FROM SUCCESS EDUCATION COURSE
Audio
The Road to Success
Before starting up the road to success, it is important to stand still for a moment and check your gear and your roadmap. Make sure that you are taking with you what you will actually need, and that your values are sensibly packed and easily accessible. Try on your concepts to see that they fit well; otherwise you will soon lose time while waiting for your blisters to heal. And finally, review your goals to determine that they lead to someplace worth getting to.
In this next section we’ll help you to check through your equipment and to focus your plan.
Solid foundations are built upon solid ground. Thus the foundation of success must be built upon common principles, values and natural law that are changeless, not upon social values and norms that change with the seasons.
There must also be commitment and staying power, the ability to complete what you’ve started, and overcome fear, intimidation and incompetence at every turn in the road. You must be willing to be accountable and response-able from the beginning to the end of your journey. Being in integrity. Being honest. Being adaptable and flexible. Being a team player. Being in alignment with your purpose. These are all the foundations of success.
Common Principles
The principles of success are multifaceted and at all times consistent with the principles of the universe. They are based on natural law and the perennial wisdom of the ages, drawn from common human experience throughout time. Freedom and sovereignty are two of the basic principles of success. Others will be discussed later in this course.
So what are principles? Principles are derived from natural or universal law and do not need to be explained or proven. Principles are unquestioned, accepted a priori. Principles are not only agreed by consensus, but will also be derived from any process that involves an exploration of the truth.
“To measure up to all that is demanded of him, a man must overestimate his capacities.” Johann von Goethe
Common Values
So what are values? Values are what is important to you, what really matters.
There are personal, social and natural values. Personal and social values are relative from person to person, or culture to culture. Personal or social values bend over time and are changeable. These are not natural values universal to all humanity.
Natural values based on natural law are the values that last and endure over time. Natural values are written in the common laws and constitutions, the Ten Commandments, the holy books, and other codes of ethics.
For example, under the common law, everything was permissible providing you did not damage the property or the person of another. No damaged party, no crime. Respect your neighbor. Love your neighbor and practice the golden rule. Providing people respected each other, there was an enormous exercise of freedom under the common law. Clearly this was before lawyers got involved, and people gave their power and rights away to external authorities.
The U.S. Constitution embodied natural values as well, including the original Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights included guarantees of freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, freedom of religion, right to bear arms, right to contract, etc. In law, these were limitations upon the government to interfere with the natural rights and natural values of the people. This was before the politicians got involved and realized how easy it was to pull the wool over the people’s eyes.
If you want to understand the values of a nation, and whether or not they are social or natural values, look to its constitution and compare whether or not the people are living by it or not. Look to the holy books and see if people are abiding by the principles set there. Look also in the prisons and see how people are treated both before and after conviction. These exercises will teach you much about the values of a nation and a people.
The Ten Commandments embody values such as, “Do not steal. Do not kill. Do not envy the property of your neighbor. Do not commit adultery or dishonor your parents.” When natural values are in alignment with natural law, you have peace and prosperity. When they’re in conflict, you have war. We’ll be discussing more on natural law in the section on Principle-Centered Leadership.
Archetypes
There are also archetypes, which emerge in the stories and dreams of every people through time.
Commitment & Staying Power
Commitment is how divine providence moves through us. Without commitment nothing happens. Therefore removing the blocks to our ability to commit, to take an action and to learn from our mistakes is fundamental to all personal growth and social, economic change.
Commitment is staying power. The ideas that you’re going to develop, you must have staying power from (3) three months to a year, to five (5) years to twenty (20) years. You must be able to see your project, even your life, through to completion. If you start something, finish it.
Otherwise you’ll be spinning your wheels in the mud for years wasting your time and effort. Don’t start what you do not intend on finishing. If there is any doubt, eliminate it before you begin. If there is any fear, deal with it as it arises.
Integrity and Honesty
Being in integrity is the name of the game. It’s a measure of honesty. It’s easy to talk and talk until you are blue in the face. But until you can walk your talk, the talk doesn’t amount to much. So many people love to talk, but its not the words I’m listening to, it’s the actions behind the words.
Until you take an action, there is no power. Being is when you bring your thoughts, words and deeds into action. You are being in communications. You are manifesting. You are in alignment with your purpose. How honest can you be? How much integrity do you experience? When your thoughts, words and deeds line up, you have integrity.
Adaptability and Flexibility
Being adaptable and flexible to change is necessary in a complex world such as ours. Things shift in the world and the marketplace all the time. You’ve got to learn to adapt, shift and move with the times. You’ve got to move with the market, new technology, or whatever else is coming down the pike. You might have to change your direction, change your marketing plan, or collapse your business to survive. How much are you willing to bend?
Being a Team Player
Being a team player is a foundation of success. Most of us are really good at doing our own thing. But there are areas of our lives that involve being with other people, being in relationship. And whenever interpersonal relationships, communications and groups are involved, there must be team building. Teambuilding is based on creating “win-win” situations where everybody can win. To generate loyalty and commitment to your project, or business, or family requires leadership skills. We’ll discuss more on leadership skills later in this course.
Identification and Beliefs
Human beings develop egos, self-images and identities as part of a self-referencing system within different social and cultural contexts. These include personal and organizational, as well as local, regional and national identifications. Understanding the level of identification assists in communicating and networking across boundaries that have typically separated and divided people from each other.
As part of this identity, human beings have adopted beliefs, mindsets and attitudes that either further or hinder their personal development. We have the power to change the self-programming of our minds to reverse victim mentality, negative thought patterns and dependency upon parental or external support systems such as government or welfare. Success is built upon our ability to transcend these limiting identifications and beliefs and step into another world.
As we’re beginning to learn, every thought has a direct effect upon the world around us. Limiting thoughts limit us, and unlimited thoughts free us. With every breath we take, we breathe creative power into whatever we are focusing on, whether conscious or unconscious. Many of our difficulties in life are the result of conflicting conscious and subconscious beliefs which remain unexamined. For example, many people think that money is dirty and bad. Yet every day they go out and try to earn more of it. Is this not a conflict? Is this not a self-sabotaging behavior?
Accountability and Response-Ability
In a perfectly sovereign world, none of us want to answer to anybody else, except ourselves. When you accept sovereignty as your operating system, you’re answering to yourself, you’re accountable to yourself, you’re accountable to your agreements with others, you’re accountable to your agreements to us, to me, or anybody else. There is accountability to a higher power and the principles of the universe. You must be counted on to keep your word. Your word is your bond.
The importance of accountability and “response-ability” cannot be overemphasized. Without accountability, external forms of governance intervene and establish rules and laws to govern behavior. Without “response-ability,” human beings become hopelessly dependent upon external forms for their existence, leaving them powerless to act in a functional way. Once again, to be “response-able,” is defined as the “ability to respond.”
Accountability, or being response-able for things in your experience, is the only way to reclaim your power. And this must be done internally before you can reclaim your power from external authorities. But it is important not to confuse responsibility with guilt. They are not the same. Guilt contains a value judgment, whereas responsibility is a condition of choice. Success is built upon accountability and response-ability.
“In nature, there are neither rewards or punishments; there are consequences.” Robert Greene Ingersoll
Strong and Healthy Work Ethic
For those of us raised in a working class family or on a farm, the work ethic was taught and practiced. Hard work was not a dirty word, nor was the idea of being a producer in the system. I learned that if you worked hard, you would have your survival needs taken care of. This has been pretty accurate except that my parents had no understanding of the nature of money or how investments really worked. They also did not understand how to leverage what they earned beyond hard work alone. They reached a certain threshold and could not rise above.
How do you maintain a balanced and healthy work ethic? It begins with your choosing work that matches your purpose and calling. Then, find work that utilizes your talents and interests. Study how to organize your time to produce the most results for the least cost. Work for a purpose beyond mere survival alone. Instead of sacrificing yourself in your work or job, maintain your health and well being in the midst of it. Work hard, but work smart as well. Success is also built upon a strong and healthy work ethic.
Raising the Threshold of Success
Every profession has certain thresholds that defines how successful, at least financially, you can be. For example, you can only make so much as a hairdresser; no matter how hard or long you work. There are only so many hours in a day. There’s an upper limit for hairdressers on how much you can earn per session, unless you’re doing hair for the super-rich. So raising the threshold of success as a hairdresser takes some careful thought and planning on your part to transcend the barrier or create another profession altogether.
The threshold limit applies to other professions as well, and also has plenty to do with your savvy and education regarding money, business and investments. So creating a project or business that rises above your present threshold is an important task.
Remember being a child when saving $1.00 seemed like a lot of money. Then it became $10.00, then $100.00. As adults we cross the $100 threshold, then the $1,000.00 threshold. For some people deciding to spend $1,000 is a major life decision. For others that threshold might be $10,000 or $1,000,000.00.
It is also important to realize that just working harder doesn’t raise the next threshold. If you earn only $10 per hour, there is no way possible to work hard or long enough to earn $1,000,000 in retained earnings. You must work smarter, finding a way to serve more people more effectively. You must learn how to leverage your time and money into receiving more for less. That is the domain of project and business development.
In the example of the hairdresser, they would have to teach, design and market a line of products, train and employ assistants, and create unique hairstyles for individuals who will be seen not just by their friends, but by the mass culture. Then that hairdresser can develop a cash flow in the millions of dollars. Success is built upon raising the threshold and creating new business models.
In summary, the foundation of success is built upon:
- Common principles and natural values
- Being in alignment with your purpose
- Commitment and staying power
- Being in integrity and being honest
- Being adaptable and flexible
- Acquiring teambuilding skills
- Expanding identification and beliefs
- Changing mindset and attitude;
- Accepting accountability and response-ability;
- Maintaining a strong and a healthy work ethic;
- Raising the threshold of your success. These are the foundations of success.
Filed under: Audio Course, Success Tagged: | accountability, beliefs, development, education, gbds.us, honesty, icresource.com, integrity, principles, responsibility, sucess, values, work ethic
