I feel like someone who buys one of those Acai, or is it Acia, cleanses must feel like after the last 10 days!
In my opinion, we tend to think others see the world in terms of how we perceive it to be. When, in fact, there is a HUGE population out there totally computer illiterate and most don’t even know how to set up an email account!
That is good for the future of the Internet generally, and creative Internet marketers specifically, but it is a reality many seem to miss when shaping their world view, our world view!
The key to success online, to Internet marketing success, is not trying to sell each other, the trick is to tap into the virgin market still available and waiting for a creative approach and the right message!
Instead of preaching to the choir, we should be focusing on the masses…because that is where the real opportunity resides!
The choir knows the song by heart, it is in reaching those just beginning the search, just beginning the process of online education, whether in online, stay-at-home businesses or in some other form of Internet commerce, the real opportunity for service and for success rests with the novice, the “newbie,” and not in restating the same message to the same followers in the same way, day in and day out, online, whether through social media or whatever!
It is nice to be back with a fresh set of eyes and a new perspective. Often, the best way to understand something is to step away long enough, and in this case, far enough to be able to see the forest for the trees.
John
Professor John P. J. Zajaros, Sr.
216-712-6526
216-539-7412
Skype: johnzajaros1
johnz@johnzajaros.com
Making Decisions and Success: The Single-Most Important Step You Should Make in the Decision Making Process!
We make hundreds of decisions a day, everything from when to get up in the morning to when to go to bed; and, to reduce this to the ridiculous, we even decide when to close our eyes and go to sleep! Everything we do in the course of our lives involves a decision making process, conscious or unconscious…and some would add subconscious to this.
So, how do we train ourselves to make the best decision possible in each and every instance?
Well, some people would say we can’t, that there are simply too many decisions in our lives to monitor and direct the implementation of each and every one, and they’d be right…sort of!
“Sort of!” being a technical phrase only used by the most precise and discerning of scientists and statisticians…and a few bloggers with too many ransom thoughts of their own to deal with. And that’s another decision: Which ones to share with others?
The fact is, we cannot hope to make every decision made on our behalf by our brain during the course of a day, we turn it over to our mind, our collective consciousness, or our subconscious. We also trust our experience in such matters, and this is a good and a not-so-good thing, because experiences can be deceiving.
Experiences are shaped by our perceptions which are shaped by past events and our responses and decisions to those events. That’s not a scientific definition, that’s my own. This is the scientific one:
Experience as a general concept or construct includes knowledge of or skill in or observation of some thing or some event gained through involvement in or exposure to that thing or event. The history of the word experience aligns it closely with the concept of experiment….The concept of experience generally refers to know-how or procedural knowledge, rather than propositional knowledge. Philosophers dub knowledge based on experience “empirical knowledge” or “a posteriori knowledge”. (Source: Wikipedia).
Keep in mind that even this definition is based on someone’s experience, in fact it is contributed by an individual, or the collective experience of a group of people, as is referenced by the philosophers’ take on the definition and application of experience.
The essence of decision making, its foundation, is rooted in experience, whether good or bad, correct or incorrect, right or wrong. As we seek to make decisions concerning issues or situations we are unfamiliar with we seek out information, either directly, as in word-of-mouth, first hand experience of others or through information and experience passed down from others and progressively reshaped and reformed by the experiences of each individual in the chain. The problem with the former arises when the person consulted is wrong or has faulty information and is not in a position to be an authority. The issue with the latter is one of misperception, second-hand knowledge, and the bias that comes along with it, and error through misapplication or misunderstanding. In other words, in either event, the experience you draw upon to make a decision, if it is not your own, and even if it is, may be faulty and inaccurate…thus leading to erroneous decisions.
So how do we avoid making error after error in our daily lives, particularly when it comes to the really big decisions?
Part of the answer rests in our own trial and error experience. we usually stumble upon either the correct response or at least one that is acceptable over time; again, our experience. The difference between being good enough and being an expert may be significant enough that good enough is acceptable for many tasks and applications. However, for those tasks that require a correct response, when good enough simply won’t do, what do we do then?
Well, when it has to be right, when we are starting something that matters to us and/or others and we must get it right? We usually call on a trusted authority for help, generally someone we know, like, and trust. But who qualifies as a trusted authority, number one? And, if we don’t know of one, how do we establish whether or not someone has the reputation, and the street credit, the business sense or the personal integrity, to have faith in and for us to put our trust in them and their experience?
This is often done on what is called blind faith! Often, if we choose correctly, we get a combination of two phrases that have grown out of such expressions of trust over time:
Blind faith! and Blind, or dumb, luck!
Really, why?
Think about it!
In most instances we place our complete trust and faith in someone else’s experience and how they’ve shaped their decision-making which is based on experiences unique to them, their lives and their personal experiences, not yours. So, if you aren’t dealing in something that is exactly and appropriately applicable, the decision may be based in incorrect or misapplied data, theirs not yours!
How do we rectify this? How do we resolve this without going through life blindly following experts with experiences that simply don’t translate well, if at all, to your situation?
Three words: Know, like, and trust!
But is that enough?
No!
There is another ingredient and it takes us full circle back to our decision-making process:
Experience!
But how do we get experience with someone to base our experience with that someone?
Here we have what Yul Brenner, The King in The King and I, would call a puzzlement!
Like every other experience and every decision we make on autopilot every day, it is done incrementally. Or, as Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfus would have said in What About Bob?
Baby steps!
We give people a little bit of our trust and we incrementally allow them a little more and a little more until we “trust them!” And, their judgement!
This is how we learn absolutely everything from crawling and walking to talking and speaking a foreign language…incrementally. We also allow others into our lives and allow them to shape our decision-making incrementally. To do otherwise is folly!
And yet, we do just this every day on the Internet, in our businesses, with our money, with our very lives. We turn over the reins to others on basically nothing more than a say-so, our gut, because it feels right, instinct! This is incongruent and flies in the face of everything we have learned, everything we know. It is contrary to sound knowledge and our own experience! And yet, it happens time and again!
I often hear things like:
“Well, he had a great presentation.”
“Jim is going with it and he is almost never wrong.” (almost!)
“I’ve been reading their material for weeks now and it feels right!”
Or the best one of all:
“What do I have to lose? It seems like a no-brainer!”
Decisions, experience, and the antithesis:
Impulse!
Marketers thrive on it, they live for it, they feed on it, they depend on it!
Experience and well-thought-out decision making:
The antithesis of impulse and the real secret to prosperous living!
This is incomplete! The fact is, I could go on for days. But if you take away anything from thins I hope that it will be the following:
Only base decisions on sound experience, either yours or that of someone you know, like, and trust. Additionally, make sure it is someone who has earned your trust incrementally and over time! Be wary of anything that happens quickly, depends on a deadline, a limited supply, or anyone who insists on your trust before you are ready to give it.
Never do anything unless it can be done incrementally, and then test, test, and test!
No matter how good the deal and no matter how great the price, there will be another offer along in 5 minutes, so never jump at scarcity and a deadline!
If it can’t wait, it can…permanently!
Whatever goes around comes around and if an offer is that good, it will be just as good next week, next month or next year…or you can do without it! Trust no one that tells you anything different! If someone has a quality product and is part of a reputable firm, they will withstand scrutiny and they will offer their wares on a continuous basis. The rest is flash and it is designed to rid you of one thing…your cash!
This started as a blog about decisions and experience, it grew outside the framework of my outline into something even more important, something that affects all of us in one way or another: Impulse!
Once again, impulse is the enemy of experience and flies in the face of sound decision-making!
If you are pressed into a decision and you don’t have all the facts. If you are pressed into a decision and you lack the experience to make a sound evaluation and decision. If you are pressed to making a decision and you lack the experience; and, you don’t have access to someone you know, like, and trust, and has been a confidant over time, pass!
Experience is a great teacher!
Unfortunately, bad experiences are the best teacher!
Make sound decisions based on the above and avoid impulsivity and you you will prosper!
John
Professor John P. J. Zajaros, Sr.
216-712-6526 (home)
216-539-7412 (bus)
Skype: johnzajaros1
johnz@johnzajaros.com
I recently received a CD from Tony Robbins, it is from his Power Talk series and is a bonus for The New Money Masters members. In many ways, this is the most important and certainly, at least in my opinion, the wisest and most useful recording I have received from Tony Robbins since Personal Power II!
The recording defines success in terms of consistency, noting that “it is consistency that creates the fabric of success for a lifetime” and offers a new word to remember and apply this definition, this concept of and for success.
I have been thinking about this almost nonstop since receiving the CD a couple of weeks ago, and it has taken me back to the recording of The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale and to Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich.
But Google does this one better. Because of the time constraints on YouTube videos, yes even for the masters like Nightingale, Hill, and now Tony Robbins and Brian Tracy…the videos and recordings must be segmented. The power isn’t lost when you can go right from part one to part two, and so on, in video format. However, I feel something is lost when attempting to follow an audio recording in such a manner. There is something magical about listening to Earl Nightingale uninterrupted.
Fortunately, Google offers the entire audio version of The Strangest Secret free!
The Strangest Secret, listened to from beginning to end in one sitting, is one of the most important recordings in terms of self-improvement, understanding the power of setting and achieving goals, and the true definition of success ever made…period! If you have not listened to the entire thing, you must do so at once…it will change your life!
But wait until you finish this article and have a look around…OK?!
I listened to Earl Nightingale for the first time in the mid-1970s and I have listened to it hundreds of times since, literally! I pull it out every few weeks and particularly when I feel my life getting a bit off course. The power of this single life-lesson is awesome and the lessons immediately applicable…in any of life’s arenas!
“Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal!”
The definition above has become ingrained in ever person who has ever had the pleasure of listening to, and applying, The Strangest Secret!
Interestingly, Tony Robbins has re-introduced many of the same concepts and philosophies in a new concept he calls CANI!
CANI! Means consistent and never ending improvement!
The Tony Robbins synthesis takes into account the teachings of the early masters and expands upon them by integrating the notion of kaizen, the Japanese word for constant, consistent, and incremental improvement over time, generally used in the context of business and thought to have emerged in Post World War II Japan.
In the aforementioned episode of Power Talk, Tony Robbins introduces the concept of kaizen to his listeners. Robbins expands on the concept of kaizen, and subsequently introduces CANI!. Both terms are introduced in relation to the work of William Edwards Deming, known by many as simply W. Edwards Deming or Edwards Deming, the father of the industrial turnaround in Post WWII Japan. Kaizen, a concept integrated into a way of doing business, but also applied generally to how one lives their life, catapulted Japan from being known for “cheap” products, meaning the manufacture of substandard products in my youth, to being know for the finest quality in the world within a period of a few short years.
Interestingly, and as noted above, the concept of kaizen, the “Japanese way of doing business,” has its origins in an American, W. Edwards Deming, who is still revered throughout Japan, even today. By extension, Tony Robbins thought it appropriate to apply an American term, one he originated, to the American concept and came up with an American term…CANI!
CANI! means constant and never ending improvement.
If you think about it, CANI!, or whatever you decide to call it, is the basis for success…in business and in life. Combined with notions as old as “seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you” and, “ask and ye shall receive,” all the way up to the present day CANI!…the message is the same:
Success is a progression towards a worthy goal and/or ideal…or whatever! As long as the “whatever” is quite specific and the the progression is consistent and never ending!
In other words: CANI!
Why do people fail?
People fail for a myriad of reasons but it all comes down to four things:
1) A ship without a rudder! No goals, no idea where they have been; and, worse yet, no clear idea where they are going!
2) No passion! No idea what they want. People who fail lack a burning desire, something…anything…that captures the imagination and inspires massive action!
3) No consistency! Many think they know what they want, and may even have an idea how to get there! But they lack consistent effort, they work in spurts and quit before half way there!
4) They quit! This ties into number 3 and is the biggest reason for failure! “Winners never quit and quitters never win!” I can’t tell you how many times I have witnessed failure on the brink of success. I have witnessed people quitting just before a promotion was about to be offered, before a deal was about to close, before a goal was about to be achieved!
Quitting is the deadliest of all success killers and it is a habit. Avoid quitting at all costs!
Well, it is on this topic and will get you pointed in the right direction, it relates well to the whole notion of a rudderless ship, goals, and consistency of action…quitting on the verge of success. I hope you enjoy it!
Ultimately, success means something different to and for everyone…but how you succeed is one of life’s hard and fast rules:
Success is a progression, a progressive journey toward a worthy ideal!
Whether kaizen or CANI! or some other phrase or term…the end result is the same if you apply it…success!
The end result is also the same if you do not…failure!
It is more difficult, and more painful, to fail! And yet, many seem to choose it. Incredible as it seems, with a road map in front of us, we still get off course and get lost!
The decision is yours:
Consistent and never ending improvement?
Or
Failure, pain, and remorse!
Success, like quitting, is a habit. That’s why I love The Strangest Secret, Think and Grow Rich, and Personal Power II…they are all about setting and achieving goals, building one day on the day before, one 30 day challenge upon the last…until you have created a habit and a lifetime of success!
Progressively achieving worthwhile goals in a lifetime of progress!
A lifetime filled with success!
John
John Zajaros
216-712-6526
Skype: johnzajaros1
johnz@johnzajaros.com
Life delivers in direct proportion to your belief that all things are possible. When coupled with a burning desire, forged by sheer determination, and driven by concrete action, the meaning of life comes into view, it happens, becomes real. In Internet marketing, as well as in all aspects of business and, in life in general, it is not enough to simply want or desire something. Wanting, wishing, desiring, and/or hoping will not, in and of itself yield the desired results. In order to convert ifs and wishes to a tangible and lasting reality, an aggressive, forward-thinking concrete plan of action must be envisioned, designed, initiated, and carried out. In order to succeed in any of life’s arenas, and there are a myriad, you must be willing to burn your ships! I said burn your ships, not your bridges!
The funny thing about life is that it will provide in the exact measure and to the nth degree…but you must ask of it. Once asked, life will offer and one must be in tune with, and receptive to, its message.
There is a statement attributed to the Bible that applies here, and I paraphrase:
God always listens and answers the prayers of His children. However, He answers them in His own way and in His own time. Interestingly, the answer we wish for, the answer we desire, and the answer He provides for us are not always the same…but He does answer. He also answers in His own time!
I don’t believe God, however you envision Him, Her or It, whether as some fire and brimstone, burning bush kind of God or as simply an Infinite Intelligence providing order and balance to the Universe (capital “U”), He does not always respond as if we were receiving a Western Union telegram. The fact that the answer to our prayers is often obscure, that it isn’t a subject line scrolling on endlessly at the bottom of our 55” Mitsubishi widescreen television like a news update, does not diminish the power of our prayer or His answer…
We simply, or not so simply, must be in tune with the Universe and His message!
The ironic thing about all of this is that our ability to hear, really hear His message does not diminish the role and/or efficacy of prayer or whatever you want to call your communication, your communion with Infinite Intelligence.
In other words, prayer, as with desire, our communication must be a fervent request, a burning desire, and not simply some wishy-washy, kinda-sorta-gotta-hafta message to the Almighty.
The prayer, the message, the communication, the communion must be passionate, it must be from a place deep inside of you, it must be from that ache deep in your soul, within your very being or self that no man or woman can quench.
Your desire must be a fire that consumes you!
The problem with most prayer, with most desire, and with most goals is that they are in fact wishy-washy and kinda-sorta-gotta-hafta messages. The messages, whether to a God, an Infinite Intelligence, or to the Subconscious are simply amorphous masses of gobbledygook that can’t possibly mean doodley-squat to anyone…even to one’s Self!
Hence we come full circle to the point of this message, that it is in fact the message and how it is delivered that takes us to a place where are able to receive His answer…because the answer will be all around us and will in a very real sense take the form of a burning bush.
The challenge?
If we are wishy-washy in our message, we will get nothing or worse than nothing back!
How can an answer be worse than nothing?
Well, it’s kind of like how we understand computers. The Mind and/or the Self is just one big computer; and, if you believe in a God, or not (?), linked to every other computer in the Universe in some sort of mass, information sharing network, an information highway, if you will. Interestingly, even if you don’t believe in a Supreme Being per se but in some sort of Infinite Intelligence or simply, or not-so-simply an Interconnectedness, an Interrelationship with every other form of energy in the Universe, all working together en-mass to some future end we are simply too small to understand or envision, our prayer, our message has real power…or none at all.
It is the “none at all” that confounds us, perplexes us, and puts us in a place where we not only disbelieve. You see, in such instances, we are incapable of receiving because we are not in tune! We just aren’t on the same frequency, and so we dismiss the efficacy of prayer, of communication with a God or our Selves. We fail because we are doing it wrong and are thus incapable of hearing and/or seeing the response, much less envisioning it…a response all around us and screaming to be seen, heard and felt, to be lived!
The lessons here?
1) We must have a clear and concise vision of what it is we are asking for. It is not enough to kinda-sorta-hafta want something.
2) Along the lines of number one, we must want whatever it is we are asking for! We must really want it with a burning desire, a burning desire in the pit of our very Soul! It must be physical, a visceral response whenever we think about it!
3) Once we know what we want, we must then ask for it, send a message to God, Infinite Intelligence, to our Selves in such a way that it is simply impossible for it not to be heard.
4) Next, we must transform our desire into action. Not simply a desire though, a burning desire, into a clear and concise plan, a concrete plan of action as Napoleon Hill would say. Something magical happens when we envision a result, something we want with every fiber of our being, we become a magnet. However, and this is crucial, we must be moving in the right direction, with the proper mindset, or the messages, the signals, and/or the answers, and there will be many, to our prayers will be lost…we will never hear them!
5) Finally, we need to be receptive. It is not enough to want, ask, and implement…we must also tune in. The messages will be all around us, it is our responsibility, in fact it is a requirement for continued success, that we align ourselves with God, the Universe, Infinite Intelligence, and/or our Selves in such as way as to not only hear the messages and signals we will receive but to feel them…and to act accordingly. Without this ingredient, we will ultimately lose that link and the answers will cease.
Ache!
Ask!
Answer!
Apply!
But is that enough, will that do it? If we have a burning desire, get in touch with Infinite Intelligence, tune in, and act…is that enough?
No!
The final ingredient is a biggie! Biggie being a technical term!
The final component in this master plan, the road map taking a burning desire and placing it and your Self on the road to success?
Burn your ships!
Ah!
Bet you thought I forgot about that one? Burning your ships is the final piece of the puzzle, the linchpin that holds all of the above together, it is not only necessary, it is essential.
Burning your ships?
You must remember two things about history, it repeats itself and it is written by the victors and the survivors. A similar story to the Cortez “myth” (based in fact), has been attributed to Sun Tzu, and a historical parallel has recently come to light, via the movie 300. 300 is the retelling of the heroic and inspiring last stand of the Spartans’ stand against a vastly superior Persian army.
History is revised throughout history by each subsequent generation and thus is not a static re-telling but an ever-changing mythology.
What does that mean?
Well, let’s use this as an example, it’s one you may be familiar with:
Start a rumor at one end of a row of 50 people. By the time you get to the end of the row, the story has morphed into something entirely different, rarely resembling the original story.
The same applies to history…ours, there’s, everyone’s!
The illustrative aspect in the story of the Spartans is that almost everyone perished. Burning your ships is not without its share of risk, and it is certainly not for the faint-hearted and/or inexperienced, and certainly never for those with a sorta-hafta-wanna mentality. Burning your ships is for those totally committed, with a clear, well-thought out action plan before them.
Do not!
I repeat!
Do not quit your job, burning your ships, which may also result in burning your bridges, until you are ready. The ships, by the way, Cortez may have simply damaged them, not burned them…as a point of historical accuracy. He also made sure the supplies and provisions were safe-guarded first.
In other words, do not go off and quit your job tomorrow but make sure all of the components above are in place first…and make sure this is indeed a burning, speaking of burning, an ache in your gut, an all-consuming desire, and you have a clear and concise action plan that has been properly tested.
In other words, don’t jump into the English Channel to swim to France if you can’t do anything more than the doggy paddle! You will drown! Regardless of how badly you might like to run the Boston Marathon, if this is your first day running after back surgery, it ain’t happening!
Not yet, anyway. And that’s the key!
Make sure you have a burning desire, a concrete plan, and the tools…and then go for it!
Ultimately, achieving your goals and satisfying your burning desire still requires planning and managing your actions. Every endeavor in life and every goal contains a degree of uncertainty and risk, but risk in and of itself should never keep you from aching, asking, listening for the answer, and acting! Through proper implantation of a concrete and concise plan of action, achieving your burning desire is not only a possibility, it is a reality. Go for it!
I would like to invite you to one of my other blogs, The Internet Marketing Quest Revealed. With The John Zajaros Blog I am attempting to develop a central hub, a single place from which people can jump off to my various web properties, my Internet real estate. So, whether you are looking for information about Internet marketing, online business in a variety of niches, back pain and sciatica, online or in-home tutoring, soccer training tips, football training information, the coolest new stuffed animals and innovative, novel toys on the market, addiction information, the ultimate weight loss plans and more You can come here and then jump off to wherever you need to go…through The John Zajaros Blog.
Or perhaps you simply want to connect with me by way of the various social networking sites like Twitter, facebook, or LinkedIn to name just a few…The John Zajaros Blog will get you there or at least get you started (see the sidepanels for more) !
It seems longer, almost an eternity ago. I was living my life from pain pill to pain pill…more like PAIN PILL to PAIN PILL…and doctor’s appointment to hospital stay. It certainly doesn’t seem like a matter of months…it seems like a lifetime ago! Yet, as I think back, it really wasn’t that long ago at all! So, how did I get here? How did it all happen so fast? Is it important to tell my story at all?
Well, to the last question I would say yes…but then, I am somewhat biased. Not egocentric, mind you, just somewhat biased.
You see, I think my story is important. The story isn’t important in the “Here I am!” and “See what I did!” or “Look what I have!” sense but it is in the “See what I’ve been able to accomplish and you can too!” sense. The story is important if only to give someone else hope, to assure others that, no matter how dark their present may be, there is an alternative future just beyond the range of their sight, beyond the horizon, just out of their grasp. It is a life-lesson, passed on from me to you, assuring you that you can get there, wherever and whatever there is for you, if you simply persevere and remember that someone else, in this case yours truly, has been there before you, with you, and has done it, whatever it is…so you can too!
This seems to be a time for baring of the soul, telling how we got here, sharing the trials and tribulations that brought us to the point of self-realization, self-discovery, and finally, of self-knowledge.
But that is way ahead of the story…way ahead of it!
Before we get to all the self-actualization “stuff,” to use a technical term…cuz everybodies got “stuff“! Just ask George Carlin!
Oops! Got off the subject with George there. Hope you came back! Or, better yet, click the link later. It will be worth it, too funny…and true!
Back to self-discovery:
Self-actualization is a term that has been used by psychologists in a variety of ways and for a long time now. The interesting thing about the term self-actualization is that the term is used in slightly different ways by different psychologists at different times. In many instances, as with history itself, psychological thought is a reflection of the times it was written in as much as it is or was about the subject matter itself. While a topic for a different time and a different article, it is interesting to note that our history, and much of social scientific and physical scientific theory seems to reflect the period it was written in, as much as being a reflection of the thought or theory itself. Meaning, like it or not, we see the world in terms of the world we live in…and that is a very difficult bronco to buck!
So, as we seek to understand ourselves, we also need to take a hard look at our context, how we are living our lives and who is shaping our beliefs, consciously or unconsciously…some would say subconsciously.
OK! Back to self-actualization. To quote Wikipedia (Why not? Everyone else does!): “The term was originally introduced by the organismic theorist Kurt Goldstein for the motive to realise [sic] all of one’s potentialities. In his view, it is the master motive—indeed, the only real motive a person has, all others being merely manifestations of it. However, the concept was brought to prominence in Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory {Tim Schmidt has incorporated this nicely into his Tribal Marketing concept!} as the final level of psychological development that can be achieved when all basic and mental needs are fulfilled and the “actualisation” of the full personal potential takes place.
In other words, as a consequence of our life-lessons, by way of a journey of self-discovery and the eventual fulfillment of the needs below on the pyramid, below self-actualization on the hierarchy, we come to an awareness of our full potential, our “full personal potential” or our “potentialities.”
I would argue that there is, in fact, a degree above this, true self-actualization takes place when we implement our potentialities, when we put our selves (spelled put our a##es) into gear and get going with the business of living…thus achieving our true potential or potentialities, whatever that or they may be!
Just to be clear, because the image, when transferred, blackened out the labels somewhat, the lowest level of needs in Mazlow’s hierarchy are physiological. Next up on the pyramid are the needs associated with safety. Then come the needs associated with love and belonging. The next level up are the needs related to esteem, and this is where most people get stuck…if they get to this level at all. And finally, we reach the peak of Mazlow’s Hierarchy of Needs, those needs labeled as self-actualizing, or simply self-actualization!
Whether you agree with the whole of self-actualization theory and Mazlow’s Hierarchy of Needs or not, it seems apparent, at least to me, that we all search for a purpose, something larger than ourselves to identify with and to incorporate into our schema of the world, the meaningful world we seek to identify with and become linked to.
Why do you think social media is so popular, aside from the whole issue of marketing…spam notwithstanding? It’s because we all seek to attach ourselves to something or someone greater than ourselves! Notice the emphasis here on selves! Something or someone exciting, larger than life if you will…and certainly larger than our lives! Our current lives anyway, the lives many of us wish we could escape, or at least change drastically!
So what is stopping us?
Well, I hear a lot of gobbledygook phrases (wait to click it until after you’ve finished the article, OK?!) like:
Inertia!
Take action!
Visualize!
Whatever the mind can conceive and believe…
You know the remainder of the last one, you finished it without me even writing it out here, didn’t you?
…it can achieve!
Change your state!
Huh? What? How?
We all know the catch phrases, we all know the goobledygook terms…but how the heck do we implement them and what has to happen in our lives, to our lives, in order to get us to the point where we:
1.) Counter the inertia that is our life!
2.) Take the necessary action because we simply can’t stand the pain of inaction any longer!
3.) Get to a point where or when, although it may be difficult, if not seemingly impossible, we know there must be something, anything that ranks higher on the life-satisfaction scale than our lives do now. Something out there that ranks higher in terms of satisfaction, reward, meaning, and here’s the million dollar word…potential!
It is the potentiality, the possibility of potentiality, that will ultimately fuel our action, breaking through the inertia of our inaction that is our lives! Without belief in the possibility of potentiality…we are doomed!
That takes me back to my story!
Phew! Thought we’d never get back here, didn’t you?
The fact is, I thought I was doomed! I was absolutely, totally, completely, utterly, finally (get the idea?) doomed! That was my mindset, just roll me over and stick a fork in me…I was done!
Here I was at the time, a 53 year old guy with a huge gap in his employment history because of catastrophic illness (almost dying in the process-see below). I had finally come through several surgeries to save my life after doctor after doctor (some of the “best” in the word), and hospital after hospital (also a few of the “best,” like the Cleveland Clinic) misdiagnosed me, or didn’t bother to diagnose me at all.
I actually had one doctor, I had to admire is honesty, who told me my back was too big a mess for him to handle and he’d, “rather not touch it!”
Yup! Doomed!
I was in so much pain, I couldn’t crawl to the bathroom, literally. It was horrible! I was on so much pain medication that when I finally found a surgeon willing to operate, I almost couldn’t find an anesthesiologist to do the honors! That would have been the height of irony…and about my luck back then! Fortunately, I found a guy, a good one, who was willing to take me on and it ended up saving my life.
Osteomyelitis!
They woke me up in the recovery room to one of those good news-bad news lines:
“Mr. Zajaros,” who cared if they got the title wrong, “the bad news is, we couldn’t fix your back.”
“Mr. Zajaros,” did it again, “the good news is, we found a massive staph infection throughout the vertebrae and the surrounding tissue. We think it may have been in there for several years…and you are going to live!”
I have to tell you, the pain when you wake up from spine surgery is worse than anything you can possibly imagine! You really think death would be a relief, it’s that bad. But at least I knew all the pain I had experienced up to that moment was not in my head, there was a reason, it was based in a medical reality; and, that was strangely satisfying. Just knowing that I hadn’t imagined it all, that it wasn’t “in my head,” that it wasn’t “rebound pain” or some other ridiculous misdiagnosis…
…I was relieved.
Little did I know, the battle of my life was just beginning.
That was May of 2000.
Several more surgeries, many years in hospitals, yes years, and I can’t tell you how many pills, bills, and doctors I went through on my way to recovery.
“Recovery?”
I walked away from a comfortable 6 figure a year job (well, they got tired of waiting for me to get well and put me on leave), spent months going through our retirement, 401k, IRAs, everything we owned, including the better of the two vehicles (a brand new minivan we had payed cash for), to keep from living in a box…or in the back of a 1992 Chevrolet Cavalier Station Wagon!
Had it not been for amazing friends and the help of Catholic Charities, we would have been homeless, evicted while I was in the hospital having surgery number 13…of 14 or 15?! We had run out of time…and money! Thank goodness we still had friends!
We moved…started over.
Operation.
Moved…started over.
Operation.
Moved…started over.
Operation. Addiction (there is no such thing as a “controlled addiction,” physician monitored or not). Depression. Blackness.
I felt utterly and completely doomed!
Then, in March of 2007, I fell while walking out our door and down the front walk. The winter had lifted the sidewalk and I didn’t notice it. That is, until I was falling into the bumper of my in-laws new pickup truck, denting the bumper with my head, ripping open my scalp (100+ stitches), and the concrete sidewalk (crushing my shoulder). The osteomyelitis had weakened my bones, when I say I crushed my shoulder, I mean it was almost completely destroyed, they pinned it back and rebuilt it as well as possible but, as you can see from the videos, it is still quite a mess!
While recovering from the reconstruction, yet another operation if you are keeping track (15 by now), I had a pulmonary embolism, along with another large clot in my shoulder, congestive heart failure, and a myriad of other health consequences and complications.
By April of 2007 there was little left of our previous existence, I should say our previous lives…because what we were doing by 2007 was existing. We no longer had our lives, we muddled through each day, I on the sectional or in the recliner, taking pain pills to kill the pain, physical and psychological, in pain 24/7, severely depressed, truly at the and of things…all things…or so I thought.
I was doomed in every sense of the word…except one…I had an amazing wife and family!
Each time our standard of living dropped and our prospects diminished…my self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-worth with them! Yet, my family never gave up on me and I never saw anything but love and respect in their eyes. I will never forget that, I can never adequately express my feelings concerning it…or ever repay what it meant to me or did for me.
I will work the rest of my life, for them, that is my burning desire…my one thing!
It literally kept me alive…their love!
You know, it seems like everyone has a near death story, it’s almost the new Horatio Alger, Rags to Riches thing….
As an aside:Horatio Alger wrote rags to riches stories, yet at the time of his death he was living with his sister and brother in law, he never made a lot of money from his writing. His image today is somewhat tarnished by rumor and innuendo, another tragic fatality of revisionism and conjecture in historical research. But the American Dream, the ideal of a rags to riches life of achievement based on honesty, hard work, integrity, and ingenuity is embedded in American social culture at least in part due to his stories.
Anyway, back to the recent wave of “I Survived…Buy from Me!” stories!
< For a moment, anyway!
Or
“I Survived the Black Death and Learned 12 Life-Lessons! You can learn them all for $997 and $97 per month!”
Or
“How I turned lessons learned from the plague! Yes, the actual Black Death, I survived and turned it into a marketing miracle, you can too!”
“Get your ‘I Had a Heart Attack and Now I Para-Sail in Cancun!’ Home Study Kit!”
OK! Maybe the last one is a bit much…but just barely! Maybe they para-glide off of Mt Everest!
My point is, illness and disease, near death experience and all the baggage that comes with it has sadly, almost tragically become cliche! Amazingly, the rags to riches stories have too! We have, as a society, a nation, even a world of skeptics. We have become jaded, not knowing who or what to believe. It’s sad, almost tragic.
And, if we do believe…so what? What does it mean?
Well, I really don’t know…what it means!
The only reason I’ve told you as much as I have, and I have waited quite a while to do that, is to get you to this point, to the here and now of this article…so you will get what comes next…I hope!
By April of 2007 I was ready to throw in the towel, quite literally! Had it not been for my family, and the knowledge of what it would do to them, I would not be here today. I am not being overly melodramatic, I am being brutally honest when I tell you that I was in so much pain, physically and psychologically, I was ready to leave this world.
Nothing had changed, I still felt doomed.
I had come to the rubicon, I was either going to commit to life, giving it everything I had one last time…or I was out of here!
So, I checked myself into a clinic, got off the pain medication, went through 28 days of meetings, treatment, the whole ball of wax, and got clean and sober! It was one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do. Remember, I was on prescription pain medication for a legitimate chronic pain condition, I had been through 15 major surgeries. And, I was totally, hopelessly addicted. There was absolutely no way I was getting off of the pain medication on my own…no way!
It had been 10 years…and remember how hard it was to even get an anesthesiologist! And that had been 7 years before, in May of 2000!
The treatment was an ordeal, at first it was brutal. Again, getting off of the medication was one of the most difficult things I have ever been through, but it worked and the fog started to lift; and, so did my mood. You see, once I got off the pain medication, I started to believe other things might be possible! I even talked about working again and, to my amazement, my family didn’t discourage me, also something new.
Here we are at the beginning of the article!
I’m a 53 year old guy, a huge hole in my employment record, a catastrophic illness just behind me, overqualified with almost 3 decades of achievement in business and academia, including a doctoral fellowship at one of the most prestigious academic consortiums in the country, perhaps the world, and I can’t get a job. I can’t even get an interview. Every day I go out, make calls, fill out applications and every day nothing. I started to get the old feelings again.
Was I…doomed?
I have to say, feeling mentally sharp and being rejected every day was humiliating. And, it was the first time in my life I saw another expression in my family’s eyes…pity!
Pity!
Was I imagining it? Certainly I felt ashamed, even humiliated, by the whole experience. The economy hadn’t hit bottom, but it was heading there, yet I still felt like I should be able to get a job, something…anything!? And yet there I was, each and every day, more ashamed and more humiliated than the day before.
Heck!
I didn’t even get called back for a pizza delivery job. And I’m not talking about Papa John’s or Domino’s, I’m talking about the neighborhood pizza shack! The owner with his belly hanging over his belt, dirty t-shirt, the whole deal. That’s where I was! That’s what I would have accepted! Just to get someone to say, “Yes!” to me!
Then, I got a call from BP!
Yup!
The gas station people. Not for a management position, not for an assistant manager position, also known as the night manager, not even for full time work, days or nights, but for a part-time counter person working afternoons, 3 days a week. That was it…after weeks of looking, a part-time job at a gas station/convenience store down the street from my house.
Well, I almost took it. In fact, I went in, interviewed for the job, passed the background screening and credit checks, was set to start…and didn’t!
You see, I knew one thing with a certainty that was so clear it was frightening, I knew if I took that job I was in fact…doomed! I can’t tell you how or why, but I just knew.
That night, the night I made that decision, I asked my daughter if she knew anything about building websites and would she help me. Well, as much time as she was on the computer, I figured she would know, right? Wrong! But I knew enough to stumble upon (yup! pun intended) the right resources, constructed a website, placed a few ads, and by the end of the night had put my education to work and had built an online and in-home tutoring business. It had been in front of me the whole time! I had tutored kids for years before getting sick. I love kids, teaching, coaching, it was a natural!
At first?
Nothing!
Surprise anyone out there?
I got very discouraged, this would be the final humiliation if I failed at this…I just couldn’t do it again…or so I thought at the time.
Enter an email from Anthony Garcia, a very nice guy who works for Tony Robbins. Well, I talked a bit to Anthony via email and on the phone, told him my story, a little of it anyway, and he was very kind and offered me some encouragement, some words of advice, and was just in the right spot at the right time.
Interestingly, I don’t think any of us realize the real power of a kind word or gesture at just the right moment. In this case, the right gesture, at precisely the right moment kept me on track, gave me enough of a push to go just one more day.
Do any of us realize we have that sort of power?
I wonder!
Anyway, a short time after that Tony Robbins started video blogging, vlogging, and he was online quite frequently. Having purchased one of his original programs, Personal Power II (I still have it on my desk) years before, I have always followed his career and watched for his products, purchasing them when I felt the need. So, when I discovered this free resource and his videos, I felt I had hit the mother lode!
In fact, Tony said in one video that he would stay up all or most of the night reading the comments from people. Well, one of those people was me, and I was moved by the message in one of his videos, so I commented and mentioned how much Anthony’s kindness had meant to me and what a difference it had made in keeping me on track…just that simple act of kindness. Well, one night he must have read my comment because I got a response, then a call from Anthony, and then a pretty amazing gesture from Tony himself.
The gesture was a small one in the grand scheme of things and I never did take him up on the offer. However, the gesture kept me going, inspired me to “pay it forward,” in fact my email address and the semi-annual “Zoobies for Kids” is inspired by Tony’s action and the challenge he made to pay the kindness forward. I have…and I do!
After that?
I started to get a nibble, then a bite, and before long I was working…and I mean really working my tail off!
One thing lead to another, I worked and I began to study. I started looking at Internet marketing as a second doctorate, this one in entrepreneurial science..so to speak. So, I consumed everything on Internet marketing I could find! I got some great stuff and I got ripped off…sound familiar?
In the end? I’m not there yet! I now have over 5 separate enterprises and close to 50 blogs and websites going, with more in the works. I literally have trouble keeping up and am looking for help now, full time help! John Zajaros, who almost took a menial, 3 days a week job for next to nothing! Imagine what my life, my self-esteem would be like…never mind speaking of potentialities!
I am still learning, growing, and evolving into the entrepreneur I have been for most of my adult life. I started my first business in 1974, 19 and just out of the Army. And, aside from my stint in academia and as Indiana Zajaros trotting the globe, I have been involved as an entrepreneur, primarily in sales and marketing, my whole life…usually as a business owner but occassionally as a top sales representative.
This is just in a different arena now, one with new rules, one with limitless possibilities.
However, had I quit, given up, rolled over and played dead, or worse, I wouldn’t be succeeding in the manner I am today.
Had I not taken the necessary steps to reclaim my life and then followed through, as painful as it was at the time, I would not be facing the amazing future I am today.
Had I taken that menial job…how different would my life be today? Talk about self-esteem and self-worth!
Had Anthony Garcia not been put in my path, sent me that email, made that call?
Had I not answered his phone call!?
Had Tony Robbins decided to spend time doing something else that night, instead of being online with his videos, answering comments, making one small gesture….
So much for coincidence!
This has become a tome instead of an article…I dread the thought of proofreading it!
My point here is that if I can do this, so can you…anyone can! It is simply a matter of perseverance, determination, and faith!
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