What separates the people who are amazingly successful from those who struggle? Why is one person able to start a business or begin a new job in sales and succeed, while others with similar qualifications and abilities fail?

More and more I've come to realize that what makes the difference between those who succeed and those who do not comes down to thoughts and beliefs.

You see, whatever you believe affects your actions. If you believe that a certain action is negative, you will not want to take that action. If, on the other hand, you believe an action to be positive, why then it will be far easier to move forward with that action.

Taking action (or not taking action), gives you results of one sort or another. If you evaluate your results and if you don't like what you find, or if you want different results or better results, it circles right back around to what you believe.

In a recent semester of "Cold Calling College--Live," (the 8-week, intensive, virtual coaching program to help entrepreneurs and sales professionals set more new business appointments in less time) one of the participants said that she was struggling with knowing what to say to prospects. I asked her to tell me about her company. She did so and her company has achieved some amazing results for its customers. I suggested to her that she simply say what she had told me. Her response: "If I do that, I feel smarmy (yes, she said this) and like I'm bragging."

I asked this participant, "Are all of these results that you have described true?" She told me they were. "In that case," I said, "you're not smarmy or bragging, you're simply telling the truth. These are facts."

Just because you feel something, does not make it so. In this case, this participant felt "smarmy" and as though she was "bragging."  These were her feelings and she was truly feeling them. However, those feelings did not necessarily reflect reality. And in this case, those feelings were keeping her from prospecting successfully.

Here is a question that I received recently from an "Opening Doors & Closing Sales" (the twice monthly free e-newsletter ) subscriber:

"Is there a good script I can customize to reach the hearts of my prospects without giving them the feeling I want to 'sell' them something?"

You'll notice that the word 'sell' has quotation marks around it. This subscriber obviously feels that selling is a negative activity. Selling is actually neutral; it is the ethics of the sales person that makes the activity positive or negative. I'm willing to bet that because of the way this subscriber feels about selling, her beliefs about selling as a negative activity have kept her from taking action, which has kept her from getting the results that she wants.

So what do you believe? And are your beliefs standing in your way? If so, it's time to change some of those beliefs. Remember: At one point in history everyone believed the world was flat. Most of us no longer believe that. It is possible to change.