Occasionally we stumble across the phenomenal.

An artist’s vision realized, a revolutionary product, music that changes you or perhaps coffee really worth talking about.

In this instance, it’s an extraordinary video that inspires. Take a two minute and seventeen second break to watch something that will change your entire day:

Told you…

Things going pear-shaped or “the $#*% hitting the fan” are a reality of being in business.

The way we deal with those crisis situations speaks volumes on our character. It is one of the big psychological differences that widens the gulf between successful and struggling entrepreneurs.

This super short article is guaranteed to give you a powerful,”take away” tool for transforming disaster scenarios.

In a crisis situation, from flooded offices to losing that crucial contract, the business owner and entrepreneur relies on their psychological conditioning (whether they like it or not).

When confronted with an escalating, sticky situation our mind tends to naturally start grinding it’s gears. The direction that our “crisis thinking” takes us is what will ultimately determine our results.

For the entrepreneur, it is thinking alone that dictates if she comes out on top… or fails miserably.

That thinking begins with the questions we ask ourselves.

Ineffective Questions to ask during a crisis

• What has gone wrong?
• Why is it important?
• Whose fault is it?
• Why does this happen to me?

These are ineffective questions simply because of the kind of answers they produce.

Mentally answering the first two questions, for example, is only going to create a greater sense of loss and dread… as you contemplate the magnitude of the screw-up or disaster you’re facing.

The 2nd two questions are used by people trying to come to terms with the loss by pushing the cause of it outside of themselves. This kind of thinking robs you of the power to change your situation – focusing instead on blaming others for your plight.

Useful questions to resolve problems

• What (emotional) state would be most useful right now?
• How do I want to remember this in 6 months?
• What can I learn from this?
• What do I have the power to change?
• What resources do I have available?
• What have I got to be grateful for?

These questions demand that you focus on the most destructive part of any crisis: Your personal emotional state.

Secondly, you force yourself to frame the circumstances from a far more useful perspective… Very few disasters have ramifications beyond 6 -12 months.

By focusing on the personal learnings you can make, you reframe any negative situation as a powerful turning point in your entrepreneurial education.

Shouldering the responsibility to make changes forces us to realise the resources that we have – external and financial… or internal and mental.

Use these six questions to avert disaster and transform crisis into something useful.

… mastering this one skill will put you in the same league as the world’s top business leaders.

You can be sure that your business hero didn’t get there by asking “Whose fault is this?” … so neither should you!

My crisis…

Many years ago I lost an enormous corporate consulting contract… at the last minute. Having signed off the deal, I was literally waiting for the first advance payment to appear in the bank.

Like all inexperience entrepreneurs, since I was positive I would get this deal… I had “banked” on it and was relying on the payment to balance my budget.

When a natural disaster (seriously) forced my client to cancel the contract, I experienced a personal crisis of some magnitude. Awake til 4am, I wondered what I would do and where I would find the kind of cash I was relying on.

I personally spent days meditating on the first list of crappy questions. It was an extraordinarily dark time. When a friend (and fellow NLP person) emailed me the list of 6 “useful” questions, it turned things around for me.

The questions gave me the perspective (and necessary change of state) to dig my way out of potential ruin. I lost that particular client, but moved on to others.

In particular, I learnt an enormous lesson about budgeting on dollars that are not in the bank (don’t do it!).

For me, realising that I had so much to be grateful (despite my natural inclination to forget everything good in the world) was the most significant turning point.

Let me know (via the comment section below) when, in your life or business, these questions could have useful for you…

I rarely find videos relevant and interesting enough to share with you. This one however, is out of this world.

Click to read the rest of this entry – you’ll enjoy a severe shake up of your world view:

This video was originally designed for entry into a “presentation award” competition.

The folks behind it are Jeff Brenman, karl Finch and Scott McLeod.

What do you think the answer to the final question is?

To be honest, viewing this leaves me feeling positive anticipation and gratitude for being alive to witness all this… mixed with more than a little despair. I’m not going to explain WHY I feel despair (why would that reasoning be worth knowing?)…

I want to know your perspective – reply in the comment section below

There is a psychological “a-ha” (I call it a “Eureka” moment) that every successful entrepreneur just “gets” at some point in their career. Usually just before they absolutely master the science of achievement.

Thing is, it isn’t easy to “get”… it fact, it is one of the most painful lessons you’ll ever learn.

The secret lies in knowing this, expecting the hurt… and then going for it anyway. Really, the lesson is all about embracing pain.

Let me explain…

I’m in the zone. Hurtling at high speed straight down a super steep ridge… slicing and dicing snow into a huge cloud of powder behind me. Clearly, I am the the coolest thing skier on the whole mountain today.

Just when I’m feeling the most confident, everything changes.

Before I can blink, I’m airbourne and the crashing down the hill. In a motion described by experts as “tomahawking” (picture a spinning ax), I flip head over heals and finally come to a not-so-graceful halt with my head buried in the snow.

My entire body is aching like I just finished a bar fight with a 300kg gorilla. I try to get my breath back and simultaneously realise I’ve got snow all through my mouth, nose and trousers.

Worst of all, I have absolutely no idea how this even happened!

When you’re speeding along in business, sometimes you’ll fall flat on your face. It’ll happen so fast that it’s hard to pinpoint the cause.

Ultimate learning:

1. You now know where your learning curve is…

2. You now have the feedback you need to know when to start paying extra attention

See, as soon as I fell down the mountain, I limped back to the hut for a warm drink and a moment’s thought.

I realised that I hadn’t been focused – my attention was on performance (going faster and faster) and I wasn’t paying attention to the conditions underfoot.

This lack of focus in the right places caused me to catch a ski in a patch of soft powder. End result = me flying!

The ironic thing? Powder is supposed to be “ideal” for skiiers, but because I wasn’t paying attention, a pocket of this perfect snow totally ruined me.

The ultimate, ULTIMATE learning:

Without falling over, we cannot learn. The more spectacular the fall, the more neccessary and urgent it is to make the learning.

All really good skiers who know how to go fast, are always (as I learned) keeping an eye out for variable snow conditions.

This is something beginners don’t need to know about. When you’re slowly cruising down a slope, sudden ice or powder (or change fullstop) is easy to deal with.

… You make a few changes to your technique and keep on cruising!

It’s only when you’re on the fast-track that you need to watch out and utilise lighting-fast reflexes to adjust to the conditions.

Learning this is something I would never had the opportunity to do, had I not skiied (stupidly) fast in the first place.

When I go really fast, I realise that the chances of a fall increase dramatically. Still, I consistently ski to my absolute edge because that is the only way to rapidly increase skill.

I know to expect pain.

The big secret: If you’re not looking forward to the pain of falling over, you’re wasting your time and the pay off probably isn’t worth it either.

Anyone who finds skiing boring isn’t going fast enough. Anyone who finds skiing hard isn’t falling over enough.

Make your life, hobbies and business easy – Discover your absolute edge and push yourself beyond it. When you pick yourself up again and keep at it, you’ll soon realise that your personal “edge” is getting bigger and bigger….

As a Master Practitioner of NLP I get to meet a lot of people who have jumped on board the self-development/human-potential movement. More often than not, these people are big believers in “the power of positive thinking”.

What they don’t know is that, at a psychological level, positive thinking and affirmations can cause major damage to your thinking and ability to get motivated. Ultimately, positivity can damage your results – in life and business.

Read on to find out the one technique that eliminates this problem – it’s roughly thirty times more effective than positivity…

The secret is simple: Instead of affirming positive “beliefs” try asking yourself questions that produce positive answers.

A huge number of people discover pop-psychology and start practicing the worst kind of positive-thinking.

They tell themselves they are healthy, wealthy and fulfilled. They repeat it as a mantra, over and over. The idea is, through repetition, to slowly drill the message into one’s unconscious in the hopes that results will be forthcoming. 

Problem is, while they’re busy affirming good stuff, they’re not actually doing anything. I’ve never known a single person who has been hit on the head by a bag of money while meditating.  

A nasty incongruency begins to develop: The unconscious mind receives repeated messages about how happy, healthy and wealth you are, but knows that it isn’t the truth.

Talk about internal conflict! Your unconscious mind isn’t stupid. All it’s going to do is learn to tune out the un-true affirmation chatter and get back to focusing on reality.

Second bad news: In the meantime, reality isn’t going so well. Positive thinkers bottle up their frustrations and sit around thinking happy thoughts. Smart go-getters use negative emotion as leverage to take immediate action.

Ask better questions!

By asking oneself clever mental questions, you can actually direct your unconscious mind to come up with clever, positive and empowering answers.

A mental dialogue of empowering, unconscious Q & A lends itself well to action and then results.  

Example:

By internally asking, every morning: “How much positive impact can I have on the bottom line of my business today?”

… you are forcing your unconscious mind to focus on positive, practical actions that will improve your results.

The secret is in the question and the presupposition it implies: By asking “how much” you force your unconscious mind to quantify… zero or “nothing at all” simply isn’t an option!

You could ask yourself:

How much fun can I have today?
How much have I got to be grateful about?

All questions like this will transform your state of mind and the results you produce. Rapidly. Positive thinking takes years of frustration to apply properly and doesn’t even come in close in terms of effectiveness.

Smart questions beat positivity every time. You heard it here first.

Yesterday’s article was a short and sweet burst of negativity into your otherwise comfortable day.

Why would I set such a horrible and negative exercise? The answer is simple: There’s a bunch of benefits to being “constructively negative” – including increased productivity, creativity and effectiveness.

Read on to find out why…

The problem with purely positive thinking is two-fold:

1. You run into problems by constructing a mental universe where everything is perfect (when it isn’t)

2. You create a nasty in congruence with your inner self (which always knows the truth) that leads to the most insidious form of self-sabotage

Getting negative can be wonderfully empowering because it drives you to respect the reality of your situation and limitations.

The exciting part is where you look at your “worst case scenario” list… or your measly list of resources… and decide to go ahead and take action anyway.

Tough times, crunches and bad days are the best time to launch a new project, idea or business. If your initiative can survive the initial challenges it’s far more likely to be ultimately successful.

Without negativity you can never even begin to plan your strategy for getting around problems and limitations. Positive thinking produces amazing dreams, visions and goals. Negative thinking produces powerful business plans and strategies.

Embrace it – use planned bursts of negative, constructing thinking to flesh out your positive visions and goals. This is, after all, a strategy of top entrepreneurs.

Speak up in the comment section: What positive dreams of yours could benefit from some negativity?