How do youknow when you are successful? Do you have to be amillionaire? No, all we ask of you is that you earn all you possibly can. Ifyou earn ten thousand dollars a year and that is the best you can do, that isenough. God and everything else will see to it that you are okay. The key isto just do the best you can. If it is ten thousand dollars a year, wonderful! Ifit is a hundred thousand dollars a year, wonderful! If it is a million dollars ayear, wonderful!
It doesnot matter whether you earn ten thousand dollars a year or a milliondollars a year as long as you have done the best you possibly can. The essenceof life is growth. It is doing the best you possibly can.
Here is what is interesting: humans are the only life form that will do lessthan they possibly can. Humans are the only life form that will settle forless. All other life forms except human beings strive to their maximumcapacity. How tall will a tree grow? As tall as it possibly can. You have neverheard of a tree growing half as high as it could. No. Trees donot grow half.Trees send their roots down as deep as possible. They stretch their limbs upas high as possible, and produce every leaf and every fruit possible.
As a matter of fact, you have never heard of a human growing halfway—physically, that is. We keep growing until we are done. It is geneticallycoded. That is a part of life that we cannot control. It is the growing of ourminds that we CANcontrol, but we tend to neglect this. “It tends to get awayfrom us. All life forms inherently strive toward their maximum potentialexcept human beings.”
We would not strive to become all we can be, to fulfill our potentials because we have been given the dignity of choice. “It makes us differentthan alligators and trees and birds. The dignity of choice makes us differentthan all other life forms.”
And here is the choice: to become PARTof what we could be, enough to getby; or to become ALLthat we can be. Rohn’s best advice for you is to choose the“all.” Earn all you can. Make all the friends you can. Read as many booksas you can. Develop as many skills as you can. When you are focusing on growth, it is easy to do all you can. It iseasy to succeed. It is easy to have financial freedom. The more you do, themore you get.
A CHALLENGE TO GROW
It would be a pitiful scenario if your income grew andyou didnot grow. When your income increases, it is vital that youquickly grow up to where your income is. Otherwise, yourincome will soon come back to where youare.
Somebody once said, “If someone hands you a million dollars, it is best youbecome a millionaire, so you get to keep the money.” Believe it,“success doesnot want to hang around an incompetent person.”
The problem with winning the lottery is the lack of self-development theperson has gone through to be able to master and keep the money. Thefortune is bigger than the person, rather than the person being bigger thanthe fortune.
If you are a parent, use the challenge of parenting to personally grow. Seewhat you can become. If you want to reach your children, you cannot lackstories and illustrations. You cannot lack wisdom and power. And the onlyway you can become the best kind of parent is by personal development:becoming better than you are, stronger than you are, wiser than you are.
You are growing so that your investment grows. As your children grow, yougrow. Your power grows. Your influence grows. Your wisdom grows. Yourcommand of the language grows.
You see, that is what is challenging: to be involved in a situation that makesyou grow. If that situation is success, keep growing to be bigger than yourfortune. If that situation is failure, keep growing until you are bigger than theproblem. Keep growing. Keep becoming.
PREPARING FOR ALL POSSIBILITIES
A strong individual isnot a rigid individual. In fact, exactly the oppositeis true. Strength comes from flexibility. Although it is important to be firmwhen you know something is right and to maintain that right position evenwhen the crowd is going against you and wants to put you down, it is alsoimportant to remember that no person is God. Nobody is infallible orinvincible.
Sometimes when the tide has run against you for a long time, it may be thatwhat you held as a certainty way, in fact, not true in the light ofoverwhelming circumstances. It is smart to be able to see more than one wayto accomplish a task. It is wise to see more than one solution to anyproblem. It is a good skill to see things as someone else might see them.
Because when the plan that is served you so well for so long doesnot workanymore, it is time to find another way. It is time to bend, to move on, tochange, to compromise, or you risk snapping like a dead branch in a rainstorm.“When it comes to lasting a long time, to standing tall, to being strong butknowing when to bend, the trees have a lot to teach us.”
Our best-laid plans do often go astray. It is entirely possible and evenlikely that nothing will ever turn out as we expect, and so no matter howmuch we prepare for one turn of fate, something will sneak up from ourblind side when we are least expecting to be interrupted at our accustomedrounds. When that time comes, as it will, the people who survive and eventriumph over the unanticipated will be people who are ready to adapt.
COUNTING ON YOURSELF
Here is onepowerful way to change and grow: cultivate your self-reliance.
Take responsibility for your own life. Take responsibility forwhatever happens to you. Know that you have consciously made thedecisions that are now affecting you. Know that what is happening now,today, is the direct result of what you did yesterday.
Being self-reliant doesnot mean that you cannot work with or trust others. Infact, it can make you a much more valuable teammate, partner, friend. Self-reliancemeans counting on yourself. Trusting yourself. Being responsibleto yourself. Trusting your own instincts. Trusting the conclusions that youhave developed from your study of experiences and philosophies. Takingthe credit that is due you. Learning from the mistakes that you have made,and then passing that value on to others.
By not being prepared, you make thechoice of getting caught in some of life’s unpleasant circumstances, be theyrain, failures, economic losses, relationship losses, professional losses, orpersonal losses. By not being prepared, by not thinking ahead, you havemade your choice.
Here is the other side of it. By being prepared, you increase your chances ofsuccess. You increase the likelihood of seizing opportunities when theycome your way, of being ready within yourself to take advantage of oncein-a-lifetime situations.
You cannot control what others around you do, but it is in your ownenlightened self-interest that you stay on top of things. Especially if thosethings are going to affect your future.
BY CAPTAIN SAM ADDAIH RTD
