Assume Control for Everything

making excuses.

You must understand—as I’ve already stated countless times—that success is not something that happens to you;

it’s something that happens because of you and because of the actions you take. People who refuse to take responsibil- ity generally don’t do well at taking much action and sub- sequently don’t do well in the game of success. Successful people accept very high levels of accountability for creating and having success for themselves—and even for failing to do so. Successful people hate the blame game and know that it is better to make something happen—good or bad—than to have it happen to you.

Those who suffer from victim thinking—which I roughly estimate to be about 50 percent of the population—will hate this chapter and probably picked up this book by mistake. Anyone who uses blame as the reason why something hap- pened or did not happen will never accumulate real success in life and only further his or her status as a slave on this planet. Those who give control over to another for their success—or lack of it—will never be in control of their lives. No game in life is truly enjoyable without first accepting control over your understanding of the game, how you play the game, and then the outcome of the game. People who assume the position of victim will never be secure—simply because they elect to turn over responsibility to another party and because they never elect to know for themselves what they can do. They therefore never take charge over their outcomes going forward, saying, “I am a little victim; bad things happen to me often, and I can- not do anything about it.”

To get where you want to go in life, you must adopt the view that wftatever is going on in your world—good, bad, or nothing—is something caused by you. I assume control over everything that happens to me, even for those things that I appear to have no control over. Whether I am in con- trol or not, I still elect to claim responsibility and control so that I can do something to improve my situation going forward. If, for example, the electricity goes out in my neigh- borhood, rather than blaming the city or the state for black- outs, I look at what I could do differently in order not to be

impacted negatively the next time this happens. Do not con- fuse this with some compulsive need for control; rather, it’s simply a high-level, healthy sense of responsibility and a way for me to generate effective solutions. The reality is that I didn’t have anything to do with the lights going out; it could have been due to too many people using electricity at the same time, heat waves, weather, an earthquake, or someone hitting a transformer. I paid my bill as scheduled, and now I am with- out electricity and heat and am unable to boil water, refriger- ate food, or use my computers. Blaming won’t change any of those conditions, and because success is my duty, obligation, and responsibility, it is a bit hard for me now to turn that over to the state. It is kind of hard to consider yourself successful if you are without lights, heat, or unspoiled foods.

When I assume and increase my responsibility for this situation, I will probably come up with a solution going for- ward. You have probably already thought of what it could be. This didn’t just happen to me because the electricity went out. It happened to me because I didn’t have a backup generator. This wasn’t bad luck or even bad planning; it was the result of turning responsibility over to someone else. Don’t be a little bitch—get a generator. Oh, but generators cost money! Not as much money as being without electricity for three days and not being able to take care of your family. Once you decide to take control and increase responsibility, you will start to find successful solutions to making your life better!

Assume control and increase responsibility by adopting the position that you make all things happen, even those things you have previously considered to not be under your control. Never take the position that things just happen to you; rather, they happen because of something you did or did not do. If you are willing to take credit when you win, you have to take credit when you don’t! Increasing your respon- sibility level will inherently enhance your ability to find solu- tions and create more success for yourself. Blaming someone or something else only extends how long you will be a victim

and slave. Assuming control will cause you to start to look at what you can do to make sure negative events don’t take place so that you can improve the quality of your life and reduce the occurrence of seemingly random unfortunate events.

Let’s say that someone rear-ends me. Clearly, that per- son is at fault. Although I will be upset with him or her, the last thing I want to do is assume the position of victim. How horrible! “Look what happened to me—oh, poor me—I am a victim.” Would you get a business card or have a television campaign stating this to the public as a way to garner respect and attention? Of course not! Never claim the position of vic- tim after deciding to create a life filled with success. Instead, figure out how to reduce the chances of inconveniences, like people rear-ending you, from ever happening again.

The 10X Rule refers to massive amounts of action taken persistently over time. In order to make good things happen more often, you cannot afford to act like a victim. Good things don’t happen to victims; bad things do—quite frequently—and all you have to do is ask them. Those who embrace the victim position will gladly go on and on to you about how they had nothing to do with their many bad breaks and misfortunes in life that seem to strike them time and again throughout their lives. There are four consistent factors in the life of the victim:

(1) bad things happen to them, (2) bad things happen often,

(3) they are always involved, and (4) someone or something else is always to blame.

Successful people take the opposite stance, and you must too: Everything that happens in your life comes as a result of your own responsibility, not merely some outside force. This will prompt you to start looking for ways to move beyond the situation and take control of not having bad things “happen” to you in the future. Begin to ask yourself after every unpleas- ant encounter or event, “What can I do to reduce my chances of it happening again—or even ensure that it doesn’t happen again?” Returning to my earlier example of being rear-ended: There are so many ways you might have prevented yourself

from having a distracted driver run into the back of your car. You could have gotten a driver, left earlier or later, closed the deal last week, taken a different route—or been so important that your clients would have driven to you rather than you to them.

Let me try to get you to shift your thinking just a bit more before I move on. Many people agree with the notion that you draw or attract into your life the things—and people—to which you pay the most attention. Many may also agree that they have tapped into only a small portion of their understanding and mental capability. Is there any possibility, then, that you made some decision that you might not have even be aware of sometime prior to your appointment to, in a sense, create this supposed accident so that you could continue to have some- thing to blame for your life? If it is even remotely possible, it is worth investigating! Understand that you had to be at that one place at that perfect moment in order to be in the accident. Thousands of other people were not involved—you were. You left at the precise time to coordinate with someone on one of a hundred streets and then arranged to be at that exact spot, at that precise moment, and positioned yourself directly in front of that one special driver who was not paying attention and rammed into your car. When bad things happen to good people, I assure you that the good people had more to do with it than they take responsibility for.

Had you left just moments earlier, you could have avoided the supposed accident. Had you been driving at any other speed, it would have been impossible for you to have coordinated so perfectly. Had you taken any other street, it would not have happened. Sound too far out there? Was it just an accident and just bad luck? Maybe you are just a victim, destined to a life of bad luck and misfortune. When the physi- cal universe keeps slapping you around and it’s not getting any better, you may want to consider that things happen not just by luck and happenstance but that you have sometfting to do with what is happening—or it would not have involved you.

Remember, although it may be happening to you, it is hap- pening because of you. Although you may not want to claim responsibility for the accident on the police report, the real- ity is that the insurance company is going to exact a penalty regardless of who is at fault. Keep one thing in mind: Anytime you play victim in order to “be right,” you are taking on the identity of a victim, and that can’t be a good thing. Until a person is done being a victim, he or she is unable to create solutions and success. That person only has problems.

Once you start to approach every situation as someone who is acting—not being acted upon—you will start to have more control over your life. Having (or failing to have) suc- cess, I believe, is a direct result of everything you are doing and thinking yourself. You are the source, the generator, the origin, and the reason for everything—both positive and neg- ative. This is not meant to simplify the concept of success, of course, but until you decide you are responsible for everything, you likely will not take the action necessary to get you above the game. However, if you want to have it all, then of course you have to assume responsibility for everything. Otherwise, you are going to waste a lot of potential 10X energy making excuses instead of profits.

It is a myth and falsehood to think that success just hap- pens or that it just happens to some people. I know that the approach I’m suggesting works, because it’s the one I’ve used to accumulate my own success. I didn’t grow up in an especially privileged household with any connections to the supposedly “right” people. I was given no money to start my companies and was not especially more “gifted” than the next person. Yet I was able to accumulate financial, physical, spiritual, and emo- tional success that is far beyond anything most people expected of me—all because I was willing to take actions at massive lev- els, assume control, and take responsibility for every outcome. Whether it is the flu, a stomachache, a car wreck, a criminal stealing my money, my computer crashing, or even the elec- tricity going out, I assume control and responsibility.

It was only until I truly started to believe that notfting ftap- pens to me; it ftappens because of me that I was able to start oper- ating at 10X levels. Someone once said, “No matter where I go, there I am.” This little saying suggested to me that I am both the problem and the solution. This outlook put me in a position of being the cause of the outcomes of my life rather than a victim. I didn’t allow myself to blame anyone or any- thing else as a justification for any hardships I encountered. I started to believe that although I may not always have a say in what happens to me, I always have a choice about how I respond to it. Success isn’t just a “journey,” as countless people and books suggest it is; rather, it’s a state—constant or oth- erwise—over which you have control and responsibility. You either create success or you don’t—and it isn’t for whiners, crybabies, and victims.

You doubtlessly have gifts you have yet to use—potential that remains untapped. You’ve been endowed with a desire for greatness and are aware enough to know that there are no shortages of success. Increase your responsibility level, assume control for everything that happens to you, and live by the slogan that nothing happens to you—only because of you! And remember, “Don’t be a little bitch.”

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Date: 2016-04-22; view: 805