The next few minutes will only be of great benefit to you the reader if I can convince you that you have a destiny and that though that destiny will not come easy, it is worth fighting for. I am of absolutely no use to you unless you have a cry within your heart that says I refuse to die until I have become who I was born to be and until I have won the battle for my God-given destiny. It does not take incredible genius to point out the ageless reality that life will fight you before it hands to you the destiny that has always been yours. Everything that is worth possessing in this life exists on the other side of battle and contention. The world is full of people who want to succeed. Success has been the subject matter of many writings and teachings. There is not a single sane individual on the face of the earth who does not want to live a successful life. With that very thought in mind, I would like to echo the sentiment of many authors great and small, living and long deceased: YOU WERE BORN TO SUCCEED! This statement may sound so cliché—so void of originality, but I contend that it is as valid today as it was the first time it was ever muttered on the lips of man or penned by the hand of man. It is so key to effective living south of heaven, that I will say it again and with the same vigor YOU WERE BORN TO SUCCEED!

Granted the topic of success has been tackled, scrutinized and dissected by minds greater than my own over the historical landscape of man’s career on earth and yet I am going to take the liberty to give my take on it. I will try to define it in a way that will bring it from the nebulous, ethereal pie-in-the-sky to a simple and practical concept that just about any literate person can both understand and achieve. Based on what has been popularized in our 21st century hi-tech society, I would like introduce what success is by first describing what it is not—that way we don’t build the authentic on a faulty foundation.
True success is not necessarily the possession of certain things or looking a certain way or hanging out in certain environments, neither is it merely the buying power to purchase certain brands of merchandize. These may be the result of success but are not success itself. True success is too costly to put a tag on. All the currencies of the world cannot purchase it or the wealthiest people on earth would also be the happiest people on earth. Now, you and I both know that this is not necessarily so. Library shelves are full of biographies that announce loud and clear that wealth and true success are not necessarily mutually inclusive. Wealth does not necessarily produce success, but success will almost always produce wealth.

Some people have erroneously believed that popularity is the same as success. Popularity in and of itself is a cul-de-sac—a dead-end street. Outwardly celebrated while inwardly empty has resulted in personal implosion—a type of caving in for many individuals. We have lived long enough to read the sad headlines of young rock stars who have committed suicide at the peak of the their popularity, while others died of drug overdoses though they were the most celebrated individuals of their generation, from Norma Gene to Elvis Presley, from E! Hollywood: True Story, to VH1’s ‘Behind The Music’, history has forcefully instructed us that popularity alone is not equal to success.

What then is success? Well, true success is about becoming who God made you to be and about living your life in a way that is true to the God who created you. It is about giving _expression to every God-given gift and quality in you. It is about making your contribution to humanity and going to your grave fulfilled, knowing that you are leaving behind you the legacy of a life well invested. True success is about living your life in a way that is true to God’s design: the design of continual progress, growth and advancement. This book is focused at helping you to live a life that is punctuated by progress and advancement, because that is the way the way we were created to be—a life that shows continuous growth in wisdom and knowledge with a steady and perpetual upgrading in vocation.

If succeeding in life and living a life marked by continuous improvement is such a coveted existence, then why is it that the people that achieve this are so few in comparison to those that don’t? I believe it is because so many are ill-equipped and lacking the personal tools and weapons needed to help them face life in way that assures victory. Because of this fact, what we have is a vast number of individuals who are miles behind where they should be in life, work, and relationships. People whose lives have now become defined by what psychologists call ‘functional fixedness’, or the ‘rut’: Individuals whose lives are subsequently characterized by shortfall—shortfall in income, where the outflow dwarfs the inflow and so households are held together by ever increasing debt, shortfall in individual reach, where it seems the things we would like to have are always just outside of our ability to grasp them, shortfall in emotional and internal fulfillment where depression, general hopelessness, feelings of rejection and a poor self-concept are to America what AIDS is to southern Africa—a friggin’ runaway train. Further more, for multiplied others, life is punctuated by glaring deficiencies in meaningful interpersonal connections, producing one of the loneliest generations the earth has ever had even though there are more people alive today than over half of all homo sapiens that have ever existed on the planet throughout the entirety of man’s history on earth!

On the other hand there are a number of people who are living their dreams. They love what they do, have wonderful relationships, are enthusiastic about life whether the circumstances that prevail are favorable or otherwise. These individuals are most likely to wake up every morning and say, “good morning Lord!” While the rest of their counterparts would be more prone to get up and say, “good Lord its morning!” You know who I’m talking about—those people that sing in the shower, eat their Wheaties in the morning and bounce into the work place like they are happy to be there and usually end up running some department or the other. Well what do they have that others are lacking? What is so different about them? How is it that they get so much more out life than their counterparts? Having known a number of such individuals myself, I have to point out right off the bat that they experience just as many setbacks and storms as everyone one else. They too know what its like to fail. They just don’t know what its like to be a failure. Failing is an event and being a failure is a choice—a chosen mindset that becomes a way of life. Their secret I’ve discovered is found not in what happens to them as much as what happens in them and consequently through them. They possess a different perspective on life and hence their response to life’s challenges is different than that of their counterparts. Its not their ability to remain standing in the midst of battle that is fascinating, but their ability to get up again and again after they have been tripped up or cut down. You too can join this elite group of winners if you adjust your perspective on life based on the facts that we shall look at below.

Here are the facts my friend: Life is a made up of a series of battles that must be won if you and I want to advance from where we currently are to where we would like to be. There appears to be a conspiracy to keep us at a place that is below our true potential. This is easily observed in just about every sphere of life. Decide that you are going to go on a diet and almost immediately you get invitations to cookouts and dinners sometimes from the most unlikely people. Where was all this attention a few weeks before when it was okay for you to eat till your navel stretched? I have known people who had a hard time falling asleep at night and instead of just turning and tossing, they decided that they were going to do something meaningful like read to better themselves and guess what happened next? They could not read more than a couple of pages before nodding off to sleep! For others it seems that your finances go completely out of control and it seems you get inundated with unforeseen emergencies the instant you decide you are going to work toward debt-freedom. One of the greatest pressures that we face is the pressure to circum to status quo—to keep us where we have always been.

Imagine for example you were playing a game of Chess and just as you were about to check-mate your opponent, that same opponent jumped over the table and tackled you. Firstly, that would not be very nice, and secondly, you could be justifiably overcome by incredulity. The simple reason is that tackling your opponent is NOT an acceptable defensive move if the game you were playing was Chess. However if you were playing a game of rugby or a game of football, it would be an entirely different matter. A good tackle on an advancing opposing team member could put a splitting grin on the face of any coach. Why? Because while tackling an opponent could be deemed criminal during a game of Chess, it is a welcome and legitimate in a game of football. This is a deliberately exaggerated example given to point out the fact that different scenarios allow different types of stances both offensively and defensively. Know the game you are playing and assume the appropriate posture and for crying out loud offer the appropriate response. I was a rugby-player throughout my high-school days and I have a few scars to prove it. Recently I coached a local business college’s women rugby team. One thing I would tell my team as we prepared for a game, was, hey, if you find yourself with the ball, are about to score a try (touch-down) and a burly, blood-thirsty opposing team-player comes from nowhere and tackles you hard, for crying out loud DON’T LOOK SHOCKED! Expect it! Such is the nature of the game of rugby. I am taken aback by people who seem to fall apart the instant that their vision or dream is challenged by forces beyond their control. In the game or battle for the top this is to be expected. You think you are going to bring you dream from concept to creation without a fight? On what planet exactly is that a normal everyday occurence? Not here on earth. Here on earth every decision you make is challenged every push gets a pushback. Hardly anybody moves from rags to riches simply by existing beautifully. The vast majority have to be able to weather opposing storms and headwinds. Cultivating a true awareness of this reality is what will help you to not feel lost or out of sorts the minute people close to us do not share the same positive outlook on our communicated dream as we do. Refuse to be caught flat-footed by life’s opposing forces.

Back in the grade school I knew a kid who totally lacked the principle of awareness. Our code of conduct amongst the boys back then was that if we couldn’t settle a dispute verbally between two of us then we would have to fight it out in a no holds barred match appropriately called rough-n-tumble. Our collective genius had found a spot on the school property where we could practice our unorthodox system of conflict resolution without the interference of the school hierarchy. There was a pretty efficient grapevine that would spread the news should the need arise for two disagreeing parties settle their dispute via this tried and true system . Now it happened over the course of time that one of the most anticipated “appointments” was confirmed. This involved two of the biggest, most feared kids in the class. Rarely was such a match-up enjoyed because the bigger kids usually picked on the smaller kids and hardly ever on each other. This particular “appointment was master-minded by my little friend Andrew, the runt of our class, who organized the encounter with noteable degree of professionalism.
With half an hour to go before our break time, the grapevine was buzzing with the details of the “appointment” and as soon as the bell rang, we headed for our “spot” as fast as our little legs could carry us. The circle was quickly formed and Andrew (who also acted as referee) stepped in to revise the rules and to get the show on the road. Bug-eyed we watched as these two icons of physiological superiority took their positions. What happened next will forever remain etched in our memories as one of the most disappointing outcomes of our thus far proven system.
The first big guy who I will call Tom gave his opponent who I will Chris what we considered to be a little slap upside the head to get things going. Under normal circumstances this would have resulted in a full-fledge skirmish, but not that day. Whether Chris was low on testosterone and high on estrogen that day, we will never know. What we do know is that our little jaws just about dropped to ground when Chris responded with a resounding ‘ouch!’ First of all, this was not the response we anticipated and secondly, guys don’t say “ouch” when they are hit in fight. Everybody knows that! When Chris saw the vacant looks on our faces he went on to say the most ridiculous thing our little ears had ever had the misfortune of hearing. With a little whimper he said, “it hurt”. We just stared at each other in complete disbelief and for a moment we must have become telepathic because we responded with the uniformity of a trained choir… IT’S SUPPOSED TO HURT!
Well, the fight was over of course. The build up had ended with the anti-climatic diffusion of our highest expectations. For some reason Chris had not invested within himself the principle of awareness and so thought it strange when he was actually hit in a fight. I for the life of me could not figure out exactly what he thought was going to happen. I have then and now adamantly refused to think it unnatural when I experience the hard knocks of life. Its like this, If you were a soldier on the frontline in a time of war, I’m sure it would not hurt your feelings if the other guy…flying a different flag…on the other side of the barbed-wire fired his rifle at you. Why? Because such is the nature of war.

As you begin the battle for your destiny, you need to first create within yourself the awareness of the fact that you are in battle. That way you will allow yourself assume the appropriate posture for an appropriate response. You would be amazed at how resourceful you can be when you really have to be. When you are aware of the fact that you are at war and that facing challenges is a normal way of life, you will activate your innovative and creative side that usually lies dormant until it is challenged. If you will invest in your psyche a sense of battle awareness, chances are high that you will not fall apart the first time something does not go the way you planned but that you will adjust yourself and make the changes necessary for effective response.

It is universally evident that gaining ground towards goals is something that only those who are truly determined achieve. Now, if you know that it is life’s way to fight you before it hands to you what is truly yours, then it is ludicrous that you would get discouraged when setbacks occur. Instead you should just adjust yourself and look for your opportunity to strike back. I’ll say it again: Life will fight you before it hands to you what is yours. Now, because this is a true assessment, it behooves you and I to learn the rudiments that will help us fight effectively the battle of life. There is a way to fight effectively and to fight smart—to fight in such a way that the outcome will swing in your favor. I am about to make you privy to a strategy that will set you on the course of perpetual victory. So you want to fight and win? So you are ready to advance beyond your present position? Well then because life IS a battle…here are the rules of engagement…

RULE #1: EMBRACE THE CAUSE!
One of the greatest historical influences on warfare in both ancient and modern times especially in the eastern nations is the ancient Chinese military philosopher who went by the name Sun Tzu. Sun Tzu’s timeless writing “The Art of War” has been essential reading for many great eastern military generals in the years ensuing the writing. In more recent times, Sun Tzu’s Art of War has morphed into a business text whose wisdom has been arming CEOs across the nation on principles of engaging their “enemies” across the battlefields of the corporate world. In his text Sun Tzu lays out five principles that he claims are indispensable to successful military endeavor. While it is not my ambition to provide commentary on the entire 7000 word Chinese text, I would however like to zone in on the very first principle Sun Tzu outlines in the Art of War. It is what he calls the Tao or the moral cause for the battle. Sun Tzu believed as many no doubt before and certainly after him that one of the most powerful weapons an army can possess in battle is the unshakeable belief that it is fighting for something worth fighting for and even dying for. Because warfare is extremely taxing physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, and because it brings into it the element of life and death, it is essential for the soldier to know that what he is fighting for is something that is meaningful, something worth the struggle. If this essential paradigm is absent, an army may possess the latest technology, and may have superior numbers, but the chances of success are greatly compromised before the battle even begins. Nations do not win battles just because they possess the largest armies or the best weaponry alone. Modern history supports this notion. If you want to win the battle for the next level, the battle for the life you were born to live, you must nurse in your bosom the conviction that it is morally just for you to fight, and to win. It is a worthy cause for you to engage the things that hold you back and the storms that seem to hit at the most inconvenient time and to overcome them. Militarists tell us that the odds are 5-1 in favor of the army with the stronger cause. To win in life you must possess the will to fight. To possess the will to fight, you must believe THERE IS A CAUSE!

RULE # 2 AWAKEN THE WARRIOR WITHIN

Now in order to wage a warfare sufficient enough to take and secure the hill of your destiny, you need to first awaken the warrior in you. You maybe be uncomfortable with all this military rhetoric but allow to me to contend that battle, fighting and winning has characterized your life from even before you were born. The will to win is in fact one of the most basic traits of your makeup because you have literally fought for every step you’ve taken. All of us have a warrior in us who we can either lull into slumber or resurrect into action. We were born determined warriors. In fact friend, to uncover and discover the warrior in you, you have to go back to the earliest moments of your existence and find the warrior you used to be.

You were fighting odds before you were ever conceived. You don’t believe me, well consider this– The woman produces about 3 000 ova in each of her ovaries and once a month one of those “eggs” containing unique genetic information matures, leaves the ovary and makes it’s way down the fallopian tube where it awaits fertilization in a process called ovulation. In the procreative act the man can release up to 350 million sperm each one possessing a unique genetic combination and each one wired for one purpose alone–that is to find that one ripe and ready “egg” and fertilize it. Only one sperm cell can successfully complete this task so before you were even conceived you had competed against insurmountable odds and won. The moment the race began you…well technically speaking, part of you, wagged its little tail and bee-lined for your mother’s ovum like the proverbial bat-out-of-hell and so in reality, a part of you competed in a marathon that had millions of entrants’ and you won! Since when have things just been handed to you?, you’ve been fighting from the very beginning.

After conception you spend a gestation period in seclusion where every possible odd was against you. In the dark depths of your mother’s anatomy you were forming, splitting into cells, tissue, organs and limbs, systematically and without procrastination. Without putting off until next week what could be done today. At a mere seven weeks your little heart was already pumping 7 gallons of blood a day around your formless little body with a regularity that would continue for the rest of your life. You didn’t have it together. Literally. But that obviously didn‘t stop you or you would not be reading this book… or any book for that matter.

When you were done with the womb address you threw your host into one of the most intense physical crises(appropriately called labor) that the human body can endure and the battle for the next level had begun. At this stage, your mother’s body with the help of some weird looking people with masks and gloves pushed you through a very restricted exit door. It took a while but your determination to get to the next stage of your journey was matched only by your mother’s determination to “help” you get there. The delivery room was a hive of activity, filled with the mixed sounds of groaning and agony, and the cheerleading exhortations from the doctor and nursing staff. This bittersweet compilation of the labor-ward symphony was heralding the way that life was going to be for you from then on. A mixture of groaning and agony associated with forceful advancement and progression, and the exuberant celebration associated with achievement. You were the whole time, making your way from your 9 month comfort zone into an environment that was going to prove to be more challenging than the cave you were in.

To introduce you to life on the planet, you were grabbed–rather un-gently by one of those masked Individuals, who upon your slightest hesitation, held you upside down and slapped you in the glute. You didn’t come here tip toeing through the turlips with a smile on your face. You came through blood and sweat and tears. Your arrival into this world was both dramatic and traumatic but you made it! You had won the race of conception, had sidestepped the possibility of an automatic miscarriage, you had conquered the stillbirth statistic and won the nine-month battle of the bulge. Face it, whether you were a result of a wanted or unwanted pregnancy, you earned the right to be here. The day you were born you entered a world where men and women who had arrived here through experiences not unlike your own are the most influential species on the planet, shaping civilizations, challenging natural law, and following that God-given instinct to leave a mark.

Consider the fact that you had to go through all that just to be born. Just to earn the nomination to stand on the starting line of the race of life. If this is what it took simply to be born, you can rest assured it is going to take at least as much for you to become who you were born to be. Your first order or business is therefore, is to awake yourself to the fact that resistance is not negative, but a necessary part of the journey, the obstacles are there to reveal to you your ability to jump over othem. That seemingly insurmountable obstacles just serve to teach the penetrative power built into your very makeup. There is so much you would not know about yourself if your desires were not challenged and refined in the crucible of dissapointment. Be aware of this basic rule in life, which you will hear time and time again on this journey. Life will fight you before it allows you to take the destiny that is yours. It’s not personal…it’s just the way it is. If you are not aware that this is a principle hardwired into every major undertaking here on earth. You will think the rejection you feel when people don’t share your vision is somehow unique to you. No it’s not. It is more common than the common cold. You are going to have to position yourself to carry on advancing towards your dream no matter what.

Many people give up on things too easily and so never really see the manifestation of all that they could be.
Consider this historic example; Three invading armies of blindness, deafness, and dumbness once attacked a little girl called Helen Keller and they seemed hell-bent on keeping her from becoming all she was meant to be. Their objective was to limit her influence and to bring to naught those things she had a desire to do and be. Little Helen could have waved the white flag and given in to the dictates of this debilitating army. No one would have blamed her if she had ended up a blind, deaf and mute beggar on the streets of Boston Massachusetts. Helen could have slumped over into a helpless heap crippled by the incapacitating shortcomings these foes used for weaponry and the world would have understood.
I am happy to announce however, that that little lady had other ideas. She opted instead to put her battle face on and to invest the warrior in her completely into a full frontal engagement with these three enemies and by the end of her life she had traveled, lectured and authored amazing works of literature. When asked what would be worse than being born blind and deaf, she answered, “being born with eyes but having no vision”. Enlightening words from a soldier par excellent.

RULE #3 DEFINE THE DREAM

Now that the warrior in you is awake take note that it is principly unwise to go to war without a clear set of objectives. Before moving any further, the time is now to confront yourself with three tough questions. What do I want? What does it look like, and why do I want it? Life is not an abstract art. For those who have mastered it, it can be reduced to a fine art, but a successful life has clear definition. If you are clear on ‘what’ and ‘why’..the ‘when’ and ‘how’ will begin to present themselves to you. I have to stress that unearthing the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ is not as simple as it sounds. You have to sift through a whole host of the alternative plans and preferences your intelligent mind offers you the minute you begin to search for your big WHAT. This is when you have to realize that the good, not the bad, is the real enemy of the great. So clearly define what you want. Not what you wish, or what you would prefer but your clear and precise desire. Without this powerful essential clarified, you will be easily driven off course by life’s resisting forces.

Sir Isaac Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion suggests that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Let me suggest that this law is more universal than most people understand or appreciate. There is a cosmically configured pushback in every attempt to push forward. Again…It’s not personal! It’s Life! The trick therefore is to not allow this pushback to take you by surprise nor find you ill-prepared and thereby ruin your best laid plans. Allow yourself to be awake to this fact of life. Cultivate what I call the principle of awareness. True awareness is what helps you stand fully in the now, equal to any situation that now can bring. Be aware of the place where you are and the rules that govern the activity you are currently engaged in. Do not allow situations to bewilder you.

Many people on the journey to their dream are derailed by good alternatives. Only a clear definition of your dream can help you circumvent distraction…the mother of dream killers. In the ancient Hebrew texts, a story is told of the Prophet Elijah and his young protegeé Elisha which helps to illustrate my point. Elijah was a mighty prophet that could call down fire from heaven and accomplish great miraculous feats. Elisha was his young understudy and as the story goes, the time came when Elijah was going to be taken up into heaven, so the old prophet told the young student, Stay in this city because God has sent me to another place, but Elisha, who knew that his master was about to be taken away vowed to stay with his mentor. 4 times the Old prophet gave the young prophet and opportunity to stay in what was for all intents and purposes a good place but the young prophet would not leave his side. When they came to the Jordan, the story goes, the old man took his cloak and struck the waters of the river and river parted before them…when in the middle of the river the old prophet exclaimed to this young student that was clinging to him like porous plaster…’What do you want from me??!’ Without hesitation the young prophet said, ‘I want a double portion of the spirit(power) that is on you’. It was a clear demand, not open to negotiation…not oh it would be nice if. No. The young prophet was clear on what he wanted and as soon as he was given the opportunity, spoke out that desire clearly and articulately. The old prophet must have marvelled at the intensity of his young student’s focus. ‘You have asked for a difficult thing the old man said…but if you see me when I’m taken away into heaven, you can have what you asked.’ Essentially the old prophet was saying if you will keep your eyes on me, not look to the left or the right or at anything else, then and only then you will pass the test and the power that is on me will be doubled in you.

At that very moment, the scriptures declare, a chariot of fire drawn by horses of fire came down from sky and passed between, separating them. In the same instant, the old prophet was taken up in a whirlwind. The young prophet cried out in fear but kept his eyes on the prophet and the old prophet’s cloak fell from the sky right next to the young prophet and with it a double portion of the old man’s power and anointing. Consider closely the multi-layerd events that took place at the same time….a dazzling, dramatic sight of chariots of fire drawn by horses of fire came between the old master and his student, if the student had taken his eyes off the old man and allowed his vision to be captivated by this spectacular apparition moving in one direction, he would have missed the old man being taken up by a whirlwind in another direction, and a last minute loss of focus would have cost him his desire. The chariot passed between them going in one way at the same the old man was spiraling up to heaven going another way and the young prophet had a choice: put my focus on the new big, dazzling thing or keep my eyes on my not-so-dazzling original intention. He chose the latter and became one of the most powerful prophets of his day.

I told the story to make this very specific point. If you are not clear on what you want you will always be taken out of focus by the latest, dazzling decoy that life sends to test the quality of your focus. Many people get distracted at the point of breakthrough. Just when you find the person of your dreams, an old flame from your past suddenly shows up, superimposing himself or herself into your present narrative. The unwise usually allow themselves to get all confused and worked up and thereby taken off course and in the end stand a chance to lose both. You are finally going to start that business and out of the blue you get what appears to be an amazing job offer with awesome benefits and growth potential…what are you going to do? You are finally going to start that diet and exercise program and just as you are about to break out your granola bar, a friend you have not seen in a while calls and offers to take you to lunch at a place that serves the best calorie-infested meals on the planet. What say you? You decide that you are going to spend an hour a day in prayer and meditation and your favorite TV program is rescheduled to coinicide with your allotted prayer hour. All these are not some far-fetched hypothetical questions by the way. These are examples of realities that face a significant amount of people the instant they have made a decision. Some of these may have actually happened to some of you reading this portion. Listen…it’s not personal! It is just life’s way of actively separating the true visionary from the wishful thinker! Focus in the face of good alternatives is what qualifies you to apprehend your destiny. St Paul said, ‘forgetting what lies behind, focusing on what lies ahead I press for the mark…’

Can you, inspite of distractions great or small, make a decision on what you want to do or be, and keep your focus on that one thing till it comes to fruition? There is tremendous power in focus. It is the difference between flourescent light and a laser beam. flourescent light is nice soft and scattered, yeah it can light a room, but very little else. A laser beam is what is called coherent light. It is light so concentrated and focused it is capable of cutting through steel! D.L Moody said ‘Give me a person that says ‘this one thing I do, not one who says ‘these fifty things I dabble in’. Bruce Lee says I do not fear the man that practices ten thousand kicks one time. I fear the man that practices one kick ten thousand times’. There is tremendous power in setting your course and staying the course.

A few years ago childhood friend and business partner of mine and I started working on a project. We had great ideas and had the right combination of abilities that we could have produced some amazing transformative products for our clients. We worked together for over a year creating concepts and methodology for our consulting concern and more than once I’d fly into the city that he was in and we hardly left the house working our tails off. He had left his job with a major Fortune 500 firm to work on our venture. Just before we were going to launch however, an offer that was lucrative beyond measure came in from a gentleman we both respected. It was going to be one those deals that if it came through, it would been more than sufficient to fund everything else we were doing many times over. This was not so much in my area of expertise but well within my business partner’s aptitude. To cut the long story short, we shelved what we had been working in order that he might pursue this new venture that promised a major windfall.

I was concerned that it was a just a decoy but didn’t have the courage to tell my friend. I just immersed myself in my own work, while he pursued this. One month turned into two and two months into a year and a year into 3 years without any real breakthrough. I, in the mean time was having some success in my other ventures but was still feeling the pain of the vision that was abandoned before it was born. It felt like a miscarriage to me. 3 years after the fact my friend and I reconnected, nothing had ever come out of that amazing offer. He was a gifted man of principle who found himself working with unscrupulous, duplicitous individuals who had no concept of true business symbiosis. He had lost 3 years unsuccessfully trying to work with uncooperative, low character individuals. Though the time wasted could not be retreived at least the lesson learned would last a lifetime.

As an avid student of life, I began to actively study this concept both in history and currrent life experiences and I found it was rife and almost a constant in the lives of many who had either pushed through and apprehended their dream or many who had abandoned their dream for the bigger better thing only to discover that they had lost both because they had allowed themselves to be distracted. Let my loss be your gain. Know what you want. Clearly define it. Don’t allow your heart to be captivated by cheap albeit dazzling alternatives. In many cases the cheaper the merchandize, the higher the gloss… and yes it’s true, all that glitters is not gold.

Begin by asking yourself the question. What do I want? Allow yourself to listen and pay attention, as answers begin to emerge, begin to write them down. The worst place to store a vision is in your head. Best place? On paper. Ancient Hebrew prophet Habukkuk exhorts us saying ‘Write the vision and make it plain, that he may run with it who reads it’. Your dream and desire have to come from just a feeling to a clearly articulated thing. Write it down in a journal. That process alone allows your dream to begin to attain some degree of clarity. Look at it at least twice a day. This enables you to keep it fresh before your eyes. You have no clear vision if that vision or dream is not written down. What you have is a wish and real life is creates little to no room for those given to wishful thinking. As you read your vision, you will find yourself making some alerations in the beginning until you come to a concrete ‘this is what i want!’.

Being clear on what you want helps you to be clear on what you don’t want. It enables you to tell the difference between the the genuine article and the counterfeit. So answer me…what the heck do you want?? Really? Life coaching session after life coaching session I can honestly tell you that a lot of people have never really been clear on what they want. Clarity creates focus and focus is the sine quo non to success. If you aim at nothing in particular…you are going to get just that…nothing in particular. Your constitution is not built to fight whole-heartedly for some non-descript thing. It is impossible to harness and bring to bear the full resource of your mental, emotional and spiritual force for a non-specific goal. It won’t happen. Define your goal. See it in your mind’s eye. See it clearly. Let your heart be in it. Let your thoughts surround it like a blanket. The clearer it comes into focus, the greater the chance that it will attain corporeality and eventually come into full manifestation.