Scott: I think you made such a great point there about the gap between knowledge and information and putting it into action, I think it has been called, I learned that as “the knowing-doing gap”.
I have even made it a point that every once in a while, obviously I have interview calls and things that are just at information level, but when I do my workshops, I made sure that we actually don't just provide information, but actually take steps that are action steps during the course of what we are doing.
Do you do something like that in the Business Mastery Program?
John: Absolutely. One of the reasons that we created the Business Mastery Program and made it a one year program is because all the latest scientific research suggests that it takes time -- 30, 60, 90 days-before we start to behave differently, consistently.
Now, we have done a lot of research on the brain and what drives behavior, short-term versus long-term, where are habits located and how to alter the habits so that we have consistency in our behaviors and a weekend workshop is a great start, but if you don't add the support over the next two weeks, five weeks, ten weeks, twenty weeks, thirty weeks, what we're doing is, we are using our will power and persistence to drive the behavior which is a conscious exercise of the brain.
And we know from the latest research that that will only account for 2-4% of our long-term results and perceptions. And so we are more interested in not just teaching people what to do, but how to consistently do it week-in, week-out, months-in, months-out, quarter-in, quarter-out, as part of who they become, as opposed to something that they decide to do for a day or a weekend.
That's one of the reasons that information on its own is practically useless. But application of information, that thinking-knowing gap, or doing gap, is really where it's at. And everything that we have done is around creating the environment and the behaviors that will sustain growth and keep people growing.
Murray: What's important about that, Scott, is, to John's last point, once you've got that belief system, the behavior, put in place, you can drop anything into it. You can drop any one of a dozen, or two dozen different strategies. You can upgrade someone's skills. And as long as they are wired to take action and move forward, it becomes an incredible machine to be able to start dropping in the things that you need to know to be successful.
Scott: So let's practice what we are preaching and let's help some people, the people who are listening to this, let's help them to take one action step today. If you are just going to share one tip to help people move from knowledge to action and actually apply that, what's the one simplest thing that they could do, today, to move from knowledge to action?
John: One of the things, that's probably the most important, is to make sure that you have the right beliefs in place. And to simplify what a belief is, think of it as the software of the brain and since your brain controls everything that you see, everything that you do, having the right belief system, having the right software, is going to be critical for any entrepreneurs.
So, how do we get programmed? How do we develop the software as adults?
Number one—we develop the software based on our genetic predispositions or propensities. That's one way. The other way is what we have learnt from our parents, what we see them do, what we experience with them, what our teachers tell us is possible, what they tell us is probable, and then obviously our own experiences in what we have experienced, read, or observed as children.
So, let's say that I have a belief that it takes really hard work to make money. I am going to be forced, from a neurological perspective, to believe and to act upon that software. And so, what if we change the software by a simple affirmation everyday, that success comes easily to me in every area of business.
And what if we, on a regular basis, repeated that three, four, five, twenty times a day, and we started to reprogram our own brain, our own belief system. Well, I can tell you what happens just with one simple thing like that positive affirmation and self-talk. You start to rewire the brain, which then causes you to see things that are more in line with the new software. It starts to get you to think in terms of success coming easier to you, and it starts creating the propensity for that behavior as well. Now that's one simple way to do that. There are about seven or eight different ways. But we are consistently bombarded, Scott, with negative images of building up businesses, seeing so many failures.
We have 50,000 of our own thoughts everyday, many of which are negative, self-sabotaging, filled with doubts, fears, anxieties, uncertainties and lack of confidence. So when we start to have positive affirmations about ourselves and what's possible, we start the first step in that process. We could do that easily, simply, without the help of anybody.
John Assaraf and Murray Smith Interview, Part 4: Success Mindset and Entrepreneurial Passion
