Do You Have The Success Gene? Find Out Today

By Deidre Longe

It has been argued by some that those who achieve what we deem to be success in society, the big house, nice car, gorgeous family ,and end up living the life of their dreams, carry a special success gene.

And, for a second when I examined my own family, I concluded that there may be some truth to this assertion. After all,my grandfather was an entrepreneur and had amassed a huge fortune in his era. My father too had not inherited a penny, had followed in his footsteps and was also a self made man, with me pretty much continuing in their footsteps, with my involvement in business and public speaking.

Why then had it gone so horribly wrong, with my sister? She was almost 40 years old and had not yet bought her own home and was contented to earn $14 an hour, while struggling to provide for her children financially and give them a comfortable existence.

Did she not have the same genetic code?

After all, she was my father's daughter.

This frank examination of my own family, while very unscientific, drew me to the realisation that we all have the success gene. The activation of that gene however, is a matter of individual choice. Each one of us is born with the potential to do far more than we dare to dream. But if we do not activate the side of us which dreams, that potential lays dead and dormant inside us.

Make a decision today to Dream.

What type of life do you want, if you had all the money in the world what would you do with your time? Answer that and you have found what it is you really love to do.

ALL HUMAN BEINGS WERE BORN TO SUCCEED.

Henry Ford once said, if you think you can, you are right and if you think you can't you are also right.

To activate your success gene you simply need to want to be successful and then tell yourself you can achieve it. The starting points of all human achievement are:

1. Desire

2. Self Belief

MAKE A DECISION TODAY about want you want from life and you will be surprised to find that in time you come to LIVE IT, HAVE IT, BECOME IT.

I am committed to working personally with at least 100 people world- wide, this year to help you achieve your dreams. For my free guide on how to plan your way to the life of your dreams, drop me an email at : dlongeql@gmail.com

The author Deidre Longe has triumphed over adversity throughout her life and is a Motivational Speaker, IT trainer, Business Consultant and Coach.

Self Help Books - Do They Help?

By Steven Gillman

I recall seeing a study somewhere that suggested self help books don't really help. I believe it looked at financial self help books. If I remember correctly, three or ten years after reading various "get rich quick" and other money-related books, the readers were generally making more money, but so was everyone else (on average) that didn't read the books. The conclusion was that the books didn't help.

Now that is jumping to conclusions! Consider the assumption implicit in it. Researchers assumed those who didn't read books did nothing special. This seems unlikely, to say the least. From what we see of people, we might wonder if most really want to work on general self development, but we also can see that almost everyone regularly tries to better their financial situation.

In other words, people in the control group were doing things other than reading self help books, and those efforts got them further ahead also. Think about this for a moment. How does this show that the books didn't help? It's like "proving" that a car can't get you across the city because walking and biking and taking a bus can also get you there. They are just different ways to the same goal!

In other words, the books may have helped (on average), just like the other things people tried. Perhaps people choose the things that work best for them. Based on this hypothesis, a better test might be to have one group choose their self help methods while another is forced to use methods chosen by the researchers. If the first group shows more improvement, it suggests that many methods work, and that each person intuitively knows which will be more helpful.

It might show the opposite too. It is difficult to design such research. It is also difficult to have a proper "control," and to start with the best hypothesis. One lesson from this is to be skeptical of research where things are hard to define and measure.

Self Help Books Clearly Can Help

There are those of us who don't need research to prove that a good book can help. We clearly recall a book that changed the course of our lives, or that obviously helped us in our relationships, or even boosted our income. Yes, of course self help books can help us.

Now, there is the question of why they don't always help. You may have a friend who has told you all about a great new self help book or theory, yet doesn't seem to be much affected by it in the end. You may have read some books yourself that got you excited, but didn't seem to "stick" in our mind or change your subsequent behavior or life.

One reason for this apparent ineffectiveness may be that you need to read each book more than once, and that self help books in general help most if they are read regularly. (It is also possible that the effects of such books can be powerful, yet too subtle to notice right away.)

This reminds me of some research on eating I read about once. Researchers had people eat a meal. They then concluded that eating didn't increase the odds of survival, since everyone died of starvation two months later. Okay, I made that up, but do you see the point? Just like you have to eat regularly to get the maximum survival benefit, perhaps you need to get those self help books out again and feed your mind from time to time to get the most out of them.

Copyright Steve Gillman. For more on Self Improvement, and to get the Brainpower Newsletter and other free gifts, visit: http://www.IncreaseBrainPower.com

Success Comes From Action Not Hopes or Wishes

By Leanne Hoagland-Smith

With all the talk about hope, many people are being to think that hopes and dreams will get them to where they want to be. This type of behavior amounts to an incredible waste of human potential.

Robert Frost wrote: "A person will sometimes devote all his life to the development of one part of his body - the wishbone."

How many times do we wish or hope for life to get better? Our efforts revolve around what we literally cannot control. We start to believe that someone else will take charge of our life and give us at least what we think we deserve if not more.

When our founding fathers established this great nation, they did a lot of research. One of their models of government was meritocracy. This form of government is where individual merit reigns supreme and allows each individual total control of his or her life.

And being in control of your own life is what truly matters. For only you know what you want! Think about it when someone else sets the goals or agendas? How did you feel?

Many immigrants came to this country because they heard that your individual merits no matter your status in life will be the single most important factor as you work towards to master success. You are responsible for you. Your individuals merits, the results of your hard labors, will be your laurels.

Fast forward a couple of hundred years and this is no longer the case. Individual merit is viewed as being selfish and someone else (the government) can do a better job. People now really start developing that wishbone for their lives and the lives of their children. Hope becomes the guiding strategy and not individual action, responsibility or accountability.

If you truly want to master success in all aspects of life, then forget hope and wishes unless you have a plan with written goals. For only you are responsible for your success. And leave the wishbone for Thanksgiving or for those who still want to be one of the many who fail to master success.

Are you where you want to be? The M.A.P. for Success, a FREE email coaching program may help you begin to chart a course of business, professional or personal success. Visit http://www.processspecialist.com/action-plan.htm.

Looking for other success coaching tips and advice? Then visit the success coaching gym.

Leanne Hoagland-Smith with locations near Chicago & Indianapolis helps organizations through business coaching training services to return to the purpose of business that being building raving fans while increasing productivity and profitability. She can assist you to double business results. Call 219.759.5601 to schedule a free business coaching consultation.

Structure for Success

By Liam Alexander

As well as my normal job, I'm currently doing course to qualify as an English teacher to non-English speakers. Although I don't plan on being a full-time teacher for long, it's something I want to do for many years part time. I get a huge sense of satisfaction from helping and teaching people, amongst other things.

But I digress, what I really wanted to talk about now is the participation and pass rate of this course compared, to say, an internet marketing course.

My English teachers course costs $3000, takes about 160 hours to complete, will allow me to earn (at most) $50,000 a year. You know what the pass rate for this course is? Over 95% A couple of years ago I took an internet marketing course that cost $3000, theoretically could have allowed me to earn a 6 figure annual salary, would have taken about 60 hours to do properly. How many hours did I put into it? Probably about 20. The number of people who successfully completed the course? I would guess less than 50%.

So whats the difference? Why the higher work and completion rate for the course that earns less? Its simple - people generally do better when faced with constant monitoring and feedback. Take that away, and it's a LOT harder to complete. You have to motivate yourself. You don't necessarily have the comraderie with fellow students.

There are so many people who excel and advance in school, in the military - where they are placed inside an achievement structure - but don't do so well once they leave this structure. Thus far, I am one of them.

Another thing I notice is that I am MUCH more motivated to do other things no I'm doing my course. Rather than slow down a bit because I am doing a full-time job and a part time course, I find myself wanting to do more and more things (like this blog)without having to motivate myself. Clearly success breeds success :)

Out of the dozens and dozens of wealth creation and personal development courses that are out there, I haven't seen any that have a lot of structure. For example repeated grading of work, feedback and interaction with fellow pupils.I get the feeling were somebody (like me perhaps one day?) to create one with more structure could build a much higher student success rate. Not only benefiting the students and helping them more, but massively helping the career of the teacher too. hmmm....

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