As a teenager, I worked summers as a groom at harness racetrack, taking care of horses and shoveling manure. A lot of manure. Every workday started at 5:oo A.M, stopped around 1 P.M., started back up about 5P.M. to get the horses that went racing that night ready, and finished after the races, 10:00, or 11:00 P.M.

During the day, I worked in aluminum –roofed barns that absorbed the sun’s heat and cooked us pretty well. I dilled wicker baskets with manure, about two per stall, anywhere from three to a dozen stalls, hauled the baskets the length of the barn, hoisted them up, and emptied them into the manure wagons. I fed, watered, and groomed the horses. I worked on their sore legs and feet. I walked them. I stacked bales of straw and hay.

All of it was hard work. Looking back, I have fondness and nostalgia for it all. So much so I’ve returned and now own about two dozen racehorses, even drive some in races at a major racetrack. But I do not shovel the manure. I’m not that nostalgic.

But no matter how hard you have worked in previous jobs, you’ll discover that running you business is even harder, more intense work. The pace and pressure of being the person in charge is unlike any other, and it requires masterful organization, control, and use of time, it requires that you have the ability to do many things at once. The multiple demands on the entrepreneurs to match these demands.

Time is the most valuable asset an entrepreneur possesses.

Time to step aside and think. Time to network. Time to solve problems. Time to invent sales and marketing breakthroughs. The use or misuses of your time-the degree with which you achieve peak productivity-will determine your success as an entrepreneur.

Time may be the biggest problem business, and the biggest societal concern of the moment. The fortune 500 companies spend millions annually on time management training and productivity analysis. The market is clogged with time management systems and seminars. Despite all this, most businesspeople I know are still woefully disorganized, behind in their work, running faster and faster trying to catch up. One research study I read about some years ago concluded that the average corporate CEO actually logs less than 90 minutes a day of genuinely productive time. Lee Iacocca told me he doubted it was that much! And I suggest entrepreneurs have evener bigger problems with time than do corporate executives.

Imagine-in an eight to ten hour workday, being able to count just 10 minutes of it as productive! Clearly, you can give yourself a tremendous competitive advantage of you can make more of your time productive.

Why Is Time Such A Problem?

To achieve peak productivity you’ve got to know what it is, when you’re hitting it, and when you’re not. Most people have no clue. Most people work harder and faster without the ability to determine whether they’re really getting anywhere.

I have devoted quite a bit of thought to defining what productivity really is-and what it isn’t. I’ve developed this definition:

Peak productivity is the use of your time, energy, intelligence, resources, and opportunities in a manner calculated to move you measurably closer to meaningful goals.

Once you understand and accept this definition, you’ll be better able to choose what you do, what to delegate, and what to leave undone.

Why “Do It Now” May Not Be the Best Advise

The favorite affirmation of the late self-made multimillionaire and success expert W. Clement Stone is “Do it now!” Given that something should be done, and should be done by you, then “Do it now!” is good advice. Procrastination is insidious.

But many people erroneously accept the do-it-now idea as a prison sentence requiring them to try and do everything now. Some things shouldn’t be done now. Some things should be deliberately assigned to next week or next month. Some things shouldn’t be done at all. And, the busier I am and the older I get, the more I conclude that the greatest wisdom of all is astutely choosing what not to do.

It’s interesting how obligated most people feel to answer a ringing phone. They’ll interrupt whatever they are doing to pick up the receiver, even if they are in the shower! When somebody calls the office and leaves a message, people feel obligated to call back, even when they don’t know the caller! Now, with cell phones people put themselves “on point” 24-7, without even a moment’s peace. In fact, lately seeing men in airport restrooms, standing at urinals, peeing and talking on their sell phones. Sad and pathetic. If you can’t even pee in peace, you’re not Mr. important: you’re Mr. Idiot.

The same is true for faxes and e-mails and correspondence. When people receive these in the office, they fell obligated to reply, quickly. Because someone appears in the office doorway, they fell obligated to acknowledge them, to invite them in, to talk with them. And on and on.

You have to shake off the shackles of ordinary and customary obligations and feel free to do whatever assists you in achieving peak productivity.

The Yes or No Test

These days, when someone asks me to do something, attend a meeting, talk with somebody, read something, whatever, I silently ask my self: Is this going to move me measurable closer to a goal? If not, I do my best to say no.

I think in terms if investing time. After all, if time is money, then you must either be spending or investing it. Would you knowingly invest you money in, say, a stock that promised no gain or dividends? No. You might choose to spend some money on things offering no monetary profit such as tickets to the theater, flowers for your spouse, or a vacation. But investing time in activities unlikely to pay any kind of dividend is stupid. You must be very astute at making these time-investment decisions.

So, always ask yourself, is this demand on my time a wise investment? Yes or no?

What Now?

One of the classic problems faced by new entrepreneurs is the absence of an imposed work plan. As someone else’s employee, a work plan is imposed on you by your employer. Tour adherence to that plan may be policed by managers and supervisors. You are held accountable for effectiveness in adhering to and accomplishing that plan. Deviations from the imposed plan are restricted, sometimes punished. That imposed plan causes you to behave in a disciplined fashion. For example, you get up at a certain time every morning to arrive at work at a set, acceptable time. Maybe you get all your expense reports in order every Thursday afternoon because you are expected to submit them on Friday. You get your monthly newsletter out to your customers because that’s part of the imposed plan.

Now you’re an entrepreneur. You are your own boss-you can smash that alarm clock with a sledgehammer and set your own hours. You decided what will be done, when, and how.

But for many new entrepreneurs, when they get free of the job, they don’t know what to do next. It’s too much freedom. They wind up paralyzed, looking around for somebody to tell them what to do.

You have to set up your own work plan. I am most productive when I operate under a self-imposed work plan that creates as much discipline as any employer-imposed plan would-preferably more. You have to be tough on yourself and set deadlines. If you wouldn’t accept an excuse form someone working for you, you can’t accept it from yourself. If you’re trying to set an example of leadership for other around you, you have to overdo it: more organized and more punctual than they need to be.

If I wrote only when I felt like it, when I was inspired, when the time was right, I’d be finishing last year’s workload in my next life. No, I wrote when I was tired when I was uninspired, when I was too busy, not just in my office but on my airplane and in hotel rooms. I put myself under self-imposed work plans and deadlines to create discipline.

John Carlton, a top direct-response copywriter, says the greatest of all inventions in all of recorded history is the deadline. Without it, nothing else would have ever gotten done with any of the other inventions.

Nobody’s going to do this for your. You’re on your own. You must impose deadlines on yourself.

Put a Stake Through the Heart of Every “Time Vampire” Who Comes Your Way

“Time vampires” are people dedicated to sucking up your time. In the process, they also suck out a lot of your energy, leaving you white, weak, and behind schedule. These are the repetitive, frequent drop-in visitors. Or these could be an employee whose favorite phrase is, “have you got a minute?” Or one who is infected with “meeting-itis.” They’re chronically disorganized. Each time one of these vampires’ drops by hangs out, picture him or her sinking teeth into your neck and sucking out a pint or two.

Suppose, for example, you want to make $100,00.00 this year, which means you work hour is worth about $36.00, which is about 60 cents a minute. So when a time vampire sucks up 20 minutes in a meeting for something that could have been handled with a four-minute phone call, that person just sucked more than $9.00 right out of your wallet. If that happens five more times in a week, you lose $45.00 over 50 weeks, that $2,250.00. If you have ten of these vampires hanging around, you’re down $22,500.00 before you get out of the starting gate toward the $100,000.00 goal. That’s nearly a 25% weight handicap; too much to overcome.

The Secrets of Getting Rich

Perhaps you think I’m overdoing this-beating this drum too loudly. But let me tell you why it’s impossible to overemphasize the deliberate achievement of peak productivity. It is the secret of secrets to getting rich.

Exceptional success in any business is the results of strategically directing ever-increasing amounts of you time to the activities you’re very good at and very excited about, to the highest value responsibilities, to the best opportunities. When you start a business, you do it all. The trick is to stay at that stage as briefly as possible and to grow out of it by directing increasing amounts of your time to those aspects of the business you have the passion for and do best.

You can never make this happen if your time is being abused, wasted, lost, sucked up by vampires and controlled by everybody but you.

Time vampires are needy, thirsty selfish creatures who suck up your time and energy, leaving you pale, weak and unorganized. Once they’ve found a good meal they keep returning for more, every day.

Even though you regenerate yourself with a night’s sleep, food and vitamins, they’ll be waiting for you tomorrow, ready to extract every ounce of life from your veins. Being able to recognize these vampires on site will allow you to protect yourself from them as you should any vile, evil blood-sucking creature.

How much time-blood can you afford to lose before you become a worthless mass of matter going through life taking up space? Not getting anything accomplished and consuming valuable resources better reserved for those who will live past the time vampires and make a major contribution to society?

If we can identify these time-wasters, we can prepare for them and defend ourselves when they try to do their dirty work. After all, it’s either him or you. There are so many time vampires, it will be hard to discuss them all in this article, but I’ll try to cover the big ones-the ones a real estate entrepreneur should watch out for.

I’m sure you can guess the first one on my list, because I have no doubt you’re dealing with it already…

Your Telephone Can Make You Rich Or It Can Bleed The Life Right Out Of You.

The phone is a double-edged sword. It can get you with both incoming and outgoing calls. Either can be a bloodthirsty time vampire who consumes half your working day, often without you even realizing it. So let’s start with incoming calls. Who do they come from?
• Buyers.
• Sellers.
• Vendors/Salespeople.
• Family.
• Friends.
• Wrong Numbers.

Sometimes I get criticized for not taking call directly from customers (I have my receptionist and secretary screen my calls). But the I take a look at who’s doing the criticizing and I quickly realize…why should I care what he or she thinks?
Let me make a simple but bold statement that will express my final answer on taking incoming calls from anyone, anytime they wish to call…

Do So Only If Your Time Means Nothing To You And You’re Willing To Stay Broke All Your Life!

Do yourself a favor and keep a log on an average day of the time you spend on all incoming calls that day. You can go to Radio Shack and buy a gadget that will do it for you. You’ll be shocked to learn that, as a rule, fully a third to a half of your day was spent at the mercy of any time vampire who wanted to call and suck more blood from your productivity. They got you and you didn’t even realize the extent of the blood loss. These vampires are good at that. You’re getting bled dry every day and don’t even feel it.

My secretary takes my calls and puts them all one on 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper I created for incoming calls. It looks like this:

Nothing fancy, but it has worked well for me for twenty years for several reasons. I have all my calls in one place so I can return them all at the same time. That in itself is a massive time saver.

Usually I return calls about four times a day, when I can make time to do so. I don’t stop what I’m doing and interrupt my productivity to return a call immediately just because someone chose that moment to ring me. I’ll do so when I can get to it and, in my case, only if the subject portion of my call sheet is filled out so I know why I’m calling this person. My secretary is trained to make sure any caller identifies the subject of their call. In some cases, requirement is waived when she knows the subject because of past experience or she is aware that I have a deal or other business in the works with this particular caller. Until that happens, even my mother has to identify herself to get through. In her case, I know why she’s calling. She wants money! So I just pick up the phone and say, “Hi, mom, how much?”

Come to think of it, I could get my secretary to as her the same thing, couldn’t I? Just kidding. I do talk to my mom, but for the record, only when I call her back. She’s been trained by experience not to even ask for me. He words are, “Would you tell Ronnie to call me back?” And I do. But only when I get to it. This is the same woman who still asks me once in a while when I’m going to get a good job. I tell her no one would hire me.

Back to the call sheet. Notice the RC (returned call) and LM (left message). I simply check which one applies as I call and as far as I’m concerned, my obligation is fulfilled. I simply will not call back more than once. I won’t chase anyone. This call sheet eliminates pink slips with phone messages. I’m famous around my office for saying, “If you give me a pink slip, you’ll get a pink slip!” By putting all calls in one place, I not only have a record of them, but phone numbers I may need later.
Behind my desk is a plastic tray where I put these sheets when I’ve finished working through them. They stay there for about three months and then the bottom half is removed and discarded. Simple system, but it saves me a lot of time and organizes the job of returning calls.

However, if you’re a real estate entrepreneur getting less than fifteen calls a week from sellers, you might want to make yourself available to take these incoming calls as they occur. There’s just too much money at stake to risk losing an important deal to your competition. In your case, these calls aren’t time vampires, they’re vital to your survival.

When and if your business gets to the point where you get more that fifteen calls a week from sellers, you can consider letting someone else prescreen your calls, leaving you to deal only with the survivors.

An important timesaver for me in this process is to block my calls and do them all at once to avoid so many interruptions in other activities. That way I can get them out of the way as a group effort without having to interrupt my attention on other projects several times daily.

Of course, the biggest misuse of the phone is taking calls from buyers when you’re trying to move houses. If you’re doing that, stop the insanity immediately. Has anyone called you lately whom you’d spend half a million dollars to talk to?

If you’re ever going to get burned out, this will cause it. You must set up a prescreening mechanism to capture and sort all these calls. It can be a voice mail system, answering service or, if you’re doing more than two houses a month, it can and probably should be a full time person to sell houses for you so the entire burden is off your shoulders. In fact, that’s my ideal solution.

Conversely, a driver who does poorly in the trial run must begin the race in the worst possible position—the very back of the pack. Stuck behind the other racecars, the disadvantaged driver has virtually no chance of winning. To finish first, he or she would have to pass every other car on the track during the course of the race.

In addition to starting strong, a NASCAR driver understands that his or her performance depends on finishing well. In a 500-mile race, leading for 499 miles is meaningless if a driver isn’t in front at the checkered flag. Regardless of a driver’s skill maneuvering the car early in the race, if he or she crashes or loses focus toward the end, the driver will forfeit the lead and lose the race. Nobody wins points for their position in the middle of the race; rather, each driver is assigned a place based on how he or she finishes.

THE BOOKENDS OF SUCCESS
Great leaders understand the two bookends of success: starting and finishing. We generally think about them in terms of doing a task or project. However, what’s true in our approach to projects is also true in our approach to each day. How we spend our mornings and evenings has a tremendous bearing on the course of our leadership.

I use my morning to set up a game plan for the day. During this time, I allow no interruptions. I never schedule breakfast meetings, and I isolate myself from distractions. I do not permit myself to strategize years down the road or to project my thoughts months into the future. Rather, I narrow my focus to the upcoming 24 hours. I ask myself: “Just for today, how can I be a success?” Viewing life in 24-hour increments, I place a premium on each day. I try to make each one a masterpiece.

During the evening, I reflect on my day. By reflecting, I translate my day’s experiences into learning opportunities. This process solidifies in my mind the lessons I’ve discovered or bits of knowledge I’ve uncovered. Reflecting also gives me the space to assess my progress on the goals I made during the morning.

Relaxation is another important part of my evening routine. I make a point to put my leisure time into activities that replenish me by refueling my energy. For me, such activities include spending quality time with my wife, reading a book, or studying Scriptures. Relaxation puts me in a good emotional state, lifts my spirits, and reminds me of the joys of life.

When I neglect to carve out time in the morning to plan my day, I notice adverse effects. First, I don’t live my day on purpose. Instead of choosing where to invest my time, I cede control of my schedule to whatever circumstances happen to arise. Second, I squander my energy. Since I don’t outline clear goals for my day, I float from one activity to another without getting anything done. Finally, when I skip my morning planning time, I feel overwhelmed. Since I’m ambitious, I have a propensity to bite off more than I can chew. If I don’t focus my attention, the weight of my numerous involvements begins to drag me down.

When I am not intentional about setting aside evening time for relaxation, I encounter negative symptoms, too. First, I get uptight. My times of reflection and relaxation act like valves that release stress from my life. If I don’t guard those times, I get tense, my thoughts are more negative, and my health suffers. Second, I lose passion. My leisure times fuel me. If I am not intentional about putting time into my favorite activities, then life loses its luster. Third, I miss chances to grow. When I don’t reflect on the meaningful moments from each day, I rob myself of the benefits of experience.

SUMMARY
Yesterday is gone, and tomorrow is out of reach. That’s why today matters. Leaders who value each day know the importance of starting well and finishing strong. In the mornings, they focus their energies on key tasks, and in the evenings, they replenish themselves. By mastering the bookends of success, leaders position themselves to make an impact every day.

by John C. Maxwell

“Pull up that sapling,” the teacher instructed his pupil, pointing to a sprout just coming up from the earth. The youngster pulled it up easily with his fingers. “Now, pull up that one,” said the teacher, indicating a more established sapling that had grown to about knee high to the boy. With little effort, the lad yanked and the tree came up, roots and all. “And now this one,” said the teacher, nodding toward a more well-developed evergreen that was as tall as the young pupil. With great effort, throwing all his weight and strength into the task, using sticks and stone he found to pry up the stubborn roots, the boy finally got the tree loose.

“Now,” the wise one said, “I’d like you to pull this one up.” The young boy followed the teacher’s gaze, which fell upon a mighty oak so tall the boy could scarcely see the top. Knowing the great struggle he’d just had pulling up the much smaller tree, he simply told his teacher, “I am sorry, but I can’t.”

“My son, you have just demonstrated the power that habits will have over your life!” the teacher exclaimed. “The older they are, the bigger they get, the deeper the roots grow, and the harder they are to uproot. Some get so big, with roots so deep, you might hesitate to even try.”

Creatures of Habit
Aristotle wrote, “We are what we repeatedly do.” Merriam-Webster defines habit this way: “an acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary.”

There’s a story about a man riding a horse, galloping quickly. It appears that he’s going somewhere very important. A man standing along the roadside shouts, “Where are you going?” The rider replies, “I don’t know. Ask the horse!” This is the story of most people’s lives; they’re riding the horse of their habits, with no idea where they’re headed. It’s time to take control of the reins and move your life in the direction of where you really want to go.

If you’ve been living on autopilot and allowing your habits to run you, I want you to understand why. And I want you to let yourself off the hook. After all, you’re in good company. Psychological studies reveal that 95 percent of everything we feel, think, do and achieve is a result of a learned habit! We’re born with instincts, of course, but no habits at all. We develop them over time. Beginning in childhood, we learned a series of conditioned responses that led us to react automatically (as in, without thinking) to most situations.

In your day-to-day life, living “automatically” has its definite positives. If you had to consciously think about every step of each ordinary task—making breakfast, driving the kids to school, getting to work, and so on—your life would grind to a halt. You probably brush your teeth twice a day on autopilot. There’s no big philosophical debate; you just do it. You strap on your seatbelt the minute your butt hits the seat. No second thoughts. Our habits and routines allow us to use minimal conscious energy for everyday tasks. They help keep us sane and enable us to handle most situations reasonably well. And because we don’t have to think about the mundane, we can focus our mental energy on more creative and enriching thoughts. Habits can be helpful—as long as they’re good habits, that is.

If you eat healthfully, you’ve likely built healthy habits around the food you buy and what you order at restaurants. If you’re fit, it’s probably because you work out regularly. If you’re successful in a sales job, it’s probably because your habits of mental preparation and positive self-talk enable you to stay optimistic in the face of rejection.

I’ve met and worked with many great achievers, CEOs and “superstars,” and I can tell you they all share one common trait: They all have good habits. That’s not to say they don’t have bad habits—they do. But not many. A daily routine built on good habits is the difference that separates the most successful amongst us from everyone else. And doesn’t that make sense? From what we’ve already discussed, you know successful people aren’t necessarily more intelligent or more talented than anyone else. But their habits take them in the direction of becoming more informed, more knowledgeable, more competent, better-skilled and better-prepared.

My dad used Larry Bird as an example to teach me about habits when I was a kid. “Larry Legend” is known as one of the greatest professional basketball players, but he wasn’t known for being the most athletically talented player. Nobody would have described Larry as “graceful” on the basketball court. Yet, despite his limited natural athletic ability, he led the Boston Celtics to three world championships and remains one of the best players of all time. How did he do it?

It was Larry’s habits—his relentless dedication to practice and to improve his game. Bird was one of the most consistent free-throw shooters in the history of the NBA. Growing up, his habit was to practice five hundred free-throw shots every morning before school. With that kind of discipline, Larry made the most of his God-given talents and kicked the butts of some of the most “gifted” players on the court.

Like Larry Bird, you can condition your automatic and unconscious response to be those of a developed champion. This chapter is about choosing to make up for what you lack in innate ability with discipline, hard work and good habits. It’s about becoming a creature of champion habits.

With enough practice and repetition, any behavior, good or bad, becomes automatic over time. That means that even though we developed most of our habits unconsciously (by modeling our parents, responding to environmental or cultural associations, or creating coping mechanisms), we can consciously decide to change them. It stands to reason that since you learned every habit you have, you can also unlearn the ones that aren’t serving you well.

by Darren Hardy

Get Current Titled Leaders Growing in the Right Direction
If you want to increase the level and effectiveness of your leadership right now, then the first thing you should do is start with those who already have a title of leadership. You will find that many of the people you have as “leaders” really aren’t leaders at all, so you have your work cut out for you! Sit down with your leadership team and let them know that you are going to be pushing them to grow in the area of leadership. It is imperative that the titled leaders get on board. If they don’t or won’t, then they have to go. No effective organization can continue with dead weight in leadership positions.

Establish a Plan of Action for Leadership Development
Once you have decided to move forward with leadership development, you need a plan. I would suggest a one-year plan of reading and activities. I’ve often taken groups of people through a 12-month (one meeting per month) plan of leadership development. Each person has to read a required book for the month. Each person takes responsibility in a given area. Each person will give a verbal presentation to the rest of the group on an aspect of leadership. They are accountable to another person in the group for their development. This is the plan of action.

Identify Untitled Leaders
You also want to identify the leaders you have who may not necessarily have a title of leadership. Know this though: they are leading! They are influencing the direction of your company or organization. They are leading and influencing others. Find out who they are and invite them into the official leadership process. How do you find them? Here are a few ways: Notice at your meetings who the other people look to for their opinion. That is the leader. Ask people who they think has leadership potential. A few names will come up over and over. They are your leaders. Ask people to tell you who has the most influence outside of the titled leaders. Again, a few names will come up over and over. They are your leaders. Now, get them on board with you!

Develop a Culture of Leadership
Call your leadership development group something like “Emerging Leaders.” Get T-shirts made up. Have special events for them. Get them involved. Honor their commitment and growth. Above all, let it be known throughout the organization that you value leadership development and you are willing to invest in people that way. Not only will you invest in them, but you will honor them and make it fun too!

Enable Leadership Attempts: Let Them Try, Let Them Fail
This is where most groups fail. They will let people try, but they won’t let them fail. Once they fail, they take responsibility away from them again. Leadership development must be a long-term commitment, and this means you will have to put up with some short-term failures. As you do, the leaders you are investing in will be growing and learning how to do it right in the long run. Those are the people who will grow your organization for years.

Establish Mentoring: Watch Me Do, Do with Me, Do Alone, Teach Another
Get the current leaders to teach the newer leaders. Have them take people along as they do their everyday activities. Invest time in them, developing the relationship while they see how it is done. Then let them do some of the work themselves while you are there. As that gets better, then it is time to let them do it by themselves. Tell them you can’t make it that day but they can go make the meeting without you. Once they have mastered the task, have them turn around and mentor others. This way you are developing more and more layers of competent, Extraordinary Leaders!

Show the Benefits: Both Individual and Corporate
The fact is that people will do those things that bring them benefits and rewards, so go all out to show them what they will get from it as individuals and as a group. Show them that leadership development will help them make more money, have better relationships with co-workers and have better job satisfaction. Show them that leadership development will show itself in all areas of their lives, not just at work. Show them how the whole organization will grow, become more efficient, accomplish the goals they have established and really make a difference in the world around them. Show them the benefits and you will get their hearts for leadership!

Chris Widener

No. 1: We Have Been Discouraged from Dreaming by Others
We have to pilot our own dreams; we cannot entrust them to anyone else. People who aren’t following their own dreams resent us pursuing ours. Such people feel inadequate when we succeed, so they try to drag us down.

If we listen to external voices, then we allow our dreams to be hijacked. At some point, other people will place limitations on us by doubting our abilities. When surrounded by the turbulence of criticism, we have to grasp the controls tightly to keep from being knocked off course.

No. 2: We Are Hindered by Past Disappointments and Hurts
In the movie Top Gun, Tom Cruise plays Maverick, a young, talented and cocky aviator who dreams of being the premier pilot in the U.S. Navy. In the film’s opening scenes, Maverick showcases his flying ability but also displays a knack for pushing the envelope with regard to safety. Midway through the movie, Maverick’s characteristic aggression spells disaster. His plane crashes, killing his best friend and co-pilot.

Although cleared of wrongdoing, the painful memory of the accident haunts Maverick. He quits taking risks and loses his edge. Struggling to regain his poise, he considers giving up on his dream. Although the incident nearly wrecks Maverick’s career, he eventually reaches within to find the strength to return to the sky.

Like Maverick, many of us live with the memory of failure embedded in our psyche. Perhaps a business we started went broke, or we were fired from a position of leadership. Disappointment is the gap that exists between expectation and reality, and all of us have encountered that gap. Failure is a necessary and natural part of life, but if we’re going to attain our dreams, then, like Maverick, we have to summon the courage to deal with past hurts.

No. 3: We Fall into the Habit of Settling for Average
Average is the norm for a reason. Being exceptional demands extra effort, sustained inspiration, and uncommon discipline. When we attempt to give flight to our dreams, we have to overcome the weight of opposition. Like gravity, life’s circumstances constantly pull on our dreams, tugging us down to mediocrity.

Most of us don’t pay the price to overcome the opposition to our dreams. We may start out inspired, but through time we fatigue. Although never intending to abandon our dreams, we begin to make concessions here and there. Through time, our lives become mundane, and our dreams slip away.

No. 4: We Lack the Confidence Needed to Pursue Our Dreams
Dreams are fragile. They will be buffeted by assaults from all sides. As such, they must be supplied with the extra strength of self-confidence.

In Amelia Earhart’s day, women were not supposed to fly airplanes. If she had lacked self-assurance, she never would have even attempted to be a pilot. Instead, Earhart confidently chased after her dream, and she was rewarded with both fulfillment and fame.

No. 5: We Lack the Imagination to Dream
For thousands of years, mankind traveled along the ground: by foot, by horse-and-buggy, by locomotive, and eventually by automobile. Thanks to the dreams of Orville and Wilbur Wright, we now hop across oceans in a matter of hours. The imaginative brothers overcame ridicule and doubt to pioneer human flight, and the world has never been the same.

Many of us play small because we do not allow ourselves to dream. We trap ourselves in reality and never dare to go beyond what we can see with our eyes. Imagination lifts us beyond average by giving us a vision of life that surpasses what we are experiencing currently. Dreams infuse our spirit with energy and spur us on to greatness.

by John C. Maxwell

I spoke to a group of sharp young people not long ago, and when I finished, some of the fellows came up and said they were interested in becoming professional speakers. They invited me to go out with them that evening to have a good time. These fellows looked as though they knew how to have a serious good time.

I had planned to work on my delivery that night by listening to the audio of my speech. I record my speeches and listen to them later so I can study what works and what does not work with a particular audience. In effect, I listen to the audience listening to me.

I was tempted to go with these fellows, and back when I was their age I probably would have given in to that temptation and gone. But I have become more disciplined and more committed to my craft. A friend of mine, Wes Smith, wrote a humor book called Welcome to the Real World, and in it he offered advice to fresh high-school and college graduates. He had a line in the book that pertains to the situation I faced that night. It said, “Having a drink with the boys after work every night is a bad idea. Notice that the boss doesn’t do it. That is why he is the boss and they are still the boys.”

Wes told me that he wrote that line with one particular group of hard-partying young businessmen in mind, and five years after the book came out, he ran into one of them. The guy volunteered that he’d read that line in Wes’s book and decided never to go drinking after work again. It paid off, he said. He had risen to a vice-presidency at a savings and loan.

In my drive to become a public speaker, I developed that kind of focus, too. There is not a lot of time for hard partying if you are pursuing greatness. It was not that these young fellows were not serious about their interest in professional speaking, but they were just as serious about having a good time. I don’t believe they were focused on their goals. They were seeking a profession but they were not on a mission to make a dramatic difference in the world. I am. You should be too.

Rather than the party crowd, I prefer to seek out people with knowledge that might be useful. I like to find out what books successful and intelligent people are reading. I want access to the information that contributes to their success and intelligence.

by Les Brown

The reality of fear is that fear is human. Fear is part of growing and it isn’t going away. It is part of every person’s life and exists in every success story. In all the research I did for my book Conquer Fear! I heard story after story of successful people who experienced fear. The names would change. The circumstances were different. But the fear was the same—and very real. What I noticed was the successful person was willing to face and expose their fear.

The difference between a mediocre success and a breakthrough success is your willingness to deal with your fears.

What about you? What hidden fear are you ignoring that is causing you to repel success? Acknowledging the fear is the first step to defusing its power over you and taking control over your emotions and your life.

Have a great day!
Lisa Jimenez, M.Ed.