Review - Six Minutes to Success

Having launched my first video edition of Preston's Pearls I have refreshed and revived this review for the benefit of those joining us for the first time.



Six Minutes to Success is one more tool for achieving success from the mind of Bob Proctor. While Bob Proctor has been conducting success seminars for decades he is now best know for his work in the movie 'The Secret' (He's the white haired gentlemen who initially tells you what the Secret really is).

He has a lively and infectious energy in that movie and that is what prompted me to check out his Six Minutes to Success program when I caught sight of it one day.

The program is unique - as far as my experience goes - in that instead of offering a weekend seminar or a collection of books, videos or audio recordings the Six Minutes instead sends you one video clip of Bob Proctor each and every weekday morning.

That concept certainly appealed to me personally since I've been studying personal success long enough to know that consistency is absolutely critical to success. Too many people spend $2000.00 going to a weekend seminar, to get greatly motivated - for a little while. With Six Minutes you would get a daily dose of motivation or food for thought.

The website however, to be frank, is simply not impressive. In fact, considering Bob Proctor is always quick to point out how successful he is with his many businesses, the Six Steps website comes off as embarrassingly cheap and amateurish. It also reeks of used car salesmanship which goes on extensively. Does anyone actually read all that?

I was rather dubious, despite my genuine trust in Bob Proctor's abilities. However the site did offer a free 7 day trial and since I really liked the idea of a daily message I decided to take it for a spin.

I do have a grievance with the trial offer in that it requests your credit card info in advance - meaning you need to remember to cancel or be enrolled. However, in actual practice, it was quite clear when your trial period was up and you're in no danger of getting enrolled by accident (unless possibly you're just not paying attention).

I received the first couple of free videos and then... nothing. It was as if I somehow just fell off their radar. Again, I wasn't impressed. Still, I e-mailed them to find out what happened. I received a prompt reply and resolution to the problem from a pleasant CSR. The rest of the videos flowed accordingly on a daily basis from there on. Edit: In hindsight, it's possible, although unlikely, those two days were the weekend when the videos do not run but if that was the case the fact that they are weekday only should be more clearly articulated.

One of my biggest surprises was the fact that the videos are not, in fact, six minutes long. On average they run about two. However the remaining minutes are meant to be taken up by you doing exercises which generally amounts to filling in answers to three questions. This was a little disappointing but it's still a very helpful tool as it gives you some food for thought and then forces you to think about the subject matter at hand and how it relates to your life.

Does it actually take six minutes? Rarely. Most days I fill in the answers within two to three minutes but some days I can take fifteen or twenty due to the amount of thought involved.

The videos were solid information but not Earth-shattering or life changing. Still what do you expect within such a short daily burst? It's the cumulative effect that counts here.

In the initial videos Proctor is often holding and referring to Napoleon Hill's masterpiece work of self-help Think and Grow Rich. This annoyed me somewhat as I am very well versed on Napoleon Hill's works having read many of his books and that particular one multiple times. Still, it is a classic for very good reason and serves as a very sound basis for discussion.

Satisfied that the service was as useful as I had hoped I decided to enroll in the program past the initial seven days.

Now the program is not inexpensive, or perhaps it is, depending on your point of view. You are looking at $40 a month (less if you sign up for a year, as I did) which might seem like a large chuck of change for what you're getting. However, many people spend that much to exercise their bodies so why not their minds? Also, compared to the cost of just one weekend seminar this is dirt cheap and has the additional benefit of being with you every day (Mon-Fri) all year long. It's easy to work into your routine and won't break your bank. Let us not forget the goal with a program like this is to enable you to break your own mental road blocks that are holding you back from achieving your full potential and unlimited success. Obviously if it helps you to become wealthier or otherwise significantly improve your life, it's more than worth the cost.

Finally, there is one last twist. Six Minutes to Success has an affiliate program. Meaning you can earn money by promoting it to other people. For every person you get to sign up you earn $10 per month for each month they remain enrolled. So if you get 4 friends signed up, it's free. That's enticing in one way but seems somewhat like a scam in others. I did not refer anyone to this program though, at least not until I became convinced of it's long term worth.

Aside from the daily video messages, the program does come with a large selection of 'bonus' material. Proctor's book Born Rich - which is excellent, a series of audio messages and .pdf files. Occasionally various daily videos will also have a link to more free 'bonus' content, usually either a page or chapter about the topic at hand. The bonus content is all online, useful, plentiful and much appreciated. I am still slowing making my way through all of it.

I have been using the service for about four months now and continue to be quite pleased with it. It should go without saying that some days the message will be more impactful than others, and what really clicks for you will be different than for everyone else. I have been studying motivational material for over twenty years so most of what I hear on these videos is stuff I already know but still some is fresh and even the stuff I know, I need to be reminded about and prompted to put it into action.

It's hard to really access the overall quality of an ongoing service but so far so good. There have been no repetition of ideas and every day has had a good message. One complaint I have is that Dr. Proctor needs to put more long term thought into the over arching flow of the videos as I do not feel that they really build on one another. With the exception of the odd 'series' of videos (7 positive emotions for example) they could pretty much be given in any order to the same effect. This I feel, is a bit of a lost opportunity. Of the flip-side, if someone is not routine about watching them, this may be preferable because you won't feel like you need to watch 3 days worth to enjoy the message today.

You can go back and view previous videos and if you don't get around to watching one it'll always be there to watch later. The site indicates which videos have been missed. This is of huge value because the messages that really impact you, are available to be re-watched over and over to keep yourself motivated to keep performing in that particular area.

I also have a hard time recommending this to anyone totally new to the world of modern success coaching. Largely because the videos do not build on one another so there's no real opportunity to start at the very basics and progress gradually to advanced distinctions. Instead Proctor seems to assume you've watched The Secret and goes from there. Let me note that rarely does he talk about The Law of Attraction in this series though. Since each video is self contained the info is still useful to anyone but I would think someone versed in success material would get more out of it. If you are new to motivational/success material and want to try this, I'd advise you to read Bob Proctor's book Born Rich and the audio series early on to get up to speed - all of which is free bonus material.

Is it worth it? That depends on how serious you are about making a change in your life. If you really want lasting change, then I recommend the following in this order: Buy and read Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill (available through the link to the right). Then read it three more times. Then buy and watch The Secret (also available through the link). I'm sure you'll watch that over and over without my telling you. Once you have thoroughly digested those works, then I would recommended enrolling in Six Minutes to Success to help maintain your newly developed good mental practices and to learn and develop more. You might also want to consider Anthony Robbin's Awaken the Giant Within which is a great exercise book which really breaks things down to the nitty gritty.

Has it helped me? Yes, immensely. It has allowed me to break away from limiting negative thought patterns and focus all my energies into new creative endeavours like this website you're viewing now. I took a leap of faith by enrolling in the program for a year but right now, I'm am very pleased with it overall and feel confident enough about it to recommend it to anyone - as long as they are serious about change and preferable if they are already familiar with many of the basics of modern self-help methodology.

Prioritize

This week I cleared my schedule of all social functions so that I could address the backlog of work and projects that I have. However on any given day I found I was at a bit of a loss as to where to start and often felt demotivated to even start since it seemed overwhelming.

It's not that they aren't important, they problem is they are all important. And that is the fundimental problem right there. I had neglected to prioritize all my various goals and tasks. So everything is more or less of equal importance and the list is truly overwhelming because no matter how much I could possibly do, it would barely make a dent in the list. It hardly seemed to matter.

Once the time is taken to prioritize, things suddenly become a lot clearer. Even if you can only get to one or two items on your list, you know that those are the items that will have the greatest positive impact on your life. Therefore your feeling of accomplishment is much greater and you're not concerning yourself with not having gotten to more trival tasks.

Now this might seem obvious, and it is but have you taken the time to prioritize your goals? Stop for a minute and think about it. If you could only accomplish one life goal which would it be? If the answer isn't immediately clear then you need to clarify that. Rank them in order from more to least important. Sometimes it may be a real toss-up between two competing interests. In this case it might be helpful to write out all the pros for each and weigh them. If your still stuck, just go with your initial gut instinct - Then stick to it. You won't do yourself any favours if you're flip-floping on priorities. If circumstances change you can reevaluate at that point.

Once your have your goals prioritized then act accordingly. Send the majority of the time and effort on your top priority, some time on your secondary priority and occasionally work on lower priorities - probably when your stuck waiting for something to happen in your higher priorities.

The Art of Self-Sabotage

If you're keeping abreast with my concurrent blog - Preston's Path to Prosperity - then you know I've recently met someone that - at first blush - is the very essence of everything I'm looking for in a woman. I won't get into details here except to say she is gorgeous and wonderful.

After our first date I was estactic to have met such a high quality woman. After the second date with everything going very smoothly, I was feeling like the master of the Law of Attraction.

But now, the next day, my subconscious mind is already at work undermining my confidence.

Have you ever wished for something and wondered day in and day out why it couldn't be more like 'X'. Then when for once you actually get exactly 'X' you're feeling it's just too good to be true? That there simply must be something wrong. Some string or catch and you start looking for any tattletell sign of what's wrong with this picture.

That's where I am right now. If she doesn't pick up the phone, does that mean she's lost interest? Perhaps she only wants to be with me because I'm a Canadian citizen and she's not or she assumes I'm well established in life and able to look after her and her child. Looking back on our relationship so far there's no valid reason for me to assume any of that is true, it's merely my own poor self-image working against me.

In his seminar, Bob Proctor said that we must reach 'levels' before we can advance our life. For example, it's unfathomly hard to go from working poor to vertually non-working millionaire in ones mind. Sure they can envision it, but if they were to suddenly have an inspiration of what to do to make that reality they will almost certainly shoot it down as rubbish. Simply because that reality is too far removed from all their past and present references of life. It just can't be that easy. Right? Wrong.

While not every idea is a surefire winner, there ultimately are some of them out there. The people who succeed are the ones who can believe in them long enough to prevail.

For that hardworking poor person striving to get ahead, they need to go after a shorter term goal of something that they can actually fundimentally believe they can acheive. Like reaching middle-class. Surely they know some people living at that level and certainly they can reaffirm that those people are not significantly, if at all, any different than they are. That way when success comes, they can accept it.

Once they become acclimatized to living life at that level they can dream and pursue bigger and better goals.

We must always be on the lookout for those self-limting thoughts and behaviours though.

I recently read that in a study of a couple dozen millionaires that had succeeded from all different walks of life, the one recurring theme amoungst them all was a belief that they could not fail. They did not take reckless, foolish risks, and it would be next to impossible to maintain that beleif system if they did, but whatever risks they took, and it wasn't uncommon for them to risk it all, they proceeded on that unwavering belief that they would find a way to make it work.

Now someone could argue that there would also be a set of people with that belief who tried and failed. This is true. What constantly amazes me is how many successful people have been bankrupt at some point, often multiple times. Bankruptcy seems like the end of the world to most of us but to these people it's merely a stumbling block and they merely try another venture utilizing what they learned in the last attempt.
Again, they've maintained that belief that they will not fail over the long run. They have seen others be successful and figure that therefore, it must also be possible for them to achieve success as well.

This extends into all other areas. It's well documented that pretty much any successful person you can think off dealt with failure or rejection at some point.

"Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" - Winston Churchill

Therefore if we accept that failure is a part of life but certainly not the end of a voyage we must also come to an acceptance that success is also a part of life and we must learn to accept both in good graces.

So while my concerns might may some basis and should be considered, it's counterproductive to allow oneself to become consumed with looking for reasons why one's success isn't in fact valid.

Remember we attract what we focus upon. So stay focused on how wonderful this success will feel and what future opportunites it opens up while staying mindful of the potential pitfalls.