I learn things from many sources (hey don’t we all?) but today I was listening to a business owner talking on an issue that reminded me of a useful story that fitted to the situation, here it is…

Pete had been investing in shares for many years, and had weathered many ’storms’ and made and lost lots of $$ along the way. One thing he said that made the difference for him in building a successful share portfolio was using points instead of $$…

“What I realised was I was having an issue about money, if I lost some I would say oh $#*%! then when I made $$ I would say the same but with a positive inflection and think I had made a fortune… On average I maintained a healthy bank balance and it certainly grew well, on average… but the roller coaster highs and lows took their toll on me emotionally… until.. Until I decided to think of the $$ as points. Basically I would say ok, I made x No: of points or lost X No: of points… It meant I was not adding the pressure my mind had created about $$, Simple really and it made the world of difference, it was as if I was using monopoly money in a sense.”

Back to the initial chat I was having… it involved $$ he was stressing out about the amount of $$ he had to earn to break even on a daily basis… no work meant no $$, or low work meant low $$… when the $$ were above his set level he was okay, but the stress the low level caused him could probably become unhealthy quite fast. If your stress is negative you may not perform as well and make a mistake that could cost you dearly.

The real lesson here is changing things that cause our ‘thresholds’ of understanding (in this case $$) so that we can reframe them so they take the pressure off.

Note if you had to earn $1,000 per day to break even in our business and that caused you grief, then altering your mindset to 1,000 points a day might just be the way to reset how you handle your threshold thoughts on amounts to be earned.

In short re framing how we look at and experience things can make a huge difference to your results.

Stumble it!