Your Daily Agenday by John Maxwell

How would you describe your life? Are you achieving what you desire? Are you accomplishing the things that are important to you? Do you consider yourself a success? How do your prospects look for the future?
If I could come to your house and spend just one day with you, I would be able to tell whether or not you will be successful. You could pick the day. If I got up with you in the morning and went through the day with you, watching you for 24 hours, I could tell in what direction your life is headed.

When I tell this to people at conferences, there’s always a strong reaction. Some people are surprised. Some get defensive because they think I would be making a snap judgment about them. A few get ticked off because they think my claim sounds arrogant. Others are intrigued and desire to know why I make such a statement.

Here is why: I believe that the secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda. If you make a few key decisions and then manage them well in your daily agenda, you will succeed.

You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. You see, success, doesn’t just suddenly occur one day in someone’s life. For that matter, neither does failure. Each is a process. Every day of your life is merely preparation for the next. What you become is the result of what you do today. In other words…
You are preparing for something.

The question is, What are you preparing for? Are you grooming yourself for success or failure? As my father used to tell me when I was growing up, “You can pay now, and play later, or you can play now and pay later. But either way, you are going to pay.” The idea was that you can play and take it easy and do what you want today, but if you do, your life will be harder later. However, if you work hard now, on the front end, then you will reap rewards in the future.

Think about it: What are you preparing for today? Success or failure? Does your daily agenda indicate that you make a habit of paying before you play? Answering these questions is a good predictor of what you will become tomorrow and in the future.

One Choice

Think about this for a moment...one choice, just one, can change your life forever. Simply put, your life today is what your choices have made it, but with new choices, you can change directions this very moment. For me, that idea alone is highly motivational because it offers tremendous hope, regardless of circumstances, for a better tomorrow.

 If you have the courage to do so, you could make any one of those choices, or others, today. And you would change your life.  Sometimes it's a different kind of choice. It can be to not quit, to not give up in the face of adversity. We've all been there. 

Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen received 77 rejections for their idea, Chicken Soup for the Soul. They had to make a decision each time...should they throw in the towel and say enough is enough, or should they keep trying to pursue their dreams? You know the rest of the story. The 78th publisher said "Yes" and they went on to sell over 100 million books.

• Choose to Take Back Your Life
• Choose to Start Your Own Business
• Choose Financial Freedom
• Choose to Change Your Environment
• Choose to Take a Chance
• Choose to Be Happy

Never forget...You are One Choice from changing your life!  Go and be great~

Evaluating Your Associations by Jim Rohn

If you were to evaluate the major influences in your life that have shaped the kind of person you are, this has to be high on the list: the people and thoughts you choose to allow into your life. Mr. Shoaff gave me a very important warning in those early days that I would like to share with you. He said, "Never underestimate the power of influence." Indeed, the influence of those around us is so powerful! Many times we don't even realize we're being strongly affected because influences generally develop over an extended period of time.
Peer pressure is an especially powerful force because it is so subtle. If you're around people who spend all they make, chances are excellent that you'll spend all you make. If you are around people who go to more ball games than concerts, chances are excellent that you'll do the same thing. If you are around people who don't read, chances are excellent that you won't read. People can keep nudging us off course a little at a time until finally, we find ourselves asking, "How did I get here?" Those subtle influences need to be studied carefully if we really want our lives to turn out the way we've planned.
With regard to this important point, let me give you three key questions to ask yourself. They may help you to make better analyses of your current associations.
Here is the first question: "Who am I around?" Make a mental note of the people with whom you most often associate. You've got to evaluate everybody who is able to influence you in any way.
The second question is: "What are these associations doing to me?" That's a major question to ask. What have they got me doing? What have they got me listening to? What have they got me reading? Where have they got me going? What do they have me thinking? How have they got me talking? How have they got me feeling? What have they got me saying? You've got to make a serious study of how others are influencing you, both negatively and positively.
Here's a final question: "Is that okay?" Maybe everyone you associate with has been a positive, energizing influence. Then again, maybe there are some bad apples in the bunch. All I'm suggesting here is that you take a close and objective look. Everything is worth a second look, especially the power of influence. Both will take you somewhere, but only one will take you in the direction you need to go.
It's easy to just dismiss the things that influence our lives. One man says, "I live here, but I don't think it matters. I'm around these people, but I don't think it hurts." I would take another look at that. Remember, everything matters! Sure, some things matter more than others, but everything amounts to something. You've got to keep checking to find out whether your associations are tipping the scales toward the positive or toward the negative. Ignorance is never the best policy. Finding out is the best policy.Perhaps you've heard the story of the little bird. He had his wing over his eye and he was crying. The owl said to the bird, "You are crying." "Yes," said the little bird, and he pulled his wing away from his eye. "Oh, I see," said the owl. "You're crying because the big bird pecked out your eye." And the little bird said, "No, I'm not crying because the big bird pecked out my eye. I'm crying because I let him."
It's easy to let influence shape our lives, to let associations determine our direction, to let pressures overwhelm us, and to let tides take us. The big question is, are we letting ourselves become what we wish to become?
—Jim Rohn

It Is a Challenge to Succeed by Jim Rohn

It is a challenge to succeed. If it were not, I'm sure more people would be successful, but for every person who is enjoying the fruit from the tree of success, many more are examining the roots. They are trying to figure it all out. They are mystified and perplexed by what seems to be some strange, complex and elusive secret that must be found if ever success is to be enjoyed. While most people spend most of their lives struggling to earn a living, a much smaller number seem to have everything going their way. Instead of just earning a living, the smaller group is busily engaged in designing and enjoying a fortune. Everything just seems to work out for them. While the much larger group sits in awe at how life can be so unfair, complicated and unjust. "I am a nice person," the man says to himself. "How come this other guy is happy and prosperous and I'm always struggling?" He asks himself, "I am a good husband, a good father and a good worker. How come nothing seems to work out for me? Life just isn't fair. I'm even smarter and willing to work harder than some of these other people who just seem to have everything going their way," he says as he slumps into the sofa to watch another evening of television. But you see you've got to be more than a good person and a good worker. You've got to become a good planner, and a good dreamer. You've got to see the future finished in advance.
You've got to put in the long hours and put up with the setbacks and the disappointments. You've got to learn to enjoy the process of disciplines and of putting yourself through the paces of doing the uncomfortable until it becomes comfortable. You've got to be prepared and willing to attack the challenges if you want the success because challenges are part of success. Now that may sound like a full menu of activities, but let me assure you that the process of going from average to fortune isn't really all that difficult. Thinking about it is the difficult part. Anticipating all the effort and the changes and the disciplines is far worse in the mind than in reality. I can promise you that the challenges you'll meet on the road to success are far less difficult to deal with than the struggles and the disappointments that come from being average. Confronting and overcoming challenges is an exhilarating experience. It does something to feed the soul and the mind. It makes you more than you were before. It strengthens the mental muscles and enables you to become better prepared for the next challenge.
I've often said that to have more, we must first become more, and to become more, we must begin the process of working harder on ourselves than we do on anything else. But in addition to gathering new knowledge, new skills and new experiences, it is also important to discover new emotions. It is how we feel about what we know that makes the biggest difference in how our lives turn out. How we feel about the chances we have and the choices we have determines the intensity of our effort. Whether we try or don't try. Join or don't join. Believe or don't believe.I'd like for you to discover some strong feelings about your life and about what you want to do with that life. You probably have much of the knowledge and a lot of the experience and perhaps most of the skills that it takes to become successful. What you may be lacking in are the strong feelings about what you want and what you want to do. You may be one of those who have become so involved in the process of earning a living that you've forgotten about the choices and the chances you have for designing your own life.
Let these strong feelings help you take a second look at your life and where you're headed. After all, you've only got one life, at least on this planet. So why not make it an adventure in achievement? Why not discover what all you can do and what all you can have? Why not discover how many others you can help and in the process how that can help you?  Why not now take the Challenge to Succeed!
—Jim Rohn

Success Is Everything by Jim Rohn

Someone  once said to me that success isn't everything and I think I know what they  really meant. I believe they really meant that money isn't everything, and I  certainly agree with that. But I do believe that success IS everything.

First, you need to succeed to survive.  We must take the seasons and learn how to use them with the seed, the soil and  the rain of opportunity to learn how to sustain ourselves and our family. But  then second is to then succeed to flourish in every part of your life. Good  question to ask mature people: "If you could do better, should you?"  And I think almost everybody would answer the question in the affirmative. If  you could improve your health, shouldn't you do that? If you can learn more,  shouldn't you do that? If you could earn more and share more, shouldn't you do  that? If you can improve your relationships and spirituality, shouldn't you do  that? And I think that is what success is really all about. It is not just a  destination that is set for everybody to try and go for. It is like Zig  Ziglar said, "improving in every area of your life to see if you can't  say with satisfaction at the end of the day, week, month and year, 'I have made  excellent progress this year, for myself, for my family, for my business, my  career and my health.'" I think that kind of success everybody recognizes  is legitimate and something we should all strive for.
Interesting  phrase in the Bible that says strive for perfection—not that we can ever reach  it. But it is in the striving, to be a little bit better today than yesterday,  in our speech, our language, our health, everything we can possibility think  of.

So  yes, in my opinion, Success Is Everything!~ Jim Rohn

Every Living Soul on Planet Earth Has Potential ~ by Paul Meyer

Collectively, potential is the richest source of wealth in the entire world. Nothing ever invented, nothing ever dreamed of, produced or multiplied a thousand times over could ever match the wealth that lies in the untapped potential of our minds and our beings!
The libraries are filled, and news articles abound, with story after story of awkward kids, young people who couldn't pass exams in school, athletes who didn't make the team early on. Yet someway, somehow, they went on to great success!
So how did all of these people separate themselves from the "average," the ordinary? They made a conscious choice and a conscious decision to do whatever they had to do to wake up the sleeping giant within. They set a goal to tap their unused potential. And with practice, dedication, commitment and hard work, SO CAN YOU!
Here are four steps you can take to wake up the sleeping giant within you. I have never seen them fail to produce!
First, BELIEVE IN YOURSELF!
 Believe that you do have a sleeping giant within and an untapped potential that you are unique and different and that you can develop and grow and achieve.
Second, EXPECT TO SUCCEED!
 Living life with positive expectancy produces great rewards. Remember, the only limitations you will ever have are those you place on yourself.
Third, VISUALIZE YOURSELF SUCCEEDING!
 Never see yourself as you are now, but only how you would be if you wake up the giant within and develop your hidden potential, knowing that each success draws you closer to the mental picture that you have of your new future, and the satisfaction that comes from accomplishing the step-by-step goals you have set.
Fourth, PURSUE THESE NEW GOALS OF PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT WITH EMOTION!
 Get emotionally involved! Become passionate! Get excited! Become enthusiastic! Feel your adrenaline pump! And feel the sleeping giant awaken.
And know that you will never be the same person again!

Do or do not. There is no try.

Because of the invaluable lessons that can be learned from failure, It is better to try and fail than to never try at all.  However, you should never go into an endeavor with a mindset of, “I guess I’ll give it a try.”  The doubt conveyed to yourself in that message will mushroom into an expectancy of failure at the first sign of resistance.  A feeling of absolute faith needs to imbibe every part of your being when you attack an endeavor.

Try* something with me.  Think of something important that you really want or need to do.  Close your eyes and imagine yourself attempting this action with a sense of hope that it will work out.  Now, imagine yourself attacking the same task with a feeling of absolute certainty that the outcome will be the one you desire.  I’m talking about an resolute conviction that there is no possible outcome except the one you have determined will happen.  Do you feel the difference?  Which attitude do you think will carry you through to victory when obstacles rear their ugly heads and the path to victory looks cloudy and difficult?

* Try in this instance refers to this Merriam-Webster definition of try: to put to test or trial, rather than this one: to make an attempt at.

So, like our friends at Nike say, "Just DO it!"