How can a missed opportunity be a golden opportunity?

Have you ever found yourself wondering what your life might be like if you had taken advantage of some opportunity of the past (“What if I had invested in Microsoft back when Bill Gates first did an IPO?”, “What if I had stayed in my high-school rock band and pushed through to stardom?”)…

We all have these moments of fantasy – and then the balloon pops and the poster shown in this picture becomes all too real (This poster is from a funny sight called “Demotivators.com” ), and most of us have a few missed opportunities where we know we should have “taken the leap”, where we almost did…but at the last minute we wimped out – and a great thing that we could have done passed us by like the train in the poster.

But that is the point that we can find a new opportunity… As “Opportunity” is not something that comes once in a while like you may have believed, but instead it is more like a “force” or a ephemeral “raw material” that is always around you.  Opportunity waits to be seen and then taken, it is not a lottery that rarely comes close to you…no, it is all around you.

But you have to learn to see it, and missed opportunities, weather real or fantasy, can be the impetus for creating new opportunities to succeed and grow.  So lets look at a few examples.

The greatest thing about a missed opportunity is that it provides you with a case study about yourself and how you missed that opportunity.  

• Did you see it but were too afraid of the risks to attempt it?
• Did you miss it altogether because you were too focused on something else?
• Did you notice the opportunity but dismiss it as “unimportant” because you did not think deeply enough about its implications?
• Did you think in your mind that you could make your own opportunity, but then allowed other things to crowd out your idea until it was too late and someone else grabbed it?
• Do you see lots of opportunities and are excited by them all and get distracted as you flit from one to another?

These five are the basic reason we miss opportunities. The last one is especially important to me – I call it “Opportunity ADD” I get myself involved in too many things and tend not to get any of them done if I don’t use some ruthless discipline.

The missed opportunity allows us to discover how we react and what areas of the five points above we need to work on.  Here are some opportunity “lock-in” suggestions:

1.) Realize that you are not the only one who will notice an opportunity, but also realize that few will act on one – make you choice, grab the reigns and create a plan to pursue your opportunity until you see it through.

2.) Make sure you have the time and resources to accomplish what needs to be done for this opportunity – if not perhaps you need to partner with someone or even leave it – finding something else.

3.) Don’t get distracted by other opportunities when you are working on one now – just write the ideas down and move on with what you are doing, otherwise you will never get anything done!

4.) Remember that as you work though an opportunity, you will create more opportunity – it is an inexhaustible resource that gets larger the more you use it up.

Opportunity is hazy when looked at in the present, but become crystal clear when seen from the past – you need to remember that the fantasy that you have of wishing you “knew then what you know now” can be a motivator to get you to “learn now what you will wish you knew” and make the fantasy a reality. You can make today’s opportunities become reality.

Many have done this, why not you?

David T. McKee

Once upon a time, many years ago, a young boy approached his wise old Cherokee grandfather.

“Grandfather, of all the things you have learned over your long life, what is the most important lesson?”

The old man looked at his grandson lovingly, thoughts moved across his wrinkled visage, and then, very slowly he began.

“The most important lesson I have learned is this: That there is a battle going on inside me – and there is one going on inside you as well, it is in all of us.  The battle is between two huge, wild dogs – one is dark and hides in the shadows.  He smells of decay and death, and his flesh hangs rotting from his bones, his eyes are red fire.  He whispers in your ears about wicked delights and unlawful things, and when you give into his temptations, he accuses you and stabs your own heart with guilt. His ways are always easy and filled with pleasures – but his paths always lead to your doom.

The other dog is noble and resides in the light. He is under control, he is clean, he is good. His breath is like cinnamon and honey, and life resides wherever ever his foot falls. He is humble, but make no mistake, he is a warrior and cannot be tamed.  He asks kindly but firmly and always tells the honest truth – even when it hurts terribly. He challenges you to follow difficult paths, but these paths will strengthen your soul and lead you ultimately to joy.

These two dogs fight continually within you.”

At that the boys grandfather went silent.  Finally, the boy asked, “Grandfather, which dog wins?”

And without hesitation the wise old Cherokee looked straight into the eyes of his grandson and answered, “The one I feed.”

Most of us have heard some variation of this story in our lives.  The point of the story is that both good and evil reside within us all and they both vie for our attention – the one we give attention to is the one that will, over time, dominate our lives and the outcome of our efforts.

How does this apply to Achievement and Success? It applies greatly and here is why: Intentional thinking is the willful focus of our attention on a particular outcome we desire.  This focus will allow our subconcious mind to become sensitized to the opportunities that exist in our environment that we can utilize to bring about our desired outcome.

That is essentially the “feeding” of the good dog, especially with regard to the creation of wealth, happiness, and a successful life.  Not setting goals, not intentionally thinking and improving ourselves is basically the feeding of the dark and destructive dog – and we will reap what we sow.

The story may be intended as a moral proverb, but it demonstrates exactly what happens with our success and failure with regard to our lives – we will reap reward based on the dog we feed.  If we see failure as a learning experience, get back up, brush ourselves off, and get going again – we have fed the good dog.  If we sit in the mud and whine – well, that is ignoring the hard lesson of failure and we will be doomed to repeat that lesson and the dark dog laughs.

The point is that we must be intentional about being intentional – about setting our goals and focusing our minds to the specific things we want to achieve – that is the feeding of the noble dog.

David T. McKee

Before I begin this post, I wanted to let everyone know that “yes…I am still alive”.  I have been heads down working on Achieve-Master, the Ultimate Life Mastery System – which, like many projects, seems to have taken on a life of its own and grown to an unwieldy size – which is a complete set of topics in and of itself.  More on Achieve-Master later.  I also experienced a down-size/merger of the start-up company I had been working at and had to find a new day job, so it has been crazy the last few months to say the least.  So I took a hiatus from “The Master Achiever” blog.  But I am back!  So without further ado, let us begin!

Todays Topic: Dress for Success

You may have heard of the book “Dress for Success” by John T. Molloy – you may even have read it. If you haven’t, you should. I say this advisedly basically because while I personally know the advice in this book is true – I am one of those people who would rather wear a t-shirt, blue jeans, and an old comfortable sweatshirt to work. However, while my favorite attire might be okay for writing software in a tiny cube or in a home office, that fact is: how you dress does affect your attitude!

Umm... No.

Molly’s contention in his book was two-fold, that how you dress affects the attitudes of those with whom you work, as well as your own self image of who you are. Remember, your subconscious gives you back what you program it – and if your self image is one of a smartly dressed, successful businessman, then that is what it will give back in self confidence, self image, and the way you carry yourself while working with your peers. They will see you as successful, and more importantly, so will you. If you don’t believe this (I didn’t when my father introduced me to Molloy’s book.), give it a try. Wear your usual or most comfortable cloths the first day and take notice of your own feelings and how able you are at your job – take down notes of how your colleagues at work act around you. Then take Molloy’s advice and dress for success and note ay differences. You will be convinced not so much about how it affects those around you (your peers may ask if you are going on job interviews – politely tell them you have meetings or something innocuous) but on how much it affects your own attitudes while at work.

They all Laughed when I said I would achieve success, but then I showed them my bank account… Success Perception is another category of “Affirmation” – Do you want a method of affirming your personal goals that really works – a way of reprogramming your own mind? Check out “The Sculptor Method” – you will be amazed!

The fact of the matter is, whether you consider it good or bad, most people are looking for someone who will be the leader and the one who will take responsibility. Most people don’t want responsibility – I believe it is an unfortunate outcome of our culture and educational system. This is why when you look the part of a leader, when you dress like a leader in whatever profession you in, you are subconsciously perceived as smarter, more experienced, and a more obvious choice for leadership roles – and that perception will also extend into your own subconscious!

Lets take a non-businessman example of this principle: If you are a welder, you are not going to wear a suit to work – but could you wear clean, well fitting, high quality welding uniforms? Perhaps purchase the very best automatic welding mask? If you feel like a top professional you will try to match that feeling with proper action – you do still need to keep abreast of the best techniques and processes of course, but the fact is when you are seen next to the welder who does not take care of his uniform, does not invest in the best mask, etc. you will be perceived as the leader.

While perception is not necessarily reality, the fact is, for better or worse, what we perceive does control to a large extent what we believe, especially subconsciously. So use this fact to your advantage as you become a Master Achiever!

David T. McKee

Earl Nightingale said that “Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal.” Because he was instrumental in the realization of my success through the many books and tapes he produced (and that my successful father encouraged me to read and listen to), I wanted to dedicate this first of the Achieve Master series of articles.

In this article we will continue to look at the part of Mr. Nightingales quote “the progressive realization…”

So…how do you break down a goal into a set of steps or tasks that you can begin doing immediately so you are always moving towards that goal?

I the last article we mentioned “Backwards Planning”. This is essentially breaking down a goal into individual steps or tasks by starting from the goal and working backwards to your current state.

To help you understand this process, think back to the last thing that you were intensely interested in. It needs to be something that got you going in the morning, and kept you awake at night thinking about, something that grabbed your attention every time anything remotely to do with it falls into your field of vision. Something that forces you to research it on the web or go to the library and check out books…

That should be the way you feel about your worthy goal, because you need to research it, and you need to understand everything about it, you need to mingle with other like minded people. At this point you may even want to seek out a mentor (more on that in another later article). You certainly need to know how others were successful doing what you want to do (or at least something similar). The fact is, to do a backwards break down of your goal into steps; you are going to have to understand as many details of it as you can. Start by imagining yourself already having achieved the stated goal.

In our earlier example of Jack Sprat and Joe Smith, both who claimed a goal of wanting to be a captain of a dinner cruise yacht, Mr. Smith actually decided to look into how yachts were constructed, how they were sailed, how dinner cruises were run, how to get chefs onto the boat to cook, etc. In other words he broke down his goal as best he could and then got to work. As he learned more about the various bit and pieces of his goal, he further broke them down. Sometimes, the things Mr. Smith thought were tasks turned out to be very large, they were actually more like “mini-goals” or “sub-goals”. They could not be done in a simple one day task, so they needed to be broken down further. This is what Mr. Smith did, revising his “map” from where he was to his goal.

And every day he got closer, every day the path to the goal got clearer, until one day Joe Smith was “Captain Joe Smith” happily serving his guests as he plied the inter-coastal water ways…and as he began planning his next achievement.

Unfortunately, Jack Sprat just kept dreaming about being a yacht captain, and after a few years, lost interest in the dream. He moved on to other things with equal success.

You see, full immersion into your goal will keep your interest long enough to achieve it. Dreaming about your goal is important, but not enough to keep the dream alive! You need to put those dreams on paper, you need to think about them, research them, noodle them in you mind. You need to see yourself already having achieved the goal.

You must discover how to break your worthy goals down into tasks, put those tasks into some sort of priority, and then do them in order. You must constantly update your tasks and your roadmap to your goal as you learn more about it. This can all be done on paper (and has been done this way for countless centuries) by the most successful people on earth. Today’s technology makes it even easier to track and update your success plans.

–David T. McKee

PS: Why don’t you start on your road to success today?

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Note: This is copy-righted content, Copyright  2009, David T. McKee

The Achieve Master Series: Getting There…

(Note: Some of the following may seem offensive or controversial to some…well, I’m sorry but anything interesting enough to read  usually is)

Earl Nightingale said that “Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal.” Because he was instrumental in the realization of my success through the many books and tapes he produced (and that my successful father encouraged me to read and listen to), I wanted to dedicate this first of the Achieve Master series of articles.

Most of us have at least a fuzzy idea of what success is and if we are of that precious few who have made the attempt to make this idea more concrete in our thinking, we may be sure we know what success is. But what does it take to be a Master of Achievement?

First let’s clear the air a bit.

There are so many books, tapes, methods, philosophies, techniques, etc. on success and self-improvement that the mind is quickly boggled. A quick visit to a library or bookstore will verify this fact. Much of the current crops of titles combine a panoply of various new-age gobbledygook with just a sprinkling of actual common sense. Add to this a massive marketing budget and you have another best seller destined to be sold in a few years at the bargain basement used book-store. I should know… I have a ton of this stuff on my own bookshelves.

Let’s dig through some of this stuff, past the yellowed, dog-eared tomes of the past few years until we find some of the first ideas that actual successful individuals used to achieve awesome levels of success, the kind of achievement that you want for yourself.

Let’s begin with the statement that is also the title of this article:

“Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal.”

Look at the last 3 words: “a worthy goal”. What makes a goal “worthy”? What does that even mean?

Let’s start by cutting the crap that most guru based new-age self improvement types dish out… None of this “Worthy goals are different for different people…blah blah blah.”

Obviously different people want different things, but some of those things are not worthy. And sometimes the things people say they want are not what their actions show they really do want.

People get what they actually want.
That is a basic principle. There is nothing “mystical” there, nothing magical (unless you did not realize that this was actually the case!). People get and have the things they truly in their heart focus on.

Now some will argue this pointing to those who are in horrible situations like Hurricane Katrina or who live in some horridly oppressive third world. However there are success stories even in those situations. I do not mean to imply that the external situation you find yourself in is under your control—it’s not, but your attitude about what you will do, and what you will focus on, always is.

Some who lived through Katrina have thrived despite perhaps losing everything, and some in oppressive third world countries escape those situations, many times to come to America and in a few years become wealthy themselves! They had a burning desire for a worthy goal, and let nothing stand in the way of achieving it.

But others who were born here in The United State of America (or other free democratic countries), who are able bodied and fit, will whine and complain that they can’t be successful, that their circumstances don’t allow for them to achieve anything, that they need help from those who do produce, their “need” being the blank check against those who have actually achieved something. These people are also getting what they truly, ultimately desire…

Abject failure.

That is what they truly want, that is what they focus on – and their subconscious mind, their projected intent goes out into the universe.  And the universe returns to them what they actually asked for, it can do nothing else.

(and of course there are so many politicians in government just waiting to softly massage them and tell them that they are right in thinking this way, and hand them a government check that was cashed against actual achievers output.)

So let’s review: A worthy goal is any goal that you have that will raise your personal worth to yourself, to your family, to those around you (neighbors and community), and to posterity. It can be small or big, but to be worthy, it must first be true, it must uplift, and it must be good - it must be something you know deep in your heart lifts those around you as it lifts you.

It must be True: – If your goal states or implies falsehood, it is not worthy. Notice the welfare bums in the previous example who complained that their experiences or circumstances were not ideal for them to be successful. The truth is nobody has it perfect, if they did there would be no challenge and nobody would be uplifted by achievement. (Note: I am not implying anyone who has ever used assistance is a bum – only those who have decided that they are entitled to it and intend to continue to live on it).

It must Uplift: If your goal leaves you where you are at currently, or pushes you or others down into the gutter, it is not a worthy goal. (“I want to be known as the greatest bank robber ever!”) That has been the unworthy goal of some actual bank robbers, but it did not uplift, it was therefore not worthy. (“I want to create a fast food restaurant that provides high quality fresh, hot food, fast, excellent service, and a wonderful customer experience.”) That was the worthy goal of Wendy’s creator Dave Thomas. Compare the two and you will quickly understand worthiness in a goal.

It must be Good: Notice how a worthy goal’s three points flow into each other. Goodness is simple. Does it help or does it hurt? Does it inspire others or does it confuse and cause fear in others. Does it create a wave of enthusiasm? Good goals build up and cause a spin-off of more good goals.

So that wraps things up for this part of the Achieve Master Series. Remember, you always get what you really want. The trick? Knowing what you truly want and making sure that it is worthy of you.

Please be sure to read my next article about how we progress in our destination towards our goals.

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- David T. McKee

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Note: This is copy-righted content, Copyright  2008, David T. McKee