What would you give up?

We all have an idea of how we'd like things to be. Maybe you aren't happy with the car you drive. Perhaps its where you live, the clothes you wear or who you live with. It may be something different for each person. But, all of us would like our lives to be different. Or so we say.

If it is true, as I have said recently, that we do exactly what we want to do and don't do what we don't want to do, then we must not want that "thing" that we say we do. Or at least not enough to make it happen. Maybe we don't think it is possible, so we don't try. Maybe we tell ourselves its just not worth the effort. Maybe we simply procrastinate saying, there's plenty of time. But, do you still want to be telling yourself that when you are sitting in a retirement home lamenting the fact that you didn't get what you wanted out of life?

Every moment of life is precious, because our lives are finite.  Why start to get your life on track at 70 if you can do it at 40. Why wait till forty if you can do it at 20? Why put it off for even a single moment?

If it weren't possible there wouldn't be people accomplishing the things that you want out of life right now. Nobody on this planet is any better than you are. There are opportunities everywhere. Successful people take advantage of the opportunities that are already there and create new opportunities out of adversity. Is there a lack of adversity in your life?

While I do indeed believe that, the love of money is the root of nearly all evil. Money is simply a tool. Now, having said that,  it is a very powerful tool, one which can change our lives for the better. In fact, nearly all of the problems that plague the average person can be solved by increasing the amount of money that one has.

As far as whether or not its worth it, well that all depends on you. What are your motivations? Who loves and depends on you? Even if you wouldn't strive for success just for yourself, are the happiness of your friends and family worth a little sacrifice on your part?

Some people, like motivational speaker Les Brown have this inner fire driving them to succeed. He was born in and abandoned building and given up for adoption. His adopted mother was single. She worked as a cafeteria attendant and domestic assistant. While still in grade school he was declared educable mentally retarded.  A combination of love and gratitude drove him to succeed. He wanted to become something, so that his adopted mother's sacrifice would be worth it. He gave up his free time and effectively most of his childhood to make that dream come true. When he was first starting out he would often be out knocking on people's doors after nine at night, still trying to get a sale for the day, so he could go home and say he accomplished something. Now he is a multimillionaire and one of the world's best motivational speakers.

How about your favorite athlete, musician or movie star? Do you think success just fell into their laps? For most of them success came at a price, one that other people weren't willing to pay. You might say that they just capitalized on innate talent, but that's really not true. Yes, talent in some area is required in order to be successful.

But, practicing that talent, honing it to a razor sharp edge and then sharing that talent to the world are all necessary steps. How many hours do celebrities spend improving their game or working on new material? Rehearsal or practice time isn't just measured in minutes. Strategy meetings don't run themselves. How much time do they spend away from their loved ones? How much sleep do they lose due to someone mismanaging their time? Because that's the key. For the most part, what we give up is time. Time doing the things that we enjoy right now, so that we can enjoy our future even more.

Is it worth it? Of course it is. They make millions of dollars and have tons of adoring fans. Plus, at the end of the day, they can be proud of what they have accomplished, of the life they have been able to provide for themselves as well as those they care about.

What would you do, what would you give up to be able to say the same? And...why haven't you started already?

A new way for success

In olden times, long long ago, when the Earth was still old and the race of man was new, things were different. Back then, in order to insure success, one just needed to show a little dedication or some discipline, or willingness to work towards a goal. In modern times, none of those alone will make you successful.

You have to have dogged determination, fanatical dedication and a willingness to work harder than anyone else to meet your goals. And with many business, both on or offline, even then, sometimes that is not enough.

For a long time now, in the online marketing space, people have been selling how to courses. These things are great. You pay a little money and learn a new marketable skill, something that can help you make even more money in your current business.

There are a lot of online geniuses or gurus that are willing to share with you all the secrets to making a fortune online. The problem with these things is, in almost every case it is someone who is just as broke as you are, "teaching" you how to make money. The only money most of them have ever made is from the sales of the lesson they are teaching you.

Even if they do have a lot of good ideas and strategies on what might work, how is someone who has never made $100,000 a year going to teach you, with just a few short videos all the steps necessary to get you making that kind of money? They aren't going to. They can't.

If someone can't prove to you that their system has done for them what they say it will do for you, don't listen to them. It's probably just smoke and mirrors. There's a somewhat new concept that is catching on like wildfire. It's called selling your results.

First do something that other people are struggling with. Then share your results with other people. And then show them how they can get the same results as you. Make it clear that if you can do it so can they. Other people want to be successful.  They, generally, don't really care about your success. The only reason that it matters to them is that it is proof that what you say works.

I can not show you how to make ten thousand dollars a month with a home based business. Hell, I can't even show you how to make two thousand dollars a month. I have never done either of those things in a home based business. But I can show you how to make your cell phone bill disappear. In the past thirty days, I've cut my monthly cell phone bill by more than half. Soon, it will be gone entirely. And then every month afterwards my phone will pay me.

Out of the top four carriers in the USA, Verizon has the highest national average, coming in at $148. Sprint and AT&T are in the middle with, $144 and $141 respectively. And T-Mobile has the lowest national average, out of the four, with $120.

My bill this month, including all taxes and fees, is under $32. How does it work you say?

There's a relatively new nationwide phone service that cuts out most of the fees and taxes and just charges a low flat rate for the services you actually need. Their cheapest plan that includes unlimited talk, text and web, is $39 per month or just over $46 bucks total, all taxes included. Why pay 120 bucks when you could pay less than $50?

But what's even better is that they offer an incentive plan for you to share this awesome savings with others. For each person that you get to switch to their service, they reduce your monthly bill by $5. You don't get that with any of the Big 4.

Think about it. Practically everybody has a cell phone. Some of us have more than one. Just a few short weeks from today, you could go from paying over a hundred dollars a month , to never having to pay your phone bill again.

Get started right now by going here.

A message for the world. In the beginning there was chaos.

At first I was unaware of having any control over my life. I was aimlessly travelling along the rocky rapids of life being slammed from one sharp circumstance into another. If random chance brought me something good, well then that was great, but if it didn't then boo-hoo life was being mean to me.

But one day, I awoke to the truth. That I could and did in fact control nearly everthing that happened to me. I learned that I could avoid the sharp outcroppings of rock in the river of life and that I could safely navigate wherever I wanted to go. Life doesn't have to be random and chaotic and scary. It can be controlled,calm,peaceful and still fun. It is my intention to bring the lessons that I have learned to the world. To bring more light and hope and success to all of those around me.

Much positive change has been wrought in the lives of those closest to me as a direct result of my sharing these very same things with them. For a long time I dreamed of sharing my successes with others in my community and one by one changing the whole community for the better. For various reasons it has come to my attention that it would be a much better idea to share my viewpoint on the internet. More people overall can be affected this way. And instead of having a tight cluster of change in one local place there can be seeds of it planted all over the world.

So, I will be posting my viewpoints on life and the lessons I have learned. If what I say has resonance with you, if it vibrates on the same frequency as you do, if you agree with what I say, please please, share it with others that you think could get something positive out of it. And if you disagree or are bothered or offended in any way by what I say, please just ignore it. If this is the case my message is not for you.

That's the wonderful thing about the internet we can tune in to whatever we want and tune out from what we do not want.

The key to a successful life

Do you ever see people that have the kind of life that you want? They have all the things that you want in your life. You resolve to make your life just that way but how? There are so many little details that need seeing to. How can you ever possibly hope to get all your ducks in a row? When you focus on the big picture it seems impossible.

It can be done but first you need to think about things logically. Looking at the whole scene all at once obviously isn't gonna do it. How about working towards the other end of the spectrum?

To start with do you know what it is that makes a successful life? That would be a lifetime where we have more successes than failures. But that's too big of a goal to start of with, it has too many uncontrolled variables.

What makes up a lifetime of success would be a few decades of successes. That still sounds daunting. You may not be able to guarantee decades of success. How about a single decade of success? That would be ten years with more success than failures. Still a bit much.

How about a year of success? That's only 12 months. It's starting to sound reasonable but still not something we can see ourselves committing to. A single month is only thirty days. Some of us could commit to that and use it as the anchor point for our successful life. But not all of us would be confident in our ability to do so.

Let's go to a single 24 hour period. While it may just be a tiny slice out of a successful life, there is no legitimate reason why we can't commit to and follow through with having a single successful day at any point that we decide to.

Now to be realistic, nobody is going to succeed at everything they do every time they attempt to do something, especially if what you are doing is new or unfamiliar. But if you are willing to put forth a little effort, you certainly can succeed more than you fail.  And if you have more successes in a given day than failures then  that day can be considered a success.

It's why in Alcoholic's Anonymous people are asked to commit to only a single day without drinking. Just get through one day. Then when you wake up the next day recommit for that day and so on until eventually you have control of your life.

Seven days of success makes a successful week. Four weeks of success makes a successful month. Twelve months of success makes for a successful year. Ten years of success makes for a successful decade. Decades of success make for a successful life. But it all starts one day at a time.

You should pick a date in the future when you will have all of the things that you want. Say maybe 10 years into the future. Then scale your vision back to what your life will need to look like in five years so that you can make that ten year goal. Next scale it back to what your life will need to look like in 1 year to meet your five year goals. Then do the same thing for six months in the future, then three, then one. Then figure out what steps you will need to take starting two weeks from now to meet your one month goals. And last but not least decide what changes you need to make starting tomorrow to get to your two week goals.

Then starting tomorrow begin making those changes. But once you have the road map to your future in place, don't focus on the big picture. Focus on making now a success. If you consistently focus on making each now successful the future will take care of itself and your life will be a success.

So much advice. Who to listen to?

With around seven billion people travelling with us on spaceship Earth, there is a seemingly unlimited amount of opinions about what is right or wrong in any given situation. And most people are not at all shy about telling you what they think you should do.

We are constantly being bombarded from all sides, everyday, by the thoughts and ideas of others. Radio, TV and magazine advertisements tell us how their product is better than anyone else's. Friends, family and other loved ones give us their advice on everything under the sun, from romance and sex, to money, what clothes to buy, how we should act. If you can name it, there are tons of people that want to tell us how or why to do it.

Our instinct seems to be, and in fact the way most of us handle things, is to just say and do what other people that we trust tell us. The people that we believe have our best interests at heart are the ones that we tend to take advice from. We treat the people that care about us as authorities on whatever subject it is that we need help with.

The flaw in this logic is that well, it isn't really logical at all. Quite often the people we turn to for advice are just as lost on whatever topic it is that we need help with as we are.

For example, you might go to your favorite uncle for relationship advice because he is someone you feel comfortable talking to. But if he has been divorced four times, the odds are his relationship advice isn't very sound.

Or perhaps you are having trouble managing your finances. You might go to your father for help. After all he was head of the household while you were growing up. He cares about you and would never intentionally steer you wrong. But if he is broke and living paycheck to paycheck, the advice he has for you isn't likely to help out very much.

Most of the advice that we are given by other people is not factual. It is opinions formed by their own experiences in life. If the person giving the advice has not had success with the issue at hand then they are not qualified to share with you what will bring success. They can in fact tell you what did not work for them, but they have no way of knowing what will work for you.

The Oracle in Matrix Revolutions says  " You can’t see beyond a choice you don’t understand."

If you haven't experienced something, you cannot share that experience with someone else. If you want solid advice about a given topic, seek out a person that has actually achieved the level of success that you are looking for. Only a person that has done so really knows and understands what they are talking about. Everyone else is just guessing.

The same thing goes for negative feedback. If you are starting a new business or relationship, countless people will tell you exactly how or why things just aren't going to work. Take a moment to separate the list of people giving you advice into two groups, the ones who have achieved what you are working towards and those that have not. Then only listen to and accept into your way being advice from people who have succeeded at what it is that you intend to do. Acknowledge those other people that care enough to share their opinions but realize that they are only opinions.

What about your potential?

Most people tend to go through life doing what I call sandbagging, just doing the minimum that is needed in order to survive. But then, they tend to complain about their lot in life, about how it is so much less than it could be.

Each and every single one of us has greatness within us. It is not something that we have to learn or something that we need to cultivate. It is there inside just waiting to get out. If every person stopped letting fear run their lives and making them play small the world would be a much different place.

Psychologist William James, put it this way. “Stating the thing broadly, the human individual thus lives usually far within his limits; he possesses powers of various sorts which he habitually fails to use. He energizes below his maximum, and behaves below his optimum".

Note here that he was talking about not a specific person, but people on the whole. All of us.

And such eloquent verbiage. Powers which we habitually fail to use. That makes it sound, and rightly so, that we have great talents and skills that we could easily use to make our daily lives so much better, if only we chose to.

If this is true, why don't we? Basically, the answer is fear. We know what life is like right now and even though it may not be pleasant, as long as we don't do anything new, it will likely stay relatively the same. We fear what we don't know, even if there is every likelihood and indication that the change would be for the better.

You would think that the fear would be of failure. But nine times out of ten what we fear is success. See, we already know about failure, it is an old friend, one that we have spent quite a bit of time with. But wildly fantastic success, now that would be a completely new adventure, into a scary unknown future.

Failure can be controlled even guaranteed. Success can too, but its hard to understand someone describing the light to you, if you have been blind your whole life. Just as a person who has lived their whole life with excruciating pain every single moment may want to wake up one day without being in pain, it is not something that they can truly understand much less imagine.

But who are the people that do manage to use these powers and abilities that lie dormant within all of us? Celebrities, artists, scientists, athletes, the rich and famous, successful people everywhere. They are the less than one percent of the population that conquer their fear of success, and fear of the unknown. The ones who pull back the curtain and let their full light shine out onto the rest of the world.

They are the people that choose to stop sandbagging and decide to start letting their awesomeness out. They are the people who start giving one hundred percent all the time and not holding back.
Join the one percent. Trust me.

You will be amazed by just how much more you can achieve than your ever thought or believed was possible. No one can say what your true potential really is. But for most of us, it is many hundreds maybe even thousands of times what have already achieved.

Are you coachable?

We all want successes and victories in life right? But it's not easy when life keeps throwing us curve balls. Just around the bend is always some new set of experiences that we have no idea how to handle. And nearly every time we start to think we may be just about to be getting to the point where we can start to tread water with our current problems, the next waves hits us.

Now, if we were reincarnated life after life, over and over and were able to remember each of our past lives, this wouldn't be such a problem. Each life would have some similarity to the lives that had gone before it. Then every life after the first would be easier as we would remember what we did before and be able to better gauge what decisions we had made that were good and which to avoid making in the future.

It would be easier, but such is not the case. Reincarnation may or may not be real, but if it is we don't carry those past memories into future lives. However, that idea does bear within it the seed that will, once it bears fruit, assist us in solving many of our problems.

The thought behind that idea is learning from experience. If only we could learn everything from our past experiences, life would be so much easier. While we can not do that, we can do something just as valuable. We can learn from the past experiences, the triumphs and defeats of others. And the information will be more timely and relevant because it will be from people who are currently living.

Think about any sports team out there. The all have a character that more or less leads the team to victory by showing them what to do and what not to do. Imagine the chaos that the NFL would be like if there were no coaches at all. If there was absolutely no direction whatsoever, nobody to compare one teams performance to another, nobody to point out when mistakes were made. Any team ever winning a single game would be sheer chance. Talent and skill would be practically useless because nobody would know where to apply it or when.

Life is the same way. Without the guidance and coaching of people that know better than we do what to do in certain situations, success is simply a shot in the dark. That is why it is so important to be able to accept constructive feedback from others.

 Other people can tell us, from experience, how a thing that we have never successfully done is going to work. If you have failed to do something ten times and someone else has succeeded just once, then they have information that is valuable to you, whether you want to admit it or not.

It is the nature of our egos to not want to accept that other people may know more than we do about a given thing. It is natural to resist the feedback, but deadly to our chances of success.  If you don't want your chances of success in life to be just plain luck then you need to be coachable. If what you are doing is not working and someone who has already accomplished that goal offers a solution, set your ego aside and give their idea a chance.

Why do you do what you do?

In theater, good performance is about more than just memorizing a bunch of words vocal tones and and facial expressions. Someone who is just regurgitating the lines that they have memorized and going through the general motions of their character is not going to do well in that role and will have a tough time obtaining new roles in the future.

In order to be a successful actor, on or off screen, you need to really get into the role of your character. In order to do that, you first need to figure out what it is that drives the character. What motivates them to do whatever it is that they do? Once you understand that it becomes easy to assume the role of that person.

The reason for this is because once you know what drives a person you can know with a fair degree of accuracy how they will feel and act when certain circumstances occur. Then as an actor you say and do the things that they would do. Even if you are restricted to specific lines due to the nature of the script you will know what the proper tone, inflection and pitch for your voice are based on how the character feels due to circumstance.

If knowing what drives a person is important in acting it is even more so in business. If you have no idea what motivates a person to buy a product, then you have no way of knowing whether or not they will buy a product that you have to offer. Assuming you want to be successful in business, you need to know your target audience. You need to ask yourself who is your target audience? And what do they tend to buy and why?

You can often increase sales dramatically just by putting your product in front of a more favorable audience. For example a lemonade stand is likely to make more money outside on a hot day near a sporting event than if it were inside on a cold day at a grocery store. Many of the same people might be in both locations. But they are driven more by their thirst on a hot sunny day outside than they would be on a cold day indoors.

But even more importantly, in order to be a successful businessperson, you need to know what drives you. You need to know why you are in business in the first place. Is this a temporary or one time thing? Are you just selling a bunch of stuff that you had in your garage? Are you attempting to replace your full time job with this business?

IF it is a long term business plan that you have there are more things to consider. Are you in love with money and willing to do whatever is necessary to make as much as possible in as short a time as you can? Are you driven by the need to take care of your family? Are you looking to revolutionize an industry in some way? Is it your goal to create some form of world change? Do you just want to make an extra couple of hundred dollars a month. Is it your goal to make hundreds of thousands or more a year?

Some of these things are very different from each other and methods that work in one will spell disaster for others. Part of the success plan for your business needs to be a vision statement of some kind that clearly spells out what drives you and why this business is a good fit for that motivation. If you are starting a business be sure to include this. If you are already in a business and do not have such a thing already, create it. Now. If you do not know why you are doing what you are doing, you are just going through the motions. Other people can sense this and are automatically repulsed by it. And, it becomes much easier to successfully meet your goals once you know why you do what you do.

Competition

Today I want to take a look at something that shows up in life all over the place. It shows up in business, in schools, in sports, literally everywhere. In nearly all facets of life there is competition. Whoever makes the most sales gets the promotion. Whoever does the best on a test gets to be the front of the line when going out for recess. Whoever scores the most points gets the better contract.

Regardless of what the venue, we tend to reward those who prove themselves to be better than everyone else. What about second best? What about all the people who honestly put in their all but did not quite make the cut. They all get left by the wayside. Nobody seems to care about them. This method creates a very cutthroat environment where there is no  real reason for teamwork.
 How are we supposed to create win-win circumstances in life with all this competition everywhere?

The simple answer is, you can't. It is not doable. All you can really do is decide not to compete. Competition comes down to judging one person as better than another. And it gets carried to ridiculous extremes with the first place guy or team often putting down others. But the thing about competition is that it always comes down to using very specific criterion to do the measuring of who is best at what. If the criterion changes who is better changes dramatically.

So what to do? Don't play the game. Decide that your life will be played by different rules and that winning is determined by what percentage of your possible effort you put into each thing that you do. Decide for yourself that you are always going to do your best. Commit to giving your all in everything that you do. Do not look at what others have done or are capable of doing. Regardless of how you measure up against other people, if you are doing your best, there is never any reason for you to be upset with your results. You may even find that putting all your energy into trying to be as good as someone else has been holding you back from obtaining your true potential.

In business, do not think that you need to make advertising campaigns and slogans to take business away from others who may be in your same marketing niche. You do not need to tear others down or make claims about being better than the other guy. Do not worry that other people produce more than you or sell more than you or that it takes them less time. Do not compare your product(s) to that of anyone else. If you are doing your all, no comparison needs to be made.

Your product(s) and efforts will speak for themselves. And pretty much regardless of what your market is, there are enough people out there in the world today such that if all you ever obtained were new customers that would still be enough to make you wealthy.  Focus on putting out the best quality product that you can as efficiently as you can and you will be successful. And ultimately does it really matter who is number one as long as we can all be successful?

The blessing of obstacles

When we set out to meet a goal, no matter how big or small, there are always challenges. If this were not the case there would be no need to set a goal. We could just have what it is that we want with no effort whatsoever. But sometimes, for whatever reason, we lose sight of our goal and stop focusing on it.

Then for some reason something happens. Someone else notices that our life would probably be better if we accomplished that goal and they suggest it to us. Maybe they know you had that goal before and maybe they do not. They just see the improvement to your life associated with the accomplishment of the goal.

You start to think about it and on some level you agree with them. But, that is when the excuses start.  You come up will all the reasons why you can not or could not do it. A good friend will stand by you and shoot them down one by one until you start to get to the real reasons why you failed to accomplish your goal.

All of the things that a person can say as justification for failure  really translate into, the result is not important enough for me to do everything possible to ensure success.I forgot really means, it has not been important enough to me to make sure that I remember. I don't have the time becomes, I have failed to set the time aside. I do not know how turns into, I have not put the time into learning how. I can not afford it becomes, I have not come up with and enacted a plan for raising the money.

Every excuse that a person comes up with, every challenge, every stumbling block is in fact the very beginning of a personal blueprint for success. And for each person, the excuses that they come up with are exactly perfect for their success. My excuses for not having a million dollars in my bank account are not the same as yours(and I am working through mine)

Say you have a friend that wants to be a doctor. You tell them how wonderful that is and ask why they have not accomplished that goal. They tell you that they know quite a bit of schooling is necessary and they are bad at taking tests. Your friend knows that they can not have this dream come true due to this fact. They have taken this limiting belief and used it to close the door on their dream.

Being a good friend you could help them eliminate this belief and reopen that door. How? Well you could start off by suggesting that they begin to change their mind set by changing the words they use both out loud and in their head. Perhaps they could say that up until this point they have been bad at exams but they are taking steps to change that. Then figure out why they are bad at taking tests. Is it the fact that many of them are timed? Is it because they are bad under pressure? Is it because they really do not know the material? The answer to each one of these questions gives you a springing off point for how to handle the issue.

Then  maybe it comes up that your friend thinks nobody believes your friend is smart enough to be a doctor. You obviously do or you would not be inclined to help your friend pursue this dream. You could find out where this limiting belief comes from and create a plan to overcome it. After that it comes out that school is too expensive. Then a conversation about student loans, grants and other forms of financial aid can be had.  After you work through that you say what else is stopping you?  And wonder of wonders, you friend has no more excuses.

Verify that they do in fact still want to be a doctor. If they say yes inform them that their dream is still a possibility. If the things that your friend has discussed with you are the only things holding them back, they can use their conversation with you to create a workable plan for having their dream come true.Explain to them the importance and necessity of obstacles. Without them we would have no direction in forming a plan to help us succeed in getting where we want to go. On our way to the heights, we need pitfalls. They weed out those that are not committed and help us truly appreciate our success.

Why are they gods?

What is it about celebrities that makes people so crazy? They don't have super powers. None of them have ever cured the world's hunger problems or managed to create world peace. Yet still we treat them like they are gods.

Why? They are just men and women like you and me. Okay maybe not exactly like you and me. With hard work, dedication,discipline, and yes a bit of luck, they have achieved SOME of their goals. And the success that they have earned has brought them into the spotlight. Many of these movie and music stars have thousands or even millions of fans. They all bleed just as red as you or I. And they all eat, shit, sleep and have sex just like you and I.

What makes them different? Their success and our adoration. If you take those things away from them, they are just normal hard working citizens. Why do we put them up on pedestals like we do? The answer is simple. Our idols have what we wish we could have. And it is easier to celebrate and imagine their success than it is to have our own. We see people that have what we want to have and we subconsciously fantasize about being them. Now, I am not saying that we shouldn't tip our hat to others that have already made it, but I don't think we should go any further than that. Recognize people that have what you want, but then use their model for success as stepping stones to get you where you want to be.

Think about it. Honestly, a lot of musicians and movie stars are in it for the fame and fortune. But there are probably just as many that do what they do for the art of it. There is something within them that they feel needs expressing in a way that only they can do and they do not care whether or not it is popular. It is personal. The fact that it makes them a ton of money and millions of fans is just a side effect. And for many of them the attention and hero worship that they get from the masses is completely unwanted. They want to live their private lives just like you do. But nosy people are constantly butting in and trying to see what they are doing every minute of every day. How many times have you seen paparazzi photos or video of some celebrity out eating somewhere or on a beach. They are sitting there minding their own business, just enjoying their day. But as soon as they realize the cameras are there they try hiding their face or covering up and going somewhere else. Respectful recognition is nice but often times it gets carried way too far.

Stop worshiping celebrities and start copying the habits and trends that made them successful. Stop wishing and start doing. Quit idolizing them and start becoming someone that other people look up to and want to be like.