From now on, whenever you have a goal, the only question you ask is, “How?” If you have a problem, the question is, “How do you solve it? How do you overcome it?”
All successful people ask how. They’re proactive. They’re action oriented, and the word ‘how’ is like pushing the button on a detonator. The answer always triggers you into explosive action. You can’t ask ‘How do I solve this,’ ‘How do I achieve it,’ ‘How do I get there,’ or ‘How do I overcome it’ without being triggered into taking an action of some kind.
If top people think about what they want and how to get it, what is it that unhappy, unsuccessful people think about most of the time? They think about what they don’t want and/or who’s to blame. That’s the basic summary of all abnormal psychology. They think about what they don’t want, which makes them unhappy, and they think about who is to blame, which makes them angry.
Unsuccessful, unhappy people are always angry at someone who they blame for their problems. The goal is to mature to the point where you realize that you are in command of your own life. You’re in charge. You make things happen. You are not a victim. That was then, this is now.
Never allow your past to determine your future. Think about what you want and how to get it.
When you turn toward the sunshine; when you think about what you want and how to get it, the shadow of negativity falls behind you. You realize you can’t change any of that stuff from the past anyway, so why fret over it anymore, yes? You have control over now. Now you can ask how. ‘Instead of what thinking about what I don’t want, what do I want, and how do I get there?’
One of the greatest wastes of life is to be upset about something that happened in the past that you can’t change. One of the great uses of life is to think about what you want in the future and how you’re going to get it. You keep your mind so focused on the future that all those other things just peel away like dead skin.
Don’t allow unhappy experiences in the past to keep re-emerging in your daily life. This is what holds us back. This is what stops people from succeeding.
Maybe some things happened to you that were beyond your control. Maybe those events had consequences that detoured or even derailed some goals in your life up until this point. Maybe you’re still living with those consequences. You are responsible for your life now. You are responsible for the things that you want and how to get them.
Nobody is smarter than you. Nobody is better than you. If they are doing better, they have just figured out how. They’ve gotten the recipe before you did, but the recipes are available to everyone.
What was the recipe for your success? How were you able to use basic, simple psychology to turn your situation around from lethargy to activity? What’s your story? We want to hear from you!
How long does it take to get to where you want to be?
The answer for most people is ‘Too long!’ In our culture of instant gratification, the likelihood that it can take years to become a millionaire is enough to keep most from ever trying.
The truth is few businesses make money in the first four years. In fact the average business takes two years to lose money, two more years to pay back the money it lost, and three more years to become profitable. In other words, it typically takes seven years for a business to succeed.
For a lot of people that’s way too long, but for most fields of study, work, or career, it takes about seven years to become a master. Seven years seems like a long time, and in some ways it is, but in seven years how much older will you be regardless?
One of the prime rules for success also happens to be one of the hardest to swallow. I choked on it for a while, maybe because it’s so painfully obvious and avoidable: that time is going to pass anyway. Seven years from now, seven years will have gone by. Three years from now three years will have gone by, so whatever you know you’re supposed to be doing anyway, get on with it!
Put your head down, pull out every stop, and pay any price you can to get into the top 10% in your field. Then you’ll remain one of the highest paid people in your field for the rest of your life.
But here’s another important point to remember: the pay-off is not when you get to your goal. If you think that’s the case, you are setting yourself up for some serious disappointment. You only get to a goal once, yes, then what? Then the next, and the next, and then your head is always looking ahead instead of where you’re at right now.
The pay-off is every step of along the way. Every step you take toward becoming better, you feel yourself improving. It raises your self esteem. It releases endorphins in your brain which make you happy. Every step you take toward the goal makes you happy and gives you energy. It’s people who are not moving in the direction of becoming better who are negative, unhappy, miserable complainers.
We constantly have to work on ourselves. Your life only gets better when you get better, and there’s no limit to how much better you can become. Conversely, it’s your weakest skill that is holding you back. Your weakest key skill in your field sets the height of your income.
Time is on your side, and it’s not. Time, in reality, doesn’t really care what you do or don’t do. It’s going to keep moving (or not “moving,” depending on how Zen you want to get here!) regardless of whether or not you get up and stop wasting it, or stop pushing things off, or stop making excuses. Time can be your friend or ally, but never your enemy. The real enemy is usually within.
What one skill—if you developed a mastery of it—would help you the most to increase your income? What would help you the most in terms of learning a skill within your career or business right now?
That’s got to sound ironic coming from someone who believes whole-heartedly in the benefits of being rich. Forget about getting out of debt, paying bills, buying nice things, etc. That stuff’s great, but at the end of it all you’re not going to give a damn about your credit rating. Money’s the last thing on your mind in that moment, I would imagine.
Money can reduce the stress of living, but it can bring just as much if not more anxiety. I’ve gone through my cycles of accumulating and losing money, getting more and losing it again. The money wasn’t burning a hole in my pocket. I just had a big hole in my pocket and didn’t bother to sew it up. That hole represented something in my mental blueprint that kept me from being stable with money. There was nothing wrong with the money.
On the other hand, people without money often think if they just had enough to do this or that, then things would be better. While that may be true, what happens when the mind goes into ‘Only if …’ consistently? That’s exactly what you get … ‘only if.’
‘This will only happen if…’
All of a sudden nothing’s happening and you don’t even know or remember that rule you created. In business that thinking often translates into “It takes money to make money.” No! If you have money it can certainly grow more money, but it doesn’t take money to make money. It takes creativity to make money.
Throwing money at a problem is disaster! In business there’s no such thing as a money problem. That problem grew out of somewhere else. You want to fix the root of the problem. If you throw money at a business problem, you’ll have the same business problem for the rest of your life and no money. Creativity and knowledge are the answers, not money.
It’s also not logical to blame money for people’s shortcomings, or the world’s for that matter. Obviously there are people that are rich and greedy, but there are poor people who are greedy and there are middle class people who are greedy. There are rich, poor, and middle-class people who are generous. There are rich, poor and average income people who can be both generous and greedy, depending on the stress they’re going through at any given time.
To say rich people are greedy as a blanket statement is just as unfair as saying poor people are lazy. I’ve met many a hard-working poor person who just hadn’t yet turned the corner on working smarter instead of just harder.
Money can’t be the root of all evil. Envy, jealousy, and greed—all based on fear of not having or getting enough of something we want—pre-dated currency (think about the story of Cain and Able). It’s a part of what it means for us to be human.
If money isn’t the cause of all that’s wrong, it’s not going to be the cure either. It’s not the answer. It’s the fruit of our expansion—or lack thereof—beyond ourselves and of the impact we’re having on the world. What we choose to do with that is a result of who we choose to be, not because of money.
What kind of receiver are you? If you’re reading this, chances are you consider yourself a giver of sorts. You might even beat yourself up a little bit for thinking you don’t give enough. Then again, there are those who think they’re givers but really aren’t.
The point is we tend to focus on giving as “goodness”; of feeling good or intending good. But what kind of receiver are you? Do you take compliments bashfully? Do you say, “Aw, it was really nothing”? Do you tell them to stop teasing you, or that you weren’t fishing for a compliment?
One of the big reasons most people don’t reach their full potential, financially or otherwise, is that they are very, very poor receivers. ‘You’re not worthy’ because of the way you look, or what you do, or how much money you have, or don’t have.
You’re worthy because the Great Spirit, or Universe, or God, or whatever you want to call a higher power, has put you on the earth at this time. There’s nothing else to think about! Since you’re as worthy as the next person, you’re as deserving to receive as anyone else. Anything else that your mind says around that is made up, non-supportive crappola!
And then there’s that phrase that a lot of people heard when they were young, and we still hear it: “It’s better to give than to receive.” Of course it is, isn’t it?
I’m sorry, but let’s just call that what it is: bad math! If both have to be there for the other to exist, how on earth could one be better than the other? How is that possible? Somebody enlighten me please!
By the way, the original buysoma.net intention of that ‘better to give’ statement actually translates more correctly into ‘It’s better to be in a position to give than in a position where you need to receive’.
In other words it’s better to be rich! Some people will read that and get that little twinge of guilt—How can I so selfishly justify wanting to be rich? Fine, I understand, I was there too, so let’s try this from another angle.
How does it feel to give, especially when that person didn’t ask you for anything yet you knew they were in need? Most people say it feels great, yes? It’s especially the grateful receivers that make us feel even better about our giving, yes?
But if you’re not willing to receive, you’re ripping off those people from the other side of the equation who want to give. And we’re proving that both giving and receiving are great. Two birds with one stone. If you’re in a position to give, that’s wealth—whether it’s money, time or kindness.
So here’s your practice. No more returning compliments for a specific time! If someone gives you a compliment, you’re not allowed to give them a compliment at that time because it dishonors them (of course use your better judgment, but you get the point!). Returning a compliment because you think you have to robs them of the full joy of giving you the compliment. And it robs you of receiving.
The key is to recognize that whether you’re “worthy” or not is a feeling, not a fact. It’s a story that you made up and now you own. Disown that! Receive with the same joy that you give.
Uncertainty is something most people avoid like the plague. There’s nothing like comfort in knowing we have a place to lay our heads every night, knowing we have things to do, food to eat, materials we need for the basics of a decent life.
If we’re honest, we know that we also need a little mystery, surprise, uncertainty. There’s a thrill to that. The thing is sometimes it comes in forms that we weren’t expecting, and instead of embracing uncertainty, we fight against it. ‘This isn’t what I was expecting! This isn’t the way things are supposed to be!’
And instead of staying in flow, we stay stuck while the universe may very well had intended for us to roll with the change; having faith in ourselves and in life. There is wisdom in embracing uncertainty.
Understanding this, we also come to realize the goals we move toward are rarely going to occur in a straight line from A to B to C. That’s completely unnatural in the universe. It’s literally impossible.
Wealth, money, relationships; success in any arena in the real world happens in a zigzag. You have to expect to constantly correct yourself. Constantly! And when you do that you will eventually land your success. The only time you won’t land is if upon making ‘mistakes’ or thinking yourself a ‘failure’ you give up or you don’t learn anything.’
It’s hubris for anyone to think they’re like a genius and you’ll get it right every time. Maybe you won’t. We have our experience to help us, though, and our desire to learn and become more of what we want, open to the guidance and wisdom of those who have already gone down those paths.
If you’re a perfectionist, give it up. It’s pointless. Mistakes, corrections, mistakes, corrections! That’s the way it is. Mistakes are the natural ways we learn.
What happens to babies when they first learn to walk? They fall! And what would happen if they didn’t learn from those mistakes? They would just stay down there! But they don’t know that yet. Nobody taught them “failure.” Quite the opposite they tend to get encouragement. So they just get up and try it again. Pretty soon, they’ll resent you trying to help them; that’s how confident they become in themselves.
If they were an adult, though, here’s what would happen. They would fall, stay down there, and get real comfortable. ‘Oh, God I don’t even deserve to walk! It must not be meant to be! I should just lie there.’ We justify it or we blame. ‘Mom never taught me right! It’s her fault!’
Imagine how less insecure we become when we get comfortable making mistakes, confident enough in ourselves to say, “That’s okay, because I’m going to get it right next time.” And maybe we won’t! It’s still okay, because the confidence runs so deep it doesn’t matter how many times it takes. You know you’re going to nail it and be happy all the while because you’re implementing this practice into all facets of life, from relationships to business.
What’s your zigzag story? Have you reached a cherished goal by means you never imagined yet you arrived at the destination anyway? There are stories grand and ordinary that shed light on the power of universal correction. We want to hear yours!
Christmas and New Year’s celebrations, at their roots, have had historic importance worldwide for thousands of years. Many ancient peoples celebrated the Winter Solstice with different kinds of festivals and rituals with themes of death, birth, gifting, praising, etc.
Some historians trace New Year traditions back to the Babylonians of 4,000 years ago. For them, this time of year meant paying off debts or returning borrowed items, a different way “resolving” their issues. There was a sense of accountability as well as celebrating what’s to come. We have our parties and Auld Lang Syne too, yet our resolutions tend to focus on ourselves: losing weight; quitting smoking; or making a million dollars—being better or more than we were before.
You don’t need New Year’s to remind you to stay on track toward your goals. Success-building is a daily routine, yes or yes? The fact is, though, that most people are not going to keep their resolutions. Some surveys suggest only about 8% will stick to their resolve by year’s end, and a whopping 45% will fail by the end of January!
While the reasons range from fear of success or failure to resolving the wrong things for the wrong reasons, maybe we should resolve instead to grow every day, one day at a time. This is what it really means to be present. It’s not a coincidence that we use the same word to recognize the now-moment as we do to define a gift.
The seed of all the great things in our lives—who we are; who we want to be; what motivates our desires, what determines whether or not we achieve success—is happening right now. Everything. If we want quality answers that are meant to ease our anxieties about the future, it means we have to ask quality questions now, which is the quality of present moment awareness. As our awareness expands so does our vision, our ability to be in tune with what is happening—what will happen—as our intuition guides us in spite of uncertainty.
Our ancestors wouldn’t have survived if it weren’t for planning and anticipation of the inevitability of change, guiding their ability to plant, harvest and know when not to. Nor would they have had reasons to ritualize endings, beginnings, celebration of success or reflect on past mistakes if it weren’t for planning for the change of seasons. It’s in our best interest to plan as much as we can to work toward what we want to see happen. The truth is, though, we don’t always know what’s coming around the corner. We can take educated guesses, but there’s no such thing as absolute certainty.
In the end, all we ever really have is now, and this is where we will find our richness. Now is when we can reflect, think, make decisions, act or not act—not tomorrow. There’s always only now. Giving yourself to the present moment is the best gift of all—it’s the resolution that lasts a lifetime, every minute of every day. It’s in the present that all things become possible.
From all of us here, Happy Holidays and have a great start to another year of growth, learning, happiness, success, and richness!
For your freedom,
T. Harv Eker
