When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.
For life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won if he'd stuck it out.
Success is just failure turned inside out,
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt.
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far.
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit,
It's when things seem worst that
YOU MUST NOT QUIT!
----Anonymous*
Friday, April 10, 2009
Sunday, April 5, 2009
The Questions for Lifelong Happiness
You may not realize this, but you already have everything you need to create a wonderful life for yourself. You already know everything you need to know to be your own best friend, a gentle guide, a teacher and a helper to yourself so you can be truly happy and fulfilled in your life.
You can learn how to become your own psychotherapist for life, and how to resolve the difficulties that stand between you and your personal joy.
Be Honest With Yourself
The starting point of becoming your own best friend is for you to be perfectly honest with yourself and your relationships. Refuse to practice self-delusion or hope for the best.
For example, when something is making you unhappy, for any reason, the situation will tend to get worse rather than better. So avoid the temptation to engage in denial, to pretend that nothing is wrong, to wish and hope and pray that, whatever it is, it will go away and you won't have to do anything.
The fact is that it probably will get worse before it gets better and that ultimately you will need to face the situation and do something about it.
Deal With Your Problem at a Higher Level
There's an old saying that you can't solve a problem on the level that you meet it. This means that wrestling with a persistent problem is often fruitless and frustrating.
For example, if two people that are in a relationship together are constantly fighting and negotiating and looking for some way to resolve their difficulties, they may be attempting to solve the problem on the wrong level. Dealing with the problem on a higher level, those people would ask the question, "In terms of being happy, is this the right relationship for us in the first place?"
Find the Right Job For You
Many people work very hard and experience considerable frustration trying to do a particular job. However, in terms of their own happiness, the right answer might be to do something else, or to do what they're doing in a different place, or to do it with different people-or all three.
Here are a few questions for you to answer in this arena of happiness. Write them down at the top of a sheet of paper, and then write as many answers to each one as you possibly can.
#1 What Would It Take?
The first question is: "What would it take for me to be perfectly happy?" Write down every single thing that you can imagine would be in your life if you were perfectly happy at this very moment. Write down things such as health, happiness, prosperity, loving relationships, inner peace, travel, car, clothes, homes, money, and so on. Let your mind run freely. Imagine that you have no limitations at all.
#2 What is Holding You Back?
The second question is a little tougher. Write down at the top of a page this question: "In what situations in my life, and with whom, am I not perfectly happy?" Force yourself to think about every part of your day, from morning to night, and write down every element that makes you unhappy or dissatisfied in any way. Remember, proper diagnosis is half the cure. Identifying the unsatisfactory situations is the first step to resolving them.
#3 Determine Your Happiest Moment
The third question will give you some important guidelines. Write down at the top of a sheet of paper these words: "In looking over my life, where and when have I been the happiest? Where was I, with whom was I, and what was I doing?"
Decide What to Do
Once you have the answers to those questions, think about what you can do, starting immediately, to begin creating the kind of life that you dream of. It may take you a week, a month, or a year, but that doesn't matter. Every single thing you do that moves you closer to your ideal vision will be rewarding in itself. You'll become a more positive and optimistic person. You'll feel more confident and more in charge of your life, and you'll achieve true peace of mind.
Action Exercises
First, examine your business and personal relationships carefully. Is there any situation you wouldn't get into again if you had it to do over?
Second, make a list of every single thing in your life that would make you happy and then think about what you could do to begin achieving them.
Third, allow yourself to dream and fantasize about your ideal life, what it would look like and feel like, and then do something every day to make it a reality.
You can learn how to become your own psychotherapist for life, and how to resolve the difficulties that stand between you and your personal joy.
Be Honest With Yourself
The starting point of becoming your own best friend is for you to be perfectly honest with yourself and your relationships. Refuse to practice self-delusion or hope for the best.
For example, when something is making you unhappy, for any reason, the situation will tend to get worse rather than better. So avoid the temptation to engage in denial, to pretend that nothing is wrong, to wish and hope and pray that, whatever it is, it will go away and you won't have to do anything.
The fact is that it probably will get worse before it gets better and that ultimately you will need to face the situation and do something about it.
Deal With Your Problem at a Higher Level
There's an old saying that you can't solve a problem on the level that you meet it. This means that wrestling with a persistent problem is often fruitless and frustrating.
For example, if two people that are in a relationship together are constantly fighting and negotiating and looking for some way to resolve their difficulties, they may be attempting to solve the problem on the wrong level. Dealing with the problem on a higher level, those people would ask the question, "In terms of being happy, is this the right relationship for us in the first place?"
Find the Right Job For You
Many people work very hard and experience considerable frustration trying to do a particular job. However, in terms of their own happiness, the right answer might be to do something else, or to do what they're doing in a different place, or to do it with different people-or all three.
Here are a few questions for you to answer in this arena of happiness. Write them down at the top of a sheet of paper, and then write as many answers to each one as you possibly can.
#1 What Would It Take?
The first question is: "What would it take for me to be perfectly happy?" Write down every single thing that you can imagine would be in your life if you were perfectly happy at this very moment. Write down things such as health, happiness, prosperity, loving relationships, inner peace, travel, car, clothes, homes, money, and so on. Let your mind run freely. Imagine that you have no limitations at all.
#2 What is Holding You Back?
The second question is a little tougher. Write down at the top of a page this question: "In what situations in my life, and with whom, am I not perfectly happy?" Force yourself to think about every part of your day, from morning to night, and write down every element that makes you unhappy or dissatisfied in any way. Remember, proper diagnosis is half the cure. Identifying the unsatisfactory situations is the first step to resolving them.
#3 Determine Your Happiest Moment
The third question will give you some important guidelines. Write down at the top of a sheet of paper these words: "In looking over my life, where and when have I been the happiest? Where was I, with whom was I, and what was I doing?"
Decide What to Do
Once you have the answers to those questions, think about what you can do, starting immediately, to begin creating the kind of life that you dream of. It may take you a week, a month, or a year, but that doesn't matter. Every single thing you do that moves you closer to your ideal vision will be rewarding in itself. You'll become a more positive and optimistic person. You'll feel more confident and more in charge of your life, and you'll achieve true peace of mind.
Action Exercises
First, examine your business and personal relationships carefully. Is there any situation you wouldn't get into again if you had it to do over?
Second, make a list of every single thing in your life that would make you happy and then think about what you could do to begin achieving them.
Third, allow yourself to dream and fantasize about your ideal life, what it would look like and feel like, and then do something every day to make it a reality.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Five Ways to Become Wealthy
The Five Roads to Financial Success in America and How to Choose Your Own
There are basically five ways that you can become wealthy starting with nothing in America based on over 25 years of research into American millionaires.
The First Way
Number one, you can inherit it. Less than only 10 percent of wealthy Americans inherited any of their money, and this number is becoming less and less every single year.
The Second Way
The second way that you can become wealthy is you can achieve it professionally. You can become a doctor or a lawyer or an architect or an accountant. You can become extremely good at what you do, be paid very well, and hold as tight as possible to your money.
The Third Way
The third way you can achieve it is you can become a senior executive of a large corporation. You can be highly paid; you can have stock options and bonuses. Provided that the company has staying power and you stay with the company long enough, for enough years, you can be paid enough to become wealthy.
The Fourth Way
You can win it. But only a tiny fraction of one percent of wealthy Americans got that way by winning their money some way or another. As a matter of fact, the odds against you winning the lottery are the equivalent of lightning striking twice in the same place. They're millions and millions to one.
The Best Way
The fifth way that you can become wealthy is you can start your own business and earn it all by yourself. Starting your own business has been and will always be the high road to becoming wealthy for most self-made millionaires.
Entrepreneurship in America offers more opportunities and opens more doors than all other possibilities put together. This is why it has been said that if you have the ability to start your own business and you don't do it, you are a fool. I'll repeat that. If you have the ability to start your own business and you don't do it, you're a fool.
Where do you start?
You start by getting your finances under control.
The very first thing you do is you make a decision to get your finances under control. Some years ago, a man named George Classon wrote a book called The Richest Man In Babylon. It's a classic on financial success and what Classon said in that book was that the key to becoming wealthy is to pay yourself first.
Take ten percent off your earnings, off your gross income every month and put it aside. Learn to live on ninety percent or less of your gross income. So the very first thing that you do is you begin to save your money.
Action Exercises
First, resolve today to begin saving your money a little bit at a time. Set a goal to save 10% of your earnings, to put it away and to never touch it. This will change your life.
Second, immediately register your own business or sole proprietorship. Open a bank account, get business cards and letterhead and create the corporate entity under which you can do business.
Your business opportunities will appear far sooner than you think. If you build it, they will come
There are basically five ways that you can become wealthy starting with nothing in America based on over 25 years of research into American millionaires.
The First Way
Number one, you can inherit it. Less than only 10 percent of wealthy Americans inherited any of their money, and this number is becoming less and less every single year.
The Second Way
The second way that you can become wealthy is you can achieve it professionally. You can become a doctor or a lawyer or an architect or an accountant. You can become extremely good at what you do, be paid very well, and hold as tight as possible to your money.
The Third Way
The third way you can achieve it is you can become a senior executive of a large corporation. You can be highly paid; you can have stock options and bonuses. Provided that the company has staying power and you stay with the company long enough, for enough years, you can be paid enough to become wealthy.
The Fourth Way
You can win it. But only a tiny fraction of one percent of wealthy Americans got that way by winning their money some way or another. As a matter of fact, the odds against you winning the lottery are the equivalent of lightning striking twice in the same place. They're millions and millions to one.
The Best Way
The fifth way that you can become wealthy is you can start your own business and earn it all by yourself. Starting your own business has been and will always be the high road to becoming wealthy for most self-made millionaires.
Entrepreneurship in America offers more opportunities and opens more doors than all other possibilities put together. This is why it has been said that if you have the ability to start your own business and you don't do it, you are a fool. I'll repeat that. If you have the ability to start your own business and you don't do it, you're a fool.
Where do you start?
You start by getting your finances under control.
The very first thing you do is you make a decision to get your finances under control. Some years ago, a man named George Classon wrote a book called The Richest Man In Babylon. It's a classic on financial success and what Classon said in that book was that the key to becoming wealthy is to pay yourself first.
Take ten percent off your earnings, off your gross income every month and put it aside. Learn to live on ninety percent or less of your gross income. So the very first thing that you do is you begin to save your money.
Action Exercises
First, resolve today to begin saving your money a little bit at a time. Set a goal to save 10% of your earnings, to put it away and to never touch it. This will change your life.
Second, immediately register your own business or sole proprietorship. Open a bank account, get business cards and letterhead and create the corporate entity under which you can do business.
Your business opportunities will appear far sooner than you think. If you build it, they will come
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