By Mike Pallin, Floyd Wickman Team President  

“You do the hokey-pokey and you turn yourself around.”  

How do you turn it around? What do you do when your morale is at an all time low? When production has ground to a halt? When your life feels like a dumpster fire? 

Floyd encountered a turnaround expert toward the end of his first year in real estate. Working 24-7, he was only able to produce 5 transactions that year, and 2 of them fell through. Zero listings, 3 closings, and a business in need of a turnaround. 

That’s when a man named Dick Aurand showed up in Floyd’s life, and gave him the means to turn himself around. Dick saw a world of talent and desire in Floyd, and he also saw that the only thing separating Floyd from success was Floyd himself. 

He gave Floyd an affirmation to repeat, “I will always be guided to do and say the things that contribute to my success. Anything that happens, happens in my best interest.” 

This affirmation came with a set of instructions. Write it, read it and repeat it out loud as many times a day as it takes to start sinking in. Fortunately for all of us, Floyd followed the instructions to the letter and, within a relatively short period of time, turned himself around. 

His morale shot up. His production soared. And his life took on a richness and quality that most people only dream about. 

Wait! All that from repeating an affirmation? Did this affirmation come out of that old top hat that Frosty The Snowman put on his head? Was this a magic affirmation? 

When Floyd speaks, he demonstrates the physical effect that repeating this affirmation had on him, saying, “I don’t know about the evolution of man, but I experienced the evolution of a Realtor!” And he shows us the stages his posture and body language went through as he “evolved:” from slouching bent over almost to the ground to striding confidently with shoulders back and head held high. It is a remarkable outer transformation that accompanied the inner transformation. 

The positive changes that affirmations bring about may seem like magic, but they are based on a verifiable, logical, proven scientific principles. Floyd calls this “Train The Brain.” 

The physical act of putting ink on paper and writing the affirmation out transforms. (Julia Cameron calls it “putting black on white,” in her landmark book, The Artist’s Way.) 

The physical act of seeing the written (or printed) affirmation transforms. The physical act of speaking the words, and hearing them over and over, transform. 

Here again is this simple, three step process. 

Step 1  Write it out 

Step 2  Read it

Step 3  Recite it out loud

This process may have first been introduced by Napoleon Hill, in Think And Grow Rich, Chapter 2 – DESIRE, The Starting Point Of All Riches. Write out a statement of your goal and your plan, read it and recite it out loud. 

Whenever Floyd explains why we require our students to take notes during class, he says he wants the message to travel, “Through the pen, up the arm and into the brain.” 

The physical act of writing and reading engages the optic nerve and the muscles of the hand and arm – in other words, hand and eye coordination. Multi-tasking! 

The physical act of speaking the written word aloud engages all of the muscles of the face and voice box, the chest cavity and, ultimately, the entire body.  

The spoken word causes air to vibrate and pulse the fluid in inner ear canal, which sends electrical impulses directly to the brain, and creates memories. Repetition is the mother of skill. 

We require our students to take notes during class, and then repetitively listen to audio review between sessions, while applying what we teach. This process works to build skill and master dialogue. It also works to change how people think. 

We all have negative thoughts about ourselves. “I’m ugly. I’m clumsy. I’m not worthy. I guess I’ll never be a big producer. I can’t remember dialogue.” They have been “programmed” into us through repetition, sometimes since childhood and over many years. Positive affirmations cannot and will not erase negative conditioning. But they can outweigh it, they can help us overcome the negative by becoming our currently dominant thought. 

Dr. Denis Waitley, in The Psychology of Winning, says, “We are always moving in the direction of our currently dominant thought.” Our thoughts can change our direction! 

But how can a person start to believe something that isn’t currently true? Floyd’s long-time friend and mentor, Zig Ziglar, always said, “Fake it till you make it.” Can the physical act of faking a positive and confident attitude have a positive effect? 

Harvard Business School’s Amy Cuddy, a Social Psychologist and recognized expert on body language, says it this way. “We can fake it until we believe it.” Watch her TED Talk on adopting the Wonder Woman pose, and how body language transforms brain chemistry and performance. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks-_Mh1QhMc) 

This particular affirmation – “I will always be guided to do and say the things that contribute to my success. Anything that happens, happens in my best interest,” – takes outweighing negative thoughts a step further. This particular affirmation has the power to get us believing that we have the choice to turn ourselves around. And that teeny-tiny kernel of belief is what opens up the floodgates, just like it did for Floyd. 

These are the floodgates “always being guided” opens up in our thoughts, which results in our words and actions. This kernel of belief sends us guidance in the form of intuition, hunches, gut feelings, a sixth sense about people and events, a still small voice of inspiration – and the magic of this belief is that we become tuned in to that voice. We become open to receiving guidance. We pay attention to the hunches and gut feelings, and that attention, that currently dominant thought, changes our direction – changes our choices – changes the things we do and say. 

But don’t just take my word for it. Follow these history-proven instructions. Write it out. Read it. Recite it out loud. Faithfully. Yes, it sounds hokey, but that’s how you turn yourself around.