Becoming Rich in Your Own Way

If you really want to become rich, then begin by evaluating your work habits and work environment. That's how most millionaires made their first million. According to Dr. Srully Blotnick, a psychologist and consultant who spent 20 years studying how people became rich, most millionaires didn't make their money in real estate, the stock market, or waiting for their ship to come in.

They made theirs, instead, through their business or profession. They became so good at their job that they made quite a bit of money. Then, and only then, did they turn to real estate and stocks as sites to invest and grow their money. Even then, their basic business continued to produce the bulk of their gains; their investments usually produced only mediocre results by comparison.

There's a monumentally important lesson to be learned from the hundreds of millionaires that Dr. Blotnick studied for 20 years. The lesson is this: If you really want to become rich, invest in yourself first; invest in real estate, stocks, and other ventures later. Dr. Blotnick divided this into two stages:

· The first takes place when you're consumed by a business or profession that you enjoy so much that you would do it for nothing.

· After it pays you enough income, you enter the second stage. This is when you become a bona fide investor. You start thinking of and looking for opportunities to use your surplus income.

To set yourself and your career on track, evaluate yourself by answering these questions about:

<> liking your work:

· How much do I really like my job?

· Does my job bring out the best in me?

· Has it caused me to do more than I ever thought I could do? If you answered any of these questions in the negative, consider a job or career change.

<> determining if your work is right for you:

· How can I tell if I really like my work?

· How do I know if I'm doing my work right?

· How do I know if I'm doing the right kind of work?

The best way to determine that is to apply these test questions:

· What would I do for free?

· Am I enjoying my work so much that time seems to fly by?

· How would I like the work to be done if I were on the receiving end?

· What would I do if I didn't have to support myself, but did indeed want to work?

· What work would I do if my doctor told me that I had only five years more to live?

<> considering my financial rewards:

· Am I contended with my current income?

· Am I in position to influence a change in my income?

· What if the work I enjoy doing doesn't pay very well?

If you're satisfied with the first two, then I say, "Hang in there! You're on your way to becoming rich." People who became rich did so because they persisted. Only a personal involvement with what you enjoy doing will produce the kind of persistence that propels you out of bed in the mornings and makes you willing to work long and hard.

<> investing in yourself:

· Am I developing my skills, talents, and abilities?

· Have I made a plan that will help me to develop them?

· Am I constantly improving my relationship with others?

· Do I ask my co-workers for feedback about my performance?

Investing in yourself means developing both of these aspects: the technical knowledge you need in order to do your work effectively and the human relations skills you need in order to work effectively with others. Mr. Joseph Brooks, CEO at Lord & Taylor, once said, "If you love your work, and do it well, someone will spot that ... Let the quality of your work do it for you."

Conclusion: To become rich, do it your own way. Rely on your own talents, skills, and abilities. Invest them in a business or profession that you enjoy doing very much. Invest in your personal growth and development. Become the very best at what you do at your work even if it pays you little right now. If you really like what you are doing, eventually a fat salary will catch up with your reputation. The bottomline is persistence. Become an expert at relating well with others.

Remember: When you maximize your potential, everyone wins. When you don't, we all lose.

© Etienne A. Gibbs, MSW

PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in ezines, newsletters, and on web sites provided attribution is provided to the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource box and live web site link. Although advance permission is not required, please notify us at eagibbs@ureach.com when you use this article.

Etienne A. Gibbs, MSW, Management Consultant and Trainer, conducts seminars, lectures, and writes articles on his theme: ... helping you maximize your potential. He offers management, marketing and parenting resources at http://www.maximizingyourpotential.blogspot.com

 

Focusing On Your Weaknesses Is A Waste Of Energy

How often have you been told that you must work on your weaknesses in order to improve yourself? That you should focus on your weaker points and bring them up to a higher standard? That by being a good, capable all-rounder you stand the best chance of achieving success in your life?

Well I disagree! For a start, focusing on your weaknesses isn't exactly an uplifting or motivating activity is it? From a self-awareness point of view, yes, it's important to be aware of the categories your weaknesses fall into. But the next step doesn't automatically have to be one of focusing on them, agonising about them and working hard to correct them.

Actually all you need to do is work out how to manage your weaknesses so they don't trip you up. Accept them, keep them under control but don't waste loads of energy worrying about them. Draining your energy with worrying thoughts is a form of clutter, so by decluttering that unnecessary fretfulness about your weaknesses, you free up space and energy for your natural strengths to shine through. With less anxiety and more mental space, you can set about identifying the skills and activities which come easily to you and have fun developing them.

It may not be popular wisdom, but the truth is that your greatest room for growth is in the area of your greatest strength. And by the same token, your greatest scope for success is in the area of your greatest strength. You don't often hear of people who have made a huge success out of correcting their weaknesses do you? It's much more likely that success and fulfilment will come from identifying and developing your natural strengths.

So do yourself a favor! Quit wasting your energy on all those things you don't enjoy and are never going to be world champion at. Stop and think instead about how you could have some fun polishing your strengths so they sparkle like diamonds. Think too about how much success you could achieve by committing yourself to the fine-tuning and expert application of your talents.

Polishing your strengths gives you energy and delivers great results. You get to excel in a way that all-rounders never quite achieve. If your purpose in life is to be your best self, then this is surely one of the ways to go about it.

• Which of your weaknesses can you stop wasting your energy on today?

• Which of your strengths would you like to start polishing?

Mary McNeil is an experienced, ICF-certified life coach, natural born planner and declutterer extraordinaire! She works with her clients on a variety of decluttering, success and creativity projects. Her 30-day home learning and action program is jam-packed full with the knowledge and experience she's gained over years of one-to-one coaching with her clients. Check out => Success Secrets Of A Clutter Free Lifestyle

Remembering the Miracle

There is a natural human tendency to confuse our own frame of mind with the state of the world. When the stress and chaos of our daily lives closes in, we can easily slip into a sense of powerlessness and limitedness. The world can appear dark and daunting. I was in that place just yesterday and a good friend "called me back to my true self" as Thich Nhat Hanh would say.

The miracles are all around us. Astonishingly enough, when we train ourselves to see the miracles manifest in the world we are forced to confront our personal miracle.

Have you ever considered that at this very moment there are people in outer space? There are people exploring the depths of the ocean. There 100,000 Americans in the air on airplanes right now. There are people climbing mountains, people praying, people weeping, people raising their voices in joyful song.

Somewhere in the world the sun is rising. Somewhere else it is setting. There are ants rebuilding their hills after a rainstorm and a mother leopard hunting prey to feed her hungry cubs. A rushing stream is eroding the soil along its bank while the air slowly claims the stream by evaporation. A baby monkey clings to her new mother while a 70 year-old elephant lies down and closes his eyes for last time; leaving this form he knows so well.

It is a big, amazing world. It is far larger and more wondrous than our limited perspective is capable of recognizing sometimes. When we become mired in our limitedness we forget that every single thing in existence – including us - is a miracle. Each came into being against overwhelming odds.

Further, not a single thing exists that is separate from us. The sun and the stream, the leopard and her prey, birth, living, dying - they are all a part of our common experience.

When we see ourselves in the context of the broader miracle...as an integral part of it....we become stronger and less vulnerable to the whims of our momentary frame of mind. The bottom line, my friend, is that you and I are miracles. We better learn to deal with it.

Ray Davis is a writer, poet, and thinker based in the American Midwest. His writing advocates the principles of personal freedom and spiritual development. He is the founder of The Affirmation Spot http://www.theaffirmationspot.com Affirmations are positive statements that inspire and motivate people to take active steps to enhance professional and recreational performance, strive to achieve goals, face challenges, modify or reinforce behavior, and improve the general quality of life. They are thought vitamins that fortify your mind the same way vitamins fortify your body. The Affirmation Spot will become the iTunes(TM) of positive thinking. The site offers the widest variety of downloadable MP3 affirmations anywhere. All affirmations are individual tracks allowing you to select only affirmations that create the greatest impact on your current goals and challenges.

 

Have a Dream

By Marc F.

Having a dream means having a goal or a vision. It also means seeing your hopes fulfilled. Success then, is the realization of your dream.

If you have a dream, you have a passion, a burning desire to see your dream come true. While you work toward the realization of your dream time goes by without noticing, work is something you enjoy doing and you forget the world around you. When you wake up in the morning, it does not matter whether it is a sunny or a rainy day.

You see every new day as an opportunity to take you closer to you goal. What other people say or think about your dream becomes irrelevant. You simply know that you're going in the right direction. Because you're inspired you feel a constant flow of energy. If you feel this way, you have defined your dream and maybe your destiny. The only other ingredient to fulfill your dream is persistence.

If you have not found your dream yet, that's ok. Just keep thinking, dreaming and be receptive to new ideas. There is no hurry and no pressure. One day your dream will come. And once you find it, make a commitment to yourself to follow your dream.

It is the path of discovery of what we were born to do in this world that makes life such a wonderful and interesting adventure.

When you're inspired with a dream, God has hit the ball into your court. Now you have to hit it back with commitment. - Robert H. Schuller

www.inspirized.com

 

From Zero To Hero

If you decide to quit, give up and accept failure when trying to reach a particular goal, the consequences could affect millions of people around the world.

Many people have fulfilled their own dreams, and successfully changed and improved lives of others by providing everything from encouragement, motivation, business developments, leadership, direction, entertainment, heritage, employment and much more.

Major benefits and advancements never would have happened if these determined persistent committed people were not able to endure the tremendous amount of failure, rejection and countless obstacles they had to overcome. Here are just a few people.

Abraham Lincoln's business failed. He lost in elections when he ran for legislature, congress and the senate. He also lost the vice presidential nomination. He could not afford Law School, so he taught himself and became a lawyer. He was the sixteenth president of the United States. To this day he is still considered to be one of the most popular and most successful of all the presidents.

Michael Jordan did not make his high school varsity basketball team the first year he tried out. He went on to win two Olympic gold medals in basketball. He has NBA Most Valuable Player titles and he led his team to six basketball World Championships.

J.K. Rowling submitted her first Harry Potter book to several publishers and they kept rejecting it. The Harry Potter books and movies have become one of the most successful children series ever. J.K. Rowling went from welfare to multimillionaire.

Alex Haley went to the National Archives in Washington D.C. searching through thousands of documents and endless rolls of microfilm trying to research his family history to verify the stories his ancestors told. For the longest time, he found absolutely nothing. When he finally found the needle in the haystack, it all paid off. People all over the world were glued to their television sets for an entire week watching Roots. It broke all kinds of television broadcasting records.

Sherwood Schwartz kept getting rejected by television networks to put on his shows Gilligan's Island and the Brady Bunch. Both of these shows were so successful that they have been in prime time and reruns for about forty years.

Mrs. Debbie Fields was nineteen years old with no prior business experience when she was turned down by every bank in Oakland, California that she tried to get a loan to start one cookie store. Later she became the founder and owner of her own cookie company with branches all over the world. She was a millionaire before her thirtieth birthday.

Bill Gates wrote his first software program when he was thirteen years old. As a teenager he then wrote the software for his Traf-O-Data computer and tried to sell it. Nobody wanted the machine. Instead of trying to sell hardware, Gates and his partner Paul Allen decided to write software. Gates sent numerous letters from his college dorm room to all the big computer companies offering to write their software. Nobody was interested. Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard University, started the Microsoft Corporation and eventually became the richest person in the world.

Bessie Coleman could not get into any Pilot school in the United States. She went to France, got her pilot's license, and returned to the USA. She was the first black female American airplane pilot.

Madonna was living in the streets and eating out of trash cans while trying to get into show business. She kept getting rejections. Now she is one of the top female performers and recording artists ever. She has won numerous awards.

Oprah Winfrey loss her broadcasting job then went on to become a billionaire and hosting one of the most popular talk shows in the world.

Lance Armstrong was diagnosed with cancer which made it unlikely that he would be able to compete in cycling. After that he won seven first place titles riding his bicycle in the Tour de France, which is considered to be one of the most difficult and most challenging athletic competitions in the world.

Wilma Rudolph was diagnosed with polio and doctors told her that she may never be able to walk. After that she went on to win three Olympic Gold Medals in Track.

Colonel Harland Sanders was a senior citizen with little money. He kept getting rejected when he tried to get anybody to share the profits with him using his fried chicken recipe. Eventually his is Kentucky Fried Chicken became the largest fast food fried chicken restaurant on earth.

Jennifer Hudson lost when she competed on American Idol. She went on to win an Academy Award in her first movie for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Effie in Dreamgirls.

The list can go on and on. It is easy to look backwards into the past because hindsight is 20-20 vision. Looking at the present objectively with an open mind and believing the potential of possibilities for the future is much more difficult. However, it also could be more rewarding for everybody.

Stephanie Gibbs writes FREE and FUN articles about regular ordinary people who have a story. Go To: http://crowntabloid.blogspot.com for your entertainment.

 

You can give life a thousand reasons to smile

Two months ago, I went to the electric store to buy the doorbell. The store
was only five minutes from my house but the traffic was so heavy, it was
difficult to cross the street then I went by becak.

Before entering the store, I asked the becak driver for waiting. It was not
easy to find my suitable doorbell. Finally, after almost an hour I got the
right one. Then I went home.

I paid the becak driver = Rp. 5.000 for the round trip fee as our up-front
agreement and Rp 2.000 as his an hour waiting fee. As I know,
people usually give Rp.1.000 for an hour waiting but the becak driver was
kindly so I gave him Rp.1.000 as waiting fee plus the bonus Rp.1.000 (it's
about US$0.1).

I didn't suppose that he would say, "Wow, it's a lot of money. Thank
you so much!" He thankful for the bonus (Rp.1000 or US$0.1).
That day I got the worthy lesson, I must thankful God
all the time.

~ Life can give you a hundred reasons to cry, but you can give life a
thousand reasons to smile ~