Open Your Mind! by {Rob Moore}

Now, this tip right here in my personal opinion is very crucial and I want you to pay special attention to this one. I don’t want you to have to learn the hard way or take too long to learn this like I did. What I figured out, 18 months prior to me writing this book that you’re reading right now, was what my purpose was in my life.

That purpose was to speak professionally. It was to travel the world and share with as many people as possible how to achieve their dreams and goals. For me to travel and go into different events, different schools, different companies, and different organizations to motivate, inspire, and train people to do better.

It wasn’t until 18 months that I realized this. And it’s so funny that I would find myself wanting to do something like that with my life now because before I even started any kind of schooling, I grew up as a very quiet and shy kid. Why? I do not know. What I do know when I started elementary school, was that I was so quiet and shy that I did not want to speak.

Mainly because I cared too much about what other people thought about the things I would say. I was afraid that I would say some things that people thought were stupid. I was afraid that I would say some things that people would laugh at so hard that it would embarrass me. I felt like I didn’t have anything valuable to say.

But when I got to 9^th grade, something funny happened. During English class, it became mandatory for us to give a speech as part of our grade. I did not want to do this speech because I hated talking. And I definitely did not want to get up in front of the class and give a speech about anything. But I didn’t really have a choice. I could either do the speech and get a good grade, so-so grade or bad grade or not do the speech at all and get a failing grade. And there was no way in the world that I was going to let something like that happen because the truth of the matter is, my parents would kill me.

So, I ended up doing this speech. We could do the speech on anything that we wanted to. There were no restrictions, so I chose the subject of reading. I had to talk about the importance of reading. And let me tell you something, I dreaded every single day, all the way up until the day that I had to give this speech. I wrote the speech and I practiced the speech. But it didn’t matter how many times I practiced it. I was still nervous and I still didn’t want to give the speech. But the day of speech presentations came. I didn’t want to go first but at the same time, I didn’t want to go last. I just wanted to get the thing over with. I just didn’t want to go first.

I don’t remember what place I went in but I ended up going on the first day. Let me tell you something, I was a nervous wreck. But as soon as I got past the first 30 seconds of my speech, I had a blast. Nervousness was gone. I was having a good time. I was like a totally different person. And when I was done giving the speech, the round of applause I got was tremendous.

There were a lot of speeches given that day and I got the best response out of everybody’s. And I really enjoyed it. But I was like, “I’m never doing that again unless I have to.” 

I didn’t have to do another speech for a very long time until later in my career. When I was working for a supermarket chain, I was one of the first store manager trainees with this company and I was very successful in all of my positions.  

Alright, let me back up real quick to make sure you fully understand. I started off as a part time seafood clerk and worked my way up to assistant seafood manager.  Then made it to seafood manager, got bored in the position, and then found this store manager training program. The first program ever developed in that company. I applied and out of 75 applicants, I got the position.

I was extremely successful in the program and we used to have these career days every once in a while within the company.  We used to do career days for people that were already working with the company that wanted to maybe possibly have a career with the company one day.

I was asked me to come because I was one of these top candidates for this position and they looked at where I started with the company to where I actually went and all the things that I accomplished. They identified me as somebody that these people within the company should look at and talk to.  So I was asked to come there to talk to a lot of the associates that were there.

At first, they just wanted me to just talk to the attendees by networking with them throughout the whole day. There was a section of that day that came up where they had a few people come up and tell their stories of where they started with the company and how they got to where they currently were. 

I was not one of the associates that were scheduled to speak in front of the room.  They did story after story after story, and it seemed like the associates were really into all these stories.  So they looked at me and they asked me, “Hey Rob, what do you think about getting up in front of everybody and doing a little testimonial?”

Now, I did not want to do this but one of the things that made very successful back then was the fact that I really did very little thinking. When it came down to somebody challenging me to do something, I would just take on the challenge instead of thinking about it and then possibly talking my way out of it. So without hesitation I said, “Yeah, I’ll do it.” 

And my time came and they introduced me.  I got up there without having any clue what I was going to say. I just started to tell my story. I made it a very truthful, entertaining, and engaging story from the heart that everybody just grabbed on to and enjoyed. What had said really made me become somebody that was very noticeable and memorable that day. 

Because of that one speech that I gave, I was asked to continuously speak at up and coming career days.  For some reason, I was told that there was some feedback given that there were too many people giving testimonials.    

So they stopped letting all these people come in to tell their stories at these career days and they chose me to be that one person that would come in to all the up and coming career days and share my story and I loved every minute of it. I had a blast doing it.

They didn’t give me any time limits. They let me talk about whatever I wanted to talk about and I would tell my story from the day I started with the company all the way up until that present point in time. I attended one during my grocery manager training. I attended a few career days also when I was a co-manager and few when I was in store manager training.

The next thing that happened was after I finally made it to the position store manager, my brother-in-law approached me one day because he found out what had happened. And he was like, “You know what?  Rob, you should be out there going to high schools and speaking to these kids because you’re a role model. You’re somebody that made it.” 

I was just like, “Pfssst, you’re not going to see me going to high schools. I’m not a speaker like that. I’m not going to be going all out there sharing my story and stuff. That’s fine and dandy but no thanks.” 

And then, another thing happened a few years ago after that. I used to do a lot of stuff on eBay. I was pretty good at eBay for a minute there. I went to a eBay training class with associate from work. She met me there because she wanted to learn about eBay too. I was telling her that she could make more money selling her stuff online than by having a garage sale. I wanted to learn how to do a lot of volume with the least amount of work. The guy that was conducting the presentation was very knowledgeable about eBay.

I brought a lot of home study courses to help me learn eBay and this guy was saying a lot of things about eBay but he was just saying a few things that weren’t accurate. I usually don’t like to do this but I kept raising my hand to correct him and to give him some suggestions here and there. A couple of people leaned over to me and said, “You know what?  You know more about eBay than this guy does. You should be up there teaching the course.” 

After the course was over, my co worker approached me afterwards and she said, “You know what, Rob?  Look at how much this guy is getting paid per person to teach people how to do eBay. Listen to me, you are a much better speaker and you have much more knowledge than this guy and you can be doing the same thing.” Basically, she was saying that I should be conducting classes and doing presentations. I said, “Yeah, true. But you know what?  I’m not interested in that right now. This isn’t for me.”  She even offered to help and I still wouldn’t even consider it.

Then finally, after another two years later that I finally realized that there might be something to this speaking thing. As a store manager, I was required to do department head meetings just about every week and sometimes we would have department head meetings twice a week. I would always have to stand up and talk anywhere from 30-90 minutes. I always got compliments on how I spoke.

A little bit further done the road after that, maybe another year later, I started to do some network marketing. As I started to listen to some of the people that were presenting and I heard some of the people that were very, good at what they were doing. I said to myself, “Man, I would love to present like that. But hmm, I can’t do that.” 

One day, I ended up meeting an individual by the name of Ed Blunt. This guy does network marketing full time and he also is a full time professional speaker. I actually hear this guy speak live. Something clicked in my brain again while he was speaking and I said to myself, “Hmm, you know this speaking thing sounds pretty interesting.”

I actually approached him later through a phone call and he would always want to talk about network marketing. One time when we spoke on the phone, I changed the subject from network marketing to speaking. I wanted to know how he got started. I wanted to know who mentored him. I want to know how many speeches he did. I wanted to know everything he knew about the speaking business.

Finally, it hit me. I said to my self, “You know what?  I am not interested in being a store manager for the rest of my life. I am not interested in building a network marketing business. I want to do speaking for a living.” I couldn’t believe that during all of these years that passed, I had all these little clues that kept coming up. Many people tried to tell me, “Rob, you were born to be a speaker. Rob, you were put on this earth to be a speaker.” 

I couldn’t believe how closed minded I was thinking. Every single time I spoke to a group, even from the first time I spoke in 9^th grade, it felt great. I transformed into my best self. I SHOWED UP, I STEPPED OUT, and I SHINED. That happens every time I’m on the stage. When I’m speaking, I feel great. I feel unstoppable. I feel like it is right. I feel like this is what I was meant to do. Everything is clicking on all cylinders when I’m on a stage or I’m in front of a lot of people speaking.

This is what I mean when I say, “You have to open your mind because during all of those years, my mind was closed. I had so many opportunities and so many indicators. So many clues that were trying to say, “Rob, you should be a speaker. Rob, you should be a professional speaker. Rob, you should be doing this for a living.” But it wasn’t until I opened my mind that I finally found my passion, my calling, the thing that I would love to do. This was the thing that I love to do so much that I didn’t care whether I got paid to do it or not. So I’m asking you to open your mind at all times because you never know when you’ll find that thing that you want to do with the rest of your life.

Put Yourself In A Position To Succeed! by {Rob Moore}

In order to become massively successful and get what you want in life, you’re going to have to set yourself up for success starting today not tomorrow. You’re going to have to change and start doing some things differently. If you want to change your results, you’re going to have to change the approach.

I would have to say that this subject is the number one factor that separates me from so many other people. The same thing can happen for you as well. I do my best to limit and/or eliminate anything that doesn’t add value to my life and where I want to go in the future. Just to name a few are avoiding negative people, not watching the television, not wasting time, not going to parties, not spending money on junk, etc.

I can go on and on with many real live examples but I would be writing for a very long time. Now before you want to put me in the cobra clutch, some of these things I really enjoy doing. It’s just that I have to make a decision just like you do to be successful, mediocre, a failure, or a zombie. I choose success and in order to get it and maintain it, you have to create certain kinds of habits.

I study successful people all the time by reading about them, talking to them, and watching them as well. I also study myself to evaluate what needs improvement and what can be built upon. I hated to read in school because I found the material boring and useless in my opinion but as soon as I found out that all leaders were readers I quickly changed my mindset.

Why even question it? If all successful, rich, wealthy, high achievers read and have what I want then I need to do what they do period. That’s just the wise thing to do. When people ask me what I’m doing after work, my days off, or on vacation, they think I’m crazy because I’m doing all of these things that successful people do all of the time. As far as I’m concerned they can think that all day long because I’m willing to do today what most will never do to get later what most will never have.

Another thing that I continuously do is pay special attention to the people that I associate with. Why? Because people rub off on you subconsciously. I’ll prove it to you right now. Have you ever found yourself repeating some of your closest friend’s favorite sayings? I know I have and there’s nothing wrong with this is some situations.

Is your best friend adding value to your life, keeping you in your comfort zone, or even worse, bringing you down? No matter who you’re spending your time with, this happens to you on some level. So I want successful, positive, rich, caring, wealthy, hard working, optimistic people around me as much as possible that are adding value to my life and helping me become a better person. This is huge! You got to get this!

I’m going to give you one more nugget of information until the next time we talk. That is that I don’t listen to the radio in my car anymore. Matter of fact, it’s been quite a few years since I heard the radio when I was in the car by myself. I love listening to music but I don’t receive any value from it. It’s pure entertainment and besides this I’m just making someone else rich.

I do listen to stuff in the car but not music. Instead, I turn my car into a mobile success university. I forgot the statistic about how much time the average person spends in a car traveling but it’s a lot. I listen to audio books and programs that help increase my mindset and skill set all the time. I’ve even taken it to the extreme of listening to this kind of stuff in the shower as well.

My newest habit that I have developed is the fall asleep and wake up some audio programs. Do not do this! I learned this the hard way. It’s fine to fall asleep to something but you don’t want it playing all night because your brain needs time to rest too. Instead I now have a device that was made specifically for playing certain messages at certain times while I’m resting. It is so powerful and it’s one of my most valuable possessions. I want to saturate and program my mind with the information necessary to reach all of my goals because we are just like living computers.

To summarize really quickly, if you want success on any level at all, you’re going to have to start with putting yourself in a position where you can succeed. That means changing a lot of your old habits that may be holding you back. Only ten percent of the entire world’s population is successful and living an extraordinary life. So be willing to walk away from the ninety percent. Don’t do what they do, talk like they talk, don’t go where they go, and don’t act like they act. Instead follow what the ten percent are doing and you’ll move towards the life that you’ve always dreamed of living. You’ll put yourself in a position to succeed.

Expect Excellence! by {Rob Moore}

If you were to interview any of the associates that ever worked for me when I was a seafood manager, they would all pretty much tell you the same thing. They would tell you things like, “Rob really cares about his people. He’s always going to take the time to listen to you. He’s always going to try to accommodate you to the best of his ability. His department has a disciplined environment. He’s a great role model. He’s an extremely hard worker. He knows his job very well and he has very high standards.

Now, the high standards part is what I really want to focus on and I want to emphasize. You see, because I had very high standards within my department, I was able to build an extremely strong team.

The last store I was in before I got promoted to a store manager trainee position was actually in a store out in Middletown, New York. I was in that store for two and half years. When I first stepped into that store, it was a very rough department. There were lots of issues going on and a lot of problems that I had to clean up. I went in there and I built it into something that became very strong and profitable. So strong that I was able to take the people that worked there and I was able to train them to be able to run the department as if they were a seafood manager.

Now, I only had one person at that time, that just did not want to get on board and he decided to go in a different direction with his career. This happens sometimes but everybody else stayed with me. As the years progressed, a few more additions came to the team because we grew sales and they were all eager to learn. They really enjoyed being there and another thing that I failed to mention was, I was very strict. In other words, I expected excellence from each and every associate that worked for me.

Even though I was strict, had high standards, and expected excellence, people were always begging to get in my department. They wanted to work in that kind of environment because developed leaders. So what I did was train all the part timers, trained my full-timer, and trained my to all run the department as if I was there all the time. And because I did this, it didn’t matter whether I was in the store or not. It didn’t matter if I took an extra day off. It didn’t matter if I went on vacation. The department was going to run the same way as if I was there at a very high level because of what I built.

Let me just tell you about why this is so important and how this really paid off for us. During my last six months in that store, I applied for a position to become a store manager trainee and the position.  was actually taking a lot of courses with the company on personal development to help build my management skills. My goal was to take everything that they offered to make myself better.

While I was waiting to find out whether or not I got this job, I went to Schenectady, New York. I want to take two classes that were being held back to back. I had to stay overnight and everything. When I walked in for the first class I saw the program director for the program that I just applied for sitting in his office.

When he saw me, pulled me into the office and basically told me that finally, after six months, I was selected for this position. So I was like, “Great, fantastic!” He said he already talked to the seafood vice president. He already told him that I can stay for another month and then, I had to come out. So I was like, “Great, fantastic!” Went into my class, didn’t think anymore about it, just extremely happy that I got the position. During lunch time, we ate lunch inside and usually once we get done eating, people like to go stand outside the building for the rest of the lunch period.

So, we’re standing out there, just getting some fresh air and just talking. Then this guy rolls up in a little Jeep and rolls down the window. I looked from a distance and I said to myself, “You know what, that looks like the seafood vice president.”  Then he looked at me and flagged me to come over to the car. It was him. As I got up to the car, he just wanted to congratulate me for getting the position. He said that he was very unhappy to see me go because I was one of his strongest department managers in his department. He was very happy that I got the position because there has been nobody in all the history in the Seafood Department that was able to go from seafood to a store manager position prior to me.

So our conversation was pretty much done. He moved on to do what he had to do and then I went back to what I was doing. Then the next day, I went back to the training center for day two to take my second class. When we went on our first break, around 10 o’ clock in the morning, I called my department. I just wanted to check in, see how things were going and my assistant manager was actually off that day.

So I was talking to one of the associates in the department and said, “Hey, how are things going?”  He said, “Uhm, pretty good, pretty good. Everything’s good.” I said, “Great, fantastic!” Hung up with him, went back to class and while I was in class probably about an hour or two later, my phone just kept going off during class. I said to myself, “What in the world can this guy want? I just talked to him this morning and just checked in”. It was very rare that I would get constant phone calls like that from the department.

So, I ended up getting worried and I walked out of the class to make the phone call to find out what in the world was going on. I called and he said, “Hey, I just want to let you know that everybody’s saying that the seafood vice president is coming here.” And I said, “What are you talking about? That cannot be possible. I just talked to him yesterday. We were just talking about how I got the position. He congratulated me and he didn’t say absolutely anything about coming down to the store for a surprise visit”.

Then I said, “I think that’s very rare. I don’t even think that’s possible that he’s coming.” Then he said, “Listen. I’m telling you. He’s coming. The store manager says he’s coming. I got other seafood departments calling me, telling me that he’s coming.” So then, I started to believe it.

I then was a nervous wreck because I knew a lot about this guy. He had a history of going into seafood departments and if things aren’t 100% perfect, he rips people apart. I’ve seen him go in departments, things not be right and then seen seafood managers lose their jobs. I’ve seen seafood managers get written up. I’ve seen seafood managers get suspended. I have never ever heard of this guy having many good visits. There was one bad encounter I had with him and there was one good visit he had with me when I was working in another store but I still know how high his standards are. So I was a nervous wreck. I couldn’t even think.

So, I just gave him some pointers and some things that he’s going to look for, just make sure we’re good to go. So, I hung up the phone and was thinking about leaving the class because I was so nervous about my job. I didn’t know what the department looked like because I hadn’t been there in two days. I knew my people were good at what they do but this was the seafood vice president that coming to inspect the place. I decided to just stick it out. So I was like, “By the time I drive all the way there, he would have came and gone. I’m just going to have to just wait it out”.

When lunch time came, I was so worried about my department that I didn’t eat lunch. I went straight to my phone, called the department, and wanted to know what was the update was. I wanted to know if he got to the store or not. When I called, the same the associate that I talked to earlier in the day answered and said, “Oh, things are fantastic”.

Then I said, “Okay, that’s great. Did Mike get there yet?”

He said, “Yeah, he’s here right now. Matter of fact, do you want to talk to him”.

I said, “Of course. Yeah, I want to talk to him. I just want to get this being over with”. 

The Vice President gets on the phone and says, “Hello?”  And I said, “Hey, Mike. How’s everything going?”  Then he said, “Oh, things are wonderful” in a very happy voice. I was shocked and now able to breathe. I felt a whole bunch of relief. He was telling me how this was one of the best visits he’s ever had and he was just blown away at the fact that I wasn’t there that day. I wasn’t there the prior day and my assistant was off that day as well.

I had part-time associates running the department and then he said, “This department looks the best out of all the departments I ever visited in my entire career”. I was just blown away by that comment. The moral of the story is this. The only reason why this was able to happen is because I expected excellence from all of the associates in my department. I expected excellence from myself. I expected excellence from my assistant. I expected excellence from my full timer. I expect excellence from every single part-time associate in my department. I expected them to be able to think, act and react like I would, if I was there. Those high standards, those high expectations, and that demonstration of excellence, got us major recognition from the Seafood Vice President.

When I tell people that story from other seafood departments, they just could not believe it because they knew the reputation of that Vice President as well. They know the high standards that he has. They know what will happen to their positions and jobs if things were not right. I was not even there. He didn’t give us anything to work on. He was just that happy.

So when you expect excellence, you don’t have to worry about there being problems. When you expect excellence, while everybody else is sweating, being stressed out, getting tired when times are rough, you’re laughing and having fun all because you expected excellence. So, are you expecting excellence in your life?  Think about the benefits. Where can you start expecting excellence in your life right now?    

Spot Opportunity! by {Rob Moore}

The first time I truly learned the value of spotting opportunity was when I was a part time seafood clerk working for a major supermarket chain. I was a part-timer and I never thought about having a career with this company before. The reason why I went there was because I was working at Bradlees’ department store prior to. I don’t even think there’s any more Bradlees’ left in the entire world. But they were paying me $4.25 an hour.

Business was going down the tubes. My job went from very exciting to very boring. The reason I say it was very exciting was because I loved working as a cashier there. I loved every minute of it.

Then they felt that since I was so good at my job, they needed me in other areas of the store. They needed me to be in charge of a couple of departments. When I say in charge, I’m not talking about being a manager or anything. They just wanted me to go into a department. I was in the house wares department and my job was to straighten and fill stuff on the shelves.

That was one of the most boring jobs that I have ever done. I was only working four hours a day because I was going to school at that time. But that four hours to me, felt like 8 hours because it was just that boring. I felt like I was being underpaid and now my job became extremely boring. They weren’t even trying to hear me going back to work on the registers because they didn’t need the help there.

So a company by the name of Price Chopper came in across the street and it was there for a few years. I found out that number one, a lot of people I knew worked there and they had a lot of good things to say about the company. Number two, was they were starting people at $5 an hour. So, if I went over there, I was going to automatically get a 75 cent raise. Number three, a supermarket had a lot more action inside the store than Bradlees’ did.

So I finally got a position with Price Chopper and I went straight into the seafood department. I really wanted to be a cashier but I didn’t care what they were going to have me do over there. I just did not want to do what I was doing anymore. I would have done just about anything that they offered me. I was fortunate enough to be offered a position in the seafood department which I enjoyed a lot.

I was doing this job just to earn some money on the side. While I was going to high school and then, eventually while I was going to college once high school was over. I was working another full time job as well and this was just something to supplement my income.

About two years after starting with that company, I got in a position where I wanted to really do something with my life. I really didn’t want to wait 5 to 10 years to get a degree in what I was studying.

I was looking at every angle; I possibly could in my life because I was looking for something that could help me get on track to having some kind of career. I couldn’t believe it when I found out that this company was right under my nose all of this time with loads of opportunity.

Towards the end of that two year period, when I really started to open my eyes and really see what was happening around me. I started to see people that I knew when I first started, people that I met six months after starting there, people that worked there a year after I started there, and a lot of them were advancing up the corporate ladder. It was not one, not two, but quite a few.

I also started to recognize several store managers get promoted into other positions too. My seafood manager, who hired me and was a trainer, was promoted to seafood specialist. I was seeing all of these people from several different departments, getting promoted and moving into higher paying jobs. I kept looking at all these people around me and I remember saying to myself, “Whoa whoa, whoa, whoa.” 

Now, most of these people, in my opinion, I didn’t think were that good and some I didn’t even think should have gotten promoted but hey, what did I know?  I did know this; I can do a better job than most of them. Then I said to myself, “You know what?  If these people can do it, there’s no reason why I can’t do it too.” So I recognized an opportunity that I spotted and as soon as I spotted it, started to take steps towards doing something about it.  

If you just stop and look around you, you will see that there all kinds of opportunities all around you. You just have to become aware, look and recognize them. I once heard this quote that I don’t know who said, but it’s a great quote. This person said, “Opportunity stands by quietly, waiting to be noticed”. What opportunities are right in front of your face right now waiting for you to recognize them? Take a look and I guarantee that you’ll find more opportunities than you can handle; and more opportunities than you have time to deal with. Spot the opportunities in your life starting today.