Quit Lying to Yourself

It is fairly common for people who don’t get what they want to provide justifications—and even lie to themselves—by minimizing how valuable success is to them. It’s easy to spot this trend in our society today within entire demographics and population segments. You can read it in books, hear it in church, and see it promoted in schools. For example, children who can’t get what they want will fight for a little while, cry for a bit, and then convince themselves that they never wanted it in the first place. It is entirely okay to admit that you wanted something that didn’t come to fruition. In fact, this is the only thing that will help you eventually reach that goal—despite the obstacles you’ll encounter along the way.

Even the most fortunate and well-connected people among us must do something to put themselves in the right places at the right times in front of the right people. As I men- tioned at the end of a previous chapter, luck is just one of the byproducts of those who take the most action. The reason why successful people seem lucky is because success naturally allows for more success. People create magical momentum by reaching their goals, which compels them to set—and even- tually reach—even loftier goals. Unless you are privy to the action, you don’t see or hear about the number of times the successful went for it and failed; after all, the world pays atten- tion only when they’re winning. Colonel Sanders, who made Kentucky Fried Chicken famous, pitched his idea more than 80 times before anyone bought the concept. It took Stallone only three days to write the script for Rocky, and the movie grossed $200 million, but when he wrote it, he had no money

to his name, couldn’t afford to heat his apartment, and even had to sell his dog for $50 just to be able to buy food. Walt Disney was laughed at for his idea of an amusement park, and yet now people all over the world spend $100 a ticket and save up their whole lives just to have a family vacation at Disney World. Don’t be confused by what looks like luck to you. Lucky people don’t make successful people; people who com- pletely commit themselves to success seem to get lucky in life. Someone once said, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.”

We can even take this one step further: If you are able to repeatedly attain success, it becomes less of a “success” and more of a habit—almost everyday life for some people. Suc- cessful people have even been described as having a certain magnetism—some “x factor” or magical charm that seems to surround and follow them. Why? Because successful individu- als approach success as a duty, obligation, and responsibil- ity—and even a right! Let’s say that there’s an opportunity for success in the vicinity of two people. Do you think it will end up with the person who believes success is his or her duty— who reaches out and grabs it—or the one who approaches it with a “take-it-or-leave-it” attitude? I think you know the answer.

And despite the oft-used phrase, there is no such thing as an “overnight success.” Success always comes as a result of earlier actions—no matter how seemingly insignificant they are or how long ago they were taken. Anyone who refers to a business, product, actor, or band as an overnight success neglects to understand the mental stakes that certain individu- als have made in order to forge this path. They don’t see the countless actions taken before these people actually created and acquired their much-deserved victory.

Success comes about as a result of mental and spiritual claims to own it, followed by taking necessary actions over time until it is acquired. If you approach it with any less gusto than your ethical and moral duty, obligation, and respon- sibility to your family, your company, and your future, you

will most likely not create it—and have even more difficulty keeping it.

I guarantee that when you, your family, and your com- pany begin to consider success to be a responsibility and an ethical issue, then everything else will immediately start to shift. Although ethics are certainly a personal issue, most peo- ple would agree that being ethical is not necessarily limited to telling the truth or not stealing money. Our definition of ethics can certainly be expanded from that—perhaps even to include the notion that we are required to live up to the potential with which we’ve each been blessed. I even suggest that failing to insist upon abundant amounts of success is somewhat unethi- cal. To the degree that electing to do our personal best each and every day is ethical, then failing to do so is a violation of ethics.

You must constantly demand success as your duty, obliga- tion, and responsibility. I am going to show you how to guaran- tee that this happens—in any business or industry, at any time, despite all obstacles, and in whatever volumes you desire!

Success must be approacfted from an etftical viewpoint. Success is your duty, obligation, and responsibility!

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Date: 2016-04-22; view: 757