Tag: success

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The Good Old Days

goodoledays

“People seem to get nostalgic about a lot of things they weren’t so crazy about the first time around.”     ~Author Unknown”

Maybe I’m becoming an old codger.

As you get older and regrets begin to creep in ever more frequently to your daily thoughts, the ability to act on your dreams becomes exponentially more difficult.

I can remember my lightning-quick speed to run down balls on the singles tennis court for hours on end in searing heat without gasping for air.

I can remember filling out job applications and submitting resume after resume expecting that sooner or later someone would give me a chance to become rich.  The sooner seemed to become the later before the cock crowed.

I can remember looking with romantic eyes at every woman, hoping, and sometimes expecting, she would be turned on by me.

I can remember the wanderlust urge which brought me to Japan some 35 years ago.
And then somewhere down that road the lights seemed to dim.

The good old days of wine, party, song, romance, dreams yet to be, mountains yet to be conquered, millions yet to be made…seemed like a fading echo.

And the body – once bouncy and ready to pounce – now slumped soberly in front of a computer hoping that the Internet could be the great equalizer to all which ails me inside and out.

Japan is a challenge for us all, unless we accept being stereotypical car traders, translators and quasi-educators scrambling to the next deal or contract until death do us part.

Many foreigners make lots of noise and posturing about making a financial killing here, but few do.  Why?  Because Japan requires patience and most entrepreneurial-minded foreigners are in a hurry for success.

The good old days were never as good as they may seem.  But they do teach us that if we don’t use our God-given talents to improve ourselves rather than fritter away the years in recklessness, our old age will be filled with remorse, bitterness and yes, poverty.

The antidote to the above is to have dreams and goals bigger than ourselves.

Before I had angioplasty surgery several months ago, I planned to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro on my 60th birthday and look out over Africa in celebration of life.  After the operation, I went into a funk.  My mortality and reality slapped me in the face.

But I’m determined to not live in the good, old days.  Somehow, I will get to that mountaintop or create a doable, comparable challenge.  That is my success in Japan.

I’ll fight to the finish.  Hopefully, you will do likewise.

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What To Do When Nothing Seems To Work

“Life is not an easy matter… You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness.”     ~Leo Tolstoy~

Some days I feel like I want to disappear and resurface at a mountaintop monastery in Tibet.  There I would meditate, relax, and forget my earthly worries and fears.  No more chasing money or power mingling for me.  Just silence and bliss.

For most people – myself included – we never seriously consider the Tibet-type option, but we do wish there was a way to break through the mental barriers holding us back from greatness.

Most people have no goals and no clear purpose for their life.  They find themselves settling into a life of surrender in their middle years and beyond, bitter and at wit’s end that things didn’t turn out right.

Everyone must either justify their failure or claim their success.  The difference between claiming the prize or not is often a matter of inches.

Zig Ziglar, a first-class life coach and mega-success story in his own right, explains the difference between success and frustration. Watch this inspiring video…

Keep pumping, my friends!  That’s the essence of Empowered for Achievement.

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Are You In A Recession?

“What lies behind us, and what lies in front of us are tiny matters, compared with what lies within us.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson~

I recently read about a former baseball player named Doc Ellis who allegedly threw a no-hitter in 1970 while under the influence of the hallucinogenic drug LSD.  Scientists and other doubters probably scoff at such a story, and call it pure fiction.

In my mind, there is no doubt it could and did happen.  Doc – while you may not like his drug of choice – nonetheless had programmed himself for success.  If my memory serves me correctly, he was an above-average professional pitcher who spent as much sweat time honing his skill as more sober people spend in front of a brain-sapping TV.

I have digressed because so many very intelligent people often buy into the economic paradigms which can short-circuit success on any level.  The drug of bad news and dark times is very addicting indeed.

In fact, it is the drug of choice for people who are too busy to think on a level deeper than a TV sitcom (situation comedy).  Your mind is a sponge and whatever you allow in without question will affect your attitude and your altitude in life.

So let’s look at the fear of recession, which is no more than an idea – that is, until too many people bite the hook.  Recessions cause spending to slow because people fear they will have less and receive less under the prevailing market conditions. Lending institutions tend to make money tighter, so few businesses can expand and startups find it between difficult and impossible to secure seed money.

When the idea of recession is watered and given sunshine, almost everyone begins to hoard and fear the worst.  The sunny optimists who had lead the surge in boom times quickly become the lunatics or fools in the eyes of most realists.

But here is the irony:  No matter how downtrodden an economy may be, there will always be winners and losers.  It’s just incredible that when almost everyone is wallowing in despair, a few visionary souls see and act upon the silver lining in the clouds…and prosper handsomely!

How is that possible?  Some of us are programmed to believe that all who prosper magnificently in good or bad times must somehow be dishonest or unethical thieves.  Clearly, a few business vultures could fit into this predatory category…but only a few.

Prosperity – other than through winning a lottery or having your long-shot horse win the derby – is a mind set.  It has been said wisely that luck is when preparation meets opportunity.

In these stormy days when the stock market is reeling and the banks are sputtering because of predatory practices, the fundamentals are no different than in the bubble days.  Plan, prepare and educate yourself to see opportunities where others see only problems.

I guarantee that no matter how far south the world economy goes, there will be winners and losers.  Like it or not, the choice of which side of the great economic divide we find ourselves is not determined by the news but by how we interpret the news.

People may lose their dreams, but your sufficient money and happiness in those dark times is assured by helping people see a vision of better times again.  Sell that picture to those in the doldrums, and people will follow you like lemmings into the sea.  Don’t take them there.

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Me Incorporated

“If you think that education is expensive, try ignorance.”      ~Derek Bok~

I often ponder about the principle of frugality and how to tame the itch for buying things which are not assets.

Defining an asset can often require the slight of hand of a trained, pencil-pushing accountant.  In one instance, however, you can with certainty know you have an asset – because that asset is none other than you

You are an asset which should never be neglected, abused or washed over by a desire to watch time-wasting TV dramas, play 10-hour gaming championships online or fritter away precious time in a 16-hour weekend snooze.

Investing in yourself is both essential for your spiritual and business growth.  The book not read, the audio message not listened to, or the seminar not attended can often be the small but significant difference between success and clear failure.

Prioritize or re-prioritize so that you put your self-education at or near the top of your “to do” list every day.  Brian Tracy, the premiere business coach in America, says:  “A minimum of 10% of your monthly net income  must be set aside for upgrading your skills.” 

Jim Rohn, another mega-successful business coach and my favorite, says pretty much the same thing as Brian.

Yes, success does leave traces.  All men and women of high, constant achievement take the course, attend the seminar, read the book or listen to the audio program.  They may give up temporary enjoyment, but the rewards are exponential for the sacrifice.

Cutting corners is not an option  for high achievers, and neither should it be for you and I.  Splurge on your education.  In truth, you are a walking corporation, regardless of whether you see yourself in such a light.

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Leveraging Your Time for Success

“Time is the most valuable coin in your life. You and you alone will determine how that coin will be spent. Be careful that you don’t let other people spend it for you.”     ~John Dryden~

Undoubtedly, we live in a world defined and confined by time.  When we use our time poorly or in a disorganized fashion, the result is usually discouraging or disastrous.

Just like a magnifying glass captures diffused sunlight and turns it into a red-hot laser beam capable of burning a piece of paper, our life efforts can do likewise.  But to get the most punch from our efforts, we must be willing to delegate responsibility and outsource those activities which we are not adept at and don’t pay well before they drain us of the energy we will need to create and maintain our fortunes.

Several years ago an ethnic restaurant opened in western Tokyo serving New Orleans-style Cajun food  The owner, a Ghanian man with a great work ethic, could cook up a storm of spicy delicacies while his wife and one part-time assistant would prepare side dishes and wait tables.
All went well for him.  His small establishment, which at first attracted mostly foreigners and their friends, became a regular haunt for many Japanese people as well.  A few years after his launch, he moved to more spacious locale with great expectations for opening another branch shortly thereafter.  Less than a year later he went bankrupt.

What happened I will never know for sure, but I have a sneaking suspicion it was caused by his unwillingness to trust anybody.  I said he had cooked up a storm for 11 hours a day, six days per week, yet he never wanted to train anyone.  He told me that nobody could do things quite the way he liked.  So now he was jobless and scrambling in Tokyo.

The moral is that we need to leverage our time as entrepreneurs, because if we don’t our businesses become exactly what we wish to escape from…an hour-for-wage hell.  The idea of having a business online, offline or both should be to gain a semblance of financial and time freedom.

That can be done by finding qualified people who work on a freelance basis.  Many excellent resources are available online for this purpose.  For writing, software creation or web designing, try elance.com and freelancer.com.

Whatever you can do well and which can clearly lead to a revenue stream, deserves your greatest attention.  Otherwise, outsource using the resources just mentioned.  The idea is not to cook up a storm until you die, but to teach others to do so.  That is a system which can leave your family well-provided for long after you pass from this world.

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Success Poem

To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
~Often attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson, it is an adaptation of a poem published in 1905 by Bessie Stanley.~
The poem above is a pretty solid foundation for building a legacy. No lasting success can ever be achieved in an unbalanced, unprincipled life dictated by blind greed and immediate gratification.

 

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The Entrepreneurial Mindset

I hold no grudge against an individual who decides to settle down to a life of moderate success.  Having a fairly good income and a semblance of job stability does have some commonsense appeal.

But we live in a highly competitive world and settling for second place is a sure indication that one will inevitably be forced to settle for an even lower station in life a bit further down the road.

The margin of victory between the prize horse and the also-rans is usually less than a head or a nose.  And so it is in the business world, in academia, and even in the act of courtship.

The difference between success and constant defeat is often a mere matter of a book read or unread, a risky chance taken or passed by, or a few moments more of preparation and practice rather than time spent in idle chatter and daydreaming.

Most importantly, victory only comes to those who finish the race.

The entrepreneur does not have a wage-earner’s mentality.

He/she does not tread water.

He/she does not depend on others to tell him/her how to act or how to live.

He/she sees opportunity  where others see barriers.

He/she sees a chair as a lumberjack, as a carpenter, as a toolmaker, as a lathe, as nails, as a hammer, as a screwdriver and screw, as a saw, as a shipper, as a retail store, as a retail customer, and as an interior designer.

Profit centers all!  That chair has many revenue streams which originated in a dream or a rough sketch on paper.

Wikipedia defines entrepreneur as follows:

An entrepreneur is a person who undertakes and operates a new enterprise or venture and assumes some accountability for the inherent risks.

Most importantly, however, he/she reaps the exponential rewards of a plan well thought out and executed soundly.

Risk in life is unavoidable regardless of whether we chose to act boldly or sit on the sideline of life.

Why not test the waters’ of possibility in your life?

Why not start to see the opportunity within the challenges you face?

“Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say
today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime.”
~Dale Carnegie~

Make it your intention each day to find a way to sprinkle your world with as many kind gestures and words as humanly possible.

This is not a just a religious principle for the pious, but a matter of common business and social sense.  To be stroked by another is like a shot of adrenalin to the spirit and sends a butterfly effect which can span continents with untold smiles and acts of generosity.

Online, when you see someone in need of assistance in business or life in general, be a good cyber neighbor.  Help out.  Make a profit, if appropriate, but offer only authentic, proven solutions or advice.

Imagine yourself on the receiving end.  What goes around does come around.