To make your life really count, you must develop a sense of mission, a sense of purpose, meaning and destiny in life. Conrad Hilton said, “To accomplish big things, I am convinced you must first dream big dreams.” If you really know what you want out of life, it’s amazing how opportunities will come to enable you to carry them out. So develop that sense of direction, that sense of purpose and meaning in you life because if you don’t know where you’re going, you will probably wind up somewhere else.
 
True success is a by-product of following the right principles. Richard M DeVoss said “The only thing that stands between a man and what he wants from life is often merely the will to try it and the faith to believe that it is possible”.
 
It is my desire through this book to let you see what your life can really achieve if only you’ll set your mind to do it. It never ceases to excite me to see how ordinary people, because they develop a purpose in life, become extraordinary.
 
“You don’t have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things – to compete – you can just be an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated to reach challenging goals”. Sir Edmund Hilary.
 
The development of ambition is so important. You see ambition is enthusiasm with a purpose.
 
Successful people are purpose driven people. Where will you be when you get to where you are going? In attempting to recruit John Sculley, the 38 year old President of Pepsi-Cola, Steve Jobs, Founder of Apple Computers, issued a tremendous challenge to Sculley. He asked, “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?”
 
Some men die by shrapnel
Some go down in flames
But most men perish inch by inch
Playing little games
 
Develop a sense of purpose, a vision for your life.
 
Winifred Newman said, “Vision is the worlds more desperate need. There are no hopeless situations, only people who thing hopelessly.”
 
Never leave well enough alone if you want your life to count. The leaders and achievers that I have met in life have a sense of purpose. Every one of us deep down wants our life to count for something. Every one with an idea has at least one or two followers. “If you really know what you want out of life, its amazing how opportunities will come to enable you to carry them out.”  John M Goddard.

 

Principles of Success

 
Let me share with you some key principles that will make a dramatic difference in your life.
 
1. Plan Your Destiny

Henry Ford asserted, “The whole secret of a successful life is to find out what is ones destiny to do and then do it”.
 
You have no doubt heard of the four key points of really achieving in life and they are:
 
Dream
Believe
Create
Succeed
 
“Make no little plans, they have no magic to stir mans blood, make big plans, aim high in hope and work”.   D J Burnham
 
Start to expect that things are going to happen in your life. You see the atmosphere of expectancy is the breeding ground for miracles. Start to plan and work at your destiny. The old Scottish proverb is so true; “He who would eat the fruit must climb the tree.”
 
So many have been helped by Lee Iacocca’s wisdom. Here is another one of his pearls; “if I cold sum up in one word what makes a good manager, id say decisiveness. You can use the fanciest computers to gather the numbers, but, in the end you have to set a timetable and act”.
 
It says to plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.
 
2. Cast off the Weights
 
Don’t run in army boots and great coat, trim down.
 
You can get so bogged down in life with so many things around you. You need to streamline your life and get rid of so much clutter. You think of all the things you cannot do in life, but remember, never let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
 
Years ago when I was riding horses around the mountains, I remember thinking what a disaster it would be in a horses head when he is leaping. Yet half the failures in life arise from doing exactly that. Don’t hold back in life; get rid of the weights.
 
3. Hard Work

Marie curie, the co-discoverer of radium was one of the world’s great scientists. Twice winner of the Nobel Prize (in 1903 for physics and in 1911 for chemistry), she knew both the power of personal confidence and the hard work it takes to succeed. She once said, “ Life is not easy for any of us, but what of that? We must have perseverance and above all, confidence in ourselves. We must be that we are gifted for something and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained”.
 
Jan Paderewski, the renowned pianist and the Prime Minister of Poland in 1919 was once asked if he could perform a recital on short notice. He said in reply “Im always ready. I have practiced eight hours daily for 40 years”. The man who asked him, also a pianist said, “I wish I had been born with such determination”. Paderewski answered “Were all born with it, I just use mine”.
 
Tony Dawcett said “The reason a guy like myself has achieved some success in life is that I’ve worked very, very hard to do so”.
 
Michelangelo said, “If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful after all”. If you really want to develop skills in life, you have to work hard. There’s no traffic jam on the extra mile, so keep at it. What counts is not the number of hours you put in, but how much you put into the hours.
 
It was said of Sam Walton, who founded Wal-Mart Stores, “There has never been a day in his life wince I’ve know him that he didn’t improve in some way.”
 
4. Patience is Power

Always keep at it. Nothing really worthwhile in life is achieved easily. You’ve got to develop perseverance. How do you become a person who perseveres and overcomes the odds? Let me give you a few key factors:
 
Decide what you’re really committed to.

The first step in achieving any goal in life is to decide what’s really worth pursuing and only you can decide this. It’s different with everybody. Decide what’s really important to you and go for it with everything you have.

Keep going back to your outline of goals. Go back to your goals constantly to really persevere. Write out your goals on paper. In other books that I have written, I talk about goal setting in depth. Its one of the great keys in really achieving in life.

In the making of goals, it’s really very simple. Firstly make them very, very specific. Secondly, make them measurable. What you cant measure, you cant monitor. Thirdly make them reachable. Make them attainable. Don’t discourage yourself by making unrealistic goals for your life keep your goals visible before you and never lose sight of them.

The third key is planning. Plan out the steps you’ll need to take to reach your goals. Work out your long term goals and arrange them in short term efforts.

Reward yourself as you accomplish your goals. Don’t be so intense with life that you fail to enjoy it. Don’t be so obsessed in climbing the mountain that you don’t stop to enjoy the view and smell the flowers. Give yourself a break and relax and say to yourself ‘hats off to the past and coats off to the future’.

Keep coming up with fresh new ideas. Don’t lose your creativity. Go away, spend time quietly, thinking. Dream your new dreams and plan your new plans. Keep yourself fresh.

Re-define, re-evaluate and try again. Even with the best of efforts, nothing goes entirely to plan, there’s always a better, more efficient, more productive, way to do everything. Keep asking yourself ‘How can I do it better?’ You need to constantly re-thing and attack again. There will be times of defeat and failure and maybe even circumstances when a complete turn around is called for.

Refuse to give up except in the face of good common sense. There are times when you may lose a battle but no the war. It would have been far more sensible to withdraw the troops from Gallipoli and have them fight in another way. We would have saved so many precious young men’s lives.
 
Harriet Beecher-Stowe, who promoted the end of slavery in America through her book, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”, said “When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you till it seems as though you can not hold on a minute longer, never give up, for that is just the place and time the tide will turn”. William Booth’s daughters were working hard in Europe and wrote back to their dad in England after much persecution. His reply to them was so simple. He said, “Don’t watch the waves, keep your eyes on the tide”. You may be facing waves of adversity right now but the tide is going to turn.
 
Calvin Coolidge’s quote has been used so often but still stands strong. “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not, nothing is more common that unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not, unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not, the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” So keep dreaming. Never give up. I’ve often quoted Sir Winston Churchill’s speech at Harvard’s commencement. “Never give up, never give up, never give up”. And then he sat down. Winston Churchill knew what he was talking about.
 
I well remember going through his war cabinet rooms in London that were so heavily fortified during the Second World War. There they were, left just as they had been used during those oppressive days. He was a bulldog because he was convinced he was right. The job could be done and in the end, it could be won. If he hadn’t had such conviction, he could never have aroused England during the onslaught of Hitler’s military invasion. Remember his words to the English people during that time:
 
“We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, and we shall fight in the air. We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills, we shall never surrender and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island were subjugated and starving, then our empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British fleet would carry on the struggle until, in Gods good time, the new world, with all its power and might steps forth to the rescue and liberation of the old”.
 
Sir Winston Churchill never gave up. He dogged determination was the thing that caused the English to survive. So keep on persevering. Patience is power, keep at it. Never give up.
 
5. Build in Reserves
 
Night always follows day. One of the great keys in life is knowing how to grow through defeat. Overcoming the odds must become a passion for you. You will experience defeat, failure and oftentimes setbacks. How do you respond to defeat and setbacks? I have read about a man who was born in 1879 to poor Jewish merchants. Because of the anti–Jewish attitude he encountered in his homeland, he suffered a harrowing sense of inferiority much of his life. He learned slowly and was shy, introspective to a fault. His parents even had him examined by a specialist to see if he was normal. In 1895 he was not admitted to the Polytechnicum School in Zurich, Switzerland because he failed the entrance exams. A year later he tried again and was received. Years later he was awarded a doctorate ant the University of Zurich and obtained a job as a patent examiner in a Vern office. During that time he tinkered with the ideas that he had about the universe and his world. Eventually he came up with a theory to explain how time, space, gravitation and the world worked. He called it the “theory of relativity”. His name was Albert Einstein.
 
Use defeat to learn about life and yourself. It is true those if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Perhaps we could say it a little better. If at first you don’t succeed, analyse the reason for your defeat and then try, try again.
 
An employee of Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, the 3M Corporation was trying to find a new kind of glue. He just happened upon a glue that would stick but not so tight that it could not be removed nor leave a residue. Unknowingly he had invented the little yellow ‘Post-it’ notes so popular today. Its hard to believe these little notes made him a fortune and yet it all originated from a mistake. Mistakes can work for us and we can be the better for them.
 
6. Adversity is the Great Teacher
 
This point follows on from the previous one. William James said it so well. “You have enormous untapped power you’ll probably never tap, because most people never run far enough on their first wind to ever find they have a second”. You see success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have to let go.
 
Diamonds always look beautiful when they glint in the light but you all know they are just a piece of coal formed under pressure. As u look back at your life, you will see that the times of adversity, the hardships that you have gone through have been the best times for you ultimately in that they have formed character and helped you to better cope with life.
 
7. Clear the Mind
 
There is far too much muddy thinking today. If you truly want to be successful, you have to clear the mind. I must confess I am a fan of Sherlock Holmes. Every time he had to think through a certain problem he would take his pipe, sit in the corner and concentrate on it so that he might solve the case. After some time, what was so confusing to Watson became elementary to him.
 
Minds certainly are like parachutes. They only function when they are open.
 
“Identify your highest skill and devote your time to performing it. Delegate all other skill”. Ronald Brown
 
8. Act
 
Act now. When problems come in your life, they immobilize you but the best way to escape from a problem is to then and there, try to solve it. Don’t run from it. Its time to take risks in life. Don’t worry about falling off the bottom rung of the ladder. A year from now you may wish you had started today .If you are in doubt about anything, go ahead, risk it. Henry Ford used to say, “You cant build a reputation on what you’re going to do.”
 
“A good plan, vigorously executed right now, is far better than a perfect plan executed next week”. General George Patton
 
The old English proverb is so true; ‘One of these days is none of these days’.
 
So whatever you plan to do, do it now, get on with it, make it happen. There is nothing more fatiguing than the eternal hanging on the uncompleted task.
 
If you want to change your circumstance, it’s going to require action. Forget your feelings, forget your circumstances, and start to act right now. Dr William Glasser said, “If you want to change attitudes, ill start with a change in behaviour.” In other words, begin to act the part of the person you would rather be as well as you can. The person you most want to become. Gradually the old fearful person will fade away. Remember Henry Fords words, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you are right”.
 
German poet and novelist, Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, once said, “Thinking is easy, acting is difficult and to put ones thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world”. Move into action. Start making progress in life; don’t wait around until all the circumstances are perfect, that will never come. President Franklin D Roosevelt remarked, “It is common sense to take a method and to try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another, but above all try something”.

The Chinese very wisely say, “Be not afraid of going slowly but only afraid of standing still”. Don’t just stay in a continual state of contentment. President Abraham Lincoln said, “My great concern is not whether you have failed but whether you are content with your failure”.
 
9. Be Your Best Self
 
People say to me, ‘Well, I just want to be myself’, and I say back to them, ‘Well, be your best self’. Develop what you have, keep training yourself, be the best that you can possibly be with what you have. Develop your personality, develop your people skills. Mike Murdock says, ‘Never complain about what you permit’.
 
10. Time is Fleeting

”There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, when taken at the flood, leads on to fortune – omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and miseries”.

William Shakespeare
So learn to seize the day. Seize it by seeing the potential in other people. Seize it by encouraging them to reach their potential. Seize it with a loving heart and a giving spirit. Seize it by helping as many people as you possibly can along the way.
 
As you grow older, don’t slow down, speed up. There’s less time left. Time is the most precious thing that you have. If I give someone my time, I am giving them part of my life so time is precious. Use it, don’t abuse it and remember – never mistake motion for action.
 
Millionaire industrialist Henry J Kaiser said, “The evidence is overwhelming that you cannot begin to achieve your best unless you set some aim in life”. President Theodore Roosevelt gave us some good advice when he said, “Do what you can with what you have where you are”.
 
 
 

Get out of the rut.
A rut is just a groove with the ends knocked out!

Tomorrow depends on the choices you make today and remember


CHOICES
- NOT CHANCES -
DETERMINE YOUR DESTINY

SO

CARPE DIEM!
(SEIZE THE DAY)


There are no short cuts to anyplace worth going.