Sacrifice

Here is an excellent quote:
"The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become."
-Charles Du Bos

My opinion:
What are you willing to give up to achieve your dreams?
If you look at the lives of those that are extremely successful they have all sacrificed something to attain their greater goal. Some have even had give up their houses/apartments and sleep in the back of their cars.

Some things that you will most likely have to sacrifice are:
1. Time - this may mean less time spent hanging out with friends, less time watching TV, more time reading books, more time spent thinking.
2. Money - not only watching your spending but also spending your money on things that will help you progress toward your goal.
3. Material Things - this may include temporarily giving up your nice apartment to move into a smaller one so you can have a better office (ties back into money). The same could be said for your car.

I encourage everyone to once again think about:
1. How bad do you want your goal? - be honest here, rate yourself on scale from 1-10; 1 being not too much, 10 being you absolutely want it.
2. What are you willing to sacrifice in order to achieve that goal?

Until next time...

Thinking

Do you think?

What I mean here is do you just go through the motions of life, not really thinking?
Maybe you drive the same way to the office everyday and sometimes you "space out" and when you arrive you think "wow, I don't even remember the drive".

In 2006, I stopped and had a thought "Where do I see myself in five years?". The only answer I could come up with was I don't know. I had no clue.

This is when I decided that I really needed to think about my future. So gradually I spent more time thinking. It took a while but I eventually made some serious changes in my life.
This is what lead me to be where I am today and I have never felt so alive.

I would encourage all of you to go somewhere where you will not be disturbed and think.
You can start out small, maybe ten minutes a day and work you way up.

Until next time...

Practice

Here is another outstanding quote:
"An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching."
-Gandhi

My opinion:
The reason I chose this quote was because I just watched a performance of "Phantom of the Opera" tonight.
As I was sitting there, I started thinking about how much time and effort went into making the whole production work.
I was especially interested in the main characters, imagining how much practice they went through to land those roles.

How many of us are willing to put in the necessary effort to achieve our dreams?
Instead of just saying you will do something, just go out and get started, right where you are.
Remember the steps you take can be small.

Until next time....

Mindpower

Here is your quote for the week:
"Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve."
-Napoleon Hill

My opinion:
This is perhaps Hill's most famous quote and is found in "Think and Grow Rich".
Hill was letting us know how powerful our mind is. I have had many people ask me about handling life's daily struggles. We all experience them. The question I would like to ask you is how much do you focus on the struggles?

Hill's quote is a double-edged sword. If you conceive and believe in all these negative things, you can achieve them....but if you conceive and believe in a big goal you can also achieve that.
Now you may have noticed he used the words "can achieve" and not "will achieve" and the reason for that is action steps/persistence but that is a discussion for another time.

I would like all of you to stop and start to take notice of the thoughts constantly circulating in your mind.

Until next time.....

Oppurtunity

Another great quote:
“What is opportunity, and when does it knock? It never knocks. You can wait a whole lifetime, listening, hoping, and you will hear no knocking. None at all. You are opportunity, and you must knock on the door leading to your destiny. You prepare yourself to recognize opportunity, to pursue and seize opportunity as you develop the strength of your personality, and build a self-image with which you are able to live / with your self-respect alive and growing.”
-Dr. Maxwell Maltz

My opinion:
If you have not read Dr. Maxwell Maltz's book Psycho-Cybernetics I strongly recommend you do so.
Most people will sit around waiting for some great thing to come and find them instead of creating the opportunities to live the life that they want.
How can you do this?
One thing you need to look at is your self image. What do you believe about yourself? Another famous saying by Dr. Maltz was that "You will never outperform your own self image.".
To relate that to you financially: This means if you believe you are worth $30,000, you will never make more than $30,000. You will always hover around that amount.
I encourage all of you to take a long look at what you believe about yourself.

Until next time....