10 Questions You Should Know the Answers

Because the answers to these ten questions will help you discover the very best in yourself…

1.  What would make you proud of yourself?

When you follow your heart and intuition, people won’t always agree with you.  When you find something that makes you happy, not everyone will be happy for you.  When you show unwavering kindness to others, some people will question your motives.  When you are honest to the core, some folks will attempt to use your honesty against you.  When you look for the best in everyone you meet, a few of them will take advantage of it.

Don’t let any of these people stop you from doing these things.  These people don’t matter.  In the end, what does matter is how you feel about yourself and the life you have led.  You will ask yourself one question: “Am I proud of how I lived?”  Make the answer: “Yes!”  

2.  How can you make a positive difference?

Even when it seems like a hopeless effort, do the right thing.  Always live firmly by the forces of love and truth.  The bullies and cheats who seem unstoppable in the short term always fall from power in the end.  Love and truth always rise to the top.

Keep injecting your goodness into the world, one small act at a time.  It’s these small acts of goodness stacked together that eventually change the world.  You may never see the full result of your positive actions, but they will be accounted for and realized in time.  If you do nothing, there will be no result – no positive change ever.

3.  What are you trying to accomplish and why?

Know the answer to this simple question and remind yourself of it every singleday.  You must identify, without any doubt, the specific reason you do the work you do.  Success can only occur when there is a target and a reason to hit it.

When you have a reason to do something, you have a legitimate purpose behind your efforts.  When you connect this reason to a desired result, you’re able to summon the discipline and persistence necessary to get the job done.  Give yourself a good reason and you will find a way to succeed.  

4.  What are the roadblocks standing in your way?

A roadblock is only a roadblock if you don’t know about it.  If you know about it, it’s just a challenge.  Look around and evaluate the challenges you face; within them lie the opportunities to make lasting progress.  You are in the best position to make the most of these opportunities, because you know exactly where you are, where you want to go, and what resources you have at your disposal.

Remember that the roughest roads often lead to the top, and the best way to get over a roadblock is to go through it.  Thus, you must run toward your challenges with all your might, because the easiest way through them is to trample them beneath your feet.  You have what it takes right now.  You know what you must do and you know why.  Step confidently into your challenges until you reach the road on the other side.

5.  What’s the next step?

Remember, you will never make a bigger mistake than sitting back and doing nothing simply because you can only do a little.  So go head and start small.  Take a small step, and if you can’t take a small step, take a tiny one.  Do what you can with the resources you have right now.  Get yourself moving in a positive, productive direction.

The best thing about big success is that it comes one step at a time.  A flash of success, no matter how small, creates the momentum necessary to create even more success.  Every positive step forward puts you in position to take the next one.

6.  What are your flaws and faults?

You will never be flawless.  You will never be faultless.  Acknowledge your flaws and faults and accept them.  Let the difference between your flaws and the flaws of others be that you have accepted their existence and moved past them, while others are hopelessly trying to hide them.  Let the difference between your faults and the faults of others be that you have addressed them and learned from them, while others are still living in denial.

Don’t fall victim to fabricated illusions.  Don’t hide from reality.  Face your deficiencies and use them to bask in the glory of your personal growth. 

7.  What issues do you need to resolve with yourself?

When you feel lonely you look around for someone to fill the void in your life.  You assume that your loneliness stems exclusively from being alone.  But once you find company, it doesn’t take long before you realize that there’s still a void in your life.  You still feel lonely and unfulfilled, so you blame it on your company and you move on to someone else… and then someone else.  This cycle perpetuates for months, or even years, until you are eventually ready to face the truth.

The truth is, a partner, or even just a friend, can add lots of beauty to your life, but they can’t fill a void that exists within you.  You alone are responsible for you own fulfillment.  If you feel desperately lonely when you’re alone, it means you’re in bad company.  It means you need to work on your relationship with yourself first.  To believe otherwise is to delude your mind and perpetuate your loneliness as you

hop from one failed relationship to the next.

8.  How are you burdening yourself?

If you feel like your back is breaking from the weight your mind is carrying, perhaps it’s time to lighten the load you carry.  There are many burdens you can easily let go of if you’re willing.

Start by leaving your worries behind you; worries only fill your mind with negativity.  Instead take constructive action – get involved in something worthwhile that takes your mind off of things.  Next, drop your grudges.  Grudges and resentments simply suck energy and time away from you without any positive return.  Once you’ve gotten this far, it’s time to stop pretending like you know everything.  Rather than attempting to prove yourself, open your mind, eyes and ears to new and real possibilities.  And before you wrap things up, let go of your impatience.  Two of the most vital virtues of your personal growth will be your patience to wait for the right moment and your courage to make the best of it.

As you can see, dropping burdensome negativity from your life is fairly easy once you realize how much of it you’re carrying around with you.  Do yourself a favor today and lighten your load.

9.  How have you celebrated your progress lately?

Focus on the progress you’ve made, on the next positive step, on the silver lining between where you once were, where you are now, and where you’re headed.  Do not think of yesterday’s failures, but of the success that is possible today.

Be proud of yourself.  The fact that you’re trying is immensely impressive.  You have conquered complacency.  You are crushing your fears with every new effort you put forth.  You aren’t where you want to be yet, but you’re making progress.  Step by step will get you there.  Even if you feel like you’re running in place, you aren’t.  No effort that you make to attain something worthwhile is ever lost.  It doesn’t matter how slow you go as long as you don’t give up. 

10.  What do you love about your life?

Life is a series of highs and lows.  There will be times when bad things happen.  When these times strike, it’s important to keep things in perspective.  How you respond to life’s inevitable difficulties defines the strength and growth of your character, as well as the quality of your life.  The false idea that you are a victim of any particular circumstance is simply inaccurate.

The fleeting ups and downs that occur on a daily basis are tiny threads in the overall fabric of your life.  Each one adds to your personal growth.  The quality of your life is ultimately your choice.  You can choose to be immobilized by the gravity of your disappointments, or you can choose to rise from the sufferingand treasure the most precious gift you have – life itself.

Tribute to Hyderabad Bomb Blast Victims

7 Reasons You’re Not as Successful as You Could Be

The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack in will.
–Vince Lombardi

Feeling down about your forward progress lately?  Do you feel like you’re running in place?  Need some motivation and tough love to help you reinvigorate your success rate?  Well, here you go – seven reasons you’re not the great success story you could be:

1.  You do a lot of thinking without acting.

Too often we think without acting.  We do nothing with our ideas.  Everyone who has ever taken a long, hot shower has had many great ideas.  I’m sure you can relate.  But you will only make a difference in this world if you get out of the shower, dry off and do something with them.

The only way to conquer your dreams and doubts is with action.  Wondering about them will not get anything done.  Avoiding challenges will only make them grow bigger.  If you wait until all conditions are perfect, you will spend the rest of your life waiting.

Great achievements are made by starting from exactly where you are right now with exactly what you have right now.  Stop wondering and start doing.  Once you’ve made a little progress you’ll always know, without a doubt, that you can make even more progress if you try. 

2.  Your creative mind is completely unfocused.

Constraints nurture productive side of the creative mind.  At first it might seem as though complete freedom makes all creative ventures more attainable, but this isn’t the truth.  Complete freedom makes the possibilities endless, but keeps your efforts scattered and unfocused.

Often, self-imposed constraints, or boundaries, force you to think differently about challenges, leading to more practical ideas and innovations.  Instead of thinking ‘outside the box’ and looking in every possible direction, get inside one box – a specific problem that needs a resolution, a smaller space where big changes can be made, etc. – and focus your creative attention on making a difference.

These boundaries create the foundation from which to launch a productive, creative effort.  It’s like pushing off from the ground when riding a skateboard, or from the wall of the pool when you’re swimming laps – having something solid to push against allows you to move forward with greater ease and more power.  And over time, as you test these boundaries by pushing against them, you figure out which ones can be broken and expanded, and which ones need to remain fixed in place.

3.  You are focusing too much on fears and defeats.

Your problems are really your blessings if you use them to grow stronger.  Never quit just because you feel temporarily defeated.  You have not been beaten – this is not a competition.  Keep working to be the best you can be.  It doesn’t matter how slow you go so long as you don’t give up on yourself.

In the long run, it usually isn’t what you have or where you are or what you’ve been through that makes or breaks you; it’s how you think about it all and what you do next.  Focus your conscious mind on things you desire, not your fears and defeats.  Doing so brings dreams to life.  

4.  Your expectations are crushing you.

Drop the needless expectations.  Appreciate what is.  It doesn’t matter if your glass is half empty or half full.  Just be thankful that you have a glass and that there’s something in it.  Choosing to be positive and having an appreciative attitude influences everything you do.  The magnitude of your happiness and success will be directly proportional to the magnitude of your thoughts and how you choose to think about things.

Nothing ever works out exactly the way you want it to.  Hope for the best, but expect less.  Appreciate reality, don’t fight it.  Don’t let what you expected to happen blind you from all the goodness happening around.  Even if it doesn’t work out at all, it’s still worth it if it made you feel something new, and if it taught you something new.

5.  You have become distracted from your core goals.

People might tell you it’s impossible, but it’s not.  Though the challenges may be great, you can make things happen.  The odds may not seem to be in your favor right now, but you can change the odds.  When something difficult you want to achieve connects deeply with your purpose, it becomes possible.  When you are driven and committed and persistent, you will get yourself there step by step.

So look within yourself and unearth the values and goals that you most earnestly feel a deep connection with.  In the end, it’s the things that are genuinely important to you that will power your greatest achievements.

6.  You are playing it too safe.

Pain is a pesky part of being human but it’s vitally important.  It strengthens the mind, heart and body.  You can’t grow strong, brave, or successful in this world if you’ve only had good things happen to you within the safe boundaries of your own little comfort bubble.  You need real life experiences, and nothing ever becomes real until you experience it firsthand.

No matter how long you train yourself to be strong, brave, or proficient at something, you never know if you are or not until something real happens to you.  So get real, experience life and let it teach you what you need to know to conquer your wildest dreams.

7.  You have been resisting forgiveness.

Alexander Pope once said, “To err is human, to forgive, divine.”  Nothing could be closer to the truth.  Your willingness to forgive yourself and others is the greatest sign of your emotional and spiritual maturity.  It’s a process of acceptance and understanding that allows you to let go of a situation that’s over so you can move on with your life.

The key is to be thankful for every experience – positive or negative.  It’s taking a step back and saying, “Thank you for the lesson.”

Take a moment and imagine if every person (including yourself) who owed you an apology apologized today, and imagine if you accepted these apologies.  What a weight lifted.  Now imagine if everyone, everywhere did this.  How many problems in the world would evaporate?

Famous People Who Found Success Despite Failures

J.K Rowling, the author of Harry Potter, spoke to the graduating class of Harvard in June 2008. She didn’t talk about success. She talked about failures. Her own in particular. I absolutely love her quote.

“You might never fail on the scale I did,” Rowling told that privileged audience. “But it is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all—in which case, you fail by default.

She should know. The author didn’t magically become richer than the Queen of England overnight. Penniless, recently divorced, and raising a child on her own, she wrote the first Harry Potter book on an old manual typewriter.

Twelve publishers rejected the manuscript! A year later she was given the green light by Barry Cunningham from Bloomsbury, who agreed to publish the book but insisted she get a day job cause there was no money in children’s books.

What if she stopped at the first rejection? The fifth? Or the tenth?

The measure of success can be shown by how many times someone keeps going despite hearing only no.

The following people are not the only ones who have succeeded despite failure and rejection.

I thought they would be the most interesting to you.

People who found success despite failures

Colonel Sanders : The founder of KFC. He started his dream at 65 years old! He got a social security check for only $105 and was mad. Instead of complaining he did something about it.

He thought restaurant owners would love his fried chicken recipe, use it, sales would increase, and he’d get a percentage of it. He drove around the country knocking on doors, sleeping in his car, wearing his white suit.

Do you know how many times people said no till he got one yes? 1009 times!

Walt Disney: The man who gave us Disney World and Mickey Mouse. His first animation company went bankt rupt. He was fired by a news editor cause he lacked imagination. Legend has it he was turned down 302 times before he got financing for creating Disney World.

Albert Eistein: He didn’t speak till he was four and didn’t read till seven. His parents and teachers thought he was mentally handicapped. He only turned out to win a Nobel prize and be the face of modern physics.

Richard Branson: He’s a billionaire mogul of Virgin but has had his share of failures. Remember Virgin Cola or Virgin credit cards? Probably not. He’s lost hundreds of millions of dollars but has not let failure stop him. When you’re rich like him you can rent his private island for $53,000 a night.

Mark Cuban: The billionaire owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks got rich when he sold his company to Yahoo for $5.9 billion in stock. He admitted he was terrible at his early jobs. His parents wanted him to have a normal job. So he tried carpentry but hated it. He was a short order cook but a terrible one. He waited tables but couldn’t open a bottle of wine. He says of his failures,

“I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter how many times you failed,” Cuban says. “You only have to be right once. I tried to sell powdered milk. I was an idiot lots of times, and I learned from them all.”

Vincent Van Gogh: He only sold one painting in his lifetime!  Just one to a friend. Despite that he kept painting and finished over 800 pieces. Now everyone wants to buy them and his most expensive painting is valued at $142.7 million.

Theodor Seuss Giesel: Dr. Seuss gave us Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham. Books every child reads. At first many didn’t think he would succeed. 27 different publishers rejected Dr. Seuss’s first book To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.

John Grisham: The American author first was a lawyer who loved to write. His first book A Time to Kill took three years to write. The book was rejected 28 times until he got one yes for a 5,000 copy print. He’s sold over 250 million total copies of his books.

Steven Spielberg: He applied and was denied two times to the prestigious University of Southern California film school. Instead he went to Cal State University in Long Beach.

He went on to direct some of the biggest movie blockbusters in history. Now he’s worth $2.7 billion and in 1994 got an honorary degree from the film school that rejected him twice.

Stephen King: His first book Carrie was rejected 30 times and he threw it in the trash. His wife retrieved it out of the trash and encouraged him to resubmit it. The rest is history. He has sold more than 350 million copies of his books. (He’s also made many adults fear clowns too.)

Stephenie Meyer: The author of the crazy Twilight series said the inspiration from the book came from a dream. She finished it in three months but never intended to publish it until a friend suggested she should.

She wrote 15 letters to literary agencies. Five didn’t reply. Nine rejected. One gave her a chance. Then eight publishers auctioned for the right to publish Twilight. She got a three book deal worth $750,000. In 2010, Forbes reported she earned $40 million.

Tim Ferris: The man behind the 4 Hour Workweek, who changed how many people view work and life, was rejected by 26 publishers before one gave him a chance. It’s been on the bestseller’s list for years, sold all over the world, and last year published The 4 Hour Body that went to #1 on the New York Times bestsellers list.

9 Habits of Super Positive People

Life is full of positive experiences.  Notice them.  Notice the sun warming your skin, the small child learning to walk, and the smiling faces around you.  Smell the rain, and feel the wind.  Live your life to the fullest potential by reveling in the beauty of these experiences, and letting them inspire you to be the most positive version of YOU.

What would happen if you approached each day intentionally, with a positive attitude?  What would happen if you embraced life’s challenges with a smile on your face?  What would happen if you surrounded yourself with people who made you better?  What would happen if you paused long enough to appreciate it all?

Living a positive life is all about creating positive habits to help you focus on what truly matters.  This is the secret of super positive people.  Here are nine simple ideas to help you follow in their footsteps.

1. Wake up every morning with the idea that something wonderful is possible today. – Smiling is a healing energy.  Always find a reason to smile.  It may not add years to your life but will surely add life to your years.  A consistent positive attitude is the cheapest ‘fountain of youth.’  You’ve got to dance like there’s nobody watching, love like you’ll never be hurt, sing like there’s nobody listening, and live like it’s heaven on Earth.  Read The How of Happiness.
2. Celebrate your existence. – Your mind is the window through which you see the world.  The way to make this the happiest day ever is to think, feel, walk, talk, give, and serve like you are the most fortunate person in the whole world.  Open minded, open hearted, and open handed.  Nothing more is needed.  All is well… and so it is.
3. Appreciate life’s perfect moments. – Your life isn’t perfect, but it does have perfect moments.  Don’t let the little things get you down.  You’ve got plenty of reasons to look up at the sky and say, “Thank you, I will do my best to make this a great day.”  So slow down and pause for a moment to stand in awe of the fact that you are alive, and that you have the ability to rediscover life as the miracle it has always been.
4. Embrace life’s challenges. – Uncharted territory in your life is not good or bad, it just is.  Yes, it may rattle your foundation, and you may be tempted to pullback, say you can’t do it, or bail completely.  But these are exactly the conditions that set you up for massive amounts of personal growth.  Each experience through which you pass operates ultimately for your own good.  This is the correct attitude to adopt, and you must be able to see it in this light.  Read Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life.
5. Become addicted to constant and never-ending self improvement. – It doesn’t have to be January 1st to give yourself a chance to make the most out of your life.  Every day is a new day to learn, grow, develop your strengths, heal yourself from past regrets, and move forward.  Every day gives you a chance to reinvent yourself, to fine-tune who you are, and build on the lessons you have learned.  It is never too late to change things that are not working in your life and switch gears.  Using today wisely will always help you create a more positive tomorrow.
6. Live and breathe the truth. – It’s the most positive, stress-free way to live, because the truth always reveals itself eventually anyway.  So don’t aim to be impressive, aim to be true.  Those who are true are truly impressive.  Being true means having integrity; and integrity is doing the right thing even when you know nobody is watching.
7. Fill your own bucket. – Choose to be happy for no reason at all.  If you are happy for a reason, you could be in trouble, because that reason can get taken away from you.  So smile right now because you can right now, and make it a point to fill your own bucket of happiness so high that the rest of the world can’t poke enough holes to drain it dry.
8. Help the people around you smile. – Today, give someone one of your smiles.  It might be the only sunshine they see all day.  Sometimes just a single genuine smile or compliment can lift a person’s spirits to new heights.  At the right time, a kind word from a stranger, or unexpected encouragement from a friend, can make all the difference in the world.  Kindness is free, but it’s priceless.  And as you know, what goes around comes around.  Read A New Earth.
9. Spend time with positive people. – Life’s way too awesome to waste time with people who don’t treat you right.  So surround yourself with people who make you happy and make you smile.  People who help you up when you’re down.  People who would never take advantage of you.  People who genuinely care.  They are the ones worth keeping in your life.  Everyone else is just passing through.

YOU ARE UNIQUE!

Think what a remarkable, unduplicatable, and miraculous thing it is to be you! Of all the people who have come and gone on the earth, since the beginning of time, not ONE of them is like YOU!

No one who has ever lived or is to come has had your combination of abilities, talents, appearance, friends, acquaintances, burdens, sorrows and opportunities.

N o one’s hair grows exactly the way yours does. No one’s finger prints are like yours. No one has the same combination of secret inside jokes and family expressions that you know.

The few people who laugh at all the same things you do, don’t sneeze the way you do. No one prays about exactly the same concerns as you do. No one is loved by the same combination of people that love you – NO ONE!

No one before, no one to come. YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY UNIQUE!

Enjoy that uniqueness. You do not have to pretend in order to seem more like someone else. You weren’t meant to be like someone else. You do not have to lie to conceal the parts of you that are not like what you see in anyone else.

You were meant to be different. Nowhere ever in all of history will the same things be going on in anyone’s mind, soul and spirit as are going on in yours right now.

If you did not exist, there would be a hole in creation, a gap in history, something missing from the plan for humankind.

Treasure your uniqueness. It is a gift given only to you. Enjoy it and share it!

No one can reach out to others in the same way that you can. No one can speak your words. No one can convey your meanings. No one can comfort with your kind of comfort. No one can bring your kind of understanding to another person.

No one can be cheerful and lighthearted and joyous in your way. No one can smile your smile. No one else can bring the whole unique impact of you to another human being.

Share your uniqueness. Let it be free to flow out among your family and friends and people you meet in the rush and clutter of living wherever you are. That gift of yourself was given you to enjoy and share. Give yourself away!

See it! Receive it! Let it tickle you! Let it inform you and nudge you and inspire you! YOU ARE UNIQUE!

Best Motivational Stories Of My Choice

There was a young boy who used to come for regular practice but always played in the reserves and never made it to the soccer eleven. While he was practicing, his father used to sit at the far end, waiting for him.

The matches had started and for four days, he didn't show up for practice or the quarter or semifinals. All of a sudden he showed up for the finals, went to the coach and said, "Coach, you have always kept me in the reserves and never let me play in the finals. But today, please let me play." The coach said, "Son, I'm sorry, I can't let you. There are better players than you and besides, it is the finals, the reputation of the school  is at stake and I cannot take a chance." 

The boy pleaded, "Coach, I promise I will not let you down. I beg of you, please let me play." The coach had never seen the boy plead like this before. He said, "OK, son, go, play. But remember, I am going against my better judgment and the reputation of the school is at stake. Don't let me down." 

The game started and the boy played like a house on fire. Every time he got the ball, he shot a goal. Needless to say, he was the best player and the star of the game. His team had a spectacular win. When the game finished, the coach went up to him and said, "Son, how could I have been so wrong in my life. I have never seen you play like this before. What happened? How did you play so well?" The boy replied, "Coach, my father is watching me today." 

The coach turned around and looked at the place where the boy's father used to sit. There was no one there. He said, "Son, your father used to sit there when you came for practice, but I don't see anyone there today." The boy replied, "Coach, there is something I never told you. My father was blind. Just four  days ago, he died. Today is the first day he is watching me from above."

You can derive your own meaning from this story. Share with all what you learned from this story in the comments section.

Powerful Motivational Video

Les Brown – It’s Possible

The Starfish Story: Make a Difference!

Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work.

One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so, he walked faster to catch up.

As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, and that what he was doing was not dancing at all. The young man was reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects, and throwing them into the ocean.

He came closer still and called out "Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?"

The young man paused, looked up, and replied "Throwing starfish into the ocean."

"I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?" asked the somewhat startled wise man.

To this, the young man replied, "The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them in, they’ll die."

Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, "But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can’t possibly make a difference!"

At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he said, "It made a difference for that one!"