Author Archives: Fox

Books over TV

Did you know that one of the things that some of the most successful people in the world share in common is that they read books – mostly books on how to improve themselves in a variety of ways.

If you want to follow in the footsteps of people like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, then you are going to want to read books just like they did. That means shutting off the black screen in your living room, removing the Netflix shortcut from your desktop and getting rid of the TV or movie apps on your phone or tablet. Then download a Kindle or an e-reader.

There are good reasons to get rid of television and replace it with reading material. Of course, you may not want to get rid of television completely, although many people who do say that they are much happier afterward and everything they thought they would miss seems of little importance.

Television doesn’t do much in the way of education. Most of the programs on television are fictional stories, and many are so predictable and formulaic that they do not tax your brain cells at all.

Even when television isn’t fiction it is often the same news stories that repeat over and over, or sensationalized real events that bear little resemblance to fact. Let’s not even get started on reality TV. The point is, there is very little on television that is going to teach you something that will allow you to better yourself.

In addition, science has shown that TV really does “rot” your brain – or at least your brain power weakens over time from television watching.

Books on the other hand, have a number of advantages. For one thing, you are reading and not watching. This simple difference means that you are using your brain in other ways. You are reading, figuring out the definition of words and forming pictures in your imagination.

Plus, there are so many books out there that actually help you improve yourself – hence the entire section of books called “Self-help” or “Self-improvement.” There are books on reaching goals, achieving financial independence, starting a business and learning everything from a new language to a musical instrument.

The bottom line is that books are better if you want to be successful. You don’t have to give up TV entirely if you don’t want to, but you should definitely read more if you want to achieve success.

Achievement Life Cycle

One of the common problems that people have when they are first starting on the road to success is seeing how a major achievement will actually work. It is difficult to see more than the very beginning and the end result – the success. We are going to take an example here, and go through the entire life cycle of an achievement so that you can see how it is actually done and it should motivate you by making the end result much more realistic.

EXAMPLE: Increase annual income by $12,000

So, your goal is to increase your income by $12,000 a year. Let’s suppose that you give yourself three years to do it. So, here’s what the timeline might look like if you start from scratch.

January, Year 1: You spend the month researching ways that you can make money online. You check out each lead carefully until you find one that you have the time, money and skills for. By the end of the month you have chosen one – in this example case, you have chosen to start a niche review site online about the latest electronics and use Amazon’s affiliate program to make money.

March, Year 1: You have developed a website and added all kinds of Amazon products to it, and you have outsourced a couple of hundred reviews. Your traffic is starting to trickle in.

December, Year 1: You have spent the past few months creating backlinks and going after non-competitive keywords and have come up with a pretty steady stream of traffic. You are making around $1000 a year so far, which comes to about $85 a month.

May, Year 2: Your income is going up. All of the content you have ordered has started bringing in huge traffic for long-tail keywords. But your income has only increased to $150 a month. You aren’t sure why.

November, Year 2: After several weeks of research, you realize that your site’s buying links were difficult to find. You changed them and increased your conversion rate by 500%. You’re now making a little over $4000 a year.

December, Year 3: You have been continually adding content and getting backlinks to your site. Now, you have grown to be one of the most well-respected TV review sites on the web. You have been able to make almost $14,000 this year.

Success Requires Prioritization

When you want to be successful, you have to prioritize. This often means that some things get overlooked and unfortunately, sometimes they are things that you don’t want to overlook. But you have to make sacrifices if you want to achieve your goals and that means deciding what is most important, and working on it first and foremost.

The reason for this is simple: we want too many things. Human beings are famous for wanting too much. It’s like our motto, especially here in America. More, more, more. This is true in the food that we eat, it is true of the things that we buy and it is true of the money that we make. Of course, it is also true of the things that drive us and the goals that we have, and that’s not a bad thing.

The problem is, when you have too many things that you want to accomplish, you aren’t going to have time for them all, and unless you prioritize, you are probably going to end up doing the things that are the most fun rather than the things that are the most important.

Let’s look at an example of this. Meet Richard. Richard is trying to make a list of the things that he wants to accomplish over the next five years. Here is what he has written down.

  • Learn 5 new languages (1 per year) – Spanish, German, American Sign Language, French and Italian
  • Learn how to play musical instruments like a pro – first guitar and then piano
  • Learn how to do my own taxes and keep track of business taxes
  • Start my own business – some kind of retail store that is unique and fills a need
  • Volunteer more – do some church work, homeless shelters, give to charity
  • Become more organized so that I never miss appointments and always know where stuff is
  • Lose 50 pounds and get in shape like I was when I was in my 30’s

We’ll stop here because you probably get the idea. Richard wants to do so many things, but accomplishing them will take up far too much time. For example, learning a new language in a year will take about 30-45 minutes each and every day. If you added up all of his stuff just from this partial list, half the day would be gone.

That’s why prioritizing is vital. If you cannot choose what is most important and work on it first and most often, you are going to accomplish very little.

Your Success Strengths

Imagine this scenario: A baker needs to give his wife the perfect gift. So, he goes out shopping for something to give her. He browses through jewelry at the jewelry store, but he doesn’t know how to tell what she would like.

He looks at some lingerie, but he doesn’t know anything about it. In the end, he buys her a book, even though he isn’t sure what she likes to read. All of this time, instead of trying to buy her gifts that he knows nothing about, he could have baked the perfect cake or other pastry.

Now, this isn’t a perfect analogy. Most bakers’ wives probably eat so much cake that they would hate it as a gift.  But the point is that many people try to be successful without using a single one of their strengths. Writers try to make a fortune by building websites. Website designers try to make a fortune by writing novels. People don’t use their strengths nearly as often as they should to achieve success.

Here are some things that you can do to make sure that you are using your strengths to help you achieve your goals and become successful.

  1. Know what your strengths actually are. Sit down and make a list of things that you are good at. Identify the ones that you are best at and put them at the top of the list.
  2. Determine how you can apply each strength to being successful. If you are looking for some way to become financially independent, then evaluate your strengths in relation to that. If you have already chosen a route to success, then determine how your strengths might be able to help you go further.
  3. Write down your goals if you haven’t already. Then look at each goal and adjust it so that you are using your strengths to their full potential to help you achieve those goals.
  4. Break your goals down further into short-term goals like monthly or weekly ones and do the same thing with your strengths.
  5. Finally, break your goals down into daily habits and decide how those same strengths can help you stick by your habits, replacing the bad ones with good ones.
  6. Continue these self-evaluations regularly and make sure that you are using your strength instead of things that you aren’t good at to achieve success.

How to Measure Your Success

One of the questions that people often have when they start becoming serious about striving for success if how they can measure if they are successful enough or if they are doing enough to achieve their goals. This question comes because of the propensity that people have to compare themselves to others. But you never seem to measure up when you do that, particularly with those who have already achieved success. So, what do you measure against?

Each person is different and each success story is different. It is impossible to compare your journey to anyone else’s, so you have to do something else entirely. You have to compare yourself to yourself.

The best way to accomplish this is by comparing your current self to your past self. The thing that many people do is live as their past selves instead of forgetting about that person and living in the present.

Your past self may have made mistakes, but your current self, going forward from this moment on, has not made any mistakes. You have a fresh, clean slate, and luckily, you have the benefit of all of the experience of your past self to rely upon.

But even more important than living in the moment is tracking your progress. No matter what goal you are pursuing, or what end you are looking for, tracking your progress will allow you to see how different you are today from where you have been.

If you are trying to lose weight, tracking each pound lost will give you motivation to continue even through the hardest times. If you feel like giving up because the income stream that you have been working on isn’t nearly as large as you thought it would be, checking out where you were a year ago can put the present in perspective.

The bottom line is that when you want to measure your success, don’t measure it against other people. Other people may have had different opportunities, different skills and different circumstances that affected their progress.

Instead, compare yourself to your past self. If you have improved, then you are on the right track. If you have improved more than you ever thought possible when you started, then you can call that a huge success. If you are better off now and are well on your way to reaching your goals, then you are successful.

When is Motivation overrated?

If you are in any kind of social group like at work or in your community, your neighborhood, or your family, you may be thinking that success in terms of group dynamics is just something that happens. There is just something about certain people that ensures that they rise to the top. As you probably have heard, cream rises the top.

You may be thinking that certain groups of people are just the cream of society. It is just bound to happen. Now, this is a very comforting thought if you are part of that group. What if you are just like everybody else? What if you are not habitually successful? What if you try really hard, but for whatever reason, things just don’t pan out?

Do you write yourself off? Do you settle for the crumbs of life? Do you instantly believe that your best days are behind you? Of course not. You see, whatever successful people can achieve, you can achieve as well. Now, you’re probably rolling your eyes and you’re probably thinking that is some sort of empty pep talk. You probably may even be thinking that you’ve heard this a million times before.

I really can’t blame you for your dismissive attitude because that is to be expected. However, until and unless you are able to wrap your mind around the importance of proper motivation, chances are, you won’t be able to make the necessary sacrifices that would enable you to achieve amazing success with your life.

Make no mistake, working towards success is a sacrifice because you’re giving up something that you are entitled to do. You’re entitled to a break. Seriously. You’re entitled to take things easy. But you chose to do something hard now in exchange for the promise of a greater victory in the future.

As long as you are capable of doing something, you can choose to do things the easy or the hard way. You are entitled to those options because you are capable of taking them.

In other words, if we were to bring this all back to grade school, you have decided to not eat chocolate chip cookie now in exchange for three chocolate chip cookies tomorrow. Sounds good so far, right?

Well, the problem is, sticking to that plan of action is much harder than coming up with a plan in the first place. You need motivation. This is why I can say with a straight face that motivation is not overrated. In fact, it’s the other way around. Motivation is absolutely crucial to any kind of success.

I don’t care how you define it. I don’t care about the timeline you have set for yourself. You need to remain motivated and you need to be able to get motivated on command. This is why you need a systematic and methodical approach. You can’t just let your feelings get the better of you. You can’t just assume that certain things will come into place and by intuition or random luck you will get motivated. It doesn’t work that way.

Emotional Intensity is Not Real Motivation

As I keep saying in this series of articles, people automatically believe that they are already motivated if they have goals in life. If only things were that simple. Seriously. Let’s face it, the reason why most people struggle and is unable to reach peak levels of performance is because they just go through the motions.

Of course, if you were to tell them this, they probably would not react all that positively. Most people, after all, have an adverse reaction to wakeup calls or reality checks. One of the greatest sources of difficulties people have with those moments of clarity is their confusion of emotional intensity with motivation.

If you tell them, are you properly motivated so you can live up to your fullest potential? The answer, predictably, would be yes. But people are confused. After all, they are working towards a goal, right? This means that they are motivated. Not true.

Emotional intensity is not motivation. Even if you’re pumped up and you’re excited and you’re able to connect the dots and you can see how big of a deal this is, that’s not enough. You know how you can tell the difference? Motivation sticks with you regardless of how many people say no. that’s how it works.

You remain truly motivated regardless of how many people point at your face, laugh and call you crazy or stupid. That’s motivation. Motivation is not just emotional intensity because you can have that in any soccer game.

If you’ve ever been to a soccer game in Latin America, you see a huge sea of people all caught up in the moment. That’s emotional intensity, but that doesn’t really motivate you when you have significant obstacles standing in your way on your path to success.

It is too easy to think you are on a lonely path to success. It’s easy to think you are the only going through that process. We all have our own individual path. They are on separate tracks. We can’t compare. We can’t mix and match. This is what gives the whole process a lonely air to it. Still, this is a golden opportunity. You are left to focus on how you can motivate yourself. You are left alone with whatever motives you have for your journey. You are left with the hard question of asking yourself whether you want the prize hard enough to do whatever for however long it takes to achieve victory once and for all.

You’re going to have to find that inner drive and that inner purpose every single step of the way so you can unlock your state of flow. Once you get into that state of flow, you achieve a momentum that will enable you to do whatever it takes for however long it takes until you achieve success. That’s how you live up to your fullest life potential.

Unfortunately, the more you confuse emotional intensity with motivation, the farther off you would be to doing what you need to do to trigger real motivation. I’m talking about sustainable motivation here. I’m not talking about your emotional infatuations, temporary affections, short-lived passion. I’m not talking about any of that junk. I’m talking about real motivation.

Motivation is a Mental Muscle

What if I told you that getting motivated is not much different from going to the gym and hitting the weights? You may be thinking to yourself that there is a big difference between a weight rack and getting motivated. In fact, if you’re like most people, you probably assume that you already motivated enough.

I’m really not surprised if this is your mindset because this is the conventional wisdom. The understanding that most people have is that if you resolved to show up somewhere for eight hours in a day, maybe by punching a clock and putting in the time so you can get paid every two weeks, you are motivated enough.

Well, the problem is, that’s not motivation. That is obligation, not motivation. You just basically set up an appointment and you show up. Big deal. Where is the victory in that? Motivation is required for success because anything worthwhile in life is going to come with all sorts of challenges.

For the knight in shining armor to walk away with the princess and the chest full of gold, he has to slay the dragon first. The dragon surrounds the princess and the chest full of gold. That dragon is the challenge. Well, the same set-up applies to your life.

Whether you’re studying to become a medical doctor, a lawyer, or you’re trying to reach the top of the corporate ladder at your place of work, you are going to be confronted by dragons in many different forms. The question is, are you willing to do whatever it takes for however long it takes to slay that dragon?

This is a problem because most people do not want to be challenged. Most people are so afraid of coming up short that they don’t even try. I’m telling you, motivation is a mental muscle. You have to put yourself in a situation where you are forced to be motivated. You must use it. That’s how it gets stronger.

Now, at first you will probably fail. Welcome to the club. You think you were able to lift 300 lbs the first time you showed at the gym? Of course not. But the more you use your mental muscle, the stronger it gets. The more you challenge it, the more capable it becomes. The more you put stress on it, the more it grows.

Physical muscles get sore quick-especially if you have just put a tremendous amount of stress and pressure on them the first time. You simply are not used to it. Your muscles seem to be crying out for relief. It’s too tempting to give in and take the easy way out. This is the worst thing you can do. The best option is to just keep stressing your muscles out. Don’t underestimate your personal ability to physically adapt to whatever punishment you put yourself through. You can do it. In fact, most people hitting the weight rack the first time work through their sore muscles fairly quickly. The secret is not to give in and stop. Just keep going and keep at it.

Don’t set yourself up for failure

You are probably rolling your eyes at the title of this article. I really can’t say I blame you. I mean, come on. People forgetting how to get motivated? The absurdity of that statement really speaks to our assumptions. Most people who are trying to achieve anything with their lives automatically assume that since they are working towards a goal, that they are motivated.

Sure, at some level or other, this is absolutely correct, but the key question that is begging to be asked is, are you motivated enough? That is the kind of question that too many people simply do not want to wrap their minds around because they’re too busy focusing on the small stuff if they’re not outright evading it.

Make no mistake, you have to be motivated in the right way at the right levels of intensity, otherwise you’re just not going to make it. If you have a low level of motivation that enables you to at least show up to work day after day to do the bare minimum so you can avoid getting fired, you are technically speaking motivated.

But let me tell you, the last time I checked, that kind of motivation doesn’t exactly lead to the kind of stellar performance that gets rewarded. You’re just doing the bare minimum. You’re just going along to get along. In other words, you are an empty detail in whatever organization you are a part of.

You have to aim for a type of motivation that pushes you to operate at peak levels of performance-even if no one is looking. It’s as if you can’t help but be excellent. I know this sounds weird to you but if you let the whole concept of producing maximum value become your life’s main mantra then no amount of external discouragement or adverse conditions will trip you up on your journey to personal victory and success.

This is the reason why people who achieve habitual levels of success are able to do the right things at the right time with the right people to produce the right outcomes. They are able to do this day after day regardless of their feelings or how much opposition they face. Amazing? Not really.

You have to remember that in any type of human organization, 20% of the people there account for 80% of the results. Which group do you think you belong in? Here is a clue. It’s not the 20%. You’re in that 80% that produces 20% of the results. It is no surprise that you are struggling. It is not surprising that you are frustrated in areas of your life because you are not properly motivated enough. You have forgotten how to get truly motivated.

On-demand Motivation

Let’s get one thing clear. All of us have the capacity for greatness. Seriously. We all have it in us to do amazing things. In fact, you only need to look at past instances in your life where you were able to truly achieve. Everybody has it in them to do the right things at the right time with the right people to produce the right outcomes.

What separates truly successful people, and I’m talking about people who are habitually successful, from everybody else is that these individuals seem to be able to achieve success day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. In other words, they are habitual successes.

You have probably heard of the phrase, “Success is a habit.” This is absolutely spot on, but you have to remember that the people who are able to produce such results started out just like you. Their IQs are not any higher that yours. They are not in any way more emotionally in tune that you. They are just like you.

The big difference is that they are able to get motivated on command. Put more specifically, they are able to achieve a state of flow on command. This is a big competitive advantage because most of us have to be surrounded by the right people and we have to feel the right things for everything to fall into place.

Now, I wish I could tell you that that is very easy to do, but unfortunately it isn’t. In fact, if you think that for you to perform, you have to feel the right way and everything has to fall into place, then you’re probably going to be setting yourself up for a big disappointment. Seriously. You’re just probably going to be letting yourself down because those situations are few and far between.

Things just have to line up the right way for you to get triggered to perform. It doesn’t work that way. Life doesn’t work that way. Life is too chaotic. In fact, life is hard and unfair. So, how do you achieve continual success? Well, it all boils down to getting motivated on command. You must be able to figure out how to get motivated to achieve a state of flow regardless of how you feel.

Successful people are able to get into the zone on command. They will themselves to get the proper motivation they need to enter a state of flow. After they do this, things begin to become easy. They just know what to do at the right time with the right people to produce the right outcomes. This is why they are successful.

It shouldn’t matter what other people around you are saying. You should be able to focus and make it happen. This is how you separate people who are able to achieve results on almost autopilot and everybody else who struggles.

You owe it to yourself to tap into motivation on command.