Recently, I conducted one of my sales seminars where I spoke about ideas that center around the following skill sets — sales, people, life and marketing. Some of the attendees at the program had been to three, four or more of my seminars in the past. In listening to the results of many of the repeat attendees, it struck me like lightening what the most important word I heard over and over in their successes: action.

In a series of recent sales meetings, I explained a unique idea to market for new customers. Later, I conducted some research and found that out of 120 people in these meetings, only one went ahead and took action on the idea. That one person was already getting results and was amazed at how simple it was to implement and get results from. He had no special skills, education or anything more than the others had; he simply took action.

Success is not hard. Success is not found in the back of a mysterious book or from a mythical guru who has divine guidance to answers no one else has. Success is simply taking more and better actions than the majority of others will take. The great news for those that will take those actions is that they will be one of a few to do so. There are two reasons why people do not succeed: laziness or a lack of confidence.

I recently heard the most well-known motivational speakers in the world say that people aren’t lazy. He said that they just have not found what motivates them. I disagree. I think by and large many people are lazy and would not walk across the road for success or riches. For many varying reasons there are also a lot of people that lack self-confidence. Self-efficacy is a key component of success. How do you get confidence? The answer is simple. Take one step at a time. Competence = Confidence.

Everything starts with your thoughts. You must recognize your current thoughts and begin to improve them with better thoughts, which will lead to better actions. Begin to learn new skills everyday and then take one action for each thing you learned that day. There is a saying, “Your business development cannot out-pace your self-development.” Every day you must grow yourself, even if it is just a little. A little action everyday adds up to a lot at the end of the year. It’s exactly like lifting weights. Everyone wants the muscles now, but most are not willing to do a little each day that will add up to a lot.

The world is full of “push a button, point and click, I want everything immediately” whiners. Here is the truth: Take the action, do the work, self-correct and believe. The good news is that you don’t have to move mountains to achieve success. Your competition is almost nonexistent. Success for those who keep learning, keep taking action, keep self-correcting and keep believing, is as assured as the sun coming up every day.

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