Success begins in the mind! It is important to keep a positive outlook even when things look difficult and grim. Before David was to fight the giant Goliath, his friends, fearing for the worst, came to pay their last respects. “What makes you so sure that I will not return?” asked David, surprised at their pessimistic appraisal of the situation. One of his friends was quick to reply. “David, Goliath is so big! How can you possibly expect to win? David just smiled. “If he is so big and I use my slingshot,” he replied, “how can I miss?” Now that is a positive view on the situation.
Seeds of success
■ Success in life seems to depend heavily on attitude and other personality factors. A small difference is found between the top achievers in occupations and careers and those who merely do well. This chapter goes into several key elements of success that seem to formulate the small difference found between these two categories of people. The success seeds discussed in this chapter contain principles of thought and healthy behavior that will give you the winning edge in all aspects of life in addition to success in the selling profession.
■ Before we discuss the seeds of success, some groundwork must be laid so that you can better understand the successful elements that must be incorporated in your life to feel like a winner. This lesson will begin by covering the three obstacles that prevent an individual from obtaining success and then will identify the four success seeds found in every successful person.
THREE OBSTACLES THAT PREVENT SUCCESS
Before defining success, isolating reasons why so many people turn out to be unsuccessful is necessary. People that feel they are unsuccessful in life seem to be leading toward a type of living death. They seem to be suffering from three obstacles that prevent a person from feeling successful. When a person suffers from a living death feeling, one immediately has low self-esteem. This low self-esteem affects one’s level of confidence which prevents an individual from attempting new challenges and risks, therefore developing a fear of failure. The three obstacles of a lack of self-confidence, a fear of failure, and low self-esteem create a slow, but progressive, personal death in the heart and mind of a person. The three obstacles contribute to the living death of many people with whom we associate. Let me quote from his book the following passages that will help explain the concept of living death.
■ Most humans, in varying degrees, are already dead. In one way or another they have lost their dreams, their ambitions, and their desire for a better life. They have surrendered their fight for self-esteem and they have compromised their great potential. They have settled for a life of mediocrity, days of despair, and nights of tears. They are no more living than living deaths confined to the cemeteries of their choice. Yet they need not remain in that state. They can be resurrected from their sorry condition. They can perform the greatest miracle in the world. They can come back from the dead. Most of us build prisons for ourselves and after we occupy them, for a period of time we become accustomed to their walls and accept the false premise that we are incarcerated for life. As soon as that belief takes hold of us, we abandon hope of ever doing more with our life and of ever giving our dreams a chance to be fulfilled. We become puppets and begin to suffer living death.
The Three Obstacles of Success
Lack of self-confidence
Fear of failure
Low self-esteem
Again, this living death feeling seems to cause people to have a lack of self-confidence in their personal potential, low self-esteem, and fear of failure. The way to bring yourself back from this death is to learn and implement in your life the seeds of success and become success oriented. Will Rogers made a comment about this type of living death in his very last speech he ever gave: “Lord, let me live until I’m dead!” He was referring to those “walking zombies” whom he had become familiar with during his lifetime.