Success Is Easy, But So Is Neglect by Jim Rohn

People often ask me how I became successful in that six-year period of time while many of the people I knew did not. The answer is simple: The things I found to be easy to do, they found to be easy not to do. I found it easy to set the goals that could change my life. They found it easy not to. I found it easy to read the books that could affect my thinking and my ideas. They found that easy not to do. I found it easy to attend the classes and the seminars, and to get around other successful people. They said it probably really wouldn’t matter. If I had to sum it up, I would say what I found to be easy to do, they found to be easy not to do. Six years later, I’m a millionaire and they are all still blaming the economy, the government, and company policies, yet they neglected to do the basic, easy things.

In fact, the primary reason most people are not doing as well as they could, and should, can be summed up in a single word: neglect.

It is not the lack of money—banks are full of money. It is not the lack of opportunity—America, and much of the world, continues to offer the most unprecedented and abundant opportunities in the last six thousand years of recorded history. It is not the lack of books—libraries are full of books, and they are free! It is not the schools—the classrooms are full of good teachers. We have plenty of ministers, leaders, counselors and advisors.

Everything we would ever need to become rich and powerful and sophisticated is within our reach. The major reason that so few take advantage of all that we have is simply neglect.

Neglect is like an infection. Left unchecked, it will spread throughout our entire system of disciplines and eventually lead to a complete breakdown of a potentially joy-filled and prosperous human life.

Not doing the things we know we should do causes us to feel guilty, and guilt leads to an erosion of self-confidence. As our self-confidence diminishes, so does the level of our activity. And as our activity diminishes, our results inevitably decline. And as our results suffer, our attitude begins to weaken. And as our attitude begins the slow shift from positive to negative, our self-confidence diminishes even more... and on and on it goes.

So my suggestion is, when given the choice of “easy to” and “easy not to,” that you do not neglect to do the simple, basic, “easy” but potentially life-changing activities and disciplines.

To Your Success,
Jim Rohn

Thoughts Create Behavior by Vic Johnson

“Cause and effect are as absolute and undeviating in the hidden realm of thought as in the world of visible and material things.” —As a Man Thinketh

We remember from science class Newton’s physical law that “every action creates an equal and opposite reaction.” Or, every cause has an effect. And because it is a law, it is absolute and undeviating. It always happens—in every circumstance, under every condition.

James Allen says the same law that applies in the physical also applies in the world of thought. Every effect must have an originating cause. Our life does not develop as a result of chance but as a result of causes.

In the thought world, a thought (the cause) creates a feeling (the effect). Feelings can eventually materialize in the physical world because they create actions or behavior. These actions cause results or outcomes, and thus our life goes.

When we say a person “looks worried,” what has taken place? A negative thought of some kind (the cause) triggered a feeling of worry (the effect) that materialized in the physical world through the person’s facial actions. Those feelings may also materialize in other ways. For instance, by increased blood pressure or nausea. All of these “effects” originated from the original cause, which was a thought.

Dr. Wayne Dyer writes that “all of our behavior results from the thoughts that preceded it…. So the thing to work on is not your behavior but the thing that caused your behavior, your thoughts.”

That was so liberating to me because I was so frustrated in trying to change the behaviors that I knew were causing the pain in my life. But I had been working on the wrong thing.

We cannot change anything in our life without first changing the originating cause. And everything in our life originates in our thoughts.

As Jim Rohn says: “If the idea of having to change ourselves makes us uncomfortable, we can remain as we are. We can choose rest over labor, entertainment over education, delusion over truth, and doubt over confidence. The choices are ours to make. But while we curse the effect, we continue to nourish the cause.”

And that’s worth thinking about.

—Vic Johnson

The Biology of Leadership: Allowing the Wisdom of Your Body to Lead You to One Spirit - By Brenda Sanders

Everyone we know is experiencing some form of increased "pressure" during these transforming times. These pressures may appear in the form of financial struggles, relationship challenges or health issues. It is helpful to understand from both a scientific and spiritual view point, that any particular form comprises only a small percentage of "all that is" about your life. It is equally helpful to live life from the perspective that you are one part of a collective. One individual calling forth the changes we are experiencing collectively. We do not want things to remain the same! Thus we must be better prepared to adapt to the even greater changes we know are coming. By understanding that we actually are creating this reality, this knowing becomes the impetus to evolve both as an individual and as a species. We are evolving as a species one individual at a time! New discoveries in Biology are actually proving scientifically what the great sages and saints of our history have been saying for thousands of years: We are ONE!

In this human form, we tend to focus on what we can see. It sure seems as if we are separate from each other and our environment. Yet many of us have had momentary glimpses of another reality, one in which we are all interconnected through the One Spirit that animates all life, and it cloaks us in abundance, beauty and divine love. This view of life feels more real to us. It also feels good because it evokes love, compassion and awe, emotions that are directly linked to our wellbeing. Studies have shown that the greater our feeling of connectedness, the less stressed we are. Positive emotions help us to meet life's challenges with grace and to sustain meaningful relationships. They account for the increased health and vitality among elderly people who have pets, or a circle of good friends, and are the reason that happily married couples live longer than singles. Yet because our interconnection defies our senses, and our logical mind only recognizes our separateness, positive emotional experiences are short-lived for most of us in our day-to-day lives. They are transient and unpredictable, wiped out in an instant when an event passes by that is not to our liking.

Just as our sense of connection evokes positive emotions our sense of separation brings negative ones that pull us even further away from Oneness. They bump us out of present moment awareness which is the only place that Oneness can be found. The more separate we feel the more depressed, angry and stressed we become. Our isolation brings a sense of scarcity and we feel as if we are in competition for limited resources. We know that stress taxes the immune system and other natural defense systems in the body, making us prone to cancer, heart attacks and other life threatening illnesses. In short, we die sooner.

Unfortunately, as adults, our natural tendency leans closer to separation and negative emotional experiences, than to our interconnection and positive ones. Even when we know that we are Spirit at our very core, we function in a constant state of forgetfulness thinking that our physical form is all there is. It is as if our short-term memory of One Spirit can last only a few moments and we must reconnect to it on an ongoing basis. This is why we need a daily practice... to remember. In this remembering we can hold the Oneness, even though unseen, in a balance with the visible world. It affords us the perspective of the modern mystic, of seeing the divine through our human form and we become authentic leaders. We change the world by changing ourselves and lead through love, compassion for each other, and appreciation of life's gifts.

It stands to reason that the more that we can stabilize positive emotions, the healthier, happier and more compassionate we will be. We will live longer and become better leaders. But how can we evoke and stabilize these emotions? Is there something we can do beyond focusing on our breath in mediation, or trying to think better feeling thoughts? Can we draw upon the wisdom of our body to bring positive emotions more to the forefront of our lives?

Scientists have been studying the biology of stress for years. We know that it triggers the Fight or Flight Response. Regulated through the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and the hormone adrenaline, it acts to quickly ramp up processes that increase our energy level, such as heartbeat, respiration and blood flow, and it shuts down digestion. Although this shutdown helps us better fight an adversary or flee from a predator, habitual negative thoughts and emotions can keep the system revved up for long periods of time, causing the physiological burnout that compromises our health.

What most of us don't know is that our body also responds when we reach out to connect to others and to the natural world. In addition to the biology of stress, there is the biology of love and compassion, and it also under the control of the ANS. It is regulated through an alternate pathway to the one used for the stress response. While the former increases the heart rate and slows down nonessential processes to prepare for fight or flight, the Compassion Response slows down the heart rate, slows down breathing and relaxes us. It sustains positive emotions, such as love and compassion by synchronizing the heart, the brain and the nervous and hormonal systems. This response is coordinated through the vegus nerve which resides in the chest. It produces a feeling of liquid warmth that spreads throughout the heart area when it is activated. It also triggers the secretion of oxytocin, the hormone which elicits a sense of trust, love and compassion.

Research at the Institute of Heart Math has shown that we can bring on the Compassion Response by simply slowing our breathing. It is strengthened even further if we consciously generate feelings of love and appreciation, and imagine breathing directly through the heart area. This triggers positive feelings through the ANS and evokes feelings of security and well-being. This practice has the added benefit of over-riding negative thoughts, feelings and behaviors. Through practice, the Compassion Response becomes stronger and more enduring. In time, simply visualizing our breathing through the heart during a challenging situation will shift us from the Stress Response to the Compassion Response.

We can strengthen this response many-fold by being in the presence of others who are stepping into their full potential SELF. By expressing from the Compassion Response, our hearts and minds synchronize as SELF. It is in this experience that we become entrained in One Spirit and cloaked in the abundance, beauty and divine love of our inter-connection.

** To comment on this article or to read comments about this article, go here.

About the Author:

Brenda Sanders is the SelfGrowth.com Official Guide to Spiritual Growth. She can be found at http://selfgrowth.com/guide/brendasanders.html

This is the magic and the grace of One Spirit Weekend. We hope you join us to learn to embody your role as an awakening leader during this shift. To learn more about One Spirit Weekend please visit us at: http://www.onespiritweekend.com, email us at info@onespiritweekend.com or call us at 928.649.1921

Persist Until You Succeed

By Brian Tracy

The most important single quality of success is self-discipline. Self-discipline is having the ability within yourself, based on your strength of character and willpower, to do what you should do when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not. Character is the ability to follow through on a resolution after the enthusiasm with which the resolution was made has passed.

Persistence is Self-Discipline in Action

Perhaps the greatest display of self-discipline is persisting when the going gets tough. Persistence is self-discipline in action. Persistence is the great measure of individual human character. Your persistence is, in fact, the true measure of your belief in yourself and your ability to succeed. Each time that you persist in the face of adversity and disappointment, you build the habit of persistence. You build pride, power, and self-esteem in your character and your personality. You become stronger and more resolute. By persisting, you become more self-disciplined. You develop within yourself the iron quality of success, the one quality that will carry you forward and over any obstacle that life can throw in your path.

Get Going and Keep Going

Orison Swett Marden wrote in his book, “There are two essential requirements for success. The first is 'go-at-it-iveness' and the second is 'stick-to-it-iveness'” Referring to the quality of persistence he wrote, “There is no failure for the man who realizes his power, who never knows when he is beaten; there is no failure for the determined endeavor, the conquerable will. There is no failure for the man who gets up every time he falls, who rebounds like a rubber ball, who persists when everyone else gives up, who pushes on when everyone else turns back.”

"Accomplish More in a Month Than Most People Accomplish in a Year" Your ability to discipline yourself "to do what you should, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not," is the key to becoming a great person and living a great life. When you develop the habits of self-discipline, you will accomplish more in a month than most people accomplish in a year. Click for more >>

Persistence is Your Greatest Asset

Perhaps your greatest asset is simply your ability to stay at a task longer than anyone else. B.C. Forbes, who founded Forbes magazine and built it into a major publication during the darkest days of the Depression, wrote, “History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeat.”

Adversity is What Tests Us

Throughout history, great thinkers have reflected on this paradox and have concluded that adversity is the test that you must pass on the path to accomplishing anything worthwhile. Herodotus, the Greek philosopher, said, “Adversity has the effect of drawing out strength and qualities of a man that would have lain dormant in its absence.” The very best qualities of strength, courage, character, and persistence are brought out in you when you face your greatest challenges and when you respond to them positively and constructively.

Action Exercise

Your greatest successes almost invariably come one step beyond your greatest failures, when everything inside you says quit. Think of failures in terms of how you can make them successes.

Eleven Keys to Increasing your Productivity

By Brian Tracy

• Develop clear goals and write them down.
  Because higher productivity begins with clear goals, goal setting is a key component of our coaching program. As you know, a goal must be specific and measurable to be effective in guiding your behavior. It must reflect your beliefs and be within your power to achieve.
• Write a clear action plan.
  Next, if you want to turbo-charge your productivity, make sure you have a clear, written plan of action. Every minute you spend in careful planning will save you as many as ten minutes in execution.
• Set your priorities.
  The third step is to prioritize your list. Analyze your list before you take action. Identify and start with the high-value tasks on your list.
• Concentrate and eliminate distractions.
  In this step, choose a high-value activity or task, start on it immediately, and stay with it until it is done. Focusing single-minded attention on one task allows you to complete it far more quickly than starting and stopping.

"A Goal Without a Plan is Only a Dream…" If you dream of achieving great things in life, planning for making them a reality on paper is vital to your success. The Life Planning Process is a step-by-step manual to help you set and achieve your goals. Using this Action Workbook will guarantee that you stay on course, on time and on target. Learn more here >>

• Lengthen your workday but increase your time off.
  By starting your workday a little earlier, working through lunchtime, and staying a little later, you can become one of the most productive people in your field.
• Work harder at what you do.
  When you are at work, concentrate on work all the time you are there. Don't squander your time or fall into the habit of treating the workplace as a community where socializing is acceptable.
• Pick up the pace. At work, develop a sense of urgency and maintain a quicker tempo in all your activities. Get on with the job. Dedicate yourself to moving quickly from task to task.
• Work smarter.
  Focus on the value of the tasks you complete. While the number of hours you put in is important, what matters most is the quality and quantity of results you achieve.
• Align your work with your skills.
  Skill and experience count. You achieve more in less time when you work on tasks at which you are especially skilled or experienced.
• Bunch your tasks.
  Group similar activities and do them all at the same time. Making all your calls, completing all your estimates, or preparing all your presentation slides at the same time allows you to develop speed and skill at each activity.
• Cut out steps.
  Pull several parts of the job together into a single task and eliminate several steps. Where you can, cut lower-value activities completely.

Action Exercise
What are your ten most important goals? Carefully review your ten most important goals. Select one that, if achieved immediately, would have the strongest positive impact on your life.

How to Drive Your Career Change - By Peter Fisher

If your career has gone off the road, take control and drive back to job satisfaction with a direct approach.

When you're looking for that new job or a career move it's easy to think that 'they' hold all the cards.

But if you can change the way you think about it, you can get back in the driver's seat, and after all, this is your career we're talking about.

Remember 'they' don't hire you for the sake of it; they hire you to help them make a profit!

So two things first -- how you are (attitude) and how you react (the way you see things)

1. Attitude

Everyone goes on about positive mental attitude, don't they? But what does it mean?

To some extent we can all have some influence over what happens to us. I don't mean to say that we can make everything go right all the time, but we can hold an attitude of expecting things to go right

If we expect things to go well they're more likely to.

If we expect things to go badly they probably will.

So even if everything doesn't go right we can get past the things that go wrong so much easier. This is what I mean by positive mental attitude.

2. The way you see things

-Instead of thinking they're in charge, try 'I'm in charge';
-Instead of waiting to be chosen, decide what you want and present some proposals;
-Instead of dreading interviews, think of yourself influencing key decision-makers;
-Instead of scouring the adverts, read them as sources of inside information;
-Instead of worrying about vacancies, think of them as needs waiting to be met;
-Instead of having to accept the offered terms, think how you can negotiate;
-Instead of them getting what they want, you both get what you want.

Job banks, search engines, job listings, and job guides are all useful tools in your employment search; however they won't find you the unadvertised jobs. Statistics show that perhaps up to 60% of all jobs are unadvertised and are found informally - that is to say through networking and the direct approach - so the unadvertised jobs are what you really need to uncover.

You can uncover these unadvertised jobs and get back into the driving seat by putting together a carefully crafted direct approach letter.

This direct approach is no more and no less than a 'marketing' exercise to a specifically qualified target audience. It is NOT a mail-shot and certainly NOT 'speculative' letters that some people would have you waste your time writing.

Compared to a direct approach letter, the speculative letter or mail-shot is a complete waste of time, effort and possible opportunity. So don't do it!

Why do I say that?

Because: A speculative mail-shot aims to cover as many possibilities as you can, so inherently it's not specific to any particular reader. A speculative letter labels you as a jobseeker and gets sent to the Personnel Department (if they have one and it gets past the waste-basket). Unless you want to work for the Personnel Department (if they have one) that's the last place you want your letter to go.

Also, mail-shots in general usually have less than 2% response rate so to generate some interest, (even before an interview is offered) you'd have to spend maybe £300 on postage alone. This approach at best will bring you what 'they' think you should have, not necessarily what you want for yourself.

But the most important reason is that when you try to cover all the possible employers you then make it virtually impossible to approach them again or in any other way. (Oh yes, you already sent your details in to us didn't you?)

So what should you do?

1. Each direct approach must be tailor-made for the reader;
2. Your letter must include a business proposition;
3. Only address to the decision-maker who can employ you;
4. Research the organization in detail;
5. Be businesslike and professional;
6. Do NOT include your CV
7. Make it clear you would like to arrange a meeting;
8. Be prepared to follow-up quickly once sent;

9. Be persistent -- they need you.

You already know there is so much more to job or career change than waiting for the right advert to appear so if you want to get back in the driving seat prepare a good direct approach.

Remember - fail to prepare - prepare to fail

Use your research and personal achievements to pack real benefits into your letter; the research you do will show you exactly what proposition you need to develop.

When a need exists because of expansion or new locations; departure or retirement of employees; new product launches; new markets at home or overseas; downsizing (businesses often lose people they'd rather keep); or change in legislation, somebody has the problem to solve. You simply present yourself as the solution, and so remove their headache.

Use this direct approach as one of the main tactics in your overall career change strategy; your time is better spent on this and networking than scouring the papers for adverts to reply to.
** To comment on this article or to read comments about this article, go here.



About the Author:

With over 25 years running businesses as a Career Coach and Consultant in many sectors, Peter Fisher is well placed to guide job seekers through the steps needed in order to achieve that all important new position.

He has personally coached thousands of individuals to career success.

For specific guidance on how you might produce your own direct approach letter go here.

You can learn more about his dynamic and comprehensive approach to career change, with every page dedicated to helping serious career changers if you go here.

5 Secular Trends Investors Must Know

Posted: September 15, 2009 1:59PM by Ryan Barnes

Difficult questions abound in today's stock market. Are we in a new bull market or does the bear still roam? Have the broad economy and the business cycle rebounded, or are we in for further rounds of low growth? Questions like these are easy to ask, yet very hard to answer.

So is there any low-hanging fruit out there for an investor to find? Below are five of the most prominent secular trends from around the globe. What is a secular trend? Quite simply, it is a trend that has long-term causes, long-term effects, and can be depended on to be just as important in the future as today. The companies that lead in providing solutions to these trends should outperform the broad market over the next decade, as they have a neon-lit pathway to higher revenues and profits. Let's take a look at five secular trends that every investor should know. (Read more in Digging Deeper Into Bull And Bear Markets.)

1. The Baby Boomer Generation
The boomers represent the single most concentrated source of wealth in the history of mankind. Many of them are retiring (granted, some later than they may have wished), which means they will be tapping into their nest eggs. Many will travel or move to a new home. They will take up new hobbies and activities.

In short, boomers will be spenders rather than savers. They will be able to spend more on necessary healthcare than any generation before, and in their twilight years they will look to senior living centers that can provide a valuable social setting while getting closer access to important health care. Follow this powerful demographic – it's a bankable one for the next 20-30 years.

2. Mobile Devices
When the most recognizable U.S. President in world history can't detach himself from his Blackberry, consider yourself witness to a big trend. The acceptance rate of smartphone devices – which offer cell service, email, Internet, and countless other data applications – has grown dramatically in recent years. This trend looks to continue as technology makes mobile devices smaller, more powerful and more affordable.

Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), Nokia (NYSE: NOK), Palm (Nasdaq: PALM) and Research in Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM) are all big players in the market for the devices themselves, but the secular trend also extends to the wireless carriers, and the makers of the "guts" of the device, such as semiconductors, touch screens and software applications. (To learn more, check out Dial up Choice Telecom Stocks.)

3. The Scarcity Trade - Peak Oil, and Peak ... Water?
We are somewhere near peak oil, that point when the world's drillers tell us that they're not finding any more meaningful stores of the black gold. When that day is upon us, chances are that crude oil will still be fueling the majority of the world's engines, automobiles and mechanical equipment. And from that day forward, it's a good bet that the price of oil and gasoline won't be heading down. Alternative green energy sources are making great inroads to solving this problem, but it will take decades for them to replace a meaningful chunk of global energy production. (For further reading, check out our special feature on Green Investing.)

Meanwhile, the most important scarce resource on earth is also the simplest in chemical structure – water. While the vast majority of the earth's surface is covered by it, only 2.5% of the world's water is fresh water, and the majority of that is locked up in the polar ice caps.

To about 20%, the world's ever-growing population, potable (drinking) water isn't even accessible. More than 75% of China's fresh water is already polluted. The secular trend here is for companies that can filter polluted water, desalinate salt water or cull fresh water from the atmosphere.

4. Agriculture Products
To say that the world's population is on a permanent uptrend is no news flash. Neither is the fact that the world is consuming more food each and every day. But what kind of food they're eating is a secular trend in its own right.

In most developing nations, people are craving diversity in their diet, which has mostly consisted of grains and vegetables in the past. They want protein, and while they can get it, the growing of cattle, pigs and chickens means that more grains, rice and corn must be produced on our farmland to feed those animals. It takes about 16 pounds of grain to produce just one pound of beef.

The world's arable (farmable) land is shrinking as more people populate a planet that isn't getting any bigger. In addition, the soil in many developing markets can't produce rich crop yields due to insufficient nutrients. These trends have resulted in commodity food prices rising for decades, a trend that looks to continue. Companies that provide fertilizers, stronger seeds and farming equipment could greatly benefit from this secular trend in the coming decades.

5. Globalization & Emerging Market Infrastructure
By now you've probably heard of the BRIC acronym, identifying four super-fast growing economies. GDP growth in China and India alone was not only above 6% in 2008, but will grow just as much in 2009. And those were global recession years.

More importantly, these nations have a growing number of college-educated professionals that can compete for jobs around the world. They have growing middle classes with personal incomes that can be spent on better living standards and consumer goods.

What will take these economies to the next level is the gradual rollout of a broad infrastructure. The main reason why America rose to become the world's largest economy in the past century was our infrastructure. We built a vast network of roads and bridges so that goods could flow freely to anyone, anywhere. We built an electrical grid to connect every home, and made fresh water, plumbing and sewage a mandatory part of homebuilding. These trends are still in their infancy in many parts of the world.

This secular trend is very fluid, and the companies who benefit the most is likely to change over time. Gain your clues from the U.S. companies that are building the biggest inroads to consumers and projects in these fast-developing nations. (Learn more in Re-Evaluating Emerging Markets.)

Parting Thoughts
Nobody can say for sure if the companies leading the charge today will be the ultimate beneficiaries of these secular trends. So your homework is to keep tabs on them yourself, to follow them in your own way. Identifying the winners is a ticket to solid investment returns and an excellent long-term strategy.