Did you know that wine makers prepare champagne  with a very specialized process?  After it’s gone through first and second fermentation processes, champagne producers then carefully turn the bottles and introduce the bubbles into the wine.  Champagne has become associated with royalty, and is often associated with royalty, high luxury, festivities, and rites of passage.

I can’t think of a better analogy for us and our lives!

As a created being, you are the masterpiece of God’s creation.  God created you with vast talents, abilities, character traits, and opportunities.  You are royalty!

Yet, we often feel more like a discount bottle of $4 wine.  We can’t imagine any royal purpose for our lives.  Our lives lack zest, bubbles, and the exquisite flavor of a high quality champagne.

What Is Your Ideal Day?

Your ideal day will differ from my ideal day.

It makes sense, since each of us is as unique as a snowflake.

If you visualize your ideal day, you’ll find clues about your deepest desires and aspirations.

Before You Start: The First Fermentation Process

Clarify Your Values

It’s important to clarify your values, because you’ll want your ideal day harmonize with your deepest values.

Here are two helpful sites to help you clarify your values.

I haven’t yet used this site, but it’s free and looks like it will give you a comprehensive way to easily clarify your values via the Life Values Inventory assessment.

I used the Douglas Wagoner’s values sorter to find my top values.

Crystallize Your Mission

You can crystallize your mission by reading my earlier articles: A Simple Formula: Find Your Mission Through Your Passion, and Have A Personal Mission You Can Be Proud Of.

Pay Attention To Your Buckets

After you’ve clarified your values, be sure to visualize your  buckets.  You can divide your life into six buckets.  Most of us can count on a balanced and significant life if we’ll keep these buckets in mind:

• God and spirituality
• Family and friends
• Work and career
• Community and Service
• Financial
• Personal growth and development

Remember Your Personal Strengths

If you haven’t already done so, purchase Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath to pinpoint your strength areas.  When you purchase the book, you’ll find a code included with it.  Using that code, you can go t the Strengths Finder website, where you’ll take your strengths assessment.  After discovering your top five strengths, you’ll then have access to your own dashboard, complete with a Strengths Insight and Action Planning Guide.

Ideal Day Visualization: The Second Fermentation Process

Once you’ve put all your ingredients together: your life mission, your values, your six buckets, and your strengths, it’s time to start stirring all those ingredients together.

At this time, we can engage both our left and right brains in this process.  Our left brain is linear and analytical; our right brain is more creative.  A fine champagne takes time, care, and effort.  So, I urge you to clarify your ideal day over the course of a day, two days, a couple of weeks, or even a month!

Left Brain Exercise: Write Out Your Ideal Day

Mark Victor Hansen, author of Chicken Soup For The Soul, suggests writing out 24 1 hour segments on a sheet of paper (e.g., 4-5 am, 6-7 am, and so forth).

Here’s my direct quote from his “Visualize Your Perfect Day” exercise:

I want you to visualize your perfect day. This day is one where you feel motivated, exhilarated, joyful, healthy and focused. First, take out a journal or notebook and make a timeline of 24 hours, each line of paper should represent one hour of this perfect day. For example, line one should be Midnight – 1:00 AM. Line two should be 1:00 AM  – 2:00 AM. And so on.

After you have created this timeline, visualize what you would ideally be doing during each hour. Perhaps from Midnight – 1:00 AM you would be sleeping soundly, or maybe you would be living it up at a nightclub or party. How will you spend 9:00 AM  – 10:00 AM? Will you be at the gym working out or having breakfast with clients who love and respect you?

What about 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM? Is this the hour you’ll pick your kids up from school, or will you be getting a relaxing massage?

Take each hour one at a time until you have created your perfect day. Once you have determined how you want to spend your time, review the timeline often – morning, noon and night. This is going to be your future schedule, so you need to become familiar with it. Believe that this is how you are going to be spending your time and it will become your reality.

Right Brain Exercise: Your Ideal Day Visualization

You may want to write your own visualization, read it into your SmartPhone or other recording device, and play it back to yourself regularly.

Or, you can listen to the Perfect Day Visualization exercise I found at MoveBeyondIt.Com

Your Life Goals: Champagne At Its Best

Once you’ve gone through the above steps of ‘fermentation’, it’s time to add the bubbles for the perfect Life Champagne!

You will add bubbles by writing down your goals!

Here’s a Printable SMART Goal Setting Template from Time Management Success.

For a more comprehensive way to Change Your Life, you can also buy my eBook, Change Your Life The Smart Way.

A few years ago, I worked with clients at a hospital in Chicago, IL.   We had a few physically disabled clients who did not have the use of their legs.  In order to get into the van, the van driver would secure them to the a hydraulic lift.  The hydraulic lift  smoothly lifted them on to the van.  Thus mobility and transportation is available to every person without the use of their legs.

It wasn’t always this way.  Over 30 years ago, a gentleman named Ralph Braun (Rise Above: How One Man’s Search for Mobility Helped the World Get Moving, by Ralph Braun, is his autobiography) was born with spinal muscular dystrophy.  At the age of 14, he discovered he’d have to spend his life in a wheelchair.  To this young man, it was a traumatic event.  However, this event also inspired his life work.

The only way around is through. – Robert Frost

Success Factor # 1:  It’s OK to be a Sunflower Amongst the Daisies!  or, Accept Yourself and Your Life.

The first step for your personal growth plan is to accept and persevere with exactly who you are, the circumstances that you are in, the assets you have, and the seeming limitations that you have.  As Ralph himself stated, he had a difficult time coming to terms with his disability.  But his parents did not give up on him, and they would not let him give up on himself.

If you are having difficulty accepting, then seek out an encouraging coach, friend, or therapist whom you can work this acceptance out with.  Surround yourself with a team of cheerleaders, not naysayers.  After all, it’s the company you keep that will propel you forward or hold you back.

Success Factor #2: Bloom Where You are Planted, or at Least Change Gardens!

Ralph Braun went to college for less than a year, then dropped out when he realized he could not get around campus.  After dropping out, he decided to make lemonade out of lemons: he decided to design a battery-powered scooter that would get him around better.  He sought out and hung around with his uncles, all of whom were great mechanics.  And he found out that his mechanical aptitude, coupled with his mentoring under his uncles, blossomed.  People told him it would never work: but he had belief in himself and in his abilities.  Other people’s negative opinions never held him back.

Personal Life Plan Lesson:

Put a plan for personal growth into motion.  Determine that you are going to suck everything you can out of life every day with the current opportunities, circumstances, and abilities that you have.  For those of you who work at a corporate job, have you taken advantage of the often fantastic and varied training courses and programs that they have available to you, often free of charge?  Are you seeking out influential people in your department or in other departments and getting to know them, asking them how they got to where they are, and what they would recommend you to read, or what further skills to develop?

For those of you who are in a small business, have you taken advantage of community college courses, of workshops, of Toastmasters, of business networking information groups, or of you chamber of commerce.  Have you taken the opportunity to serve your way into recognition in any of these groups?  Are you nurturing and adding value to your friends, acquaintances, and customers in the business community?

Success Factor #3: There’s More Than One Way to Skin a Cat While You’re Being Chased by a Bear

Ralph showed a certain savvy, grit, and perseverance on his way to success.  He started working in a factory as a quality control technician.  As the factory control workers saw him zip around on his new scooter, they started coming to him and asking him to design scooters for friends of theirs who had similar disabilities.  When he moved farther away from the factory, he had to find more reliable transportation, so he bought a conversion van.  Soon, he realized that he needed a way to get into the van.  So, utilizing the aptitude and knowledge he had acquired from building his scooter, he designed the lift that you see in the photo in this blog.

It wasn’t long before word got around in the same way that his scooter had, via word of mouth, and he was soon designing those lifts for co-worker’s friends and families.

At this point, he was busy enough that he could have quit his job.  But he was realistic enough to realize that to support his wife and three children, he would need to continue to work at the factory.  (Hint, Hint: You don’t have to immediately quit your day job to start a business.  In fact, you may never quit your job to start a business.  Remember that there are all sorts of combinations that can work: internet info products you develop or sell as an affiliate; your own web sites that you monetize, freelancing, consulting, moving into higher positions of responsibility within your own company).

But I digress.  After working at the factory for…….9 years….he had gotten so busy designing lifts and scooters, that he decided it was time to launch his own business, devoting all his focus to that.  (Hint, Hint: There may come a time where you have to take the leap, and devote the time you need to FOCUS).

Well, things were looking good when he bought his own building, and was pumping out those highly desired scooters and lifts.  However, there was this Bear called Fire, and the fire wiped out almost everything he had put into the business.  Life was rough, really rough.  But his employees were loyal and committed, and they worked extra hard, along with him, to meet the customer demands, and they turned the disaster around. To this day, Ralph Braun states, 2/3 of his original employees are still with the company, after almost 30 years!

As time went on, particularly after the Vietnam War, Mr. Braun noticed two trends.  First, the making of scooters was becoming something that was easier and easier for other companies to carry out, and a lot of the parts and labor were cheaper overseas.  Second, the demand for his lifts was becoming greater and greater, with disabled veterans coming back from overseas.  In addition, he envisioned setting up dealerships to sell his lifts.  Seeing those trends, he decided to stop making the scooters, and to focus instead on his lifts.  And the rest is history.  Wherever you see a wheelchair lift, in the United States or around the world, it is likely a Braun product.

Life Lessons We Can Learn: 

• By taking advantages of all the opportunities around us, and by developing our abilities daily, we can progress to more and greater things.

• When disaster strikes, dig in and work hard.

• Cultivate your people skills.  (Read How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie) Learn to listen first, then respond.  Seek to understand, then to be understood.  Treat people over, across from, and under you with the greatest fairness and respect.  Because in the end, no one person can carry out great things alone.  It takes a team.

And I will end a quote from Mr. Ralph Braun himself, which sums up his personal success:

“When I was growing this business, I had two strikes against me. I was young, and I was what the population calls disabled. I never let that stand in my way. I just had to walk the extra mile, or roll the extra mile in my case.”

May we learn and change and grow to be as impactful and successful as Mr. Braun.  Because there was only one of him, and there is only one of you! 

Disclosure: I borrowed much of this material from an interview of Ralph Braun in Inc Magazine.  

How are you doing with keeping all those New Year’s resolutions you set at the beginning of the year?

If you are like many of us, you may have forgotten all about them!  It’s only natural, and we’re only human.

“If you don’t know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else. ”

~ Lawrence J. Peter

In this article, I’m going to share some personal success strategies to help make sure that you stay on track with your personal growth plan.

I’m also sharing this key success factor because it’s a vital happiness enhancing strategy that you can take part in.  People who are happy engage in the practice of striving toward meaningful goals in their lives.

What is this strategy?  Reviewing and Refining Your Goals!  

I want to share the specifics of SMART goal setting, along with a two-step process for keeping you on track with your progress toward those goals.

If you’ll engage in these exercises, you’ll keep your ship on course.

“Give me a stock clerk with a goal and I’ll give you a man who will make history. Give me a man with no goals and I’ll give you a stock clerk.”

~ J.C. Penney

Review

Ships at sea can easily wander off course.  Winds, currents, and even the every day distractions of taking care of business on the ship can cause the ship captain to lose sight of the main destination.  In the same way, unless we are regularly reviewing our goals, we can easily lose sight of our goals and end up working on insignificant tasks, or seemingly urgent tasks that come up, but that don’t lead to our specific goals.

Take time daily, monthly, and each quarter, to review your mission, values, and purpose.

If you need some help figuring out your mission and purpose, I’ve written a couple of articles just for you, titled Have a Personal Mission You Can Be Proud Of!, and A Simple Formula: Find Your Mission Through Your Passion.

If you need some help clarifying your values, read my article What Everyone Ought To Know About True North, for some practical ways that you can set goals in keeping with your most important personal values.

As part of your review, think about the different areas of your life.  Are you in the midst of achieving a balance in your success, or are you drifting off course in any areas of your life.  You may want to consider using this life wheel worksheet from Mind Tools to help check what areas of your life you want to set extra goals in so that you will be happy with your balance at the end of this year.

Refine

Now that you have engaged in some journaling and reflection about where you now stand in terms of your progress toward your goals, you may need to further refine your goals.  This is where SMART goal setting comes in.  Here are the five criteria that make goals truly effective.

Specific

Is your goal specific enough?  Think about WHAT you are going to do, and WHY you are going to do it.  Both questions are vital to successfully meet your goals.  Be careful to look for hidden goals run counter to achieving your important goal.

For example, one of my goals is: Take quiet time daily, practicing deep breathing and prayer/meditation 3x per day.  

On the other hand, one of my unwritten rules has been: I will watch my favorite TV show once a day to relax and de-stress.  I realized, upon reflection, that a) it’s unrealistic to think that I am going to practice this quiet time 3x per day.  On the other hand, I realized that my main focus this year is Steve’s coach, which means that if I don’t take care of myself through prayer and meditation, I will not have as much spiritual/mental/emotional vitality to carry out what I need to.  So, when I realize that the WHAT is a bit too much, and that my WHY was not clear enough, I have now refined my goal as follows:

Take quiet time daily, practicing deep breathing and prayer/meditation 1x per day, before watching any Television. 

Now that I am now more clear on the WHAT and the WHY, I believe I will be more successful in achieving this outcome.

Measurable

“Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.”
~ Vincent Van Gogh

If you have a hard time measuring the specific milestones or next actions needed to achieve your goal, it’s unlikely you’re going to accomplish that goal.  I’m very grateful to Sterling and Jay from Internet Business Mastery for a couple of concepts in this regard.

First, you can use their success strategy of backward planning to make your goal more measurable.

For example, another one of my goals is as follows: I will run one full marathon, raising money for a worthy cause.

Utilizing the backward planning method, I picture myself finishing the race.  Then I ask myself, what happened just before that?  Well, I had all the planning down for parking and for the racing equipment I would need in order to successfully run the race.  I had successfully raised the $500 dollars I needed to raise for my charity.  I had run more than 26.2 miles prior to starting the race.  I had trained on hills to strengthen my legs and my mental mindset.  These steps all become sub-activities I can then schedule into my calendar.

Attainable and Realistic

These two words actually seem to go together in my mind.  If it’s not realistic, is it going to be attainable?  I think not!  Some of us are guilty of thinking too small.  On the other hand, we can think so big that we actually don’t believe we will carry it out it on a sub-conscious level.  For example, “I will earn $5 million dollars” is a big goal, but it lacks the specific WHAT, WHY, and action steps for attaining it.  And most likely, unless you are going to play the lottery (I don’t encourage it , and win, you won’t carry out that goal in one year.

On the other hand, if you are careful to follow the steps listed above, you will have a much more attainable and realistic goals.  You want goals that will stretch you, but that are realistic and attainable.

Timely

This criteria goes hand in hand with setting specific and measurable goals.  If you engage in the backward planning activity that I described above, you will have a set of actions for your goals.  I urge you to set a date for accomplishing each one of those goals.  The date may change, but it will motivate you to take action regularly to carry out your goal.

By writing down this date next to your goal, you can then set timelines for the activities that need to lead up to meeting your goal.  Make sure that you are working on one activity every day to help you get closer to your end goal.

Once again, I am going to share a great idea from Sterling and Jay from Internet Business Mastery.  Utilize Google Calendar or some other type of online calendar to schedule the different activities that you need to carry out for each of your goals.  Set that calendar as your browser default.  This is an invaluable strategy!  You can also color code your different tasks to correlate with your different goals.

In order to keep this from getting too complicated, you may want to focus on one or two goals at a time.  The encouraging part about this method is that you will daily have a reminder of the most important activities to focus on for the day.  And you’ll know that your ship is staying on course despite all the cross currents and winds of distraction and hassles of every day living.

Here are Some Helpful Motivational Books for Your Goal Setting Journey:

Inspiration

The Alchemist: A Graphic Novel.  Stories are inspirational.  This story will inspire you as you embark or continue on your goal setting journey.

Life Mission and Purpose

How to Find Your Mission in Life, written by Richard N. Bolles, one of my favorite authors, is a small and inspiring book to help you find your true life mission.  He is also the author What Color Is Your Parachute? 2011: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers, another personal favorite of mine.

The Path: Creating Your Mission Statement for Work and for Life, written by Laurie Beth Jones, is one of my all-time favorites on this subject as well.

Goal Setting Workbooks:

Make Success Measurable!: A Mindbook-Workbook for Setting Goals and Taking Action, by Douglas Kay Smith.

Goal Setting Forms : Tools to Help You Get Ready, Get Set, and Go for Your Goals!, by Gary Ryan Blair

photo credit: elbphoto

How can you make money, a lot of money, a million dollars?  Have you ever wondered how those millionaires have done it?  Do you think to yourself that this is an impossible task for you?

I’ll preface this article by letting you know that I am writing this article as a Christian, that is a follower of Jesus Christ.  Therefore, I’m writing from a  Christian world view.

First, let me be cautious to tell you that you don’t want to make the same mistakes I have made on the road to creating wealth.  You don’t want to have an over-emphasis on wealth that supersedes your love for your Creator and for others.  I think Ebenezer Scrooge is a good example of what can happen when we have a stingy, greedy, grasping approach to wealth.

On the other hand, we don’t want to have a poverty mindset that disregards wealth altogether.  Like the faithful servants in the Parable of the Talents, Christian entrepreneurs can have a healthy, balanced perspective of wealth.  If Jesus Christ is first on our priority list, we can work on being faithful stewards and investors of the gifts, talents, opportunities, time, and money entrusted to us.

So, placing those principles in front of us let’s thing about  How to Make a Million Dollars.

Here are some ways that have an extremely low chance of generating a million dollars for you:

• Suing someone for a million dollars
• Playing a game show
• Becoming a professional athlete
• Becoming a celebrity musician or athlete
• Winning the lottery

I say that the chance is very low, because these things just don’t happen to very many people.

However, if you would like to know some higher likelihood ways of making a lot of money, I’ll share some strategies I have learned in researching this article series.

Learn From the Millionaires

It sounds simple, but it is the single most important thing you can do to embark on a course toward wealth:  Study the habits of millionaires!

Don’t Expect a Handout!

Too many people live as victims instead of victors.  In other words, they feel that life has “happened to” them, versus feeling that they have any control over their circumstances.  They feel that they were born with little talent, poor parenting, not enough brains, not enough this, not enough that.  If you find yourself in that frame of mind, don’t punish yourself for it–learn from it, and start moving forward!

To be honest, I lived as a victim for a several years.  It took some hard lessons learned for me to change my thinking and my attitudes.  Changing my mind and attitudes have made a BIG difference, and a change of heart and mind will make a big difference for you, too!

Do Be Proactive!

Formulate Your Mission, Vision, Values, and Goals

The great thing about having a sense of who you are and where you’re going in life is that you will get there much more quickly and efficiently. Take the time to read the following articles from your blog designed just for you!

Personal Mission Statement:

A Simple Formula: Find Your Mission Through Your Passion

Clarifying Your Values

What Everybody Ought To Know About True North

Smart Goal Setting

Discover These Smart Goal Setting Secrets

Smart Goal Setting

Check Out This Smart Goal Setting Template

Here’s Your Personal Growth Development Plan

Decide to Think Big!

Again, if you are placing God first in all you do, you can then start dreaming and thinking big!

Donald Trump has said, “I like thinking big. If you’re going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big. ”

I love that quote, because it’s true!  As Christians, we serve the Creator of the Universe!  Don’t you think that He can do just about anything?  We need to believe that He has big things He wants to carry out through ordinary people like you and me.  As long as our dreams are in line with Biblical values established in Scripture, they are very important things to cultivate and strive for.

Read These Classic Books

(Disclosure: yes, I may get a 4-6% commission on some of the books listed below.  I only share books that a) I have read and b) which I feel will be helpful to you.  You can always check them out at the library, go directly to a bookstore, or you can support me and my blog by purchasing it through the link)

Brian Tracy’s Million Dollar Habits is one of my favorite reads of all time.  I like Mr. Tracy because he walks the talk: he’s lived through every type of business success and failure you can imagine.  He has a gift for translating success strategies, business and personal, into very easy to understand formats.

Seven Years to Seven Figures: The Fast-Track Plan to Becoming a Millionaire (Agora Series), by Michael Masterson, is a book I have thoroughly enjoyed.  I bought it a few years ago, prompting me to write a vision statement that has led, in part, to starting this and other blogs I write.

There are a number of specific stories of persons who went from broke to seven figures in seven years.  There is nothing like a story to inspire, so I hope you’ll enjoy this book as much as I did.  Prepare to be inspired to action!

Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth by T. Harv Ecker contains some mental strategies for working on your inner beliefs and thinking patterns.  You can remove the patterns holding you back, and you can design new internal programming to optimize your mindset toward wealth.  I listened to this book in audio format, and found it immensely helpful in challenging my own self-limiting beliefs.

The Millionaire Next Door: Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthyand The Millionaire Mind are two classic books written by Dr. Thomas J. Stanley, an economics professor.  If you want to get insights to then model for personal success, these are must reads.

Read These Blogs to Feed Your Business Mindset

The Smart Passive Income Blog by Pat Flynn, is a hands down favorite.  Pat is an extremely humble guy who provides tons of value at this site.  You’ll learn so much about making money online from this guy.

The Personal MBA blog assumes you don’t need a first class MBA education from an élite graduate program to learn everything you need to know to build a successful business.  Stop by for some great book summaries and reading suggestions to build your mental wealth.

Solo Entrepeneur blog has a lot of short articles on business building topics.  Many of their tele-seminars are free of cost.

What are your plans for becoming a millionaire?  What books do you recommend?  What blogs do you recommend?  I look forward to your comments!

“Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility . . . . In the final analysis, the one quality that all successful people have is the ability to take on responsibility.”

— Michael Korda
Editor-in-Chief, Simon & Schuster

“The price of greatness is responsibility.”
— Winston Churchill

You may be an employee.

You may be self-employed.

Or you may be a business owner.

You all have something in common.  Yourself!

There is only one you!  You have unique experiences, personality traits, strengths, and skill sets.

And you may be what the next company or customer may be desperately looking for.

Managing your career or business in this ever-changing economy is a bit like going for a roller coaster ride!

You’ve got to take responsibility for your own career success!

One of the key success factors for career management is an online career portfolio.

I’m currently designing a new free eBook for readers and subscribers to this blog, called  How To Design Your Online Career Portfolio.

Here’s a sample from the book to show you how important your own online career portfolio will be to your continued employee or business success.

Your Online Career Portfolio Will Showcase Your Unique Selling Proposition

An online career portfolio is your way of showcasing your strengths, talents, areas of competence, and accomplishments.

It will give you a distinct advantage over others who have not taken the time to organize all this into an attractive sales presentation.  Your online career portfolio will serve as your portable resume as you grow and change.

Before considering this topic, I did not have anything together in one place.  My accomplishments, reviews, awards, and documents were scattered in different places.

Writing this eBook has changed all that!

Your Online Career Portfolio Will Breed Success Consciousness

By keeping your online career portfolio polished and organized, you’ll be thinking ahead about what further goals, accomplishments, and areas of competence you want to add to your portfolio.

You’ll have a proactive mindset and not a reactive one.

And it’s well documented that those who take action on what they can control feel more confident as they face the tides of shifting change.

My post is very short this week, as most of my week has been devoted to finishing this  eBook, which is free to my readers for being part of my community, and free to future readers who will subscribe to my newsletter.

I’d love to hear from you in the comments below:

Do you have your own online career portfolio?

How did you think through your own unique selling proposition?

What are some unique skill sets you offer to potential employers and/or customers?

We can all learn from each other!

What the heck?!  What am I talking about?!

Well, I have long been a fan of Michael Masterson, author of books like Seven Years to Seven Figures: The Fast-Track Plan to Becoming a Millionaire (Agora Series) and Automatic Wealth: The Six Steps to Financial Independence.  He also produces a great newsletter called Early to Rise.

I first came across the concept of negative visualization in his Early to Rise Newsletter.  I am quoting the introduction and the actual article from a past post I made at my other site, Personal Growth Development.

I hope you enjoy!

Norman Vincent Peale, years ago, wrote a classic called The Power of Positive Thinking.  However, what many of us do not know is that he received a stack of rejection slips from publishers.  He told his wife to throw out his manuscript.

However, she took the manuscript out the next day, took it to a publisher,who accepted it! The book became a national best seller, selling more than 20 million copies in 47 languages.

Some of his material may seem outdated today, but the truth of his writings are mirrored in what is today called the Law of Attraction.  The problem is that most of us trap ourselves in a vicious cycle,  working for more and more and more, discontent with what we have achieved, since human wants, unchecked, are unsatiable.

The Stoic philosophers of old had a technique that can help you regain some of the contentment you may have sensed lacking, as you strive for more and more in your life.  This technique can also be helpful when you are disappointed over a failed goal, or when you are dealing with the ebbs and flows of a depression.  In fact, psychologist Dr. Marcia Linehan, who has worked with a many challenging conditions, has employed this technique as a coping tool to help her clients deal with painful situations and emotions.

I am borrowing the rest of this article from the publication, Early to Rise:

“The technique is to spend some time each day imagining that you have lost the things you value most. Vividly imagine, for example, that your job has just been terminated, that your house – with all your possessions – has burned to the ground, that your partner has left you, or that you have lost your sight, your hearing, or the use of your limbs.

This sounds horribly bleak, I know. But the Stoics were onto something here. They understood that everything we enjoy in life is simply “on loan” to us from Fortune. Any of it – all of it – can be recalled without a moment’s notice.

Epictetus reminds us, for example, that our children have been given to us “for the present, not inseparably nor forever.” His advice: In the very act of kissing your child, silently reflect on the possibility that she could die tomorrow.

The Roman philosopher Seneca advises us to live each day as if it were our last, indeed as if this very moment were our last. He’s not suggesting that you drop your responsibilities and squander the day in frivolous or hedonistic activities. He’s encouraging you to change your state of mind.

Maybe you are already living the dream you once had for yourself.

Along the way, however, you became jaded, bored, numb to the blessings that surround you. The goal of the Stoics would be to wake you up, to make you appreciate what you have today.

Some will argue that negative visualization is fine for those who are happy, healthy, and prosperous – but how about the troubled, the less fortunate?

Negative visualization works for them, too. If you have lost your job, imagine losing your possessions. If you have lost your possessions, imagine losing the people you love. If you have lost the people you love, imagine losing your health. If you have lost your health, imagine losing your life.

There is hardly a person alive who could not be worse off. That makes it hard to imagine someone who wouldn’t benefit from this technique.

Adaptation diminishes our enjoyment of the world. Negative visualization brings it back.

It also prepares us for life’s inevitable setbacks. Survivors of tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters, for example, may suffer terribly. Yet afterward, they often tell us that they were just sleepwalking through life before. Now, they are joyously, thankfully alive.

No one should need a catastrophe to feel this way. You can attain the same realization through negative visualization. Moreover, it can be practiced regularly, so its beneficial effects, unlike a catastrophe, can last indefinitely.

Try it and you’ll see. I’ve found it’s perfect for when you’re standing in line or stuck in traffic, time that would be wasted otherwise.

By contemplating the impermanence of everything in your world, you can invest all your activities with more intensity, higher significance, greater awareness.

In sum, Norman Vincent Peale got it half-right. Positive visualization helps you get what you want. Negative visualization helps you want what you get.

[Ed. Note: Alex Green is Investment Director and Chairman of The Oxford Club, and is the bestselling author of The Secret of Shelter Island: Money and What Matters. His new book - described by Michael Masterson as "shockingly good" - explores money, meaning, and the pursuit of the good life.

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The Whole Brain Business Book is the long-awaited culmination of Ned Herrmann’s highly respected and extensive research and testing. In it, he presents his four-quadrant model of the brain and the corresponding thinking styles: logician, organizer, communicator, and visionary.

Most people and organizations, he demonstrates, are stuck in a “brain rut” because their work is dominated by just one mode.

Through highly practical explorations and exercises, he shows people and organizations how to harness the power of the whole brain. Readers will use The Whole Brain Business Book to expand their own thinking styles–to create and manage Whole Brain Teams–and to introduce new levels of flexibility and innovation into the corporate culture. It will show them how organizations like DuPont and GE use their “whole brain” orientation to thrive and profit in times of chaos–and it will help them to do the same.

photo credit: poetry reading by eflon on Flickr

There is your list of inexpensive motivational books.  I believe most of them are priced under $10.  Do you have any suggestions to add to the list?

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Whether you think you can or think you can’t – you are right.  ~Henry Ford

There is a very sad story.  An executive left $100,000 with three of his employees.  The executive was going overseas on business for three years.  The first employee took that money, assessed the business opportunities before her, came up with a business plan, and invested in the opportunity.

At the end of three years, the employee had sold that business for a very tidy profit.  The second employee found a financial planner and invested the money in stocks and bonds, so that there was a good return on investment when the executive returned from overseas.

Now comes the sad part.

The third employee had a very rough childhood.  His parents split up when he was young.  Both parents had only bad things to say to the employee when he was growing up.  He came to believe what they said about him, and he did not think that he had any talent or ability.  He thought that he had gotten his current job out of luck.  Having $100,000 on his hands made him very nervous.  So he took the money to his basement and locked it in a safe.  He was afraid of losing any money and getting a bad review from his boss.

Too many of us have locked $100,000 in the safe!!

The  Bible tells this story.  And here is the lesson I take from it, in terms of self-confidence.  How much money do you think you are worth?  $1,000, $10,000, $100,000, millions.  How about: Priceless!!

Yet, how many of us, either out of fear, laziness, or false beliefs (based on what parents, teachers, or friends have told us growing up) have tried to “play it safe” by putting our talents in a safe.  That safe represents the following key features of low self-confidence:

• Checking your behavior according to what you think others want from you.
• Staying in your comfort zone, because you fear failure, and avoiding risks.
• Being a perfectionist, afraid to make any mistakes.
• Either expecting compliments from others all the time, or having ‘false humility’ by downplaying any compliments you may get from others.

MindTools has an article that speaks of a great analogy for some practical exercises you can engage in to forge your self-confidence: it’s that of taking a journey.  Unfortunately, there’s no quick fix to immediately give you the self-confidence.  But, if you have the commitment, focus, and determination necessary to make the journey, you be astounded at how much confidence you will forge by the end of the journey.

Success Factor:  Prepare for the Journey

Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit. – E.E. Cummings

• Write down all the victories and accomplishments you have already achieved.  One of the best questions I have ever come across when doing my year-end reflection in preparation for my goals for the next year (Your Best Year Yet!: Ten Questions for Making the Next Twelve Months Your Most Successful Ever) is found in the book that I’ve mentioned in parentheses.  ”What were some of my greatest accomplishments.”  When you write it all down, it’s amazing what your accomplishments can do to boost your sense of self-confidence to set goals for the year ahead.

• Think About Your Strengths.  I wrote about this at length before in an article about Getting Your SWAT Together.   By reflecting about what you are good at, as well as areas for growth (Now, Discover Your Strengths), you will be preparing for greatness.

• Get your personal mission statement, vision, and goals in place.  The scientific study of achievers and persons who are experience personal satisfaction (positive psychology) are striving toward meaningful goals.

• Manage Your Mind.   Half of your journey toward self-help motivation and self-confidence is in how you think and communicate to yourself about yourself, your abilities, your strengths, and your circumstances.  (The other half is your ability to taking consistent actions daily toward your goals).  You’ve got to feed your brain and soul valuable nutrients if you want to gain increased self-confidence.  I want to take some time here to highlight some key fellow bloggers who help me feed my mind with positive and inspirational content:

• Rod Kirby at The Success Center
• Steven Aitchison at Change Your Thoughts.
• Jonathan Wells at Advanced Life Skills.
• Celestine Chua at The Personal Excellence Blog.
• And this is an audio program from Brian Tracy that helped me immensely: The Science of Self-Confidence (Nightingale Conant)

These are just a few of many who influence me to keep growing in my journey of self-confidence.

Success Factor: Start the Journey

Here’s what I want you to do, before you get started.  Pick one of your goals.  Then go to HabitForge and enter it.  Invite a couple of your close friends to monitor you.  Then get started!

• Build the Knowledge You Need to Succeed.  You don’t want to be self-delusional. If you figure out that you are lacking in certain skills after doing a SWOT analysis, make a plan to go out and get those skills.  For example, it’s important to learn a new language to stay competitive in today’s business environment.  I’m setting a goal to learn Spanish starting this year.  So my first step will be to go to the library and find out what materials are available.  My next step may be to sign up for a community college course.  Another next action would be to take my friend up on an offer to go out with his Spanish speaking buddies to get immersed in hearing and (trying to) converse.  In summary, find out what skills you need to learn.  You may also need to build on skills that you already have, but you will need to grow them to the next level.  Find those who are experts in the ares of knowledge you are seeking, and learn from them.

• Practice CANI (Constant and Never Ending Improvement, the term for kaizen, improvised by Anthony Robbins in his work,  Awaken the Giant Within)  In other words, take one small action each day toward mastering your new skill/knowledge areas.  As you do this, your confidence will steadily increase.

• Learn to Embrace Failure as Your Friend.  The key to success is to have a positive attitude toward risk and failure.  For example, Tony Robbins, a very successful public speaker, quickly outpaced other speakers because he slated himself to speak almost five times more often than they did.  Did he fail?  Sure!  Did he look stupid? Sure!  But he learned each time that he spoke, and he became progressively more expert and confident.

Success Factor: Increase the Pace

Once you have arrived at a degree of success and self-confidence, don’t make the mistake of getting complacent, overconfident, or lazy!

Continue to stretch yourself beyond your comfort zone.  Set new goals for yourself.  Rub shoulders with experts who are more successful than you are.  At the same time, look for people with less confidence and experience, and see how you can lend them a helping hand with what you have learned.

I want to wrap this up with a fantastic video by Zig Ziglar that well illustrates how we build self-confidence.  It takes a lot of effort and determination at the beginning, but once you get started, you will be happy that you read this article

(photo credit: pincusvt on Flickr)

One key success factor in business and in life is knowing how to effectively cope with people rejection. 

I’m honored to have a guest writer this week.  M. Farouk Radwan is a millionaire and entrepreneur, and founder of 2KnowThyself, a very helpful personal growth development site.  As a successful entrepeneur, he knows that success breeds its detractors.  Here are some of his thoughts on overcoming people rejection.

5 ways to deal with people who put you down

We all have goals that we want to achieve and big dreams that we want to fulfill. Almost everyone who has announced his goals and dreams started facing criticism, rejection and comments that have the purpose of putting him down.

The problem with such comments is that they sometimes come from close people and people you trust and thus you might find it hard not to believe them. After all according to subconscious mind programming the repetition of any statement by a trusted source will certainly turn it into a strong belief.

And if it happened that you believed those people who put you down you will never pursue your dreams and you will fulfill their prophecy!!

So how can you deal with such people?

The best way to deal with people who put you down is to not believe them but talking is easier than really doing that. How can you prevent yourself from believing the suggestions those people are saying to you? This can simply be done by understanding their real motives.

In the next few lines I will tell you why people put you down and this will certainly help you find out whether you should believe them or not:

1)    Jealousy:

Many people will try to put you down even close ones just because they are jealous of you. They believe that you are going to reach your goals and thus they do their best to prevent you from starting your journey.

2)    They are afraid to be left out:

When all people become losers those who don’t make any effort feel good about themselves but what if all of a sudden someone tried to do something big? Won’t that make them feel left out? That will certainly happen and that’s the reason why so many people will try to put you down especially when your goals are big and different

3)    They are afraid:

Not all people who will put you down will have bad intentions. Some people will put you down just because you remind them of their own fears when you announce your big plans. Many people are not brave and prefer to remain in the comfort zone and whenever they see someone trying to move out of his comfort zone they warn him because of believing that the world is a dangerous place while in fact the problem is that they are not brave enough.

4)    They were severely criticized:

Many people who were severely criticized in their childhood have developed the habit of always thinking negatively. Those people criticize themselves all the time in their self talk and they do the same to anyone they come across

5)    They can’t see the full picture:

Some people will try to put you down because they have good intentions like your parents for example. The problem with many of those people is that while their intentions are good they always give incorrect advice because of not being able to see the full picture you are seeing.

Should you believe them now?

After you knew why people put each other down, should you believe them?

Should you give up your dreams just because few people are jealous of you?

Should you response just because someone doesn’t want to see you successful?

Certainly that won’t be the right choice.

Written by M.Farouk Radwan, the founder of http://www.2knowmyself.com

photo credit: gideon_wright