Discover Your Path to Success - Part 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Do you have a real passion for your goals?

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

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

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

Little Things Mean Everything

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe it was just a little thing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One Single Secret To Goal Setting Success

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Are You Relentless in Your Pursuit of Success?

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

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

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

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

The duck asked again: "Got any wheat?"

Again the bartender replied in the negative.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wrong!

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

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

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

However these numbers don't lie…

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

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

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

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

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

John V Panella

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

Reaping The Fruit Of Success In Life

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

Three Steps towards Success to Grow You Beyond Better.

1. Believe in yourself

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

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

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

2. Become a life long learner

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

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

3. Keep good company.

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

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

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


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

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

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

1. Know Your Core Values.

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

2. Be Honest With Yourself.

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

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

4. Be Flexible With Your Plans.

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

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

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

6. Share What You Know or What You Have.

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

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

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

8. Stay in the Success Momentum.

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


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

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

Starting out from his Garage

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

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

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

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


Motivation

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

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

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

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

Change

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

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

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

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

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

Be a Generalist

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

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

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

Work Ethic

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

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

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

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

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


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

The Power Of Your Mind

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Parable of the Touchstone

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

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

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

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

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

The Success Principle

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

The Principle at Work

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Resource Box

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

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