"A mistake is simply another way of doing things." | ||
| --Katharine Graham, publisher of the Washington Post | ||
"Find out who you are, and do it on purpose." | ||
| --Dolly Parton, country and western singer | ||
"Build a dream and the dream will build you." | ||
| --Robert H. Schuller, motivational writer | ||
"It was character that got us out of bed, commitment that moved us into action, and discipline that enabled us to follow through." | ||
| --Zig Ziglar, motivational business writer | ||
Begin It Now!
In a small town in rural New Hampshire an enormous chunk of rock has just broken off from a mountainside and rolled down onto the highway below. The boulder is enormous, some 25 feet high and 25 feet wide, and it is now perched in the middle of the main road leading in and out of the town.
To move this boulder will be an enormous task. It will take several munitions experts to blast the rock to pieces, a bevy of cranes and bulldozers to push the debris into a mound, and a fleet of trucks to haul it away. The job will take many days, and will cost the town hundreds of thousands of dollars. The town council convenes and decides to call in bids from local contractors.
The bids come pouring in, with estimates ranging from $100,000 to half a million dollars.
Then, just before the bidding closes, an estimate arrives from a contractor whom nobody knows, and who works in a town an hour away.
His price: $25,000.
Estimated time to do the entire job: half a day.
The town council is amazed at this audacious offer, and deeply suspicious. They call the contractor down to town hall and start grilling him. How, the council wants to know, does he intend to do such a huge job for so little money—a job that other, more experienced contractors insist will cost far more than his estimate, and take several weeks to complete?
The contractor smiles and says he has a plan. What it is he won't say. It's his secret. "Just give me a chance," he asks the board, speaking with impressive passion and assurance. "If I don't complete the work for the estimated amount of money in the estimated period of time, you don't have to pay me a penny. Just get somebody else to do the job."
The council members talk over this proposition and decide that they have nothing to lose.
They hire the contractor on the spot.
The next day at sunrise the contractor pulls up to the boulder driving a small backhoe. The townspeople and council members look on in amazement. Then they start to laugh. The contractor must be playing a practical joke on them. If he thinks he can move this gargantuan rock with this small piece of machinery he is clearly out of his mind. And if he does by some miracle manage to break up the rock, how does he intend to haul away the mountain of rubble using only a backhoe? And in half a day, no less.
The contractor is undaunted. He drives his trusty backhoe straight ahead, coming to a stop 20 feet away from the boulder. Then he starts to dig a hole.
The backhoe digs and digs. In a few hours it has hollowed out a pit 25 feet deep and 25 feet wide.
The contractor then drives around to the back of the boulder and carefully, foot by foot, shoves it to the edge and then over, into the hole. He finishes the job by pushing dirt into the pit and smoothing over the surface. Soon the road is flat and ready for repaving.
Then he goes to lunch.
Now think about it. The job the contractor took on seemed totally impossible to everyone in town, even the experts. No one believed it could be done. You probably didn't think it could be done, either. No one believed except the contractor. He saw what others didn't see; then he did what others couldn't do. Because he had vision, persistence, and passion, he did the seemingly impossible.
He knew that there's always a way.
"The block of granite which was an obstacle in the pathway of the weak, became a stepping-stone in the pathway of the strong." | ||
| --Thomas Carlyle, English writer and philosopher | ||
You can do it. Like the contractor could do it.
How? Let's review.
In times of crisis, view adversity as an opportunity rather than a loss. Use every setback that comes your way as a wake-up call, a challenge, and a learning tool to help you reach your goals.
Try to see a way when others see a wall. Think beyond the box, color outside the lines, leap while others are asleep. And remember—there is no box if you aren't in one.
Go ahead, take risks. When you do nothing, nothing happens. Life only goes forward when you push it in that direction.
Always strive to keep a positive mindset. Nothing is more important in business and in life than a positive attitude. It is the royal road to getting everything you wish for.
Avoid negativity. It is a monster with a thousand tentacles. Each tentacle will pull you in and drag you down. Negativity sucks.
Use every tool in your get-it-done toolkit. Use humor, tenacity, assertion, positivity, passion, energy, self-talk, visualizations, boldness, physical fitness, and the models set by others who've blazed the trail of achievement with vision and persistence.
Set goals for yourself; then pursue them with unbending intent. Let each goal be a star in your eye and a sun on your horizon.
Step out to stand out. Let the world know you're here, and don't be shy about it. Use whatever works. All selling is self-selling. Become your own brand.
Be passionate about everything you do. Remember the hope and enthusiasm you had as a child. Rekindle it now. Passion is the fuel you burn to set the world on fire.
Stay fit. Exercise. Cultivate right eating and sensible living habits. You'll see the difference in every aspect of your performance. The Greeks talked about "a sound mind in a sound body." Go for it.
Come at life and the competition with everything you've got. Don't hold back. Marshal all your forces, gather all your strengths, then reach for the moon and pluck it out of the sky. If you miss, well, then you might end up grabbing a star instead.
Persist, persevere, and never give up. When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
Be polite, be thoughtful, be helpful, and stand by your principles. Treasure your virtues. When everything else falls away, these remain. Strive to develop character.
"Here's the secret, what I call the shortcut to creating your life the way you want it: Be happy now. That's it. If you can be happy right now, in this moment, you will have achieved whatever you want. Why? Because underneath everything you say you want is the desire for happiness." | ||
| --Joe Vitale in The Attractor Factor | ||
A few years ago I was invited to make calls on a telethon for the Children's Miracle Network.
The network needed money in the worst way, they told me, and people weren't responding well to their fund drives. They knew I was a specialist at getting viewers to open their pockets, and they urged me to use all my selling skills to help them meet their financial goals.
On the day of the telethon I took my seat at a phone desk and then looked around. Seated nearby were dozens of high-profile celebrities from football, hockey, and show business. I felt pretty special. Then the show went on the air, the emcee started to do his sales pitch, and one by one the phones began to ring. The celebrities picked them up and dutifully took pledges.
Great. We were all here pulling for a common cause. Soon, however, I noticed that the phones weren't ringing all that often. I also saw that my fellow volunteers were basically sitting there waiting for the calls to come to them. A golden opportunity was being missed, I thought to myself. It was time to go proactive.
As luck would have it, I'd brought my address book with me that day. It contained a lengthy phone list of friends and people I did business with. I picked up the phone and started calling people on the list, asking them for a donation. After a few minutes of serious dialing and dialogue, several celebrities sitting nearby looked over at me and asked what I was doing. We're supposed to answer the phones, they insisted, not call out on them.
"Who says?" I replied. "Anything that works, right? And listen, if I had waited for the phone to ring all my life, I'd never be in business today." Then I called another friend.
By the end of the telethon I had raised over $20,000 for the children, far more than anyone else working the phones that day.
So figure it out. Don't break up the boulder. Instead, dig a hole and bury it. Look for the weak points, the loopholes, the opportunities. They're always there. See what others don't see. Go beyond the limits others put on you. Be daring; take chances. There's always a way.
"The truth of the matter is," Tony Robbins once remarked, "that there's nothing you can't accomplish if (1) you clearly decide what it is that you're absolutely committed to achieving, (2) you're willing to take massive action, (3) you notice what's working or not, and (4) you continue to change your approach until you achieve what you want, using whatever life gives you along the way."
Great advice.
"A wish changes nothing. A decision changes everything." | ||
| --Me | ||
When I was a boy, my father deserted our family and left my mother alone to support me, my brother, and my two sisters on a schoolteacher's salary. Where would she find the means and determination to carry off such an enormous task? There were four of us to feed, clothe, take care of. It seemed an impossible challenge.
But my mother never ran from responsibilities. She went straight ahead, never back. This was where I learned the importance of always moving ahead. Somehow, by working hard, going without, and making ends meet, she managed to get us all through the early years and raised us all to be decent, hardworking kids.
One day when I was a teenager I asked her how she was able to support all of us, work so hard for so little money, and still keep her cool. "What you have to do in life, Tony," she told me, "is believe in yourself, make your best efforts, and let the Good Lord do the rest."
The Good Lord—whatever you believe the Good Lord to be.
Listen, folks, life is always calling to you, asking you—begging you—to take advantage of the opportunities it brings to your door. All you have to do is recognize these opportunities, do your utmost to bring them to success, and then let the great wheels and gears of the universe spin as they will and take care of the rest.
Just as my mother said to do. And just as the great German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe advised 250 years ago in words that should be written in large letters on every living room wall and in every classroom in the United States.
"Begin it now," writes Goethe. "Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans. That the moment you definitely commit yourself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things happen to help you that could never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in your favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now."
Begin it now. Hitch your wagon to a star. Be positive, be creative, be different, be fit, be fair, take risks, have vision, believe you can, give it everything you've got, never quit—and success in business and in life will come to you as surely as the sun rises in the morning and sets at night.
Meanwhile, I wish you great good fortune in reaching your goals and in this awesome adventure of living. You are standing at the beginning of a road that leads to wonderful things. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Begin it now. And may great good fortune bless your way.
Because there always is—a way. And you can do it.