I was watching and listening to the HBO Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25th Anniversary Rock Concert from Madison Square Garden this morning.
Watching the 25th Rock Hall Concert, I still can’t get over the aging rockers refusing to give in to age and, perhaps more inspiring, conventionality. I think the thing that struck me most as I watched was the diversity of talent, every man and woman, each solo artist and group all have their individual style and grace…their own voice.
Bruce and Bono!
As I was watched The Boss and Bono, along with the rest of U2, I was struck by their very different styles. These rock and roll legends, these men whom have done as much for others behind the scenes, in terms of philanthropy, as any two men alive; and there, side by side singing about life, love, and hope.
Interestingly, while engaged in the same profession, and with many of the same qualities, humanity, compassion, and empathy, they are still as far apart stylistically as two entertainers can be.
As I watched, and it was in watching, much more than listening, that their real differences became apparent, I was struck by the fact that these two men, so very successful in the same endeavor, were so different from one another in the same moment.
Bono and The Boss, as different as night and day, yet both creating beautiful music in their own distinct fashion, their own style. These two mythic performers, deities of the rock and roll era, standing side by side and singing in complete harmony were as different in how they deliver their message, their performance, as any two performers can be; and yet, their harmony was incredible.
Both performers clearly belong on the same stage, however different their stylistic expression may be. All you have to do is watch, and then listen, but mainly watch these two performers, so different and yet so much the same to get a real sense of the contrast between them.
So, what is it all about?
It’s about finding your own voice! Both men have found their calling, their love for their work, their love of life, their voice…literally and figuratively.
While watching night and day on the same stage, both creating something beautiful, individually and collectively, something different and yet uniquely the same, I was moved. The collective voice they created was something uniquely theirs in that moment.
Success in Life
Because each of these rockers had given himself permission to express his voice in his own way, they both seem at one with themselves, with their true nature.
One only has to watch The Boss and Bono standing side by side, so very different, and each succeeding in ways unimaginable only a few years ago, to know that all things are possible if you give rise to your own voice, your passion, that one thing we are all put this planet to do.
The one thing!
It is in finding that one thing, and giving yourself permission to explore and express your voice, that true success is achieved.
Success in business and in life is certainly a progression, a journey, but more than that, it is a consequence of finding your voice and allowing it to do what only you can do with it, in very much the same way The Boss and Bono have….
Sing!
John
Professor John P. J. Zajaros, Sr.
216-712-6526 (home)
216-539-7412 (office)
Skype: johnzajaros1
johnz@johnzajaros.com
The History and Power of The 30 Day Challenge: Success in Business and a Tool for Life!
I have been thinking a lot about the whole 30 day challenge concept for a while now and have come to the realization that there is a significant flaw in this powerful concept.
While the 30 day challenge is incredibly powerful concept, one I have used repeatedly throughout my life, there is a failure factor built in. I will discuss the flaw in a moment, and it is important when considering whether to run your own 30 day challenge or to participate in someone else’s. However, to begin with let’s discuss the power of this useful concept, a notion that has been around for decades…at the very least.
Interestingly, I tried to do a search to gain an historical perspective on the impetus for, and the story behind, the 30 day challenge and found nothing of value. So, I will keep this focused on the past 75 years or so, paying particular attention to the past 35 years.
Why?
Because it was 35 years ago I first came across the concept, and it was a tried and true method of achieving results then, so I am certain it has been around for, at the very least, several decades.
Interestingly, Earl Nightingale, known as the “Dean of Personal Development,” speaks of going all out for 30 days, a 30 day “test” if you will, in his recording of The Strangest Secret, the first voice recording to sell over 1 million copies. The Strangest Secret was first published in 1956, so that’s almost 54 years ago…or as long as I have been on this Earth!
Scary thought!
Generally, anything with that sort of staying power, and a phrase that can generate between 50 and 60 million results (without quotes) on Google, and 228,000 results with quotes, has to have real power, even today.
Interestingly, there appears to be something of a paradox with the concept, and with the challenge itself.
Or, does it go deeper than that?
On one hand, the 30 day challenge appears to be a useful tool for motivating people, prompting them to act, at least in the short term. On the other, there appears to be a flaw built into the system, and we will get to that.
But first a bit of history!
The first time I ever heard anything about a 30 day challenge, and challenge wasn’t the word used then, was in the mid-1970s.
The 1970s and early 1980s was a very exciting time in sales and marketing, many of the greats toured the country and sales, marketing, and self-improvement seminars were quite common. Significantly, during this period most of the self-help and self-improvement messages were either tied to sales and marketing, as in the case of Napoleon Hill, Earl Nightingale, J Douglas Edwards, Zig Ziglar, and Dale Carnegie. Or, they were assigned to the religious or spiritual milieu or genre, as with Dr. Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking, an amazing and amazingly popular book! Well worth the read, regardless of your religious affiliation or convictions.
During the 1970s and 80s, I was very big into the whole how to close the sale, self-help, self-motivation, and self-improvement movement.
The 1970s was before the time of Tony Robbins and Brian Tracy, it was a time of when many of the greats mentioned above such as Napoleon Hill, Earl Nightingale, Zig Ziglar, J Douglas Edwards, Tom Hopkins, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale were in vogue. Wayne Dyer had just come out with Your Erroneous Zones (published 1976), followed by Pulling Your Own Strings, both widely accepted and very popular. The 1970s, particularly after the end of the war in Vietnam and the national nightmare of Watergate was finally put to rest with Nixon’s resignation, was a wildly optimistic period. Jimmy Carter’s feel good style mirrored the mood of the country, at least for a few years.
Beginning in the mid-1970s, I purchased all the self-improvement, sales and marketing, and motivational material I could get my hands on. As a young man making 5 figures a month, a huge sum back then, and still respectable today, I invested heavily in my education, informal as it was at the time; and, I soaked up everything written and recorded by any of “the greats,” anything and everything I could get my hands on. It was during this period that I discovered a treasure trove of information at Nightingale-Conant, for me a marriage made in Heaven! That, of course, led me to Earl Nightingale’s recording of The Strangest Secret.
My life was quite literally changed forever with that recording! I listened to The Strangest Secret until I had every word, every syllable, memorized. I put it into action immediately and by 1980 I was building my first business; and, the rest is history, as they say!
The idea of doing something for 30 days all out, just focusing on that had never occurred to me, as simple as it seems today. Yes, I had heard phrases like:
“Make each day your masterpiece.”
“Make each day count.”
“Live for today.”
I had heard those and many more. I also understood the notion of getting the most out of each and every day, something I practiced religiously. But for some reason the idea of putting them in capsule form and going at it for a specific period of time had simply eluded me. Again, I went all out, like “gangbusters” each and every day…I simply failed to connect the dots. Yes, I had read Think and Grow Rich.
• I had a mastermind group of sorts.
• I had specific goals mapped out.
• I had my affirmations on 3 by 5 cards that were so tattered and torn from being looked at each and every day that I routinely had to rewrite them (from memory
after a while), just to tear up a new batch!
• I had pictures of the Ericson 25’ sailboat I wanted and then purchased.
• I had a picture of the Honda 1000 Goldwing I wanted and then purchased.
• And so on and so on!
With everything I had accomplished, hitting my first of many 10k+ months in income by 23 years of age, it wasn’t until I heard The Strangest Secret and put it all together than I took my income and my life to a whole new level. I would love to tell you I listened to the recording and 30 days later I was on my way but life doesn’t work like that, at least not unless you believe some of the hype being sold on the Internet!
My journey to the next level,, my application of the Ultimate 30 Day Challenge that forever changed my life, was set in motion by the recession of the early 1980s. Without getting into a lot of the details, the recession of the early 1980s was just as bad, or worse, than the recession we are currently experiencing.
The funny thing about people, funny as in peculiar or idiosyncratic or simply forgetful, is that people forget quickly and only remember selective bits and pieces of the past, usually not the painful stuff (“stuff” of course is a technical term–ask George Carlin). Of course that’s part of the reason we are forever doomed to repeat the past, we erase from our memory the painful things we should at least take note of and try to remedy. It is easier to simply forget than to fix!
But the recession of the 1980s took down forever the industrial base of this country. The steel industry never recovered and many would argue the automobile industry was forever transformed, as well. The textile industry of the Northeast vanished with barely a trace, entire cities forced to file bankruptcy. The Rust Belt, mainly the Midwest from Pennsylvania to Illinois and south to the Mason-Dixon Line, was hit hard and certain pockets in the Midwest and Northeast had some of the highest unemployment in our nation’s history. The country was reshaped and industries that had driven the country for decades either vanished completely or were seriously damaged. Some companies went abroad, never to return.
The country, and in fact much of the world, felt the impact for several years before the turnaround and recovery of the mid to late 1980s once again moved the country and the world forward.
It was during the recession of the 1980s, complete with a complete halt in sales and marketing for many industries in the Midwest and interest rates at 22%, I was in Cleveland, Ohio (ground zero or within 150 miles of it), that I was forced by dire circumstances to put my ultimate 30 day challenge into action. While still working at my present job, I began to formulate a plan, the plan took shape, and once it took shape I outlined the very first of many 30 day challenges.
Why?
Because I had no way out! In essence, it was sink or swim, the economy was about to make me just one more of its casualties…and that just wouldn’t do! Not at 25 years of age, so sir!
So, I implemented a plan, invested all the money I had left, by then $50 for a little tiny office and a telephone answering service; and, a few bucks for some flyers and postage, and I went to work. Interestingly, I had the support of my current employer, a great man who knew he couldn’t hold on to all of his people through the terrible economic conditions the area was struggling with. We had Ford, GM, Chrysler, US Steel, and Republic Steel all within a few miles, it was as if the entire country had collapsed.
The Rust Belt became the Disaster Belt!
But people will always spend money on certain things…and I happened to pick one of them. I would love to tell you I tested and analyzed and researched but in actuality, I just did it!
What is the saying?
Ready…Fire…Aim!
Well, without getting into the details, I will save that for another day, we started making money. We did OK the first 30 days, a little better the next 30, and by the fourth 30 day challenge, one run consecutively after another, our entire business model at the time, just one all-out 30 day challenge followed by an even more frantic all-out 30 day challenge, we were making mid-five figures! That’s from a $50 investment plus some postage and a few flyers in one of the worst economic climates since the Great Depression! Interestingly, we actually received the flyers free from the printer on barter after we got going, trading our services for his.
Things fell into place, almost by magic!
Tony Robbins said something in one of his Power Talk recordings that rings so true and is appropriate here:
“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear!”
The same sort of thing happens with goals and forward movement, whether the forward movement is part of a directed 30 day challenge, or is simply part of a goal directed overall plan of action, once you set a thing in motion, the right people, circumstances, and tools become apparent and available to you.
It is like LUCK:
• Labor
• Under
• Correct
• Knowledge
L…U…C…K!
Have you ever noticed when you are heavily into something, driven and focused, all of the sudden you become aware of things you never noticed before, experience things you never knew existed? Once you open yourself up and become focused on a specific goal and direct your energy into a specific arena and provide a specific time frame for it to appear…things begin to happen!
It is like looking up in the sky!
Try looking up in the sky whenever the sky is clear and you will notice a lot of shooting stars!
Are there more now than there used to be?
No!
You notice them now, so there appear to be more of them, simply because you are now looking in the direction! They were always there! It’s just that you are now ready to see them!
It’s like that with goals and the 30 day challenge! You are now looking in the right direction, so you will see the opportunities, the tools, the knowledge, and the resources that were there all the time…you are now laboring under correct knowledge, so you will see what has been there all along!
So, what’s the downside?
Well, it isn’t a downside with the 30 day challenge; it’s not a downside with the challenge, it’s a downside with human beings. It is a word one of the Internet marketers of note, Eben Pagan is big on:
DISTRACTION!
Distraction is the arch enemy of success and it is also the arch enemy of The 30 Day Challenge!
You see, in today’s world many people suffer from what I call socio-cultural ADD/ADHD.
People just do not stay on task for very long and, when they embark upon a specific course of action, they are easily distracted. Additionally, if results are not easily or immediately apparent, the risk and the reality of distraction becomes exponentially greater. There is a fundamental flaw in the psyche of the modern mind, a failure to stay on task. The old American “stick-to-it-ness” of the past seems to have vanished in favor of the 3 second rule and the 1 minute video culture.
Heaven forbid people have to read a book!
War and Peace? Never!
I recently heard an Internet marketer say it took him purchasing a CD to be able to get through a book he felt he needed to read. This is not atypical! This is a symptom of the video generation and it is only getting worse. The prospect of sitting down and reading a book, say War and Peace, would probably send a significant portion of our population to the emergency room with an anxiety attack!
That may be overplaying it a bit…but just a bit!
That’s the flaw in The 30 Day Challenge, it’s not results, it’s distraction and attention; and, those are inextricably linked!
So, how do we combat this seemingly fatal flaw?
With results!
And
CANI!
Tony Robbins’s notion of CANI! Constant and never ending improvement!
And
RITTR!
Reducing it to the ridiculous!
The combination of CANI! and RITTR makes a step-by-step approach not only achievable, it will keep you and the members of your team, if you are managing more than just yourself, on track.
By focusing on each day, on each hour or even just a moment, building one success, one accomplishment upon the next, before you know it you have built something amazing, all one small piece, one small moment, one small success at a time.
Just as the paragraph above notes, by reducing your year, month, week, day, hour, and moment you bring everything into focus and, while still having the big picture in mind, you are able to bring your efforts to bear upon the task at hand, thus accomplishing more in a moment than many do in a week…or a month, a 30 day challenge!
The combination of laser-like focus and the knowledge that everything in life is progressive means you can do great things.
Constant and never ending improvement leads to motion, motion to momentum, and momentum leads to overwhelming success by way of enthusiasm and inertia. Just like a dynamo, at first slow and almost imperceptible in motion, it becomes an irresistible force, unstoppable and undeniably powerful.
The 30 Day Challenge, first brought to my attention as a 20 something kid, has been responsible for my absolute faith in our ability to do anything we set our minds to, anything! By setting small and achievable goals, building one moment upon the next, one accomplishment upon another, we build one 30 day challenge into a lifetime of challenges and triumphs.
The result is a life full of excitement and successful in every sense of the word.
Will there be failure along the way? Certainly!
But for every failure, there will be an incredible harvest of successes.
The secret is to keep focused, continue setting goals, and remember CANI! and RITTR!
All things are possible if you have faith in yourself and in the concepts built into the premise behind the 30 day challenge…that anything built upon a solid foundation will have an positive and lasting effect upon your life.
Because:
“Whatever the mind of many can conceive and believe, it can achieve!”
I believe that with all my heart and mind, so did Napoleon Hill when he said it in 1937!
John
John Zajaros
216-712-6526
866-835-2913
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
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
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.
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