A Book About Self-Motivation

��

�

© Ken Lord www.easywaytowrite.com �

robparnell presents:

��

A Book About Self-Motivation

Ken Lord

http://www.easywaytowrite.com

��

�


About the Easy Way to Write

robparnell is founder of the Easy Way to Write, an Internet company dedicated to providing excellent writing resources to writers of any proficiency from beginner to seasoned pro. The Easy Way to Write provides ebooks and e-courses designed to help authors with anything from self-motivation and practical writing solutions to selling their work.

You can sign up to free writing courses here: www.easywaytowrite.com

Other fine Easy Way to Write resources include:

The Easy Way to Write a Novel: www.easywaytowrite.com/novel.html The Easy Way to Write Short Stories: www.easywaytowrite.com/sstories.html

The Easy Way to Write Romance: www.easywaytowrite.com/romance.html

The Easy Way to Write Thrillers: www.easywaytowrite.com/thriller.html

The Easy Way to Write Horror: www.easywaytowrite.com/horrornovel.html

The Easy Way to Self Edit: www.easywaytowrite.com/selfediting.html

The Easy Way to Write Articles: www.easywaytowrite.com/write_articles_for_profit.html

The Art of Spin: www.easywaytowrite.com/Spin.html

How To Be An Internet Guru: www.howtobeaninternetguru.com



http://www.easywaytowrite.com/novel.html

http://www.easywaytowrite.com/sstories.html

http://www.easywaytowrite.com/romance.html

http://www.easywaytowrite.com/thriller.html

http://www.easywaytowrite.com/horrornovel.html

http://www.easywaytowrite.com/selfediting.html

http://www.easywaytowrite.com/write_articles_for_profit.html

http://www.easywaytowrite.com/Spin.html

http://www.howtobeaninternetguru.com

��

�


About Ken Lord

Ken Lord has been involved with AVON since 1992, when he and his wife, Mary, took over an existing AVON dealership.

In the nine years since, this couple has three times taken their business to the Inner Circle, AVON’s top level. Their career was nearly cut short in 1999 when Ken collapsed into a coma. Recovery took a year, but they are back in the business, rebuilding toward success.

Ken’s background includes industrial education, and his passions include the sales training of marketing representatives.

For more information and a chance to learn more about Ken’s key life success

philosophies, go here: www.lulu.com/kenlord


http://www.lulu.com/kenlord

��

�


“Write a book,” he told me.

That wasn’t much of a challenge. I’d been writing for

years. Reference books. Computer manuals. Sales technique manuals.

Newspaper articles. Magazine articles. An attempt or two at fiction.

“What about?”

He looked at me with a grin, and said, “How about a book on

motivation?”

I scoffed. “There must be hundreds of books on motivating

subordinates, organizational and down-line members, children, students,

and the like. What makes you think a book on motivation is needed?”

“Probably a book on motivation isn’t needed,” I was told. “But

I’ll just bet a book on self-motivation could be useful.”

“Isn’t it just about the same thing?” I asked. “Attitude. Planning.

Persistence. Wouldn’t it be something like that?”

“Those things are all a part of self-motivation, to be sure,” he

responded. It was obvious that he thought that something more should

be included.

I paused and thought for a minute.

“What’s going on up there in the noodle?” he asked.

“I think there is far more to be said about self-motivation than just

those things. They are important, to be sure. But lots of people put those

kinds of efforts into their future. There has to be something more –

perhaps the word is passion.

“OK – passion it is.” He moved to leave. By the door he stopped,

turned to me, and added, “And don’t forget to get a catchy title. Books

with catchy titles sell, you know.”


��

�


THE BOOK WITH THE

CATCHY TITLE

by

Ken Lord

So here it is – the book with the catchy title – Actually I chose to give it a different title -- FIRE IN THE BELLY, even though there is another book in the market has that title. The message of both books is passion – but this one is far more of a challenge.

Copyright © 2005 by Kenniston W. Lord, Jr. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the express written consent of the author.


��

�


FIRE IN THE BELLY A Book About Self-Motivation

Table of Contents

Introduction

Preface

Chapter 1 – The Fear of Success

Chapter 2 – Fear and Taking Risks

Chapter 3 – Going Out On A Limb

Chapter 4 – From Ambivalence to Ambition To Action

Chapter 5 – Is A Good Attitude All You Need?

Chapter 6 – Greasing the Wheels

Chapter 7 – Breaking Through The Brick Wall

Chapter 8 – Then What Should I Do?

Epilogue


��

�


PREFACE

What makes a person successful?

Is it, as some would have you to believe, as simple as being born of successful parents? For some it has been. For many, it has not. Sometimes the offspring of successful people are anything but successful in and of themselves. Often successful people are successful precisely because they were not born into success and have seen that for them to be equally successful, they must expend extraordinary efforts.

Is it merely the coincidence of being in the right place at the right time? Certainly there are examples of good fortune, but it is my contention that being in the right place at the right time is every bit a result of intensive study and intensive activity as it is merely a stroke of luck. It has been well established that good fortune comes to those who are prepared for it.

Is it “the luck of the draw,” as some lottery winners would have you to believe? Well, perhaps, but it can be well demonstrated that your odds of hitting the lottery are about the same as being hit by lightning. “You can’t win if you don’t play,” the gaming people would like you to know. That’s true, just as you stand very little chance to be hit by lightning if you stay out of the rain.

Is it strictly “location, location, location,” as the real estate people would tell you? While there is no doubt that a good location enhances the sale of a piece of property, it should be pointed out that real estate people sell property in any location and seldom turn down an opportunity that could bring them a commission, no matter the location.

Should you cross your fingers and hope for the best? You can certainly do that, but if you do, what you will receive will be the best that somebody else is willing to give you – and that may or may not be success. Should you read your horoscope every day, first thing in the morning, and allow it to be the guide as to what you should do each day – from staying home in bed (on the one extreme) to getting out into the world and accomplishing something (on the other)? It may be good for a laugh, but don’t live your life by it.

“Carpe Diem,” said the character played by Robin Williams in the movie, The Dead Poet’s Society. “Seize the day.” Not awaken to it gently. Not take it as is comes. Not accept whatever someone sends you through. Not merely perform at your minimum level. But SIEZE THE DAY! Grab it and shake it with intensity. Attack it with passion – accept nothing but the best. Second best is not “good enough.” Not for you, anyway.

It makes no difference what your focus is. The steps for success in business are no different from the steps for success as a student, as a spouse, as a parent, or for any endeavor you may undertake. It is certainly a maxim that “whatever is worth doing is worth doing well.” It is equally true that if something is not worth doing, you should not even be involved with it.

The selection of a worthy activity is, of course, largely one of choice. And you do, of course, have free will to be ambitious and energetic or to be lazy and unproductive. While we tend to think of productive activities as work, that is not necessarily the case. One does not, however, lie around and watch television productively. It is a contradiction of terms. So for the purposes of this book, let’s make the assumption that a worthy activity is one that pushes some attribute of your life forward. If it is business that is of primary interest, then


��

�


our desire will be to find ways through the list that will be presented in support of your business activities. If your interests are intellectual, then our desire will be to find ways to improve your skills, develop your mind, or provide the satisfaction of accomplishment.

Accomplishment, after all, is a worthy purpose of living. Accomplishment may be the improvement of a relationship. It may provide the improvement to your financial health. It may be an advance of your intellect. It may be an advance in your security. It may be the recognition of your achievements. Whatever your accomplishment turns out to be, it does involve a change from something before to something after. Thus, if it is desired to achieve some altered state, a specific plan of action will be required. The degree to which the change is to take place and the severity of the change itself will determine the schedule and the activities that fall along the timeline. It, and it alone, will consume the degree of passion required by the investment of your efforts.

But at the same time, we should carefully distinguish between the efforts required for things to happen more or less naturally from inception to conclusion and those efforts that, if properly invested, can “push” the accomplishment along. A variation of the previous maxim, then, might be this: “things worth doing well are equally worth doing quickly.” At the very least, some things might be done more quickly when those things are not impeded by outside and less controllable forces. Concrete, for example, is not poured hard. It is poured in liquid form to set and cure. It must be dressed. There are chefs who will claim, “Good food takes time.”

For everything in which a natural delay is attendant, however, there are tasks that can be accelerated significantly, reducing the risk and evoking decisive action that, itself, can bring about accomplishment. “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead,” Admiral Farragut is reputed to have said. “A stitch in time saves nine,” speaks an Aesop’s fable. “Lead, follow, or get out of the way” is just one of many guidelines for leaders. In business, at least, while we recognize that compounding is a slow and steady increase in the worth of an asset, it is the aggressive investment of such assets that will derive the greatest payoff in the briefest possible time.

“Steady as she goes” might be a suitable command for a tugboat captain in tight quarters. But any NASCAR racer will disavow a slow and steady approach to the race – the race belongs to the swift. Thus, in keeping with the title of the book by Jason Jennings and Laurence Haughton, It’s Not The Big That Eat The Small; It’s The Fast That East The Slow.

A case can be made for the premise that going fast promotes some level of error. That may be true. But how important is it, really? With the possible exception of the handling of dynamite, every error is reversible, recoverable, or the action is repeatable. So it will not be the premise of this book that in order to achieve the results of passion it is necessary to tear about willy-nilly, disregarding careful planning and caution of execution.

What is held, however, is the belief that those who are passionate about an activity are literally in a hurry to make the achievement or the conquest that, to them, connotes success. Attacking your mission with passion does not mean that you must jump off the deep end of the pool to see if you can swim. It does not mean that you must put yourself into foolish danger merely to accomplish some goal. Conversely, it does mean that more extensive planning must be completed; more extensive data gathering will be required, more thorough deployment of resources will be necessary, and the activity must be shaped while it is being operated. Deadlines have a way of setting a specific endpoint for any effort, and the role of passion in the enterprise is to make a deadline unnecessary.


��

�


Sooner or later someone is certain to suggest that to employ passion in one’s pursuits, some substantial sacrifice will be required. Let’s not delay acknowledging that. Recognizing that activities consume time and that time is a finite resource, let’s also recognize that the allocation of time to any pursuit will require effort and that the more effort expended in behalf of one aspect of one’s life will, by necessity, mean the diminished effort in behalf of some other aspect. The economist calls this a production possibilities curve. Given finite resources, the allocation of resource to Project A will require the diminishment of resources to Project B, and so on. But now, one must also ask what happens when a one-child family becomes a two-child family, or more. How is the additional child absorbed into the family unit without the neglect of other members? As we have been able to learn from the example of the McCoy septuplets, one must find ways either to increase the resources or reallocate the resources available to accommodate the necessities. More on this subject will be given in the text of the book.

So as we begin to explore those elements of the activity into which you are to expend effort, and as we gain techniques for gathering that fire in the belly, let’s remember that if an activity is worth doing, worth doing well, worth doing as quickly as humanly possible, it is also worth doing thoroughly with a view to achievement.

Enjoy.


��

�


Chapter 1

The Fear of Success

Nobody enters a new area of life without some concern about the outcome of his or her efforts. Yes, we can certainly act cautiously, on the one hand. Or we can act without regard for the consequences on the other. Only a total nincompoop would enter any situation without some idea of the potential outcomes possible and a desire to achieve some specific and desirable end result of the efforts expended. The difference may lie in the nature of “happenings.” It has been said that there are those folks to whom things happen; there are those who make things happen; and there are those who wonder what happened. And it could be that the differences between the first two, at least, lie in our culture.

There are few children who, in their early years, have avoided the label of “ ’fraidy cat!” Whether it is the result of over-protective parents, an instilled restriction on inquisitive behavior, or a natural and innate timidity, the fact remains that some children hear the command of “NO!” so often that they grow to be adults who doubt every decision they are faced with making. I once saw a child who wore a T-Shirt that said, “My name must be No, No.” Doubt leads to indecision, which leads to inaction, loss of potential payoffs, and a degree of unhappiness with the result. Yes, it can be said that caution is its own reward. That may be true – but it is also true that without some element of risk, there will be no payoff whatsoever. The turtle, it has been said, never gets anywhere unless he sticks his neck out.

Uncontrollable Elements There are, of course, a few “happenings” over which we either have no control or at best exercise only limited control. We have, for example, a date with death. Not a lot we can do about it, except to find ways to postpone it as long as humanly possible. Good health, few habits, positive outlooks, and the like make that achievable, to some extent. Despite this we also recognize that we are vulnerable to a myriad of risks every time we venture into the roadways. And living in a cocoon is not a viable selection. People die at home every day of the week. But merely shutting ourselves away is insufficient protection against our other primary nemesis, taxes. Both death and taxes must be confronted. There are no choices other than a cavalier approach to the subjects: “I know you can’t take it with you but I can’t afford to go!”

Many more “happenings” occur over which we have little control. Children leave home and are faced with similar, but yet different, circumstances as their parents. We get older. Try as I might, I’ve not found a way to negate or reverse that. We can mitigate the symbols of aging, but we haven’t found a way to stop the chronograph. Accidents happen – people in the wrong place, at the wrong time, performing the wrong set of tasks. You may – or may not – attribute this to chance, to fate, or to stupidity, but there is no doubt that our lives are affected by them. Tornados, hurricanes, snowstorms, forest fires, mudslides, etc., all affect our lives and while we can take steps to protect ourselves from their effects, there is no doubt but what they alter our lives. Contests, conflicts, wars, poverty, homelessness, illnesses, loss of friends, loss of employment, and other challenges all test our mettle. The


��

�


point of all this is that we generally, in the words of the song, “pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and start all over again.” That same song, by the way, begins thusly: “Nothing’s Impossible, I Have Found.” These are the “happenings” over which we exercise little, if any, control.

Situations That Allow Control There are other situations over which we have some form of control – either of the “happening” itself or of our response to it. Included here is simple decision making. We’re scared of the “what if’s.” Later in the book we’ll spend a little time discussing this fear. Some of us fear public speaking. Novice actors experience stage fright. Some elderly folks fear computers. Some who feel they are not photogenic might not want to appear on television. Face to face meetings paralyze some, and to seek safety, people will often resort to the telephone. Many people fear simply knocking on the door or speaking to a stranger on the street, in a market, or in some non-public location. In order to minimize our risk, some denigrate their persons or their skills in an attempt to avoid loss of face should their efforts fail.

Fear of loneliness is very real to some folks, though the cure for that fear is the simplest of all – get with somebody else. But sometimes, fear of being with somebody also is paralyzing. For those who are “damned if they do” and “damned if they don’t,” there is no substitute for professional assistance.

Imagine the fear an older person engenders when returning to school. There are people who fear driving any further than ten miles from home and avoid any possible roadway that even appears to be busy. Some will go miles out of their way to avoid a school or construction zone.

We know that we can learn to handle many of these situations. We know it. Others have. Why, then, do we fear rejection, vulnerability, success, failure, loss of face, or things over which we do have control? Why then do we erect walls and other defense mechanisms to ensure that we are not touched by these fears? The answer is that the lives of many are controlled by a demon bugaboo. And like the monster under the bed – the one that, as children, we were certain was there – we would rather flee the fear than confront it. Our continual flight from our fears brings on failure – the antithesis of the subject of this chapter, and indeed the message of this book.

Just To See What Happens Next Perhaps the greatest “happening” we encounter is simply change. We are beset by change every day. Some changes we experience are improvements. Some are merely annoying. And some may at least appear to be disastrous, given our resistance to doing things differently in our lives. Change makes its demand upon us for one attribute and one alone: flexibility. The degree of flexibility we are willing or able to exhibit determines the adaptability to the situations thrown at us by life, by circumstances, and even by the situations into which we insert ourselves.

Nothing can be said in this or any other book that will, by any means possible, cause you to confront your fears and overcome them. All I, or any author, can do is to acquaint you with a very important reality – one that you simply cannot escape: the seeds of your fears lie within you – and overcoming them must, by definition, occur by your own conscious action.


��

�


Others can help you to identify your fears – but you know what they are. Others can suggest solutions – but you know for certain what must be done. Others confront those same fears every day. You know them. You know they have dealt with precisely the same issues. And you know they have emerged victorious over them.

So the question then becomes whether or not you will take the steps to deal with the issues and then make the moves, albeit slowly at first, to gain the confidence necessary to win those battles, one by one. These are not battles someone else can win for you. I cannot give you confidence. I can provide encouragement, but nobody but you, yourself, can give you confidence. You gain confidence merely by doing the thing you fear.

What we’re talking about when we discuss a fear of success is actually quite different – we find ways to promote our failure. We have become very skilled at making excuses for not doing something, even that something we will feel is important to do. Page after page has been written about your zones of comfort and how to emerge from the place you now occupy into an adjacent zone of comfort and into subsequent zones of comfort until you “break through.” Gaining that strength, however, requires that you test your skills and where you find you do not have the skills, find a way to obtain them. A lot of what has been written about the subject is psychobabble. But the authors agree on one thing – you can handle any situation you resolve to handle. You would do it in an emergency, and you would do it naturally. What causes you to fail frequently is that you stop to think about it, and when you do that, you proceed to talk yourself out of doing what must be done to overcome the fear.

Let’s establish right now that what President Roosevelt said, back at the start of World War II, is applicable to each and every one of us: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Fear is debilitating only if we allow it to be. We can be – we are – our own worst enemy. If accomplishing the task that we fear requires skills we do not have, then – assuming that we really want to do that task – the trick is to back away a step and find the thing that is the final task in the series, that one thing that must be finished before we do the thing we fear. You are beset with problems daily and you find a way to handle them. And then back up another step and find a way to handle that. And the next; and the next.

When you confront that fear a second time – or even a similar fear – because you confronted and conquered it the first time, you have the tools to do so again. Experience, it is said, is that attribute one has when he has solved a problem once, has exercised the tools to solve it again and again until there is such a degree of confidence inherent in his action that the problem literally disappears. Now the question must be this: if you are able to prove to yourself that you can handle a situation that has been given to you, what is there to fear? That may seem, on its face, to be obvious. If it does, consider a second question: If you have handled the situation once, why is it necessary to fear handling it a second time? Perhaps the answer is that you simply never took the time to recognize and reward your problem-solving capabilities.

See? The problem is that you don’t trust yourself. You don’t trust your ability to size up a problem and resolve it. You don’t trust yourself to be able to demonstrate to someone important to you – you, yourself – that it is not necessary to depend upon somebody else. And if you are unwilling to do that, you are announcing to the world that you must be dependant upon something or somebody else. Is that what you wish? I don’t think so.


��

�


Removing All Fear Aha! Now he’s going to tell me how to “get over it.” You might think that. And you might be disappointed. You never will get over it. It never goes away. It will always be there. All that will occur is that your comfort in handling it will increase with every similar experience. That means that the fear diminishes progressively.

How do you increase your trust in yourself? By building confidence. You build confidence by gaining the skill you need and performing it. You gain it by proving to yourself each and every time out of the chute that you – you alone – are who is needed to resolve this situation. Repetition. Repetition. Do it again and again until your reaction is automatic. Until you no longer have to think it through to do it. Until you deny yourself the opportunity to talk yourself out of doing that which you fear.

That’s well and good, you might think. But if you fear doing it once, might you never get started? That’s right. I can’t tell you how to keep from being paralyzed by fear. It happens. However, every time you put yourself into a no withdrawal situation, you present yourself with a problem that absolutely requires solution and further requires that you, yourself, provide the solution.

The sudden loss of a loved one, for example, puts you into that position, particularly if you have relied upon that person to perform certain services for you. You may have set it up for that person to do for you everything that has caused you some discomfort. You may even have allowed someone else to do things for you simply because it was the “easy way out.” Now, with the loss of that person and the services performed by that person, if some of those tasks must be performed, guess who will have to perform them: you. Every woman who loses a husband to death or divorce must take on the task of getting the car fixed, the snow shoveled, the taxes calculated, and what not, when the spouse is no longer a part of the picture. Every man not accustomed to preparing his food, maintaining his clothes, or cleaning his surroundings faces precisely the same set of challenges. But that’s all they are! Challenges! Tasks that we understand in concept and have not comfortably performed. Now, when it is necessary to do so, somehow we summon the inner strength to either find a way to do those tasks ourselves or to arrange for other people with suitable skills to assist us.

So our fear of success really backs up into a perceived fear of failure. And often times we see failure as an option merely because we wouldn’t really know how to act had we undertaken the risk, performed the task, and succeeded. A very old joke tells of the dog that chases cars and the owner who alleges that the dog wouldn’t know what to do if he caught one.

That becomes the question, doesn’t it? If I find I can force myself to stand up before a group and make a presentation, I might get good at it and somebody will ask me to do it. Heavens! We can’t have that. I don’t like to get up and talk. There’s a curious development here, however. Your second presentation is always better than the first; number three is better than the second; and so on. And somewhere in the process we begin to forget that we were nervous; that somebody might criticize us; and that nobody might have any interest in what we have to say. When that happens, what is the outcome? People want to hear us. Groups make contact to have us address meetings. And the very thing we feared – success – has come true.

Talking before a group is but one example. You can apply the concept to any fear you encounter. Scared to drive? Drive! Do it on the back roads and not on the interstate


��

�


highway, at least at the beginning. Scared to swim? Get into the water. Go to the shallow end at first. Feel helpless? Resolve to overcome that helplessness. You can do it. Thousands have. You can, too. Someone else has already experienced every fear you experience. Get used to it. You will not be allowed to invent any new fears.

Everybody Is In The Same Boat Despite what you may feel, the boat isn’t sinking. Look around. You may discover that everybody you know is dealing with one insecurity or another – perhaps even the same bugaboo that is giving you trouble. Nobody I know was ever born supremely comfortable. Neither were they born outstandingly competent. Do I know every facet of everything I do? No. I’ve more often than once have said, “I’ll hum a few bars and fake it.” Yes, there are tasks that require precision and correctness each and every time they are performed. But I like a quote from Theodore Roosevelt: “When you’re asked if you know how to do something, answer ‘yes,’ and then get busy to find out how it’s done.” In short, you know something. And you can do something. So get busy doing the something that you know how to do and go digging for the information, training, and skills for the things you have yet to learn.

Fear is nothing more than a test. It’s a test to prove what you know and can do. It’s a test to see if you have what it takes to do something new. It is nothing more than the unknown. It is something that, if you are to be successful, you must do anyway. So you might just as well get about it. You conquer fear by throwing away the crutch – be that another person, avoidance of the task, or your unwillingness to begin. If we can accept the fact that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, can we not also accept the premise that in anything we attempt to do we should be willing to accept whatever performance we can produce, confident that the performance will improve over time? Perfection is unattainable. Striving for it should be our desire.

Henry David Thoreau made the statement that “most men live lives of quiet desperation.” Women’s lib wasn’t around in those days, so we’ll apply it to women, as well. Why is it quiet? Some people will rationalize that if they never take a risk they will never be embarrassed by their inabilities to perform. My mother used to say, “It’s better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” I cannot accept that philosophy. Had I been willing to accept it, every waking thought would have become a predilection to safety. Harbors may be safe places for ships, but ships are built to attack the open ocean. Home and few risks may be a safe place for the person with a fear or his own shadow, but it becomes a life of quiet desperation.

Quiet desperation will eventually lead to helplessness. Nothing you do will ever be satisfying to you. Nothing. Depression will become your constant companion. The deeper you sink into that the less possible your climbing out of the hole will seem, and therefore will become. I’m reminded of a popular song of a number of years ago: “I’ve got nothin’ to do and nowhere to go; nobody loves me, I’m feeling so low. Nobody cares if I live or I die. Nobody hears if I laugh or I cry. Sometimes it feels like my heart will just break. I’m only human – how much can I take?”


��

�


So Put Yourself In Charge The fear will never go away. Never. But you can file it under “insignificant” if you will only get out and do it – and keep doing it until you have demonstrated to everybody – and perhaps even fooled yourself – that the task is a “piece of cake.” Adopt a mantra. Repeat after me: “The only way to conquer a fear is to go out and do the thing I fear.”

Screw up your courage. Purse your lips. Resolve to take a strong hand in the outcomes of your life. Exercise your determination to do this task, at this moment, on this day. Whatever that task is – do it to the best of your ability and feel the victory that can be yours when you do it. Resolve not to be defeated. Recognize that not all others would wish you success, so you need to wish it for yourself – and to do the work that will deliver that success for you.

Conquering fear does something else for you. Think of the times when you have had an adrenaline rush. That’s what success brings! An adrenaline rush! A feeling of excitement! The task had to be done. You were the only one present who could do it. You did it – not perfectly – but you did it. Next time will be better. Next time will be easier. Next time you’ll show somebody else how to do it. Don’t overlook that concept, by the way. You will never learn a task so thoroughly as when you have taught it to somebody else.

Seek The Time And Place To Do It It’s a simple truth that if you must do something, you will do it. Period. When the boss tells you to share the marketing statistics at the staff meeting, you will check your figures on the tablet before you, commit what you see to your temporary memory, and then share the information with the group. In a matter of seconds you will have passed from “I can’t do that” to doing it, and ultimately receiving an accolade for having done it. “Great job!” If you are asked to stand and share the information, now you have two things to worry about – what you must share and how you will look when you do share it. Which one is more important? You won’t know, so you’ll forget about them both and just do the job. That’s what it’s about. Just doing the job. And you get better when you do the job over and over. And you will get better quicker when you seek out times and places to do it.

Doctors who perform procedures learn and get better as they do them. Teachers gain familiarity with subject matter by doing research and sharing what they have learned. Sales people learn a patter and employ it time after time until it becomes a part of their consciousness. Piano players practice. Even professional athletes practice.

You’ve heard it since you were a kid. Practice makes perfect. Well, maybe not perfection. But close enough. You know one thing for sure. You will know more than your audience. You will perform better than the person who has never done the task. Because you can demonstrate what must be done and do it yourself, you have become the expert in that task.

Formalize Your Experience Think about the people whom you consider to be successful. What makes them different from you? Is it possible that they once were in the place where you now are? Did they drop from the sky fully proficient and polished from the “get-go?”

Or could it be that they wrote a report? Or made a presentation? Or taught a class? Or wrote a press release? Or shared an insight? The fact of the matter is that good press increases confidence, which in turn leads to increased competence. Were they afraid? You


��

�


bet. But if somebody else is doing it – and at some point they were also afraid – you can, as well. Perhaps fear isn’t the insurmountable obstacle you think it is. Perhaps, once having tasted any success, you merely find a way to formalize and capitalize on it.

What would you do if you were successful? Really. Sit down and make a list. Is there a trip you wish to take, but secretly know you will never be able to take it? Why? Why do you doubt your abilities? Is there a possession that is important to you, but you doubt it would ever be obtainable? Why? Could it be that it isn’t all that important to you after all? Are your goals and objectives merely statements for show and tell? What is your commitment to them? What is your plan for them? Can you state with any certainty when you will complete them? Or are they merely empty wishes? Wishes of substance require determined and decisive action. Action requires that you push yourself front and center and force yourself to do the thing that scares you to the point of terror.

And what about all those who watch you? Will they care that you succeed? Or will they help you to feed your own anxieties? Will you allow them to take credit for the work you have done, or do you, in fact, have what it takes to demand recognition for your own accomplishments? What is success to you, anyway? Is it merely another step in the journey, or is it an end point of satisfaction? Will others be content to climb to the top of the heap by standing on your shoulders? Will you be content to allow them to do that to the exclusion of your own efforts?

A fear of success may be merely a way to excuse your behavior as observed by yourself. You may be able to forget yourself. You may be able to get so busy that you can avoid confronting the thing you fear. You may be willing to let the other guy do all the work and get all the glory, confident that somebody, someday, will recognize you for your ability to be a competent doormat. The problem with that is you must live with yourself.

And that is the toughest test of all.


��

�


Chapter 2

Fear And Taking Risks

Life, it is said, is a crapshoot. You determine the odds, select your strategy, and then take what comes. That may be true if you are content to drift with the tide. People who drift with the tide are those who have lives of quiet desperation.

People with ambition do not drift with the tide, however. They swim upstream against the current. Yes, they assess the odds. Yes, they plan a strategy. But they do one thing more – they manipulate both the odds and strategy so the available desirable outcomes are achieved. They take a firm hand in the circumstances surrounding their lives and they make things happen.

If your life is ever to be better than it is, you’ll have to take some risk. You’ll have to do something you’ve never done before. You’ll have to “take a chance” – on something or someone. You’ll have to gamble – something reasonable – with a view for making the change you desire.

What limits you? What limits your opportunity? What limits your capabilities? What limits your resources? What limits the outcomes of any of your endeavors? Could it be that the question isn’t what but is instead who? Because only prisons limit things. And only you limit you. You are the one who holds the keys to your success. Only you.

The family into which you were born may provide cultural boxes for you, but it is you who must escape those constraints. The economic picture may restrict your apparent opportunities, but it is you who must surmount them. To do that, it will be necessary to identify your risks and find a way to overcome them, for it is only by doing this that you will grow. I’ve made the assumption that growth, bettering your lot in life and improving your standard of living, are desirable outcomes of your efforts.

Immobilizing Fear It’s amazing how little we understand the concept of taking risks. Often it happens that we fear a change because it literally upsets an orderly pattern that has become familiar. Take, for example, the situation in which a person who has been paid weekly is suddenly promoted to management and now is paid monthly or semi-monthly. Or the systems analyst (me) who gave up a semi-monthly paycheck to write and receive payments quarterly, depending on the sale of books and articles. There are people who are willing to work for a dependable forty hours of minimum wage rather than put forth the efforts to better themselves in a situation that upsets the stability of the financial applecart.

Understand this: if life is to improve – if life is to deliver upon the promises of your ambitions – it is necessary to take some risks. It is the unwillingness to take a risk that paralyzes your willingness to do anything. People want a sure thing – what used to be called “a lead pipe cinch.” I hear it all the time: “I won’t join until I find out if people will buy from me.” The problem with sure things – they present absolutely no challenge. They may provide some assurance of minimal success, but they provide no growth. To risk is to


��

�


exceed the limits of the goals you set, and do that absolutely requires that you deal with uncertainty.

So much of life is full of the ordinary. So many people are accustomed to the ordinary. To them, the ordinary is “good enough.” But if we are to achieve outstanding success, then it is the extraordinary that must drive us. The person who begins so cautiously and then retreats at the first sign of difficulty or opposition condemns himself to failure, at the worst, and ordinariness at the best. I hear it all the time: “I work a job; I don’t have time to do this.” Or, “I have two kids; there is no way I can fit this into my schedule.” Or, “I work all day, I can’t do what you ask in the evening or on my day off.” The problem is that somewhere, someone works a job and has kids, and has a spouse, and has a myriad of other activities – sports, church, other businesses, or whatnot, and they still find a way to do the activities that will promote their growth. If they can do it, so can you. It’s a simple truth that we make room for the things that are important to us.

There are successful risk-taking and unsuccessful risk-taking. Nobody is even suggesting that you bet the nest egg on every scheme that comes along. Nobody suggests that you work so many hours you turn up ill. Nobody suggests that you turn your life or your business career into a unique presentation of Fear Factor. But if you are to take any risk at all, you need to assess what lies before you so you can chart a course through all the trouble spots that you can foresee, that can be detected, that must be dealt with, and that may be avoided so the end result is the most positive experience that can be obtained under the circumstances.

A part of the situation that often confronts us is that occasionally we may be doing everything right, but it seems that everything is coming out all wrong. And we begin to doubt our decisions, get “cold feet,” and withdraw. The feelings of failure engendered by what we think might occur are often more intense than the feelings obtained by seeing something through to its obvious conclusion – when, in fact, we might have succeeded. I like this little quote:

On the plains of hesitation Lie the bones of those who, Victory within their grasp, Paused to rest.

So the withdrawal, because we were not certain, becomes defeat in fact, if for no other reason than we never saw the situation through. Hesitancy comes naturally. We’ve had it drummed into our heads for years: “Haste makes waste.”

I’m reminded of the story of a young man who was criticized for randomly kissing attractive females of his interest. Asked why he did that, his response was that once in awhile one of them kisses back. Did you ever see the commercial where the character from the Jack-In-The-Box hamburger chain interviews a young man who identifies the fact that he taste-tests hamburgers for only $25,000. Asked if that isn’t an exorbitant fee for such a service, the young man responds that he needs to do only one. It is the spaghetti theory – throw enough spaghetti at the wall, and some of it is certain to stick.


��

�


Taking Risks Is A Learned Exercise It would be useful to define just what a risk is. In purely mathematical terms, a risk involves estimating the potential outcome based on some probability of success. The simplest way to think about probability is to estimate the number of times in one hundred trials a successful outcome will be achieved. This provides the percentage of success. Thus, if 60 times out of 100 times of doing something there is a successful outcome, your probability will be 60/100, 60%, or more simply, 6 in 10.

The payoff from that success, however, is likely to be different with each successful occurrence. If you invested a dollar under one set of circumstances, and the test was successful, then your return might be $1.50. Under another set of circumstances, it might be $2.00. Nobody but you can say for certain, because of the risk involved – and the aggressiveness with which you may invest your money. An investment of $1 with a 60% chance of a payoff might return $1.10. Be cautious as you read that, as what has been demonstrated is merely a 60% surety of occurrence where there is a positive payoff, in this case 10%. An investment of $100,000 with the same chance of a payoff could possibly return a much larger return. So the whole concept of risk boils down to measuring the certainty of a positive outcome and estimating the economic payback for the investment.

That is the risk of your assets – and in business, that’s pretty much the way it is. Money invested in business must ultimately produce a positive cash flow return; else you’ll not be able to stay in business very long. Emotional risk is something else again. There is an investment in time, in caring, and in interest between to persons. There may or may not be an economic investment. But the return, the consideration of worth of the investment, may follow much the same outcome. A teenager, wrestling with thoughts of “Will he like me if I do this?” or “Will she hate me if I say that?” may know precisely the emotional drain of an unsuccessful outcome of the experiment, and the passage of reward from one to the other may well depend on the degree of investment desired every bit as much as the degree of investment that is being made.

There is outstanding success awaiting you – once you seek it. Even the Bible says that you have not because you don’t ask. There is much that you don’t have simply because you have not been willing to attempt it. Stop for a minute and think about where you are relative to where you thought you might be when you were in high school. I’m coming up on my 50th high school reunion, and I’m very conscious that I made certain decisions at that time of my life that control the direction and the extent to which my life moved. To be true, it moved slightly differently than I had anticipated, but for the most part, I’ve pretty much accomplished not only what I set out to accomplish, I’ve done far more than I might have otherwise, for one reason only – I set my goals high and I gave what was required to see them done. When the situation changed, I changed with it. Opportunity knocked, and I made certain that it was I, and not somebody else, who answered it. When you have a goal worthy of pursuit, your life has a purpose, and the actions you take in support of those goals fit like the random pieces of a picture puzzle.

How do you learn to take risks? By studying the risks and learning from others who have taken similar risks. By inching forward into the risk, cautiously at first, evaluating the intermediate outcomes. By being willing to determine the hazards that may be encountered and either planning to avoid them or seeking to bypass them. But there is a greater concern here – you cannot take a risk if you are unwilling to take a risk. So the first step may be


��

�


simply to steel your mind to the point that a risk is no more “scary” than breathing. In fact, it could be that taking no risk, taking only the “safe” route, is the greatest risk of all.

Take a little time and examine the risks you do take. You rise every day, even though you might have partied too late the night before and ought to stay in bed for another hour. You do it because you must. You don’t evaluate it because you recognize that there may be a greater risk: difficulties to be encountered in traffic; critical decisions that might be made by others in your absence; or even the simple fact that you might not be paid for the hours that you sleep in. So you do it – when you must.

Eating is another risk. You know what it means to your health to eat a good breakfast, to avoid foods that make you ill, or to avoid skimping by eating bagels and cream cheese day after day. But look at your life. You don’t go out with a weapon and kill your food. You rely on others to do that for you. You don’t test your own meals for chemicals or bacteria. You rely on the system to protect you. In many ways, we have legislated certain risks out of our lives.

Statistically, you enter the world of risks when you step into your automobile or onto some other form of conveyance. Does such risk keep you from doing it? No. Why? Could it be because you must travel from Point A to Point B and there simply is no alternative? That is what is meant by a situation from which you cannot – or will not – withdraw. Could it be because you have done it so many times you are now accustomed to it? Yes, of course. You have developed competence by repetition. Could it mean that despite the statistics, you are willing to accept the risk? Believe it or not, that may be the greatest reason. It had to be done. You know how to do it. The risk is something you have accepted. That’s a pretty simple formula to follow. You’ve done it for years. Risk, then, is something that exists but can be negotiated.

Risk is also something that can be manipulated. Perhaps you drive across town a half-hour earlier to minimize your exposure to rush-hour traffic. Perhaps you do your driving in the daylight to minimize your exposure to darkness. Perhaps you do your driving in darkness to minimize the glare of the sun. Perhaps you take a defensive driving course to prepare you for all those folks who have not. Perhaps you invest in a vehicle of substantial size and weight as to offer you additional protection. On the one hand, you have mitigated any potential risk. On the other hand, you have enlisted risk as an ally. It’s now all those other, unprepared, people who need to worry.

The No Growth Gamble It’s a simple fact – without the acceptance of some kind of risk, there will be no growth in your life. “Growth,” as it is used here, has nothing to do with size or with chronology. Instead we should take it to mean some form of improvement in our lives – physically, emotionally, or intellectually.

As we grow chronologically, our perspectives change. Things that once were believable to us fall by the wayside as maturity replaces youth. The same is true with risk-taking. With advancing maturity we are generally willing to experiment more, measuring our successes as we proceed. As the number of positive-outcome experiments increases, we are then willing to expand both the investment in the experience and the degree of risk that we are willing to take. Life may not be a crapshoot, but it is definitely a gamble – that we will lose


��

�


money or other possessions, that we will find personal and emotional outcomes that are not satisfactory to us. At the extreme, of course, is loss – financial, relational, personal, etc.

As we grow intellectually, we often find that long-held beliefs fall by the wayside. Some of those beliefs are religious, familial, financial, and personal. Theoretically, new beliefs are adopted or old beliefs are modified to reflect changes in our lives. Having been given the opportunity to evaluate what has worked and what has not worked in our lives, we select our future paths based on the convictions that have become ingrained in our personae.

And now we have arrived at what should be the question of the moment: What is your conviction? What is the one thing that makes taking any risk worthwhile? There is no specific technique for risk taking, and even if there were, technique alone will not satisfy the anxiety you may feel when confronted by a risk. It is true that there are some things you must consider. But it is your conviction – your commitment to make some change, some improvement – that makes you eligible to take a risk. Nobody who is satisfied with the way things exist is eligible to take a risk. If no risk is taken, however, no growth is possible. It is possible to change, but change, by definition, is not growth. Thus by not taking a risk, you are in fact taking a risk – a risk over which you have absolutely no control. It seems unwise to take a no growth gamble.

But Can’t I Lose If I Take A Gamble? In the same manner as taking an action with a known risk can produce a payoff, it can also produce a loss. Ask the folks who used to make buggy whips and vinyl records. Soon you’ll be able to ask the folks who make cassette tapes and diskettes. It’s a fact of life that things change – and hopefully improve. People who make a financial investment in things that are passé, at the point where they become passé, often stand to lose great sums. Given the passage of time and the scarcity of the resource, many of those same things appreciate significantly. Thus Louis XIV furniture and 1957 Chevrolets are worth more today than at the time of their manufacture.

No business risk should be taken where the person taking the risk cannot afford to accept a loss. It makes no sense to go into hock to take a risk where some insight into the potential payoff is not available. I might, for example, like to get into the airline business, but I have insufficient credit and absolutely no experience that would justify investment in a million dollar aircraft. The bank would be well justified in telling me that mine was a pipe dream. The obverse is just as true. If I’m interested to start a business that has already attracted thousands of people who have operated it successfully, where the initial investment is minimal, and where there are sufficient assists to help me to be successful, then it would behoove me to make an attempt to make it work.

Making It Work Is What It Takes There is a world of difference between “making it work” and simply operating it – whatever “it” is. Making it work implies that we will do anything within our power to achieve a successful outcome. If the false security of the “usual” is sufficient, there will be no growth, either personally or in a business venture. If we hold fast to something comfortable and never venture into the unknown, growth will never happen and the only change in our lives will be the change that is forced upon us. For everybody who is unwilling to change, there are one or more who are not only willing to change but also to


��

�


impose that change upon him or her. Making it work, then, is your opportunity to pull even (at the very least) or to pull ahead (at best).

Making it work requires investment – of time, finances, and devotion. It is something you must do, not merely something that happens despite your efforts. You can choose to do nothing, of course, but if you do nothing, thinking yourself to be secure, you may well find that you have believed merely in false security. To verify that, merely think about the employment situations which at one time in your life you considered to be stable and firm, only to discover that you have merely sold your soul “to the company store.” Yes, indeed, doing what it takes may mean putting up the extra necessary resources to make it happen. But doing what it takes is not a brute force effort. It could just as well be dropping something that proved to be unfruitful and selecting another approach.

X Steps Ahead; Y Steps Backward We would like for every action we take to provide forward motion. We’d like it, but it’s doubtful that it will ever happen. The simple fact is that for every risk we take, there is some loss. Because we choose to take action A, we may be unable to take action B, thereby suffering the loss of potential positive outcome from action B. Sometimes the decision is an easy one – the two strategies are mutually exclusive. You couldn’t do one and simultaneously do the other – for financial, legal, ethical, temporal, or even convenience reasons.

But vague fears may be inhibiting, as well. If, indeed, something could be lost, then because of undefined fears, the mere existence of the possibility of loss impedes the decision-making that would be necessary to make the move. You become frozen to immobility, and what may otherwise be a golden opportunity for you gets bypassed. Nothing ventured; nothing gained. Nothing ventured; something lost.

Despite the fears – vague, real, unfounded, or even potentially cautioned, every once in awhile you’ll paint yourself into a corner where a decision – some decision – any decision – becomes necessary. Nature, it is said, abhors a vacuum. When this occurs, the risk has been taken for you and you are faced with accepting the outcome, irrespective of whether it was what you wished.

Risks are intensely personal. But it is only in the taking of the risks and receiving the payoffs does one gain the personal security necessary to risk a second time or to broaden the scope of the risk. It’s further interesting that we are often willing to take repetitive risks where there is a demonstrable lack of potential, rather than to take the few risks where it is known that there is a payoff, irrespective of size. That risk is known as the lottery, where we are willing to take a risk whose chance of a win is something akin to being hit by lightning on the off chance that we’ll hit some gigantic sum of money. And every year, people who can afford to take very little risk pour thousands of dollars down the drain when that same amount of money could establish for them something whose potential outcome is not only known but also possible. Yes, I know that lottery commissions all over will impart the message that if you don’t play you cannot win – the same with Indian gaming. But have you ever noticed how the jackpot winner is feted on page one of the local paper, while the announcement of the meeting of Gamblers Anonymous appears on page 32, Section C?

There are, of course, risks of hazard. To some, hang gliding is a risk whose payoff is insufficient to justify the activity. Yet others are willing to accept the risk for the thrill of the


��

�


payoff. The same can be said of motorcycle jumping or bull riding where there is a distinct possibility of bodily injury. Why does anybody do something where the risk is so inherently obvious? The reasons will vary from what ABC TV used to call “the thrill of victory” to “the agony of defeat.” Be it slalom skiing or weight lifting, people will do things because they can and because the financial, emotional, physical, or promotional reward is sufficient to justify, if only in their own eyes, the risk and the effort. For most of us, risks of hazard need not exist.

The Timing of Risk Wouldn’t it have been nice to be in a position to purchase Microsoft or Intel in 1977? If you had, you might have become one of the west coast millionaires whose main task now is either keeping what was gained or finding productive ways to give it away. Conversely, those who invested heavily in what became known as “dot com” companies effectively lost their fortunes. What was the difference? Timing. Number of participants. The value of the wagers. The knowledge – or lack of it – carried into the transaction. And while it is true that those with the most marbles stand to gain the most, it is equally true that they have the most to lose. Ask Ted Turner.

Should you take a risk now? Today? That depends. Will your life be substantially improved if your action taken against that risk produces a significant return? If it doesn’t pan out, will your life be seriously affected? What growth is available, should your “ship come in?” How far back will you be set should this not be the week for it to do so? In the simplest of terms, if the potential gains outweigh the potential costs, the risk should be considered. This supposes, however, that you have thoroughly investigated every potential cost, timing, observation, and outcome. It supposes that you have done your homework – talked with others who have done the same or similar things at sufficient length to determine the problems they have met and overcome, and the outcomes for every foreseeable scenario.

It would also be useful to review your own history. What risks have you taken in the past and what have been the outcomes from those risks? If you can recognize that all of us – you and me – are the product of risks previously taken, then if you have a history of having taken good and productive risks and the outcomes have been satisfactory, then it stands to reason that you have a worthy “batting average” that will sustain your attempts at future risks. If your average is not to your liking, then it might behoove you to examine closely those decisions whose outcome you would prefer to forget.

Pretend To Care Successful risking often involves a bit of bravado. Once you have gathered and evaluated all the data available, you must screw up your courage and go out on a limb. You must put yourself on the line. You must at the very least pretend to care. Ultimately, if you are to be successful, you must care very much – enough to keep your shoulder to the wheel and your nose to the grindstone, to use a couple figures of speech. The reason for pretending to care in the first place is that it allows you to avoid making excuses for inaction. Once you have begun to tell yourself that you really do care about the outcome of your decisions, there will be a steady increase in your confidence about the situation, culminating in your active belief – and active belief is the first step in perseverance.


��

�


It’s pretty difficult to take any risk or derive any productive output if you aren’t convinced you are interested in the work and the outcome. The laissez-faire approach to life really isn’t very satisfying. More satisfaction is to be derived from setting a goal, taking the steps to make it, and slaying the giant. That giant gets smaller and smaller with each success you achieve. The danger in pretending is that it can remain pretense, and become an excuse for failure – “I knew it wouldn’t work.” Monday morning quarterbacks abound. We don’t have to do it to ourselves. It is strictly up to us to determine what must be done, the degree to which it should be done, and with the actions that must be carried out. Not a lot of point to second-guess ourselves.


��

�


Chapter 3

Going Out On A Limb

“ ‘Impossible’ is a word found only in the dictionary of fools,” said Napoleon. “Nothing’s impossible, I have found,” goes an old show tune. So long as you adopt that attitude, you have no choice but to be successful. Out at the end of the limb is where the fruit is located. Let’s look a bit at the decision process that will take you out there to successfully get that fruit.

When it comes to making decisions about our future there is nobody less objective than we. Less. Not more. It’s not that we cannot evaluate our risks objectively. We can. It’s not that we can’t see what’s involved. We can. But we often become so wrapped up in the novelty and excitement of a new idea that we fail to stop and evaluate what lies before us. It’s simply more fun and exciting to push ahead, often without the facts before us.

Abraham Maslow said that we operate in our own economic best interests. That’s certainly true – but going out on a limb leaves for us the dilemma that we must evaluate our risks before pressing ahead into what is essentially an unknown. To assist in making that evaluation, perhaps these thoughts would be useful:

The necessity for the risk What makes this opportunity worth pursuing at this time?

Does this answer a need or merely the satisfaction of a want?

Does pursuit of this opportunity support the goals you set?

Is the potential gain greater than the potential loss?

Have you gained sufficient knowledge to make the risk?

Have you tested the demand for your pursuit of the risk?

Are you unique or will there be competition?

If you take this risk, what other opportunity must you forgo?

If you fail to take the opportunity, will someone else?

Can you accomplish the opportunity some other way?

The timing of the risk What about this opportunity requires a decision now?

Is this a good time to act? If so, why? If not, why not?

If delayed, will the opportunity evaporate?

How does the timing fit with your resources?

What factors “force” your hand?

What will be lost if you do not take the risk now?


��

�


Will there ever be a better time? How do you know?

Support for the action Who wishes for you to succeed, and why?

Does anyone pressure you to make the move? Why?

Who wishes for you to fail, and why?

Is there a motive for success because of these people?

Do you have financial or emotional supports?

What will it cost for others’ participation in your action?

What’s in it for them? What’s in it for you?

Will it be necessary to share or abdicate?

Does a potential associate share your vision?

Will he (or she) give to it as you will give to it?

Do your definitions of success align closely?

If not, what then will you do when commitment flags?

When others look at you Is it important to you that you succeed?

How much success is enough success?

Would someone else’s discouragement kill your ambition?

Would you take action in the face of discouragement?

Do you worry about others’ concerns about your actions?

If you are successful, what then? What’s next?

How much challenge is enough challenge?

What about you, yourself?

Have you “talked yourself into” a given course of action?

How often do you believe yourself?

Have you set conditions to meet before making a decision?

Can you itemize your fears?

Can you answer or counteract each and every fear?

If you do not take this risk, what will you do instead?

If you do not see it through, will you have a sense of loss?

Are you prepared to take this risk? Financially? Emotionally?

What knowledge will you need? Can you get it quickly?

Must other things happen for you to make your decision?


��

�


Can you forecast the point of difficulty?

If so, have you contingency plans to be used?

Have you sufficient resources to overcome them?

Is there any situation that would arrest your success?

Planning for life after you make the decision Have you selected a point of no return?

If you abort before your point of no return, what will you do?

If you pass that point, are you committed to completion?

How will you evaluate the success of your decisions?

How will you determine if the help you got was suitable?

Can you change focus during the trip to your goal?

What would be the “sunk cost” should you decide to abort?

What will it do to you personally should you decide to abort?

What about the relationships you have built along the way?

Will you know when you have become successful?

Will you have a plan of attack for the next growth spurt?

Will completion of this risk create any further risks?

Can those risks be foreseen during this time?

Can you formalize the risk-taking process; remove the pressure?

Taking Responsibility For Your Risks The reluctance of folks to take risks can often be traced to childhood, when strong parental influences protect a child from overt dangers, and therefore the taking of risks. Because the child is not permitted to take even measured risks, the mechanisms for evaluating and taking those risks often is nonexistent. It has not been developed. The child has become accustomed for the parent figure to protect him from danger and to take the brunt of any critical situation. The taking of risks, then, is an adult activity – and taking responsibility for those risks becomes inherently a singular, self-oriented activity that absolutely requires the adult to accept not only the conditions of risk but also the mechanisms for handling it.

Accepting responsibility for your own risks is not only a wise move; it is an absolute necessity. Risks imposed upon the adult are often not avoidable and therefore demand handling. Elective risks may be avoided, but we all know what that means – no growth, no improvement in standard of living, and no personal satisfaction of accomplishment. As one person who responded to the last chapter indicated to me, “If I don’t take the risk and do this [thing] I will always wonder if I could have done it.” She has, therefore, accepted and invoked the risk, and her efforts forthwith will be concentrated upon doing what must be done to make her dream come true. Success is a happening just waiting for your support.

If you do not take charge of your dream … if you do not take responsibility for adjudging and executing the risk … if you then do not do what it takes to realize the fulfillment of your


��

�


aspirations, who will? Who will do it for you? If somebody else does anything to contribute to your success, what will be your sense of accomplishment? If you expect for somebody else to do it for you, what have you shouted to the world? Have you not announced that you are incapable of taking charge of your own life and directing your actions towards a rewarding goal? Get used to it: nobody, but nobody, is going to take the risk for you and then stand by to see you receive the rewards. Parents may do it for their children. Adults will not do it for other adults. It will not happen.

Taking responsibility for your own dreams, for your own risks, for your own work, and for the results of your own efforts allows you the privilege of accepting the rewards of your efforts and any accolades that may accompany them. There is a risk in not taking the responsibility: the accomplishment of your dreams denotes the success of your life. Refuse to take the risks and you deny yourself the successes of your life. It’s not a very comfortable way to live.

But taking responsibility gives you something else: a position of jeopardy. Because what you are about to do is a risk, there is the possibility that the risk will not pay off. You are now in a position of jeopardy. If you don’t do something, and soon, you stand to lose whatever you have invested in the risk. You must now marshal your resources to see that the risk does pay off. Only you can make it happen. Only you.

Passion Sparks Your Fuse Once you have taken responsibility for your risks, you come face up against the fact that part of that responsibility requires you to do something – in fact, many things – to make it happen. If I had to offer a single phrase of advice, it would be this: whip your passion into frenzy, because it is your faith in yourself that will make your dream come true. Passion sparks the fuse that begins the chain reaction to that series of explosions known as success.

Just how do you get that passion? Here are a few proven ways to not only get it, but to add fuel to that fire in your belly:

• Somebody else has done it or something similar. Why not you? Can you do better than someone else has done? You must find out.

• It is the fulfillment of a long-standing dream that depends solely upon you.

• Somebody said that you couldn’t possibly do whatever it is that you would like to do.

• Somebody challenged you to do some specific thing and there is no way you will give that person room to be critical.

• You refuse to tell yourself that what you wish to do just can’t be done. You know it can… and it will.

Causing The Juices To Flow

It would be nice if I could go to my local Walgreens Pharmacy and purchase a bottle of Passion Pills. The fire in the belly comes not from thinking about motivating yourself but from actually doing it. There is nothing you can hear; nothing you can read; nothing that someone else can do, nothing that you can dream about that will place in your gut the passion to pursue your dream. Nor can any of that cause you to pursue your activity to the point where it consumes your being. Does that mean you either have it or you don't? Not on


��

�


your life! You can develop that fire in the belly to do what needs to be done if you'll only adopt a few attitudinal concepts.

• Try this one: excellence is not optional. "Be all you can be," says the Army slogan. Just how does one become excellent? What is excellence? It starts with knowledge. It continues with presentation. It finishes with satisfaction. If you expect excellence from yourself and from others you will be certain to provide it. This means you must be absolutely serious about your endeavor. The Army attracts people for the process, whereas the Marine Corps attracts them for the excellence: "We're looking for a few good men," goes the theme. The message clearly states that with excellence you can start at the top.

• Here's another: excellence knows no time clock. Just how many hours per week are you willing to give to your dream? If your dream is merely a hobby, it may be few. If you perceive your dream to be your means of support -- or if you consider it to be your launch platform to something greater, your perspective is certain to change. You have a choice between developing good habits or developing bad habits. Excellence can be a habit. Demand more of yourself and you'll receive more from yourself.

• Excellence requires that you “walk a mile” is another’s shoes, that you gain empathy and understanding, and that you deliver upon the promise that you make to yourself and to others.

• And of course, excellence requires commitment.

Be aware, however, that being excellent yourself can make you a bit intolerant of others' failings. This is not necessarily the same as getting upset over things you cannot control, but it does mean that you have offered quality in a timely manner and that presentation of quality has become foremost in your mind and actions. And it means that in each and every case you must expect – no demand -- that same level of excellence. You may not always get it – but if you never ask for it, you're certain never to get it.

Making Your Dream Important to You If you develop a sense of urgency about your work and pay attention to details, you will find that your passion for your work will increase. What is that sense of urgency? Could it be making an appointment and actually being there on time? It's OK for the customer to be late, but how can you afford to be late? You can solve that by advancing your timepiece. If you set your watch ahead five minutes, you will be on time and will experience less stress. It is absolutely possible to develop passion while simultaneously diminishing stress. Only in a life-or-death struggle must they be related. It's what the psychologists call "fight or flee," that circumstance that causes extremes of aggression or panic.

Could it be planning to make ten calls and forcing yourself to make the eleventh? Could it be making a plan and then actually working your plan? Making phone calls over lunch? Selecting the opportunity to make a cold call when you have a few minutes to spare? Here's something to remember: proper planning prevents poor performance. And what is proper planning? Keeping a calendar? Making a list of what you must do tomorrow? Or could it be the planning of your sales a week in advance? Or perhaps an extensive appointment schedule for the week?


��

�


You may ask, "How can I plan? Things just happen. I just do what I have to do. There’s never anything major. It’s all a lot of small things." Oh, really? It may seem to be a small thing, but you should never be too busy to follow up on the small things. If your field is sales, plan by knowing what this customer buys and which of those items is offered as a special sale. If your passion is for a hobby or other activity, then you must constantly seek to please those with whom you interface. Don’t always plan to do “your own thing” and expect others to like it, particularly if you need their support.

My focus is, of course, business. So preparation to do business is important. Do you have with you an adequate supply of business cards? Is your promotional literature prepared? Do you have a box of it with you? Samples? Supplies? Are you ready to do business? Do you believe in yourself, your company, and your products? Never say negative things about your company to your clients. Instead, communicate your concerns to your management. It’s easy to gripe. The concerns may be legitimate and you should express your concern – to everybody but the customer. Spread that concern to the customer, however, and you may be certain that the process will kill any passion you may have been able to develop, either within the customer or yourself. If your focus is other than business, negative attitudes can kill the spark and remove the passion.

Life isn’t perfect. But do you look at life through the windshield or through the rear view mirror? It doesn't matter what lies behind; only what lies ahead. You may think that circumstances amass against you, because things don’t go as they were planned or as they should to permit an efficient relationship. It’s easy to get our feathers ruffled and to get upset when things don’t go right. Our two best friends seem to be Fret and Stew. These call out their two associates Doom and Gloom, who in turn involve Unhappiness and Discontent.

We get all anxious when something goes afoul of the process and others express discontent. But it’s no different in any other pursuit. Go somewhere else and the same human imperfections that plague you now will plague you there. The very best you can do is to promise to do the best you can and then to hound those whose support you need do better than they have. There really isn't a good reason to get your knickers in a twist over it. And then rejoice! It's a beautiful morning; nothing that you and God together can't handle.

All You Must Do Is Find It A passion for something lies within you, and only you can tap the well. It’s important, if you are to be successful, that you build a fire under your butt and install yourself into a comprehensive plan to improve your performance. Remember, each day you get better or you get worse. It's your choice. The building of that incentive requires that you push yourself. Only you can motivate you. Any motivation you receive from me or anyone else is cursory, at best. Others may try to persuade you to try new things. You can read interesting techniques and try to apply them. But not until you make a very specific decision that you will try something and see it through, no matter what, will you develop that fire. And if it doesn't work, that you will try something else, again and again, until you find that specific combination of things that work for you.

Leave The Saw In The Toolbox It has been said that the two most common elements in the world are hydrogen and stupidity. Every now and again you’ll see a sign that says, “We grow too soon old, and too


��

�


late smart.” It’s easy enough to get to the position where doubts abound, and unfortunately there are altogether too many folks who will help us to get there. To make an investment in financial, physical, and emotional resources and to commit ourselves and then to simply forgo those investments would not seem to be the wisest course of action.

It’s very easy to get ourselves out on that limb and then take a saw to the limb behind us. There are a number of reasons for this:

• Things don’t progress quite as quickly as we would wish.

• We begin to doubt our abilities and commitment to our own dream.

• The naysayers are in constant evidence, advising us that we have made a mistake.

• Those who do not wish success for us will point out the fatal flaws.

• Someone will question our motivation.

• Someone will wonder aloud how we ever got involved in such an activity.

• Extraordinary pressures will be brought to bear either by someone with authority over us or from others not at all involved in our dreams.

Thus, there will always be someone just waiting for us to fail. It becomes our role, then, to fool ‘em. Just tell yourself – and them – that it isn’t going to happen!

Who(m) Do You Trust? Is yours a “will” or a “won’t?” Have you ever failed – at anything? If you have never failed, please contact me – I’d like to meet somebody perfect. We all fail a something, sometimes. Does failure bring discouragement or determination? If it brings discouragement you might just as well pack up your tent and steal off into the night. If you have allowed it to bring you discouragement, then changing that to determination is an act of your conscious will – and if you can do that, there will be no “won’t.”

Evangelist Billy Sunday said, “Fear knocked at the door and faith answered … and there was no one there.” If you are a person of religious faith, that quote has special meaning. If you are not, then at the very least, have faith that your own capabilities, married to your own commitment, will see you through to success.

And as was said, the fruit is at the end of the limb.


��

�


Chapter 4

From Ambivalence to Ambition to Action

He was called the Sultan of Swat for a reason. He simply hit more home runs than anyone else of his era. George Herman (Babe) Ruth set the record for annual home runs – 60 – in 1927, a number that would not be passed until Roger Maris did it with 61 in 1961. Maris’ record was surpassed in 1998 by Mark McGuire and McGuire’s in 2001 by Barry Bonds. The record is now 73 home runs in a single season. Bonds’ home run ball was sold at Auction in 2004 for an astronomical sum.

By the time he hung up his spikes in 1937, Ruth had hit 714 home runs, a figure that stood until Hank Aaron surpassed it in the early 1970’s. Aaron would go on to hit a total of 755. Ruth was a giant of his times and is remembered for his successes. What is barely remembered is the number of times he struck out. Until surpassed by Reggie Jackson, Ruth had struck out more times (1,330) than anyone in the history of baseball.

If you follow baseball history at all, you are aware that Ruth gained most of his success with the New York Yankees, where he became an outfielder. At the time of his trade from the Boston Red Sox for the $125,000 needed by the Sox’ owner for production of a Broadway show, Ruth had been an outstanding pitcher. It is lore in Boston that a jinx hangs over the Sox because the owner made that trade. Hydrogen and stupidity. That jinx, if it ever indeed existed, was broken in October, 2004, when the Red Sox, after a hiatus of 86 years, beat the New York Yankees 4 games to 3 – after being down the first three games, and then went on to beat the St. Louis Cardinals in four straight games of the 2004 World Series.

History is replete with people who failed and overcame failure. The one that comes immediately to mind is Thomas A. Edison, who took the world out of darkness. While there have been several quotes attributed to him as to the number of experiments it took to find the right combination of elements for the invention of the light bulb, they all have one level in common – more than one thousand experiments. Thus the question requires an answer – does success demand patience? How would you answer the question?

One who read a draft of what I’ve thus far presented took me to task for my statement that if someone had never failed I would like to meet because I never knew any human who was perfect. Those were, to her mind, not direct opposites. I cannot disagree. In fact, the song from which I quoted, in its entirety, goes like this:

Nothing’s Impossible, I have found, But when your feet are off the ground

Just pick yourself up, dust yourself off, And start all over again.

So failure is, as she correctly points out, not the number of times you fall – it occurs only if you never pick yourself up again and keep trying. I can buy that. And, she adds, that even if you pick yourself up and do something different, it is still not a failure. It is merely a


��

�


change in focus, a temporary setback. I’ll accept that with this proviso: some folks try so many different things without finding success that all they have demonstrated with this action is a penchant for masochism. Far too many consider success to be something that must happen quickly, and if it does not, then the tendency often is to give up and go in some different direction. To be successful, somewhere along the way they must select a direction, crank up their resolve, persevere in the execution of a plan, and see the process through.

En Garde! Charge! And now you’ve made the decision. You’ve evaluated the situation and estimated the risk. It’s time to go. Get on with it. Pick up the sword and go slay a dragon. Well, maybe, maybe not. Up until now you have evaluated everything in terms of a win/lose model. If you’re smart; if you’re lucky; if fortune smiles on you – then you will be successful. Perhaps. If you’re not smart; if you are unlucky; if the fates are out to get you – then you’ll be a failure. Or so it seems. I’m here to tell you to cut that out! If you allow yourself to think that failure is a possibility, then failure will be a probability, and often a certainty. I cannot allow you be so ambivalent as to think that the outcome of the trial that confronts you is an either/or situation, where the “either” is success and the “or” is failure.

Win/Lose vs. Win/Win Recall that in our previous discussion of risk and payoffs we very carefully detailed the probability of success and the potential of payoff. Note that absolutely no discussion ensued about the probability of failure. Merely because a situation has a 60% probability of success does not, by definition, mean that that situation has a 40% probability of failure. No, that 40% is merely the probability of something less than success, assuming that you experience something less than the degree of payoff you hope to achieve. Every action you take is a trial – an experiment – in some degree of success. It may be a small success. It may be a larger success. But it is still a success. Whether or not you see it as a success is a function of your perspectives.

The story is told of a man who accepted some New Mexico property in satisfaction of a debt. The property contained a small mountain and he reasoned that since there were gold mines nearby, there stood an excellent probability that he might discover gold on his property. He dug and dug, and what rock that existed not only showed no evidence of gold, but when placed under pressure it crumbled easily. Saddened at his failure, he turned a large sample over to an assayer. The assayer decided to pan the sample for any gold specks that might be contained in it – and discovered that the sample very quickly absorbed the liquid. Further tests revealed that the sample was what would become known as diatomaceous earth, which would ultimately make him very rich. The rest, as they say, is history. Had he been willing to accept failure, it would have ended there. But because he wanted to try just one more time, he discovered that he owned a mountain of Kitty Litter©. He needed to do nothing different from what he had already done – he needed merely to attack what he had with passion. And he needed to recognize that the outcome of his experiment, while initially not to his liking, was nonetheless successful, given a change in perspective.


��

�


Ambition Requires That You Try Again If you perceive that 40% to be your risk of failure, then you have given extraordinary odds to the potential of lack of an extreme success. The either/or nature of this perspective anticipates failure. You can’t escape it, as you will always feel that you have been somewhat less than successful. It is a needless worry, one that can be easily avoided.

In a win/lose model, the selected strategy is either successful or unsuccessful, and there is no middle ground. If you are successful, you will receive the rewards for your efforts. If you are not successful, you will receive nothing other than your self-scorn for not being the best possible. If, in this strategy, you give it your all, work as hard as you can, seek assistance along the way, change your approaches to try new things, and nothing seems to quite go your way, you must assume that you have been less than successful, and by definition, you have failed. Not so. The winning side of the win/lose model carries with it the thrill of victory, but the losing side carries with it only discouragement and the worst of repercussions for performance failure, despite what might have been your best efforts, and despite what positive things might have occurred had you merely seen it through.

The win/win model of your dream catching, on the other hand, recognizes that irrespective of your best intentions and your best efforts, it sometimes happens that your efforts are less than successful. Note that the words used are “less than successful” – not “failure.” This isn’t the fifth grade where your progress is arrested and you get to repeat the grade simply because you can’t seem to handle fractions. Regardless of the outcome of your dream trial, you will go on, hopefully to greater and better things. You will not endure a life-long penalty simply because you conducted less business than you had hoped.

It takes a little training and practice to become accustomed to the win/win model. It flies in the face of parental training. Parents always want the best for their progeny, and to many a mother, success is found in having a daughter marry a doctor or dentist. Success does not have to be materialistic. It happens that parents see success in the numbers for it often means safety for their progeny. Despite this, many folks find success in the number of lives they have helped to improve, the number of mouths they have seen fed, the number of students who graduate to successful adulthood, etc.

Many of us, however, have found that success is also available from taking directions different from what parents might otherwise choose. In order to do so, you must come to the conclusion that all results from your dream trial are successful; some more than others. If you can perceive that by giving it all you can possibly give, you will achieve positive outcomes, then the choice of direction you take, once you have decided to make the move, is what will determine your success. In order to make that decision you must certainly do some investigation as to what might work most successfully, but your success comes in the confidence that no matter which you select, within reason of course, there will be some positive payback from your efforts. The trick now becomes the arrangement of sufficient positive paybacks to permit the experiment to be declared successful.

Success Is Assurable It’s time you give up the notion that you either succeed or fail. You will always succeed. And as you gather the knowledge, support, and experience necessary to achieve the success you wish, draw upon the confidence that you can do it and nobody can do it as well as you can.


��

�


Characteristics of Ambition The Nissan Motor Company has, as its motto, the one word “driven.” The implications of being driven are that the company is prepared to go to the length, if not beyond, of the scale of satisfaction for their customers. Whether they will remains to be seen, but that is the nature of the adjective they have appended to their mission: driven. There is a word of close proximity to that word – obsession. The nature of an obsession is that it takes over the life of the one who is obsessed, to the point that he or she and breathes the obsession, often even beyond the bounds of reason. I seriously doubt that my Nissan dealer is obsessed. I look for his letter every day, but all I ever see of him is a TV picture of a fast-moving automobile on a wet, curving road.

In researching Nissan’s position on this, I had a bit of a déjà vu experience. I stopped at the local Nissan dealership to ask to see what training materials they might have for the “driven” advertising campaign. It took several minutes of attempting to explain what I was after, before – in exasperation – I spoke about the commercial. The response I received was altogether too typical: “That’s corporate. Not us.” Clearly Nissan Corporate had not done a good job of imparting the message to the Thoroughbred Nissan Company of Tucson, AZ. It was somewhat reminiscent of a Freddie Prinze series a few years ago, where the statement that entered the lexicon was “Not my job, man!”

Despite whether or not the local dealer “gets it,” Nissan has a singular lesson for us. They are among the most hard-hitting of automobile manufacturers. They are out there on TV every day, raising our consciousness about their products, in the face of other manufacturers who invade our viewing time. They all do it – Mazda “zooms.” Chrysler has invoked the ghost of a former designer, Harley Earle. But the difference lies in the distribution of accolades amongst the many competitors – Ford, Lincoln, Buick, Chevrolet, and trucks of various sizes and descriptions. Even Kia lays claim to winning its own race, because “after all, it’s our commercial.”

A little further upscale we learn that the Lexus SUV can avoid tumbling water bottles; Cadillac has a global positioning system that permits location in times of distress and provides communication; and Infiniti got caught using the letter “Q” (somebody had to). And while we do occasionally see advertisements for Mercedes, snob appeal is the draw. I can’t recall ever seeing an advertisement for a Rolls Royce or Bentley. Their market is tightly defined and they stand along amongst the “if you must know what it costs, you can’t afford it” set.

So Nissan, while it may not stand alone in its appeal to the masses, highlights what it has to offer in brief, hard-hitting messages that hammer upon the theme of excellence. Nissan defines for us what I consider to be the primary element of ambition – drive – using precisely that word. Aspiration is certainly worth having, but aspiration without action is hollow. Drive – the intense pursuit of the aspiration – is what sets the timetable for the accomplishment of the aspiration. Are there degrees of intensity? Certainly. At the lowest intensity, the interest is high, the timetable is extended, and folks may well be driven, albeit to distraction. It is at the highest intensity where drive becomes an obsession.


��

�


The Killer Instinct The second aspect of ambition is, to my mind, making the most of your opportunities. I call that the “killer instinct.” I’m not certain that one can instill the killer instinct in another, but I am convinced that one can train oneself for it. It does take a conscious evaluation of every available opportunity. To do that, one must invest energy, approach the opportunity aggressively, employ some capital, and put forth the effort. Refusing to try your best, for whatever reason, signals your unwillingness to be as successful as you can be. Just as is necessary in playing a good game of golf or tennis, you must keep your eye on the ball.

Developing Your Confidence Next must come confidence. If you have none of that, drive and instinct will be of no avail. Confidence, of course, comes with experience and success, and nobody is born with that. It must be developed. It is insufficient merely to work hard and hope for the best. If you are to be successful, at some point you must employ some bravado – put yourself out front and vow to attain some form of success that will, in turn, provide both experience and confidence.

Take a risk of esteem. Don’t be afraid that you don’t know the answer. Tell someone you don’t know the answer. Chances are they do. In fact, once in awhile tell someone you don’t know the answer whether or not you do. You will be amazed how much you learn. You will be surprised how impressed someone else will be when either he gets to share what he knows or the two of you get to discover the answer together. I love the story about Mark Twain who told about how little he thought his father knew when Twain was 16 but how surprised at age 21 to see how much the old boy had learned in five years.

Exert Control Ambition requires that you exert control where you can. There are many things you can control – costs, opportunity, choices, selection of options, degrees of reward, etc. You can be powerful, not powerless over your environment. It is your choice to function above capacity, even above the capacities of which you even think you are capable. Often that control requires you to confront the question: With whom are you in competition? And if you are ambitious, the answer must always come back: with yourself. What makes you successful is not your competition with someone else. It is always your competition with yourself – the best you can do today, which must be better than what you did yesterday.

It is your hope of becoming something better than you are that make all the difference. “Would you like to swing on a star? Carry moonbeams home in a jar? Or be better off than you are…” goes the refrain on an old Bing Crosby tune. If, indeed, a dream is a wish your heart makes, then don’t forget the old dreams. Work them over in your mind and your heart. Build the fire under them. Get the fuel onto them. Every day ask yourself, “Why not?” Find out who you are. Perhaps you are born to rebel – to do things differently from what has ever been done.

Ambition Is As Ambition Does Take a positive step every day to save yourself from the ordinary. Start paying attention to your inner voice. Create your own identity. Learn positive things about yourself. Those


��

�


things are available, you know. Your life is in your own hands. Your ambition is the way out of a trap that you may not have created for yourself, but that you can escape through your own efforts. Select a no lose model to follow. Pick a strategy and test it out. Don’t talk yourself out of it. You will be successful despite the outcome. That fearless self -- the person inside you – needs always to ask “Am I good at the thing I want to be good at?” If you are, then you cheat yourself and the people around you if you do otherwise. Being happy about your life is far more important than mere compensation.

Standing on your own two feet becomes a habit with exercise. If you want something bad enough, there is always a way to get it. All you need to do is to rid yourself of no win thinking. Anything is possible – if you’ll merely take the choice of two yeses. Every time you encounter something that forces you to “handle it” you strengthen your resolve. There is no need to get anyone’s approval. Throw away the picture you had. Substitute a brand new picture of your becoming successful.

And that picture of yourself becomes a challenge. So what if problems ensue? You’ll handle it. So what if … if … if… It doesn’t matter. You’ll handle it. You’re up to the challenge. You can do it. “Nice work if you can do it, and you can do it if you try.”

Take Action Now

Thinking about doing it will never be sufficient. Here are some action steps that will get you moving:

• Strike the notion of failure. You will never be a failure because you didn’t make it – only if you never try.

• Define a winning strategy. It feels better not to lose. And recognize that there are degrees of winning. Keep ahead of the expenses and you have success within your grasp. If your expenses continually run ahead of your income, then one of two things has occurred – you have underestimated the potential or there is something different you must do. Only in making a positive change will you find that elusive success. Getting by is not enough. You have to want to survive. You have to want to excel. You must be driven, not to distraction, but to excellence.

• Document not only your determination but also the steps you will take to stoke that determination. Plan not only for the activity, but also for handling yourself. Write it down: “when the following happens, I will do thus and so.”

• Gain the support of positive people. Read everything motivating you can lay your hands on. Listen to every motivational tape you can find. Examine what others have done and learn from it. Take your pick of the experiences of others. Evaluate everything and everybody. Study. Study.

• Understudy someone who is doing what you wish to do. Offer to work for free for awhile and be a sponge – soak up everything you can. Write it down. Research what you don’t yet know about. Watch. Document. Try. Experience. Do it!

• Locate your financial support. What must you have to begin? Don’t wait until you have everything you need – either you will never have it or the price of it will have


��

�


escalated so significantly that you’ll not be able to afford it when the time comes. Plan to obtain additional support in its necessary time.

• Negotiate the best terms you can find, put down the initial payment, and sign the lease. Or buy the inventory. Or place the advertising. No time like the present. You are on the line. Not your husband. Not your wife. Not your parents. You. It is you who must make this work.

• Schedule your activities to permit you to “hit the ground running.” Build the things that need to be built before you need to install them. Buy the things that you need before you need them so waiting will not be a problem. If a move is involved, plan the move, down to the last detail. If a set-up is involved, plan the setup, even if you must construct a model or draw a picture. Do you need tables? Do you need baskets and fru-fru? Need to take pictures? Do it!

• If other people are to be involved, learn about the people – their assets, their liabilities, their contributions, and their desires. Prepare those people as you have prepared yourself. Instill the passion that you feel for your dream, remembering that you are enlisting them to make your dream come true – not theirs, but if you can help them to locate and develop their own dreams, so much the better.

• Finally, make no plans to make no mistakes. That will never work. You will make mistakes and you will learn from them. You’ll take what you learn, consolidate your position, and strike out again. And if you fall, that’s OK. Just pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.

Now go get ‘em, Tiger! Outstanding success awaits you!


��

�


Chapter 5

Preparing The Action Plan

Is A Good Attitude All You Need?

If attitude isn’t everything, it’s way ahead of whatever’s in second place. A decent and positive attitude isn’t the only thing you need, of course – but it is certainly the most important aspect of your success in business or even your success in a relationship. It, and it alone, can make or break any endeavor.

A positive attitude is not always a natural thing. It is a conscious thing, repeated so often that it becomes a part of the fabric of your life. You must seek positive things, positive people, and positive experiences. You must view edifying movies, listen to uplifting music, and expand the scope of your acquaintances to those who will have a positive influence upon your life. And it follows that you should steer clear of those that do not. Attitude is a very fragile thing, requiring constant attention and the re-enforcement of like-minded individuals.

Look in the yellow pages and it is doubtful that you will be able to locate a meeting of the Positive Attitude Society. That’s odd. You’d think there would be a great interest in finding ways to increase one’s positive attitude, if it’s all that important. Think about that for a moment. Where do the positive people hang out? Is it at discotheques, dance clubs, rock concerts, or bars? Or might it be at churches, boys and girls clubs, volunteer activities, or sports teams? Further, can we distinguish a type of activity that begets positive attitudes? Do you suppose it in those activities that are self-oriented or in those activities that are other-oriented?

However you have answered those questions, allow me to provide a singular answer – you will find the most positive people where someone is doing something for someone else. Big Brothers/Big Sisters is one such group. Shelters for the homeless is another. Services for people – places where you not only give your money, but you also give your time. There are a lot of people, down on their luck, who need your outstanding attitude and positive contributions to their lives today. By far the most interesting aspect of a volunteer activity is that the pay is extraordinary.

In any endeavor, you can decide that what you are about to do can be tedious and boring. Or, you can decide that it will be thrilling, enlightening, joyous, and beneficial. A conscious decision about one or the other must be made and you must be the one to make it.

It is a natural thing to “get down” once in awhile. It happens to all of us. Contemporary language calls it a “funk.” But funks aren’t a lot of fun, and you’ll not begin to enjoy yourself or what you are trying to do unless you break it and get back into the sunshine of a positive outlook on life and on your endeavors. And believe me – it takes some work on your part. Nobody can do it for you.

It’s easy to assume that our attitudes are acceptable, and if they are acceptable to us, they must be acceptable to others. That’s often not true, but we certainly do like to delude ourselves. To others around us, our attitudes may not be acceptable at all – merely tolerated.


��

�


What we need is an attitude that is outstanding! It’s the kind of attitude that permits you to bounce out of bed in the morning with a smile on your face, a melody in your heart, and a determination to tackle life today. Perhaps there are so few of us who are able to do that consistently, morning after morning. But that certainly doesn’t mean we can’t work on it! We are creatures of emotion. We react to the “up” things in life. And we react to the “down” things, as well. The things that bring us outstanding emotions are often the “mountain-top” experiences that leave us convinced that we are in total control of our lives, our opportunities, and their outcomes.

The things that bring us down are myriad – the bills, the job, the pressures of family, the status of our health, just to name a few. Finding balance in one’s life, then, requires a conscious effort on our own parts. And, of course, the trick is to try to change as many of the down emotions into up emotions as possible – and if not possible, at least into neutral emotions that neither build us up nor bog us down.

Read a lot about positive attitudes, and you will find that few people, if any, are naturally positive. They must work at it. They must stop, take stock, and determine that today will be not just OK, but outstanding! It would perhaps be useful for someone to develop a PAA – a Positive Attitudes Anonymous organization where we can all stand up, say, “Hi, I’m (insert your name), and I’m normally a ‘down’ person – but just for today, I will have a positive attitude.” We’ll work on tomorrow, tomorrow. Yesterday was pretty good. Join with me now in one verse of Just Let A Smile Be Your Umbrella.

There are ways to build a positive attitude, and some are presented in this book. There are many seminars you can attend, tapes you can listen to, and books you can read, that will help you to begin each morning with at least the knowledge that you, too, can bring off that positive attitude you will need to do your activities today. Just like the smile that can be passed around, it can happen with your outstanding attitude, as well.

It May Be a Matter of Perspective

Often how we see our lives is a function of our own perspectives. The best illustration I know of this is the reaction from two carpenters working on a house. When asked what he was doing, the first responded that he was building a house, as anyone could see. The second responded that he was helping to build a great city. That positive attitude, applied to the ultimate purpose, colors everything we do, and become a major determinant of success or failure.

When asked how I am, I often respond with: "I'm wonderful -- I’m so wonderful that were I to become more wonderful, I'd have to be twins! And the world isn't ready for that!" That, to me, is far better than merely saying that I'm fine, or that I'm OK. And it’s infinitely better than talking about my pains and aches.

I begin that conversation with the assumption the person who asked the question truly wanted to know the answer and because of my response, he or she can move from that point in a very positive direction; and with my help, for a great distance in that direction. I further assume that I can influence someone else’s attitude, that my positive attitude can rub off onto the other person. Perhaps you have heard it said – if you see someone without a smile, give him one of yours.

For me personally, having had a brush with death, every day is wonderful. I can remember a time when I would respond with an attitude of humdrum.


��

�


Let Thankfulness Control Your Day Today has been beautiful. I've lived and loved another day. My needs have been met and there is enough of a surplus for me to share with another. For some, it's "though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil." For others, it's "I have peace of mind and freedom from all fear." What strikes me about these thoughts is that the way to overcome fear is to begin the day with gratitude and then, as the song says, "spread joy up to the maximum, bring gloom down to the minimum, latch onto the alternative; don't mess with Mr. In-Between."

Napoleon Hill, in his book, The Master Key To Riches, called this litany of gratitude his "Princes of material prosperity, of sound physical health, of peace of mind, of hope, of faith, or love, of romance, and of overall wisdom." He held that if you have these attributes, you have the enduring assets of (get this): "past failures, defeats, errors of judgment and of deed, all fears, mistakes, disappointments and adversities of every nature." That's powerful stuff. And because of all this, you have the ability to do but one thing: "take control of your own mind, the one thing over which you have complete control." And he had a daily conference with each of his "Princes."

But wait a minute! These "assets" are all the negative things. Consider that every one of those things becomes the launching pad for changing your past and present into an extremely valuable future. It has been said that the past is gone, the future hasn't happened, and that today is our gift -- that's why it's called the present. Take that concept one step further with Jeff Keller's contention that if you change your thinking, you’ll change your life – and the change in your thinking will be a natural outgrowth of your change of attitude. It goes without saying, I hope, that the change, if positive, will produce a corresponding outcome.

Think about the embarrassments of your life -- things you wish had never happened. Why do you think about them now, later in life? Why can't you put them out of your mind? Because each one taught a lesson, hopefully a lesson you took to heart, and you revisit them as a means to repeat and strengthen the learning. It's what my Mom used to call "the little man" inside my head. It's my conscience, in some cases. It's my subconscious mind in most of the others, and the subconscious mind can be trained in very positive ways. Every time something goes wrong and adversity overtakes us, it is the subconscious that begins to search for the opportunity it has made available.

At the Beginning of a Perfect Day When you begin any new endeavor, take some time to define goals. But defining them doesn't do a whit of good if their definition is, in fact, indefinite. All generalities are admirable. But why do we wish that? Do you want the award or the reward? They may not be the same. Effort brings forth the reward that brings forth the benefit. Remember: The service you render will attract the money you control. The money you control establishes the future growth in the services you will render and provides resources for developing the intangibles of your life. The growth you experience is what brings an overwhelming obstacle into clear focus and into achievement. And then recognize that the growth and its accompanying reward release you from obligations that are just as overwhelming.


��

�


Positive Attitudes Overcome Lack of Purpose By any definition of success, the purpose of that outstanding positive attitude is to achieve the best. “Best” is easily defined. It surpasses anything that can be seen in the activity. It is better performance that anyone has ever done. It is satisfaction to the point that nobody need question motive or results. It’s extraordinary. It flies in the face of the ordinary that the world daily demands that we accept.

If your attitude leads you to develop a goal to be the best at whatever you do, that provides a definite and measurable purpose. The building of a positive attitude requires that you establish a purpose, that you plan a strategy, perhaps even make the sacrifices to empower that strategy, and that you take the steps necessary to make it happen. But that purpose will certainly be achieved if you constantly remind yourself of it. A positive attitude, then, becomes a bit of self-nagging about the grandiosity of your plans and the achievement of the intermediate steps. Left unattended it becomes a haunting self-nagging.

Motivation Can Be Its Own Incentive In the early part of the 20th Century, Andrew Carnegie made his millions in steel mills. His firm became what you now know as United States Steel. But Carnegie was a pragmatic man. The story is told that one day while moving through one of his Pittsburgh mills, he came upon a man who was slowly loading a hopper car with coal. He watched the man work. He had the power, of course, to fire the man for not hustling. But instead Carnegie asked the man if he would like to make more money. The worker acknowledged that the concept interested him.

Carnegie told the man he would do two things for him. First, he would supply a larger shovel. Second, he would pay the man his current wage for his current average number of completed hopper cars -- but for every extra car the man loaded during his shift, he would be paid more. And thus was born what we call the incentive system in this country. But note that the improvement in the man's circumstances followed, and was the direct result of, a change and improvement in a tool. What do you suppose that says about gaining knowledge, tapping the knowledge and experiences of other successful people, and devouring everything you can get your hands on?

Carnegie didn't restrict his positive motivation to the labor force. He extended it to his office staff, as well. You know the name Charles Schwab. The original, Charles M. Schwab, became Carnegie's Chief Financial Officer and ultimately the head of United States Steel. For office people, including Mr. Schwab, Carnegie instituted a measurement that became known as "going the extra mile." Those people who got promoted to positions of increasing responsibility were those people who offered exceptional service and gained extraordinary knowledge. They were not merely the ones who worked longer hours. They were those who added value to themselves and who, in turn added value to Carnegie's operation. His message to Schwab and others was: "If you have your heart fixed on what you want there is nothing I can do to stop you from getting it." Carnegie, by the way, concentrated his later years on philanthropy, particularly in libraries and higher education. He gave everything away.

The message for us, then, is that people who move forward with a definite purpose in mind will find that they will overtake everyone on the ladder and will in most cases far surpass the goal that they set for themselves. It should come as no surprise, then, that failure


��

�


begins with folks having little or no purpose, with life in general or their activities in particular, and are adrift on a sea made restless by those who would actively stir the water, until either they float to the wayside (note that I wouldn't say "sink") or somebody reaches them with the message.

You Get to Success with a Definite Purpose Those of you with a definite purpose have taken a most valuable step towards developing that positive attitude that leads to success. And if you do not yet have that definite purpose, take some time to write it down. Repeat it to yourself day by day. Write it out and post it on the refrigerator, the mirror, the door, and wherever you will cast your eyes. And every time you see it, say the words -- out loud if you can, for the mind's ear is a powerful entree' to the subconscious -- but softly to yourself if necessary. And then devour every avenue of learning the how, where, what, why, and when necessary to take you to the goal you set and encourage you to stretch to the goal you'd really like to reach. With your positive attitude, it is very possible.

One of the benefits of having a definite purpose is that you get to bypass deliberation. You won't have to question endlessly each and every decision. You'll make the decision. And if it can be improved, you'll improve it. Gather all the facts, evaluate them, and make a decision. Now. Immediately. Don't study it to death. Don't wait until you feel success is assured. You'll discover that if you have this definiteness of purpose, it will extend to other parts of your life, as well. And for those who recruit, please consider that if your prospect waffles, she will always waffle, for she has no distinct and definite purpose. You can't give it to her. You'd better find one who does.

And the Lesson Is … Let's carry four lessons away from this discussion:

• Embrace every opportunity by defining a definite purpose and committing to it. The story is told about the two shoe salesmen who, on arriving at a remote African village, wired their impressions back to the home office. The first said he was returning to the office because “nobody here wears shoes.” The second placed a large order and exclaimed: "Nobody here has any shoes!" I like an old hymn here: "If your heart beats right, if your heart beats right, there's a song of gladness in the darkest night... every cloud will be a rainbow, if your heart beats right." The positive attitude turns the glooms into joys.

• Prepare yourself to go the extra mile to make it happen. Plan that extra service and go out of your way to give it. Don't make it accidental. Make it your specific task to extend yourself to someone in need of what you have to offer. Introduce the wonder of your knowledge and your devotion to others. If you take those extra steps, you can't help but be rewarded. There will be times that it won't help. That's OK. You can't please some people some of the time. Most of the time it will. And the interesting thing is that this is the maintenance program for the positive attitude. It feeds upon itself in ever-widening circles, the antithesis of a pity party.

• Be very willing to celebrate and to share your success. Others need what you have to offer. Others need to know that you will support them, as well.


��

�


• Find a motivational tape and play it. Read a motivational book. Learn a lesson or two from these people – you’ll be amazed how it will improve both your life and your activities.

And then concern for attitude will become moot. Your attitude, your motivation, will guide you to make the plans, take the steps, perform the plan, and reap the rewards of an outstanding effort.

When You Come To The End Of A Perfect Day… Whom do you thank? How do you express your gratitude? Are others aware that you have given thanks? You might think about that.


��

�


Chapter 6

Greasing The Wheels How do you define ambition? Just what does ambition mean? How can you tell if you have ambition? How will you approach your ambitions? How will you know you have realized your ambition? These and other questions are the focus of this chapter.

"What would you like to be when you grow up, little boy?" "I wanna be a fireman!" "And why do you want to be a fireman? "They drive red trucks and spray water on fires and stuff." You can no doubt remember the dialog, or something similar, as some curious adult with nothing better to do with his time queried you on what you wished to do with your life. How old were you? Maybe three? And the answers might have been football players, nurses, doctors, airplane pilots, secretaries, "the boss," rock musician, or whatever happened to catch your interest at that point in your life. As you grew older and your exposure to the world grew, so, too, did your aspirations and ambitions for the realizations of a life's work take shape.

For me, it was to be a teacher. I can't tell you why. But as a youngster, I played school. As a middle-schooler I joined the organization for future teachers. As a high-schooler I joined the debating society. And the band. And the orchestra. And the glee club. And the chess club. I wrote for the school paper. By and large I sought things structured and intellectual. Guidance tests, particularly a test called Strong's, indicated that I should go into teaching, and pointed out that I would never be able to do anything with my hands. More on this later.

This was followed by teacher's college - in the days when they had such things. And as quickly as I got in, I got out. Just didn't fit. Something was not right (in addition to late teen hormones). I seemed to have little interest in teaching young children. Thus was created a paradox and a dilemma that would require years to resolve.

Turnover Requires Focus In 1956, I dropped out of college and joined the USAF. For more than six years I did clerical and the other structured things required of a military grunt. I merely existed. No ambition. No drive. No goals. No focus. And then one day in 1962, at Ft. Meyer, VA, I was assigned to a Master Sergeant whom I quickly came to detest, and with so large a disdain, I began to explore my opportunities. There were few. But did I ever have a focus - escape my Master Sergeant, who happened to be the base supply non-commissioned officer (NCO). Anyone with military experience can testify to the fact that the supply NCO is the politician on any military base. I learned then and there that nothing political would ever be a part of my future.


��

�


And A Certain Amount of Bravado One day I was performing temporary duty at the headquarters office when I encountered something I seldom saw - a daily bulletin, the organization's two-page newspaper. This daily bulletin was advertising for people to take an aptitude examination for computer programming. I had no idea whatsoever about what a computer was, much less any knowledge about programming it. But there was the possibility of an escape from Sergeant Politico. He forbade me to take the exam, but I learned that I had a right to do so, so I applied for it. I filled out the paperwork and sent it off to Headquarters Command, Bolling Field.

I was taking my child to the doctor on the morning that the examination was held. I learned that I had been called to take it from someone else in the office that afternoon, when I returned to work. Sergeant Politico had received a call the previous afternoon directing me to appear at 11 a.m. to take the test. And because he had originally forbidden me, he purposely chose not to tell me. I could have been jailed that afternoon, because the he got an earful. I left the office and went straight to the Chaplain, a much more powerful politician. I was tested the following morning in a special session. Things were, as you can imagine, a bit tense in that office for a couple of days.

Life Is A Game Of Inches Thirteen people sat for that examination. Out of 100 points, the top scorer rated a 98%. I rated a 95%. The third member rated 92%. And the top two people were selected! Life is a game of inches. Two days later I had been transferred to Headquarters Command and within a week I was in school to learn how to program the Univac File Computer I. Airman Topscorer didn't take to it, but did take to computer operations, which he did for a year before getting out of the USAF. But for me, it was a resurrection. I was back using my cranium. A thirst for knowledge had been reborn within me, with a passion to soak up just about everything I could in the shortest possible time.

I helped to build the USAF's first computerized personnel system, and by 1964 that project was complete and the Air Force was looking for another assignment for me. One day I was called into the commander's office and was told, "Congratulations, you're now a teacher." I'd come full circle. I was to join the staff of the Air Force’s Data Processing Technical School on the plains of northern Texas.

And Sometimes Not What It Seems So off my family and I went to Sheppard AFB. After arriving in Texas, I was advised that a bureaucratic snafu had occurred and since I had only 10 months remaining on my enlistment, I would be assigned to the statistical services office at Sheppard, and not permitted to teach. When I asked what was required to do the assignment, I was told that I needed to extend my enlistment to a year. I offered to take a short discharge and re-enlist, but that would have been too much paperwork, so the personnel people insisted on the two- month extension.


��

�


A Changed Life The Air Force gave me six weeks of instructor training and threw me into a classroom to teach people how to program the UNIVAC 1050 II, the computer which would be used for the Air Force's first automated supply system. I taught for a year, during which I double-shifted - taught a shift and went to school a shift to cram just as much knowledge as I could into my head. My future and the future of my family were now at stake. I had begun my ultimate career a decade late. I needed to make up a lot of time.

In August of 1965, a crucial decision had to be made. Should I re-enlist and complete the second half of what had been essentially a lackluster career, or should I take the outstanding offer from the Caterpillar Tractor Company to go to Peoria, IL to do software maintenance and to develop an in-house data processing training program? Tough choice. Low four figures for the USAF. High four figures for Cat. School, school, and more school. When I left Cat four years later to do the same thing for a company back in my native New England, Cat had a pretty good in-house training program.

Passion In Search Of A Purpose The fire had been built. The passion was now in place and I sought the underpinnings, the foundation for what I was supposed to know in order to do what I had been successfully doing all along. I picked up a couple of degrees. A series of assignments took me into management, consultancy, college teaching, etc., and ultimately on the staff of a Board of Education. And then something happened. In 1977 I had written a book – a testing manual for a computer test - and the publisher wanted it updated. I then became a freelance writer, still teaching in industry, and still doing some college teaching. In 1980 I began to write not only the book but also some feature articles for the computer trade press. In the following eight years, I would subsequently produce three dozen books.

And Then The World Changed In 1982 IBM released the Personal Computer, and my life hasn't been the same since. By 1984, that led me back into college teaching full time, followed by further education for a Master's Degree in Education. At that time I once again took the Strong's Vocational Interest Blank, pretty much the same test I had taken in high school 30 years earlier. But this time the test had been refined – not only should I have been a teacher, I was best suited to be a teacher of adults.

I still do a little teaching – of adults. And I do a whole lot of writing, for anyone who's interested. And, by the way, mechanical inabilities notwithstanding, there is a house on an island in a lake in Massachusetts that I built with my own tools and hands. I dug the foundation hole. I poured the concrete. I laid the floor, the walls, and the roof. Put in the plumbing and septic. Wired it for electricity. Dug a well and put in a pump. And lived in it. No guidance counselor was going to tell me that I couldn't do what I had made up my mind to do.


��

�


Looking Back At the head of the chapter, I asked these questions:

• How do you define ambition? From the retrospect of years of trying to avoid what my heart told me I should do, I would have to say that ambition is the driving force necessary to accomplish anything significant in your life. I've been successful in virtually everything I have done - except one. I could not stay with one organization long enough to derive a retirement for conformity. I have had a message for the world, and in every aspect of my life I have sought to disseminate that message. I would like to think that there are many people whose lives are better because we came in contact.

• Just what does ambition mean? Ambition means taking the steps to accomplish something worthwhile and sticking to it until you have accomplished it. I wish in my younger life I had had a mentor who could have steered me into establishing goals and formulating plans to meet those goals. I would never have accomplished anything in my adult life had I not encountered an author by the name of Robert Mager, whose book Defining Educational Objectives was a transformation in my intellectual life. A lot of my life was turned backwards. I had built one tremendous automobile to travel in long before I had any idea whatsoever as to where I would like to travel. I hope that explanation is not too obtuse. Want to build an ambition? Build a good set of goals first and then get out and get the underpinnings you need to make it happen.

• How can you tell if you have ambition? Do you dream? Do you lie awake evaluating your options? Do you picture yourself in some other scenario? Is there a strong interest that you think you'd like to pursue but have found reasons and excuses to avoid? How often do you hear of old men who go back and get a college degree? Or old women who take a sky dive? What has interested you from childhood? From the time my brother could pick up a pencil he wanted to be an artist. Today he is a successful commercial artist. How blessed I would have been had someone discovered the intellectual tools I had and the teaching interests I exhibited at a very young age. It took me 25 years to find them.

• How will you approach your ambitions? You'll get every bit of training you can find. You'll read everything you can locate about the subject. You'll find someone who can tutor you. Someone who can mentor you. Someone who can encourage you. We so often get ourselves so entangled that the dream dangles and goes unfulfilled. By the time I finally got a fire under my butt, I had a wife, two kids, two automobiles, and a mortgage. That's not the easiest place to start. To pursue your ambition from that point forward requires some sacrifice on the part of everything and everybody. Consider the sacrifice required for the long-term training for a doctor or lawyer.

• How will you know you have realized your ambition? There may be accolades along the way. Things to hang on the wall. Honors bestowed. But the real reward comes when you look yourself in the mirror every morning and are pleased with what you see. It comes when someone whose life you have touched credits you with the influence you have given. Like the time when I resigned from the Hartford Board of Education and one of my staff cried and told me I was the best boss she had ever had. Like the letter of reference a teaching colleague gave me, which said, “he wants the student to want to learn.” Like the time down here in Arizona, after I had opened up a business, when I looked up and saw a student from a class I had taught in Oregon, who when she left said, "You're doing what you taught us."


��

�


Like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, I often ask God: "Would it spoil some great celestial plan if I were a wealthy man?" I had my chance at that - had I not collapsed in 1999, two months later my rented property and my business would have been purchased by Walgreens, who bought out a city block and all the businesses therein. But the same God who spared my life wasn't willing for me to retire and go away. He still has work for me to do. There are people whose lives I yet need to touch. Perhaps somebody reading this book.

Ambition is the grease of the wheels of life. It is the "Up and at 'em" and don't even think of quitting until you have made it to where you want to be, to that place where the satisfactions from doing it have outstripped the work it has taken to get there.


��

�


Chapter 7

Breaking Through The Brick Wall

Have you ever noticed that no matter what you wish to do, you must do something else first? It seems a perverse law of nature to find impediments to our ambitions. While our ambitions may be few in number, impediments to accomplish them abound. Let’s take a few and see what can be said about them. There is no significance to the sequence given:

• Indecision. Remember the song? “First you say you do, and then you don’t. And then you say you will, and then you won’t. You’re undecided now, so what are you gonna do?” Whenever you select a direction for your life, accomplishment of anything supporting that direction requires focus. Indecision is the death knell of focus. Far better to begin something and then correct the mistakes and adjust the direction than to waffle endlessly, not ever making up your mind. The question is never “If I do A or if I do B.” The result is that you end up doing nothing. St. Paul told his followers “I would that thou were hot or cold.”

• Complaining. It doesn’t even have to be our own complaining. Complaints of any kind from any source sap your strength, make you tired, and discourage you from any significant accomplishment. Better to avoid and ignore the complaints than to expend your resources to meet (or further) the complaints. Distinguish between legitimate concerns, which you should handle, and the harping and tearing of nerves brought on by frequent and acerbic complaints.

• Fear. Fear is a complaint that never passes your lips. It is a complaint lodged by your brain against your motivations in sufficient strength as to have a debilitating influence. It is an internal influence over an external direction, placed there by someone who or something that you will allow to have control over your life. The defeat of fear removes inhibitions and opens the pathway to potential successes.

• Worry. Worry is fear conjured up in anticipation of failure. It is a place where you can file your insecurities long before you have any need for them. Generally a worry is without foundation and something over which you have little or no control anyway. Might as well file it under “Not Applicable” and get on controlling the things you can control.

• Regret. This is a reflection on the past. This is our perception of a mistake over which we can now exert no influence. The only benefit of a regret is our resolution that under the same set of conditions, the action we will take will be substantially different.

• Obstacles. Lack of money is always an obstacle. Lack of cooperation is another. A third is lack of time – but that is a very controllable obstacle. Rules and regulations that somebody else imposes upon us are also obstacles. One of the functions of a civilized society is that obstacles are placed before us, and we frequently have no control over them. Fences, warnings, traffic lights, and stop signs are obstacles that we accept because we believe them to provide a degree of safety. Other obstacles, such as provided by petty bureaucracies are often avoidable either through contest or removing one’s self from their influences. Lack of money is an obstacle that merely delays, but does not


��

�


remove, the goal. Lack of cooperation requires either the location of other cooperation or the assumption of personal responsibility. The point is that very few obstacles are dead ends. Going over, under, around, or through are always solutions, once you have determined that the goal is a worthy and necessary goal.

• The past is, as has been said, prologue. You can’t undo it. You can merely learn from it. You can resolve not to repeat it. Often it may be necessary to bury it. Or it may be necessary to accommodate it. Refer to Unforgiveness, ahead.

• Alibis and excuses. We are great at deceiving ourselves. We are further addicted to allowing others to deceive us. Alibis, the processes of attempting to remove from us the responsibilities we have undertaken, become reasons for accepting failures before they have happened. Excuses are the accommodations we make with the inconveniences of our lives, and our choices are to accept them and try to recover our actions or reject them and bypass the situation that brought them on. Accepting the alibi of another person is merely the first step prior to having to accept the responsibility of that person, allowing him or her to duck personal responsibility. Excuses may be valid with proper notification – but totally invalid when no advance communication has been made.

• Tradition. “We’ve always done it this way” is by far the greatest explanation for failure to take new approaches, make changes, and to seek success in another direction. In 1993 I began to build my Avon business by opening a pair of retail stores. You can imagine how often I heard that I was violating the 100-plus year tradition of Avon. By 1999 I was under pressure from Avon to shut them down. But in 2003, Avon dealers are opening retail stores. What a difference a decade makes. A pioneer has all the arrows in his back.

• Envy. Wanting what anyone else has without being willing to undergo what the other person has done to get it is envy. We are not all blessed by having the same talents, the same motivations, or the same effectiveness. We make different decisions. It is insufficient to look at another’s accomplishments and merely wish those were ours. Time. Money. Effort. Sacrifice. They are all required. Walking a mile in another’s shoes is required for success, as well.

• Criticism. For everything you would like to do, there is always somebody whose major focus in life is finding fault with it. They aren’t willing to take the risk themselves, but are very willing to find fault in the way you have done it. The best example I can offer is the one where I began to share some beauty tips from an industry expert. I was roundly criticized because her advice didn’t line up perfectly with Avon’s. When I challenged the critic to go me one better and do it herself, her only response was for me to copy Avon’s materials. I rejected that. Had it been sufficiently important to me, I would have persisted. It’s an interesting thing that those who agree with what you do are often silent, while those who would never think at putting themselves or their accomplishments at risk are quick to be critical. One thing I have learned in my 66 years: if you spend your time being critical of what somebody else does, you’ll never get anything significant accomplished yourself.

• Wrong friends. Negativity is a popular bandwagon to jump onto. Every negative friend should be challenged, and if he or she fails to answer the challenge, you must re-evaluate the long- term benefits of the friendship. People can pretty much be


��

�


categorized. Do you wish to associate with people whose interests don’t support yours? If you do, be prepared for your ambitions to be denigrated and your efforts to be discouraged. Supportive friends and colleagues can assist your efforts to success. You would be wise to associate with them and forgo any association with what former Vice President Spiro Agnew termed “the nattering nabobs of negativity.”

• Mistakes. You’ll make them. We all do. Mistakes are signposts to the future. Very few of them are disastrous. Most things can be corrected and repeated. Many can be corrected over time by modifying approaches and actions. Only safety-oriented things require extraordinary advanced thinking and training – such as the handling of dynamite or switches on punch presses which require the use of both hands, separated from the crushing dangers of the machine. Sometimes we don’t think things through in advance. Here in Tucson a short time ago a father of eight took a jump at a monster truck show in a pickup that had no rollbars or crush cage. Instead of pancaking over the jump, his truck dived nose over, due to insufficient speed, came down upside down and the man was crushed and killed. For us, there is no life/death gamble. We may buy too much or too little merchandise. We may sell it at a profit or a loss. But in the process we learn what to do and what not to do, and further learn that expansions of our opportunities are things to be taken in small, reasonably safe steps.

• Unforgiveness. Resentment is the aftermath of envy or distasteful experience. If we’re ever to get through this wall, we must learn to forgive the transgressions of others who, after all, are trying to operate in their own best interests. A harbored grudge saps your strength in ways that are not at all obvious, but creates bitterness and occupies precious time, time that could be spent moving your own agenda forward.

• Procrastination. The “round tuit” is an old joke, but the waste of the irreplaceable resource of time is a sadly-paid expense and is deleterious to your forward progress. The opposite is not necessarily “hard charging,” but one must learn that there are two kinds of activity: those that you cannot avoid, like the work on taxes, which I will get to right after I’ve said my piece here, and those which might be nice to do but never will get done if you don’t get ‘round tuit.’ Procrastination is not, by definition, slothfulness – but they are close relatives. Watch out.

• Distractions. How often do we let TV, sports games, parties, alternative activities, and other choices dictate what we do? I marvel at those people who can keep two, three, or four at-home businesses working. Seems to me that working for more than one master means that you’ll be doing far less than your best at any one of them. The best illustration I can give is a radio antenna – a vertically-polarized antenna radiates equally poorly in all directions. A horizontally-polarized antenna focuses all its energy forcefully in a single direction.

• Lying. Without moralizing on what we tell others or what they tell us, it is a fair thing to say that we frequently lie to ourselves. We tell ourselves that there is sufficient time, when we know there isn’t. We tell ourselves we have enough money, when we know we don’t. We tell ourselves we have planned ahead when we know we have not. We tell ourselves that we can impose on the goodwill of others, when it is totally presumptive to do so. I’m a late drop for my district. Members are given two extra days to get their orders to the late drop in order to get on-time delivery. This week two people missed the late drop by two days, thereby expecting me to spend the gasoline money to take the orders to the shipping point when they have left it according to their own schedules. By


��

�


this time a couple days from now I will get telephone calls from them wondering (1) why their orders didn’t get delivered or (2) why, when they were delivered late they were charged a late fee. Lying is the lack of acceptance of personal responsibility, and you can pretty much assume that if these people ever become successful, they will have hit the lottery – one chance in 100 million or more.

• Quitting. How easy to quit! Do nothing! Make excuses for our lack of performance. It flies in the face of the obvious to say that quitting is the antithesis of perseverance. But quitting in the face of an overwhelming challenge is strictly a character issue. You either have what it takes or you do not. A significant part of motivating yourself is simply making up your mind to see something through. And there is a problem with quitting – you may be able to excuse it in others’ eyes, but you cannot possibly excuse it in your own. And if what you have quit is significant – particularly if it is something that someone else is doing successfully – you will always harbor that tinge of regret. You may well convince everybody other than yourself that you’re not a quitter, but in the late night, in the early morning, and sometimes even in your dreams, the thought will haunt you. I guarantee it.

• Double-mindedness. Play it safe. See if anybody will buy from you before you commit to trying to sell something. Take on two businesses, just in case one might not work out. There is a time to take on more than you can chew – when you have so organized what you are doing that you can structure your activities to get someone else to assist you. But attempting one or more new tasks simultaneously, and justifying that they are complementary, is abject folly. Greater men than I have said that no man can serve two masters. The concept is not new. A prime self-motivator is singleness of purpose – and purpose that has specificity that is crystal clear not only to you but also to those who would observe or follow you.

• Hesitation. Lead. Follow. Or get out of the way. Ever sat behind a driver who was reluctant to enter the highway? After all, a car is coming… a couple blocks away. “Strike while the iron is hot,” we are told. Good advice if you’re a blacksmith. Hesitation for the purpose of caution or complete evaluation is always wise. Hesitation for the purpose of uncertainty is seldom wise. Learn to size up a situation by gathering the facts and evaluating them, and then make a decision. Don’t wait until everything is perfect. It will never happen. Or if you wait, somebody willing to avoid studying the situation to death will garner the reward. On the plains of hesitation line the bones of those who, with victory in their grasp, paused to rest.

• Talking. “Happy talk, keep talking happy talk…” goes the song. “You got to have a dream; if you don’t have a dream, how you gonna make a dream come true?” Talk to yourself. Tell yourself positive things. If you dwell upon things that are not to your liking, you drag yourself down with de-motivation. Things never will be precisely to your liking. If you’re in business with an organization, that organization sets the rules under which you will operate. If you don’t like the rules, you should avoid that organization. But rules change according to conditions and then it becomes necessary for you to decide which rules you can accommodate and which you cannot. By and large a rule that you think you cannot accommodate is one that steps on your emotional toes. In the final analysis, you must decide whether a change in the circumstances is so sufficient to decide to “chuck it all.” One thing we know for certain – keep harping to yourself about the negatives and you bring unhappiness to your existence. Look for the silver lining – and give yourself – and others – happy talk.


��

�


• Failures – we all have them. Sometimes we get our feelings hurt. Other times we suffer extraordinary financial difficulty. The books are full of illustrations about people who have failed repeatedly and yet continue to pursue the dream until they have experienced success. Read that sentence again – particularly the phrase “until they have experienced success.” There will be times when you make stupid mistakes. You’re not alone. There will be times when you, in retrospect, will wish you had selected an alternate course. “If life hands you lemons,” it has been said, “make lemonade.” Now it is easy enough to feel frustrated when things don’t go our way. But to use a very simple illustration, consider the difference in the traffic in your city on a Sunday morning versus the rush-hour traffic of any weekday. Every one of us has a plan to follow. Often times that plan comes into conflict with others’ plans for themselves. So what? “Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.”

• Delay and Impatience. We’re not a very patient lot. By and large, we have a learned desire for instant gratification. It is a selfish impulse. That generally means that we have little, if any, ability to plan beyond the ends of our noses. If we are to be successful, it will be because we have taken the time to plan our activities and have built into our plan sufficient space and time to accommodate the needs of others – our companies, our customers, and yes, even the demands upon ourselves. If planning is not done, crisis becomes our acquaintance, if not our friend, and can certainly become an easy enemy. If such planning is not done, over time everything becomes critical and when that happens, any number of things can occur that will force us to take stock, stop and rest, and re-plan. The danger lies when we interpret crisis as the signal to quit, rather than the signal to take stock and re-plan.

• Jealousy. Such a barrier! You find it whenever you feel you have come out on the short end of a bargain, when in effect you should respect the bargaining process and recognize that in any bargain the validity of the transaction lies in the satisfaction of both parties, not merely one. Envy, while it is the desire for what someone has, can lead to the jealousy that can be experienced merely because someone has something you do not. To objectively overcome jealousy one must evaluate just how another gained accomplishment, advantage, or reward – and if the outcome is important to find ways to not only duplicate the actions that provided that gain, but to find ways exceed those gains. In effect, beating someone at his – or her -- own game. Jealousy is certainly a deleterious activity that can bog down any forward progress. Get rid of it and replace it with resolve.

• Aimlessness. I find aimlessness in so many people who have taken no efforts to set goals and plans to meet those goals. It has been said that if you don’t know where you are going, any direction will do. In business, aimlessness occurs when the person is willing to accept less than his or her potential and is willing to take the easy road. Robert Frost had it right when he said that he preferred to take the road less traveled. The road less traveled is the one that leads to success. Nobody, but nobody, ever achieved success by merely copying the actions of another. Life is full of also-rans, those people whose concept of success is “enough.” I’ve heard it so many times. “I have enough customers.” Or, “I work hard enough.” Or, “People ought to want to give me orders.” Get used to the fact that to the self-motivated individual there is never enough. There is always another customer. There is always another call to be made. There is always another product to be introduced. Become satisfied with your efforts and next week you will become satisfied with less effort, and over time you will become less ambitious, to the point that at some


��

�


point you will determine that “this won’t work for me.” It won’t work for you – until you build the fire under your butt and get moving again.

• Disobedience, Strife, Misdirection, Conformity, Dishonesty, Ingratitude, Security, and Lukewarmness are all part and parcel of the balance of the fences you can erect. Companies make rules. You may not like the rules, and if that is true, then you should find a company whose rules you like. It probably will not happen. So, the natural tendency is to accept the rules you like and to reject those you do not. This will lead to difficulties between you and your company, and the strife will wear upon you. In your frustration, you will cast about in other directions, telling yourself and the world that there is no way you will conform to the requirements placed upon you. This may evidence itself in cheating – claiming returns that never occur, claiming non-receipt of product that was delivered. A downward spiral has begun and the thankfulness and joy you experienced in your early days goes out the window. You will stick your thumb in your mouth and grab your security blanket, figuratively at least, and from this point on you will be ambivalent towards your company – lukewarm.

So break out of it already. Self-motivation begins when you identify all those walls that confront you and resolve to surmount them, one by one, until victory is assured. Victory is possible, you know. The kind of victory you seek. Reward. Accomplishment. Self-satisfaction in your own performance. Courage in the face of frustration. Resolve when things get tough. Determination to overcome.


��

�


Chapter 8

Then What Should I Do?

For seven chapters now we have dealt with those things that will be contributory to your self-motivation. We’ve dealt with these topics:

• The fear of success. We offered that one way to become self-motivated is to overcome this specific fear. In it were outlined the items that impede our progress towards finding the success we were meant to have. The final message of that chapter acknowledged that if you will put yourself in charge, all of the other aspects of your success will fall into place.

• Fear and taking risks. Recognizing that fear of success is but one of the fears we encounter, it was offered that fear is merely the reluctance to take risks. One by one some of the fears that you will encounter are identified and approaches to those risks are offered.

• Going out on a limb. Continuing the theme of handling risks – and by now you should certainly be aware that success comes from the management of risk – you were charged to take responsibility for your risks and the chapter offered important attitudinal concepts for your self-motivation.

• From ambivalence to ambition to action. Here some techniques for moving from a position of “I don’t care” to a position of “I care very much and here’s what I’m going to do about it” were presented, along with an exhortation to delay no further.

• Preparing the action plan. Here we talked about specific actions you can take to ensure that your success does happen. The concept of repetitive motivation has been covered here. This chapter will provide the stiffening of your backbone necessary to ensure that success.

• Greasing the wheels. Here we explored ambitions. We asked for definitions, and followed the path from the spark of an idea through the circumstances one finds oneself in, to the realization of an ambition.

And, recognizing that every person’s circumstances are different, we identified, with a chapter about breaking through the brick wall, the various impediments to fulfilling your ambitions. If we can identify and overcome those impediments, success is ours to claim.

In this chapter will be outlined a program of positive self-motivation that, if followed, could lead to outstanding results. Note that I have not said it will lead to success. These are the things to do. Unfortunately, being human as we are, there is no little pill that can be swallowed to obtain that fire in the belly. There is no choice but to develop a program and follow it religiously. And if it is necessary to define the term “religiously,” merely draw to your own attention that a religion consumes your life. Not that there are not other important aspects of your life. There are. But a successful career becomes the enabler of an improved life in that it provides for all the other important features.


��

�


It’s Simple – Well, At Least Not Complex Living a self-motivated life is really not very difficult. There may be variations on the theme, but I maintain that to be self-motivated requires merely three steps, what I like to call attitude, fortitude, and vicissitude. Don’t let that last word throw you. It is merely a twenty-five dollar word meaning circumstances.

“I’m gonna live ‘til I die. I’m gonna reach for the sky. Before my number’s up, I’m gonna fill my cup. I’m gonna live, Live, LIVE … until I die!” For those of you not fortunate enough to remember Broadway singer Ethel Merman, this song was pretty much her watchword – the religion of self-motivation she followed all her life. For an outstanding bit of motivational reading, I can highly recommend her biography, Ethel. If you do read it, you’ll come away with a very important message – Ethel Merman believed in herself. She was so absolutely certain of her worth and her capabilities that she inserted herself into each and every opportunity which either (1) befell her or (2) she created.

Again, The Attitude I am convinced that the first step to a positive attitude is to believe in yourself. Develop your faith in your own abilities. Adopt a reasonable confidence in your own power. Overcome any sense of personal inferiority – no matter whether you tell that to yourself or you allow someone else to say it to you. Once you begin to believe in yourself, you will unleash extraordinary inner powers that will manifest themselves in your outward positive actions. And once that happens, you will have justified your faith in yourself. You have only to put the process into motion.

Following that concept one step further: Never simply tackle something you know you can do. Confidence never improves if you don’t bite off a little more than you know you can chew. Nobody is suggesting you go off the deep end of the pool – but if you constantly move just a bit out of a zone of safety, you’ll find that’s where the growth is.

Go back and look at the lyrics of Ethel’s song. What attitude shines through the song? First and foremost is the concept of positivity. Listen again to Ethel: “You got to accentuate the positive; eliminate the negative; latch on to the affirmative. Don’t mess with Mr. In-between.”

Is attitude the attribute of being happy? Yes, certainly it is that, but it is far more. It is enthusiasm, joy, anticipation, curiosity, and preparation. It is telling yourself – and believing – that there will be a positive outcome from your efforts, and finding that positive outcome each and every time you go looking for it.

Personal satisfaction. Ethel Merman again: “I got plenty of nothin’ and nothin’s plenty for me.” Well, I wouldn’t go quite that far. The whole concept of self-motivation is that you should not be satisfied with what you have thus far achieved. There is always another customer to see, another sale to make, another bell to ring. Ambition begets achievement, which in turn promotes growth in your economics, in your influence, and in your results.

Determination Doing the best job you can is a matter of honor. It takes guts to achieve – what we like to call intestinal fortitude. It takes an attitude of being unwilling to accept failure easily, of


��

�


being unwilling to let an issue die. You have a personal stake in the enterprise. And your challenge is to take it to the next step.

Adopt the position that you will not allow yourself to fail. Don’t accept the finality of the first “no” you hear. Or the second. Or the third. Tomorrow the answer may be “yes.” And for every no you hear, make it a point to develop a reference. Somebody your “no” knows may well say “yes.”

Develop yet another mantra: “I didn’t get involved to go home a loser.” Pick a strategy and try it. If it works, stick to it and build upon your success. Take advantage of success. Plan for it. Success is the greatest bootstrap to the next level. Success is where the rewards are – and, interestingly, the direction in which your confidence will improve. Make sure you have a goal and the courage to try an untried strategy. Who knows? It might just work. Look for opportunities to exercise your entrepreneurial ingenuity.

Go With Your Cannons Loaded You are an entrepreneur. If you have selected something you love to do, you will never be prone to burnout. Your ladder reaches to the heavens and beyond. There is always another step to climb. Never allow yourself to rest on one rung long enough for boredom to tighten its grip. Be pleased with your success but always hungry for more. When the day finally arrives when no new challenges seem ready to present themselves, they go out and find some. Or create them. Be too busy to be bored. Entrepreneurs aren’t discouraged by closed doors. They either bang them down or build another one.

If you were working for somebody else, would you simply wait until somebody decided you were worthy of promotion? If that were true, you might never advance, as you would be seen to lack any positive aggression. What would you do in that circumstance? Hopefully, you would ask for a raise. Why is that any different simply because you’re in business for yourself? From where does a raise come to you? From more business. From new customers. From larger orders. Why do you want more business? To get a raise! How will you tell your customers you deserve a raise? You do it by casting a brilliant spotlight on your achievements. You do it by letting your customers know – and demonstrating the truth of your statements – that you are the absolute best. You do it by demonstrating that there is nobody better than you.

And if it is necessary to surmount your circumstances – do it. You can be better than the pressures placed upon you. If it is necessary to invoke the higher power in your life, use all the help you can get.


��

�


What Is Your USP? It’s called a USP – a unique selling proposition. What do you offer that nobody else offers? Make your venture stand out in a positive manner. Key word, that: positive. That does not mean to give the store away. No one expects you to lose money, even though they may attempt to get you to give away your profit.

There will be upswings and downswings. Greet a downward turn with your best face. If you cannot undercut your competitor’s prices, you can outperform on hard work and outstanding service.

Fully commit to the one organization that touches your heart. Put pressure on yourself. And answer this question: Are you making time or are you marking time? Be a self-starter. Be unafraid to shake up the status quo. Have courage. Force yourself into a no withdraw, no retreat position. Once you are there you will have to do what it takes to advance – because you must never allow yourself to retreat.

Giving It What It Takes Consider these statements:

• Necessities are easy to sell. All I need to do is to discover what is necessary for your customer. Whether you like it or not, it is also the way you will find new customers. My service and my products fulfill personal needs.

• I will just not be denied. Only my demise will defeat me, and I plan on being around a real long time.

• I will relish the unknown. The darkness of the unknown is but a thin disguise for a world ablaze with opportunity.

• I will be an activist. I won’t wait for someone to bring the market to me. I will get out and find it.

• I will make high demands upon myself. Nobody but I will know how I measure up to myself. But everybody will know when I have successfully done it.

• I will make a commitment to excellence. Not the usual. Not the also-ran. The best I can be. In the best way I know how.

• I will find ways to bring my business to its fullest potential. And whenever I recognize that more potential exists, I will actively seek a way to exploit it.

• I will offer a necessary service. My customers will need me. I will make myself indispensable to their needs.

• I love it. I rejoice in the course I have chosen to follow. I will share that love and perhaps teach others to love it.

• I’m good at it. Nobody is better than I. I am the most successful person I know, and I’m going to improve upon that wherever I can.

• I will do something that has never been done, has seldom been done, or has not been done successfully by somebody else.

• I will pressure myself to outdo myself. Challenge sparks my engine.


��

�


• Once I have begun, I will strive to be best, else I would allow someone to copy me and do it better.

• Somebody ahead of me has stopped. I will put the pedal to the metal, and cover that distance in a very short time.

• I will find a vacuum and fill it. Nobody will be able to fill it better than I. I will find it first, so nobody else will be able to exploit the opportunity.

• I will see the possibilities where others see the liabilities.

• I will keep a ledger of calls, one that identifies the hits and misses. And then I will apply what I learned with the misses to increase the number of hits.

• I will build an entrepreneurial resilience. Setbacks will be temporary. New strategies will be selected. I will bounce back and move ahead.

• I will paint the vista. My customers will see the whole picture because I will share it with them.

• No matter how my business is going, there is always another bell to ring.

• I will surmount my circumstances and my environment.

• I will take total responsibility for the accomplishment of my success.

Pick out your own path to excellence and polish your crown. The only person who can fire you is yourself. Your business is your store. You close only when you want to close. Business is always open. There are no ceilings. In order to move up, you must get recognition for your efforts. Look at us – we recognize each other – but we never tell the customer about it. Success comes from proving something can be done well and on your own terms.

How Thin Is The Darkness? As was stated above, the darkness of the unknown is but a thin disguise for a world ablaze with opportunity. The fire in the belly, properly applied, eats at that darkness. The unknown becomes a thin veneer as you gain experience, confidence, and success.

Stop periodically and evaluate where you are and where you’re going. And, as Sachel Paige once said, “Never look back. They may be gaining on you.”

It’s a vision thing. You will move forward into the realm of success just as soon as you perceive you are capable of achieving outstanding success. In the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Paul Newman (in the role of Butch Cassidy) makes this statement: “I see visions while the rest of the world wears bifocals.” You will be successful because you can be successful. You can be successful because you know success lies within you. Your task lies only in finding a way to coax it out. Set your goals majestically. Work toward their accomplishment. Take the necessary steps, and you will achieve.

I guarantee it.


��

�


Passion Passes For Experience I am absolutely convinced that the person with the leg up on persistence is the one who has that intense burning desire to succeed. Success is getting up one more day. Pursuing your dream one more day. It’s taking the extra step. It’s going above and beyond what anybody else will do. It has been said that there is no traffic jam on the extra mile.

You’ll work hard, no doubt. If you’re new at this, you’ll work far harder than the “old pro’s.” But if you do work that hard, you are entitled to, and will receive, the recognition for your efforts.

Build that desire this way:

• Challenge your ability. Go after something that seems beyond your ability with a strong desire to accomplish it. You’ll do the work and you will accomplish it.

• Tell yourself that the only limits you will face today will be those you impose upon you. No one can ruin your day without your permission. Life is full of people who didn’t gain the prize on the first try and who worked daily to overcome any limits on their performance.

• Recognize that your advancement in your business and your rise in the ranks of your business will depend upon your ability not to try to do something, but to complete it. Your competition has nothing on you.

• Put pressure upon yourself to develop your skills, overcome your fears, and accomplish your tasks. You must be the inspiration to yourself and to those who will choose to follow you.

• Celebrate your achievements by accepting the rewards and then creating resolution to surpass those achievements. Build a plan and start this list again.

Napoleon Hill, in his book Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude, describes burning desire:

• “… your subconscious mind begins to work under a universal law: what the mind can conceive and believe the mind can achieve. Because you realize your intended destination, your subconscious mind is affected by this self-suggestion. It goes to work to help you get there.

• “Because you know what you want, there is a tendency for you to try to get on the right track and head in the right direction. You get into action.

• “Work now becomes fun. You are motivated to pay the price. You budget your time and money. You study, think and plan. The more you think about your goal the more enthusiastic you become. And with enthusiasm your desire turns into a burning desire.

• “You become alerted to opportunities that will help you achieve your objective as they present themselves in your everyday experiences. Because you know what you want, you are more likely to recognize these opportunities.”


��

�


What Is Great Performance? It is an interesting paradox that outstanding desire produces outstanding performance. The person with that level of desire, that passion, that “fire in the belly,” is not satisfied with “good” performance. He isn’t interested in “average” performance. She has no desire to produce “acceptable” performance. That person is interested in and will accept nothing less than great performance, specifically as it applies to customers. Consider this set of questions:

• Is this the best you can do? In another book I ask whether you are farming as well as you know how. You might enjoy reading that one.

• What do you want for your customers? Is it perfect service, no shorts, no foibles of human frailty, or no problems whatsoever?

• What do you feel your customers want? Is it reasonable to expect that in this sequence of human experience that the process will run with the precision of a fine Swiss watch? Or would a more reasonable and rational approach be considered great performance?

• How would you like your company to be run in relation to the best that you can do? Would you like it never to make a mistake? Would you like all shipments to be on time, without error, in perfect shape, and with no glitches?

It’s useful to recognize here that our interest is in great performance, not in perfect performance. Perfection is ideal but attainable only to a certain extent. So it is reasonable to ask what we really want to create for our customers and what it will take to make that happen. And great performance is largely a function of self-definition. Once I have made up my mind to achieve great performance, nothing can deter that effort.

Burning desire is not something we can receive genetically from our parents. We can observe burning desire in someone else and model that behavior. Persistence is a trait that must be taught and assimilated. Again, we’re not interested in the incrementalism of acceptable, average, or good performance. Thinking incrementally is something we’re taught early in life. Parents, in an effort to obtain great performance from their progeny urge their children to try harder, take one more step, and work a little more. In school kids are taught the ranges for an A, B, C, etc., and are encouraged to take those steps necessary to move from the lower range to the higher. Even in our professional lives we are given levels of performance to which our companies attempt to stir aspirations within us.

Suppose the situation were turned around and only those who evidenced burning desire and persistence were the ones hired? What if we began with an extreme definition of great performance and worked backwards to identify the steps necessary to get there? Suppose the idea is to produce on time delivery of perfect product with no disruptions ever – would that get someone’s attention? Perhaps the attention of the customers?

Now we know, as independent sales people, that it is only our portion of the process over which we can exercise any control. We cannot do anything about our company’s running out of product, except to pass the information back along with carefully worded “suggestions” that they get with the program.

Your Pathway To Success You must never give up so long as you know you are right. If getting into the business you have selected was the right thing to do for the right reasons at the time of entry, it is no less


��

�


right at this moment. You have only to make your plans, commit to them, and get to it, sticking to it until you can see results.

You must believe that all things will work for you if you complete the process. There are so many instances in history – perhaps even your own personal history – where had the course been stayed, the results would have been desirable. The abandonment of a worthwhile effort, albeit one fraught with difficulty, merely allows one to make the same mistake repeatedly.

You must be courageous and unperturbed in the face of difficulties. Tell yourself you will fail and you will complete your own self-fulfilling prophecy. Tell yourself that irrespective of any difficulties you might encounter, the goal is worthwhile and one way or the other you will seek a way to accomplish that goal, and the aural reinforcement has a way of permeating your psyche to the point that you’ll simply find a way to succeed.

You must not permit anyone – anyone – to deter you from your path or intimidate you in any manner that might cause you to miss your goal. Many will tell you what you cannot. Refuse to permit that to happen. This is your journey. You don’t have to go it alone. That’s what we’re here for – those of us who share a journey not unlike your own. Positive and uplifting support is available to you 24/7 amongst those of us who have selected the same path.

You must fight to overcome all handicaps and setbacks. Sometimes this takes the form of the frustration of missing product. Sometimes it’s irate customers. You, alone, control your mood. Fortify yourself with knowledge and understanding, skill and perseverence. Allow nobody to stand in your way. Nudge aside those who try and give them with severe warnings.

You must try again and again to accomplish what you desire. And again, if necessary. Persistence is: “No one could make that ram scram; he kept buttin’ that dam.” If I recall the song, the punch line was “Whoops, there goes a billion kilowatt dam.”

Accept the fact that nobody you ever heard about, who ever accomplished anything significant, had it handed to her. She had to fight discouragement. She had to fight adversity. She suffered temporary failure and fought to recover. Success was in her sights, and though she may have had to fight to see it done, she did so – or is doing so currently.

Recognize that if you will not surrender to discouragement or fear, or whatever obstacles may lie in your path, you will achieve the goal.

And, if you are wise enough to establish your goals as short-term achievable steps, you’ll find that success brings an emotional surge to your performance, further boosting your efforts.

Do Something Different As you set goals, plan to do something different. Take a bold move. Don't do things as you've always done them. Don't do them as others have always done them. As you lay out your plans, plan something radical:

• Start selling in a nearby town that may not be well served.

• Place an ad in a newspaper where you never see an ad for your product.

• Find several helpers in several parts of town.


��

�


• Open an office and do your business from there.

• Get yourself into a training schedule.

• Be a friend to every representative you know -- even your competition.

• If you've been buying 10 or 20 brochures, buy 100. Rent a kid to distribute them.

• Get yourself a bicycle and drag a wagon around.

• Pull your kids around in a little Red Wagon.

• Go to 2 businesses a week or more and give out books.

• Go to 2 doctor's offices a week or more and give out books.

• Stand a half hour in the parking lot at the grocery store handing out books.

• Find a five-story (or larger) office building and take the elevator to the top floor. Walk around giving out books. Walk down the stairs; do the same thing on each floor.

Do you get the idea? Make it different. If you do the same thing you've done before, you're going to get the same results. Do something different. Better to attempt something new and big -- and fail, than to attempt nothing -- and succeed.

“I am not judged by the number of times I fail, but by the number of times I succeed. The number of times I succeed is in direct proportion to the number of times I can fail and keep on trying.” Motto of the Champions Unlimited, Scottsdale, AZ.


��

�


Epilogue

In the Preface, I reported a conversation with an unnamed person. That person is fictitious, yet very real. His name was Simon Potter. Simon was a friend with celestial connections and was an important character of two books by Og Mandino:

The Greatest Miracle In The World and

The Return of the Ragpicker

I was moved, after reading these two books, to write a parallel sequel to the latter, in which I supplanted Mandino with myself, in the character of Horace Greely Henderson. It, too, was a book about success, and a copy may be obtained from the author.

In the book, Henderson, aka “Hank,” was implored by Simon Potter to do things differently from what was customary. Henderson, a New England truck farmer with a heavy burden upon his shoulders, learned that with faith, divine inspiration and intervention, a little luck, friends, acquaintances, and hard work, he could achieve more – and a different – success than his wildest imagination could ever have guessed. And much of that has been the theme of this book. Hopefully it will have impacted similarly upon you, the reader.

Some years ago I encountered the following poem, by Sam Walter Foss. I think Simon Potter, whoever and wherever he may be, would be happy to have me share it with you at this time.

Ken Lord


��

�


The Calf Path By: Sam Walter Foss

One day, through the primeval wood, A calf walked home, as good calves should; But made a trail all bent askew, A crooked trail as all calves do. Since then two hundred years have fled, And I infer, the calf is dead. But still he left behind his trail, And thereby hangs my moral tale. The trail was taken up next day, By a lone dog that passed that way And then a wise bell-wether sheep Pursued the tail o'er vale and steep, And drew the flock behind him, too, As good bell-wethers always do. And from that day, o'er hill and glade, Through those old woods a path was made; and many men wound in and out, and dodged and turned, and bent about and uttered words of righteous wrath Because 'twas such a crooked path. But still they followed -- do not laugh -- The first migrations of that calf, and through this winding wood-way stalked, Because he wobbled when he walked. This forest path became a lane That bent and turned, and turned again; This crooked lane became a road, Where many a poor horse with his load Toiled on beneath the burning sun, and traveled some three miles in one. And thus a century and a half They trod the footsteps of that calf. The years passed on in swiftness fleet, The road became a village street; and this, before men were aware, A city's crowded thoroughfare; and soon the central street was this Of a renowned metropolis; and men two centuries and a half Trod in the footsteps of that calf.


��

�


Each day a hundred thousand rout Followed the zigzag calf about; and o'er his crooked journey went The traffic of a continent. A hundred thousand men were led By one calf near three centuries dead. They followed still his crooked way, and lost one hundred years a day; For thus such reverence is lent To well-established precedent. A moral lesson this might teach, Were I ordained and called to preach; For men are prone to go it blind Along the calf-paths of the mind. And work away from sun to sun To do what other men have done. They follow in the beaten track, And out and in, and forth and back, And still their devious course pursue, To keep the path that others do. But how the wise old wood-gods laugh, Who saw the first primeval calf! Ah! many things this tale might teach -- But I am not ordained to preach.

The message is:

Be Different Be Better

Be Successful

You Know You Can!


��

�


“Following a precedent is an easy substitute for thinking.” Ruth Smeltzer “If one advances confidently in the direction of their dreams and endeavors to live the life they have imagined, they will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” Henry David Thoreau.


Documents

A Book About Self-Motivation