What Makes For Genuine Success?

Success is not something you make alone, it is something you make with others.

That’s so obvious and banal, you may wonder why I bother to state it?

Because I didn't get that, not for a long time. My ego was too noisy to let me really hear it.

The statistics are arresting: half of all small businesses will fail within 5 years. Consider that. It’s like throwing a dice. For Alexander discovery teachers, when starting out to build a business, that is not a comforting statistic.

50% or more of small businesses fail within 5 years. Wow!

Why is that?

Businesses fail when a person makes a vain attempt “do it alone.” I was once the worst offender. An ignorantly ego-driven business is often masquerading as a service for others, as in…

“We cherish our purpose. We believe in what we are doing. We are here to help you!”

Oh really. Did you check if I wanted your help?

Years ago I attended a seminar on “How To Empower Others”. For the first hour the leader encouraged us to make a list of all the people we wanted to “empower.” Then he got us to write down a list of the things we wanted to empower each of them to do. I started to get suspicious because my lists were all looking the same. Then he asked us…

Is that what they want?

A majority of us had no idea, or knew that it was not what our parents, friends, lovers and children wanted. Empowering others, I innocently discovered, is not about getting people to follow my agenda.

It is about discovering if what I have can help them with their agenda.

However, to know their agenda – at a deep level - I needed to silence my ego for a tad so I could listen, learn and discover what they really wanted. Oh, that was new. (I’m sure my 4 sisters would have loved me better if I had done more of that when I was younger.)

A successful business – that elusive 50% that manage to last beyond 5 years – have usually figured this out. A few may have been just plain lucky: but eventually they will end up in the dust heap.

However the others don’t need luck – they are able to last because they are not living in a fairy tale, they are living in the real world.

Which do you want to be?

***

Success is not something you make alone, it is something you make with others.

Another way I misunderstood this simple concept was thinking I could “do it alone” – instead of authentically seeking advice and coaching from others. My “I know” mind checkmated my humility to learn from others.

Or was it pride?

The truth was it took a crisis for me to wake up that it was an investment to pay for advice to navigate me out of the collapse of my Alexander practise in Japan. In 2004 I ran a conventional type of Alexander training school with around 12 trainees. It had been that way for about 5 years, and then it started shrinking and I was in trouble.

It’s a story you hear around the world today in our Alexander community. Not only schools, teachers’ individual practises also. People are struggling now: the old way isn’t working any more. The world has moved on.

I remember spending restless nights deciding if I could risk investing $3,000 on a Japanese Consultant I had found. He offered to come in, gather information, and then tell me what I needed to do to get my school working again.

Finally, I spent the money, and got his report.

Over the next three years I implemented every single thing he advised. And when he had no more to advise me, I found another mentor.

And then another.

And then another again…

Today my school has 163 trainees. Instead of $3,000, I now spend $30,000 annually on consultants. That $30,000 “hurts” just as much as the initial $3,000 did. I almost believe: if it doesn’t make you pause to spend it, it’s probably not worth spending. I may be wrong, but my psyche tends to function that way.

When it’s costing me, I implement. When it’s free, advice is easy to ignore.

However, I can’t call BodyChance “my school” anymore. We have 4 schools (ATSuccess is the newest one), many different Directors, a full-time staff of 10, a part-time staff of 50 - and just as many worries and headaches as I had back at the start!

Except today, it is way more fun as I have more clarity and the accomplishments to confirm it.

I was talking with Peter Jacobson – ATSuccess Director – about the group of 20 teachers we currently have in our 60 Day program. This comes to an end this month, and my guess is that some members are in the same process of sleepless nights (that I know so well) deciding if they should take the bungee jump into our annual ATSuccess Pro program…

It’s not cheap.

At least, relative to the incomes of most teachers, it could be called expensive. However, in the context of business coaching – it is dirt cheap. You won’t find a program – anywhere – that offers so much for so little. However, that doesn’t help when your bank balance is low and you worry about the monthly rent. I know that feeling.

And no-one can join the ATSuccess Pro annual program directly.

We do it this way because not everyone is a fit for the Annual program, and we want the people who join to have, well you know – success! Like making more than the program cost you. That’s our aim for the people we accept. (Providing they meet the milestones of course)

You’ve got to have a real dedication to Alexander's discovery to make your practise work. That’s why Peter made the 60 Day Course to select those most suited to go Pro. You need passion, and a humble commitment to learn new things.

Which gets me back to this question of “What Makes For Success?” People tend to ask:

“What will happen if I do this course?” and I think a far better question is:

“What would happen if you don’t do this course?”

Or any don’t use any form of seeking help from others: students, coaches, fellow teachers…

Success is not something you make alone, it is something you make with others.

Success needs two things: a coach who has walked the talk AND a community to support you. The ups and downs of running your own Alexander practise (business) match living in the tropics: brilliant sunshine followed by a torrent of rain and thunder.

It’s not boring, I promise you that, and it’s sure nice to share it with members who get it.

One of the elements that most surprised me about the ATSuccess community – almost no-one asks the question: “Where did you train?” As I wondered about that, I realised why.

In ATSuccess the “I know” mind is quietened down. No need to puff up your chest and exclaim what you know, because here the order of the day is what we don’t know. Members are humble in the presence of a century of failure for Alexander's discovery to “take off” in mainstream. They are humble in their own understanding of how to make a real living out of this…

At ATSuccess we know we don’t know. And we know: we don’t know what we don’t know. We are in the business of deep learning and discovery. This is about applying Alexander principles to a whole new area of living. (See my blog “When Your Past Pretends to be Your Future” for more about that.)

Being in contact with other people – which is how success happens – is humbling. I quickly learnt to detect my own hubris (I have plenty of it) because I quickly got levelled by my experience in the market, and my coaches who knew that market better than I.

Success is not something you make alone, it is something you make with others.

It may seem like a simple and banal thing to say, and yet it’s the lesson I still have to keep learning every day.

If you’re new too all this – use the form below to sign up for my free series on the 12 Steps of ATSuccess. The only way to get started is to get started. It’s so simple, it’s shocking.

NOTE: If you’ve been following my series of blogs which illustrated how I present Alexander's discovery within BodyChance’s teacher education program in Japan – that will resume again soon!