Life and business is like the changing seasons. You cannot change the seasons, but you can change yourself. Therein lies the opportunity to live an extraordinary life, the opportunity to change yourself.
Climbing the Ladder of Opportunity at Home and at Work
Learn the Lesson of the Seasons
You can’t change seasons. But the good news is that you can change yourself. You will always have
opportunity mixed with difficulty. Sometimes there’s more difficulty, sometimes there’s more
opportunity.
1. Learn how to handle the winters.
Winters come every year. Be stronger, wiser, and better to deal with winters.
2. Learn how to take advantage of the spring.
You must plant in the spring, or you will beg in the autumn. In the spring, you must hurry,
because it doesn’t last for ever.
3. In the summer you must nourish your values and fight your enemies.
In the garden, the weeds start to grow and become a threat. Be hostile to remove weeds.
4. In the harvest or autumn, reap without complaint.
Complaining is an illness that can become a terrible disease. Take full responsibility for the
harvest
The Major Keys to Successful Living
1. Philosophy.
This comes from using your mind to think to process ideas and information. This process
establishes a guidance system, or a philosophy to get us through life emotionally,
economically, spiritually and every other way.
This system needs to be constantly refined. Philosophy is the major factor in how your life
works out-what car you drive, where you live, what you wear, what you earn.
We all need a wind to blow us to our dreams but there is not much you can do about the wind.
You need to set sails to make the most of it. That is what the philosophy is all about: using
your mind to think so that you can refine the set of your sails. The conversations you have
with people you admire, sermons, literature, and seminars can all help you constantly refine
your guidance system and set a better sail.
2. Attitude.
Have a good attitude about the past. Treat it as a school or a teacher from whom you can
learn. Don’t let the past beat you, but teach you. Don’t bear it like a burden. It will affect your
health. You may have made mistakes. This makes for experience and we can learn from that.
How you feel about the future is just as important. Have a good attitude looking to tomorrow.
Set goals.
The future is promise. The promise is an awesome force but you must be prepared to pay for
the future with the present. Nothing is free. If the promise is clear, the price is easy.
Have an educated attitude about everybody. You can’t succeed alone. It’s hard to find a rich
hermit! Each of us needs all of us. Learn to appreciate all of us. Learn to appreciate
everybody’s participation. Value everybody’s gifts.
How you feel about yourself is important too.
Self-esteem is the greatest step of progress toward success. You must develop self-worth,
self-value. I believe that the greatest deterioration of self-esteem comes through lack of
simple disciplines.
Self-esteem begins to deteriorate when you do a little less than you can and let yourself off
the hook. It is the beginning of a slippery downward slope. Society doesn’t care if you
become financially independent or if you look after your health. Neglect is like an infection
that if not attended to will become a disease. One neglect leads to another like a domino
effect.
But the simplest easy discipline returns self-esteem.
Begin a simple discipline of making a journal entry every day. The simple things are the first
building blocks because all disciplines affect each other. The good news is that each new
discipline effects the rest, and leads to new ones.
3. Activity.
New life comes from labour-not from ideas and information. Affirmation alone will not do it.
Commitment to labour leads to the miracle of new life.
First, do what you can. Ponder the question: “What am I not doing that would be easy to do?”
if you wish to learn a language, commit yourself to three words a day. That equals 1000
words a year. What is easy to do is always easy not to do.
Second, do the best you can. Always do more than what you get paid for to make investment
in your future.
Should, could, will: it will change your life. You can handle complicated disciplines if you
can handle small ones. So practise small stuff first.
4. Results. Philosophy plus attitude plus activity equals result
- “Don’t say, ‘If I could, I would.’ Say, ‘If I can, I will.’”
- “Don’t wish it was easier, wish you were better. Don’t wish for less problems, wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenge, wish for more wisdom.”
- “Either you run the day or the day runs you.”
- “Without a sense of urgency, desire loses its value.”
- “If you don’t like how things are, change it! You’re not a tree.”
- “How long should you try? Until.”
- “Learn how to be happy with what you have while you pursue all that you want.”
1. “Don’t wish it was easier, wish you were better. Don’t wish for less problems, wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenge, wish for more wisdom.”
2. “If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.”
3. “Start from wherever you are and with whatever you’ve got.”
4. “Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.”
5. “Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day.”
6. “Either you run the day or the day runs you.”
7. “We must all wage an intense, lifelong battle against the constant downward pull. If we relax, the bugs and weeds of negativity will move into the garden and take away everything of value.”
8. “Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”
9. “If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.”
10. “To solve any problem, here are three questions to ask yourself: First, what could I do? Second, what could I read? And third, who could I ask?”
11. “If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse.”
12. “If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you. If you go to work on your plan, your plan will go to work on you. Whatever good things we build end up building us.”
13. “Motivation alone is not enough. If you have an idiot and you motivate him, now you have a motivated idiot.”
14. “It isn’t what the book costs; it’s what it will cost you if you don’t read it.”
15. “You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of.”
16. “Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals.”
17. “Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don’t fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgement, repeated every day.”
18. “Work harder on yourself than you do on your job.”
19. “You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.”
20. “You don’t get paid for the hour. You get paid for the value you bring to the hour.”
21. “Don’t just read the easy stuff. You may be entertained by it, but you will never grow from it.”
22. “Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands, but not you.”
23. “We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment.”
24. “Without a sense of urgency, desire loses its value.”
25. “Life and business is like the changing seasons. You cannot change the seasons, but you can change yourself. Therein lies the opportunity to live an extraordinary life–the opportunity to change yourself.”
26. “Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment”
27. “Take advantage of every opportunity to practice your communication skills so that when important occasions arise, you will have the gift, the style, the sharpness, the clarity, and the emotions to affect other people.”
28. “If you don’t like how things are, change it! You’re not a tree.”
29. “Days are expensive. When you spend a day you have one less day to spend. So make sure you spend each one wisely.”
30. “Give whatever you are doing and whoever you are with the gift of your attention.”
31. “Learn how to be happy with what you have while you pursue all that you want.”
32. “You cannot make progress without making decisions.”
33. “Don’t say, ‘If I could, I would.’ Say, ‘If I can, I will.’”
34. “No one else ‘makes us angry.’ We make ourselves angry when we surrender control of our attitude.”
35. “Your personal philosophy is the greatest determining factor in how your life works out.”
36. “The big challenge is to become all that you have the possibility of becoming. You cannot believe what it does to the human spirit to maximize your human potential and stretch yourself to the limit.”
37. “The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.”
38. “The more you care, the stronger you can be.”
39. “Character is a quality that embodies many important traits, such as integrity, courage, perseverance, confidence and wisdom. Unlike your fingerprints that you are born with and can’t change, character is something that you create within yourself and must take responsibility for changing.”
40. “How long should you try? Until.”
