WakeUpLive.com presents: “Get Up Now”—The 3 Secret Steps to Success

Like many kids, I was a dreamer and I was always “getting into things”. Luckily I was born with a great work ethic. At age 13 I was captain of my junior league football team and had worked full time for 3 summers cutting lawns. That thirteenth summer I was really motivated because I wanted a shiny 5-speed Stingray bike. By midsummer I had earned enough money to buy it. It was beautiful, cherry-red metal flake paint, shining chrome fenders, stick shift, and a racing slick rear tire. Things were good! I can still recall that new bike smell.

One afternoon after work, my friends and I rode our bikes to one of our favorite places. There was a huge oak tree with a rope swing. On one of my turns to swing, the rope slipped out of my hands and I fell over 30 feet to a dry creek bed. I remember hearing a voice saying, “Mark, you gotta get up!” My friends put me on my new Stingray and walked me home. The fall caused a concussion and I didn’t wake up for two days.

Just a few years later I had dropped out of high school my life was going nowhere. But somehow I was able to get up again. My brother John straightened me out and helped me focus and apply for college. I graduated with two degrees. After that, I began to succeed in business and in my personal life. Then the rope slipped from my hands again. One day I came home and my wife had taken my three young children and moved to a city four hours away. Not only that, she had married a friend of mine. At almost the same time I was fired from my job. Needless to say, I was devastated. Once again, I had to “Get up.”

From that experience and others from my past I formulated my first secret step to success: When you get knocked down or fall, you must get back up. Don’t wallow in misery or self-pity.

When I got up this time, I started my own real estate investment company. I carefully acquired millions of dollars worth of investment properties, developing great relationships with my lenders along the way. Everything I touched seemed to turn to gold. I could not have achieved the success I had if I hadn’t gotten back up.

I was about to learn that there are other steps to success that must be applied. It was September 11, 2001. I had invested heavily into two major real estate projects. Everything I owned was on the line. When the Twin Towers came crashing down, so did my finances and my dreams. Once again, I felt as if I was lying on that creek bed. This time, the voice came from within: “Get up.”

But how? All I could think about was all the things I had done wrong, all the failures, all the regret. That’s when I found the Second Secret Step of Success: You must forgive yourself so you can move on with your life.

When I finally applied Step Two, a whole world of possibilities opened up. My past failures were just learning experiences and resources to be drawn upon. All of the bad was behind me and I could look to a brand new future loaded with promise and possibility.

There was a third step that was needed to complete my turnaround. For me, it was as if I had been driving in a fog for a long time; suddenly, the fog lifted. I saw everything I’d been missing. The Third Secret Step of Success is Refocus. If you don’t refocus you won’t really know how to do the “moving on” of Step Two. You must find your passion and purpose. Ask yourself, “What has to be true for me to be happy and fulfilled right now? If I was, what kind of person would I be?”

Now, begin to live that life today. Be that person today. Get up now, forgive yourself so you can move on, and then refocus on being the person you want to be. When you follow these three steps, you will move toward success and will be living the life you love.

*** This article was republished with permission from the best-selling Wake Up...Live the Life You Love book series. To hear more information on this book and the book series, go to http://wakeupteleclass.com/.