Title: Aligning All My Ducks Word Count: 654 Summary: Time is tight, you don't have time to check the plane or see if there is gas in the tank so you just prepare yourself to take off. The consequences would be devastating. Many treat their future this way. They are so excited to do things that will return a profit that they forget to work on themselves and learn the tools necessary to make their life successful. What if you bought a small jet plane and you were so excited to turn it into a profitable business. You lined up s... Keywords: Sales, persuasion, motivation, influence, leadership, presentation, team management, success Article Body: Time is tight, you don't have time to check the plane or see if there is gas in the tank so you just prepare yourself to take off. The consequences would be devastating. Many treat their future this way. They are so excited to do things that will return a profit that they forget to work on themselves and learn the tools necessary to make their life successful. What if you bought a small jet plane and you were so excited to turn it into a profitable business. You lined up some high level business executives and that wanted to use your services. You were all concerned about getting a return on your investment, but you didn't have the time or resources to get flying lessons, so you bought a book and told yourself, "Well I'll figure it out on my own. How hard could it be? It couldn't be that much more difficult than driving a car." Then the first call comes and they need a flight to Florida, but you forgot one crucial skill, you don't know how to fly a jet plane. Again, you say to yourself, "Well how hard can it be? I’ll read through the book and the manual and I'll get ready to take off." Time is tight, you don't have time to check the plane or see if there is gas in the tank so you just prepare yourself to take off. The consequences would be devastating. Many treat their future this way. They are so excited to do things that will return a profit that they forget to work on themselves and learn the tools necessary to make their life successful. I'll admit it, I made the same mistake. That is why I study persuasion, motivation and influence. I graduated from college went off to get a graduate degree and figured I knew enough to be successful in business. Then comes the reality check: school, society and life did not teach me what I needed to know to be successful. Many fall into this trap. Because I know we all want to be successful and improve our income and learn the right skills. That is why this is a foundation of success. The deeper the foundation, the more you learn about persuasion, motivation and influence, the bigger the success. I remember talking to a gentleman on an airplane and he ran into the same challenge. He went and got his graduate degree, he did market research on this great new product. He found a venture capitalist. Everything checked out. Things were going to be successful, but the inability to connect with people, the inability to persuade and get others to believe in his ideas and his services, so he didn't see the success he deserved. It is like telling your grass, "Hey, if you grow, I'll give you water." It is the exact opposite. The foundational skill, the first things you should be learning is persuasion, motivation and influence. These mistakes have cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars, I bet even millions of dollars. The times I would say, "Well I'll just figure it out on my own," and jumping into business without the right skills. Many people are struggling. Now they were working hard. They are putting in the hours. It is like those old fashioned pumps, down those abandoned farms that you have to pump up and down up and down. People get out there and they are pumping and pumping and they are working hard, but they are forgetting to prime the pump. They are forgetting to sharpen the knife. You've probably heard "that the gold knives work the hardest." It is not working hard, that is a great asset to have, it is using the right tools, it is having the right skills so when you come into a situation, you know what to do and how to do it.