The Joy of Success

Discover Your Path to Success - Part 1

2005-09-30T03:16:00.000-07:00

Success can easily be compared to the “genie trapped in a bottle.” For many of us, it is a matter of finding a way to open the bottle, and then, follow a specific path. This path is filled with pitfalls, and traps, along the way, so it is wise to expand your vision by learning as you go.

To many people, success is a “fairytale” and as elusive as a Yeti. In reality, success is just around the corner, and sometimes already exists, as hidden treasure. I am not talking about sunken ships or Indiana Jones. What I am referring to are skills you already possess, friends and family who will help you, and accomplishments that you already have made.

When you put these hidden treasures, together, with your end goal in mind, you are on your way toward success. Now let’s look at a way to move forward every day, live a quality life, and help everyone around you, in the process.

Write all of your goals down, and keep them in a place that you will see. This could be on a piece of paper in your pocket, on your desk top, in a notebook, in your diary, or on your palm pilot. Wherever you put this information, it should be a place where you will see it, every day.

Separate realistic from lofty goals, but don’t throw lofty goals out. Also, separate short-term goals, from long-term goals, and design estimated time frames, for measured results. You don’t have to share this with anyone, unless they share the same goal. If you have, at least, one close friend, spouse, or family, who shares the same dream, you are in a very strong position.

However, you don’t need to be a “politician” to be successful, if you learn to focus on your goals, every day. Now we have to go over a few questions that will also help you design your road map toward success.

Will your goals hurt anyone? Will you have to step on anyone to get what you want?

If you answered yes to either one of the above questions, you should redefine your goal or goals, so you can achieve it or them without harming anyone in the process. If that is not possible, throw that goal out, and move on. Your goals should help people and be morally sound.

Do you have a real passion for your goals?

This one is also important because, if your goal is “flipping burgers” for money, it won’t be long, before that gets old. I have yet to meet the person, who has a real passion for flipping burgers. Please don’t get me wrong, some people are very good at it, but I have known many short order cooks, who wish they were doing something else besides “slaving” over a hot stove.

What you choose, must be something you love doing, and the money will follow. There are so many people, who craft an occupation, based upon money alone, and learn to regret it. If you have a purpose in life you have “self-worth.” Self-worth is a very valuable hidden treasure.

Paul Jerard, is a co-owner/director of Yoga teacher training at Aura Wellness Center. He has been a certified Master Yoga teacher since 1995. He is a master instructor of martial arts. He teaches Yoga, martial arts, and fitness to children, adults, and seniors. Recently he wrote: Is Running a Yoga Business Right for You? For Yoga students, who may be considering a new career as a Yoga teacher. http://www.yoga-teacher-training.org

Little Things Mean Everything

2005-09-24T05:17:00.000-07:00

A little over two years ago we moved into a new home in Lakewood Ranch Florida - near Sarasota. Bernadette and I were the second ones to move into the newest subdivision. Our neighbors across the street, Jack and Elizabeth, took honors at being the first to move in.

Jack, who's retired, is quiet and very analytical. He came over the other day and announced that he was putting his house up for sale. He told us he interviewed four realtors. He shared a brief story about each one. What he liked and what he didn't like.

He liked one in particular. His name was Phil. Jack said he was impressive in many ways. He came prepared. He looked and acted very professional and established rapport easily plus had other positive attributes. Jack said he emphasized personalized service, over and over again, and that made a good first impression.

After interviewing the four realtors Jack and Elizabeth were leaning toward giving the listing to Phil. As they were discussing their options, Jack had one more question he wanted to ask Phil. So he called Phil on Friday afternoon at 4:30 and left a message with his assistant, who was a key member of Phil's team.

Sixteen hours later, 8:30 AM on Saturday morning, Phil's assistant returned Jack's call, apologizing for taking this amount of time to return his call.

That's the story - here's the bottom line. Phil and his team did not get the listing, which had a potential commission of $90,000. The reason Jack told us, was that 16 hours to return a call did not measure up to his definition of personalized service. Remember, Jack is very analytical and pays attention to the details.

Little things mean everything and sometimes they can cost you a sale.

Another example. Last Thursday, I was on American Airlines flight #1328 from Miami to Philadelphia. I was lucky and got an upgrade to First Class. My seat was 6F. I noticed the flight attendant as lunch orders were being taken. She seemed friendly and attentive as she noted the individual lunch requests. Her hair was pulled back in a bun and her smile seemed genuine and contagious, as she moved from passenger to passenger.

My initial impression, from a distance, was First Class service in the First Class cabin. That however changed as she approached row 6. She asked my seat partner for his preference and then asked me for mine. She was chewing gum and I mean really chewing the gum. For me, the big distraction was I could see the little red wad of gum she was chewing on.

It's not a big thing to be sure. Sorry, I can't help that it bugged me, it just did. It was a dang little thing that just changed my first impression.

Little things mean everything, especially if you're in sales. Jack called Phil and told him why he didn't get the listing. How many times have you finished second to a competitor and convinced yourself the final decision was based purely on price? Seldom will you get a phone call explaining the real reasons why you weren't the chosen one.

Maybe it was just a little thing.

Little things mean everything and sometimes they can help you close a sale.

So, I got to thinking about little things last weekend between sales training programs I was doing for corporate clients. I must have gotten into a zone because when I was done writing I had a list of 75 little things you can do to increase your sales. This morning I recorded a CD with 75 little things you can do to increase your sales. The package is called, "75 Little Things You Can Do To Grow Your Business And Boost Your Income."

Most salespeople, and for the life of me I don't understand why, take a pass on anything that costs more than 10 bucks. I hope that's not how you think.

This dynamite NEW Info Product will . . . go here for the rest of the story! http://www.meisenheimer.com/products/75thingscd.htm

A lot of ideas (75) that won't break your piggy bank.

Jim Meisenheimer publishes The No-Brainer Selling Tips Newsletter, a fresh and high content newsletter dedicated to helping you grow your business and multiply your income.

Use this link to sign-up for Jim's F-R-E-E No-Brainer Selling Tips Newsletter and to get your copy of his Special Report titled, "The 12 Dumbest Things Salespeople Do." http://www.meisenheimer.com

One Single Secret To Goal Setting Success

2005-09-18T05:08:00.000-07:00

Perhaps you have never taken a stock of the most valuable and precious wealth of yours. Every person possesses it since the day of birth. This wealth is our life, its minutes, hours, days and years. Proper planning starts when we begin to take stock of this wealth. So, we should make the most efficient use of every minute to preserve and multiply this wealth. The initial stage of planning is identifying and setting your major life goals.

One way or another, deliberately or not, but we speculate on our life goals. More often we don’t even call them goals, they are just obscure and unshaped dreams, which exist only in our imagination. But to speculate on them and to write them down on the paper are different things. Goals which weren’t written down remain only Utopian and vague dreams, which aren’t likely to be accomplished.

How to make your dreams come true? To begin with, transform your dreams in the shape of the written goals and quit formulating your goals using the subjunctive mood. Never write: “It would be great to travel to Italy” or “It would be nice to buy a car”. Erase these statements from your memory and start writing your goals in such a way: “I’ll buy Jeep Cherokee in two years time”.

“Start from wherever you are and with whatever you’ve got.”

Actually, goals are the tools on your road to success. You should know the secret of their correct utilization. This secret is the materialization of your goals on the paper. When you see your goals in a written form you make a new glance on what you really want. Writing your goals will help you make a sense of what you want to achieve, analyze your goals, elaborate on their perfection, maybe even to revamp them somehow and single out specific standards and means for their achievement.

Committing your goals to a paper is a great success strategy, which delivers big results. All successful people use this strategy for achieving their life goals. They take advantage of this strategy and keep writing their goals repeatedly and persistently.

Writing down and examining your goals means creating a set of concrete and determined instructions for your subconscious mind. In such a way you give your subconscious mind a set of instructions to work on. These instructions must be filled with positive and well - disposed emotions. The more positive instructions you give to it, the better results you get. So, write your goals only in a positive way.

The key force that drives you towards your goal is a thorough and detailed description of everything you want. You can go into details and particularize all the slightest minutiae. But at the same time your description should be per se. You should draw a clear – cut picture of your goal rather than vague and indistinct image of what you want to achieve. Be unwavering to decide what exactly you want to attain.

Accompany your written goals with visual pictures. Visualize each goal of yours. Close your eyes and imagine a car you want to buy. Get on this car, feel the softness of the new seats, the smell of the leather in the passengers compartment. Let your imagination draw a vivid picture of your goal and embellish it with bright details. Don’t neglect this method. Remember that the visualization of your goals keeps your motivation up and stimulates your desire to reach your goals.

An effective goal setting system can’t go without frequent review of your goals. The revision of your goals will help your analyze them more thoroughly and, perhaps, to revamp them slightly. Be flexible and have courage to change your goals. To change your goal doesn’t mean a failure, it is a victory as you have realized in time that something was different.

Keep in mind that the more concentrated you are on your goals the more likely you are to achieve them. Let’s take Brian Tracy, one of the most successful and productive people, for instance. He began his way as an apprentice on the ocean – going ship. Only his perseverance and discipline helped him develop an effective goal setting system, which led him to success in life. Now he is one of the most high – paid and successful businessman.

“Discipline is the bridge between your goals and their accomplishment.”

You can compose the whole Declaration of your life goals. This document will come into force only when you write down all your goals. It’ll be confirmed by you and the control for its accomplishment will lie on your conscious. From this moment you and nobody else take the responsibility for your life.

Try this success strategy of writing down your goals and be sure that it won’t let you down. Remember a saying: “If you don’t have a target, the arrow will hit nothing.”

Are You Relentless in Your Pursuit of Success?

2005-09-17T22:41:00.000-07:00

You want to be successful. But what are you prepared to do to create that success? Are you relentless? That is, do you just keep going when the times get tough? There will be tough times, of that you can be assured.

I heard a funny joke a while ago and I think it is pertinent to share it with you here. It's got a lot to do with relentlessness. Here it is:

A duck waddled into a bar and said to the bartender: "Got any wheat?"

The bartender was quite taken aback by a talking duck but said: "No."

The duck asked again: "Got any wheat?"

Again the bartender replied in the negative.

So, the duck asked again: "Got any wheat?"

By now the bartender was getting angry. "No. We don't have any wheat and if you ask me again I will nail your bill to the bar."

The duck blinked then said: "Got any nails?"

The bartender rolled his eyes and yelled: "No. We don't have any nails!"

The duck blinked again and said: "Got any wheat?"

I know it is a silly joke but it does demonstrate my point. In many respects you have to have the relentlessness of the duck.

Have you ever witnessed a child wanting something? Do they ever relent? They are single minded in what they want and will tell you over and over again. "I want... I want... I want..." Often they get what they want because it i

One Step at a Time the Bowling Ball up the Ladder of Success!

2005-09-16T17:59:00.000-07:00

I have often been asked the question, "What is true success?"

Unlike many, I do not grade success by how much money one has or how many claims to fame they possess. Success is not based on facts and figures. Success is a state of mind.

However in saying this I want it to be known that once the mind has entered a level of satisfaction, other more accepted aspects of success begins to surround the individual in a myriad of ways.

Our pursuit of higher interests builds a gratifying position in life, because we go beyond the accepted norm, which usually keeps one mesmerized in complacency. I find too often people lack characteristics that would enable them to enhance their life.

Often many find themselves within a mold seemingly unbreakable, trying desperately to get out, yet finding no door of escape. They tend to sit back in the recliner of apathy believing there is nothing more for them to gain.

"What you got is what you got", tends to be their motto in life. Unabashedly, they revel in their lot of despair thinking the good things in life were always meant for someone else!

Yet there is a far more expansive problem existing here. Too many allow set backs and failures in their life to dictate to them their future. Thus they pretend being unhappy is a sort of an accepted divine punishment. Yet they clutter their unhappy world with pretense and deception, telling others they are content to hang on to their misery like a badge of honor. They have accepted their lot in life and they simply have no desire to change.

There are two types of people on this planet, those that do, and those that don't!

The first group is made up of those that see an obstacle as a challenge to be met head on. They see past failure as a stepping stone to ultimate success! They come to a ravine seeing no bridge, and they build one!

The second group believes life is being carved out for them and they have little to nothing to do with it. They see themselves as being pawns on the great chessboard of life. They feel their lot is within the hands of another feeling ever so futile to establish himself or herself with surety.

I lived a great portion of my life being part of the majority, the second group. I had felt for so long there was little to nothing I could ever do to change my reality. I existed, but I never really lived.

Like many others I saw failure as a divine report card telling me what I can or cannot do. When something did not go correctly according to my established hope or desire, I had felt I was being corrected, and straightened out to be reestablished upon the road to nowhere.

When I attempted to assert myself towards a better and more creative lifestyle, I met up with the wolves of disparity and groaning. I took this to imply I was heading in the wrong direction.

Time and time again I would get up and try once more just to hear the ringing bells of negativity from one to another saying; "he just never seems to get it. He keeps trying to go beyond reality to make great things for himself, and it just isn’t going to work."

Yet I saw something in me that seemed different than others. One by one I seem to pass my peers leaving them behind as I continued to try to break this ungodly barrier deceptively appearing to keep me at bay.

Deep down within I had always known the truth yet it was a hard sell trying to convince others when they were so assured of themselves that life is what we get stuck with and not what we make of it.

After years of one failure upon another I finally came to recognize, that I was attempting to prove to everyone else what the secret to life was rather than simply doing it myself.

I realized that I was using the scorecard, which was created by the second group, I wanted to try to find acceptance with those that settled in apathy rather than going beyond and designing a brand new report card, one that I created and was accepted by me!

It was then that I began to see the futility in one living their life on the creeds or beliefs of another.

The first sign of failure is when one attempts to base their reality upon another.

There can be no personal creativity if you continue to allow others to dictate design.

Each individual has unique abilities and talents, and it takes seeking for the highest plateau to finally reach your destination!

Often too many attempt to find the inner quality of success without making a move in that direction. It is tantamount in picking up a bowling ball and trying to heave it over a 500-foot hill in hopes of gaining the momentum once it reaches the top it will simply glide forward without much adieu toward the other side. People often term success in this venue, believing success is just luck or having something most others do not.

Yet they fail to comprehend a simple truth, success needs to be catered to one step at a time. You can not launch your talent out and away hoping it will find the apex of success and then sit back waiting for the fruit of your labor to excel. As with the bowling ball, it will continue to come back at you time and time again to haunt you, making you feel ever so lacking to attain your desire, finally frustrating you into defeatism.

There is not enough strength in the entire world to throw your talent on top of the hill in hopes it will find its reason for being. If you want to excel to the apex then you must begin the walk one step at a time all the way to the top. You must carry the bowling ball, carry your talent with you all the way to the very top, and then and only then will you have garnered the success you required wherewith your talent will take on a life of its own.

I want you to think deeply about what it is that I am saying, once you master this thesis of understanding you will begin to master all equations in your life, and business.

A man once upon a time told me something that I found to be absolutely amazing. He said, if someone were to come to me and take away my last million dollars, I would have it all back within a couple of years. He went on to say, however if I were to give someone a million dollars that never had it before, they would surely lose it all within a couple of years.

This may seem out of context but in truth it fits to a tee. The individual that had it, feeling confident that they could have it again had a key characteristic. They did not come about the million dollars by luck, gift or some unique situation.

They found a desire deep down within, and they pursued it in spite of what anyone said or did. They created a reality for themselves that mastered the technique of advantage and gain. The million dollars was simply an end result of their pursuit. It came about as a reaction to every action.

There is a law called reaping what you sow, if you sow a good tree you will reap a good tree, if you sow a bad tree you shall reap the same thereof.

When someone is handed over the results of someone else's fruit of their labor, they are only getting the end result. They did not reap this gain; it fell into their lap. So therefore they have no established technique or belief on how to amass the same for themselves. They see the result but they never saw the stepping stones leading up to that result.

Thus to the individual that created the success, the million dollars is an asset. To the contrary though, the individual being handed over the million dollars, it will become a liability. When the first one loses his last million they simply go back to the drawing board and recreate it. When the other gets their only million, they simply extinguish it in the fire of life having no ability to recreate it.

This is the true definition of success. Success is a building ladder, not the end result. Let me paraphrase, success is not having the million dollars; it is learning how to create better things in your life and thus the end result can be many things, such as the million dollars.

There is a big difference, and it is equaled to the OLE saying, I can give the starving a fish and they can eat for a day, or I can teach them how to fish and they will eat for a lifetime.

Successful people know how to fish, they will not rely on someone else's effort to gain the fish.

All too often many try to acquire success by the efforts of others, and it never works. Even if somehow they actually get their hands on the end result of someone else's labor, they have 'no clue' what to do with it and it surely will fade away.

Take the Multilevel Marketing idea that has been around for decades. Time and time again over years of testing and trying, the numbers have never changed. Nearly 95% of everyone that joins MLM opportunities never make any real profit and most never make any money at all!

Over the years MLM has been given a bad name, it has been called a fraud, Pyramid Scheme, gimmick etc… It seems to be obvious if 95% of the people cannot make a go of the system, then the fault must be with the system, RIGHT?

Wrong!

Multilevel Marketing has been used by some of the biggest corporations in existence. It is probably the most valid way to truly make a success of oneself in business operations. But sadly why do the numbers disagree with this assessment?

The answer stares us right in the face all the time. The numbers yield their own statistics like a reflection in a mirror. The fact is 95% of nearly everyone that joins an MLM program are there on the pretext of reaping someone else's yield.

Now I am not here to promote MLM, but I am defending it. WHY? Simply because if you go in pursuit in life seeking to reap the efforts of another, then you will reap what you sow. Each individual's efforts are creating their own dynamic life-changing effect. These individuals are reaping great gains. And it is true that because of their sowing techniques, their harvest can often overflow into someone else's field.

However these numbers don't lie…

No matter what overflow comes to you it will never be a success. You are simply being handed a piece of someone else's success. It is not yours to begin with. You did not build it; you did not create it, so you will not have it for long!

The fact of the matter is each person's success is built one step at a time. If you are looking to someone else's success to tap into, that is alike throwing the bowling ball up a 500-foot hill. It is simply going to keep coming back down again and again.

Forget looking to others for success! Begin to realize that no one is doing anything that you cannot do yourself. Success is not complicated.

I recall hearing an individual say; the energy that creates success is the exact same energy that creates failure. So where are you placing your energy?

Are you going to walk your bowling ball up to the top of the hill or are you going to continue to heave it from below?

John V Panella

Author and teacher of the Metaphysical. Using the lessons of the ancients to supply a greater awareness today!

Reaping The Fruit Of Success In Life

2005-09-16T17:44:00.000-07:00

One way to become more successful in your life is to look at the lifestyle and habits of people who are already clearly reaping the fruits of success in life and who are living and growing towards their unique God given potential. What are some common characteristics and behaviour that we can apply to our own lives to help us on our own personal journey towards excellence? I have spent many years studying this area, and have discovered that there are common principles and habits which successful people follow and see positive results many times over. Even people who have achieved great personal growth in their lives know the importance of having established life habits and daily motivation towards their personal goals. Here are three important keys to unleash personal growth.

Three Steps towards Success to Grow You Beyond Better.

1. Believe in yourself

“You weren’t an accident. You weren’t mass produced. You aren’t an assembly-line product. You were deliberately planned, specifically gifted, and lovingly positioned on the Earth by the Master Craftsman”
Max Lucado Best Selling Author

We all are born with a unique personality and gifts and abilities. There is a purpose for each person’s life and each person possesses all that is needed to fulfill that purpose. For more information on discovering your uniqueness and purpose check out http://www.livingbeyondbetter.com/discovering-your-uniqueness.html

Believing in oneself is a choice we all have to make, sometimes many times a day. It is an attitude that we develop over time. It can be called self confidence, self esteem or self worth. We cannot base our belief about our worth on our past, our circumstances, or other people’s opinions. We choose to believe that we are of value, have something to offer to others and the world, and that our life has purpose. The strength of what we allow our mind to think and believe is incredibly powerful. The power of what we believe will become a self fulfilling prophecy over our life. It can be the difference between mediocrity and the results we desire. Successful people acknowledge their limitations, but keep on choosing to believe that anything is possible. It is not what life hands you that is important, but how you respond to it that makes the difference.

2. Become a life long learner

Successful people keep themselves up to date with information, which allows them to be on the cutting edge in their field of influence. As human knowledge has vastly increased, and is more accessible than ever before, so a commitment to life long learning is an important key to success. Making this a daily habit builds a solid foundation for positive growth. Many successful people are committed to reading at least one book every week. If you give one hour a day towards something you would really like to learn or accomplish in your life, it adds up to 365 hours a year!

Significant changes can happen in that amount of time. Using throw away time usefully is also a good exercise, for example listening to an audio tape or CD when traveling in the car. To grow beyond better, purposely schedule time into your day which you can use to devote to improving your mind, and increasing your skills. Consciously make the decision to assimilate and apply what you learn.

3. Keep good company.

Surround yourself with positive people. It is so easy to be affected by negativity, and drawn into that way of thinking. Make a point to mix with people who encourage you, inspire you and believe in you. Keep company with people who energize you towards reaching your goals. You tend to become like the people you spend the most time with.

Jim Rohn, a successful author and self-made millionaire wrote, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with”

Increase the time you spend with positive successful people, and spend less time with those who have a negative influence on you. Being around negativity will decrease your self confidence and create discouragement. Look for new opportunities to mix with successful people. Observe and learn from their attitudes and lifestyle, and adopt and adapt things that might work in your life and situation.

About the Author: Barbara White, a former Principal and teacher, is president of Beyond Better Development. As a speaker and author, Barbara brings her passion and expertise to work with people to help them grow towards excellence and their unique potential in their personal and professional life. For more information visit her website, www.livingbeyondbetter.com and sign up for her free newsletter "Growing Beyond Better"

8 Ways To Get Off The Success-Go-Round And Have A Consistent Flow Of Success

2005-09-13T22:59:00.000-07:00

Are you consistently chasing success? Once you achieve it, do you desperately try to continue the pattern of making it happen again? Isn't it time you got off the success-go-round? Here are 8 tips to help you make the transition from inconsistency to steady flow of success.

1. Know Your Core Values.

What do your truly value in your life? If you're struggling to come up with an answer, then maybe it's time you reevaluated your values. You might know what values your parents instilled in you, but you need to be clear on what you stand for and what is important in your life. Do you value honesty, integrity or trust? By knowing your core values you will seek them in the relationships you form with others. List your top five core values and live by them. Start to examine if your core values match the goals you are trying to achieve. Your values are essential to success.

2. Be Honest With Yourself.

Don't kid yourself about who you are or what you love to do. If you're trying to impress or win the approval of others by being successful, you success will be unauthentic. Is the "real" you showing up everyday? It is empowering to some to have a great job title or a prospering business, but if at the end of the day, you feel empty, tired or dissatisfied; it's time to be honest with yourself. You can't present yourself as someone in control at work, when you know deep inside you feel that you have no control over your life. Success is only temporary when you are not living a self-actualized life. Passion for your life and your work makes you thrive. Only when you are honest with yourself about who you are and what you really love to do can you start to experience a steady flow of success.

3. Don't Let Your Emotions Run the Show. If you’re happy when life is great and going as planned, but fall apart when you are faced with challenges and obstacles, you allow your emotions to run the show. If people can clearly tell when things are not going well for you, it's time to get your emotions in check. Life is not predictable. Plans will not always run as smoothly as expected, but it is important that you maintain your composure during these times. Don't let your beliefs have power over the situation. If you allow sadness, anger or fear to take over, you will find it more difficult each time to bounce back after a set-back. Get to know your emotional triggers; what makes you angry, sad or afraid and then create a plan for coping with them when they arise.

4. Be Flexible With Your Plans.

Being too rigid and unwavering with plans can lead to disappointment. While setting plans and goals are ideal for making success happen, you have to accept that sometimes you may have to alter those plans. It's a good idea to have a back-up just in case things don't go the way you expected. Don't allow minor setbacks to make you cancel your plans altogether, but have faith that you will find another way to get things done. Take detours if it is necessary. Be open to ideas and suggestions from those you trust. You will find another way if you are willing to receive what is being offered to you.

5. Don't Let Success Be the Center of Your Life.

Success should not be at the center of your life. There are many more important things that you need to tend you. When you neglect or postpone what is important in your life, you will find that you are chasing success just to have more time, more energy and more money to enjoy life. It doesn’t happen that way. Set aside time to work on your career goals, business plan, life plan, etc, then continue with our life. If you're always on the look-out for success, it will rarely come. Have you heard the expression: "A watched phone never rings.”? Be patient and don't try to rush success. Learn to let go and you will see a transformation in yourself and your success plans.

6. Share What You Know or What You Have.

If you have a grip hold on success, but are not willing to share your knowledge, your time or your resources, chances are success will break free from you. Give of yourself and you will always be given. Don't be afraid to share your knowledge even with a competitor because it the long run, you will benefit more from it. Volunteer, if you have the time.

7. Ask for What You Want and Believe You Will Receive It.

Do you state clearly your goals or desires? Depending on your faith or religious affiliation, pray, meditate and ask for what you want. Once you get it, don't stop asking. We often make the mistake of asking for what we want and then we either give up because it hasn't come in our anticipated time or we stop asking because we got what we wanted. You should never stop asking, because you are only halfway. When you stop asking you don't allow more blessings to come into your life. If you only ask periodically or when things are going bad, then you are asking out of desperation. Ask continuously, and ask with the conviction that it will come to realization.

8. Stay in the Success Momentum.

The best way to keep from sabotaging your success is to stay in the success mindset. Giving in to financial or career blues can deter you from your goals. Keep away from people or situations that sap your energy or keep you stuck. Build a network of people that will challenge, support and motivate you when your outlook becomes distorted. Develop strategies that will help you to deal with rejections, disappointments and regrets. Lighten up and know don't be yourself up for every little mistake you make. Take charge of all your trying situations and know that "this too shall pass."

About the Author: Marie Magdala Roker is a Personal Development Coach an Author of Successful Thinking for a Successful Life: How to Banish the Unhealthy Thoughts and Habits That Limit Your Success. Her Successful Thinking™ program is an affordable coaching resource that offers support and encouragement when there are roadblocks to success. You can find out more about the program at http://www.thinkandbesuccessful.com or sign up for her free Be Inspired newsletter at http://www.smartbeecoaching.com

Secret To Amazon.com's Success As A Home Based Business

2005-09-13T06:35:00.000-07:00

Starting out from his Garage

Jeff Bezos built the foundation of Amazon.com from the garage of his two-bedroom house rented outside of Seattle. He fashioned his first office tables from wooden doors, angle brackets, and two-by-four lumber purchased from Home Depot.

This article summarizes the recognizable aspects of Amazon.com's success and lays down lessons learned in the form of tips. You have the opportunity to analyze the tips given here and apply them with prudence to your own business.

You as the owner of your own home based business started - or about to embark if you have not as yet started - with the same resources as Jeff Bezos. You are in a similar situation - if not much better position - than the Amazon founder because you have the secret to his success to learn and apply into your own business.

Tip No. 1: Be modest in your initial investment. For example, your laptop or PC shall not necessarily be top of the line. Your office location could be a corner of the house or your room, basement or garage. Save on office rent by all means. Be like Jeff Bezos and other successful marketers who spent prudently and succeeded.

Motivation

You should motivate yourself to succeed. When Amazon was struggling to make profits for the first time, only its founder Jeff Bezos believed that the business goal could be achieved in a year's time. Everybody was astounded when Jeff Bezos achieved his goal after one year.

Tip No. 2: The lesson that could be learned from the above account is to lay down and make known in clear fashion your goal to every stake holder of your small business. They include your spouse and your web designer, among others.

Write down this goal and post this on the wall beside your desk. Save this goal in your hard disk and make the text the start up page when you boot your computer. You can convert your goal into a screensaver. Read your goal to yourself every day as you go about your business on the Internet.

Tip No. 3: You should motivate yourself every day and pass this motivation on to every one who's involved in your business. To paraphrase the author Wallace D. Wattles who wrote The Science of Getting Rick in 1910, envision yourself right now as having a very successful business and do every which legal and ethical way to actualize your vision. FYI, Wattles' book is featured in my web site.

Change

It is said that change is the one single permanent thing on this planet. Amazon changed the way it does business through the years. First it was an online book seller. Next it expanded into selling music and videos.

Then it offered toys, consumer electronics and software to its customers. These were linked with a host of new products until this very day. Amazon has a constantly evolving product line. Its competitors have a hard time catching up with the innovator.

During its initial years of operation, Amazon was not making any real profit. It practiced instead the habit of reinvesting its income into new markets. This it did to make possible for its customers to make wider choices for the company's offerings.

Tip No. 4: Your home based business should be run like Amazon. You could be selling your single information product now. Two weeks from today you will have added another back end product. Next month you will have introduced into your product line the inventory of the affiliate program you have joined in.

Tip No. 5: If your web site is content based, you should be adding new content every day. Casual visitors to your web site will become your regular visitors when they see new content every time they come back to your site. And these visitors will in the end become your regular customers.

Be a Generalist

A generalist is one who does a multitude of things. In computer language it is known as multi-tasking. This has been the culture at Amazon.

Tip No. 6: You as the single person in your home business must be a generalist, too. This means doing and knowing everything that goes in and out of your business.

You don't know any HTML coding? This is tolerable. You must strive however to understand at least the basic formatting that goes into you site code. This way you can make small insertions into your web pages when your web designer is nursing a cold or is out of town. Or you can learn a thing or two on scripting. By the way, HTML tutorial is one of several categories among the home based business free learning stuff presented in my web site.

Work Ethic

Jeff Bezos was the company CEO and he and his wife were the first workers at Amazon. Their work ethic was marked with hard work and consistency, among others. These traits were handed down to their employees through the years.

Tip No. 7: To succeed and last long in your Internet business, you should work hard to put your business online in the fastest and frugal manner possible. The important thing to consider is to start up and put your small business online early and rapidly. If you have to wake up at two in the morning to do your Internet work, by all means stick to this routine.

Tip No. 8: You should be consistent in your business-related tasks. If your content needs updating twice weekly, follow this schedule with devotion. Visitors to your web site will notice even slight changes to your content when they go back to visit your web pages. Not to mention the search engine spiders which would just be too glad (i.e., in electron manner of speaking) to index new contents to your web site.

Be First to Embrace Technology
Amazon was among the first, if not the first, to adopt online book retailing. When the major book sellers - Barnes & Noble and Borders Books among others - realized this new way of selling books, Amazon was miles ahead. Jeff Bezos surveyed the Internet horizon and embraced the best technology on sight.

Tip No. 9: New technologies come and go almost daily. Some of these technologies enable you to run your business fast and easy. Other technologies rob you of your investment. Your duty is to examine each technology and assimilate into your business the best.

About the Author: Rick Tanzo is the webmaster of the InternetMarketingLearningCenter.com. Internet marketing and home business articles are featured in his web site. Reprint rights are granted so long as article, by-line and active links are reproduced intact. To learn more about Internet marketing and home based business, visit http://www.internetmarketinglearningcenter.com.

The Power Of Your Mind

2005-09-12T06:43:00.000-07:00

You are smarter than you know. In fact, you’re probably a genius. You have the ability to function at exceptional levels in your preferred way of learning and thinking.

Every person regardless of background, education, or social status has enormous mental capacity that he or she habitually fails to use. There is no problem you cannot solve or overcome and no goal you cannot achieve when you learn how to unleash the power of your mind and use it to its full capacity.

Your mind is the most accomplished instrument for goal achievement and lifelong success ever imaginable on this earth. Your creative capacity is unlimited. In fact, years of scientific studies have concluded that the thinking cells in the human brain are equal to all the known atoms in the universe.

People who use their mind more fully are the ones that prosper beyond their wildest expectations. Every person has two different minds. Your conscious and subconscious. Your conscious mind is the one with which people are familiar. Your conscious mind is your thinking mind. It uses logic, deduction, reason, and sound judgment to reach its conclusions and make its decisions. Your choices in life are made by you conscious mind.

If your conscious mind is able to do everything I just told you, then what is the value of your subconscious mind? What can it do for you? How can you use it to your advantage?
Only a small percentage of people ever discover the subconscious mind, understand how it works, and then learn how to use it to achieve complete success in whatever they set out to accomplish.

When you learn how to use your subconscious mind properly, you will discover that the choices you make in life with your conscious mind will be guided, influenced, and directed by the data stored and received from your subconscious mind.

The subconscious mind never acts of its own volition or its own initiative. It must be given goals to reach, objectives to attain, or problems to solve before it will do anything at all for you. In fact, the primary purpose of your subconscious mind is to help you succeed in life by achieving all the goals that you have given to it with your conscious or thinking mind.

By the same token, if you don’t give your subconscious mind any goals to reach or problems to solve, it will never do anything at all for you. But if you give it specific objectives to reach, it will go all out to achieve results for you.

For example, if you want a bigger house, an expensive car, a better job, improved health, better personal relationships with your family, your friends, customers, clients, and business associates, all you have to do is tell your subconscious mind exactly what you want. It goes to work to make your goal a reality. But you must be specific in your instructions to your subconscious mind. It will never act on vague or abstract information. You must firmly establish your goal and then let your subconscious mind help you achieve it.

Don’t get in the way or interfere with its work by telling it what to do or how to solve your problems with your conscious mind. You will only slow down the process or perhaps completely prevent it.

Your subconscious mind is lying there dormant within you, just waiting for you to tap into its power. It is unlimited, infinite, and inexhaustible in its ability to bring success to you. The subconscious mind never rests. It keeps right on working for you even while you are sleeping. All you have to do is just activate it and start its marvelous power working in your life.
Your subconscious mind works much like a computer. It is an extremely intricate electronic goal-seeking mechanism with its functions and actions programmed into it by your conscious mind. However, it is much more complex than the most advanced computer ever conceived by man.

The subconscious mind works less rapidly and not as accurately in some respects as a man-made computer does, because the subconscious mind is subject to all the emotions of the conscious mind. Even the most complex and sophisticated computer is left far behind when it is compared with the subconscious mind’s staggering capacity to do the unbelievably hard tasks. But that’s the way it should be, because the computer originated in the mind of man, not the other way around.

Unfortunately only 5 percent of people ever achieve anything of major importance in their lives simply because it’s easier to fail or to just coast along not living up to your potential to succeed. I believe as Earl Nightingale did, that success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal. If a person is working toward a specific goal that he or she wants to achieve then he or she is a success.

Who then, is a failure? Well, a failure is someone who has both the talent and the ability to accomplish much more than he or she has. If a person has no predetermined goal to attain, then that person is not living up to his or her fullest potential, then they are a failure, no matter how high their social or business positions are or how much money they make.

Success requires diligent and strenuous effort as well as perseverance. But it’s a proven fact that most people are lazy but still manage to get by. For example, the person who is a failure does not have to work as hard as the successful one. And he or she can avoid the struggle and pain of that strenuous effort to attain success by just taking it easy and coasting along.

In order to achieve success you must first deprogram your subconscious mind of its failure attitudes and ideas. Once you do, whatever has been previously programmed into your subconscious mind by your conscious thinking mind will be forgotten. Although those memories of defeat and failure will always be retained they will never again surface to enter your conscious mind unless you allow them to do so by actively calling them back. But for all practical purposes, as long as you think positively, and not negatively, they will be forgotten by your conscious mind.

This means that if you or someone else has been feeding thoughts of defeat and failure into your subconscious mind, you are going to get back negative ideas, defeat, and failure, because the output of your subconscious mind always equals its input. Always remember, you are want you think about, most of the time.

However, you can quickly override those negative concepts that you have stored in your subconscious mind when you start programming it with ideas on success and achievement. The instant that you do that, your subconscious mind determines they your conscious mind is no longer interested in defeat and failure, so it buries those attitudes and ideas deeper and deeper into its memory.

How, then, can you accomplish such a drastic and important change in your thinking from negative to positive? By using two extremely simple rules that are really the golden keys that will unlock the door to successful accomplishment for you: Act as if it were impossible to fail, and second, do the thing you fear to do and you’ll have the power to do it.

This doesn’t mean that you will not have to endure some minor and temporary defeats. You no doubt will, as all people who achieve success have.

But that doesn’t mean you have failed, it only means you have encountered a temporary setback. Every time you try something that does not work, you know to cross that that one off your list and try again and even again if that is necessary. That’s exactly what Thomas Alva Edison did when he was working on inventing the first commercially practical incandescent light bulb.

So never give up. You too can survive temporary setbacks and still succeed in life. Just act as if it were impossible to fail and program your subconscious mind with that positive idea. And do the things you fear to do and you’ll have the power to do it. But if you don’t do the thing you fear to do, you will never gain the power to do it. It is just that simple.
Whatever it is that you want to gain the power to do and become proficient at, you must make the first move yourself. Once you do and begin to unleash the power of your subconscious mind, your success will be unlimited.

Copyright© 2005 by Joe Love and JLM & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.
Joe Love draws on his 25 years of experience helping both individuals and companies build their businesses, increase profits, and achieve total success. He is the founder and CEO of JLM & Associates, a consulting and training organization, specializing in personal and business development. Through his seminars and lectures, Joe Love addresses thousands of men and women each year, including the executives and staffs of many of America’s largest corporations, on the subjects of leadership, self-esteem, goals, achievement, and success psychology.
Reach Joe at: joe@jlmandassociates.com
Read more articles and newsletters at: http://www.jlmandassociates.com

The Parable of the Touchstone

2005-09-12T06:40:00.000-07:00

The Great Library of Alexandria once held the wisdom of the ancient world. When it burned down, billions of invaluable thoughts perished. One book, however, survived. Since it wasn’t considered a valuable book, a poor man bought it for a few coppers. He was not very literate and thought the book dull. The only thing of interest to him was a thin strip of vellum. Written on it was the secret known as the “Touchstone.”

The touchstone, the writing on the vellum strip explained, was a small pebble with magical powers. The pebble could turn any common metal into pure gold. Unfortunately, this pebble looked exactly like any other on the shores of the Black Sea. But the secret was that the touchstone would feel extraordinarily warm. Ordinary pebbles, by contrast, were relatively cold.

In a matter of days after purchasing the book, the man had hastily sold his few belongings. He used the money to buy some simple supplies for his travel to the shores of the Black Sea.

He began testing pebbles on the first day he arrived. He devised a simple but effective plan to avoid picking up the same pebble over again. When he picked up a cold pebble, he would throw it into the sea.

Years passed. Every day, he picked up pebbles and threw them into the sea. He made his living by fishing and spent his nights sleeping under his torn, damp blanket on the cold beach. With each pebble that he threw into the sea, his hopes diminished. One day, one fine day, indistinguishable from the blur of other days that had passed before, he picked up a pebble, a warm pebble, an extraordinarily warm pebble—and threw it into the sea.

The Success Principle

Your mind, once filled with inspiration, can become dull and useless once you lose touch with your attention and awareness.

The Principle at Work

In the parable, after years of picking up pebbles and throwing them into the sea, his mind had become dull with conditioning, his motion of throwing automatic. Lulled into habit, his senses had become dull, his sense of discrimination tarnished. Because he had become the slave of autonomic responses, he lost what he had spent years looking for.

The poor man ended up becoming poorer still—although he had found a secret which would have made him fabulously rich. He should have succeeded because he followed numerous success principles. He took a risk when he bought the book. He focused on its most vital information. He acted on this information by gathering his resources and heading out to the scene of the action.

On the shore, he devised a simple and elegant strategy. And, with single-minded intensity, he persisted, working on his chosen task methodically, relentlessly.

He made only one single mistake: he succumbed to habit and he did not think about what he was doing. His attention had wavered, his focus lost. His loss of awareness was his undoing.

Awareness, then, is the key ingredient to making all the success principles come to life.

You can do everything right but still fail if your mind has lost its sharpness and become dulled by routine.

The hero of the story had no-one and nothing to blame but himself, and his only failing was that he had failed to be awake, alert to his golden moment. Similarly, we are all responsible for ourselves, and cannot blame others for our loss of opportunity. It is our alertness, our depth of awareness that makes for success or failure, happiness or despair.

Resource Box

Saleem Rana got his Masters degree in psychotherapy from California Lutheran University. His articles on the internet have inspired over ten thousand people from around the world. Discover how to create a remarkable life

Copyright 2004 Saleem Rana. Please feel free to pass this article on to your friends, or use it in your ezine or newsletter. It's a shareware article.

Success: A Holistic Perspective

2005-09-11T04:31:00.000-07:00

The world has always been mixed with the rich, the poor and the middle ground. Should we assume that if you make more and more money, that you are more and more successful? Perhaps not.....looking at ourselves and life that way just keeps us trapped in our animal/primate history. You see in the animal/primate world, the big male controls all the sex and resources, he's the successful one and those around him are less fortunate. This mentality has been the driving force in our political and financial life for all of human history. So, as we continue to evolve, this model seems a bit outdated, and not really a uniquely human definition. So, how can we define and create success from a more evolved position?

When I was growing up...way back in the 50s, a successful business person had an expensive car parked in their driveway, they had the house most could only dream of, and the beautiful wife as well. Things looked real good ... but that was rarely the whole story. They also had an ulcer, drank and smoked to handle all the stress, was often on medication and lived with endless stress symptoms. Yet by the old model, they were successful inspite of the fact that they were in big trouble on the inside. However, this was normal and accepted as the norm at that time.

Then came the 60s, and all hell broke loose! The older model was challanged by a very large population called the baby boomers.....and there were alot of us. We experimented with all kinds of new and radical ideas. We saw that the older path had flaws and were trying to evolve beyond that. Some of our efforts paid off in the growing holistic health and mental health movements. We became aware of an inner life that had been neglected by earlier generations.

However, where we found our inner selves in private, when we went to work in the corporate world, things had not made much shift there. So, we did what we could to change things, but really just got drowned out by the older model being so firmly in place. So it became normal to have a split life, one that was for our personal self and the other for the corporate world. It's like living with a split personality. [ This split model seems to be the current norm..we complain about it...but ]

Then came the clash of cultures that resulted in 911, and all the corporate scandals that rocked the business world. So here we are living beyond the year 2000, yet still trying to evolve. Well, at the rate we make changes, it's most likely that things will not resolve themselves in your whole lifetime. Are we all still trapped in the past or is there a way out? There is a path through the garbage but one that only some will travel. At this point in history that new path must be one taken by personal choice. I don't suggest you wait for everyone to change into a newer, healthier norm.....if you value a quality life.. don't wait for others..you will die before that happens.

The holistic movement is trying to expand into the business world. There are only a few of us at this time working on this...but that's life! Things have to start somewhere. Holism deals with the whole of things. I no longer consider a person or business successful if their inner life is a mess. To be really successful by a wholistic point of view you need to consider the impact of every action on every level of the business, including the health and mental health of you, the staff and your customer base. Taking that even one step further, you need to consider the impact on the global community.

Sounds like too much to handle, but there are tools and techniques that are evolving to help you if you want to operate from this approach. The business world needs to do some tough soul searching, and then help will come along. When you change you inner choices, things will start to happen!

Oh, by the way, going wholistic does not mean going broke. It's part of a package deal, when you clear up alot of business karma.....very often the business becomes more successful financially!!!

Good Luck!!!

The Business Shaman

About the Author: Jerry is a professional shaman. He publishes a free online magazine and newsletter dealing with shamanism and holism as they apply to life and business. You can reach the publication at this address: http://www.jeremiahhuck.workzsites.com

Benchmarks Of Success.

2005-09-11T04:17:00.000-07:00

Look for these things and consider them well as you walk your road to success:

Know that Failure is Just an Event. We talked about this at length previously, but it bears repeating. If you fail, it doesn’t define you—it just puts you back at ‘square one’ with your idea and plan.

Consider Your Responsibilities Before Your Rights. Our American culture drums it in to us that we must “have it now,” and many of us comply. You are successful when you are mature enough to delay gratification and move your focus from your “rights” to your “responsibilities.”

Fill Up on Faith, Hope, & Love. Your outlook determines your output, and your output determines your outcome. Choose to be optimistic, to read uplifting books, to listen to inspirational speakers. When you put faith, hope, and love in your mind and heart, you’re able to overcome adversity and live free from anger, greed, guilt, and envy.

Make Friends with Your Past—and then Look Ahead. You can use your past as a stepping stone to your future or you can let it cripple you. Either way, it’s your choice. When you can make friends with your past, be focused on the present, and have a bright opinion of your future, you have succeeded, no matter what your goal is.

Know that Success Doesn’t Make You. Along with the idea above, understanding that a win doesn’t make you and a loss doesn’t break you. If you win, you’ll still have more wins to make before you “arrive,” and if you lose, you’ll have more opportunities to turn that around in the future.

Stand up for Morality. If you take a stand for what is right, even if it’s unpopular or costs you your job, you are successful. There is no disputing this fact.

Be a “Servant Friend.” Success isn’t defined by how many people wait on your every whim or need; it’s defined by how many people you can help or serve while you achieve your goals. If you can help others as you climb, you’ll learn more and climb quicker. A servant’s heart is the true hallmark of a leader and shows the character of the person in the position of leadership.

About the Author: Joel Suarez is an established online marketer and publisher. His expertise field is in direct marketing and multi-level marketing. He specializes in developing new tips, tricks, ideas, and tools to help new and pro's alike Internet marketers to start, develop, and establish their businesses online. - http://www.homebiz4u2profit.com

Success Analysis - The Concept of "Critical Mass"

2005-09-10T22:13:00.000-07:00

How many times have you thought about being successful, famous, having lots of money? Many times, I'll bet. Then you start to think about the cost of all that and you go to have a little lie down until the feeling passes. Would that be right?

Sure, you might want all those things that I mentioned above but do you want them so badly that you are prepared to pay whatever it costs to make it a reality?

Some time ago I attended a "success" seminar. One of the presenters, a very successful gentleman, broke it down to the base components of what it takes to achieve success. He urged us to write down the "winning formula." Dutifully, those of us who had brought notebooks and pens sat poised to learn this wisdom.

Here is what he said:

"There are only three things you need to do:

1 - work out what you want,
2 - find out the price,
3 - pay the price."

Huh? At the time I thought that was pretty superficial. In fact, I can remember being rather disappointed as I watched this man in his Armani suit, gold watch, alligator-leather shoes and Grecian tan. However, as the years have passed I have come to realize that he was merely being as succinct as possible. He was 100% correct.

I'd like to take his words a little further. A lot further, in fact. I liken success to a nuclear explosion. It takes a long time for all the components to be harnessed and brought together. However, when those components reach "critical mass" it all happens so suddenly. Perhaps, in this day and age this analogy is not the most appropriate example - but the concept of critical mass is the best way that I can describe it.

Let's look at some of the components of critical mass:

1 - knowledge - the ability to learn all you can about your chosen quest,
2 - passion - the love of what you do,
3 - discipline - the willingness to deny yourself pleasure until the job is done,
4 - commitment - the ability to keep going, often in the face of adversity,
5 - self belief - confidence in your own abilities,
6 - imagination - the ability to "see" your goals before they become reality,
7 - faith - belief in a power higher than yourself,
8 - daring - willingness to go "out on a limb" to tackle your conquest,
9 - patience - allowing your project time to mature.

Beyond all these things there are yet other qualities that you must possess. What would be the point of achieving success through immorality or by being unethical? Of course, there are those who do just that but their success is only temporary. For instance, you can plan and execute a bank robbery using all of the nine components that I have listed above but eventually you will end up in gaol. So what is the point?

Most people who have achieved anything worthwhile have been using these qualities over a long period of time. Often, when they achieve their success they are presented by the press as being an overnight success. The truth is invariably far different. To reach "critical mass" takes time but when you get there the result can be astounding.

Start working on your project, immerse yourself into it. Check yourself against the components listed above.

Work out what you want, find out the price that you will have to pay and... as the gentleman said - pay the price.

[If you like this article and would like to use it on your own website or ezine you may do so ONLY if the article is not changed in any way and the final paragraph: "About the author", with all links intact, is included.]

About the author: Gary Simpson is the author of eight books covering a diverse range of subjects such as self esteem, affirmations, self defense, finance and much more. His articles appear all over the web. Gary's email address is budo@iinet.net.au. Click here to go to his Motivation & Self Esteem for Success website where you can receive his "Zenspirational Thoughts" plus an immediate FREE copy of his highly acclaimed, life-changing e-book "The Power of Choice."

From Rags To Riches

2005-09-10T22:11:00.000-07:00

Nicholas Darvas, escaping his war-torn homeland, Hungary, sought refuge in Turkey in June 1943. In Istanbul, however, he faced a new crisis. Now, he had no friends, no money, no knowledge of Turkish, and no citizenship. He risked starvation. He also risked losing his sense of being special. He didn’t want to be poor and hungry for the rest of his life. No, he had fonder hopes for himself. He wanted to thrive. He wanted to be an outrageous success.

After the penniless 23-year-old exile fought off immediate peril, he turned his mind back to dreams of glory. He analyzed his situation by listing his talents. He dismissed numerous options. Only one talent really appealed to him. Only one sang to his soul. He loved to dance.

Yes, he finally decided, he would be a dancer.

Dancing fit his personality. In dancing, he had only to display the grace of his body in motion. He did not have to be witty or eloquent. He was basically a shy person.

He would be different, special, unusual. He would dance amazingly well. He would be the best. No, better still, he would be the best of the best. He would dance in the finest theaters in the world. He would dance to packed audiences. He would flit, like a butterfly, across the stages of the world’s most cosmopolitan cities. He would be a firefly of the night- life. People would talk about him long after he had left the stage. Newspapers would rave about his performances. Agents would compete for his attention. Yes, people the world over would be willing to pay a high price for the joy of seeing him dance. Just by watching him, people would be enthralled. They would be inspired by his power, speed, grace, agility. He would be famous. No, world-famous. His life, he decided, would be one of splendid, dancing, uplifting motion.

Slowly the images took shape in the theater of his mind. He eagerly outlined how he would achieve his lofty ambition.

He considered a powerful twofold plan.

One, he would learn the latest dance steps. He would practice until he could perform them smoothly, effortlessly, flawlessly.

Two, he would market his talent to the world. Talent alone might land him numerous engagements in Turkey, but it would not open up the rest of the world. He had to let the top people, the wheelers-and-dealers of the entertainment industry, the influential managers, producers, and agents know that he existed. They would learn that he was someone to watch out for, someone who would make them popular and very, very rich.

He rehearsed daily. He practiced, as he had promised himself, the latest dance steps. His clumsy feet moved gracefully after hours; his heavy legs rose off the ground, as if levitating, after months. He read voraciously...devouring the the international dance magazines. He learned avidly...about the styles of the the best dancers. He investigated their favorite locations, where only the elite performed.

Gradually, after years, as he exposed himself to the world of dance, a map emerged in his mind. He saw a royal road. It led to the glittering, night-lit cities, where the top dancers mesmerized audiences. The royal road he envisioned in his mind took him from here to there. Archimedes talked about wanting to move the world with a lever – but he, Nicholas Darvas, would spin it around on the balls of his feet.

On the route to success, Turkey would be the first milestone. He would make himself well-known in his new homeland. Then, he would spread his wings, like a butterfly blossoming in the light. He would dance in the Middle East. He would dance in Europe.

Eventually, he would dance in Paris. From Paris, he would leap across the ocean and dance in New York. New York, he decided, would be his ultimate destination. In New York, he would establish his presence, and from there on he would be invited to dance in all the big cities of the world. He would dance around the world. He was Nicholas Darvas. He was invincible. His fate was inevitable. It had all been decided. It was as good as done.

With his plan in his mind as clear as a vivid dream, he prepared for New York. Now he spent three afternoons a week watching American movies. He wanted to understand the culture. He wanted to capture the American heart.

In these movies, he saw the dance routines that Americans loved. But, he looked deeper, beyond dance, into trends, fashions in drama. He saw a wide variety of movies. He discerned trends. Vague patterns floated in his mind. Ideas came to him and he wrote them down. There was something elusive he was tracking down. It was subtle, a question of nuances. Elusive, half-remembered dreams floated before him when he awoke in the mornings. There were patterns before him, but he could not put them together into one synergistic whole. Then after months of accumulative musing, the ideas began to fall into place. He saw dance trends in non-dance movies. For example, in gangster movies, gun-shot victims reeled a number of times before dying. Americans, he discerned, loved exaggeration, larger-than-life stuff, heroic proportions to their drama.

Since the audience loved drama, he would give it to them in his dance routines. Another trend also emerged. Suspense, intrigue. Movie plots were full of mystery, confusion, surprise. He would create a choreography full of these elements. The audience would find him unpredictable, surprising, sensational.

A time came when he did indeed dominate the dance stage of Turkey. He found occasional work in the Middle East. He now moved to the second part of his plan: marketing.

Since he could not afford to buy the promotion he needed, he created a sort of mail-order business. He gathered the names and addresses of all those responsible for hiring dancers in France, in Europe, and in New York. He assembled a gargantuan list of theatrical agents, managers, and night-club owners. Every week, without failing, he sent them regular mailings -- letters, pictures and newspaper clippings about his latest dance routines. He sent notices of when and where he would be performing next. He sent publicity releases whenever he could, where-ever he could. Slowly, these unknown people started to respond. They wrote back to him, they visited his acts, they invited him to their clubs. His dream was emerging, attaining an energy and mass that even surprised him.

One day, in New York, in his dressing room, he looked at himself in the mirror and smiled. A shiver ran up his spine. He was looking at the highest-paid dancer in the world.

Later on in life, Nicholas Darvas created imaginary blueprints for other fields. He thrived and enjoyed outrageous success in everything that he tried. He went on to become a multimillionaire, a successful theatrical producer, a real estate tycoon, an international businessman, and a Wall Street wizard (who made $2,000,000 in the Stock Market).

The Success Principle

A clear plan, a flexible strategy, and an invincible determination will create your dream, no matter where you start from.

Resource Box

Saleem Rana got his Masters degree in psychotherapy from California Lutheran University. His articles on the internet have inspired over ten thousand people from around the world. Discover how to create a remarkable life

Copyright 2004 Saleem Rana. Please feel free to pass this article on to your friends, or use it in your ezine or newsletter. It's a shareware article.

Your First Step to Success – Eliminate Inner Obstacles

2005-09-10T22:10:00.000-07:00

Think back to a time in your life when you felt inspired and excited to make a significant change. Did you go for it or did your inner obstacles get in the way?

Your thoughts and beliefs are the foundation on which you build your success. You can't build a solid house on a foundation of clay and debris and the same truth holds for your success.

If your thoughts and beliefs are shaky,these internal obstacles will hold you back unless you eliminate them.

Sometimes it is our friends, colleagues and family members who sow the seed of doubts by trying to talk you out of changing your path.It is when you decide to make a better life for yourself that your decision will be met by all kinds of cautious warnings. All unsolicited under the guise of serious concern and well meaning.

People will say such things as "that sounds great, "but do you have any idea how much that will cost you or how long it'll take to get the kind of result you want?" Or, "And what will you do if it doesn't work out?" Or, "what will happen if . . .?" Downright to "you'd better stick to what you have now, at least you know what you've got".

Regardless of the origin of these warnings, they only serve to increase your level of anxiety and self doubts. The best way to handle such opinions is to thank your friends for their concern.Turn deaf ears to their platitudes and decide to watch out for whom you share your ideas with in the near future.

Learning to handle obstacles is the best way to stand your ground and succeed. While running away only undermines your self esteem.

Nature presents you with these challenges in order to learn to weather the storm and grow stronger.

To succeed at overcoming obstacles you need to have the gut not to quit, but to see things through; to have the strong faith to believe more in yourself than in the obstacles and to have the willingness to do what it takes to turn the obstacles around.

This means, you need to stand up to your obtacles and believe you can overcome them. When you attack your obstacles and do something about them, you'll find that they are not as threatening as they appeared to be at first.

Decide that you will not give up and if something has to give, it will have to be the obstacles and not you.

Standing up to your obstacles imparts you with a sense of accomplishment and reinforces the sense of your inner power. By developing a habit of facing resistance, you instill into your psyche a strong message of endurance and success. This strengthens the faith and the belief in yourself. Which helps remind you of the responsibility to yourself.

Sometimes you may have to resort to some other measures to overcome obstacles. If you can't get through the problem, try going around it, and if you can't go around it, try getting under it, and if you can't get under it, try going over it, and if you can't go over it, just dive straight into it.

Reflection:

Ask yourself if the obstacle can be ignored. Your fixation of the problem only renders it more cumbersome. If possible, stop paying attention to it.

Use humour or your wits to get around the obstacle. This helps to diffuse the tension around the issue.

Take the bull by the horn and address the obstacle. Doing this might be challenging at first, particularly if you are not used to confrontation. Yet the more you do it, the easier it will become.

Action Point:

1.See obstacles as propeller to move you forward and use them wisely.

2. Repeat loudly as often as necessary to yourself: "I can overcome this, and I will".

3. Confront obstacles as habits of success and not of failure.

4. Develop the ability to overcome, bypass, or eliminate obstacles.

5. When difficult circumstances arise, have the confidence to take action.

Don't allow other people to put obstacles in your path. Learn to overcome obstacles by standing up to them without complaining. Have the faith and strength to change your thoughts and beliefs that you can succeed and you will.

Kunbi Korostensky N.D., Psychotherapist and Certified Life Coach is specialised in supporting people going through various life changes, such as after a divorce, bereavement and dealing effectively with teenagers. Check out her ebooklet: Top 10 holistic Questions to Embrace Change and Grow at http://www.embracingchanges.com.BooksandCDs.html

The 7 Keys To Astonishing Success

2005-09-10T22:08:00.000-07:00

Here are seven essential keys to success. Use these ideas to find ways to stretch your beliefs about what is possible. Break free of self-imposed limits. Follow these principles and you will realize your dream.

The first key is self-confidence. Choose to be self-confident. Believe in your dream, in the evidence of things not seen. Grasp the big picture and color in the details as you go along.

The second key is persistence. Choose to be persistent. When things go wrong, as they inevitably will, persist. Don’t turn back when you hit an obstacle, go over, under, around, or through it.

Persist in the face of severe setbacks. These setbacks may be enough to dissuade anyone. You can even back down without losing face. But don't. Persist even when you can't think of a single reason why you should carry on. In any endeavor there comes a dark night, when all seems lost, when distractions seem rampant, when your dream does not seem significant anymore. Just persist through it all, and you will see, when you're on the other side, that it was all a test of your mettle.

The third key is purpose. Choose to act with purpose. Start out with a purpose and when things get difficult, hold on to your purpose. Let your purpose empower creative ideas and breakthroughs. Set yourself up with a big goal, something beyond your current reach. Your goal should excite and scare you. It should be something that magnifies the value of your life when you achieve it. It should be so big that when it is accomplished your life will never be the same again.

Before you meet this goal, set out to achieve smaller ones. Meet one sub-goal after another—-relentlessly. Don't display aimlessness. Don't slip into helplessness. Hold to your purpose and creative ideas will move you from one step to the next. Never allow yourself to feel that you are “going nowhere.”

The fourth key is recognizing that success is based on the law of averages. Choose to play the battle of averages. It doesn’t matter how many times you fail; you just need that one success to break through to a new level. For example, it doesn’t matter if you get turned down by a number of employers; you just need one job to be employed. Success is not all of one piece. You will not succeed every day. Often it may seem that you are not able to succeed at all. But behind every obstacle there is a way around.

The fifth key is the willingness to pay the price of success. Choose to pay the price of success. When you choose to be successful, there is a price that is required. It may be risk-taking, money, time, effort, anxiety. Be willing to pay the price before you even start. You must be willing to rely on speculation. You must be willing to expand your resources. You must be willing to pay the price of success by taking on risk and by working smart to make those risks pay off.

The sixth key is to enjoy the experience. Choose to enjoy the experience. Any new undertaking is an adventure. Immerse yourself in the movie of your own life; enjoy the twists and turns of the plot. Since you are both interested and involved in the venture, enthusiastically commit to resolving whatever issues arise.

The seventh key is to be willing to be original. Choose to be original. Create ideas from scratch. Sometimes there really are no other successful models you can imitate. Even if your idea is not new, try and find a new angle to it; make your idea special, exceptional in some way.

Resource Box

Saleem Rana got his Masters degree in psychotherapy from California Lutheran University. His articles on the internet have inspired over ten thousand people from around the world. Discover how to create a remarkable life

Copyright 2004 Saleem Rana. Please feel free to pass this article on to your friends, or use it in your ezine or newsletter. It's a shareware article.

Success: 11 Universal Laws to Get You There

2005-09-10T22:03:00.000-07:00

The Law of Experience

“Success comes from good judgement; good judgement comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgement.” The more at bats you get, the more experience you get, the more successful you can be.

The Law of Hunger

In the words of motivational speaker Les Brown, in order to be successful, “you have to be huuuuuuuuungrrry!” You have to want it so bad that you can taste it. You have to want it so bad that you are willing to pay the price to get it.

The Law of Balance

While you’re paying the price for success, it’s crucial to keep your life in balance. No one who is a success in their chosen profession and a failure in their personal life is a success.

The Law of Small Successes

Many people never even get started on the road to success because they have convinced themselves that the task is too big. This is a myth that stops many people. Even the most gargantuan of tasks are accomplished one action at a time. One action at a time. Simply break your large task into smaller, more manageable tasks, and celebrate each small success.

The Law of Momentum

Once you get a few small successes under your belt, a powerful momentum has been set in motion. You begin to believe you can be successful, and things that seemed difficult or even impossible before become simply challenges you are eager to take on.

The Law of Clarity

You need to be clear about what you are going for, so you will be clear on knowing when you get it. If you say you want to make more money, that’s not clear enough. I could give you a dollar and you’d have more money. But I don’t think that’s what you meant. How much more do you want? By when do you want it? What could you do to experience the most enjoyment while you are getting it? These questions give you more and more clarity.

The Law of The Trail

Success always leaves a trail. While there is value in blazing our own trail, there is also value in investigating how others have become successful. This leads us to.....

The Law of Modeling

To be successful, we do not have to reinvent the wheel. This is so powerful and yet so easy it’s amazing to me that more people don’t do it. Simply find someone who is doing, or has done, what you want to do, and find out how they did it. What did they do on a daily basis to get where they are? What did they have to believe, what did they have to focus on? Most people are so honored by the question that they will be glad to talk with you. Everyone likes to feel like they have experience and wisdom to pass on to others.

The Law of Habit

All of us need success habits that we think and do every day. Remember, “bad habits are easy to form and difficult to live with, good habits are difficult to form and easy to live with.”

The Law of Focus

It’s our responsibility, each and every day, to control our focus. If we focus on all the things that could go wrong and how we might not be successful, we will be pulled in that direction. If we focus on opportunity and all the many ways in which we can be successful, we’ll be pulled in that direction. We control our focus. It really can be that simple.

The Law of Enjoyment

So many people miss out on this one. They are so busy making sure they are successful that they forget to pause and enjoy it. Folks, there’s two things to shoot for in life: 1) to get what you are aiming for, and 2) to enjoy it once you get it. Only the most wise and fortunate of us do both.

Visit SecretsofGreatRelationships.com for tips and tools for creating and growing a great relationship. You can also subscribe to our f*r*e*e 10 day e-program on how to enrich your relationship today, from relationship coach and expert Jeff Herring.

Are You Working Towards Success?

2005-08-03T03:56:00.000-07:00

What does success mean to you?

To some people it means driving a flash car and flashing wads of cash around to show they are doing well. To others it is spending time with their family, having achieved happiness in their life.

Your personal idea of success, and being successful will differ from someone else's, but is very important to you. Without spending some time thinking about your success, how will you know if you are achieving it? Take some time now and think about it.

Now start working towards it, and set goals to make you successful.

Goal setting is important to your success, so you better do it right too. Here are some important things to remember about goal setting

1. break your main goal (success) into smaller ones

These small steps towards an ultimate goal are in some circles known as "eating the elephant" because you couldn't eat the whole elephant in one go, but cutting it into bite sized chunks makes it possible to achieve a seemingly impossible task.

2 Don't set unachievable goals- when you don't hit them they will be a major setback.

You wouldn't decide to climb mount Everest on your first hill walk or expect to build your own house because you have a new toolkit, so be realistic about your goals here too.

3 Write them down, and make them real, also imagine life as it will be when you have achieved each goal.

The human mind works on visualization, athletes across the world use this technique, seeing themselves in their own minds eye crossing the finish line first. They imagine how it feels, the sound of the crowds cheering etc. Then the mind can focus on making it real.

4 If you miss a goal, or deadline, take it as a minor setback not total failure, and try again.

The best analogy I've heard for this is of an ocean liner crossing thousands of miles of sea. On its way it may drift off course many times, but the captain will make a slight adjustment to get it on track each time. He knows its not a total failure to be slightly amiss along the way as long as you correct it and end up where you are going.

These steps will take you towards your individual success ideal, whatever it may be. You will meet adversity, and failure along the way, but take it in your stride. Always keep just your next small goal in mind and eventually you will find you have reached and even surpassed the main goal you had set, without even noticing it.

About the Author: Douglas Titchmarsh runs several websites, and blogs including http://www.cashinonline.info and http://www.titchmarsh.com

8 Ways To Get Off The Success-Go-Round And Have A Consistent Flow Of Success

2005-08-01T03:26:00.000-07:00

Are you consistently chasing success? Once you achieve it, do you desperately try to continue the pattern of making it happen again? Isn't it time you got off the success-go-round? Here are 8 tips to help you make the transition from inconsistency to steady flow of success.

1. Know Your Core Values.

What do your truly value in your life? If you're struggling to come up with an answer, then maybe it's time you reevaluated your values. You might know what values your parents instilled in you, but you need to be clear on what you stand for and what is important in your life. Do you value honesty, integrity or trust? By knowing your core values you will seek them in the relationships you form with others. List your top five core values and live by them. Start to examine if your core values match the goals you are trying to achieve. Your values are essential to success.

2. Be Honest With Yourself

Don't kid yourself about who you are or what you love to do. If you're trying to impress or win the approval of others by being successful, you success will be unauthentic. Is the "real" you showing up everyday? It is empowering to some to have a great job title or a prospering business, but if at the end of the day, you feel empty, tired or dissatisfied; it's time to be honest with yourself. You can't present yourself as someone in control at work, when you know deep inside you feel that you have no control over your life. Success is only temporary when you are not living a self-actualized life. Passion for your life and your work makes you thrive. Only when you are honest with yourself about who you are and what you really love to do can you start to experience a steady flow of success.

3. Don't Let Your Emotions Run the Show

If you’re happy when life is great and going as planned, but fall apart when you are faced with challenges and obstacles, you allow your emotions to run the show. If people can clearly tell when things are not going well for you, it's time to get your emotions in check. Life is not predictable. Plans will not always run as smoothly as expected, but it is important that you maintain your composure during these times. Don't let your beliefs have power over the situation. If you allow sadness, anger or fear to take over, you will find it more difficult each time to bounce back after a set-back. Get to know your emotional triggers; what makes you angry, sad or afraid and then create a plan for coping with them when they arise.

4. Be Flexible With Your Plans

Being too rigid and unwavering with plans can lead to disappointment. While setting plans and goals are ideal for making success happen, you have to accept that sometimes you may have to alter those plans. It's a good idea to have a back-up just in case things don't go the way you expected. Don't allow minor setbacks to make you cancel your plans altogether, but have faith that you will find another way to get things done. Take detours if it is necessary. Be open to ideas and suggestions from those you trust. You will find another way if you are willing to receive what is being offered to you.

5. Don't Let Success Be the Center of Your Life

Success should not be at the center of your life. There are many more important things that you need to tend you. When you neglect or postpone what is important in your life, you will find that you are chasing success just to have more time, more energy and more money to enjoy life. It doesn’t happen that way. Set aside time to work on your career goals, business plan, life plan, etc, then continue with our life. If you're always on the look-out for success, it will rarely come. Have you heard the expression: "A watched phone never rings.”? Be patient and don't try to rush success. Learn to let go and you will see a transformation in yourself and your success plans.

6. Share What You Know or What You Have

If you have a grip hold on success, but are not willing to share your knowledge, your time or your resources, chances are success will break free from you. Give of yourself and you will always be given. Don't be afraid to share your knowledge even with a competitor because it the long run, you will benefit more from it. Volunteer, if you have the time.

7. Ask for What You Want and Believe You Will Receive It

Do you state clearly your goals or desires? Depending on your faith or religious affiliation, pray, meditate and ask for what you want. Once you get it, don't stop asking. We often make the mistake of asking for what we want and then we either give up because it hasn't come in our anticipated time or we stop asking because we got what we wanted. You should never stop asking, because you are only halfway. When you stop asking you don't allow more blessings to come into your life. If you only ask periodically or when things are going bad, then you are asking out of desperation. Ask continuously, and ask with the conviction that it will come to realization.

8. Stay in the Success Momentum

The best way to keep from sabotaging your success is to stay in the success mindset. Giving in to financial or career blues can deter you from your goals. Keep away from people or situations that sap your energy or keep you stuck. Build a network of people that will challenge, support and motivate you when your outlook becomes distorted. Develop strategies that will help you to deal with rejections, disappointments and regrets. Lighten up and know don't be yourself up for every little mistake you make. Take charge of all your trying situations and know that "this too shall pass."

About the Author: Marie Magdala Roker is a Personal Development Coach an Author of Successful Thinking for a Successful Life: How to Banish the Unhealthy Thoughts and Habits That Limit Your Success. Her Successful Thinking™ program is an affordable coaching resource that offers support and encouragement when there are roadblocks to success. You can find out more about the program at http://www.thinkandbesuccessful.com/ or sign up for her free Be Inspired newsletter at http://www.smartbeecoaching.com/

Success- It's A Habit

2005-07-08T03:41:00.000-07:00

You hit the snooze button three time before you get out of bed and when you finally do its off to the kitchen for your morning cup of coffee. As you sit at the kitchen table with the morning paper in one hand and the coffee in the other you are totally oblivious to the fact that this is what you did yesterday and what you will do tomorrow. It's a habit that you have been practicing for years.

Creatures of habit

We are all creatures of habit. According to http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/english/ha/habit.html a habit is 1.an established custom or 2.a pattern of behavior acquired through frequent repetition. We all have successful habits and destructive habits. The key is to constantly be looking for the destructive habits and filter them out. You can retrain your habits but it takes focus, commitment and a true desire to change. The longer you have possessed a habit the hard it is to retrain and the easier it is to slip back to the habit. Yes it will take work on your part but the rewards far out way the consequences if you do not break the habit. You live almost your entire live through the habits you have formed. With that said would you agree that a successful habit would further you toward your goals and a destructive goal would render you from achieving success?

Finding The Destructive Habits

If you would like to fix a broken down car you would first have to find the problem. The same holds true with your habits. In order to correct your daily habits you first will have to identify your destructive habits. This is not an easy task because you are going to have to criticize your favorite person, YOU! The best way to do this is to sit down and make a list of what you believe are destructive habits. Be honest with yourself or you will only be setting your self up for failure. Next ask the people you are close to give you their opinion on what they believe are your destructive habits. This will hurt your pride a little but people often see what you are blind to within yourself. Now tack that list and prioritize to the destructive habits by placing the most critical on the top and the least on the bottom of the list.

Destruct The Destructive

Retraining a destructive habit into a successful habit must start by defining the successful habit that will replace the destructive habit. Clearly define the benefits of changing and take possession of them because this is what is going to motivate you to stay focused. For example if you drink soda all day and you want to be healthier you would want to replace the soda with water. The benefits would be more energy, a cleaner system and a longer life. Now you need to take action. You do this by controlling your urge to drink soda and consciously replace it with water. Practicing this for a month or more will make drinking water a habit and you will start subconsciously grabbing water instead of a soda.

Success Is A Habit

As you start to slowly reform you life with successful habits you will want to start finding Successful people to start modeling your important habits around. If somebody already made a mistake learn from it. Find out what the most successful people in the field you are pursuing do day to day. What do they read, who do they associate with, how do they exercise, how do they set their goals and model your habits around them. Truly successful people; by that I mean people who are successful in all aspects of life such as work, family, and friends; did not make it to the top by practicing daily habits. Do not try to invent the wheel. Every success is built on a system to follow so why not make it simple and model a system that works. I believe everyone will always have a destructive habit to break. As long as you are searching for and fixing your destructive habits you will be on the road to success. "By systematically improving behavior at a time you can dramatically improve your over all lifestyle."- The Power of Focus

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Is A High IQ Necessary For Success?

2005-06-11T04:01:00.000-07:00

You have probably heard the term “IQ” many times, and you probably know it has something to do with measuring intelligence.

The letters “IQ” stand for “intelligence quotient”, and an IQ test is widely used as a way to measure intelligence.

The test most frequently used today to measure intelligence is called the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test. The earliest version of it was developed in France in 1905.

The original test has been revised several times over the years, with a major revision completed at Stanford University in 1960. The Stanford-Binet test is not the only intelligence test, but it is probably the best known.

IQ tests are often used by educational institutions to segregate students into categories such as “normal”, “gifted”, and “challenged”. Children and young people are scored relative to each other on a variety of factors, including verbal and logical understanding, vocabulary, arithmetic and spatial orientation.

A person with an IQ score of 100 is deemed to be of average intelligence, while a person with an IQ above 130 is deemed to be intellectually gifted.

Do you know your own IQ? Do you know what it means?

Although the IQ test is very widely used, and the results are almost synonymous with our idea of intelligence, there has also been a lot of criticism of the test, and of the way the results are used.

Does having a high IQ score guarantee success in later life? No, it doesn’t! It doesn’t even guarantee success in school.

A Canadian television program recently tracked down some of the people with the highest IQ scores in North America. One man who has an extremely high genius IQ works as a motorcycle mechanic, hangs out with biker gangs, and is frequently in and out of jail.

Another man interviewed on the program has the highest IQ recorded in North America. He has worked as a bouncer in a bar for ten years, earns minimum wage, and lives in a tiny garage. Clearly, a high IQ is not enough to guarantee success in life.

What IQ tests measure is a certain type of potential. That potential still needs to be developed and nurtured by the person who has it. That person may not have the inclination or desire to do so. Not everyone who has a potential talent also possesses the desire to do something with it. One person may have a wonderful God-given singing voice, but may have no interest in music, and no desire to perform. Another person may have the perfect physique to be a high jumper, but may hate sports. You can probably think of other examples. Having potential is just a beginning.

The IQ tests we have now may predict which people have a certain type of intellectual potential, but they don’t necessarily predict who will become a good teacher, a good manager, a good president, or a good parent. Some critics say that the only thing IQ tests can really predict is who will do well on IQ tests.

Qualities such as determination and vision can be more important to your ultimate success in life than the IQ number you started out with.

Being creative, optimistic, and flexible are important hallmarks of many successful people. Common sense, the ability to get along with other people, and knowing a good idea when you see one, may be more useful qualities than having a genius IQ.

About the Author: This article is taken from the new book by Royane Real titled "How You Can Be Smarter - Use Your Brain to Learn Faster, Remember Better and Be More Creative" If you want to learn how you can use your brain better, download it today or get the paperback version at www.lulu.com/real

Five Top Success Tips

2005-05-11T04:10:00.000-07:00

Incorporate these skills into your strategy for success and you’ll move forward quicker than you ever dreamed!

Hustle: generally, people who make it big have one thing in common—they are dissatisfied with the status quo. They will not take what is “common” or “expected” and let that define their lives—they move past it and excel. You must work hard and hustle.

Character: someone coined the phrase, “character is what you do in the dark.” In other words, when no one is looking, will you behave differently than if someone was looking? If not, then you have character. If you are attacked, be tough—not hard. Don’t be a pushover, but be compassionate, gentle, and flexible—especially on procedure (not principle).

Risk Taking: this isn’t gambling, it’s a willingness to be bold, hearty, and to push forward. People who refuse to take risks are definitely going to lose. If you refuse a new promotion because you’re not confident of your skills, you will likely be passed over when a different chance arrives.

Don’t be afraid of rejection, just take it as part of life and you’ll find there’s nothing to be afraid of—especially in the word “no.” “No” is just another opportunity to find a way around an obstacle and to use creative problem-solving skills.

Time Management: we all know that one minute has 60 seconds and that one hour has 60 minutes. One day has 24 hours, and one year has 365 days. But one year also has 525,600 minutes. We don’t think about a year in such small increments, but maybe we should. We waste minutes as if they’ll always be around, and the fact is that time wasted is time we can never get back. We might miss a deal or promotion of a lifetime by wasting just a few minutes.

Proper time management is essential as you climb to success. Continue to break goals down in to manageable chunks—do that with relation to your day and the time you’ve been given. You’ll accomplish far more this way and you won’t regret using your time wisely.

Master Non-Verbal Communication: it is said that our body language and facial expressions do much more communicating than our words will ever do. When the words that you speak don’t match the expressions on your face or the stance of your body, you confuse the listener and muddle your message.

Be aware that when you try to “multi-task,” you often end up short-changing something, and the last thing you want is to short-change people. Don’t try to do too much at once—your willingness to do this tells people they aren’t important, even if you’re expressing your appreciation of their work and effort. Be aware of what message your body is sending off!

About the Author: Dan Brown has been active in internet marketing for the past 4 years. Dan currently is working with the Zabang search engine, introducing their new affiliate program which is due out July, 2005. http://www.zabangaffiliate.com/

Setting Yourself Up For Success

2005-04-27T04:06:00.000-07:00

Most people want to be successful in life. But success can mean different things to different people: making more money; spending quality time with your family; or learning to play a musical instrument.

Since success is personal, defining what it means for you is the first step to achieving it. Once you are clear about what success looks like for you, here are some important points to help you achieve it.

Steps to Success

1. Know your Potential: In order to succeed at anything you need to see that you have the potential to reach your goals

2. Understand your Goal: List three or four reasons why you want to achieve this goal? What is the result you want to obtain?

3. Set Realistic Goals & Timelines: Often times we want overnight success. Make sure your goals and the time frame you have set are realistic.

4. Create a Plan: This is by far the most important document of all. It allows you to keep track of everything involving your goal.

5. No Shortcuts: Shortcuts are sloppy and compromise your work and your integrity. “Anything worth doing is worth doing well.”

6. Have Courage: Depending on what success means to you, you will have to have courage to stand up for what you believe and desire to do, even if it means disappointing others.

7. Stay Motivated: It is critical to stay motivated when striving for the big goal of success. Motivational tools will help you stay on track.

8. Be Passionate: Have passion for what you are doing and working toward. You will automatically put more effort into it.

9. No Excuses: If you want something badly enough, there is always a way!

10. No Fear: Fear of Failure is a normal emotion for everyone. How you get past the fear determines whether you experience success.

11. Create Opportunities: Make things happen rather than waiting for opportunities to find you.

12. Attitude: A good attitude will allow you to turn any bad situation into a learning experience. Staying positive and surrounding yourself with friends that share a positive attitude will help you succeed.

13. Make the Best of Each Day: Make the most of every day and accomplish something - even if it’s something small. Every baby step counts towards your success.

14. Set Daily Goals: Setting daily goals keeps you on track. Seeing your progress will help keep you going.

15. Accept Responsibility: You will have help in many instances; however, the bottom line is that you are responsible for the choices you will make.

16. Be Open to Improvement: Accept that you do not have all the answers and more importantly, be open to recommendations from other people.

17. Paint a Picture: A great way to keep working toward your goal is to picture what it will look like when you are successful.

18. Identify Procrastinations: If you have a problem with procrastination, make a list of distractions you routinely choose, so you can recognize when you are off course and get back on track.

19. Want versus Need: Do it because you want it, not because you need it. When you want something, it requires and creates intention, desire, and action – all powerful tools for being successful (doing something out of need usually leads to pain, stress, and frustration).

20. Believe in yourself: Your confidence is what will get you through the challenges.

21. Be Efficient: Use your time and effort wisely.

22. Have Balance in your Life: Make the time for both hard work and pleasure.

23. Have Fun: Fun is a crucial element of success, but one that often forgotten once we get into the process. Find fun and joy in what you are doing, even in the midst of the challenges.

Copyright 2004-2005, Cecile Peterkin

About the Author: Cecile Peterkin is a Certified Career Coach, Retirement Coach and Speaker. With over 17 years of managerial, leadership, empowerment counseling and personal development experience, Cecile specializes in helping Middle Managers overcome the “Middle Syndrome” of being stuck in a middle position in mid-life. To learn more about Cecile, visit her website at http://www.cosmiccoachingcentre.com.

Three Key Behaviors That Determine Your Success

2005-03-17T04:35:00.000-08:00

Success is a journey and along the way, we need to correct our course by unlearning the behavior that derails us and invite in a new behavior to continue our success. If you feel you want to change your success, take a measure of your current key behaviors.

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Listening
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Listening is not a passive activity. It is unfair to the person who is speaking to have a person there in body but not in mind. Just because we are the person being quiet does not mean we are listening. As a listener we must be in the present and taking in the speakers message in the proper context. It's not the time to be thinking about what to have for lunch or your next witty comeback. Be fair to the speaker and have a clear and open mind.

Active listening requires us to set aside our own agenda, uses our best internal language skills, and takes present energy. The best gift to yourself and to your speaker if the energy isn't available is to say so. Yet, due to the perception management masks we've learned from society, we don't usually provide this honest feedback. So, we passively listen, like pretending, as a child, to hear, and say something quick, something we think they want to hear, just so we can move on.

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Choice
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The Power of Choice is the energy we send out and is exactly what the Universe sends us back. No choice is a choice too. I believe that we are where we are today because of the accumulative effect of all our choices. We made thousands of choices each day and we control our lives by those choices. Having the ability to choose equals power. When we don't choose, you give someone else the ability to make choices for you, whatever they may be, and you give up any possible power with it. Once you realize you have the power of choice, life happens for you, not to you!

Feel your power. It is a powerful resource to success.

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Internal Dialogue
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All day long, everyday, we talk to ourselves. Sometimes we even talk to ourselves out loud. When we talk to ourselves, what we are really doing is giving out commands to our subconscious mind. The subconscious mind is a very powerful tool and it can carry out its orders efficiently and effectively.

We've been listening to ourselves talk for so long, we have just learned to hear past it. The noise of our inner dialogue can usually and can only be heard if its screaming or if someone points it out.

This discussion is telling us what we need, how we want it, and what we will and will not do in order to get it. We assume, we don't know what we want, until we begin to listen. Until we begin to stop long enough to ask what it is that our internal dialogue wants or needs.

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Success Begins Here
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These are the three toughest keys to behaving our way to success. Are you listening to yourself? Are you listening to people who are already successful? All excellent questions to ponder on from time to time. To check in with our self frequently to see where we stand on them. They are keys that are continuously evolving as we mature and will not actually stop. They require gentle nudging, gentle understanding, gentleness all around.

(c) Copyright, Catherine Franz, 2003, 2004. All rights reserved.

About the Author: Catherine Franz, a eight-year Certified Professional Coach, Graduate of Coach University, Mastery University, editor of three ezines, columnist, author of thousands of articles website: http://www.abundancecenter.com blog: http://abundance.blogs.com

First Things First

2005-02-20T19:51:00.000-08:00

“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” -Stephen Covey

Managing our time requires tough choices. That means that sometimes we may have to say NO to important activities in order to attend to even more important activities that will enable us to accomplish higher priorities.

When we embark on a journey and we aren't sure how to get there, we typically jot down travel directions. So why are we so resistant to jotting down personal or professional goals or choices that would provide a road map – or at least a compass -- for our lives?

I work with a lot of small business owners and professionals including coaches, consultants, doctors, lawyers, and CPAs. For those in the service industry, time IS money. To be profitable in their work, they must learn to limit their investment of time if there will be a limited return on that investment.

Of course, money is just one way to measure the returns. A “return on investment” of time may also yield an emotionally healthy and well-adjusted child, a deeply satisfying marriage, or a beautiful garden. The key is to get clear about what's most important to you, and then march forth!

Several years ago I was talking with someone at a business luncheon, and at the end of our conversation he wished me a happy March Forth. I considered this to be a bit odd at the time, but I didn't give it much more thought. A couple days later -- on March 4th -- I received a homemade card from him. The cover of the card contained a picture of a beautiful waterfall. The inside of the card read, "Thunderous and powerful, yet oh so beautiful! May your power within thunder out, as you march forth and realize all your dreams. Happy March Fourth ." It wasn't until I received his card that I caught the literary ploy.

Today, as I think about those words – march forth! – I also think about something my colleague, Harold Taylor, says: “Major projects will never be finished if they are never started. The key to getting things done is to get things started. Pick a date and time and stick to it.” In other words, march forth!

We offer a tool to help you take inventory of all the things on your procrastination list. Check out our RAM Dump at http://www.orgcoach.net/pdf/ram_dump.pdf, which will help you unload all of the sticky notes from your brain onto paper, and then provides four choices -- Do, Defer, Delegate, Dump -- for what to do with it all.

Once you are clear about what you want to DO, you may benefit from creating some structure to your workday to keep you focused on what's most important. Take a look at my sample weekly template if you are looking at how to create some structure: http://www.orgcoach.net/weeklyschedule.html

Author and coach, Cheryl Richardson, shares a technique that has made an enormous difference in both the success of her company and the quality of her life. Here's the technique:

In the morning when you start your workday, begin with the following question: What action do I most want to avoid doing today?

Once you have an answer to that question, do these two things:

1. Identify the cause of your resistance. For example, does the task feel too tedious or difficult to complete? Is it related to a goal that no longer serves you? Or, are you simply afraid?

2. If you are convinced that a task is, in fact, important, take this action right away.

I've always subscribed to the idea of tackling the most important tasks first. Cheryl Richardson's approach has a slight twist to it. Instead of asking what is most important, she suggests that we ask ourselves what we most want to avoid. By looking at what you most want to avoid, it will challenge you to consider whether or not the items on your "to-do" list are truly designed to move you toward an important goal. It will also keep you focused on the actions you really need to take rather than all the "busy work" you may otherwise get caught up in when trying to avoid something that feels uncomfortable or risky. If you determine that the task is indeed important, by doing it first you accelerate your progress.

I'll share a real-life example of how this works. I know the president of a major company who is looking for a consultant. I have a friend who does the kind of consulting work this company is looking for. I told the president about her, and he expressed interest in talking with her. I contacted my friend and told her that the president of the company wanted to talk with her. She had never worked with a company this size, so she was very nervous about placing the call. Each time she thought about making the call, she felt nervous and excited at the same time. She recognized that this was a task she most wanted to avoid, and she also knew it was the one task that could be most significant in terms of moving her closer to her goal. (My friend recently bought a new car and is very motivated to attract more consulting work so she can make the car payments.)

Many of us procrastinate around the things that matter most because of the anxiety they cause. Using this method requires some vulnerability on your part. There will be, on occasion, times where you are disappointed with the outcome. But would you rather waste time doing things that don't matter, or are you willing to take a risk! Cheryl Richardson reminds us of this: “Since there's a good chance that you'll live through disappointment or rejection, why not face your fears head on? You have far more to gain than you ‘think' you have to lose!”

Putting first things first, what's the next action you will take to help you march forth?

Copyright 2005 Kathy Paauw

Wouldn't you love to stumble upon a secret library of ideas to help you de-clutter your life so you can focus on what's most important? Kathy Paauw offers simple, yet powerful ideas, on how to manage your time, space, and thoughts for a more productive and fulfilling life. Visit http://www.orgcoach.net.

Parable of the Two Draft Horses

2005-01-05T19:53:00.000-08:00

Many years ago I attended a motivational seminar (one of many!) where the speaker made quite a startling comment. He was talking about the power of co-operation and how it was so much easier to achieve a goal when everybody was pulling together. He gave an example. He started off by making a statement:

"A draft horse can pull between 1 to 3 tons..."

Well, I didn't know that. I still don't know for sure. I just took his word for it because it sounded reasonable. Then he posed a question. He asked:

"What would you expect TWO draft horses to be able to pull?"

Obviously, by simple deduction and mathematics, the answer that most of us came up with was 2 to 6 tons. Double the horses, double the capacity. Simple!

But he went on. He had probably asked many audiences the same question and knew that we would all be deducing, in whispering terms, "2 to 6 tons." Then he said:

"A single draft horse can pull between 1 to 3 tons but TWO draft horses, in tandem, can pull somewhere in the vicinity of 12 to 14 tons."

Now, I still don't know whether this is true or not. But for the point of his story it was irrelevant anyway. The point that he was making was this - through co-operation and like-mindedness you will always be able to achieve more and achieve it quicker if you create a team and pull together.

When you have a large task to achieve you should keep this in mind. It also brings to mind a much quoted saying: "Teamwork makes the dream-work."

So, the moral of this story? If you want to reach a goal and you want to reach it quickly - don't be a single draft horse!

About the author: Gary Simpson is the author of eight books covering a diverse range of subjects such as self esteem, affirmations, self defense, finance and much more. His articles appear all over the web. Gary's email address is budo@iinet.net.au. Click here to go to his Motivation & Self Esteem for Success website where you can receive his "Zenspirational Thoughts" plus an immediate FREE copy of his highly acclaimed, life-changing e-book "The Power of Choice."

Accelerated Learning is Profitable

2004-12-27T20:09:00.000-08:00

Accelerated learning is not only practical, it is profitable. Acquiring the ability to learn new skills faster is undoubtedly the most direct path and fastest means possible to enhance your earning power and hence, your income. Learning faster is a valuable skill that will benefit you no matter your profession.

Just what exactly is accelerated learning? It is the refined skill set that will enable you to learn new material faster than ever before, faster than you ever thought possible. Accelerated learning is simply a set of tools, that when put into practice, will enable you to move ahead in most any subject far more rapidly. Do think such a newfound skill set could have an impact on your education? Do you believe that you may prosper from learning more rapidly? Do you think learning faster might possibly impact your career and your perceived value to your employer?

Today's marketplace is changing rapidly. New education and employment variables are being introduced daily that constantly impact individuals and society. The person who can adapt easiest and move forward quickest is the person who will prosper in our new economy. We must continuously be learning new skills if we wish to prosper and offer true value to our employers. Jobs are becoming more competitive and complex. Technology is impacting almost every aspect of society. The fact of the matter is that the pace of these changes and the implementation of technology will continue to increase.

Learning at an accelerated rate is also a mindset that must be accepted at a personal and subconscious level. You must believe in your gut that you can do it! You can learn faster. Unfortunately, we are not taught this way of thinking in school and the average person simply does not seek additional education once completing high school or college. Do not succumb to the average, the minimum or the just-get-by mode of thinking. You can be superior, not in your intrinsic value as a human being but as a person seeking greater success in life. It all starts with belief in yourself and an attitude of perseverance. Here are some simple steps to begin the process:

1. Desire: You must really want to get ahead. Decide to move forward.

2. Belief: Know in your heart that you can do better. The future is yours.

3. Attitude: Acquire the necessary training and get started. Keep your focus on your goals.

4. Persistence: Be persistent. Never give up. Always be moving ahead, no matter the obstacles.

5. Practice: Practice what you learn. Put into action the new skills you acquire. Practice. Practice.

Identifying the skills you need, learning them faster and putting them into practice sooner will generally precede earning more income. Learning faster will give you the competitive edge you need to separate you from everyone else vying for career advancement. There is no magic, simply additional education via accelerated learning.

Daniel Sitter is the author of the popular, award-winning e-book, Learning For Profit. Designed for busy people, this new book teaches simple, step-by-step accelerated learning skills, demonstrating exactly how to learn anything faster than ever before. Learning For Profit is currently available from the author’s web site

Why Branding Is Vital For Your Home Business Success

2004-11-30T05:11:00.000-08:00

On a hot Sunday afternoon when your body fluids have been drained dry by the scorching sun, which would you rather order? Coca Cola, or Jeebejus Sweet Soda? The answer is as clear as it is universal. The more established brand would be chosen almost every time.

This is why branding is very important in building a home business. Cyberspace is fueled by information, and information travels fast. Everything on the Internet is delivered with digital speed. Competitions would sprout from out of nowhere on a daily basis. The only way to contend is by beating them to the punch when it comes to consumer recall, and this can be done through effective branding.

In building a home Internet business, much care and attention must be given to your enterprise’s name. It is the means by which people would refer to it, after all. Once a name has been decided on, the next logical step would be to build on that brand and expose it to as many people as possible.

Building a brand, and consequently, building an online presence, can be as fast or as meticulously slow as you want it to be. As we’ve mentioned earlier, everything on cyberspace is faster, and this includes branding your home business. But you also proceed at your own pace, and in the process, giving your market the impression that you’re emphasizing quality over popularity.

Here are some branding techniques you could use to help you in building a home Internet business:

* Always use your name. A lot of people are hesitant about online transactions. Giving them your real name would be taken as an invitation for their trust. Additionally, your name would give them something to remember you by.

* Article marketing can help in branding you as an expert on the subject you wrote about. And you being a representation of your enterprise, will in turn help in branding and building a home Internet business.

* Consider crafting a logo during the planning stages in building your business. Visual representations are sometimes easier to remember than written words.

* Build relationships. Relationships would help you achieve a level of credibility and reliability. Additionally, those whom you have befriended would be more than willing to give a good word about you, either in private correspondences with their own network, or publicly by giving you a testimonial for your products or services.

* Provide bonuses and excellent after-sales services. These value added attractions would make your clients feel special, and they would remember you well because of it. Consider this detail in building an online business.

* Publish your own eZine. Having a constant medium through which your thought and your business messages can be conveyed would be a fantastic vehicle in building your brand.

These are but some of the more popular ways of branding, as utilized by veteran Internet marketers. It would serve you well if you’d follow their footsteps and give a good start in building an Internet business that would be remembered for a long, long time.

About the Author: Mal Keenan can show you step-by step how to set up and run a successful online home business. Learn the 7 essential strategies to internet marketing success. To receive your free 7 day mini-course visit: http://www.malkeenan.com For a home business you can believe in, check out: http://www.malkeenan.com/pips.html