The Price of Viagra

Up in Huntsville Ontario at the beautiful Deerhurst resort for a summit.  No, not the G8 Summit, my invite arrived too late for that, but a Tourism Summit.

I purposely left early, if 10pm can be called leaving early, so I could blog and work on my e-book.  So I came back to my lovely and very spacious temporary abode and immediately began text messaging Cathy, my children and a couple friends.   Why not?  I've been out of touch, made some coffee in the meantime.  Okay so far.

Then I finally wrapped up my various conversations and promptly... checked the news and forums.  Why?  To relax, of course.  Should I have?  No of course not!  Waste of time.  An hour to an hour and a half of time, that I could have been writing or blogging or at the very least sleeping.

Why do we so often know what we want, know what to do, yet still not do it?  I'm hardly alone.

It's Never Done

In a number of areas in my life, I'm happy but not fully fulfilled.  That is to say, I'm grateful for what I have, it's comfortable and pleasurable but it's not at a level I really want it to be.

This lead me to a question of whether one should live in a state of discontent, demanding more out of life and expecting it - walking in faith, or if one should merely be grateful for what one has.  Or both.

Both points certainly have merit.  Unless we are following our true desires we simply aren't living.  We're existing.  By chasing our desires, we grow, we expand, we remain motivated and enraptured with life, even while it challenges us.  God asks us to walk in faith.  To be bold, go forth and to trust in Him (assuming right action).

At the same time maintaining an attitude of gratitude is immensely important.   Whatever we focus on we draw into our lives.  So if we look at what we lack, we'll tend to attract more of that.  We need to be focused on what is bringing us pleasure to attract more of that instead.  If you do not appreciate what God has already given you, why should you be given more?

This lead me to another question.  What if you have a job or relationship you really enjoy but isn't fulfilling you at a level you really want to be fulfilled at?  Do you leave it, boldly expecting to find something better?   What if you don't?  What if you go forth only to realize that what you had was already great?  Or you simply fail to find what you were looking for and have lost what you had?   Or the reverse:  What if by holding on to what you have, you lose the potential to find that which you really want?

Step 1: Clearly Define Your Goals

By Preston Squire

This is an extrapolation of the first step in the 5 Key Steps To Achieving Goals

Step 1

Clearly Define Your Goals

As we approach the end of the year many of you will be reflecting back on the year that was and asking yourself how it went.   Are you better off than you were a year ago?  The same?  Worse?  Regardless of the answer, you probably want 2010 to be even more productive.   The very first step in ensuring it will be, is to decide how you want it to be different than 2009. 

Okay, I know last time I said I was going to do a series based on those 5 Key Steps of Achieving Goals but you know what?   I hate doing these series.  I like to write what's on my heart each day and really, while it may be more haphazard, I know I'll produce a better piece if I'm writing about what's inspired instead of some pre-determined topic.

So without further ado:

Without Action Law of Attraction Has No Traction

By Preston Squire

This has always been one of my biggest pet peeves.   People who want to just sit on their couches, visualizing away and expect the universe (God) to hand them whatever they want.    And we are all guilty of it at some point, myself included.  We simply don't want to do the work involved.  We want the easy way out.  In the sensational hit movie 'The Secret' it appears that all you have to do is 'Ask' and 'Recieve' but that's oversimplifying.

5 Key Steps to Achieving Goals

By Preston Squire


Step #1: Be Clear on What You Want

Be clear on want you want and why.  If you're not sure, ask yourself what you don't want.   Whatever is the polar opposite of that is what you ought to be shooting for.

Be clear on why it's important to you.   Make a list of all the benefits that achieving that goal will deliver and a list of all the adversity not achieving it will bring.

Set definite goals.  Be specific.  If you want money, for example, you could state that you want to earn an additional $250,000.00 by the end of next year. 

Make the goal something you believe you can reach even though you can't see how it's possible.

Great Expectations

By Preston Squire

"Now, I return to this young fellow. And the communication I have got to make is, that he has great expectations." - From 'Great Expectations' by Charles Dickens

If you want to achieve greatness in this life, you must first develop your own great expectations.

Go to through life hoping for money, health, happiness but expecting none of it is totally self-defeating.   Let me restate that.  To hope for one thing, but expecting another is totally defeating ones own self.  You are causing your own defeat before you even begin.

"What the mind of man can conceive and believe, It can achieve." - Napoleon Hill

5 Steps to Creating Empowering Beliefs

By Preston Squire

To Be(lieve) or Not To Be(lieve); That is The Question

You don't need to believe in God, the Law of Attraction or any other such thing to accept one simple fact.  

If you hope to achieve anything in life, you had better first believe you can.

4 Ways to Create Burning Desire

by Preston Squire

Consider the story of the disciple who went to his guru one day and asked, “Master, how do I achieve enlightenment?” The wise old guru directed the disciple to the bank of the Ganges River and had him kneel with his head over the water. Then the guru put his hand on the young man’s neck and pushed his head below the surface of the water. After a minute and a half the young disciple was frantic. He pulled and heaved and flailed his arms, but the grip was like iron. He could not get his head back out of the water. After two minutes, when it seemed as though his lungs would burst, the grip was released.

The young man’s head jerked out of the water and he took great gulps of air into his tortured lungs.

The guru smiled. “Tell me,” he gently asked, “ what was your greatest desire just then?”

“To breathe,” the young disciple stated emphatically.

“Ah,” the guru said. “When you desire enlightenment to that degree, it shall be yours.”

To be able to persevere and succeed, despite whatever obstacles life puts in your way, requires burning desire.


This is most everyone falls short. While we all have desires, few us of ever cultivate a desire so strong that we will stop at nothing to achieve it.
 

Pushing Through to the Next Level

By Preston Squire


When the Student is Ready, the Master will Appear.

 I met Active Image President Cathy Morenzie at a very fortuitous time.  She had just started the Start Fast, Finish Strong 100 Day Challenge and prompted me to get involved too.   I had already decided to get more serious about my health and had recently joined a local gym.   So when I signed up for The 100 Day Challenge I made one of my goals to put on ten pounds of muscle mass.

That may not seem like a lofty goal but I had tried for years to put on weight, including going to a gym for a year in my thirties and working out with weights while drinking high protein weight gain shakes in my twenties and had only ever managed to gain five pounds at most.  For better or worse I was one of those people who could eat like a starving hippo and remain remarkably slim.

Cathy was kind enough to give me a fitness evaluation and set me up on a workout routine.  After that I was on my own.   During the fitness evaluation Cathy did mention something that really stuck in my head.

The Law of Exposure

By Preston Squire

You are what you eat.

"You are what you eat" is a common expression and it makes perfect sense if you think about it.   Your body converts whatever food you're consuming into energy and body mass.  If all you eat is fatty junk foods, you can expect to end up with a fatty, junk body.   If all you eat is sugar laced foods, you'll likely end up a tired diabetic.   If you eat healthy, nutritious choices you'll have a energetic, healthy body.

The same can be said about our minds.  Have you ever stopped to considered what you are feeding your mind?   Like your body, your mind has no choice but to take the the food of whatever you are exposing it to on a regular basis and use that to build your mental muscles and energy.   Everything you see, hear, feel and experience is food for your mind.  Everyday there's a plathora of experienes that you draw from but it's the recurring experiences that will have the most impact.   There's no better way to hammer something into our subconscious mind than constant repetition.

Tips for Maintaining Momentum

This is from my blog Preston's Path to Prosperity where I'm keeping a journal of my successes (and failures) in my life.

Currently I'm tracking my progress a I do the 100 Day Challenge. You'll see I'm struggling, like most people, but the advice was solid so I thought I'd share it here as well.

The Law of Paradoxical Intent

by Preston Squire



The Problem



I was talking to a friend and she's big on The Secret
and The Law of Attraction. She uses visualization daily, has a vision board, does everything she should be doing, at least according to the movie, and yet, she lacks the results she wants.

This does not surprise me for as well and good as 'The Secret' is, and it IS well and good, it is not the full story. It's more like an introduction than a complete answer in itself. In fact, there's so much missing they could, should, and probably will one day make 'The Secret 2'.

Watching that movie (or reading the book) gives you the impression of mere wish fulfillment. Just visualize what you want and the universe will give it to you. Are they wrong? Not really, but there's more to it than that.
Giving it your 'All'

Do You Have a Strong Enough 'WHY?'

By Preston Squire

Whenever you set a goal in your life, you need to be sure to have a strong enough 'Why' attached to that goal.

The 'Why' is what drives you.   The motivating factor that makes the difference between just wanting something in your life and absolutely needing it.  Between it being a 'wouldn't it be nice' and it being an insatiable itch that you cannot continuously ignore but must tend to, causing you to always be moving towards accomplishing that goal.

Freeing Yourself of Doubt

By Preston Squire

 I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.
- Thomas Edison

Creeping doubt is one of your worst enemies and I have been struggling with it myself as we all must do.

I was listening to an interview with Helene Hadsell an 80+ year old woman who has used the Law of Attraction to obtain outstanding results in contests winning a house, two cars, numerous trips and a ton of other things.

The interview was a sales pitch but they revealed a lot of nuggets of wisdom.

Your Ultimate Goal

By Preston Squire

Failure - Why You Want it in Your Life


Yes, you are reading that right.   Your ultimate goal in life should be the very thing most of you are trying desperately to avoid.


Why on earth would you want to seek failure?  Because if you're not failing, it means you are not pushing yourself hard enough.  You are not reaching for your true potential.  You are staying within your comfort zone, maybe pushing the edges of it but certainly not exceeding it.

Law of Influence

My good friend, Cathy Morenzie, invited me to go to an evening conference at her church. The guest speaker was Pastor Paula White who I must admit, I'd never heard of, although she is apparently a televangelist of some note. She was one of three major pastors that the church had arranged to come for the conference but due to unforeseen circumstances the other two had to cancel.

Why the Rich get Richer and the Poor get Poorer

Tony Robbins sent me a video a couple days ago that I just got around to watching last night. In it, a couple of internet marketing gurus are visiting him to get a better understanding of why people who buy their products don't utilize them fully and what they can do to get people to put more effort into achieving results.

The video is about 40 minutes long and I'd love to link to it but I doubt it'll be available for a long period of time, unlike this blog.

Most of what Tony was saying, is the same things Tony is always saying, but he did surprise me with a couple really cool things which I want to share with you now.

In answer to the poised question Tony acknowledged that it's the same factor that makes a person complain about their weight and then eat a chocolate or be told by their doctor they have to quit smoking and then light up.

People want to make the change but lack the sense of certainy that they can.

What he did next really excited me because it made a somewhat complicated idea really simple to grasp. He drew four boxes, two over two. In the first box (and it doesn't really matter which is first) he wrote in 'Potential'. This represented the potential people have, which, generally is actually unlimited but greatly affected by your own perception of it. The second box was marked 'Action' for the amount of effort people put into their goal. So the more Potential someone has (or rather thinks they do) the greater the Action taken.
The third box (below) was named 'Results'. The greater the amount of Action the better the achieved Results. The last box was labeled Beliefs. The greater the Results achieved, the more you believe you can and will succeed which immediately pours into your Potential.

This very effectively explains why the rich get richer and the poor gets poorer.

Follow:

A person who already has achieved a level of success has a new idea. Since he's succeeded before he feel pretty positive about his potential in this new venture. He puts in a corresponding amount of action into it achieving positive results. Maybe not as much as he would have hoped or liked but positive results which means he can do it which then strengthens his beliefs which in turn increases his potential, resulting in greater action, better results, stronger belief, more potential and so on spiralling ever upward. The rich becomes richer. Even if initial results were below expectations.

Another person has the same idea but has never achieved anything that they consider noteworthy. They have little faith in their potential but a desire to achieve so they give it a go. You can guess what happens. With such a low (stated) potential they don't put too much effort into their actions (expecting failure), poor action nets correspondingly poor results, which fuels the belief that they will not succeed, which limits their potential, which reduces their action, decreasing their results, compounding their negative belief, and so on and so on and so on. The poor get poorer. Sadly, even if they achieve better than expect results, their poor beliefs will often attribute it to luck. If better than expected results continue they will begin to spiral up but generally as soon as they achieve less than expected results they drop quickly into a negative spiral again.

The lynchpin is belief. If people can be given a sense of certainy that they will succeed then they'll put in enough action too succeed. But people are naturally doubting Thomas', so how do overcome that?

Pain. Pain is one answer. People will always avoid pain naturally. For many who have succeeded, the thought of failing to achieve the goal was greater pain than the fear of failure itself. In other words, they felt they HAD to achieve the results, for whatever reason. In this case, they realize they may fail, but may is infinitely better than the will that will happen if they didn't even try. Failure is not an option. If they don't get the results they want they continue to try, since they don't feel they have a choice, until they do.

Visualization is the other answer. As per usual, Tony gave the example of Roger Bannister the first man to run a mile in under four minutes. Prior to him breaking the record (and according to Tony he had to repeatedly break it in his head mentally before he actually did physically but I am not able to substanciate that) it had never been done in all of recorded history but once he broke that mark, it was subsequenty broken by 24 people over the next two years. Now that is partly because athletic training was improving but also, truly, because the mental belief that it wasn't possible had been shattered. Today some high school students are running the mile in under 4 minutes.

More interestly than his tired Roger Bannister story was the fact that those two internet marketing gurus had themselves broken all concept of what was possible to acheive in online sales. One having set a record my earning $600,000 in a mere 7 days, only to be bettered by the other who subsequently earned one million in one day, a terrific result quickly bettered again by his peer.

Then Tony did a neat thing which I encourage you to try as well. He had the men put one arm up, finger pointing out in front of them and then asked them to turn around as far as they could without moving their feet and without strain. Once they had done this Tony had them put their arm down and repeat the exercise, only in their minds, but to see themselves going twice the distance. Then again doing three times the distance. Once they had visualized that he asked them to try in again in real life. Both comfortably, and effortlessly turned about 50% further than they had before. A result I also achieved as I did it with them to my own amazement. According to Tony, most people only do 25% better but this is a nice example of the power of visualization.

So by using visualization one can change their Belief, increasing their Potential, resulting in greater Action, producing better Results and giving credence to their Belief. However, visualizing success cannot be done once. It must be a habitualize way of being. You must always see yourself achieving the result you want even without any reference to support that. The golfer Jack Nicholson always visualized hitting the ball exactly as he wanted, before actually taking a swing at it. He was one of the very best in his day. Again, it was habitual, he always did it and consistantly produced results as a consequence.

There's much more I could say on this topic but I'd highly recommend you buy Tony's book (see link on the side) Awaken the Giant Within which goes into great depth on this matter.

Enjoy the Journey

One element people tend to forget once they become goal oriented is to enjoy the journey.

"Live your bliss"

It's not uncommon for people to become so fixated on achieving their goals that they put everything else in life aside until so they can focus on meeting that end.

This is similar to the person who has bought a cottage in a beautiful resort area and when he goes to travel there he's solely focused on arriving at the cottage. So he hussles his family, speeds along the highway and skips dinner to make it in record time. In his mind the fun doesn't start until he reaches the cottage, and probably not even then because there will no doubt be work that's required once he arrives. In this approach he's denied himself and his family the ability to relax, enjoy the scenery and have quality time together, all reasons he purchased the cottage in the first place, until after he's reached his goal.

You might ask what is so wrong with that. The problem is with life goals, it could be months or even years before you reach your goal. In that time, your goals might change or even met some unfortunate end. If you've been waiting until you reached your goal to allow yourself to relax and have fun then you would have lost all the time for naught.

Also, once you reach your goal, you will want to set another. Personal growth is only achieved when you have something to strive for. So if you deny yourself the ability to enjoy the journey, you will find life one continously endless and joyless journey as you continue to set new goals for yourself.

Another issue is the fact that you will enviatably become tired and discouraged when unexpected issues arise. You've lead a joyless life for years to achieve this goal and then when it seems certain, another roadblock that looks like it'll take more years to overcome. When you've allowed your life to become nothing but drudgery in pursuit of your goal, this might seem like a total deal breaker. More years of drudgery? Is it really worth it?

The answer is no, the end result isn't. All along it was the journey to the end result that was worthwhile. For along that road are all new experiences you havn't taken the time to enjoy, new sites to be seen, quality time to been had with your loved ones and the enjoyment of your own personal growth. If you had allowed yourself the ability to smell the roses, enjoy the views and laugh at your mistakes along the way, such a setback is disappointing but isn't a loss of years. You've enjoyed those years of growth and you will continue to enjoy them as you continue your journey towards your goal.

Invest in Yourself

I've heard this nugget of wisdom twice in the last week, once from one of the founders of modern success thinking: Earl Nightingale and again in different form from billionaire Bill Bartmann. It's solid advice and I thought I'd share it with you.

Earl eloquently but drolly expounded on the power of the human brain and correctly concludes that it, moreso than anything else in your life it will affect the level of success and enjoyment you achieve. However it is terribly underutilized but the vast majority of people.

Now I'm sure you are using your brain all the time. You use it at work, use it to figure out problems around the house, deal with family issues, romance issues, maybe exercise it with puzzles and problems. But how often do you sit down and proactively use it to plan out your life? Once in a while I'm sure. Once in a very long while.

What Earl proposes is that you use it a little more often than that. He suggests an hour a day. Yes, I agree, it'd be very difficult for most anyone to squeeze an hour out of every day but consider this. You might be spending time daily working out, or beautifying yourself, watching tv, browsing the internet, talking to friends and family, sleeping in, playing video games or even doing work around the house. Is any of that getting you closer to your goals and desires? No, it is not.

However through the consistant application of your mental facilities on the matter of how to achieve your goals, followed by action, surely you would see marked improvement.

Earl suggests that once you have a clearly defined goal (Bill calls them promises, which I like better) you spend that hour daily brainstorming for up to 20 ways to achieve that goal. You may not come up with 20 ideas and that's okay. In fact every idea you come up with for a week or two may be crap. You're not a certified genius after all but you don't need to be. All you need is one genius idea. Anyone who consistantly applies their abilities to solving the problem of how to achieve their goals will eventually come up with some gems. Keep refining those gems of ideas and eventually you'll come up with something truly compelling that no one else is doing. Why is no one else doing it? Because vertually no one else is applying their brains in this manner!! If they are, they likely have different goals than you anyway.

It is famously stated the Edison had over ten thousand failed attempts to create a lightbulb. No one says he was a moron or a failure becuase he had ten thousand ideas that didn't work. He's considered a genius because he continually applied his mind to finding the one idea that did. You can too.

If you met your future self, and they told you that you became amazingly successful by taking an hour a day to apply themselves to how to better achieve their goals, you would immediately rearrange your life to make room for that hour. You are not going to meet your future self obviously but you can meet the future of your desires in the same way.

Bill Bartmann's take was a little different. First off, not only does he state that you need a clearly defined goal or promise, he suggests that you create a business plan on how you are going to achieve that promise. In the same manner that a business lays out a course of action, budget and timetable to achieve the company goals you can do the same with your goals. Once you have your business plan Bill recommends you review it daily for twenty minutes. What are you doing that's working? What's not working? How can you do it better? Is the currently set goal serving you? Is it even your goal? Too many people are trying to achieve that which other people have told them they should be doing. Parents most notably.

By taking twenty minutes (much more digestible than an hour) daily to review your progress and brainstorming new ideas you will fastforward your progress.

If you were requested by your workplace to find ways of improving workplace efficiency you might find it a frustrating exercise but you would still do it because that's what you're getting paid to do. By finding ways to improve your own life inefficiencies and coming up with ideas on how to reach your promise you will be, in effect, paying yourself, as you will be consistantly making improvements in your life and increasing your earning potential.

You invest time in everything else around you - work, family, friends, responsibilities. Certainly you can take 20-60 minutes to invest in yourself.

What is Success?

If you follow my sister blog Preston's Path to Prosperity, you know, or at least I sure hope you do, that the premise is to document one person's rise from living an average, non-exceptional life to one that is truly outstanding and the thinking and beliefs that lead to that rise.

The problem is, it's a bit of a lie. Why? Because, I have already achieved success. However, you probably wouldn't define it that way.

By and large people have a very superficial definition of success. It looks something like this:

Must be a millionaire or better
Must hold a position of importance
Must have an attractive partner or partners
Must be healthy and in North America that generally means muscular/sexy body and plastic surgery so you have an attractive, youthful appearance as well as good overall health
Probably famous
Owns beautiful mansions, cars, clothes, etc.

I think most anyone would agree a rich, handsome, well built man with a gorgeous young wife and lots of ostentatious wealth would be a poster child for success.

Motivational Speaker Anthony Robbins understands this and that's the life he leads. He has to. Not for his benefit but for yours.

Let's face it, if Tony gave all his money to charity and lived and dressed very modestly, if he didn't work out and was as skinny as he once was, (although still healthy), if he married a very average or below average looking woman (even if she was an outstanding personality) and if you had never heard of him, you would not for a moment think he knew anything special that was worth listening too. At least, not without someone else recommending him.

So even though, at his core he was the exact same person, living his life exactly as he chose, living a life of boundless happiness, married to someone whom he loves and is loved by deeply, with fantastic knowledge that could change your life in an instant, you would not perceive him to have achieved success, at least not unless you got to know him. Anthony must have all those superficial signs of success on display so people will listen to what he has to say.

Here's another example of success that flys contrary to the thinking of the masses.

Mother Theresa.

Was she rich? Heavens no. She lived an extremely modest life.
Was she beautiful? Internally yes, where it mattered but she not a women men would look twice at.
Did she hold a prestigious position in life? Not my most people's standards.
Did she have an attractive mate? Not a worldly one, no, never.
Was she healthy? Yes, but not in the Hollywood sense that North Americans use to define it.
Did she own lots of great things. No.
Was she famous? Yes, but she did not seek it nor would it have made her any less of a success if she wasn't.

Let's face it, if you took her out of her religious attire and put her on the streets people would sooner think she was a baglady than a truly successful person. I'm sure you would agree they would be horribly wrong.

So then how do we define success? What makes a person successful?

The difference between a successful person and everyone else, is a successful person is defining the life they live while everyone else is allowing life to define them.

To put it another way, successful people are walking in faith. They are asking God for what they want and walking towards that in faith that the Lord will provide. They are not limiting what they are asking for, for they know that the Lord has no limitations. They are not living in doubt or fear.

Although they face daily uncertainy because the way forward is not clear it does not disway them. They have come to the firm realization that like walking through a dense fog, as you make each step forward you'll be able to see your immediate surroundings and take another step forward. Even when they do bump into something, that's okay, they expect and accept that that is going to happen. They just move around the obstacle and keep going. If they come to a wall they trust God will provide a way over, under, around or through and diligently search for that until they find it. If they step off an abyss they know God has a rope around them and will pull them back up. So while it may frighten for the moment, they do not doubt in their heart they'll soon be back on solid ground. In time they make it to where they are going.

Everyone else meanwhile avoids the fog, worried they'll get hurt or lost or merely be directionless because they don't know where they are headed to begin with. So they either move away from the fog, and have their path defined for them by the fog of life or sit still, not going anywhere, until the fog and their life passes away.


So to succeed you must have a clear vision of where you want to be that emboldens you, you must have deep lasting faith in your heart that you will arrive there and you must, must, must be taking action to achieve that vision (do not wait for God to place it before you, boldly go and claim it).

Vision, faith, persistant action those are the hallmarks of success. Even if you have not yet arrived, you are defining what life you are living and that is success.

What everyone else is doing, irregardless of their place in life, irregardless of how many of the superficial signs of success they have, is merely existing.

So our poster child of success could be rich and famous because of his parents, could have a gorgeous partner and many fancy things because he has money, he may even be given ownership of the family business but without vision, faith and persistant action of his own, he is still merely existing and is no more spiritually rich or fulfilled than a pauper. He is not successful, he is merely a dim shadow of the success that came before. So do not put stock in those worldly things.

Success is a state of mind, a state of being. And I have already arrived.