How To Become A Prime Mover In Your Market

I am going to share with you the major insights and take­aways I had from read­ing the book The Prime Movers.  I will also share with you how you can cul­ti­vate these “virtues” to become one of the major dri­ving forces in your market.

Image by alessan­dro isnotaurelio

About The Prime Movers By Edwin A Locke:

“The Prime Movers” by Edwin A Locke, is a great book.  I recently fin­ished read­ing it, and thought I would share my thoughts and insights about it with you. I believe this excerpt from the pref­ace will bet­ter tell you what a “Prime Mover” is and what this arti­cle will be covering:

“Although many fac­tors set the stage for the cre­ation of wealth (espe­cially eco­nomic free­dom), in the end, the wealth has to be cre­ated by the spe­cific actions of spe­cific individuals—and some are much bet­ter at it than oth­ers. I call those who are very good at wealth cre­ation “Prime Movers…”

If you have ever stud­ied suc­cess, or stud­ied NLP, you may know of this con­cept known as “Mod­el­ing”.  How mod­el­ing works basi­cally is, you attempt to find some­one who is great at some­thing; some­one who really shines, the kind of per­son that inspires great­ness.  Then fig­ure out what they do, under­stand it, and then try and “Model” them, do what they do, try and achieve what they achieve.

When you under­stand Mod­el­ing, or what Mod­el­ing can do for you, you will REALLY appre­ci­ate this incred­i­bly valu­able book. What Edwin does in this book is he focuses on the traits of peo­ple who are wildly suc­cess­ful.  What they do that causes them to cre­ate such mas­sive wealth.  He then gives us the com­mon traits of these great thought lead­ers, these highly suc­cess­ful busi­ness peo­ple.  The goal is to try and cul­ti­vate these abil­i­ties in our­selves, so we too can become highly successful.

This book focuses on the seven attrib­utes that are com­mon to all of these incred­i­ble and inspir­ing peo­ple. Some of the peo­ple cov­ered in this book are Steve Jobs, Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Sam Wal­ton, Walt Dis­ney, Jean Paul Getty and more. These peo­ple cre­ate prod­ucts, ser­vices, or indus­tries that LITERALLY change the world, and improve the qual­ity of life for the rest of.

These peo­ple are worth bil­lions, and what they do stands out from every­one else. Learn what it takes to become a Bill Gates, an Andrew Carnegie or a John D Rockefeller.

The 7 Virtues

Inde­pen­dent Vision, An Active Mind, Com­pe­tence and Con­fi­dence, The Drive to Action, Ego­is­tic Pas­sion, Love of Abil­ity in Oth­ers, and Virtue.

Major take­aways are:

• Keep an active mind.  That is the prime movers major advan­tage.  Con­stantly ask ques­tions, chal­lenge other ideas, and cre­ate your own ideas.
• An active mind is not the same as an open mind, and it does not have to do with men­tal intel­li­gence.  It has to do with being able to think from a place of reality.
• Engage vision­ary thought.  Have detail-oriented thought.  Do not give up,  If you believe you can cre­ate the light bulb, keep at it.
• Cul­ti­vate vision.  See what oth­ers fail to see.  Have inde­pen­dent vision, or fore­sight, do not be restricted based on what oth­ers think.  (think air­planes)
• Don’t just solve prob­lems find prob­lems before they exist.
• Have high stan­dards and set the best goals.
• If you face set­backs, push through them, keep going, Edi­son failed thou­sands of times, but one time was all he needed to succeed.
• Focus on the present and the future, not on the past.  Take what you learn and inte­grate it.
• Seek improve­ment do not become stag­nant.  Embrace new ideas and con­cepts.  Think out­side of your own industry.
• Ask ques­tions.  Do not become passive.
• Being smart is not enough.  The only way to gain achieve­ment is through your own actions.
• Put your brain to work.  Use induc­tive rea­son­ing and deduc­tive rea­sons.  Form con­clu­sions about a task from spe­cific facts, and apply gen­eral prin­ci­ples to.
• Work not for money, or for fame, but work because you love the work.  It is your pas­sion, it is what dri­ves you.
• Do not do every­thing your­self, hire other peo­ple, del­e­gate tasks to others.

My action steps:

• Ques­tion every­thing.  Some­one presents an idea to me, I will ask them more about that, how it works, why it works, how they came up with it, what to do with it.  How can it be improved? And how can I imple­ment it today.
• Think beyond my cur­rent thought.  Think big and think large.  Don’t be hin­dered by oth­ers beliefs.  If I want to do some­thing, do it.  If I think I can help some­one, help them.
• Start del­e­gat­ing more tasks.  Out­source more of my work through eLance, focus only on doing things that I feel are most important.
• Set big goals.  I don’t want to increase con­ver­sions by 20%, no I want 400% increase in con­ver­sions.  I want higher click through rates, I want the BEST qual­ity scores.
• As soon as I learn some­thing, or read about it in a book.  Apply it.  Ask myself if it seems like a good idea, how can I imple­ment it, what can go wrong if I do it, and what can go right.
• Yes­ter­day is yes­ter­day; it doesn’t mat­ter. Focus only on the now.  Think about the future, think about goals for the future, but be present, be here, be now.

How Can This Be Applied To My Blog Or Business?

When­ever you are online, and you read some­thing, or watch a video, ask your­self, how can I apply this to my site or busi­ness.  How can I do this right now? Ask your­self, what poten­tial prob­lems might come up? Do not get caught up in think­ing what you are learn­ing will fail, or will not work for you, instead think, oh, this might hap­pen, so I need to be sure to do THIS. Think beyond you.

If you want to inter­view a local celebrity, inter­view them.  Do not think some­thing is impos­si­ble.  If you want to cre­ate an amaz­ing piece of soft­ware that helps peo­ple, and every­one tells you it is a waste of time, ignore them.  If you think it is worth­while do it.  Prove the oth­ers wrong.  Think BIG, think LARGE. If you need some­thing done for your blog or busi­ness, instead of doing it your­self, ask, can I have some­one else do it? Ask your­self “do I really need to be doing this?”

Is there some­thing else that I could be doing that would be a bet­ter use of my time and resources?  If so, then del­e­gate, you do not have to do every­thing. Yes­ter­day is yes­ter­day.  What­ever hap­pened in the past, what­ever held you back then, that was then, this is now.  Do not focus on things past, do not rem­i­nisce; spend your time in the present. Learn some­thing new, each and every day.

Go out, buy a book, read a blog, buy a mag­a­zine, talk to a well-informed friend.  Learn some­thing new each day, and if pos­si­ble, ask how can I use this infor­ma­tion today.  What can I do to take advan­tage of what I just learned? Do not set­tle for sub-par results, get out there, be active, become that which you desire.

If you want to be the num­ber one author­ity, in such and such, be that, if you want to have the best soft­ware appli­ca­tion to do X then do it.  If you hire some­one to do a job, and it is done poorly do not accept their work. Make him do it right. Do not take no for an answer.  Stay focused, and reach your outcome.

Con­clu­sion

I hope this arti­cle has some way helped you.  I encour­age you to try and apply these con­cepts in your life and your busi­ness.  This book deals with using con­cepts taught by Ayn Rand, and her prin­ci­ples.  I recently wrote a post that I think com­pli­ments this post quite well.  It’s called Using Objec­tivism To Power Your Blog or Busi­ness and you can read it by click­ing on the link.

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