When you put into written form your goals, your dreams, and desires include as much detail as possible. Include exactly what it is that you hope to achieve or attain and describe it in terms of a portrait that you see in your mind.

You should see yourself acting the way you aspire to perform; establish a measurable quantity of what it is you want to attain; and give yourself a specific date when you see yourself in possession of your goal. You most likely have heard all of this before, but if you want more specific strategy, stay connected here and you will hopefully receive more than you expected.

My intent here is to take you beyond that place of achievement or attainment. What I am referring to is “what happens after you believe that you have arrived?” We have a sense of finally arriving when we get that thing or that feeling that we’ve been striving all along to get or to feel. This may be money, love, a new car, or success in sport.

Whatever it is that gives you a sense of fulfillment or pleasure, you will hopefully ask yourself, “Is this all there is?” What happens you’ve reached you goal? What direction do you take and what is your next move?

Here are some other questions to ask yourself. What can I take from this positive experience that I can use with future challenges?  What about this experience made the biggest difference with my success? If I had to do this again, what would I change to possibly have a greater impact? How could I duplicate these results and arrive at the result sooner?

More questions would be what new skills did I learn or which old skills did I cultivate to help me succeed?  How do I take this to another level?

After you have successfully achieved or attained a goal or a desire, you haven’t really arrived. What I mean by this is that you have not reached the terminal and you are ready to get off the train.   There is always more and this is not about greed or dissatisfaction.

After you have discovered, revealed, and developed your new personal tools and strategies, you have only taken another step in your personal journey. T.S. Eliot explains it so clearly in this passage,

“We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.”

One of the things Eliot is saying is that we always start anew after having achieved a personal victory. Once we believe that we have arrived at something, it is time to begin the process again with a new challenge or a new exploration. We are always renewed after having achieved something, yet, we are always at the beginning when are ready to explore again. Yes, we have new tools, new insights, and new strategies but when we begin a new direction, it is as if we are beginning again. We bring with us all that we have learned and any wisdom from our previous journeys, but the thrill of taking a new road is as if we are moving for the very first time.

Make it a great day and stay connected,

Leo Llonch

My purpose here is to compel you to find out more about relevant and appropriate questions. I have been preparing to launch a project that I have thought about for several years. While outlining and attempting to design my project, I began to write down a list of questions that will help me arrive at solutions related to my project. I tend to do more research than is required and I tend to look at a topic from several angels.

Sometimes I am so far outside the box that I lose focus of what my original intent was.  What really helps me get grounded is to ask a few provocative questions. According to my online Thesaurus, provocative means among other descriptions, to be stimulating, challenging, inspirational, and inciting.

I have read that it is more important to ask a profound question than it is to make several statements. Too many times when we are stating facts and opinions, our audience is not compelled to listen. Our audience can either be other people, or we can be our own audience. We sometimes tend to make assumptions without asking the appropriate questions which will help us arrive closer to a solution we are seeking.

There are several categories of questions but I have been focusing on three since I awoke this morning.

1. Provocative questions. These are the type questions which I mentioned in my introduction above. An example of a provocative question may be “If you had an opportunity to ask an expert one question about this topic, what would that question be?”

2.  Disarming questions. A disarming question is one which will compel your audience to reconsider any pre-conceived notions or opinions about you or your subject. A disarming question may be “If at any time you feel that you are not in control of our meeting, let me know what you how you feeling”.

3. Unsettling questions. An unsettling question is one which perhaps may intimidate or embarrass your audience or one which makes them feel uneasy.  An unsettling question might be “here is the agenda we will be covering about your child’s behavior in the classroom, save your questions until I am finished”.

There are people, properly trained, who are masters at asking any one of these type questions to arrive at a successful end for both the questioner and his or her audience. I am just like you, in that I am not a trained questioner, but I am a seeker of knowledge that will help me serve others.

The purpose of a question may be to get our audience to reflect, to ponder, to consider your question in a way that causes them to see the view from various perspectives.  I prefer asking provocative questions that allows the audience to feel sense of control, but that also compels them to have a divergent or more open view in their answers.   Some questions may be:

“What is missing now, that if it were present would make a positive impact in your personal or business life?”

“What do you not know now, that you will need to know to be where you want to be?”

“If you are not now where you want to be in your personal or business life, what is your greatest struggle?”

“What is your greatest fear?”

“If you achieve what you hope for, how will that make a difference in your life?”

“If you don’t achieve what you hope to, what is the worse that could happen?”

My friends, I hope that this has been relevant food for thought for you today. Send me your feedback and your own provocative questions.

Make it a great day and stay connected,

Leo Llonch

When was the last time you looked in the mirror and said “I feel terrific”? When was the last time you checked your attitude and decided you need more self esteem or that you need more self confidence? We can all use more self esteem because none of us is ever at our fullest potential.

You are always in a state of becoming, more or less

You never stay in the same place for long and if you do, then you are falling behind because the world is moving and you’re not. When you take steps toward personal and professional improvement, you are becoming more. When you are not taking steps to improve yourself, then you are becoming less. You never stay the same. Your industry changes, technology changes, and the way the world communicates changes. You do not live in a static world where the clock stops and the world waits for you to catch up or to stay onboard.

It would be difficult for you to meet someone today who is not familiar with the World Wide Web. Millions of bits of new information are uploaded to the web every day – no, every hour. Humanity is connecting on the web. Yes, there are still countries where there is little access to the web, but they are fewer every day. The is the fastest way to communicate with someone on the other side of the world. I receive daily comments about my articles every day from people in Singapore, the United Kingdom, India, and many other countries.

That is not to say that you should exclusively depend on the web to interact with people. Face to face is still the most effective means of communicating when it is possible.

In five years you will be a product of the books you have read, the people

you have interacted with, and the prevailing thoughts in your mind

You are influenced by the people in your life and when you change those people, you are influenced by their frame of reference, by their attitudes, and by their behavior. Changing, or adding to your reference group is one way to get out of your box. Reading books, magazines, and listening to professional and personal development materials also helps you move to another level. Here are just a few ideas to help you move to another level in your personal or professional life.

1. 1. Find a mentor to guide, encourage, and inspire you. There is so much to be said about having a mentor. A mentor is someone who has reached higher levels of achievement than you and can make specific suggestions about how you can progress in your personal life or career. When a mentor makes a suggestion, take the action and then report back to them with your results.

1. 2. Collaborate with the successful people in your industry. Seek out the positive and successful people in your industry and find out how they have been successful. Ask them how they succeeded.
2. 3. Join a Master Mind group of like-minded, progressive people. A Master Mind group is one of the fastest and most effective ways to progress, to move forward. Meet for two hours each week to share information, ideas, technology, and especially to get personal and professional support.

1. 4. Reading books about inspiring people and events. Read Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, The Richest Man in Babylon, by George Clayson, or As a Man Thinketh by William James. I have a library full of dozens of these books. For a longer list of titles, contact me and I will be happy to assist you.

Your call to action. Choose one of these four and take action now. Now would mean within the next 24 hours. Seek a mentor, join a group, buy or borrow a book, or collaborate with like minded people.

Make it a great day and stay connected,

Leo Llonch

The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was discovered by James Wilson Marshall at Sutter’s Mill, in Coloma, California. News of the discovery soon spread, resulting in some 300,000 men, women, and children coming to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. Of the 300,000, approximately 150,000 arrived by sea while the remaining 150,000 arrived by land.

The early gold-seekers, called “forty-niners,” (as a reference to 1849) traveled to California by sail boat and in covered wagons across the continent, often facing substantial hardships on the trip.  There were many people who struck it rich by mining and there were even more who didn’t find an ounce of gold.  Some people just gave up too soon, giving in to hardship, setbacks and obstacles in their way.

I would love to have a “Benjamin Franklin” for every time a “forty niner” gave up just feet or possibly inches away from the mother lode of gold.  Sometimes we allow setbacks or obstacles to discourage us from continuing on. Sometimes we change course because of a big obstacle in our path. Then we discover later that the obstacle was a blessing in disguise.

Story. The Obstacles in your Path. In ancient times, a King had a boulder placed on a roadway. Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock. Some of the king’s wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it. Many loudly blamed the king for not keeping the roads clear, but none did anything about getting the stone out of the way

Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables.  Upon approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road. After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded. After the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been.

The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the king indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway. The peasant learned what many of us never understand. Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve your condition.

When you find obstacles in your path, continue forward and find the opportunities that come with the obstacle. There is always a learning experience with adversity and there is always a lesson learned that will take you to another level and to teach you a new skill.

Obstacles are there for a purpose. They are designed to test your perseverance and to take you to another level on your rise to success. When you come across an obstacle in your path, ask yourself a few questions.

1. What is good about this obstacle or delay toward my success?
2. What can I learn from this adversity?
3. What is the nugget of ideas that I can take away from this challenge?
4. How can I grow from this experience?

Make it a great day and stay connected.

Leo Llonch

Boy have I wasted countless hours doing things that I didn’t need to do when I should have been doing something else.  I have been a procrastinator; I have taken action without real focus; I have failed to plan my days ahead; and I allowed email and the telephone to run my life. Sound familiar or should I say more? OK, here’s more.  I have a hard time saying no; I allow interruptions when I am working; I am constantly putting out fires in my personal life and in my career.

Story. Do you remember the story about the big fish in the little pond? If you haven’t, contact me and I’ll send it to you. This story is about the desperate Trout in the swift stream.  This is the story of a young Rainbow Trout who is learning his lessons of living in the cold waters of the Northwest.  Life is fast because of the current, the competition, and those tempting shiny objects.

Our young trout has so much to learn and he gets lots of advice from two sources – a wise old uncle and all of the fast swimmers he’s competing against for food.  He spends most of his time with the fast crowd…chasing shiny objects. You know what they are. It’s those crazy lures the fishermen keep dangling in front of our little friend. The lures may change color, shape, and even smell, but they always have the same result – fewer and fewer Trout in the stream.

When we don’t use discretion, then every time a new idea comes along, we jump and chase after it. Too many of us are following the followers and not the leaders. We tend to ignore the advice of the wise ones.  Wise doesn’t always necessarily mean the old ones, but it does mean the productive ones – the ones who are surviving and thriving.

I could write a dissertation on this subject, but today we will keep it focused on simple but fundamental and critical issues.

• Are you leveraging your time so that it is the best use of your time?
• Are you leveraging your incredible mind to be innovative?
• Are you leveraging your money so that you are investing it wisely?

Your Time. Here are some questions to ask yourself before you decide to take action:

1. Is this the highest and best use of my time for my career?
2. Does this action have a high dollar value for my career?
3. Does this action have a high lifetime value for me, my family, and my friends?

Your Mind. Your mind was created more for processing than for storage. Yes, you can train your mind to memorize whole libraries of information, but the value of your mind lies in how you evaluate information and arrive at solutions. There are countless strategies for finding solutions but my purpose here is to give you only one.

Mind Storming. When you are searching for courses of action or for solutions or creative ideas to do something, I have found this to be a very productive exercise.  When your mind is calm and relatively noise free, write a question which describes the type of solution you are searching for. Include as much detail in your question as possible.  A personal example may be – What are the ways I can spend three more days of quality time with my spouse or family?  A business example might be – What are the ways I can increase my prospects by 100% in the next ninety days without spending more dollars on marketing?

Then, you must write twenty ideas or solutions. Your next step is to begin writing the ideas and solutions that rise to your conscious mind. The first four or five will come easily, the next four or five will be more difficult, and the last few before reaching twenty will cause you to stretch your mind and to really be creative.  Every time I have done this, It has worked so well that I come up with so many ideas that I can hardly keep up with implementing them.

Your Money. The most fundamental concepts about leveraging your money are the ideas of saving and being thrifty.  Did you know that the best savers are the Japanese? On average, they save 20% of their income. Imagine what you could do with that 20% at the end of the year. Establish a separate savings account for the holidays or other special days.  If you have a mortgage or a car payment, pay an extra $100 toward the principle and you will pay them off sooner and pay less interest.  Shop online first before you drive to the department stores. You may find a better deal online and save the money on gas and your travel time.

Your Call to Action. Save this article and begin applying any one of these recommendations and let me know of your results.

Make it a great day and stay connected.

Leo Llonch

I remember when the movie “The Secret” was released and there was a lot of excitement as well as controversy about it’s content.  Can someone actually create their own prosperity through their thinking? Can someone also create their own destruction through their own thinking?  My purpose here is not to debate the value of positive thinking, but I would like you to assume that it is true and that you can, to a certain degree, control your destiny.

If you saw The Secret, there was a part of the movie when John Assaraf was explaining how he had created a vision board with pictures, quotes, and affirmations. The scene follows that he was unpacking boxes with his young son and found the vision board he had created years ago. If you haven’t seen the movie, John begins to cry because there was a picture of a home on his vision board which was identical to the one where he was now living. He had actually imagined the home he wanted, found pictures of it, attached them to his vision board and he had forgotten about it. It wasn’t until he was unpacking boxes when he found that old vision board he created hears ago.

A vision board is just one form of visualization to help you remain focused, to help you in your concentrated efforts. If the focus of your (MDP) Major Definite Purpose is money, then you should collect pictures of money as well as how that money will change your life. If your MDP is to weigh 130 pounds, then the other pictures on your vision board would be how your new weight will make a difference in your life.

Some ideas about money related images might be the car you drive, the house you live in, the clothes you wear, or a vacation that you may take. The only limit is your imagination. How will your life change once you weigh 130 pounds? What are the images that illustrate the changes in your life? Looking great in a swim suit? Wearing designer clothes? Buying beautiful Italian leather dress shoes? It is all about what you imagine it to be.

Your Call to Action: Buy poster board material and make a 2 ft by 2 ft square. Then start looking through old magazines for pictures of what you want or how you want to look. Get pictures of money, cars, homes, clothing, technology…etc.  Above all, you should write in your own handwriting, you Major Definite Purpose and have it somewhere at the top. Fill your vision board with the images of what your life would be like once you have achieved your goal. Hang your vision board next to a mirror that you would look at before you go to bed and when you awake in the morning. Your vision board should be the last thing you see before you sleep and the first thing you see when you wake up. Do this every day until you achieve your goal and have fun with it.

Make it a great day and stay connected,

Leo Llonch

The Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts are one of the best examples of setting and achieving personal goals.  They are required to write down their goals and to monitor their progress throughout the journey. The journey could be for a merit badge, promotion to a higher rank, or for a personal goal unrelated to the scouts.

A friend of mine’s son has earned the distinction of “Eagle Scout” and for anyone not familiar with being an Eagle Scout, it is the highest rank attainable in the Boy Scouts of America. Any employer who reads Eagle Scout on a resume knows the hard work, dedication, and responsibility that come with it. Gerald Ford was an Eagle Scout and it is a distinction that brings much prestige to the person. Hence the saying goes, “Once an Eagle, always an Eagle”.

I remember reading about a girl scout who was extremely successful selling cookies and won a free trip to the annual Jamboree for herself and her parents. Yes, eleven year old girls have goals just as we do. I can’t remember how she sold all of those cookies but it seems she had excellent teachers/coaches. The Boy and Girl Scouts are excellent organizations that teach many of the life skills and success skills that we need in all parts of our lives.

When you write down your goals for the next 90 days, six months, or twelve months, you should also visualize your end result.  See yourself as already having attained your goal. See yourself wearing your celebration suit, in that high dining experience, or driving your new car. You should reward yourself with little celebrations for your small steps as well as a major celebration for your overall goal. Napoleon Hill calls this your Major Definite Purpose. Your Major Definite Purpose is your big, audacious goal that will allow you to attain all of your smaller goals.

Do you know your three P’s?

After you have written down your Major Definite Purpose, I recommend that you create an affirmation that reinforces your goal. This affirmation is a statement that you repeat to yourself several times a day. One example of an affirmation may be “It is December 31^st, 2010 and I am so happy and grateful that I have earned $100,000 in insurance commissions”. Another may be “it is March 1^st, 2010 and I am so happy and grateful now that I weight 165 pounds”. You must write or recite your affirmation using the three P’s.

Present tense: Your affirmation must be stated in the present as if you are already in possession of your goal. The examples above are “it is December 31^st 2010 or it is March 1^st, 2010.

Personal:  You can only have a goal for yourself and not for another person. For example, you cannot have an affirmation for your husband or wife to weigh 165 lbs.

Positive:  Your subconscious mind will only work toward a statement that is positive. For example, you cannot say “I no longer weigh 175 lbs”. That is a negative leaning statement and you must say “I weigh 165 lbs”.

Your Call to Action:  Take fifteen minutes and write down your Major Definite Purpose for the next 90 days, six months, or twelve months. If you would like to share your affirmation with me, I will be happy to review it and to give you some constructive feedback.

Make it a great day and stay connected,

Leo Llonch

Who do you aspire to be in 2010 and what are the qualities that you hope to emulate? What are your goals for 2010? How will you get there? What are the strategies and processes that you plan to employ to get you what you want?

To Do, to Have, and to Be

Here is how most people think the journey goes from the goal or the desire to actually realizing the fruits of their labor or arriving at their destination:

“I want to complete 2010 earning a six figure income so I can buy a new car, pay off my credit cards, and have a vacation in the Bahamas before the year’s end. To do that, I will have to sell 242 insurance policies. All I have to do is advertise in the Yellow Pages, take the calls and convert prospects into clients. Once I do all of this, I will have the funds to buy my car, take the vacation, and pay off my credit cards. Then, I will be a successful Insurance Salesman with a new car, a tan, and a zero credit card balance”.

Note. You cannot realistically follow this plan and expect to achieve your desired results.

Story. There were three women having lunch one day and two of them were married to very wealthy husbands.  They had the new cars, the Bahama vacations, and they had no financial worries. The third woman said, “I want to meet and marry a millionaire in the oil business just like you”.  One of her friends, who was the wiser of the three, said “first you have to be the person that a millionaire in the oil business would want to marry”.

Another story. When was a young Corporal in the US Army, I was practicing my skills and preparing to take a promotion exam so I could be promoted to Sergeant. I received some counsel from an old soldier who was more senior and much more seasoned than me. He said “it takes more than skill, strategy, and tactics to be a Sergeant. You can only be promoted to Sergeant when you are already behaving as a seasoned Sergeant and performing those skills of a skilled and tactically proficient Sergeant”.

To Be, to Do, and to Have

You must first be the Insurance Salesman with the characteristics or attributes of someone who earns a mid six figure income. You must first have a vision of the person that you aspire to be once you have achieved your goal. You have to feel inside that you are that person. You have to dress like that winner, you must act like that producer, and you must speak like the eagle that you aspire to be. Once you do this with a passion and a burning desire, then you will begin to attract the people, events, and circumstances that will lead you to do what is required for you to have. Most people have it backwards – they think that they’ll be that successful person only after they do and have what is required.

Make it a great day and stay connected.

Leo Llonch

Every day you are affected or influenced by external forces that you cannot control.  The forces that affect you many times will change your physical world, and the forces that influence you cause you to make choices or decisions about your spiritual, intellectual, or your physical life.  In any case, you make choices every day, and the sum of your choices determine the spirit of your life and times.   How often do you allow external forces to change your direction or your focus?  Is your attention diverted or do you change course when the risk becomes too high?

How you respond to the external forces which can affect you or influence you, will determine your success later.  The choices that you make will determine the spirit of your success in the next few months and the next few years.  There are no inconsequential events and there are no irrelevant people that come into your life.  Everything and everyone that comes into your life is there for a reason and for your to risk an encounter or an engagement.   When you accept the risk of the encounter or the engagement, you are moving forward, and when you don’t you are moving backwards.

Your Success Factor – Do You Allow Safety to Come First?

Vincent Van Gogh is one of the most celebrated artists and although he only lived forty three years, he left an indelible mark on art and art history.  He struggled with mental and physical illness but Van Gogh never allowed his personal challenges to affect his love for painting.  He changed where he lived, the people with whom he associated, and his occupation in order to continue his love for art. He was focused and his direction led him to take numerous risks in order to fulfill his desire to paint.

He moved from Holland to Belgium, and then to France. He changed his home so he could forge alliances with some of Europe’s great artists. Van Gough over came any notion of playing it safe. His passion was to paint and he did whatever he had to, to develop a painting technique which has changed the history of art and the progression of art technique. Artists and art historians are very much indebted to his contributions. Fortunately for them, he was willing to take risks and those risks were instrumental in his artistic technique and expression.

Whatever you aspire to be, do, or have, will be affected by your ability to disregard your comfortable status quo and to take risks. Do not allow being safe to come first.  When you try to play it safe, you are losing opportunities to grow, to progress, and to move forward.  Here are some simple steps that you can take today that will help you to keep progressing and to move forward.

1. Emulate someone else who has been successful in your field. To emulate does not mean to be a clone, but it does mean that you can decide on one attribute that made that other person successful.
2. Learn new skills that will take you out of your comfort zone and that will be a positive factor in your success.
3. Express or exhibit your new found skill in some form. This may include selling, teaching, or coaching your skill or a product of your skill. Once you learn a new skill and begin to teach it to others, you become much more proficient at it.

Choose one of these three today and begin getting out of your comfort zone and share your success and your challenges here.

The Amazing Power of Influence

(Three factors that influence your success)

I just looked up the word “factor” in my thesaurus and the synonyms include a cause, a component, and something of influence.   Factors that would be an influence your life would be the environment in which you are raised, another would be the friends that you choose, and still another would be your attitude of mind.  In your little life (your life before let’s say high school) these factors are more or less controlled for you. The one exception would be your attitude or your view of life.

Once you graduate from high school (or during high school), you are in control of the environment that you choose to live in, the people you choose to accept into your life, and most importantly, your attitude of mind. All of these factors can be a significant influence on your success in life.  Each of us, even if we are raised in identical environments, develops a different perspective of the world around us. Even identical twins raised by the same parents have a different perspective.  The greatest factor by far on your success is your attitude of mind.

I was raised in the north Bronx of New York City and went to parochial schools and then a local public college of the City University of New York.  I was influenced by my relatives, friends, teachers, and professors.  My perspective began to change when I changed my environment and the people with whom I associated.  After three years of college, I decided to enlist in the U.S. Army with the Special Forces (Green Beret) option.

I can tell you that my perspective changed dramatically with the training, the people who were in my reference group, and through what was expected of me.   I lived a very competitive life full of high risk, high expectation, and a very high learning curve. I was constantly learning new strategic, tactical and survival skills.  I had a lot of stimulation in my life and I loved it. I still thrive on stimulation that compels me to grow in positive ways.  Notice I didn’t say positive stimulation. Every experience or stimulation that we have, whether negative or positive, can be turned into a positive learning experience.

Throughout my Army career, I had the opportunity to choose almost every environment that I wanted to experience.  After serving on a Special Forces A detachment, I was an instructor at the Special Forces Underwater Operations School in Key West, Florida. This was a primo assignment that many wanted but few were either selected or accepted for it. But after two years at SFUWO I was ready to move to a greater level of responsibility and influence.  At the time I was a Staff Sergeant and I chose to apply for Officer’s Candidate School. I wanted to be a Commissioned Officer in the U.S. Army.

Long story short, I was commissioned a 2LT in the Infantry Branch and competed for and was assigned to one of the most coveted assignments as a Paratrooper – the 509^th Airborne Battalion Combat Team in Vicenza, Italy.  Again, I chose my environment, my reference group, and my attitude of mind.  For me and my family, it was the most rewarding and fulfilling experience of my life outside of having three daughters.

Without going into the details of how it all happened, my experience could have totally different. But I believe that my perspective was a result of prudent choices on my part.  I can share with you some of those choices and remember to be mindful that my choices included all three factors – environment, people, and attitude.

1. Environment. I chose an environment which, in 1974, was a not a popular one since the United States was still at war in Vietnam.  I chose an environment (Special Forces) that was very competitive to get into and very competitive once I was in it.   While I was in each particular environment in the military, I made the best use of my time by being competitive, volunteering for more opportunities for training and seeking additional responsibility. You cannot live a passive existence in any environment and expect to progress.  What are the steps that you can take that will get you closer to the environment that will increase your perspective and your chances of success?
2. People. Here is an example of how I chose the people I wanted in my reference group. In 1976, I competed for and won the distinction of “Soldier of the Year” for John F. Kennedy Center for Military Assistance. I had to compete against the other top troops from the different Special Forces Groups and units at Fort Bragg.  My reward, among a decoration, a watch, money, and a four day pass, was that I could choose assignment to any unit within that major command.  Lucky? No, I worked hard for it. I therefore chose assignment to an elite Special Forces Detachment – A726.  I was then a member of a unit that was given priority for high risk training, operations, and the experience that went with it.  Although this example involved being a member of the military, the same applies to any career that you choose, but in a different manner.  Who are the people that you would consider a positive reference group, and what measures can you take to place yourself within that group?

3.  Attitude. The Best thing that I can say about attitude refers to your attitude of expectations.  Somehow, I just always had an expectation that things would work out. What do you expect to happen in your life?  Do you expect good things? Do you expect that things will go your way? You should, but you should also take action because without action, you can’t expect to reap any rewards.  Expect that you will achieve, that you will receive, and that you will arrive.  Keep taking the appropriate steps, be progressive and always look for higher ground. Seek more responsibility, seek to learn more skills, and seek experience beyond your current level. Look up and not down.  Your goals are lofty; therefore they are way above the horizon.  But never force things to happen before their time. Force negates and you will then recede or go backwards when you should be progressing and going forwards.

I would like to emphasize the point of allowing things to happen in their due time.  We would all like to be successful, wealthy, and have optimum health and fitness as soon as we take our first step, our first action. The world doesn’t work that way. Are there people who you know that it has happened that way? Yes, just like the people who win the lottery.  They achieve a great gain with what seems a small effort. Some even have won more than once.  This is not luck, it is chance. Luck is when preparation meets opportunity and when you have done everything that you can to leverage environment, people, and your attitude.

Make it a terrific day!