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Success is an Attitude

20-Tips for Success Achievement

By John J. O'Callaghan

1. The real treasures in life are seven-fold:
   
   • Good health.
     
   • Good friends.
     
   • Self-confidence.
     
   • Someone to love.
     
   • Someone who loves you just as much in return.
     
   • Something you enjoy doing, like work or a hobby.
     
   • Something pleasurable to look forward to, like the realization of a goal.
   
   
2. Money is not the root of all evil. It's what you do with it that counts. Money opens doors; buys good food; buys education; buys the best medical treatment; buys security and comfort. It can also buy you time to do all the things you want to do.

3. With money in your wallet and a gold credit card, many people will want you as their friend. They'll laugh at your jokes, tell you that you are handsome and that you sing good too. But... Make money your only god, and you'll really be poor.

4. Actions and circumstances shape our destiny. Like a sailor drifting at sea, we can pray for a breeze, and fate may send it. But unless we turn our shirt into a sail, and are ready to hoist it when the wind blows, the breeze will not help us.

5. Avoid negative people like you would the plague. Their negative attitudes can be very infectious and rub off on you. Paradoxically, enthusiasm is also very infectious. If there's anything more infectious than enthusiasm, it's the lack of it.

6. Opportunity knocks at least twice on everybody's door. Sometimes she is so heavily disguised you may not recognize her. If you miss her the first time, she will surely come again, only the second time, she'll demand you pay a higher price.

7. Regret is a vain and foolish fancy. The person who has never made a mistake, never made anything else either. Every misfortune has within it at least one seed of hope that can be turned to advantage. Seek and you are sure to find.

8. Find mentors who you can admire and look up to. Determine to be like them In so far as possible, copy their manners, attitudes, habits and customs. Go where they go. Read what they read. Think like they think. Do what they do.

9. In setting your goals, monetary and otherwise, determine to realize them before you are too old to really enjoy them. Without a clear-cut goal, and a set time limit for it's completion, you could journey on forever, and never arrive.

10. Determine to win. You can get knocked down nine times in a fight, but you're not beaten until you refuse to get up and fight one more round. "It's not the size of the dog that counts in a fight, but the size of the fight in the dog."

11. If at first you don't succeed, try and try again. If that doesn't work, try something entirely different or unorthodox. Never give in. Nothing beats determination and persistence. "The journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step."

12. Decide what's really important in your life and what's not. You can only do so much. Time is so limited you're never going to accomplish all of the things you would like to do. Don't waste your precious time on trivialities. Prioritize.

13. Doubts and fears are self-fulfilling prophets of misfortune. Don't contemplate failure. When you want success, visualize success. Confidently expect to succeed more than you expect to fail. Then act as if it were impossible to fail.

14. When someone reminded Edison he had failed in his light bulb experiments ten thousand times, he said, "No! I have discovered ten thousand things that don't work." An attempt may fail; not a person. A person can never be a failure.

15. Choose to be a possibility thinker. There is a solution to every problem. Think! Think! Think! If no solution comes to mind, give the problem to God and your subconscious mind. Confidently expect to receive an answer.

16. Descartes wrote, "I think, therefore I am." Our thoughts and actions are interconnected and one begets the other. You have absolute power over what you choose to think. Command your thoughts, and you command your actions.

17. If you can believe it, you can achieve it. If you can visualize it, you can realize it. The way to be more self-confident, is to act as if you already are confident. The way to have courage is to act as if you already have courage. "Act as if," is the key.

18. Choose to think you are miserable, and you'll be as miserable as you think you are. See your glass as half-empty and you'll be sad. See it as half-full and you'll be glad. "Our world is like a mirror that reflects back to us, what we hold up to it."

19. When others say, "It can't be done," they mean they can't do it. But you can if you think you can. Equally, if you think you can't, you can't. Free your mind from any self-imposed limitations. Sow success-possibility-seeds. Reap success.

20. Don't be put off by the size of the problem facing you. The ancient Israelites were afraid to defend themselves against the giant Goliath. They said, "He's too big to hit." David replied, "He's too big to miss." Success is an attitude!

John J.O'Callaghan is small business consultant whose business column is regularly published in numerous magazines and newspapers at home and overseas. He started his first business on a shoestring at age 25 when he set up in competition with his own boss. Over the next 15 years he started 6 more businesses, sold them all for substantial capital gains, and retired at 40, rich enough not to ever have to work for money again. His personal motto is, "If I can believe it, I can achieve it.  If I can visualize it, I can realize it." He has written several books including the $14. 95 best selling "50-Secrets of Success" and "3-Step-3-Week Quit Smoking Program." Contact: Entrepreneurs Network Inc., 426 Fieldstone Drive, Venice, Florida 34292-4600. Telephone or Fax 941-4971663. Toll free 1-800-668-0966. E-mail: John@demc.com

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