The most common excuse among passive people is lack of time and opportunity. Research, however, shows there are more opportunities available every day for people to develop their abilities, succeed and achieve success in than ever before.
On the other hand, research also shows that people with excuses far exceed the ones that choose to take action on their own behalf. Look at these real-life examples:
An acquaintance of mine, a waitress who lives with her mother, suddenly decided to move to Australia, her dreamland. While she had been “failing” at home, once in Australia she landed an excellent job and a nice apartment. Some time ago, she returned home to finish some business and I asked her if she now felt that she had fulfilled her dreams. She told me it surprised her to discover how easy it was to live her dream and succeed.Together, we discovered her turning point was her decision to board the plane and go for her dream.
You don’t need much money to begin living your dream. My friend only needed the plane fare to get to Australia. Being on her own in a new country forced her to get a good job just to survive and surprisingly, it wasn’t all that hard once she abandoned her old viewpoints and left her excuses behind her. She simply acted. And something else too – she didn’t care, anymore, what other people thought, which is the second most common reason for delaying or refusing to take action to change our lives.
You see, when faced with a situation that isn’t urgent, it’s easy to make excuses and never change. However, when faced with a potentially life-threatening set of circumstances, where we simply have to do something to survive, all excuses disappear and we become creative and successful in our problem-solving efforts. Further querying my friend, I asked her about her situation in her hometown. She admitted she could have found the same opportunities there as she had found in Australia – if she had both looked for them and then acted to obtain them. In fact, she was now thinking about returning home and looked forward to achieving everything there that she had been able to achieve thousands of miles away. What was different? She now knew she really could be a success!
Over the years, I have worked with many door-to-door salespeople. Most sales reps blame outside circumstances for all their failures to sell their products. It’s always something, the location wasn’t right, their prospect isn’t interested in their product, some even cite their own lack of intelligence or money, and on and on and on. Those of you who are familiar with sales and marketing know exactly what I’m talking about.
Years ago, I had the pleasure and opportunity to show a group of people how they alone build barriers in their mind. One of the groups I was lecturing to was selling household products door-to-door. First, I listened to the sales reps complain and rant and then I decided to run an interesting test. I selected a new sales representative, John, chosen because he was new to the business and wasn’t yet burdened with the self-inflicted problems of his colleagues. I also made sure to sequester him from the other reps to prevent him from hearing any gossip about how difficult some specific region was to sell in. What I had in mind was to send him to a region that every other salesperson was avoiding, because of course, “it was impossible to sell anything at all” there. However, I told him something much different. What I told him was:
“John, the area I am sending you to today is a great area, especially for new salespeople. It is the best area to sell your specific products in and we regularly send our new sales reps here so they can have the experience of achieving above-average results their first day on the job.”
After specifically training John to respond to rejections and combat his fear of the unknown, I sent him on his way to the area other reps feared to tread in and would swear, “You won’t sell anything here.” For three days, I repeatedly sent him to areas his colleagues described as “impossible to sell in.” The results he achieved weren’t above average, but they were far better than the results of the best sales rep from the group in each of the three areas. John was ecstatic – in those three days, he made more money than he did at his previous company in three weeks!
After that, I met with the whole group of sales reps and introduced John to the others. When I told them what he had achieved, much to John’s amazement, they applauded and congratulated him enthusiastically. Only then did I tell the group “where” John had made his sales. However, this wasn’t the real (or only) “miracle.” It happened a week later. As I eagerly anticipated how the group would react to John’s amazing success, I immediately organized a motivational seminar. John’s example was perfect to demonstrate the “truth” I wanted the other reps to discover – the essence of their success is in their mind.
Two-thirds of the sales representatives voluntarily returned to the “Devil’s Area” where John had experienced such incredible success. 34% achieved average results, 8% were below average, but 58% of them were more successful than they had ever been, anywhere!
What changed? The prospects didn’t. Neither did their buying habits, nor the products the reps sold. The change took place in the mind of the sales rep ? a change that ultimately determined his failure or success. Opportunities exist and will always exist. The question is whether you are able to see them and accept their challenge in time, before they fade away. Luck isn’t a beat that falls only on the ears of those destined to hear it; it exists everywhere and always in the music going by. Luck doesn’t hit the ground three feet from you, like lightning. It’s the bird – flying overhead, that you reach out and catch with both hands.
There is a joke about a poor farmer, who, during the last moments of his life, complained to God: “I have always trusted You. I have given prayers my whole life to You to win the lottery. I respected all of Your commandments and yet never received a cent in my life.” God answered: “Yes, it’s true what you say, but you never bought a lottery ticket.”
If you do not take advantage of the opportunity when it’s offered to you, it passes you by like it never existed at all. Mark Twain said: “Those who buy books but don’t read them have no advantage over those who don’t know how to read.” One of life’s truths says: “People are so burdened with unimportant stuff that they don’t have time to earn money.”
One of my friends, an architect, was building a new office building a few years back. He dug gutters, carried mortar, plastered walls, etc. Although he usually makes $100/hr, he wasted his precious time doing work that paid him ten times less “just because it was ‘his’ building and he thought he was saving a few dollars.” He never lacked architectural work, so he could have been more financially productive by hiring bricklayers and similar professionals to do the physical work. He would then have the time to do the work his experience and training qualified him to do that paid him ten times more.
Had my friend been doing the work he enjoys most, instead of trying to save a buck by doing the labor himself, everyone would have benefited. The bricklayers would have had work, he would have more jobs contracted and the building would have finished sooner and possibly crafted better. Additionally, my friend’s burdens, the added worries he encountered by doing the work himself, would have been far less. When I presented him with this view, he thought about what I said and then did as I proposed. “Strange I didn’t think of that myself,” he commented.
An even greater truth tells us not to rely on luck. At any moment, a situation can change and what we once thought was lucky can backfire and turn out to hurt us even more than the lack of luck did to begin with! There is an old Chinese tale that speaks to this truth. Dr. Walter Doyle Staples, in his amazing book “Think Like a Winner!” tells the following tale:
In a small village, somewhere in China, there was an old man who had everything – a loving son, all the material wealth he needed as well as a horse worth a fortune that was the envy of all his neighbors.
One day, his horse jumped over the fence and got lost in the woods. Gone in an instant was his most valuable possession. Hearing about the accident and feeling sorry for the old man, the people in his village said, “You lost your horse, what a terrible tragedy for you. Oh, what bad luck ?” As they each offered their condolences, his reply was always the same: “Bad luck, good luck ?how do you know it is a tragedy?”
A few days later, the hungry horse returned to the old man, knowing there was food and water at the old man’s barn. The horse brought twelve other wild and beautiful horses with him. When the old man’s neighbors heard about his great fortune, they all thought he was extremely lucky and told him so. The wise, old man simply replied: “Bad luck, good luck ? how do you know it is good luck?”
The next day, his son saddled and tried to ride one of the new horses. The horse threw him from the saddle and the fall injured him badly.
Doctors said the boy was incurably lame. Farmers from the village came to offer their condolences to the old man, saying: “Oh, your only son, disabled forever, what a tragedy, what bad luck ?” The old man replied, “How do you know it’s bad luck or a tragedy?”
Months passed into years and war broke out. They collected men and boys from every city to join the army and took soldiers from every village, but the crippled boy, unable to fight, remained with the old man. The following week, the news came that a great battle killed all the soldiers from their village.
An important lesson: You never know what is bad luck or good luck. Never rely on luck to get you closer to your goals. Do not rely on circumstances outside yourself, the goodwill of others, sympathy or gratitude.
Rely on yourself. Don’t take this wrong – most people are kind and many are grateful, but the responsibility for your happiness lay only within you. If you expect others to take care of you, then you place your life and happiness in their hands, as we said earlier. When that happens, negative energy takes over your mind and you will feel like “a miserable victim of fate,” living your life “as others dictate.”
Make your own luck and learn how to use it. Why does someone succeed in a business you refused to try? Does he succeed because he is more capable than you? I bet you wouldn’t agree and would probably say just the opposite. He succeeded because he acted! He succeeded because he made his own luck and took his life and fate into his own hands. “Help yourself and God will help you,” says the Holy Bible.
Luck is all around you. The seeds of your happiness are right in front of you; maybe those that cannot see them think that only what they pay for can make them happy. Unfortunately, many people only become aware of what they had when they lose it.
Don’t let this happen to you!
Boris Vene is the co-author of the best-selling The Millionaire Mindset. If
you
are wondering what the greatest obstacle to your success is and how to
overcome
it, visit his web site today!
http://www.themillionairemind.net/index.html?dp11
