It Starts with a Dream

Almost every super successful person I’ve ever heard of or have met began as a dreamer. Without dreams, very little will happen in any of our lives. But with a dream, great and wonderful things can, and most likely will, happen but only if you add two more things – specifics to make it a goal and action to turn the goal into reality. But the dream has to come first! So, let’s talk about that.

I once heard that 75 percent of our life is lived in our minds. That may not be entirely accurate, but I think you would agree that a fair amount of our lives is lived inside our heads and since our minds do indeed have great power, there must be great potential there.

Think of yourself in Chicago or New York in the middle of a cold winter.  You’re watching TV or reading a magazine and you see an advertisement for a trip to Hawaii. You’re attracted to the idea, and suddenly you start to dream about going to Hawaii for the entire month of February. What happens? You start to live the trip in your mind. You may even start to work it out in detail, planning exactly when you will leave, where you’ll stay, what you’ll do while you are there, and so on.

You think about it so much that you eventually decide that you are absolutely going to go and, if you don’t have the money to make it happen, you begin to plan how you are going to save enough to make the trip. And, of course, all of this is part of you living the trip in your mind long before you go.

When you finally make the trip, you have the great time that you had pre-lived in your mind and on the way home, you relive what’s just happened to you. That reliving of your trip in your mind can go on for weeks, months and even years, renewing your enjoyment of it each time.

Pictures can be a huge influence in helping our brains relive the good stuff in our lives.  Years ago, I bought a bunch of digital frames (they cost all $10-$20) and placed them all around the house. This way I can just insert a memory card from my camera (I use a new card for each trip or special event) and the digital frame will rotate through all the photos, allowing me to easily relive those great moments in my life. You should try it too. It’s a small thing but it can really enhance your life.

Just don’t forget, dreaming is not enough. You must also follow through with goals and action if you want to make it more than just a dream. Next week we’ll talk more just how to do that!

 

Failures at First Are Triumphs at Last

I believe everyone has the power and potential to accomplish the impossible if they are willing and wanting to take the proper steps forward. One of those steps, which Mark mentions all the time in his books, is to have a clear and concise plan with written goals.

Once you plan your work; then work your plan.

Those were closing words from Jeff Griffin on last week’s post. This amazing man has accomplished so much since a 40 foot fall parlayed him from the waist down and put him in a wheelchair. That accident certainly didn’t paralyze his brain or his motivation to help himself and to help other people. Read below some more of his story and some of his words of wisdom.

My teaching style, humor, and personality have made me one of the most liked and sought-after teachers during my 16-year career. I would consistently teach my students to give themselves permission to fail so they can succeed. I’ve left a consistent and comfortable paycheck and career to pursue my new dream of public speaking. I may fail but I also know I may succeed.

Because failures at first are triumphs at last, as long as we just don’t quit!

I earned my master’s degree in education and curriculum and created a worldwide peer-to-peer leadership program for third-world countries that was recognized at the United Nations in New York City. I’ve started two successful businesses, one before my teaching career and this one! I’ve created a nonprofit organization called the “Road to Recovery”, which impacts thousands of injured vets and physically disabled persons in my community and around the world. I enjoy mentoring people, distributing wheelchairs to those in need, and giving hope through my humanitarian efforts.

Every great man and woman of history is a person of service.

My greatest accomplishment so far is being married to my best friend for over 20 years. Together, Emily and I have four beautiful children; even after the doctors told me it would be impossible to have one with my condition. I am passionate about progress. I enjoy eating pizza and peanut butter M&Ms. I love playing games and exercising. I understand the frustrations of living a full life while trying to bridge the gap between what is real and what is ideal. Not only do I tell people how to cross this impossible bridge I show them how it’s possible by getting up and out of my wheelchair and take a few steps forward. “I’m going to run again someday!”

I hope this message will spark the eternal tinder inside your minds and give you the resilience to accelerate your own results. I hope it will ignite the seeds of success you’ve already sown. Combined with your vision and help from another, your desires will cultivate into something other people only dream about!

SELF-CHECK LIST REDUX, PART 2

As I mentioned in my last post, I have a self-check list that has really helped me make improvements in my life and motivates me to keep it up. The list has 20 items on it and I gave you the first 10 last week. Did you go through those for yourself? Did you find that they brought up all kinds of ideas and aspects of yourself and your life you hadn’t thought about too much before?

Well, in this post, I am giving you the additional ten questions on my list. These really get into the big picture of who you are and what you want.

To get the most out of this list right now, I would suggest that you actually write down your answers to each of these questions. If there are any answers that you aren’t happy with–things you discover that you would like to change or know you need to address–highlight them. Then spend some time either journaling or talking to friends and family about what you need to do. Then, not too long from now, you should be able to answer these questions with positive statements that show you know who you are and where you are going with your life.

Ready?

11. Have I set goals big enough to energize my mind, body and soul to the point that these objectives are my core or dominant thoughts?
    12. Do I want to be my own boss?
    13. Do people like me and can I inspire others with my dreams and goals so they will follow me and help me achieve my objectives?
    14. Am I a generalist who can delegate to others or a specialist who must do everything myself?
    15. Do I have a great degree of intuitive ability or am I very gullible and can easily be deceived?
    16. Am I able to take major disappointment and bounce right back?
    17. Do I have the right paradigm or view of the world that will drive the right attitude in myself? (I must always remember that if I don’t like my life I must change my attitude and thinking.)
    18. Do I use the huge and great power of “choice”? (Mankind’s most powerful attribute)
    19. Do I ‘borrow’ the brains of others through personal contacts, books, cd’s, podcasts, texting, emails etc.?
    20. Can I, and do I, adapt and adjust my goals to economic, political, technological, and relationship changes?

If you find writing down these answers helpful, try writing them out to last week’s 10 items too and see what other areas you might want to work on.

Are you finding this list as helpful as I have? Sign up to get these posts by email by going to the top of the blog’s post page. If you are not reading this on the blog page, then go to http://ignitemylifenow.com/blog/ to sign up and also have a look through the recent posts and archives sections you’ll find on the right-hand side. There’s even a search button on the top to help you find the subjects you’re most interested in reading. I hope you find more super helpful things in my past posts as well.

 

How SSS may be Killing Dreams

Whether you want to hit it big financially, physically or just plain want to be famous, SSS may be the cruel “killer” of your dream! What is SSS? It’s simply the perceived notion of instant or overnight success in anything. It stands for “Super Star Syndrome”.

Believe it or not the super quick success of people like Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook fame or the late, great Steve Jobs of Apple Computer can kill your big time dreams. How? Because what you see and read can make it seem like the billionaire ranks were made virtually overnight. So this kind of super-fast success gives too many people the idea that an overnight fortune, instant fame, super quick weight loss or getting into Olympic shape can be accomplished almost overnight. Those thoughts and ideas are stimulated and reinforced through so much clever advertising.

You’ve seen it many times–those promoters that have something to sell can be pretty enticing with their promise that you can lose 25 pounds in 30 days “guaranteed!” or make a fortune in 6 months with their “Sure Fire System”. Of course then they always show you several examples of people who used their method with tremendous success so even though you don’t know if those few testimonials are really true, their suggestion that it could also happen to you is brain washing you into thinking you will have that kind of success. You just have to buy into what they’re selling and it will happen!

The big problem is that some people do really reach super success nearly overnight and, yes, it is possible … for a very few, very select people in the world. Such success is so insanely rare and often more of a fluke of luck or timing—a combination of circumstances with aspects these people had no control over—that made it happen! But for 99.9999% of people it just ain’t gonna happen! And if you keep holding onto the thought that overnight success is just going to drop in your lap, that waiting game will eventually kill your big dream. Your dreams take action, not just more dreaming.

For the vast majority of people super success in virtually all things in life are achieved one step, one deal, and one hour at a time. If we burn that message into our brains we will keep moving forward knowing that success can be and will be ours in the long run. My wealth hero’s that gave me inspiration and motivation were guys like Conrad Hilton, J.W. Marriot, and McDonald’s Ray Kroc or more recently, Warren Buffet. It took these people many, many years and one step at a time to reach the point of “Super Success”.

To me, the real key is fully understanding that it takes lots and lots of baby steps, but those baby steps will eventually take you great distances. If we understand that principal and apply it daily it helps keep us going. So let go of the idea that you will end up with your dreams realized by sheer chance or by some guaranteed system or product. Do the work, one little step at a time and it will happen!

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