Or: Persistence, Determination, Honesty, Integrity, and a Bucket of Oysters
Whenever I think about positive mental attitude statements and affirmations, my mind always comes back to Erma Bombeck’s classic title:
If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?
Talk about effective marketing!
Recently, I had the pleasure of listening to Eben Pagan interview Joe Sugarman, one of the greatest copywriters and direct marketers of our era, the founder of BluBlocker Sun Glasses. Joe Sugarman sold millions of BluBlockers and made millions of dollars in the process. The story is an interesting one, one for another day.
In the interview, Eben and Joe discussed many topics, topics related to marketing, success, and life. I recommend it if you can find a copy, it is well worth the time.
Of all the topics discussed, the topic of persistence piqued my interest. Persistence and determination are among of my favorite topics, along with desire, perception, perspective, and assumption…as you well know, particularly if you have visited any of my blogs.
You see, I believe the most crucial ingredient, the characteristic that defines us and determines our success, is persistence.
In my opinion, and in the opinion of many men and women smarter than I, persistence, and its partner determination, are central and recurring themes in almost every success story I have ever listened to, read, witnessed or been a part of…including my own.
Persistence, when combined with determination and honesty, almost always assures one’s success long term.
If integrity and honesty are not part of your makeup, all of your effort will be for naught.
No one can sustain success long term without integrity and honesty!
Getting back to the teleseminar with Joe Sugarman and Eben Pagan, Joe Sugarman made an interesting comparison, one worth sharing:
Life is like a bucket of oysters. In life, we are guaranteed
success if we persist. In the bucket, we know there is at
least one pearl. Opening the oysters is hard work and quite
often we end up cutting our hands, getting discouraged,
and wondering if it is all worth it when we are only half
way through. However, we know there is a pearl in the
bucket…if we just keep digging for it!
That is exactly like life!
The sad thing about it?
Many people end up losing sight of the reward, giving in and giving up as difficulties ensue. I have known so many men and women who, on the very brink of success, have thrown in the towel, unable to continue, unable to complete the task that would surely yield the pearl they had been striving for.
Like shucking oysters in search of a pearl, success in life demands a combination of skills.
The skills, when combined with a certain finesse, and finally brought to fruition through persistence and determination, often yield rewards impossible to imagine as we hover over the bucket, intent upon the task at hand, opening the oysters.
If we get bogged down in the task, complete with the difficulties, forgetting to focus on the pearl, we may not see it through.
Failure along the way is a certainty. Failure, when viewed as a setback, as a learning experience, can be a valuable lesson, another on the way to acquiring the pearl. Persistence in spite of the failure, and even because of it, will take us one step closer to discovery…and success.
Ultimately, if we keep the pearl in focus, remembering to apply both finesse and persistence, remembering that life will yield a pearl the magnificence of which we can’t possibly imagine, we will succeed.
Interestingly, as we progress through life we will find not one pearl but a succession of pearls, life’s reward for persistence, determination, honesty, and integrity…all along the way to an empty bucket and whatever awaits us in the hereafter.
Another, larger bucket…or perhaps a string of pearls?
John
Professor John P. J. Zajaros, Sr.
216-712-6526 (home)
216-539-7412 (office)
Skype: johnzajaros1
johnz@johnzajaros.com
excellencepaidforward@gmail.com (personal email)
PS, If you want to read a little bit about Joe Sugarman’s latest venture, something I immediately got involved with because it promises to help so many of my readers with various health issues and challenges…from pain to energy and illness to aging! It is truly an amazing product and the best I have come across, anywhere! If Joe Sugarman is on board you can be certain it is the very best available or he simply wouldn’t offer it!
I was talking to a new friend over at StomperNet the other night and mentioned what a shift I had had to make in my thinking now that I am back in the real world and building businesses again. The shift in mindset from the scarcity mode to an entrepreneurial mode is a difficult one to make, particularly after so long a period of time living from month to month, often from one day to the next…and sometimes moment to moment!
This is a discipline, like any other, a mindset that takes training and real effort to develop.
The fact is, most people live in a constant state of “we can’t afford that!”
Whereas, in the entrepreneurial mindset, instead of living in a constant state of “we can’t afford that!” we shift our thinking and ask “how do I make this happen?”
In many ways the difference is, on one hand, living in the scarcity mode, protecting what resources we may have, living from “paycheck to paycheck,” doing without when it didn’t fit the budget, and when it doesn’t fit our mindset.
While, on the other hand, living life in the “make it happen,” entrepreneurial mode, we make things happen in order to reach the goals and acquire the possessions important to us and our families.
This shift in thinking takes training because most of us are raised in the former mindset, rather than the latter.
Some of the “protective-negative” mindset is a carry-over from the Depression mentality of our grandparents and great-grandparents; it is entrenched in our culture, our philosophy and, to a large extent, in our national psyche. The recession of the early 1980s, and the shift in our economy from a manufacturing-base to a service-base with the resulting loss of high paying blue-collar jobs, did nothing to eliminate this mindset. In fact it re-established it as the cornerstone of our fiscal mentality and entrenched it in the lower/middle and middle/middle class mindset. It also invaded the upper middle class mindset as so many mid-level and middle management jobs, particularly in the industrial sector, vanished. This latest recession has done little to help people shed this now-antiquated way of thinking. In fact, it has once again reared its ugly head as millions face another shift in our way of doing business, here and around the world, with its obvious, and not-so-obvious, effects
on the “masses.” Of course the “masses,” and I use this word “cautiously,” will never rid themselves of this mindset, the day-to-day, paycheck-to-paycheck mentality; and, they are simply getting by, getting through, and getting on with life the best way they know how.
It is the entrepreneur who has to guard against what some have coined as cautious optimism. Cautious optimism is a plague on our thinking and, by the way, it is one of the most overused and abused phrases in the English language.
Google it with quotes, “cautious optimism,” and you still get almost half a million results!
That’s unreal!
How can so many be so cautious about being optimistic?
It should actually state something like:
“I’m gonna say this but I want to cover my backside…so I am going to add the words “cautiously optimistic” to my assertion, thus protecting my neck if I happen to have stuck it out too far.”
Cautious optimism equals negative thinking and that has failure built in!
Ask Sir Richard Branson about cautious optimism! I can only guess what he would say?
So, how does that take me back to my shift to an entrepreneurial mindset?
Well, it is impossible to succeed in life unless you shed the “protective-negative,”cautious optimism mindset and believe in what is possible…not only what is possible but what is probable, what we can make a reality is we only believe!
Belief?
Belief is the magic ingredient, the key component necessary to shift from guarded optimism to cautious optimism, and finally on to real optimism.
The first two being synonymous with failure, the latter the only mindset acceptable in the entrepreneurial mode, the mindset required to succeed…to “make it happen!”
My two favorite quotes sum it up best:
“Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve!” Napoleon Hill
“To desire is to obtain; to aspire is to achieve.” James Allen (Author of As A Man Thinketh)
Charles Darwin spoke of belief in The Descent of Man.
In it he wrote: “The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts…”
So many say they believe in themselves, in the possibilities life offers, but in reality they are “cautiously optimistic.”
Believe and you can achieve!
This is not peculiar to Hill, James, and Darwin, this mindset has been championed throughout history. The power of belief has been suggested by everyone from the Buddah to Jesus, and from the Qur’an to the Bible.
However, while many parrot the quotes, buy the books, listen to the CDs and DVDs most fail to put into action this powerful message daily in their lives.
Why?
I think when it is all said and done it is about the ultimate belief…belief in one’s self!
As Tony Robbins recently put in a copy of Power Talk, people fail to believe in themselves, in what is truly possible in their lives, in just how powerful belief can be!
Ultimately, the shift in mindset must be preceded by a belief in one’s self, in the belief that all things are possible to those who believe.
Only through faith, hope, and ultimately belief can one hope to achieve!
Great things are possible to those who can conceive and believe. I believe this, it allowed me to shift my thinking, and from there all things are possible. They are possible for me…they can be possible for you!
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
As you may know by now, TuffGuy and I go for a walk every night at midnight. In fact, we will be heading out in just a few minutes for what promises to be an interesting excursion. It is Tuesday September 29, 2009 at 11:59pm Eastern and it is 50 degrees outside, raining, and the wind is kicking quite up a bit!
What does that have to do with tonight’s blog post? Nothing really, and everything! Nothing except for the fact that we seem to go out at all times, in all sorts of weather. And everything…because why would it be at all surprising that we run into all kinds of people on those walks?
Hence the picture!
And the real reason for this blog post!
The picture is the story, or one like it. The picture embedded in my brain, and perhaps my soul, repeatedly and on almost every walk for the past 3 months.
You see, we have made this walk a ritual, a part of our lives, TuffGuy and I, and it has been an education in people! All kinds of people.
Every walk is an education, except for maybe tonight’s walk. Because on a night like this, when the weather is so bad, or at least not great, there will be few if any people, smiling or not, young or old, hearty or frail. We will be alone in our thoughts.
Well, almost alone!
There is always the young woman in black. No matter what time we leave, regardless of the weather, she too is out walking. It seems we are in sync somehow. So there she is, night after night, afraid of others, perhaps more afraid of her self, she walks…or perhaps runs away…each night.
A guy nodded to me the other night from the doorway of a local bar down on Detroit Road, the young woman had just passed the bar and then TuffGuy and I, making a wide circle around all of us in order to avoid any sort of human contact or interaction. He said to me quietly, as if somehow I knew him and he was confiding in an old friend, that “she must be afraid of dogs.”
I chuckled, looked at him and said, “She is afraid of everything!”
He laughed, a drunk’s laugh, and I continued on my way, half sorry I said what I did…but only half.
For the life of me, I can’t imagine what would so profoundly affect a person so young and in such a manner as to provoke that sort of a repeated response.
But that takes me back to the picture again!
On Sunday, TuffGuy and I usually head out for a walk during the day (see YouTube Channel), in addition to our midnight walk, particularly if the weather is on the cool side and the sun is shining. This summer has been good for walks, not too hot and not too humid, so we have been able to go on a few Sunday excursions. This Sunday the weather was perfect and so we were heading to the Metroparks, a band of parks that surrounds metropolitan Cleveland called The Emerald Necklace, very nice and quite picturesque, when the full magnitude of my observations, what had been brewing in my head for months, finally gave rise to the thoughts you are now reading in this blog post.
It was a beautiful day and we passed quite a few people, some obviously on their way to or from some task, while others seemed to be out enjoying the day. The streets, so empty a few hours before (at 3am on another walk), were jammed with cars and people.
We passed an old Caucasian woman, hair still jet black and probably done weekly, not a hair out of place. She was seemingly first generation from Europe, probably here most of her life but never really letting loose of the “Old Country.” There is a large “ethnic” population in Lakewood, many own duplexes living in one half and renting out the other. They are nice people, a close-knit community, and generally friendly.
Well, TuffGuy was giving this woman a wide berth, I thought because he is people shy. TuffGuy had a very difficult time as a puppy due to an illness he contracted at a local puppy mill (read: pet store), he has never fully recovered and doesn’t really trust new people at first. A lesson is of sorts I am sure. But it was something else about this woman that TuffGuy sensed, something wrong with this lady, something very negative about her…and TuffGuy picked it up.
Well, this lady gave new meaning to the word dour!
Dour was the word that popped in my head. Of all the words, dour…but it fit!
* Marked by sternness or harshness; forbidding: a dour, self-sacrificing life.
* Silently ill-humored; gloomy: the proverbially dour New England Puritan.
* Sternly obstinate; unyielding: a dour determination.
The way she carried herself, her manner, even her response when I tried to say kind word…twice.
Dour was it!
More than any other emotion? I felt pity. How sad to be her age, somewhere in her 60s by my best guess, already old, and to be that sullen, that gloomy, that dour!
So, TuffGuy and I moved on, picked up the pace a bit to distance ourselves, and continued to smile, nod, and say hello whenever eye contact was made. I make a point of saying hello to everyone, everywhere. You never know when you might be the only person all day to say hello to someone. Never miss a chance to perhaps provide that personal touch in someone’s life, it can make a real difference!
The funny thing about eye contact?
In Manhattan, not making eye contact is a science, people really do have it down to a science. You see, people in Manhattan are constantly bombarded by people trying to hustle them…”hey buddy, wanna buy something”…that they never make eye contact for fear of being victimized.
Sounds like a social media commentary I did for another blog not long ago! Or was it for this one? Anyway….
There’s a marketing lesson there somewhere but we will save that for another time.
On the opposite side of the coin from the Manhattan ethos, the people of Belize, Central America. Walk or drive anywhere in Belize and people are always waving, greeting each other, smiling! You will spend the entire drive down the Southern Highway, from the capital city of Belize, Belize City, to its southern tip, south of Punta Gorda, waving and saying hello to everyone you meet along the way, in fact to everyone you pass. Truck loads of people traveling in the opposite direction will wave and shout greetings, it is an amazing experience,
What a happy and wonderful environment in which to live!
Well, somewhere in between you have Lakewood, Ohio, USA…a mix typical of many Midwestern small cities…neither closed in and down upon itself nor wide open and totally responsive.
The next person of note we came across was an African American woman somewhere in her mid-30s.
Jessie, she took the time to introduce herself, when all I got out of the “old lady” was a very, oh-so-subtle grunt, had on jeans and a white t-shirt, her hair was pulled back, and she was by herself; and, she was very beautiful. Striking to begin with, almost six feet tall and slender, when she smiled was gorgeous…and TuffGuy loved her! Her smile defined her, it immediately declared that she was someone worth knowing, someone it would be a pleasure to know. Of course she praised TuffGuy and we talked for a moment before moving on.
TuffGuy pranced away! It was funny because it was that noticeable…he had a new friend. So did I!
What a difference a quarter of a mile and who knows how much personal history between the two made! I went from thinking how sad one person was to how happy and joyous the other’s life must be…in the space of less than a few minutes and few more paces, my mood had shifted, as well.
Well, over the course of the afternoon and early evening the same scenario played out over and over again. I took notice of it more and more as the day went on. Interestingly, I kept coming back to the first two women, how different the two had been, and how different the effect on me was…not to mention the effect on TuffGuy!
Some people were closed in, apparently unhappy, seemingly defeated by the weight of their existence. Definitely not people you would want around on such a beautiful day, much less be around permanently.
Others? Well, some were obviously not as well off financially, but they were nonetheless happy, open and friendly…a pleasure to be around, if just for a moment.
The lesson here? I guess it is that how you carry yourself and how you relate to the world around you has an impact, a ripple effect throughout the world, often into areas you can’t possibly even be aware of. It is in a very real sense the Butterfly Effect in action.
Think about it for a moment if you will:
A lady smiles for a camera and somewhere in the world a man uses the picture, taken by another person, to bring home a point about the beauty inherent in a smile, the beauty we all have within us…if we will only let it out.
And the power of a single act, a smile or a frown, and how on another day at another time a person is writing about how that seemingly insignificant act can be have such a profound and lasting effect that another was willing to write about it and share his feelings on the subject with the rest of the world.
The Butterfly Effect!
We affect the environment around us, the people around us, in very significant ways each and every day, in ways we can’t possibly conceive of, because the full impact is beyond our reach, even beyond our understanding. Significantly, our actions often determine whether or not people choose to interact with us at all. Our kindness, our gratitude, our mental attitude (positive or negative), our empathy, our compassion, and a myriad of other qualities and characteristics all shape our environment, physical and social, and determine our success in life. So above all, be positive! Negativity is a disease, it is contagious, it is terminal, and it will kill your relationships with others and your chance for anything remotely resembling success in your personal and business lives.
John Zajaros
216-712-6526
Skype: johnzajaros1
johnz@johnzajaros.com
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