A Member's View On My 30 Day Challenge…

As I close the door to my 30 Day Challenge – we get started tomorrow – I wanted to share with you what new member Kit wrote to me yesterday:

One of the big opportunities you are offering is the chance to turn their approach around. Most AT teachers come to teaching from the point of view of helping others. AT attracts missionaries and carers. What you are saying clearly here is - what is in it for me? A business has to be built on the business owner's needs.  Too many of us have been trained not to look at our needs as this is selfish. Well if you want a successful, I mean really successful business like the one you have, you have to be selfish in your focus on growing the business.

This reminds me of a difficult meeting I held years ago at my old studio in Mejiro, back in 2005, with a lot of confused, angry and sad faces as I tried to explain something incomprehensible to them. It was exactly on the theme Kit mentions above: I had decided to be selfish. Those were crisis days: my financial situation was falling apart fast. It was the beginning of my real business education. I had just cleaned out my bank account of $3,000 to pay Tom, my new biz mentor. He was going to save my business, because I did not know how… In those days I had my first visions of helping my graduates – I still do - and I had stitched together a concept of "ATA Teaching Members." For $300 a year, these teachers got to go on my website, use ATA's mailing list, be offered work – there was a long list of benefits that was strong enough to convince 30 of them to sign up. Tom said: you have to shut that down. WHAT?!!! Tom Said: they are bleeding your business. He showed me graphs – it was compelling evidence. People were coming to my website, finding them, and taking private lessons. No income for ATA. But how could I do that to my teachers? That just wasn't a nice thing to do! I was their leader, their guide, and the first step I was going to take to support them was to toss them out of my business. Tough love it's called. And I did. I closed the door, tossed them out with (the very unconvincing) message that I was doing all this because it was the only way I could really help them… As you can imagine – that did not play very well in the room that day. And yet I believed it. I understood more deeply than ever a governing principle of my teaching practice: if I don't look after me first, I won't be able to look after you. I call it the aeroplane principle: how they advocate that you put on your oxygen mask first, then help the kids. If feels counter-intuitive, but back on that day in 2005 – this is what I knew was doing. You want to be selfish for you, because that's the way you help them. Isn't that true in teaching? How many times did your teacher remind you that if you don't pay attention to your own co-ordination, there's no hope for your student? This applies to business too. It's what I called two days back: selfish wisdom. Maybe you have reasons not to join my 30 Day Challenge that feel strong and legitimate. I say OK – great. Don't join us. However, first check out what are those reasons? Do any of them have to do with other people's situations or opinions? If so, I would question whether this really does help them. Of course, that takes courage. Here's the thing – the other person won't agree with you, because it is not in their best interests. So who's being selfish here? It's what I wrote yesterday: once you get off the trip of trying to be "nice" all the time, you realise we are all built to be selfish. It's work to go the other way, and step one to go that way is kindness to you, love to you. Which means doing things that support your life. I learnt that when I followed my original idea of being "nice to you" what I was actually doing was being "mean to me." I beat my Self up. That was not the enlightened behaviour I imagined it was: I was delusional. Marj (my wonderful teacher) once said to me: "You have to be very honest to be in this work." I finally got that. I discovered that I had to train my Self to be selfish, without ever losing sight of the fact this was the meanswhereby to help others. Back then in 2005 I now know I was right, because today BodyChance financially assists over 60 Alexander Technique teachers all around the world, and it's growing every month. I got there, but I got there by being selfish. So if you need to be, be selfish. Join my 30 Day Challenge and annoy a few people around you. Spend a month (two months, because I give you an extra month if you sign up today) focusing on your needs, focusing on your career. You deserve to do that for your Self. You can sign up here, and if you do now you will also get a free copy of my new E-Book on the 12 Point Plan (when it gets published): http://atsuccess.com/membership-plans See you on the other side!