By Stephen Tweed
This past Saturday, I was attending the Kentucky Chapter meeting of the National Speakers Association. The guest speaker was my friend and colleague, Rory Vaden. Rory is an amazing young man who just published the New York Times Best Seller book, Take the Stairs.
Rory left me with many great ideas which I will share with you in future articles, but the one that will have the greatest impact you is “The Pain Paradox.”
The Pain Paradox.
The pain paradox says that when people are facing a decision, they can respond from one of two dimensions; impulse, feeling, and emotion, or reason and logic. Most people respond with impulse, feeling, and emotion.
Rory said this:
“Easy short term choices lead to difficult long term consequences. Difficult short term choices lead to easy long term consequences.”
When we take the easy route early, our life is more difficult in the long term. When we take the difficult rout early, our life is much easier later.
The Pain Paradox applies to YOUR business.
As I talk with thousands of owners and leaders in private duty home care every year, I can clearly tell the ones who are looking for the easy choices. They want their business to grow, be profitable, and prosper so they can sit back and take it easier, but they want it right now. the ones who seemingly take the easy choices usually struggle for longer period of time.
For example, I get people coming to life workshops and web conferences put on by The Academy for Private Duty Home Care. They are looking for the latest, greatest marketing idea to grow their business. Well, our research shows that the greatest marketing idea is the network in your community, build your database of high potential referral sources, and then make 7 to 8 high value sales calls every day. If you do that, your business will grow.
However, that’s not the easy choice. The easy choice is to spend time in your office on your computer sending out posts on Facebook. We have absolutely no evidence of anyone getting significant numbers of inquiries that turn into admissions from Facebook.
There are a number of home care business owners who have made the difficult short term choices, and now they are enjoying easier long term results. These are the ten people who will be joining me in Orlando in February for the first meeting of the $5 Million Mastermind Group. This is a group of private duty business owners who have businesses that generate $5 million or more in revenue. They are in the top 5% of all private duty home care companies.
The Pain Paradox in Politics
As I was listening to Rory describe the Pain Paradox on Saturday, I turned to my friend Doug Semenick who is the President of our Kentucky Chapter of NSA and said, “Now I understand what’s happening in politics in America.” Politicians always seem to take the easy choices in the short term, and then we the people suffer the difficult long term consequences.
That’s what’s happening right now with the “Fiscal Cliff”. Politicians running our government have been kicking the can down the street for decades, making the easy choices and now we are facing the difficult long term consequences.
Take the Stairs in Your Business
The core message of Rory’s book is that individuals who succeed are the ones who take the stairs instead of the escalator. They are the ones who make the difficult short term choices and get the easy long term consequences. You’ll be better off ten years from now if you make the difficult choices now, and demonstrate the discipline every day and take the steps to grow your business.
Stay tuned for more insights from Rory and some of my other best-selling author friends from the National Speakers Association who have great insights to help you grow your business and get ready for the future.
