When I was a very young man and turned onto success because I took the Dale Carnegie Course, I read “Think and Grow Rich”, by Napoleon Hill. The whole genesis of the book and it’s concepts to me and millions of others was, “whatever a person can conceive and believe and enthusiastically act upon he/she can achieve.  Now all three aspects of this rule was a lifelong study and a challenge in itself.

1) CONCEIVE. Where do you get the ideas that are worth something to the marketplace? In my case, I fell in love with helping others through Dale Carnegie. I really thought it mattered and thought every Canadian should take it. You could say I was enthusiastic. My simple idea was to fall in love with all that it stood for. I studied its origin; Dale’s writings, why it works; how to build on it and make it even better in the Canadian market. I read and read all of Dale’s work. Within all my weaknesses, I lived and practiced it all.  I took everything he said personally.

2) BELIEVE. It was easier to accomplish belief when I was young.  I got involved with every class/ corporate project, and listened to hundreds of participants tell us how they improved their lives, had better habits and attitudes, how their jobs and companies improved. How could I not believe?

When I discovered how tough it was to deliver it as a Trainer/Coach, the incredible standards that were in place, the way they built new Coaches and especially when I went through to be one myself, it built my belief into professional pride and confidence. The toughest thing I ever had to do in my life was going through the Trainer/Coach development. A gruelling two-year experience. I was pushed beyond what I thought was impossible. Could I really push people through their comfort zones as I was pushed through mine? Even with the ego maniacs, the fearful, the unmotivated, the successful corporate teams? Well, the answer became, “YES!”

My enthusiasm went from the level of: it’s a great idea (conceive) to the confidence that comes from competence (belief).

3) ENTHUSIASTICALLY ACT UPON. Well that’s where it all hits the road. What else did I need to learn? Selling. Yes – selling.  Every business has to sell its stuff. Well, I found out what worked in the USA. I listened to my mentor, Bud. I copied his very language.  I benchmarked the best in the world and created a success journal titled, “What to Do.” I had to build and manage a team. How do you inspire and build everyone’s competency? Again, I listened, studied and put all actions into my journal, as systems, and I broke down all potential actions to implement them into one-week periods.

Over the years, our team created many manuals about what worked and how to build on them. We continually coached our team to be excellent at the competencies required. But we never stopped developing new systems and actions. Many systems/actions of course, took a lot more time than I expected, but I never accepted that well as fact. I thought nothing was missing, but immediate ACTION.

I even started a business club of like minded success-oriented businesspeople called the, “Action Club of Windsor.” I was the youngest and least experienced person in the group. Every Wednesday morning, I started the meeting with, “The only thing we are missing is profitable action.”

By the time I was 27, I had the team, successful business friends, a lot of competence, and bought out the Ontario licensee. Subsequently, we were the biggest and best organization within two years in Dale Carnegie’s world-wide network. We kept adding the licenses of retiring Canadian Carnegie owners and eventually became a coast-to-coast organization. Action was everything. We kidded about it in meetings, “Well, that’s another thing we were not supposed to be doing.”

As I repeatedly said over ten years in the Monday Morning Mentors, “Action is everything.”

Now, as I look back today, Napoleon Hill concepts worked for me, and I bet millions of others.

MMM Insight

Too often in the daily details of our lives we can lose sight of the big concepts behind success.  I think we can over think it. We can start, then stop too much. We can become too knowledgeable and sceptical.  We can lose our confidence easily, and continually blame conditions or others. We can lose our enthusiasm. Heck we can even forget where it comes from.

MMM Action

I don’t know how this mentor resonates with you. What does it make you think about in your life or business? How personal do you take this today? Yes, I am talking to you.

Let’s remind ourselves of the lost secret of success:

1. Keep conceiving what is possible. Maybe based on what you discovered and what occurs to you.
2. Keep building your belief in what can be done. What do you need to learn? What skills or competencies are required?
3. Be action disciplined. Do you have a journal of great ideas and actions? Could you start one? How about starting your own action club? With only you in it will work. Action is usually the only thing missing. Don’t lose your enthusiasm. It diminishes quickly without some disciplined action.      

So now what?

Kevin D. Crone
Chairman
Dale Carnegie Business Group
kdcrone@dalecarnegie.ca
(905) 826-7300

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