Contribute to the Success of Others

"Our own success, to be real, must contribute to the success of others." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Have you ever noticed when you are trying to do things for yourself, you feel either the stress of failure or the desire to procrastinate, but when you are doing something for someone else, something without expecting anything in return, you have a greater desire to finish what You have started.

I like the idea of helping others. Many of the most successful people made their riches by helping other people get what they want. You can read about people like Henry Ford who wanted to help people get around faster without relying on a living creature. Horses get tired, but the automobile does not.

You can read about Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Edison who both were inventors who made things for people who needed glasses or light bulbs or pot belly stoves or a way to listen to the recorded voice. When you make a product or provide a service for a large group of people who need or want it, there will be a fortune waiting for you.

Zig Ziglar Always says "If you help enough people get what they want, You will get what you want." You could treat this statement almost like a law of life. It happens every time I see it put into use. The goal is not to think about the money. Spend your time thinking about how you can implement the idea. If the idea is valuable to people, the money will find it's way to you.

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.

Make Others Become Great

"Really great people make you feel that you, too, can become great"  ~Mark Twain

This is an interesting quote to think about. It is true if you think about it. Who in you life do you feel is a great person. It might be a teacher or a boss or someone else who you think does amazing work. Why do you think they are great? Usually it is because they have made you feel like you yourself might be great as well. That teacher prods you to do well on a test or compliments something you have written.  The boss tells you that you have been doing a good job and instructs you in ways that will make you a better boss.

One of my favorite examples is when we read authors. We think they are great. They don't know us. They have never spoken to us. They may never speak to us. Somehow, though, they are able to make us feel like we are someone great. I don't know what it is. Maybe because we get the opportunity to read something in their world, become part of that world. We get to see a small part of what is inside them.

We all strive to be great in some way. We all strive to be like those who we admire. The ones who, in our eyes, are already great. In that way we try to me more like them, making even the slightest bit of greatness. What we don't always see is that those we see as great once saw someone before them as great, someone who made them want to be better, to be great themselves. Soon you will have people looking at you wanting a little bit of your greatness to rub off on them. All you can do is be as great as you can be.

Ignore Your Limits

"Know your limits, then ignore them" ~John Mason

Sometimes it is good to not know how far you can go. Then you will surprise yourself by how far you can go. Lets say that you are invited to run a marathon. You say yes knowing you have never run that kind of distance before. You get on the starting line and start running when you hear the signal. You will be pleasantly surprised how far you can run without stopping. Then you will be surprised that you are able to walk the rest without stopping. Then you will be able to tell everyone that you have completed a marathon. It may take you 6-8 hours to complete the marathon but that is OK. You did it, and that is all that matters.

Now that you have an idea of what it is like to run a marathon, you know what your limits are. You will know what it takes to get yourself to the next level. Now all you have to do is train yourself to get past those limits. You start running everyday. You start to rat better, making sure you eat things that will give your muscles the nutrients they need to take the punishment you intend to put on them.

Instead of waiting for someone to invite you to run that next marathon, you start searching for the next one you want to run. You make plans to be at that marathon, and you set goals to get you to the point to run that race. When the day comes you start running, and are amazed when you pass the 5 mile mark without feeling too much strain. You keep running till you can't run anymore. Then you walk the rest of the way. When you finish, you find you have shaved off two hours off you last marathon. Now you know what your new limits are and you can plan for the next one.

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.

Never Regret

Never regret. If it’s good, it’s wonderful. If it’s bad, it’s experience. ~ Victoria Holt

A lot of people I fins, live in the fear that they are going to do something wrong. They live in the fear they are going to let someone down. They fear they will fail. I will be the first to admit, I have this fear more often than I don't.

As I live and work and learn, I have found that life is full of successes and failures. The successes are awesome. They feel good and may get you places you never dreamed you could get. It is the failures though that are the most productive. When you fail at something, you have the opportunity to learn from it. If you can learn from it, you will not only have the ability not to let that failure happen again, you also have the ability to teach other the avoid that same failure.

Now you can either give that knowledge away for free and let karma bring you the rewards of helping others, or you can charge for that advice and make a monetary profit from what you have learned. There is nothing wrong in charging for teaching others what you have learned. People do it all the time. There is an entire educational system that thrives of selling knowledge. I have found that if you give your knowledge away, you may get a whole lot more in return than what you will get by charging for it.

Another thing about failure is that it tends to make you feel bad. That is OK. You are allowed to feel the defeat of a failure. The only thing is that you need to immediately pick yourself back up and try it again. There are a lot more failures out there than there are successes. You have to keep trying so you can figure out what truly works. If you don't, then you will never know what you are capable of. So keep trying.

Pride in Your Appearance

You cannot climb the ladder of success dressed in the costume of failure. - Zig Ziglar

 I have spent a lot of my life not really caring how I look. I have always preferred dressing for comfort than for style or impressing other people. I have never really had people say anything about how I dress except maybe the ones who live in my house. I figure most other people don't care or they care and don't say anything. Either way, I think there is a time when one should start caring more about his or her own appearance.

There is a time when your appearance can hurt your chances for something you want. You have heard the old saying: You only get ten seconds to make your first impression. That is all the time someone needs to make up their mind about you and how you might be able to help them. If you are dressed like a slob, they are not going to believe you are going to be able to help them. They will think you are someone who does not care. If you don't care about looking like a professional, then why would you take your job seriously and do the work professionally?

It is one thing to dress professionally when you are working. Many people dress well when they go to work, but then they let things fall when they get home. For the most part, that is OK. Think about this though. If you thought you looked good all the time, would you be more willing to take chances when the opportunities arose? These opportunities could be anything.

Lets say you went to the store to get something. There is a woman at the checkout who doesn't give you a second glance because you look like a slob. If you were dressed presentable, she might smile at you, maybe even spark up a conversation.

What if someone came to the door to offer you some sort of service. If you are dressed like a slob, they would not take you serious. If you are dressed like you are someone who could help them, you might be surprised at what they might give you for free just because you held yourself in a professional manner.

When I worked retail, It was often someone would walk in in a dirty T-Shirt and shorts with holes in them. They would walk around and no one would help them because they didn't seem like they had money. I found on more than one occasion that if I helped these people, they would shell out thousands of dollars on things they were looking for. If he dressed cleaner and more like someone who had money, he would have received help right away and possibly gotten a better deal because of that top notch service.

Make sure you dress for success.