What does taking shelter in a storm have to do with being a successful entrepreneur or running a Business? Think about it. What should you take shelter from in order to become as successful as you’d like to become? Let’s take a look at what an ant might have to avoid along his journey of searching for food and protecting the colony. Numero uno would be the bully that is lurking around the corner with a magnifying glass! Another would be a literal rain storm and another might be cold weather. The list could go on and on but how do these things relate?

Here is a list of things that I would avoid, watch out for, or plan to go around if I was looking to create all out success.

1. Avoid negative media! Here’s an amazing statistic: Walmart gets sued every hour! But why? Walmart is a great store! I’ll tell you why. It is because Walmart is a great store and when you are a great store, that means you are a successful company. When you are a successful company, you make lots of money. Now who doesn’t like money? So they sue! Plain and simple, if you are successful, and they are not, they hate you for it! That is the truth.
2. Don’t waste time with the Kings and the Jokers. You are looking for Aces to work with. There are a lot of other prospects, clients, customers, or business partners that will be and look enticing, but they’re not an Ace.
3. Prepare for the Cold Weather, or the down time in your business. This is considered the slow season, if there is any in your industry. This is no secret and you probably already know this, but I will tell you the secret to getting through a slow time in your business. This is it! Are you ready? “There is no slow time!” Did you miss that? It is all belief!
4. Avoid, like the plague, people that bring you down with beliefs of poverty and failure. This one is number one in my book. Take all the people you hang around with, add their income and divide it equally among you. The average is what your income will generally be. Hang out with like-minded and ambitious people.
5. Procrastination! Avoid it, avoid it, avoid it! That is all I have to say about that!

There you have it. The next philosophy of the ant. The best way to take shelter from the storms of business is to just make a ton of friggin’ money and have all out massive success so that when a storm does come along, it will take a heck of a lot of force to knock your mountain of prosperity over! That, my friend, is how it is done!

One of the simplest aspects of becoming successful in any endeavor is a two word phrase, “Never Quit!” I can still remember back to the glory days of High School sports and one phrase still rings crystal clear in my mind. It came from my coach during the first few weeks of practice and it went something like this, “What part of never quit don’t you understand? The never or the quit! If you want to quit, you don’t deserve to be on this team!” What an effect that has had on me in everything I have pursued. It is as simple as it sounds! The “Quitter” never wins.

I believe the underlying reason so many people quit at so many things is because it is easy. When the road gets a little rough, the wind picks up a little, the waves toss you to and fro, just throw up your hands and quit. Than you don’t have to think about it anymore. It’s over. Move on! You have all probably heard the common phrase, “Great things come with great sacrifice!” That is a principle. Never expect to get something for nothing, but expect the something. Never expect to get the free ride, but expect the ride. Life is all about the journey, and success is achieved by going through that journey. Success is truly not yours unless you create it yourself. Never expect others to make it happen for you.

If you have ever studied an ant or tortured ants like I did as a boy, then you know this simple principle of “Never Quit!” What does an ant do when you place your foot right in front of its path? Does it stop short of your foot, sigh a little then turn around and go home? No! That ant will go around, under, over or through, if necessary, and if you really tick it off, it will bite you and make you move! That is determination and that is the never quit mentality that successful people possess.

So what separates those who succeed from those who do not? What is the big difference there? Let me illustrate a few examples. One couple, when starting a Home Based Business with a large initial investment, ran into issues with finding the funding. Instead of quitting right then and there, when things looked hopeless, they found a way. They came up with the funds. They simply make a decision to never quit and they are now making more every month than they initially invested. Another couple, with zero computer experience, was having issues with advertising their business properly on the internet. Instead of letting frustration set in from the fear of the unknown, they figured it out. They were solution focused and plowed right through their obstacle and now have more inquiries than they can handle.

When it call comes down to it, the reason people become successful is because they start to finish. They don’t start to quit! The only way to fail is to quit! Quit, and you deserve to fail. Never quit, and you deserve all the wealth, prosperity and abundance that is truly yours.

What are 10 two letter words that make up one of the most powerful lessons one can learn in this lifetime? It goes along with the saying, “If you want something done right, do it yourself!” The 10 two letter words are: If it is to be, it is up to me! What a simple but profound concept one can learn from such simple words.

If it is to be, it is up to me.

If it is to be….if what is to be? That is the great part, you can fill in the blank here. If _____ is to be then you have chosen for it to be and will then bring it into existence. The blank, the “it” is the part of this statement which allows you to become a creator. It allows you to bring into existence, or in your life, that which has not been there before. This is where you dreams become realities and your goals become achievable. If becoming a millionaire is to be, it is up to me. If having the best Christmas ever is to be, it is up to me. If success is to be, it is up to me!

I always speak of a 97% and a 3%. The 97% of the worlds population believe in a different saying than this one. Even though most may agree with this 10 two letter word phrase, they don’t really believe it or apply it. The 97% really believe in a phrase that goes something like this: If it is to be, who is going to give it to me…or….If it is to be, the government will provide it for me….or….If it is to be, it is free! I could go on and on.

Now the other 3% know the true meaning to this phrase and apply it. If there is anything that happens in their lives, it is because they made it happen. They thought it up, they set some goals, and they took consistent action in making sure that it happened. Do they quit when the road gets a little rough? No! Do they listen to the nay-sayers and the wanna-be’s? No! Are they deterred by the masses opinions or the bandwagoners? No!

There is a simple theme common among most people who have achieved great success. One of the best times to achieve the greatest success, is in the midst of trial and hardship and when everyone else says not to do it, most likely, that is when you should do it. We know where most people in this world stand financially. So what most people say, is not what should be followed. Leaders know this and apply it well.

I suppose, for purposes of this last paragraph, I will change it to a 9 two letter word phrase with one three letter word. “If it is to be, it is up to YOU!”

What does it truly mean to know your objective and do just that? First off, you must clearly define your objective, or your goals. This means you must know what it is, where it will come from, when you are going to accomplish it, and the steps that will lead you to that end.

Let’s use the ant as an example. An ants objective is to gather food for the entire colony. That is objective number one. Objective number two is to protect the colony. There isn’t much lolly gagging around. To an ant, getting food is primary until threatened. Then protection is primary. It is about survival.

Let’s relate this to running a successful business or becoming an entrepreneur. Your first objective is to gather food, or income, or raise. Nothing else should step in the way of that. Make it a priority. Set apart your “income producing” time. Get that time done before moving on to anything else. In Network Marketing or a Home Based Business, it is very easy to be distracted by other things. While working from home, there are kids to play with, wife or husband to help out, things to clean or build, babies crying and activities that do not add to the “income producing” ones. Do not let these get in the way. Set your priorities and tackle them in order of importance.

Get clear on your objective. Operate as you are already there and as though it is happening. This comes about through visualizing your goals. Once already at the end goal or the final destination, it is easier to see the steps you must take to arrive there. You can begin to work backwards and figure things out that might not be otherwise anticipated.

And always, always, always be a master of one. In other words, don’t be a jack of all trades and a master of none. When you start a business, project, or job, finish that one first or make that one the most successful first before you attempt to look elsewhere. I have known people who have started three Home Based Businesses all at once! Guess which ones failed? All of them failed! There is power behind concentrated and channeled focus. When directed to one objective, success happens!

So let us be more and think more like the ant. Even though it is pure instinct and the nature of the ant, I have no doubt that the ant is thinking “food, food, food, food” the entire time it is looking for it. It definitely isn’t thinking about the sexy queen ant it met the other day. It is extremely focused on the objective, and thus, extremely successful!

This is the second of the 10 Philosophies of the Ant.

“All the so-called ‘secrets of success’ will not work unless you do.” This is a quote by an unknown author that hit the nail head on. So many people desire success yet they wait for it to slap them in the face. We’ve all heard of the old saying, “Nobody ever drowned in their own sweat!” We aren’t saved by our faith alone, but by our “Works” also. Basically, if you want something done, you’d better get your butt up and do it. The Lord worked for 6 days and then he rested on the seventh. There is much to learn from all this. Basically success, fortunes and dreams aren’t created by themselves. They are created by work.

Hard work always pays off

Now, there are different kinds of work. Hard work is not defined by how much you sweat or how many ditches you can dig. Work is defined by your productivity. “You don’t get paid for the hour. You get paid for the value you bring to the hour.” ~Jim Rohn

For me to make $1000 by working 10 hour days for a week straight is work alright, but is it productive work? If I were your employer, I would say yes! If I were the employee, I would say no! You see, there is something that ants understand very well. They understand the power of a small word called “leverage!” Can a single ant feed an entire colony? Do a few ants collect the food while the rest hang out with the queen? No! So, think about who you’d like to be in this scenario. Do you want to be the worker ant or the queen? The worker has only leveraged his own efforts. True success comes when you can figure out how to leverage your time with the efforts of others and at the same time, adding value for everyone involved.

There are only 24 hours in a day. We all get those same 24 hours right? So, whether you get rich or whether you get broke is a measure of what you have done with your 24 hours. Success, the same as failure, doesn’t happen overnight or in one swift decision. It happens by one small act or failure to act, duplicated over and over, for a period of time! Work requires action rather than sweat. Work requires productivity rather than the ability to just stay busy. Work requires will and ambition rather than complaining and remorse. If success didn’t involve work, I think almost everyone would be doing it! Then again, there are those who still would not do it because thinking can be work.

The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary. Understand that the first philosophy of the ant is: Hard work always pays off. In the words of an previous mentor of mine, “The field is white, all ready to harvest, so just forget yourself and go to work!”

The title of this article pretty much sums the entire thing up! Expectations will kill your business and your momentum. What do I mean by expectations? When I say expectations, I am speaking of all the little thoughts you have in your mind of what might be expected of you. If you are a leader in your industry, you might be expected to perform better than all of your competition. If you hang around wealthy people you assume that you are expected to be wealthy as well.

Always trying to live up to someone’s expectations will kill your motivation, it will kill your self-confidence, and it will kill your income, because you will always feel you are not good enough, or that you don’t measure up. Now, if you are always having those feelings, what happens to your self-esteem? What happens to your motivation? It all plummets and you’re left feeling like you don’t measure up to anyone around you.

Now, I have seen this turn into, for use of an analogy, a snowball effect. Once you feel you don’t measure up to all the expectations everyone has put onto you, at least you think they have, where does it stop? Pretty soon you feel you don’t fit in with anyone and become a little disoriented and lost. It can even go to the point where you will start telling little white lies to cover your lack of measuring up to this fiction of an expectation. It will be so subtle that you won’t even realize it is happening. Believe me, I speak from personal experience. I have been there and only realized it when someone spoke these same words to me.

My advice: Care less about expectation! Who cares what others think about you and what you are doing. Who cares about what others are expecting you to do. Just do what you want to do regardless of the circumstances. Everything is your choice! To have someone’s expectation floating over your head 24/7 will drive you mad. This is a another side of being a victim of outside circumstance. Rather than physical things effecting how you operate, this is all mental. The same concept applies though, how you operate should not be effected by anything outside of your own mind. And expectation is not you or what you want to be, it was portrayed onto you.

In a way you must be a little bit of a rebel to live this principle. It is about being the leader. It is about creating your own expectations of yourself, and being true to that. Don’t worry about others, their views of you or their results in life. That doesn’t matter when it comes to you. The only thing that matters is what matters to you!

So, stop settling for and striving for what others would like to see you do. Just start living and do what you want to do!