To close off the 5 Categories of Success, let’s talk a little about Recreational Success. Sure, I know…you are probably thinking, “What in the #$#@ is recreational success?” Well, we know that recreation is doing something recreational, or something fun. A recreational act is an act designed to amuse, refresh or enjoy.

The Fifth Category of Success – Recreational

I like to consider it as a recharging of the batteries….and for those of you who recharge batteries often, you know a few things. You know that if you don’t charge them long enough, they won’t have full power and if you charge them too long, they become weak. There has to be a balance.

The same applies in life. There must be a balance of work and play, otherwise, what’s the point. There has to be those moments where you don’t want to do a dang thing but watch a movie. The times where you just sit to watch the sun go up or go down is healthy for your mind, your body and your soul. Taking that new car down the highway just to see how fast it can go is more of a positive influence on your well being than it is negative….even if you get a huge speeding ticket. As human beings, we thrive on excitement, fulfillment and even a degree of danger, as long as it is calculated danger, posed in our favor. We want to smile and laugh out loud. The healthiest and happiest people in the world are those who work hard and laugh often.

What’s the point of working hard all your life if you can’t enjoy all that you have worked to create. A life lived without some leisure and laughter is a life missed. And in my line of business, Network Marketing, those who can integrate their work into their recreation make the most money and experience the most success. Living your life out loud, the way you want to live it, attracts those who desire what you have. Nobody enjoys hanging around the guy who works all the time. He’s the guy without any friends or in most cases, the guy without a family. Nobody wants to be that guy.

Recreational success makes all that you have been able to accomplish, more fun, and motivates you to achieve more. I know that by doing my work today, I can take time off tomorrow. In most cases, that’s why I work so hard. I work hard so that I can play hard. What a great philosophy. Work Hard, Play Hard.

I’ve compiled a few pictures here for a real quick survey. Look at the pictures below and tell me which view you would prefer while working.

Which workspace suits you best?

Workspace #1

Workspace View #2 – Supervisor of Workspace #1

Workspace View #3

Workspace #4 – Getting Better!

Workspace #5 – Very Nice!

Workspace #6 – Priceless! Working from Home!

So which of these work spaces looks the most appealing to you and which of these spaces are you somewhat currently in? Man, if everyone could just get this one concept: You have just as much of a choice to not work where you want as you do in working exactly where you want! So I chose work spaces #5 and #6 nearly 5 years ago. I used to work in something similar to work space #3. I think I definitely upgraded!

So you might ask the question: Is a home based business all it’s chalked up to be? The answer for me: YES! The answer for you: (Fill in the blank)!

One of the beauties of being self employed is your ability to literally dictate your schedule as the day goes. This weekend is going to be a busy weekend for all of us parents. Today happens to be my oldest daughters birthday and this morning, my second daughter received her very first award in her school today. It’s nice to have the freedom to just go. No approval from the boss, no worry over losing paid work hours….just the freedom to go and do.

Now as you all know, it is Halloween today and if you have a family, with children, your weekend is going to be busy. Get out with your kids. Be young again and dress up. Have a blast! But as I have always said, be your business. With what I do, I am able to integrate my business into my lifestyle. So just because I am off during the holidays doesn’t mean I’m not generating revenue. That’s the whole point of a home business. It integrates itself with your lifestyle. Some of my best days, weeks and months in my business have come when out having fun.

You become your business. You can’t really sell it to anyone. The only value given to it is what you give to it. Live your life and throw your business around it. If you are open and alert, marketing opportunities will be available to you almost anywhere you go and with nearly anything you do. Should you choose to jump on Facebook to see what your friends are up to, if you are your business, people will start asking questions. Should you choose to go to the store, if you are your business, conversations will start and people will ask what you do.

With a pocket full of business cards and drop cards, an open mind and a smile, opportunities to grow your home business are abundant. But you have to be looking. Once and entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur. In my opinion, if you are looking to get away from your business completely, the only option is to quit, sell it or get a job. The ones who are paid a wage can truly say, that when 6pm rolls around, they are OFF of work and don’t even have to think about it until the next morning the moment their alarm clock rings. With a business, it’s different. If it doesn’t consume you, within reason, you are probably getting mediocre results. The moment you allow yourself and your business mold together is the moment things start happening. That’s called passion.

So Happy Halloween everyone. As you are out tomorrow with your kids, look for opportunities. They will be everywhere!

So yesterday I took the morning off to hand out with my one year old daughter while Amy volunteered at my daughters school. She volunteers every Monday, and so instead of trying to struggle with working around my daughter, I just take the morning off and hang out. One of the perks of being a home business Entrepreneur….the ability to dictate my own schedule day by day.

Now this particular morning, my one year old daughter decided to sleep in pretty late. She slept until around 9 am. While she was drooling, we had a few Javelina drop by for a quick bite to eat. And I got it on tape for you. Check it out:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V6HguyRa1o[/youtube]

Last week my wife and I dropped the kids off at the parents house and took off to the tropical island of Puerto Rico! We had an absolute blast and with this being our second visit to the island, we appreciated it even that much more. The weather was perfect and the resort we stayed at was top notch. We stayed at the El Conquistador in Fajardo in the Las Casitas section of the resort. Our room was a one bedroom with a living area and kitchen. It had a patio that overlooked the ocean from up high on the tropical ocean side cliff. The view was inspiring!

So while were were there, our days looked like this:

Saturday – We arrived at the San Juan airport and were greeted by our transportation to the resort by a woman holding a sign with our name on it. We identified our luggage and didn’t have to touch it from that point on. We had a Ford Excursion limo pick us up for the hour long ride to the El Conquistador resort in Fajardo. We ate lunch on a balcony that overlooked the ocean with other self-made millionaires and multiple 6-figure earners in my business opportunity. We hung out at the pool most of that day, just soaking up the sun. That night we went kayaking through a jungle channel which contained Bio-luminescent micro plankton.(I’ll tell you more about that later! Awesome!) After kayaking we hung out in the hot tub until midnight right on our balcony.

Sunday – We paid a visit to Palamino Island just off the coast of the resort. There I snorkeled while Amy soaked up the sun as she normally does. Later that night we had a catered dinner in one of the top steak restaurants in the country called the Strip House which overlooked the channel and cove we kayaked to on Saturday night. This dinner was followed by a small get-together for leaders in my business called “The Repeaters party.”

Monday – We went hiking through the Puerto Rican Rain Forest and guess what….we got rained on! Go figure. The rain forest was amazing. Look for some video footage a little later on. Monday night we attended a welcome reception to the event we were there to attend. We ate buffet style and were entertained by music and awesome company.

Tuesday – Yossi Ghinsberg was our first speaker of the conference. If you have never heard Yossi speak, do it. He is amazing. Following Yossi we heard from Steve Donahue and his uncharted journey across the desert. That night was pretty eventful. We went out to eat with Tony and Jessica Rush and Roger and Suzanne Curwin. Tuesday was the 13th of October, my birthday. The day I turned 33 years old I also broke my tooth on the wrapped duck! Later that night we watched the a new documentary that is soon to be released by our company featuring Michael Jr.

Wednesday – We heard from our final speaker, Neal Petersen, on Wednesday morning. He was great as well. More on him coming in my future posts. We spent our entire afternoon on Palamino Island once again where Danny Hawman and I snorkeled to a separate island approximately 100 yds x 50 yds in size. It was gorgeous! That night we attended a black tie gala to conclude the conference. The steak melted in your mouth..it was perfect. Amy and I spent much of the night taking pictures of ourselves making goofy faces with random cameras we found laying around. Fun stuff. We danced the night away to a band that was the best I have seen in a long time. After which we soaked it up on our balcony in the hot tub. What a great way to close out the event.

Thursday – Our car came to pick us up at 5:50 am, just when the sun was rising across the ocean. Our room faced the east so as soon as you walk out the door….there it was! Amazing! And I tell you what…the best place to ride is in the back of a nice car! Our trip to the airport was just as nice as our trip to the resort.

So that’s it. That was our experience in Puerto Rico. It was amazing, life changing and inspiring and at this very moment, I am going through some withdrawals, wanting to go back. Aside from me breaking my tooth, it was an absolutely perfect trip!

One thing we have going for us as humans is our own ability to create something out of thin air. Especially when it comes to our time. We have the ability and resources to spend it in an array of ways. How we spend it has a direct reflection on our results in life. If someone isn’t getting their desired results in life, chances are, they just simple aren’t spending their time doing the things they must do to get the result. The hard part for people is knowing how to change the way they spend their time. It’s so easy not to change, right?

My point is….so many people have time working against them instead of for them. It seems that most people are in a hurry to die, to put it bluntly. The sooner they get off work the better, the quicker the day goes by the better, the faster the time goes by so that they can sit there on their couch, the better. Most people want time to fly by and in my experience, thinking of all the times that I wanted time to fly by, these were the times when I was most miserable. I was either at a job I hated, with someone I didn’t enjoy being with, terribly sick, in pain or just flat out sick and tired.

These were the moments in my life that I wanted my time to go faster. These were the times that I wanted to speed up time and literally get closer to my end. I wanted time to pass by faster, I wanted to waste that time just to spare myself of the misery I was experiencing at the moment. I wanted to get older, just by a small bit, so that I could move on with doing what I wanted to do and enjoyed doing. In doing so, I wasted a small section of my life…..a section that I will NEVER get back. Your TIME is your LIFE. It’s a simple concept….if you waste your time, you waste your life.

Don’t Waste Your Life

So let me ask you a question: Who in their right mind wants their life to pass by quicker? Who, having a sane mind, wants to die sooner? Because that’s basically what you’re doing when you spend your time doing what you can’t stand to do, hoping it passes by quicker. Now, fifteen minutes of time wasted at your job may not seem like you are wasting your life, but what is fifteen minutes multiplied by five or six days out of the week times 52 weeks in a year times the number of years you have been wasting 15 minutes a day. That adds up to a lot of wasted time, doing something you cannot stand to do. And if you are just working that job or business just for a paycheck and get no personal satisfaction or enjoyment from it, what are you doing?

So let me rephrase the question: Who in their right mind, who is following their passions in life, wants their life to pass by quicker? Who, having a sane mind and is living life to it’s fullest, wants to die sooner?

So how do you live life to it’s fullest or at least know you are? Here are a few questions for you:

• Is there something you have wanted to do for a while but haven’t taken the action?
• Do you feel like you should be doing something more with your life?
• Do you hate your job?
• Do you feel like you are just going through the motions just so the time will pass by?
• Do you find yourself thinking of all the great things you could have done in your life up to this point?

These are just a few questions and if you answered YES to any of them, chances are, you are not living your life to the fullest. My suggestion to you: Time is ticking, get to it!