Empowered to Succeed

Transcript of Recorded Program – BSB

Track 1 – Breaking Success Barriers

Empowerment is our ability to improve results by customizing personal attributes that directly relate to our effectiveness: the art of synchronizing our dreams and goals with the strength of our character.

I am Mario Pinardo, founder of the Achievement Dynamics Institute. I have had the honor and privilege of working with thousands of clients, assisting them in the process of their own personal success journeys since 1985.

This is an audio account of the methods, perspectives, and techniques I have come to realize and document for the sole purpose of creating a powerful and duplicable program that enables both individuals and work teams to have and utilize the tools needed to travel well on their success journeys.

Time and time again, I have had the pleasure of witnessing ordinary people achieve extraordinary results, better maximizing their talents and abilities by realizing, and most often surpassing, their dreams, goals, and objectives.

This audio program is accompanied by a series of handouts that can be acquired at your convenience through the Achievement Dynamics website. It is not necessary to have these handouts in front of you as you listen to the program the first time, but they will be helpful to you when you do get the opportunity to print them out for yourself. The website is:

https://adi.1776.cloud/

The link identified as “Audio Handouts” will get you there.

To make it easier to internalize each segment, this audio has been separated into seventeen different tracks. After each track you will have the option to continue, reflect, or repeat the information you have just heard.

If you choose to reflect on the material, pause or stop the audio. Then think of how well you may be currently implementing the methodology or perspective presented, on both a personal and professional basis in your life: how valuable the principle may be if you were to put it to use; and how you may be able to implement these ideas in your life now or in the future.

Keep an open mind. You have been able to achieve your current level of success by the thoughts and behavior patterns you have acquired throughout your life. To move forward from here, we not only need to draw upon our past training, education, and experiences, but also establish future standards and circumstances, and identify the characteristics required to support those goals, dreams, and desires.

If you feel at all dissatisfied with any results, situations, or circumstances in any component or area of your life, both personally or professionally, the first step to greater levels of success and happiness is to let go of the misconception of thinking “it cannot be changed”, or the luxury of thinking “it is no use even trying”.

We learned back in grade school that everything is in a constant state of change. That also includes us. We are in a constant state of change. Progress and growth are only achieved through change. So why not develop and change into the person that brings into your life maximum satisfaction and self‑fulfillment?

If you only draw upon your past, you will only get as far as your present. When you think about your future you can then develop the skills needed to attract those circumstances into your life.

We will always move in the direction of our thoughts, habits, and beliefs, all of which we have the God‑given ability to control and change.

Track 2 – The Goal Setting Myth

My original vision back in 1985 was to develop a company that helped people set and achieve their goals. As I developed my clientele it did not take long to realize that setting goals was the easy part. It was achieving those goals that ended up being the hard part.

We have been told time and time again: “If you want to be successful, goal setting is the way to get there, and if you are not making the progress that you would like to make, or are capable of making, it is because your goals are not clearly defined.” That statement was usually backed up by the fact that if you take the time to survey people who are successful and ask each one how they did it, the common denominator would be that they had written down their goals along the way.

You think: there you have it, the secret to success must be goal setting. Instead, approach the survey in a different order. Ask people who have set meaningful and specific goals at certain times in their life how many they actually accomplished. You are sure to find that a very small percentage of written goals are achieved.

Where we get into trouble is when we begin to think that this goal‑setting stuff is working for everyone else but us. You cannot help but feel you must be the problem. It affects our belief system and our self‑esteem, which can prevent us from going after more rewarding but challenging personal achievements.

Do not get me wrong. Goal setting is part of the answer, but it is far from the total solution. Most of the people who sincerely take the time to formulate their plans never follow through or bring them to completion.

Many of us have a sincere desire to achieve new levels of improved results, whether those goals lie in our careers, finances, health, fitness, or even personal relationships. It is heartbreaking when people take the time to put together a plan but keep coming back to square one when it comes to actually experiencing breakthroughs, reaching those new heights of success, and having the staying power to keep on going.

There is an old Chinese proverb that says: “A man can stare at a map for several years but gets no closer to his destination until he starts walking in that direction.”

Everyone seems to be looking for the “secret” to success. I do not know if it is really a secret. It is more like having a working system of applications that you coordinate together to progress along the way.

The methods and techniques of personal empowerment were developed by working with clients who sincerely care about making things happen for themselves. When you have had the opportunity, like I have, to travel with over 3,000 people along their personal success journeys, it becomes easier to separate the achievement myths from sound principles.

The purpose of our efforts is to create the progress and momentum needed to create our goals. To truly make that happen we need a system that will stretch us into the person that can support our most important goals and objectives.

Along with goal setting you may have tried other applications that are helpful, like motivational books, tapes, and seminars, maybe even a few extensive and informative training programs. Most have very good information. Unfortunately, most often they fall short of being the “holy grail” we are looking for.

Motivation is inspiration. Training is information. Empowerment is transformation. It involves all the motivation and information you need, but also gives you the tools and perspectives to create and transform yourself into the person that makes it all happen.

What is important to understand is that you are not the only person who is struggling to put it all together for yourself. All the frustration you encounter when trying to achieve the expectations promised by motivation and training programs happens to most people. You need to understand that reality, so you do not damage your self‑esteem and give up on your most important dreams or possibly abandon the most important missions in life.

Track 3 – Developing Personal Characteristics

What is different about empowerment is that it is a self‑perpetuating system. It includes goal setting and all the other success vehicles, but it also gives us the ability to identify and modify any personal characteristics needed to become more effective and ultimately improve the quality of our life.

To give an example of how we can have sincere desire, the right motives, and a clear understanding of the actions we need to take, and yet remain in mediocrity, look at our society when it comes to personal fitness.

If you were to ask yourself these three questions:

Do you sincerely want to improve the quality of your life?
Do you believe exercise improves the quality of your life?
Do you currently know enough about exercise to start on an exercise program that improves your current physical condition?

Most people would say “yes” to all three of those questions. But the most important question is: Do you exercise?

Nine out of ten people will admit that they believe in, and know more about, exercise than what their current behavior indicates.

Getting more information about why you should exercise or how to exercise is not going to make any kind of permanent impact on the current level of exercise you are doing. Poor physical conditioning is the number‑one cause of life‑threatening diseases. All that knowledge and all of those good intentions get buried with all those poor souls who sincerely wanted to look good and feel their best.

Now, taking the same scenario, how many of us believe in and know more about personal time management than our behavior currently indicates? Goal setting, communication skills: if you are in sales, how many salespeople know more about what they must do to multiply their new business leads and make more sales than what they actually do daily?

Most salespeople adjust to making a mediocre living because they lack the tools and techniques to stretch themselves into making a better one. Most often, the last thing we need is for someone else to tell us, one more time, why we should do something and how to do something.

Gathering ideas is always helpful and informative, but it does not give us the ability to transform ourselves into the person who will achieve success by using those ideas. Empowerment is the transformational link that connects dreams to reality.

Your dreams and life goals are like a fitness program for your mind. You are working on progressing, stretching, and becoming who you need to be to complete and perpetuate a natural and successful lifestyle. Knowing how to create progress, growth, and change when it is necessary becomes an important part of your character, so you are becoming more effective as a person.

By aggressively achieving your goals you are progressively becoming the person you need to be. As you build your dreams, your dreams build you. The end truly justifies the means.

The biggest breakthroughs come by learning how to master the process: knowing how to coordinate the methods and techniques to a level where they become an internal part of your character. By practicing the fundamentals of empowerment, you are applying and slowly internalizing the characteristics of achieving your goals.

We simply become the person that will eventually achieve our heart’s desires. To borrow a metaphor: while you are busy feathering your nest with a few golden eggs, you are becoming the goose that lays the golden eggs.

These fundamentals work in every aspect of your life. They can be easily applied on both a personal and professional basis. They can supercharge a work team and have a major impact when applied to professional selling. In fact, it is not unusual for a salesperson to actually double their productivity in a period of three months or less.

Let us look at the top ten empowerment principles.

Track 4 – Conscious Awareness Through Crystallized Thinking

We need to take the time to crystallize our thinking, which means writing down our thoughts and intentions. It raises the level of awareness in our life and enables us to become more productive and make more productive choices.

Here is an example. If you were asked: “Do you have dreams, goals, values, priorities, strengths, and weaknesses?” most everyone would say “yes.” But then, if you were asked:

What are your top five most important goals you would like to accomplish in the next year, in order of priority?
What values do they reflect?
What strengths can you capitalize on?
What weaknesses must you overcome to bring you closer to completion?

Keep it simple: just the top five single most important goals your current day‑to‑day efforts and intentions are supposed to achieve.

We are each responsible for choosing the standards and direction for our life. No one knows what you want better than you, and no one is going to be sorrier than you if you do not get it.

We get the term “crystallized thinking” by looking at the properties of water. The thought in our mind is like a fog: it is easily dissipated. A thought that is verbalized is like water: once dumped, it spreads itself out and is vaporized. A thought that is written is like a crystallized block of ice, with three dimensions, that can be shaped and viewed from all angles. Crystallized thinking gives us the capacity to think about and reflect on our own thoughts.

To put the value of written thought into perspective, here is a question that most third graders can answer: what is 627 plus 749?

Very few adults can answer that question off the top of their head. Before you even attempt it, here is the point. It is a simple arithmetic function: adding two three‑digit numbers. If we write it down, the problem becomes straightforward, but it is much more difficult to do it in our head.