FORGET RESOLUTIONS… IT’S T.I.M.E. FOR SUCCESS

Now that you have rung in another new year, you are probably asking yourself, “Where did all my time go?” Others like to say, “Time is short”, “Time is money”, “Time heals all wounds”, “The time is now to help” but most importantly, time is the only thing you can never get back! Cars, houses, money, and jobs are all replaceable. That is why time should never be taking for granted or squandered, as I explain in my book Demystifying Success: Success Tools and Secrets They Don’t Teach You in High School.

bookThroughout the book, I provide you with compelling theoretical and practical knowledge that reinforces why it’s now T.I.M.E. (Timing, Intentions, Motivation and Empowerment) for your new found Success.

Timing, which I also refer to as identifying opportunities, is something that I discussed in my blog Sliding Doors for Success. To become successful, you need to always enhance your awareness in order to attract new and exciting opportunities into your life. To help ensure that you take advantage of such opportunities, you need to take the time to really focus on what you want to achieve or accomplish (be as specific as possible) in both the short and long term. Recognizing your passions, desires and goals will help you to distinguish and align profitable opportunities that will enhance your outcomes for success.

Intentions help you to reinforce why you are pursuing such passions, desires and goals, which also serves to confirm your ability to pounce on these opportunities whenever they arise.  As I discuss in my blog Success Is Never Being Afraid to Ask Why!, most people today simply live life in a world of “how”. “Just tell me how to get the job” or “how do I make money?” or “tell me how to do this and I will just do it.” “How” is the ‘poster-word’ for status quo! There is no creativity in how. “Why” will empower you with the confidence and creativity to challenge the status quo and go beyond the “how”. In my experience, truly successful people always go the extra mile to figure out the “why” because it enables them to consistently recreate their successes over and over again.

Motivation represents the action behind your success. It is the process of aligning internal passions, desires and goals with external resources (mentors, knowledge, financing, etc.) in order to achieve the desired outcomes for success.  Many successful people often create what author Napoleon Hill describes in his book, Think and Grow Rich, as Masterminds, a group of hand-picked individuals that provide advice, support and even financial resources that help enhance one’s chances for success.  In the article, Five Secrets for Growing Success, that you can receive for free when you sign up for my newsletter, through my website, LarryMJacobson.com, I explain why successful people often attract mentors or others for support in times of uncertainty or despair. Your mastermind can be a combination of both mentors and/or others (e.g. accountants, lawyers, etc.) that serve as excellent role models and/or sounding boards. They not only model the way for your potential success, but they also serve as great resources for information and advice. Their input can help you to choose the appropriate action steps to take toward achieving your short-term and/or long-term success.

Empowerment is what I like to refer to as your ability to confidently trust your instincts to ensure that your decisions positively impact your desired expectations and probable outcomes for success. Too often, people get swayed by various negative or unsupportive comments made by others despite what their own instincts might be telling them to do. They often allow others to ‘get inside their heads’ and thus, overthink, or even worse, predict or forecast how others might respond or react to their decisions or ideas. Unfortunately, these people rarely proceed as they initially intended, either out of fear of another’s reaction, or even worse, to appease the other person at their own expense.

“If you tell people what you want to do, they’ll probably help you do it.” ~ W. Clement Stone

Cast your vision for the new year to anybody who will listen. Successful people “go for it!” They check their fears at the door. They trust their instincts by spotting the opportunities and then re-affirm their intentions to motivate and empower themselves to take the necessary actions steps. As a result, they make necessary decisions that lead to probable (not possible) outcomes for success. The sooner you begin to incorporate these T.I.M.E. success concepts into your 2017 goals, the sooner you will begin to see big results in your future success.

You Don’t Have To Be a Superstar to Be Successful

In my opinion, I think too many people today are hung up on their definition for success, rather than simply feeling or accepting success on their own terms.

Think about it: the media is constantly bombarding us with stories of what they deem to be success: money, high-powered careers, cars, clothes. I think there is a big misconception between fame and success because I personally know a lot of people that are successful that are not famous, and I am sure we can all name a few famous people that are not successful.  So let me share an obvious revelation with all of you: you don’t need to hit home runs to be successful. Base hits are just as valuable for the win.

I recently had the pleasure of reading Mark Cuban’s book, How To Win At The Sport of Business and I was happy to see that I am not alone when it comes to practical definitions for success. According to Mark, “One’s efforts should really be measured by their ability to set goals and achieve results, not simply by the amount of hours one works in a single day.” I completely agree. Choosing to be a workaholic and, even worse, wasting precious time that you can never get back without even achieving results is ludicrous.

“People who are exceptionally good in business aren’t so because of what they know but because of their insatiable need to know more.” – Michael E. Gerber (author of The E-Myth Revisited)

Successful people like Mark Cuban and Michael Gerber may make success look easy, but I can assure you, both gentlemen are constantly reading and searching for new ways to expand their knowledge in order to do things better and “smoke” their competition in a way that properly utilizes their precious time.

In his book, Mark talks about how one goes about winning a segment of his or her business and finding one’s edge. He not only writes of where one’s edge comes from,  but the steps it takes to get there.

The important takeaways for me from Mark’s book are:

  • study your business
  • understand what it will take to differentiate yourself from your competition when dealing with clients
  • and, most importantly, your willingness to do what it takes to get results

To continue to replicate your success, you need to understand “why” you are succeeding in the first place and then continue to build on that success.

“If you aren’t happy with where you are, simplify your life and go out and try as many things as it takes to find what you may be destined to be.” – Mark Cuban

My personal philosophy for success is simple: “Do what you love every day of your life while surrounding yourself with positive people that love and support you.”

Successful people get to choose the life they want to live by surrounding themselves with positive people that love and support them, while at the same time getting up every morning to pursue a passion they love.

Hey, that sounds like a pretty cool definition to me.