For David Ibarra, success starts in the mind.

After more than a quarter-century in the automotive industry, the leadership coach knows that so much of what needs to be done can’t be done, at least not well, until a person gets his or her mind right.

So he started his address at the recent Bobit Dealer Group Agent Summit with that, er, in mind.

The first of 10 principles Ibarra presented as essential to developing an extraordinary agency was, intentionally, leveraging the power of thought, specifically positive thought.

“If you have a negative state of mind,” he said, “will you have any desire to do anything different than what you’re doing now?”

Of course not, he answered his own question. And since, he said, 80% of our thought life is subconscious and the subconscious “has only one job, and that is to do whatever it is told to do,” if it’s given a positive state of mind, “you will be so energized, so pumped.”

On the other hand, a negative state of mind results in attachment to emotions such as fear, disbelief and generally a no-can-do attitude that doesn’t benefit the person or the agency.

Purposeful Foundations

Beyond adopting a positive state of mind, though, should be a clear purpose, one of Ibarra’s five core, or foundational, principles of the 10. Otherwise, a business can founder or even fail, he said. Purpose, he pointed out, is essential to an agency’s future.

The president and CEO of agency Ibarra Business Group and a managing director of finance-and-insurance product provider Portfolio learned this principle as a teenager, aimless in life after spending most of his first 14 years in foster care. A series of directionless moves found him as a dishwasher at a Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlour Restaurant, when in walked the company’s founder, Robert Farrell.

“You’re the most important person of anybody in this restaurant,” Farrell told the young Ibarra, who thought that idea preposterous.

Farrell, seeing the boy’s skepticism, pointed to a birthday a family was celebrating for a little boy in the busy restaurant dining room that day and asked him the type of business Farrell’s was in.

“I said, ‘The ice cream business,’” but Farrell shook his head and told him to consider the birthday boy. Ibarra did so and suddenly understood what the owner of what was then a 25-restaurant chain meant. “Are we in the memory business?” he said, Farrell affirming his new answer.

The point was made: Farrell’s, though it had done all the right things before – a delicious ice cream recipe served in well-located spots on crockery instead of disposable dinnerware – struggled until it established itself as the place for ice cream lovers to celebrate milestones.

Ibarra took the lesson of purpose, along with his reading at Farrell’s urging of Napolean Hill’s Depression-era book extolling the power of positive thinking, “Think and Grow Rich,” and started to transform his life and career. Farrell became his mentor, and Ibarra’s trajectory ultimately led to his adaptation of Hill’s philosophy that guides his consulting and speaking today, including making a priority of developing talent through his agency and the dealerships it serves.

When an early-career setback moved him to switch from restaurants to automotive retail, he carried the lesson with him to inform his new career, using it as a platform to introduce his training philosophy until starting his company a decade later to teach the same.

“This is my favorite topic,” he told the room at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas. In fact, he said, he’s the biggest licensee of “Think and Grow Rich” seminars in the world and was tapped to modernize Hill’s book as “Live Ready – Beyond Think and Grow Rich.”

Talent Tip

It turns out Farrell was right when he told the teenage Ibarra that he was the most important person in the restaurant that day. That is, no one person can carry a company, so every person on staff fills a crucial role. That’s why Ibarra today advises agencies to develop specialized teams.

He said it’s more important to know what one isn’t good at than what one is good at. When he started his company, he said he didn’t gravitate to reinsurance, one of its specialties. So he brought on someone who did and made that man the face of that division.

“If it was talent improvement needs, they’d say, ‘Call David.’ If it was reinsurance, they’d say, ‘Let’s call Henry,’” he recalls.

A team of people all doing what they’re good at and working in harmony puts a company in the “genius zone,” he said.

Act on Faith

Once an agency puts the first three principles into play, it can then proceed to do the things it set out to do when its principals formed it, but this point is where most people stop because it takes self-discipline and action.

Momentum begins with an idea, which is backed up with a plan, and followed by action, Ibarra explained.

“I learned that at 18 years old,” he said, referring back to his encounter all those years ago with Farrell’s owner, who told him his dishwashing job was inextricably tied to all the other positions. But each role must execute.

“Nothing happens until action is set in motion.”

Get Ready

Ibarra’s audience must’ve grasped by now that he layers his principles like a well-constructed ice cream sundae. The fifth wouldn’t gel unless stacked atop the first four.

That is the concept of a readiness mindset, or belief and enthusiasm, which he said can fuel all efforts, compelling each team member to do more than expected, take initiative, exercise self-discipline, focus, keep his or her ego firmly in check, cultivate discernment and maintain creative energy.

The last of those seven readiness essentials is when a person is “in creative overdrive,” Ibarra said, “and everything cool happens.”

“When you’re in that creative space, look for your big ideas.”

Ibarra follows his own personal readiness exercise daily that involves physical exercise, listening to his or Hill’s book, reviewing that day’s agenda, and reading his company’s mission statement and daily actions recommended for corporate leaders.

“When I walk out, I’m ready,” he said of this day-starting ritual, and he encouraged his listeners to develop their own readiness exercises to prepare themselves for each day on the job.

He shared the story of a Volkswagen dealership that secured his help with finding and developing leadership, starting with a new general manager. He met both requests, and he said the Salt Lake City dealer grew its sales from under 60 new units a month to more than a thousand across four locations, achieving top U.S. VW dealer status.

The Last Five

Wrapping up his talk, Ibarra gave an overview of the last principles to add onto the core ones for a full plan of attack.

The agency should view problems as life’s way of course-correction and opportunities to gain skills, knowledge and wisdom.

• Demonstrate a pleasing personality, which Ibarra said follows naturally from practicing the first five principles.

• “Look at [adversity] as an adjustment,” he said. “If you don’t have problems … ask God why he doesn’t trust you anymore.”

• Cultivating “sound health” is always a good idea, Ibarra said. “When you’re happy, you’ve got good chemicals pumping out.”

• Spend your time and money wisely.

• The last is what he calls law of habit, or “the promise.”

“Everything we do is a chain of actions that form a good pattern habit or a bad pattern habit,” he said, “It is the law. But the good thing is we are in charge of those patterns. We’re the only animal on Earth that has been given the ability to control thought. That’s our gift, and that we should use.”

If learned and applied, the 10 principles, for which Ibarra developed 10 cartoons set to singalong songs to teach them to children, he said, “what goes home is a different parent, neighbor, partner.”

Like he did in developing his framework, he told his listeners to use it to find their “one big idea.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Hannah Mitchell is executive editor of Agent Entrepreneur. A former daily newspaper journalist, her first car was a hand-me-down Chevrolet Nova.