Vishen Lakhiani is a successful businessman, philanthropist and expert in meditation. He owes much of his success to his ability to communicate with his subconscious mind and tap into his unknown potential. His new book shares a very interesting story about his early career when he was working in telesales (Lakhiani, 2015). With the use of meditation, he tripled his productivity by just changing one simple thing in his habit.
After Lakhiani graduated, he joined Microsoft as an engineer. However, just after eleven months, he decided that it was not what he wanted, and he quit. He started a few companies in the Silicon Valley, but all of them failed. He kept struggling but he could not change anything. Very soon, he went out of money, and had to sleep on a sofa which he rented from a university student.
Lakhiani finally ended up with the only job that he could found. It was a telemarketing position. His job was to cold-call law firms to sell software programmes for a technology company. It was totally paid by commission. If nothing was sold, then he was not paid. He still remembered that the person who hired him was fired because that person was unable to close a sale.
It was a tough time for Lakhiani. The tech bubble had just burst and the economy was bad. He was unable to make any progress. In desperation, he searched on the Internet to look for ways to improve his performance. He had already forgotten exactly how, but he ended up finding a meditation class. It was taught by a pharmaceutical sales representative who claimed that those techniques she taught had boosted her sales. So he decided to join the class.
Surprisingly, as the class started, Lakhiani found that he was the only student. It just shows you that mediation was not that popular in the United States. Anyway, he took the technique he learnt and applied them to his job.
Before taking the class, Lakhiani’s job would look like this. He would go to the San Francisco Library, check out the yellow pages, and I would have to cold-call every attorney in his territory in alphabetical order. After the class, he switched to a very different process. He would go into a deep state of meditation, which is also known as the alpha state. Some people believe that, at the alpha state, your intuition is turned on. He would open up the yellow pages, close his eyes, and run his finger down the yellow pages until he got an impulse. Then he would open my eyes and call at the name my finger was on and call that name.
Does it sound superstitious to you? Well, in one week after using this technique, Lakhiani’s sales doubled. It was as if he was magically calling lawyers more likely to buy. He was delighted and went to more classes to look for improvement.
The next technique he learnt was a simple technique on intention and empathy. Before calling an attorney, he would set an intention that the sale would go well only if it was in the best interest of everyone concerned. Then he would form a mental picture of connecting his heart to the attorney’s heart, and imagine a friendly conversation. Once again, I doubled my sales.
What was the result? Within 4 months, Lakhiani got promoted three times. Since the company was only a small start-up, he soon became a Director of Sales and led an entire division in a New York Office.
His boss was so impressed. He asked Lakhiani, “How are you doing this? How do you do this?” I said, “Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but I think, in science, they call it ESP.” His boss replied, “ESP? That’s bullshit! Whatever you do, keep doing it.”
How was Lakhiani able to do this? He believes that it was all in his beliefs. Frankly, he did not know how the intuition worked for him, but it didn’t matter. Perhaps it was all luck, but by believing that he had that luck, by believing that he was going to call the right prospect, he made a better call. In fact, a study with salespeople shows that optimistic salespeople are 55% more effective than negative salespeople (Acher, 2010). In other words, your beliefs don’t have to be true. You choose your beliefs and act in accordance with them, and they become true for you.
REFERENCE:
Acher, S. (2010). The happiness advantage : the seven principles of positive psychology that fuel success and performance at work. New York, NY: Broadway Books.
Lakhiani, V. (2015). The Code of the Extraordinary Mind 10 Laws to Enhance Happiness, Mindfulness, and Influence.New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
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