An interview with Mike Hernacki, the author of
'The Forgotten Secret to Phenomenal Success'
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In this interview,
our expert columnist Mike Hernacki discusses why most people fail to achieve
the success they dream of and how we lose our inborn success mechanism because
well-meaning adults teach us to doubt ourselves. Each month, Mike will be
answering reader questions. Send questions to:
mhernacki@aol.com.
Why did you write this book? I wrote this book to remind people of Secret that has brought them success in the past, so they can use it consciously to create success in the future. After writing this book, did you discover why do many of us fail to ever enjoy the type of success we dream of? Yes. Most people fail to achieve the success they dream of, simply because they don't do what they say they will do. They do not perform the actions they know are necessary in order to accomplish what they seek. Did you always understand the principles of success? What did you have to learn in order to become a successful author? I did not always understand the principles of success. At times I succeeded, and at other times I didn't. But I didn't know why--until one day I realized that if I wanted something, I just had to go out and do whatever it takes to get it, whether I knew what I was doing or not. Do you believe we all have an inborn success mechanism? If so, do we somehow lose it along the way? How do we lose it? Yes, we all have an inborn success mechanism. The very fact that we're alive is indisputable proof that this mechanism works. For example, walking, talking and reading are three enormously difficult tasks that we all learned successfully early in our lives. We don't necessarily lose this success mechanism. We just forget how to use it. We forget because when we are children, well-meaning adults teach us to doubt ourselves, limit ourselves and regard non-achievement as acceptable as achievement. What instinctive principles of success do infants understand that we adults often forget? Infants instinctively know that when they want something, the way to get it is to simply go get it. When they want to do something, they just start doing it. When their efforts are unsuccessful, they keep trying, learning from every trial, until they discover how to do it successfully. Why do people often fear success -- even when it can be beneficial? Some people fear success because, deep down, they believe they don't deserve it. Some fear it because it is socially unacceptable (as with girls outperforming boys in certain endeavors). Usually, it's because of a conflict between one type of goal and another. We choose one goal, even though the other may ultimately benefit us more--without ever knowing the real reason why. What are some indicators that we may be fearing success and thus not allowing ourselves success? Here are some indicators that you fear success and aren't allowing yourself to succeed: --If you stay in a job you hate for a long time. --If you repeatedly fail at something that's important to you, such as intimate relationships. --If people let you know you're an "underachiever". --If you go for years without knowing what you want to do with your life. --If you feel a desire for something, yet never seem to "get around to it." You write that all true success flows out of giving something to someone. Could you explain how aiming for a goal we want can be turned into giving something to someone else? Aren't we aiming for success for selfish reasons? Isn't it just those who don't care about success who are the truly unselfish givers? Yes, we aim for success for selfish reasons, and the achievement of a goal is something that pleases us. But the route to getting there must involve giving to others. Why? Because it involves getting something that we don't now have. In order to get something we don't now have, we have to get it from someone else. To do that, we can just take it without earning it, or we can give someone something of value in exchange for it. If you just take or steal what you want, people will try to thwart you. If you give people something that benefits them, they will help you get what you want and make it easier for you. It's even possible to frame something that appears entirely self-absorbed (like losing weight) so that achieving it will benefit others. Try it. It's not true that only those who don't care about success are unselfish givers. The question itself betrays how we've been misled about the nature of giving. The truth is, giving is not unselfish. People who give get a lot in return: joy, satisfaction, a sense of doing good, etc. Mother Teresa got an enormous amount of reward in return for what she gave--including a sense of earning her way into heaven. If she hadn't gotten rewards for her charity, she would have stopped it decades ago. Christmas is a popular as it is, not because we get presents. After a while, just getting presents is no fun at all. But in giving them is where the real joy of Christmas lies. What are the perceived negative consequences of success that can stop us from attaining success? What is the cultural paradox regarding success that can leave us confused about our goals? Some of the perceived negative consequences of success are: --making people we care about feel inferior --losing our current friends --not being popular or accepted --girls not being attractive to boys they out-achieve --having to handle bigger, more complex problems --functioning outside our "comfort zone." The cultural paradox is this: While internally we crave success, and people appear to encourage it, when we do succeed, people often resent and reject us. Thus when we sabotage our success, we are more readily accepted by those around us. You write that when a behavior results in failure, it is actually our way of successfully achieving another goal. Could you explain this? How can we change the thoughts and behaviors that make us fear the consequences of success? When we don't achieve what we say we want, it's because we really want something else more. That "something" causes us to behave in a way that does not produce what we appear to be shooting for. Example: a man bowls on a team comprised of his best friends. If he does really well and raises his average, he'll have to move up a notch and play with strangers who may take the game more seriously. So he "fails" and stays with his friends, having more fun. His failure is what he really wanted. He succeeded at it. We cannot change the thoughts that make us fear the consequences of success. We can only act despite the fear. We can do the things that will bring on the consequences and see what happens. It's pointless to try to eliminate fear. It will come anyway. The point is to act in spite of it. What steps should a person take in setting and achieving their goals? How can a person develop habits that will aid them in the quest for success? There are many techniques for setting and achieving goals. There are as many ways of succeeding as there are people who wish to succeed. The steps are not important. What's important is that you do whatever steps you set out for yourself that will eventually lead to your goal. The only way to develop a habit, any habit, is to do something over and over in a set, predictable pattern. Exactly what behaviors you engage in are entirely up to you. More important than the actual behavior is the pattern of behavior, the consistency of behavior, the repetition of behavior. How can we kick into gear our success mechanism--instead of sabotaging ourselves? The most effective tool for kicking our success mechanism into gear is discovering our deepest need. What's the most important thing in the whole world to you? Get in touch with that, and you will hit the "hot button" that spurs you into more concerted, purposeful action than anything else. How have we been reprogrammed to doubt our abilities? Parents and teachers, usually in an effort to spare us the pain of failure or rejection, tell us to not "show up" our peers, or outperform someone who is supposed to be better than we are. They may tell us we are inherently limited by our "inferior" intelligence or our lower social status. How does blaming others for our failure keep us from ever attaining success? Because as long as we make others responsible for our failure, we are at the effect of what others do. We can't succeed until we see ourselves as the cause, not the effect. On page 37, you write, "the first step on the road to success is to acknowledge what your world really looks like, and to accept responsibility for making it look that way." Could you elaborate a bit on this? Do you think we often deny what our world is really like? If so, why? Why is it difficult for a person to look at their life as it really is today? This is actually the reverse of the previous question. It is the equivalent of "blaming ourselves" for what is. When we look at our world and don't like what we see, our first impulse is to look away. When you're not looking in a mirror, it's easier to deny what you look like. And it's very tempting to do what's easier. It's difficult for people to look at their lives as they really are because most of us want it to be different, yet we're unwilling to do what it takes to make it so. By denying what really is, we appear to be producing an instantaneous result. If I look at my life honestly and say, "This is a mess," I must face the daunting task of fixing it. If I instead say, "It's not so bad," I appear to have instantly made it better--with no effort. How does lying to ourselves about what we are going to do (quit smoking tomorrow, lose weight, go to the gym, find a new job), impact our ability to enjoy success? By lying to yourself, you convince yourself that things are not the way they really are. And you cannot changes anything unless you deal with it the way it really is. To succeed, you must change things. Lying destroys your ability to make any meaningful change. What is the connection between success and having a relationship with ourselves that involves integrity? If you have no integrity in your relationship with yourself--if you repeatedly lie to yourself, break promises to yourself, deny the reality of what you're doing to yourself--you cannot possibly succeed, any more than you could succeed in a relationship with anyone else who had no integrity. Could you succeed in business with a partner who always lied to you? Could you succeed in a marriage with a spouse who constantly cheated on you? You wrote, "When I first started doing the interviews, I was amazed at how many people said they had a burning desire to accomplish a particular goal, yet admitted they had never done anything to help themselves actually accomplish it. " Why do most people want success -- but fail to do anything to attain it? I don't know the "why" behind people's behavior. And while it can be helpful to get to the reasons people do or don't do what they say, that process can be time-consuming and expensive without accomplishing anything. What's more important is for a person to realize and admit that they say they want something, yet are doing something else--then change that behavior and start doing what it takes. Leave the "whys to the psychologists and go for what you want. How can fear of failure cause us to avoid trying for something we really want? Is there a way to overcome our fears of failure? Fear is paralyzing. We imagine the risks to be so great that we allow them to stop us from taking action. There are a number of ways to overcome our fears. One of the most effective is contained in my book, The Secret to Conquering Fear, also published by Pelican. But you don't need that book. All you need is the Secret in this book. How can we form our own vision of success -- without trying for successes that other people want for us? You form your own vision of success by deciding what it is that you want, whether or not anyone else approves of it. Pretend for a moment that no one else was allowed to have any opinion or pass any judgment upon what you want for yourself. Now ask yourself what you would create if you had that freedom. The result is your vision of success. You write, "No matter what anybody tells you, you don't need money, or an education, or an established position, or connections, or a lot of brains, or even good health. In every country on earth, in every period of history, there have been people who succeeded mightily without any of those things." This seems wonderful to imagine, but aren't those things necessary? How can a person who has little financial resources and poor health reach their dreams? I don't know how they can; I only know that they can. How they do it is up to them. Everyone has to figure out their own "how." For one person, it may be years of hard work. For another, it may be talking a lot of others into doing the work for them. The "how" is not important. The path, the means, the wherewithal comes to the person who know and uses the Secret. You write, 'unsuccessful people share one trait in common: they are liars. They lie to themselves and they lie to others. All those elaborate plans and schedules are a big lie -- just a way of making it look as if they're doing something to reach their goal. When they say they want advice on how to get something done, they're lying. What they really want is to hear why it can't be done, so they can have an excuse, ratified by an 'expert,' for not doing it.' Why would a person want to act like they are striving toward success, when really they want failure? Because to some people, it's very important to look good. It's more important for them to have it look like their lives are working than it is for their lives to actually be working. And also because this is the path of least resistance, which is a very seductive path indeed. Could you explain what it means to have 'selective deafness'? Selective deafness is a trait common to successful people. When others are giving them encouragement and telling them how and why things can be done, their hearing is very good. When others are discouraging them or telling them they can't do something, they suddenly become deaf. They are especially deaf to the discouraging words of experts, whose status gives their negativity the patina of truth. At various times in history, the world's leading experts proclaimed unequivocally that: --The world is flat. --Earth is the center of the universe. --Man would never fly. --Human beings could not travel faster than 60 miles per hour because at that speed, their hearts would explode. --No one could possibly run a mile in less than 4 minutes. Fortunately for all of us, other people were deaf to these pronouncements and used the Forgotten Secret to achieve what they wanted anyway. ------ Books Available by Mike Hernacki: The Forgotten Secret to Phenomenal Success by Mike Hernacki. To order. The Ultimate Secret to Getting Absolutely Everything You Want by Mike Hernacki. To order. The Secret to Conquering Fear by Mike Hernacki. To order. Quantum Business: Achieving Success Through Quantum Learning by Bobbi Deporter and Mike Hernacki. To order. About the author: Mike Hernacki has had a number of interesting careers, including teacher, attorney, stockbroker, writer and businessman. He draws upon this wide range of experience in his current work as a Professional Success Coach. Mike works with success-oriented individuals seeking either to move up in their fields, or change to a field that offers more opportunity for fulfillment. If you'd like to find out if coaching can benefit you, or you would like to submit a question for Mike's monthly column, contact Mike at 619/542-0902 or mhernacki@aol.com. Mike Hernacki is a man of many careers and talents. Born and raised in the Detroit area, he graduated from Michigan State University in 1965 with a BA in education. After spending several years each in teaching, advertising and sales, he received his law degree from the Detroit College of Law in 1975 and practiced law until 1977. He and his wife, Wanda (a Detroit police detective at the time) then moved to San Diego and Mike became a stockbroker with E.F. Hutton. Mike began his writing career in 1979. He spent a total of seven years as a Contributing Editor for Registered Representative, the nation's leading magazine for stockbrokers, and for Financial Planning magazine. He's written hundreds of articles for a variety of national publications and produced sales and marketing materials for large corporate clients in the investment and insurance fields. As a ghostwriter, Mike has written books on real estate, popular psychology, financial planning and customer service. Mike applied a lifetime interest in personal achievement to writing four of his own books: The Ultimate Secret to Getting Absolutely Everything You Want (1988); The Secret To Conquering Fear (1990); The Forgotten Secret to Phenomenal Success (1992); and The Secret to Permanent Prosperity (1994). All were published by Berkley Publishing in New York. His first book has been published on audio tape by Nightingale-Conant, and has been translated into Dutch, Spanish, Korean, Japanese and Chinese. His second and third books have been translated into Japanese and Chinese. His second and third books, The Secret to Conquering Fear and The Forgotten Secret, were re-released by Pelican Publishing Company in 1997 and 1998, respectively. In 1992, Mike collaborated with Bobbi DePorter on a book of accelerated learning techniques. Titled Quantum Learning, it was published by Dell in New York and Piatkus in London. Foreign language editions include German, Russian, Indonesian and Slovenian. Quantum Learning is now on the list of 100 best-selling non-fiction Dell titles. A second book in this series, Quantum Business, was released by Dell in April, 1997. A third book, Quantum Teaching, which is a manual for teachers of these methods, will be published by Allyn & Bacon in 1998. Since 1995, Mike has served as a coach to success-oriented individuals seeking either to move up in their fields, or change to a field that offers more opportunity for fulfillment. His client list includes writers, teachers, financial professionals, independent business people, an attorney and a holistic health practitioner. Today, Mike and Wanda continue to live in San Diego, where she recently retired after a criminal investigator with the District Attorney's office and he continues to write and consult for financial clients, as well as building his coaching practice. As a couple, Mike and Wanda enjoy travel, playing tennis and reading voraciously.
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