Inspired Streetsweepers

"If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, 
he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven played music, 
or Shakespeare wrote poetry.

He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well." 

-Rev. Martin Luther King-

We each have inside the yearning to be the greatest at something. We want to be remembered for greatness that will carry our name in the memory of history for others to read about. We want to be remembered like those individuals who remain in the minds and teachings of people well into the future.

Yet we can not all achieve that level of notoriety nor does it mean true success if we do. Success means doing the very best at what we do with our lives; how we live our lives; and what we do for others. Success means trying to be the very best 'streetsweeper' that one can be.

It does not mean that you should not strive for the most majestic of things. What it means to say is that regardless of what you do in life, do it the best way possible.

I will never be the greatest writer to live nor will historians mark my passing. But the words that I do write are done with the best effort I can muster. The words I write will impact people and change their lives in small and big ways. You have the same abilities to impact others and to impact life with how you live your life.

Take that 'thing you do' and do it the very best you can. It will impact the lives of others and inspire them to something greater. In the end there will be those that do say, "here lived a great person who did his job well."

Stay inspired my friends.

Nicodemus Moves Furniture

"Most of our obstacles would melt away if, instead of cowering before them, we should make up our minds to walk boldly through them." -Orison Swett Marden

My wife and I recently moved into a new home after many years residing in a former house. It was a challenge for us as it would be for anyone. Change of any kind will do that to you. It can create anxiety, doubt and obstacles you may never have thought about. For us, this change was planned and it gave us a reasonable amount of control over that change. Some people are not as fortunate.

Change is sometimes thrust upon us by circumstance.

For this particular move, we hired a moving company famously and simply known as Two Men and a Truck. Two guys and a big truck show up at your house to help you move from one place to another. It was a perfect solution for me as I get a bit older, the lifting, the heat, the up and down stairs takes its toll. Having two younger guys doing the heavy lifting worked out great.

One of the guys was a 23 year-old named Nicodemus; Nico for short. He informed me that yes, he had indeed been named after that Nicodemus. So it had peaked my interest to hear more. I soon learned through the small talk of the humidity, heat and long day that he was married, with a small three year-old daughter and going to school working to earn an Associate's Degree in electronics.

As the work day ended, the paperwork was being drawn up, we sat at the kitchen table talking. I find it soothing that even though we had no food on the table, we were gathered at a table where so much is shared. It is here I learned that he had attended two years at a west Georgia college after he left high school.

What he said next set me back in my chair.

His short college career mimicked my own in many ways and as I listened, I couldn't help from being drawn back in time. You can read about my own similarities in Changed Lives. But simply put, he dropped out of college to support a new family. Now at the young age of twenty-three he has a beautiful three year-old daughter.

Nicodemus talked a little bit about the obstacles he has had to overcome. He spoke of circumstances of his own doing and others that life throws at us. It is his daughter and wife that continue to be his driving force as he puts it. So he works days moving other peoples furniture and nights going to school working on that degree.

There will be more circumstance, more obstacles to overcome I told Nicodemus. I gave him encouragement as I talked of my similar road to where I am today, sitting at that table, talking of success and victory. I told him that the day will come when he is not the one moving the furniture. It will be success that he finds, as all of us can by walking through the obstacles that enter our lives.

He was grateful for the encouragement and as he was leaving I asked him if he knew what the name Nicodemus meant?

In the heat of the mid-afternoon, he turned to me, smiled and said, "Of course I do. It means 'victory of the people'." With that Two Men and a Truck drove away in the light rain.

Will you overcome the obstacles in life or cower to them in fear? I say be fearless and push through to victory, to success.

Stay inspired my friends.

On Top

“Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher.”
-Oprah Winfrey

You just never know how far you will go until you get there. And the only way to get there is by placing yourself around others that will help lift you. That sounds like a no-brainer, but many times we surround ourselves with negative people.

It is those type of people that will only hold us down.

Negativity can be very infectious when it starts to invade your world. Their restricting vines will entwine you until one day you find yourself stuck. There is darkness that surrounds negativity. It restricts your view of what could be a greater life. It simply makes life very difficult to live within the bounds of negativity.

By placing yourself around people that lift and encourage can also be infectious.

Those that live a more upbeat and inspired life want to share that with you. The belief that dreams and visions can be achieved will be nurtured by these type of people. Your life will have a clearer vision of all the possibilities that exist and give you a path towards achieving those possibilities.

You may not end up performing acrobatic moves atop the Empire State Building, but then again you might. You see that's what is great about life, anything is possible.

Stay inspired my friends.

All to Give

"I will grow. I will become something new and grand, but no grander than I now am. Just as the sky will be different in a few hours, its present perfection and completeness is not deficient, so am I presently perfect and not deficient because I will be different tomorrow. I will grow and I am not deficient." -Wayne Dyer

Our lives are full of choices regarding how we are willing to give of ourselves. We choose to apply either small or large amounts of energy to accomplish a task. Many times we choose to give nothing as we are afraid of failure. The idea that you could attempt something and not complete it frightens you.

There are times when you give only a partial effort as you believe the perception of having tried is all that is needed. You step half way, keeping one foot firmly planted on solid ground. A goal can never be achieved by half-trying. When you give all that you can in attempting those things in life, there is no failure in not achieving the goal. In many respects, you may find that what you eventually achieve is not necessarily what you first wanted.

A great example comes from a friend who recently passed away.

Belinda is a dear friend of our family, one of those people everyone should have as a friend. As many of us are, she was not as athletic as she once was. But this particular day, the goal she wanted to achieve was only forty feet away.

It would be equivalent to some twenty steps if walking, but this forty feet was straight up. It was a climbing tower with varying challenges for even the most fit. The goal or reward once reaching the top was an exhilarating zip line ride down over a lake. The ultimate reward after accomplishing a tough climb.

Belinda was determined and resolute in not letting fear or physical limitations from achieving the prize. So up the first ten feet of cross bars and transitioning to a netted ladder. Difficult climbing if one is not used to using the many muscles in your legs and arms on a daily basis.

Exhaustion was beginning to make a presence when she made it through twenty feet of climbing. The next ten feet involved climbing a swinging ten foot log. There are foot pegs at various points, but again the physical requirements will take its toll.

The fear and trust in the equipment always plays with you mentally as you climb for the first time. A chorus of encouragement rang out as Belinda made it up to the thirty foot level. By now though she had given everything physically that she could. She had expended any remaining amount of energy that her body could muster for the final ten feet.

I have heard the phrase "giving it all" said many times but it isn't often that you truly see it happen. Many times people are said to "give it all", but have more left in them. This time I saw it unfold before us, Belinda had given all that she had. There were words of encouragement and adoration for a great attempt.

Belinda may not have achieved the goal she set out for, but I do believe she achieved something else. It was a prize found inside, a new found belief in herself and the possibilities in life.

You see, all of us will learn something about ourselves when we step out and as we move towards a goal in the belief that we will succeed. Accept that your mission to succeed may result in finding something completely different. The end result may mean achieving something far greater for your life.

Give it all when moving towards a dream and embrace what you eventually find. Belinda achieved perfection in that moment and so can you. Stay inspired my friends.

Your Freeway

"The best path through life is the highway." -Henri Frederic Amiel

One morning as I was driving to work, my usual route took me from side streets to a major road and eventually onto the freeway. My commute is an early one but short. I normally head out for work around 5:30am and during these times, the traffic on the freeway can be unexpectedly busy. It requires the ritual of merging into and yielding at times to the cars already moving.

Each of those cars, those people, are driving towards destinations possibly similar to yours. Others might be heading towards home, on vacation or simply out for a drive. Although I would hope at 5:30am, insomnia doesn't cause one to get up and simply drive around.

Yet each of us had to merge onto the freeway to get where we needed to go. We each needed to step into this flow of life flowing past us. It required us to have confidence that we could speed up and become part of life flying by so quickly. We merge into the stream of life and head towards our goal.

One could easily remain parked along the side of the road. Maybe still parked in your driveway, trying to muster the courage to even start the car. We each encounter those moments of doubt. We wonder if we have the ability to move forward in life. This self-doubt can have a paralyzing effect on our ability to achieve anything in life.

In order to achieve your dreams, you have to learn to trust your own ability and to believe in yourself. Not many of us can afford to have someone drive us to success. In fact, those that can most likely started like you, sitting in their car, in their driveway, questioning themselves.

The difference is that they started the car and backed out of the driveway. They drove down the street, onto a major street and then passed that freeway entrance sign. They merged into life's stream of movement and believed in what they could achieve.

You can do the same thing by believing in yourself. Drive past the freeway entrance sign and get into the flow of life. Head towards your dreams and let a new world open up before your eyes.

Stay inspired my friends!

Carrying Excellence

Ralph Marston said, “Excellence is not a skill. It is an attitude.”

I have strived over these many years to have the right attitude when it comes to my job. And I have not gotten to this point in my career by being the smartest guy. My success or your own, is measured in many ways but it is truly achieved by having an attitude of excellence.

Another quote from Ralph Marston that fits many successful people reads;

"Excellence can be obtained if you:
...care more than others think is wise;
...risk more than others think is safe;
...dream more than others think is practical;
...expect more than others think is possible.”

You will find that those words can fit into your life as well. You can excel in life and overcome challenges to be successful. Just know that challenges will always be there, but you will be better prepared to face and overcome each of them when you carry an attitude of excellence in your step.

Stay inspired my friends.

Serving Daily

"Consciously or unconsciously, every one of us does render some service or other. If we cultivate the habit of doing this service deliberately, our desire for service will steadily grow stronger and we will make not only our own happiness, but that of the world at large." -Mahatma Gandhi

In our daily lives, it is a fact that in one way or another, we serve people in many different ways. Acknowledging that serving others is one step in cultivating your own attitude into something great. Once you realize the servant nature of our lives, where we help others, success in your own life becomes quite evident.

The reward of that servant minded life may not seemso great in the beginnning. And believing in yourself as one who can do great things in service to others isn't an easy concept. You have to understand how you serve others and how much it impacts their lives. You should constantly work on improving how you service others and the success will follow.

When I travel on business, it is the little things I do that impacts the lives of other people. Whether it is opening a door for someone else, buying a cup of coffee for a coworker, or simply listening to their story - these things impact others. I have learned through out the years that these are things of service. I try to improve on them and notice as well when I forget or fail to perform them.

In the long run it simply becomes second nature.

Is it success? to me it brings me a feeling of success and has brought me great things in life so far. Sure, success is in the "eye of the beholder" and my eye is quite happy with what it sees.

Take a few minutes to stop and examine those things in life you do for others. Find ways to perform small things and see the reaction you get. See what it does to you personally in both happiness and success.

The video below comes from a series of commercials about an insurance company. It is not my intent to endorse this company, but every once in while we can learn a life lesson within those sixty seconds.

Stay inspired my friends.

Living Without

"It's amazing what you can do without, once you've done without." -Andy Penick

Okay, I have quoted a friend this morning but I make no excuses for it. You probably know a person like my friend Andy. You have possibly been a person like Andy. I know that I have been there and been amazed after the fact.

Each of us have driven ourselves towards success in life. We are supposed find the perfect job, the perfect salary, and the perfect rise to stardom. The world tells us we add in a perfect marriage, a perfect church and a perfectly average 3.2 kids.

There should be the big house in which everyone gets their own bedroom. A two car garage to hold two cars that are no older than two-years in age. There is possibly a boat, two family vacations and a yearly anniversary trip. And since we are living this way, the best in clothing and jewelry.

As we gather and grab for even more, we work harder and harder to keep the money flowing in. At this point, it is not successful living but living to look successful which has occurred. Don't take this wrong, success is great and all of the "things" that come with it.

What happens is when you are working to look successful, life can happen. It becomes a very difficult juggling act and some things end up crashing down to the ground. Living what appears to be a successful life will soon consume each of us. It can be very overwhelming and than it all falls and what you thought you "could not live without" is gone.

You are now faced with a new normal, which means not having all of those things. Your life is forcibly readjusted. You might fight it at first. Eventually you realize that you really didn't need all of those things. You begin to focus once again on the important things in life.

Your church, your health, your relationships, your kids and your friends. The material things are not what made you whom you are. You are you and you will be amazed at what you can do without. Even having the perfect church, perfect relationships, or perfect life is found to be less important.

You can not expect perfection in life because life itself is imperfect. What you can expect is how you will react and respond to those imperfections. You will find that it does not take a whole lot of material things in life to have a fulfilled life.

Without the burden of "keeping up appearances" you will find life in much better order. Your church, your spouse, your family and friends will seem so much greater. You will be so much greater. Life will begin to come back into alignment for you.

I have been through it, my friend Andy has been through it and each of you have been through it (or will probably go through it). Once you have come through this life lesson, that is when you will find what real success is. The things that truly matter in life will fill your world. You will not be "living without."

Stay inspired my friends.

Climbing Those Stairs

"Don't aim at success--the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the byproduct of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it." -Viktor Emil Frankl

People will respond to the question, "what do you want most in life" by saying, "success". As defined, success is;

1. 1. the favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors.
2. 2. the attainment of wealth, position, honors, or the like.
3. 3. a successful performance or achievement: The play was an instant success.
4. 4. a person or thing that is successful: She was a great success on the talk show.

Success is something that defines us or signals the achievement of a goal. But is it the final attainment and being defined as successful the real want? I believe success or the idea of being successful is just a "rest stop" along the way. Real success is the "process" or journey we take to achieve it.

Simply achieving success of a goal is not the final endpoint. Achievement of one success is a step towards even more that you can do. It is merely one end point or stopover on the entire journey of your life. As we move from one point in life to the next, there will be many successes.

Consider each success in your life as a step on the stairway you are building. It is another level in the story of your life, not an ending. Focus on the process and each success will motivate you even further.

Life is a journey that continues until you are no longer able to continue. Let successes be the tale of that journey and not the end points.

Stay inspired my friends.

Overcoming Obstacles

"Joy is of the will which labours, which overcomes obstacles, which knows triumph." -William Butler Yeats

I have faced obstacles in my life, challenges that could have stopped me dead in my tracks. There have been the moments of complete frustration when a car broke down, no money to pay for repairs. There was a time when I was stocking shelves wondering if I could ever do more.

There has been illness, death, divorce and a list of others obstacles placed by circumstance in my life. Each one of these seemed insurmountable at the time. Each might as well have been a deep canyon separating me from where I was to where I wanted to be.

What first?

Well into my years when these obstacles appeared, I fretted and worried tremendously about my abilities. I questioned myself, I blamed others and felt like giving up. What I immediately failed to realize each time, is that I had overcome so much before.

I started to ask myself why it is I always went immediately to defeat. Doing so only made the obstacle bigger, giving it more power over my life than it deserved. So believing that "this too I shall overcome" became the first thing to tell myself.

What next?

I began to tell myself that I will make it through, over, by, around, or anyway I could. As humans we are innately creative in finding ways to overcome and survive. And that is what you do, you poke, you prod, you explore every option.

Eventually you will find a way to climb the mountain or to walk around it. You might even find a way to move the mountain out of the way. What ever method you find, keep pursuing, keeping pushing through and you will find that the obstacle is not insurmountable.

What is behind you?

As you move past the obstacle in life, go ahead and look back, but only once. Look back to see what you accomplished. Look back and tell yourself that you did that, you can do anything. But do not dwell on it too long.

Many will stop and admire the accomplishment. They will marvel at the success while all the time failing to continue their forward progress. Use the experience as a means to carry you forward. What you have learned from the experience will prepare you for the road ahead.

What lay ahead?

What lay ahead? Life of course. Your future, more circumstance, more unforeseen obstacles, more effort. But a great life and success also exists out there in front of you.

The journey we take in life is going to be full of many different experiences. Some of us reach complete success, but do we really? Most times the success is the journey itself, always moving forward, always living life.

Keep overcoming, keep moving forward, and stay inspired my friends.

Turn Goals Into Action

"Some people dream of success... while others wake up and work hard at it." - Anonymous

I have talked to many people over the years regarding what they want to achieve in life. They will tell me their visions for success and how they plan on achieving it.

I will listen intently and offer words of support and agreement. Everyone should have a dream for success. Everyone should wnat to achieve their best life. But after they have told me all they have to tell, I ask them one question.

- What have you done to actually move towards your goal? -

Many people will write down those goals on a dream sheet. They will speak in great length about what they wish to achieve in life. The lists made are taped to their bathroom mirrors, maybe up on the refrigerator or attached to the computer screen at work.

The hard truth is that many of those same people will never actually do anything. They will look at those lists every single day and tell hundreds of people about their dreams. But dreams do not come to realization automatically, we must create movement in order to accomplish anything.

In fact, it takes hard work to achieve our goals and visions. You have to actually get up and do something about it. Talking about those goals will only result in talk.

• Goals without actions are only scraps of paper.
• Goals with actions will produce results in your life.

So once you start making movement on your goals, make sure you have one or two people that will keep you accountable to working on those goals. These are people that can offer advice, keep reminding you and also give you encouragement. Without accountability, we will fall prey to failure.

Secondly, do not try to accomplish your goal in one gigantic step. It is impossible to lose 100 pounds of weight in one week. It happens in smaller steps of one, five, or ten pounds at a time. If you are wanting to walk a thousand miles, it starts with mile one.

Lastly, mark off each small step as a successful accomplishment along the way. Remaining positive in spite of setbacks that may occur is important. Reward yourself appropriately with each success and keep your attitude positive along the way.

By following these simple steps, there will be success in your life. The object is to have your best life. Getting to that point will take a lot of little steps in your journey. Now that you have written the destination (goal) on a piece of paper, it is time to get up and put it into action.

Enjoy the journey, enjoy the success and stay inspired my friends.

Failure to Success

"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." -Michael Jordan

All of my life I have had failures of one varying degree or another. I have tried to be the best at everything I do and fallen short many of those times. But what all of my failures have prepared me to be the success that I am in areas I never would have thought possible.

You have the same ability to learn from failure and succeed solely because you did fail. If you let failure take over and prevent you from ever trying again, then failure has won. But if you allow failure to be another learning experience, a lession understood; it will allow you to use failure to succeed.

Never let yourself get down because of failures. Get back up a thousand times if you have to. And remember that success will come to you.

Stay inspired my friends and you can also start reading different types of articles I've written at Street Articles.

Risk Comes With Life

"If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary." -Jim Rohn

Did you ever play the old board game called "RISK" when you were younger? It is a game in which the ultimate goal is to occupy every territory on the board and in so doing, eliminate all other players. It is a game in which there is only one winner. One player gets to dominate the entire "world" and everyone else loses.

About now you might be wondering where a motivational blog such as this could be taking the discussion. Is the story of risk one in which you risk everything and strive to dominate the world or universe? Maybe it is about deceit and cruel one upsmanship in order to get what you want?

Well do not worry about that. I am not here to promote that way of living life. We know that there are people in this world that live their lives that way. There is nothing that I am going to write that could change that fact. But what I can write is how you will have to risk certain things in order to survive and achieve your best life.

The risk I am referring to is having to live and succeed in this world. Life itself is full of risk. From the moment we are born, we are surrounded by all sorts of pitfalls and dangers. Our parents do their very best to protect us. And some parents are as much a risk to their children as life itself, certainly the saddest of situations I can think of.

As we grow older, the risks change and we become responsible for deciding which ones we will take on. You can take the safest of routes and stay on the flat land, moving south around the high mountain tops. Or you can choose to head straight up and over the peaks. It all comes down to which level of risk you are willing to endure.

To achieve so much more in life, you have to be willing to accept and trust that risk can yield more. In fact, you are capable of so much more than you think. We tend to give risk too much of a powerful hold upon our lives. We underestimate our capability to do great things.

You can take on more risk in your life. You can do more in your life. All it takes is believing in yourself and your ability to overcome any and all things.

So take a little more risk in your life, achieve a lot more. And of course, stay inspired my friends.

Where Are You

"To get to where you want to go, you have to know where you are." -Gordon Moore

The year is starting out fast and furious for many people. The excitement of a new year, new resolutions and new goals. Many people will run off with those lists of dreams and jump in with both feet. Two or three, maybe even four weeks will go by. Frustration will start to creep in as they begin to feel direction-less in their efforts.

The reason many people fall into this failure is that we don't know where we are to begin with. How do you find your way to a place without first knowing your starting point.

As an example, there was a television show back in 2001 called LOST. This was a reality television competition and not the drama series. There was an American and British version in which teams only knew what their final destination was to be.

The US finish line (goal) was the Statue of Liberty in New York City, and Nelson's Column in London served as the finish line in the UK version.

The teams only given a backpack full of clothes and other essentials. to add to the complication, team members did not know each other prior to being paired up in the show. These contestants were blindfolded and dropped off in some unknown place of some unknown country to find their way to the goal.

Can you imagine standing in the middle of some unknown location and having to find your way home? That is exactly what we do with many of our goals and New Year resolutions.

There are many resolutions or goals that people have. Losing weight, getting in shape, travel, money, relationships and so much more. But if we don't know what our starting point is, then our journey to a destination is complicated and frustrating.

Some may want to quit smoking, so they merely stop smoking. What those folks fail to do is determine how much they smoke and the reasons why they smoke. Without doing so, the odds of failure increase dramatically.

Again, not knowing where you are will stand in the way of getting where you want to be.

As you begin this new year, assess where you are in life here and now. Find out the reasons for your current circumstance. Once you do, plot a course for success. Plot a clearer view of how you will get to your destination.

Stay inspired my friends.

Success From Failure

"Failure is an event, never a person." -William D. Brown

There are stories which run the full length of history about failure. Stories which tell us how failure is turned into success. Stories which remind us that failure is not a destination but a short term experience.

Everyone is familiar with 3M Post-It Notes. The basic story is of a man named Spencer Silver who worked in the 3M research laboratories. In the late 1960s, he was working on developing a strong adhesive to incorporate it to some of 3M’s current products. After some trial and error he developed an adhesive, but to his own disappointment, it was even weaker than what 3M already manufactured at the time. It stuck to things but could easily be lifted off.

He tried finding uses for it within 3M with little success. Then four years later, another 3M scientist named Arthur Fry was singing in his church’s choir. He used bookmarkers to keep his place in the hymnal but they kept falling out. Then he remembered Silver’s weak adhesive and he used it to coat his bookmarkers. Surprise! With the weak adhesive the bookmarkers stayed in place, yet lifted off without damaging the pages.

From failure, success is born.

• Henry Ford went broke five times before he finally succeeded.
• Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor and went bankrupt numerous times before he built Disneyland.
• Albert Einstein did not speak until he was four years old and didn’t read until he was seven. A teacher described him as “mentally slow."
• The movie Star Wars was rejected by several movie studios before 20th-Century Fox decided to produce what is one of the largest grossing movies in film history.
• After Fred Astaire's first screen test, a memo from the testing director at MGM in 1933 said, “Can’t act! Slightly bald! Can dance a little!” Fred Astaire kept that memo over the fireplace in his home.
• Babe Ruth, considered one of the greatest athlete of all time and famous for setting the home run record, also holds the record for strikeouts.
• Margaret Mitchell's classic Gone with the Wind was turned down by more than twenty-five publishers.
• In 1954, the manager of the Grand Ole Opry, fired Elvis Presley after one performance. He told Presley, “You ain’t goin’ nowhere… son. You ought to go back to drivin’ a truck.”
• Dr. Seuss ' first children's book, And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street, was rejected by twenty-seven publishers. The twenty-eighth publisher, Vanguard press, sold six million copies of the book.

Failure occurs a million times a day. What matters is the million times people got back up and tried again.

You have the ability to move on and try again and again. Only you can keep you from doing so. You will learn from the failure and you will succeed. So get up from the failure, get past the failure, learn from the failure and achieve something greater.

Success in Steps

"The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but significance - and then even the small steps and little victories along your path will take on greater meaning.." -Oprah Winfrey

It is a very refreshing and calming thing when you have achieved success. You breath easier. Your shoulders relax. Life just seems to be perfect at that moment.

But like the sweet smell of fresh cut flowers or newly baked bread, the aroma lingers but for a while. It drifts and suddenly you find yourself looking to take the next step on the journey.

Some folks I know recently achieved a milestone of success. On their road to achieving a goal, they reached one important step. Every road to reaching something big requires reaching many smaller ones. Sometimes if a small one is not met your whole journey gets rerouted. But if you do get to key ones along the way, then your journey makes a huge step forward.

For two film makers and an actress, the first small step was to secure initial funding. Fun, intense, frustrating and relief are some words they may use to describe the result.

With their funding in place now, they can smell the sweet aroma of success. But they each know that the journey has just begun.

If you want a visual, think of it this way;

Vision: deciding that sitting on the couch forever is not an option
Action: getting up off the couch and walking out the front door

These folks have simply gotten through the gate at the end of the walk. A destination is out there waiting for them. There is a destination out there waiting for you as well.

Take your success in small steps. Consider each and every step towards a goal as a success. Savor each one of them but only for a short time. The next milestone will smell even sweeter.

Doing What Others Will Not

I have an acquaintance through the social media tool called Twitter. His Twitter name is @indiemoviemaker and is a filmmaker and actor. I'd recommend reading his blog to learn more about what he went through a couple of years ago. Also, do that thing I talk about so much; encourage, support, tell others.

Now even though we know each other through Twitter, I would not be bold enough to use the word friends. I really like the guy for as much as I know him through Twitter. Yet all we know of each other are our brief conversations and reading each others blogs and websites. Besides, I wouldn't presume to be known as a 'friend' simply because I follow his updates.

One day maybe we will have the opportunity to have a beer together, in person. At that point, maybe we will become good friends. But in following David, I sense his commitment to success, doing what he has to do in the pursuit of his dream. He reminds me of a quote from Albert E.N. Gray, that reads “The common denominator of success --- the secret of success of every man who has ever been successful --- lies in the fact that he formed the habit of doing things that failures don't like to do.”

Each of us will determine our level of success by what we are willing to do. I'm not talking about the moral or ethical choices because I believe you should always take the high road on those two subjects. What I am talking about is the hard work that is required. The hard choices one must make to continue on their chosen path. It could mean taking a job you don't want in order to support short term your goals. It could mean giving up certain comforts such as a nice car or expensive living arrangements.

As the quote reads, it is in doing those things necessary that failures would rather not do. We build ourselves and what may seem like two steps back is actually going to push us ahead even further.

There is no way I can predict @indiemovemaker...excuse me, David's success. I can only encourage and wish him great success. I feel he will achieve it, but it takes the hard work from him, the hard choices and sustained belief in himself that will actually propel him to greatness.

Be willing to do what others will not. Then you will find yourself on a path to success.

Believe In Your Self

"People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. When they believe in themselves they have the first secret of success." -Norman Vincent Peale

Take advantage of the good will and good feelings of the holiday season. Let those feelings build your own confidence to strengthen in your heart that you can do great things. Let the overwhelming thoughts embolden you as the new year approaches. You can do great things, it all starts with believing in your self.

How To Achieve Success

"Don't wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful" -Mark Victor Hansen

Each day many people struggle to be successful in life. It might be in getting that promotion or just that right partner. It might be writing a book or building a new career. Always getting deterred by one thing or another that is preventing you from achieving what you want.

Age will tell you that the 'time' will never be correct. It also tells you that you will never be fully prepared for the change. Many people never realize this and grow old never grasping that which they want or succeed in accomplishing it.

Adlin Sinclair, a businessman and motivational speaker said, "you are the embodiment of the information you choose to accept and act upon. To change your circumstances you need to change your thinking and subsequent actions." There's that word again, change. I've written of that many times, change your way of thinking.

And for goodness sake, just go for it...try something new, make movement in your life. Waiting for the perfect time will cause you to simply wait a long time. A long time that you could better use in accomplishing your goals. The type of attitude you present to your task will be an indicator of success or failure.

It will not be the result of poor timing because now is the time. Start moving with a positive attitude to your goal. "For success, attitude is equally as important as ability." is a quote I read somewhere but not sure whom to attribute it to. But the attitude that you bring to the table is just as important to the success you may have.

So start today, begin with one step, one email, one written page towards your goal and build upon it. The time will become right for your your success.