A Few Secrets Not Mentioned in "The Secret"

Perhaps you've seen the film, "The Secret" which features interviews with many success gurus sharing how they made it -- I saw the video and thought it was pretty good. In my experience; however, there are a few more factors for achieving the success you want. Having owned my dream airplane, achieving a 2nd degree black belt, building a multi-million dollar business and enjoying an amazing relationship myself... I've studied how to become successful, get what you want, etc., read books, participated in seminars (about 25 years worth!), as well as studied my own experience. In the interest of expediency and giving you something you can use right now, here are the short versions of the ideas I want to share with you. (I'm sure I'll want to refine these points as soon as I push the 'send' button!)

Have a goal worth being excited about…
It's no use having a goal of "getting by" this year and "make a little money…" Set your spirit on something really great, something you want in your wildest dreams -- choose something that grabs you emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually -- “ you'll get a little shiver ("Goosed by God") when you think of this otherwise un-believable goal. Why be reasonable? Aim high.

Create the space for it to come into your life...
A friend gets upset if I mention anything negative -- something possibly from… reality. (Hello!) He wants to keep his intentions pure and positive, but you can't. If you could, and that alone worked, Â you would already have everything you want the way you want it, but you do have some undeniable negative thoughts, ideas and experiences. Nevertheless, regardless of what they are and that they are indeed there somewhere in your head, you can still push them out of the way into some mental closet and create some space for what you want. Simply allow for the possibility that what you want might/could happen, despite any presence of disbelief and prior disappointments.

Go on a karmic cleanse...
Everything thing you do counts. (Unless you are strapped to a bed, you get up and do stuff all day long.) In every situation, how can you take the high ground? If there is an opportunity to assist someone else and you can do it easily (change lanes for the guy behind you if you too aren't in a hurry), just do it. Look for opportunities to offer. Pick up a piece of trash. Contact someone you need to speak to, someone you miss, or to settle some past grievance. Who are you being day-in and day-out, in every situation? Are you contributing or are you taking? Both are good -- timing is everything.

Let Luck work for you...
I speak in my book, " Business Black Belt" about how we will set a goal then often get trapped in the “how we are going to achieve this?” strategic thinking, which sometimes distracts us from recognizing an alternate solution to having what we want. We have a customer who wrote a business plan to raise money to buy jet aircraft for a charter service -- along came an owner of two jets who offered them to our customer. What was ultimately wanted appeared, just a little differently (and a lot sooner) than expected.

Get good at what you do...
Sure, good things come to people without necessarily ‘doing’ anything, but, like Henry Ford said, “Hustle while you wait.” Why should God put you in the game? Luck or otherwise favors the person prepared. While you are awaiting your vision to materialize, get to work on your craft. Presuming you are doing what you love, this will be fun and happily consuming for you. (Some people fulfill themselves with food – many people who are so impassioned with what they are doing often forget to eat!) Practice your guitar while you await your dream rock band opportunity to appear.

Appreciate what you already have...
This is the perfect antidote for those times when “everything sucks.” Some might call this, “getting back to basics.” Appreciating what you have and what is already working for you will immediately snap you out of your funk and back to a positive mental state. If you saw the film, “What the Bleep” you saw how the special photography of water crystals, influenced only by people’s thoughts, demonstrate the effects of our thinking. Since we are made up mostly of water, you want your water crystals to look like those influenced by the happy thoughts! Through appreciation you can snap back into your happy space. If you can walk, appreciate that. If you can see with two eyes, appreciate that. If you can read this, appreciate that you can. Become mindful of everything you appreciate and keep that going.

Enjoy the looking forward...
to whatever you want happening. It’s not going to come to you overnight. Be patient while God and his team of helper spirits make the arrangements for you. You have plenty to do to get ready – work on that while you wait.

Have faith and let go...
If you really have faith you have nothing to worry about. If you are praying constantly, you apparently don’t thing think God/Allah/Buddha/et al heard you the first time and you must take it upon yourself to constantly remind him/her. So you don’t need to keep your goal constantly in your face. If you’ve seen the film, you’ll notice that the guy who got the house of his dreams had put the pictures in storage and forgot about them for five years. He went on about his business and the home became available at the time and place when he had the wherewithal to buy it.

All of this takes practice!
All of this is pretty easy to do. And all of this isn’t something you just do once. This isn’t painful like sitting next to a squeaky piano teacher badly singing “do-re-me-fa-so-la-ti-do…” as you play scales. You have something coming to you that you are excited about, these practices have worked for others, and they make sense in our real world. In the film, “Peaceful Warrior,” our hero is told by his teacher, “…you practice gymnastics, I practice everything.” Yes! Practice your driving while you are driving, practice your table manners while you are eating, practice listening while someone is talking to you…