, but is very easily explained by a simple picture:

You can achieve more with less, by using leverage. In this case, the 50 lbs weight tips the scale in its favor, even though the 400 lbs weight is obviously heavier. This is exactly what leverage does.

Other People’s Money – Financial Leverage

Leverage in financial terms means to use debt to supplement investment. But it can be explained simpler than that. You borrow money at a certain expense (interest) to earn more money than you have to pay in interest.

There is a great example which will immediately show you the power of using Other people’s Money to yield higher percentage returns on your investment.

Let’s assume we are buying a property at the cost of $100.000,-. If we buy this property with our own money, we have nothing to pay in interest. If we sell this property after a year for $120.000,- we have made a whopping $20.000,- profit (we won’t take into account any rental income you could have earned for the sake of simplicity). This comes down to a 20% return on investment ($20.000 / $100.000).

Not bad, considering the bank gives you about 3-5% return on investment per year (interest on your savings account) currently!

But now consider this. Instead of pouring in $100.000,- of your own hard earned cash, you only pay $10.000,- and borrow the other $90.000,- against 10% interest at a bank (current interest rates are actually much lower). This means if you sell the house after a year you have not earned $20.000,- but only $11.000,- because you have to pay $9.000,- (10% of $90.000,-) interest. But after paying back the loan and paying the interest, you have made $11.000,- by investing $10.000,- which equals a whopping 110% return on investment ($11.000 / $10.000)!

Here’s an overview of the numbers:

	Your Own Money	Other People’s Money
Downpayment	$100.000,00	$10.000,00
Loan	$0,00	$90.000,00
Interest Payment (10%)	$0,00	$9.000,00
Gross Profit *	$20.000	$20.000
Profit (Gross Profit – Interest)	$20.000	$11.000
Return on Investment (Profit / Downpayment)	20%	110%

* Based on selling the property for $120.000,- after 1 year

This means that you could do 10 investments by using the Other People’s Money principle, than you could with the Your Own Money principle, if you had $100.000,- to invest with. This would mean that you could make $110.000 in a year with the Other People’s Money principle, whereas with the Your Own Money principle you would only make $20.000!

Other People’s Time – Time Leverage

Using other people’s time is a form of leveraging the time you have to spend. Let’s face it, here we are all equals, we all live NOW and none of us really knows how much time there is for us on this world. Or more philosophically speaking: time is your most valuable asset, and you’re running out of it at a steady pace.

Basically Other People’s Time can be explained along the lines of an investment as well. Let’s say you have a project which would mean you’d earn $100.000,-. The project would cost you 10 weeks working full time to do by yourself, so this means you earn $1000,- per week.

The Other People’s Time solution to this problem would be to hire someone else to do the work for you, for example, an employee or a third party company. The trick is to find a cheaper way to do this, for example a company or person that can do it in the same amount of time for $80.000,-.

Your income would suffer, because the Other People’s Time solution would only mean $20.000,- in your pocket. While the Your Own Time solution would yield $100.000,-. But the big advantage is that you’ll spend far less time on searching a company or person to handle the work (let’s say 1 week) which means your weekly rate is much higher!

Here’s how the numbers work:

	Your Own Time	Other People’s Time
Turnover	$100.000,00	$100.000,00
Third Party Costs	$0,00	$80.000,00
Your Share	$100.000,00	$20.000,00
Time Spent (weeks)	10	1
Weekly Rate (Your Share / Time Spent)	$10.000,00	$20.000,00

As you can see, using Time Leverage can mean increasing your weekly rate with 100%!

Combining Other People’s Time and Other People’s Money

I hope that this article will lead you to understand the reason why people borrow money to build businesses. The borrowing money part is Other People’s Money, which is then used to hire people, the Other People’s Time part. This combination greatly increases your money making ability and is key to building a successful business.

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