In my experience, success in life and business comes as a result of following simple principles. Staying consistent, being persistent, being the leader and concentrating on income producing activities are simple principles anyone can follow.  At least I’d like to think that anyone can follow them. There are those who never cease to amaze me!

For those that share my Christian beliefs, sacred principles, created before network marketing became a word, also influence your success. And the one I’d like to focus on is the principle of tithing.

So I’ll come right out and say it. If you want success in your business, and you’re a spiritual person, pay your tithing!

Read the rest of this entry »

There is a simple rule that I have learned in my journey of success is that everything is relevant and related. Some people are a success naturally. It’s in their nature, while others really have to work on it.

What I’ve noticed in my own life, is that most of my successes are directly related to how I feel about myself. Now what I mean by that, is if I feel like I am a fat slob, unhealthy and unattractive, my self esteem is going to be rock bottom. My opinion of myself may or may not be a reality, but that’s what my mind believes. Until I can change this mental picture of myself, how can I view anything that my fat, ugly self creates as attractive? Make sense?

Read the rest of this entry »

Just a quick statement about failure.

In my mind, failures are divided into three basic classes:

• Those who thought and never did.
• Those who did and never thought.
• Those who flat out quit!

So many people will never accomplish their life’s goals because of the fear of failure. The funny thing is, failure is inevitable. Failure is part of the balance of life. For every positive, there is a negative. Where there is great success, there will also be great failure.

If anyone is to achieve any amount of success in his life, failure is just part of the process. To fear that failure would be making a huge mistake, IF, and only if, nothing is learned from it. Failures are the stepping stones to that great, I like to say, inevitable success.

I say inevitable because if you don’t QUIT, success becomes inevitable. How many times can you run off the road until you finally reach your destination? It’s just a matter of getting back onto the road and pressing forward understanding the reason you went off the road in the first place.

So, since failure is inevitable in its many different forms, it would be better that you DID, regardless of the result, instead of never DID at all. Getting on the bike and crashing is always better than never getting on at all. Yeah the crash hurts a bit, but because of the hurt, you’ll avoid the crash the next time around.

So, I am proud to admit……I am a failure, but not a quitter!

For those of you who are into sports, you all know that the NBA playoff’s are currently in progress. Things are heating up and getting intense as this season comes to an end, yet during the playoff’s, it seems things are finally getting started. Hopefully your team is one of the many that are still in the race for the championship. I know the Phoenix Suns made it and are doing well as they lead the series 2 – 1 over the Trail Blazers.

I absolutely love the playoff’s because of the pure intensity if it. Everybody comes to the court with all their hope and preparation, expecting to be the best. After 48 minutes of play, giving it all they have, knowing that they will be able to look up at the score board as the team who is victorious. A lifetime of practice and a season of competition comes to a head during a few series of games battling an opponent that has done the exact same thing.

It’s not so much the trophy at the end of the championship that matters the most or that they’ll remember for years after it’s over, it’s the victory. And the victory is the culmination of all that it took to get there…..composure, fortitude and determination are a few of the characteristics necessary. Every drop of sweat and blood was a test of willpower and strength along with all the drama and politics floating around the NBA. A victory, I could imagine, would be the season full of effort that paid off in the end.

I think at times we look at NBA athletes and think that they have it made. They’re making millions off of pure talent. They are set for life, just for being born. Sure, talent has a lot to do with it, just about as much as willpower and work does. They made it happen for themselves. They wanted it, so they went out and got it, and the team that shows the best composure and the most intensity during the playoff’s, is usually the one who is crowned champion.

So, we’ll see just how far the Suns go this year. Either way, I’m a die hard fan and with them ’til the end.

And you know what? We all deserve to live our lives as though we are in the playoff’s. The ones who show the most composure and intensity will usually be the ones who are victorious. A lifetime of preparation, sweat and vision has prepared us for today, right here, right now. We can chose to be effected and intimidated by the Kobe Bryants and the Lebron James’ of our future victory, or we can chose to be the Steve Nash, who takes control of the game and does it his way, not theirs.

Life is full of opponents and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Every time I defeat someone or something, I grow. I progress, just as I do when I lose to someone or something. Either way, I win, if I chose to learn from EVERY experience.

Victory is about being able to adjust on the fly and adapt as you go. It’s about seeing an opening and taking it. An opportunity that is missed will never present itself in that way again. It’s now or never and at times, we only have a split second to decide to be proactive, and to take that opportunity.

It’s playoff time for me! It’s time to get intense. It’s time to make things happen…..so watch closely. Things are coming in the near future that will take my team and I to the top.

I once heard a quote that said, “”The object of life’s journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting, ‘Holy #@$*, What a Ride!!!'” — Mavis Leyrer

I intend on being worn the heck out and full of victory as well, and the end isn’t even close. So it’s game time!

Have you ever met a person who worries about everything? No matter where they are or what they’re doing, they’re always worried, concerned, stressed or mad about something. Yet, there are also people who are just the opposite…people who never worry, get concerned, stress and rarely get mad no matter what the situation is. What is it about the people that stress that causes them to stress so often and so much? How can one person, surrounded by chaos, stay calm, content and optimistic while the another lose all control?

Do you all remember the last time you watched Zorro? The Zorro I am speaking of is “The Mask of Zorro” that came out in 1998 with Antonio Banderas, Antony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta-Jones. As the movie starts out, Alejandro Murrieta (Antonio Banderas) is an out of control, drunken convict who is consumed by his hatred towards his brothers killer, Captain Harrison Love. As the current Zorro (Anthony Hopkins) observes Alejandro, he shows him how obsessed and reckless he truly is. Even though his passion for revenge fueled him, he had not learned control and would never succeed unless he learned how to control his anger and his surroundings.

He was later introduced to the “Training Circle.” In the words of Anthony Hopkins, “This is called a training circle, a master’s wheel. This circle will be your world, your whole life. Until I tell you otherwise, there is nothing outside of it.” Alejandro’s progress depended directly on how well he could learn to master only the things within his circle. At first, it was a large circle with obstacles, ropes and at times, Zorro in it. “As your skill with the sword improves, you will progress to a smaller circle. With each new circle, your world contracts, bringing you ………..that much closer to retribution.”

As Alejandro improved in his skills, that circle began to shrink and one might begin to think, shouldn’t the circle get bigger as his skill increased. The more skill the more he would be able to handle, right? Wrong! If you are thinking that way, you are missing the entire point. The more skill, the smaller the circle. The more you learn to control only that which is in the circle, the more control you truly have. The less you have in your circle, the better, because you know you have absolute control of whatever enters your circle. The larger the circle, the less control you have as you have more in it.

Zorro’s Circle

So you wonder why so many people walk around stressed out, angry and constantly worried?! It’s because they try too much to control things that are outside their circle of control. All we can do is control our little training circle. For some, that circle is still very large because of lack of skill. As their skill increases, they will learn to stick to their circle of control, and thus, increase in control overall.

Can I control how you react to this article? Can I control whether or not you send me spam comments, talk bad about my site or give me complete praise? No. But what I can control is all that is within my circle. I can control if that spam comment is approved and whether it will upset me or not. I can control how I receive things and whether or not I will allow it to enter into my circle. If I allow it, my circle increases in size and as a result, I loose a bit of control.

As we increase in skill, in mindset, we stop worrying about all the things you have no control over. And as we do, we start dominating the things we do have control over and get really good at maintaining the Godly trait of temperance.

Pick your own battles…better yet, pick the ones you know you can control and win. And the ones you can win are the ones within your own Zorro’s circle. This is the entire secret to self-mastery. Can you control everything within a foot of your being. And yes, this includes the space in between your own ears. If you’re looking to lose weight, can you resist that doughnut or soda and can you discipline, instead of just motivate yourself to take that jog? When it all comes down to it, you allow that doughnut to enter or not enter your circle of control. You allow those thoughts of laziness to enter or not enter your mind, which is the center of the circle.

Self mastery! We are all very good about disallowing annoying or stinky people from entering our so called “bubble.” Yet we allow so much more to enter that is even more damaging and more harmful to our progress and happiness. As we learn to control what we know we can control, we master our circle, and in doing so will find the secret to a long, happy and fulfilling life!

Let’s take a look at the normal anatomy of human beings. We all have a head, arms, legs, feet, toes and the list could go on and on. Every part of the body has it’s own purpose and functionality. The legs carry the body from place to place, the hands grip and pick things up with the help of the arms but when it all comes down to it, the head is what controls the body. If something happens to the head, the other parts won’t function right, if at all.

So what happens if the arm wants to take control and do something different than what the head wants it to do? No matter how hard that arm tries to influence the head, it’s still the head operating the arm. Slap the head too many times and the head doesn’t work right, thus, neither does the arm. Beat the head to death and the arm kills itself in the process. Kill the head….the arm dies along with it. A body without the head, the mind, is nothing but a skin covered bag of bones!

What I mean by the analogy, is during certain periods of my Entrepreneur life I thought I was the head. I thought I was the one in control of the arms and legs of my business. The truth was, I was just the arm trying to turn the head the way I wanted it to go. It doesn’t work that way. An arm is just an arm and is controlled by the head.

My point…..is to always be the head of your enterprise. As long as there is a franchise, an owner, a co-owner or something with equal or more authority than you in your enterprise, you will never be the head. You will never have complete control of your financial future. Because…..say it with me….what effects the head, effects the entire body. We all know that a healthy mind equals a healthy body. It filters down…not up.

Make sure you are the one influencing the arms and the legs of your enterprise, not the one being influenced. If you are to ever achieve success and TRUE independence, you must be the head and only the head. Don’t settle for anything less. But that means that you must stop thinking like the arm or the leg, and start thinking like the head. Once you reach that point, you’ll know….and you be much, much happier and all of this will simply be a reminder.