For a successful life in business and anything else, a major requirement is that you are not just happy, because happiness is a momentary thing that comes and goes with circumstance.  No, what is needed is that solid, immovable, inner quietness -more even than peace, the only word that works here is…Joy.  Mot people, (myself included) don’t really have a grasp on what the word means, we throw it around in our speech, but usually we are talking about some aspect of happiness, and not true joy.

And then we hear some o-jumbo “mystical” explanation of joy and never really understand it,but we nod our heads because while we know we don’t know…we also feel that there is something about joy that is bigger than us, something really important – something we really need to look at.

So of course we try to run away from it as fast as we can.  We are only human -you can’ really expect us to have Joy?

Now, because this blog is about success in life and business I usually tend to stay away from what you might call the “spiritual” aspects of life (at least overtly), but the problem is human beings (regardless of what some might say) are spiritual beings.  Joy is made from spiritual stuff.  And I hate to break it too you, but if you were actually completely without any joy whatsoever, you would be dead – yes…physically dead.

At the bare bones level you have something that motivates you to at least breath, so that your heart pumps blood, call it the “spark of life” call it “motive force” but at some level you are alive – when you die and the doctor calls time of death – whatever that spark was, is gone.

That spark is the essence of joy.  Through pain, through pleasure, through agony and ecstasy, Joy exists as the motive force.

As as such, you must have it to succeed in life.  So, what do we do to increase our joy? How do we understand what it is, where it is, and how to separate joy from merely being happy?

Well, I got the answer today from the young man with the crazy hair (sometimes it’s black, sometimes it’s blond…) in the picture here.

Well, actually he just passed the message on to me from a …”higher” source

Stop complaining.

Pastor Steven Furtick

That’s it. Just stop complaining about how bad you got it, stop worrying about what you don’ have, take what you do have and use it with what you do know.  Joy is the fact that we are alive and we can move.  Choose to move forward.

The man in the picture, by the way, is Pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation Church (www.elevationchurch.org), my church, in Charlotte NC.  It was the second fastest growing church in America last year with three campuses – the man knows what success is, he is only 28 years old!  Now he would tell you that success, real success, is knowing who you are in relationship to God, and that is true.  But I want to focus on joy for the moment.

Without that quiet, strong supporting foundation of joy, you will not have the power to overcome the difficulties to succeed in life or in business, or anything else.  You have to at first recognize that every moment of life is a gift and be willing, despite your circumstances, to use that gift to move you toward some goal.  Life is movement, and Joy is the engine that life uses to move forward.

So this is going to be hard, good stuff usually is… To stop complaining both on the outside, and on the inside.  What do we have to complain about?  How many of us have food to eat every day? how many have a place to sleep, cloths to wear.  You have heard all of this before, but this time I want to you to understand that our complaining actually lowers and limits our joy – bringing us to a lower level of success.  Our ability to think intentionally about those things we want to succeed in is directly in proportion to the inner joy that transcends all feelings we have.

Joy is the stuff our true success is made from.

David T. McKee

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