Excerpt from "Success, The Ten Steps to Achieve it"
What is success? Is it to have good relationships, a desirable life-style, a pleasant job or career, and excellent prospects for the future? Is it to get up in the morning and be so excited by what you do, you can't wait to get at it again? Or is it going out with your girlfriend or wife and being so awed by her loveliness and beauty you can't wait to be with her again? Actually, it's all of the above. But how many of you have all these things and feel that way?
Probably very few. On the contrary most of you live by the phrase: You can't have it all. You either have not enough money, not a really great job, so-so relationships, and are lacking in many material things you would like to have. But worse of all, even though you know all these things, you don't know how to get out of it and what to do. So you go on and settle for what you have or second-best solutions and pretend you are quite happy with what you have.
The result: almost 50% of marriages heading for divorces; over 20% of workers between the age of 25 to 55 caught in the painful cycle of multiple jobholding; relationships rushed, neglected and abused; people coming down with medical conditions or illnesses that can be attributed to the life they lead; in short, lives that are diminished and end up extremely unhappy and unfulfilled.
What is amazing about all this is how poorly you manage your own life. You do not look at what you are, where you are and where you want to go. You hang on to relationships long past their usefulness and suitability. You line up for miles and apply for low-paying and non-job jobs. You do not take care of your future and live from paycheck to paycheck. Or you give up altogether and request public assistance. And become angry, bitter and frustrated at your lack of success.
But, in all this, how many of you finally have enough and decide to do something about it? Not many. Not very many. It's always easier to complain about the job you lost or the conditions you live in and blame it on others, the State or the Government. As long as you blame it on someone or something, not yourselves, it's all right. That's the way it is. That's the way it always is and why you do not succeed.
But if you truly believe you can be successful, in fact have a right to be successful, then you will forget about other people and external conditions and what was done to you, and will look at the person who matters most if you want to succeed: you. You will understand that to be successful you have to want to be successful and to take the necessary steps to do so.
Becoming successful is a process. You will have to look at what you need to do and then work at it. There is no easy way. No magic formula. Just hard work. Plain hard work. Mixed with faith and humor. Lots of humor. And one more thing. One very important thing. You have to start right away. That's right. Right away. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Not next month. You hear. RIGHT AWAY!
If you do that and stay with it, then you'll become truly successful.