The Ultimate Sales Machine - Chet Holmes [125]
Thomas Edison, who invented the lightbulb, the movie camera, and dozens of other ingenious things, said, “Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious.” You can actually pose something to your subconscious as you go to sleep and wake up with the solution in mind. Napoleon Hill wrote that you should “demand” that your subconscious give you the solutions or answers that you desire.
One way to put your subconscious mind to work for you is to create a recording of your own voice that you listen to every night before you go to bed, feeding proactive affirmations into your subconscious. For 12 years, I listened to a tape of my own voice every single night before I went to sleep. I was talking directly to my subconscious and I played the tape when my mind was most receptive. My income doubled for three years in a row.
Exercise
Create an RAS recording of your own voice using whatever technology you have—cassette, digital recorder, and so on. First, use your favorite relaxing background music to play as you record. Then, talk yourself through some relaxation exercises. Tell yourself to close your eyes and imagine you are in a calm place like a peaceful lake or in a hammock on a sunny day—whatever is a calm image is for you. Tell yourself to relax into that scene and breathe deeply. Count back from 10 to 1, feeling each number relaxing you more and more. This puts your brain into a less active beta mode. This also helps you sleep and close down your mind. Next, state a series of affirmations about yourself and your life. These are all positive beliefs about yourself, who you are, and what you want in your life. Just make sure you state them as if they are already a reality so your brain starts to work on them subconsciously. Here are a few great affirmations for anyone:
I attract success.
Success comes to me easily.
Abundance and prosperity flow to me from every direction.
It’s easy to be successful.
I only think positive thoughts.
I’m in perfect health.
Sales Affirmations
In each of my weekly sales meetings, I make every salesperson repeat after me as I give them various affirmations. One of my favorites for salespeople is “I love to cold-call in the morning.” When I was a sales rep, I wrote those words on a sheet of paper and put it up on the wall in front of me. I would then say them out loud and with great fun in my voice. If you are in sales or run a sales team, there simply is no better affirmation. Cold calling is the toughest activity for most salespeople. Me, I love to cold-call in the morning. I suppose it’s from years of repeating that affirmation.
Record 10 affirmations that are perfect for you. Remember to keep them positive and in the present. Restate them again and again until the tape ends. I have to say that this is the most powerful thing I’ve done to climb out of my blue-collar upbringing. Once you’ve created this recording, listen to it just before you go to sleep every night. Yes, my wife made me put on headphones so she wouldn’t have to listen, too.
Using Your RAS in Goal Setting
Goals focus your attention and enforce your brain to attract what you want. Most people spend more time planning a vacation than they do planning a life. But setting goals in every aspect of your life and business puts your RAS to work (on purpose) at attracting great things. This is because the minute you write your goals, you have focused your subconscious on your success and it immediately begins creating that reality. That’s why just the act of writing down your goals can make you feel like you have direction in your life. This becomes even more effective when you post them somewhere so you see them and even say them every morning and every night.
I have 27 lifetime goals that are posted on the inside door of my medicine cabinet so I see them every time I reach for the toothpaste. One day I realized how to put five of