You Are a Success

Success is a state of mind. If you want success, start thinking of yourself as a success." ~Dr. Joyce Brothers

This is a simple concept, but I think most people fail to live it. If you want something, you need to focus on it. If you don't focus on it, then your mind will not be aware of the things you want when they pass near you. If you are focusing on those things, then you will notice them when they approach. Then you can take action on those opportunities.

You can only do things if you believe you can do things. That includes being a success. If you don't believe you can, then what chance do you have to actually become that success. You have to know it is possible, and the more present tense you can make that belief, the sooner you will feel that success come to your reality.

I think you have to be ready to make something happen. If your mind is not ready, then it will be hard for your body to make it happen. The nice thing is that you can choose to be ready whenever you want to be. Once you make that choice then there is nothing outside your grasp. You just have to believe.

Stop Rowing and Look Around

"Rowing harder doesn't help if the boat is headed in the wrong direction." - Kenichi Ohmae

I don't know how often this happens to us, but it does happen often. We are doing one thing when we should be doing another. It's not until we fall into a hole when we realize that we were heading in the wrong direction.

There are other times when we know we are heading in the wrong direction be we make the decision not to turn around. Then we wonder why we arrive somewhere we don't want to be. The best example of this is how we eat. We know we should be eating healthy food. We make the decision to eat a lot of junk food and fast food. Then we wonder why we are fat and miserable.

Take some time to think about your life and what you are doing with it. Identify the things you are doing that are heading in a different direction than you truly intend to be heading. May a conscious choice to turn around and head toward a definite goal. You will enjoy your life much more when you start making some of your goals come true.

Time to Get Even

The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you. ~John E. Southard

Can you imagine if everyone lived by this quote? No one tried to get even for the negative things that have happened in life. Instead, people were more interested in burning their energy trying to do good things for the people who have done good to them. The world would be such a nice place to live.

This quote reminds me of the movie called "Pay It Forward" The story is about a boy who has discovered the powers of multiplicity. He finds that if one person does something nice for three people without any need for repayment, and tells them to each help three people in the same way, those three people will be helping nine people. Then nine people will be helping 27 people. Then 27 people will be helping 81 people. Then 81 people will be helping 243 people and so on. That number gets large very quickly.

The world would be such a nice place to live if everyone was in the mindset that we were working for the greater good of everyone else. If we could all live in homes that were built and maintained by the other people in the city. We all have something to strive for, to make each others' lives more comfortable.I can see a world that looks more like Earth in the TV series "Star Trek: The Next Generation." The people on Earth are more interested in exploring the galaxy and the universe than they are about gaining wealth. We are working for the general good, creating things that will help everyone. Today, I want you to go out and do something for someone else. Think of a way to help someone else without them knowing who did it for them. Go pay someone's light bill, or go buy some groceries and leave them on the doorstep of someone who you know is having a hard time making ends meet. Mow someone else's yard for them. Pay the toll for the car behind you. Just do something nice without needing anything in return.

Your Opportunity Dressed in Overalls?

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” -Thomas Edison.

Hindsight is 20/20. That is what they say. Have you ever looked back at a circumstance and realized that you should have done something that would have made you successful or at least gotten something that you have wanted for a long time? I know I have. Just look back at my Lotto Story. A lot of times we don't realize that we missed a good opportunity until it has long since past. I think that is what Edison is talking about in this quote.


We should be looking for those opportunities that are not quite so obvious. Most successful people out there are successful because they took advantage of an opportunity that was more about how to help someone else than it was about making money. If you want to hear about a number of these kinds of stories, you should find a copy of "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill. This book was written in the early part of the 20th century. Hill talks about a number of successful people of his time; people like Thomas Edison and the Wright Brothers and Henry Ford. It is probably one of the best books about success that I have ever read. 

I have a simple way for you to figure out what opportunities to look for, even the ones that are dressed in overalls. It will take about ten to fifteen minutes everyday to sit down and write a few sentences in a notebook. personally I like those little composition books the teenagers get for school. They are bound nicely and will put up with a little abuse. You can get them for a dollar at the dollar store or you can wait till right before school starts and buy about a dozen of them at once when they are on sale. I found them this year at walmart for 40 cents each.


Set you a timer for 15-20 minutes. I like taking 20 minutes because it usually takes me a few minutes to start writing ideas. If I can get them started, then more ideas will start gushing out after them. All you have to do is start writing. think about your day. What happened in the last 24 hours that might shed light on an opportunity that you could use to your benefit. I don't care how small the idea is. The whole point of this exercise is to get some ideas down on paper. 


If you can do this everyday, just sit down and write, you will find all kinds of interesting ideas will come to you. I don't care if you are writing the same ideas everyday. If you do, that means you mind is working on the ideas. That means your mind is working out a way to make your ideas successful. That is all you need to do. You need to make yourself aware of the opportunities. Then you will naturally start to work out a way to profit from those ideas. 


Go try it.

All You Need is a Spark

"A great flame follows a little spark." ~ Dante

There are a lot of these types of metaphors. What happens when you start a snowball rolling down a hill? You get a bigger and bigger snowball. What happens when a small leak breaks through a dam? If left unchecked, it will erode the hole in the dam till water is flowing through it with the power of a waterfall. What happens when one ant finds your picnic? Soon your food will be covered in the entire colony of ants.

What you have to learn from these metaphors is all it takes is an idea or even an small inspiration. All you have to do is feed it and it will grow into something great and amazing. The blog you are reading right now; it was an inspired thought. What would happen if I found some of life's great quotes and let my mind run away with them? Would I be able to write something that would benefit everyone? Would I be able to write something every weekday for an entire year? If I did, then this would turn into something great, something everyone would want to visit on a regular basis, something that would turn into a book or a calendar or who knows what else.

Take a few minutes and look at the things in your life. Don't just look at the normal things like your meals, and your job. Look at the friends around you and the projects you have started but laid aside because you lost interest or ran into some sort of roadblock. Ponder the new ideas or rekindle the old ideas. Envision how some of those ideas might blossom into something that could make money for you. Think about the things that have possibilities. Take those possibilities to the next level.

Meet with your friends... You know the ones. The ones who have ambition; the ones who know how to take an idea and run with it; the ones who will do their best to support you, to drive you to do more with what you have, to encourage you to take your ideas and make something amazing out of them. I think you will be surprised at what comes from those people and ideas.

Do What You Know You Can Do

"Don't let what you can't do stop you from doing what you can do." ~ John Wooden

Sometimes there are just things you can't do. For the majority of us, we can't fly to the moon. That is something we can't do. Are we going to let that stop us from getting into orbit? Today it is possible to buy a ticket to get on a shuttle and spend a few days in space orbiting the Earth. The only thing it will cost you is money and a bit of astronaut training.

I think sometimes we have it set in our mind that we cannot do certain things. Maybe you think you can't speak in front of large groups of people. That is not true. It might take some practice and a lot of self focus, talking yourself into getting up in front of those people. Once you are up there, I think you will find that people will be willing to listen to you. If there are those in the audience who are not interested in what you have to say or actually try to make fun of you, that is OK. Those are not the people you are speaking to. You are speaking to the people who are going to get something out of what you have to say. If you don't get up there, then the people you are there to speak to will not get the benefits of learning about what you are going to speak about.

Most of the time the things you think you believe you can't do are just that beliefs. You can change those beliefs. All you have to do is sit down and start writing down that you can do these things. Think about it. When you write something, you make that thing concrete in your mind. If you can make that concrete in your mind then you will be better prepared to do the things that you once thought you could not do.

Look For Stars, Not Mud

Two men look out through the same bars: One sees the mud and one the stars. ~ Frederick Langbridge

This could be said in so many ways. You hand someone a glass with a bit of water in it. One person sees the glass as half empty. The other sees the glass as half full. We have all heard that one. I don't know who said it, but it is a good way to see the nature of a person.

Take a look at yourself first. How do you look at things? Do you think about what is happening to you? Are you seeing all the things people are doing to hurt you? Are you thing about all the negatives in you life? From my experience, thinking about the bad things in life just brings on more things that are bad.

What you want to do is try to turn your thinking around; take a complete 180 turn and start thinking about what is good in your life, or better yet, make the negative things in your life a positive. If your car had a flat tire, take a moment to breathe and realize that the universe is just trying to slow you down. If you move too fast, you might not be able to stop when you see the brick wall.

Look for the positive things in life so you can attract more positive things. Change your way of thinking. Happiness is a choice. You can choose to feel happy. It is easy. Just think to yourself, I refuse to feel negative and I think I am going to feel happy. Want to concrete that feeling. Then start laughing. Start laughing for no reason. Just laugh. You will find it makes you feel better. You will also find that people around you will wonder why you are laughing.

Want another way to feel good. Take a deep breath. Hold it.... Then let it out slowly. It feels good.