One of the most important things you can ever learn is that just because right now you might not be where you want to be, that doesn’t mean that you can’t get there.  The race isn’t over unless you quit and as long as you keep running, you keep progressing and eventually you’ll find that your competition has fallen by the wayside leaving you with a direct path to your goals.  
NEVER FORGET! With few exceptions, we all begin at about the same starting line.

• Unless inherited, your boss probably wasn’t born owning the company you work for.
• Your Real Estate broker wasn’t born with his license or successful brokerage,
• Your physician with his Medical license
• Your attorney with his Juris Doctorate, etc… (I certainly wasn’t!).

In each and every case the people you now admire, respect, maybe even envy; each had attitudes and beliefs that allowed them to make the choices, decisions and take the actions that brought them to the esteemed place they now hold.  But it always comes down to choosing to ACT!   Because they ACTED, step by step, they slowly moved towards their destination.  It’s rarely quick or easy, but with consistent positive, relentless action, SUCCESS IS INEVITABLE! !

• Having opportunity is not enough! 
• Knowing what to do is not enough…
• Being Smart enough isn’t enough! (In fact a lazy genius is worthless!).  

ACTION IS THE KEY…   

Opportunity knocking does no good if, when it knocks…  we choose to NOT answer the door.
Your ship coming in does NO good if you’re in bed instead of the dock!  

No matter how great your potential, your intellect or how great an opportunity may be…  without ACTION it just doesn’t matter… success or lack thereof always dependent on choices… the choice to act or not act!  

SUCCESS IS NOT AN ACCIDENT!-  The first thing that most people need to understand is that success is not an accident… It is a choice! So many people look around at their doctor, their realtor, their lawyer, the Restaurant Owner and think “look at the lucky SOB, he’s got everything”.  But remember, with few exceptions, we begin at the same starting line.  Getting ahead, doesn’t just happen.  They weren’t just lucky. They were committed and prepared!  They chose to act!

First they prepared via education and then they acted.  Preparation and Action is key.

So often we look around and see others with more money, bigger houses, nicer cars and feel envious; jealous that we don’t have what they have.  We don’t stop to realize that the main difference in our situations, in what we have accomplished and acquired, boils down to the choices we’ve made.  We all have 24 hours in each day.  The difference lies in how we choose to use them.

Good attitudes and beliefs are the seeds from which good choices grow.  And good Choices create GREAT lives.  The good news?  ATTITUDES AND BELIEFS CAN BE LEARNED.  Learn new attitudes, make better choices… this will always create a better life…

WE START IN ABOUT THE SAME PLACE
Unless we inherit money, marry money or win the lottery, we all started in substantially the same financial place.  The main difference in our results are the ACTIONS and CHOICES we make and those are substantially determined by the Attitudes and Beliefs that we hold.  

We can’t change our past… but we can change our future!
We can’t chose our past, we can’t change the decisions that brought us here… but we can change the choices that create our future. Right now, today, we can start making better choices that make for a better tomorrow.  Of course, some people are born into abject poverty, welfare, drug ravaged families, while others, although not wealthy, are middle class families with a work ethic and attitude that was handed down to their children, thus giving them a step up on the poorer kids. 

So yes, some of us are given a head start by being given a better attitude and work ethic that leads to better choices and results.   But even this simply reinforces the statement of the importance attitudes and beliefs.  Attitudes can be changed and improved.  When they get better, choices and RESULTS improve.  

We Can Choose Better Choices
Many that are born into poverty, welfare, drug abuse, etc, learn very different attitudes and beliefs than those born into the more successful families. They may have the very same intellect, actually the same “potential” often even more of each, but the internalized, long held and learned beliefs affect their actions and choices.  

Even though they may have graduated from the same high school have the same intellectual potentials, when it came time to make life choices, i.e. continue the education, get a job, try to start some enterprise,  Because of their beliefs regarding what their life can be, they make choices that conform to those beliefs.  Unfortunately, they are often drastically different decisions and choices than made by the doctor’s son.  The physician son heads to med or law school.  Often, the coal miner’s son is off to the mines.  This happens even though the intellectual potential of each are the same.  Same potential, same opportunity, but drastically different choices.   It is always the choice that makes the difference, the attitude or belief is simply the impetus for the choice.

The beliefs as to what life has in store for us drastically affects the decisions and choices we make.  Here’s what everyone needs to understand and believe… Make the right choice, take the right action and you get the right result!
CHANGE DIRECTION
No matter what your background, you or anyone else can start right now, today to begin making better choices that will IMMEDIATELY begin to change their life’s path.  The best and most personal example I can give is myself.  I am not currently in the same league with Bill Gates.  But I plan on rectifying that!  And it’s my goal to bring hundreds if not thousands with me…  Through ASN, we’ve already made a good start, but I digress…  My background could have been a breeding ground for excuses and failure.

HOW I STARTED

• I was born to a single mother.
• My father died in a car accident before I was born while my mother was 6 months pregnant.
• Thankfully for me abortion was not a reasonable option at that time. Otherwise, there is a substantial chance that I wouldn’t be here.  Instead, I was placed in an orphanage.
• After a year, my mother took custody of me, after almost every child in the orphanage had died from meningitis.  Actually, I was the only survivor.   I still have a picture from the local newspaper of the orphanage director holding me in his arms after the tragedy.
• My mother was and still is a great and loving mom!  But we were poor.  I don’t just mean broke, but poor. However, because I was so loved, at the time, I didn’t even notice.  Yes, we had a lot of beans and not much steak, but I didn’t even realize the poverty that I had experienced until one day, while in my late twenties, I was fondly recollecting about my life in the Ozarks of Arkansas; a place I absolutely loved…
• We had been living in a big white 2 story house.  In  thinking about it I remembered that I wasn’t allowed to go upstairs, because mom was pretty sure I would fall right through the floor!
• I remember, one of my favorite Christmases. The sum total of my presents consisted of a $10 dollar Daisy BB Gun.  I was ecstatic! 

Having said all of this, I know many had it worse.  But the point of the story is that I also know that many would have used the reality of my beginnings as an EXCUSE for a mediocre life…   I started with Poverty, single mom, deceased father, an orphanage, etc…  

I understand had a loving mother, a mother, who even though poor, was supportive and inspirational. She always told me “I could do anything!”  I don’t know if she really believed I had all that potential… but I do know that it made me willing to always try.  And because I believed I could…  I was willing to try.  I didn’t always succeed, but I tried!  Trying is the key.  Because I tried and believed, I eventually achieved!  The reality of this universe is that if you try, if you act, if you don’t throw in the towel…  eventually you achieve! 

YOUR LIFE, YOUR CHOICE-  Maybe you, or someone you know had it a thousand times worse than I ever did.  Maybe they feel as if their upbringing is holding them back.  IT’S NOT!  They are holding themselves back by using their past as an excuse for the choices they make today!   It is within anyone’s power to make better choices.  They simply must CHOOSE to do so.  IN THE END, OUR FUTURE IS NOT CREATED BY OUR PAST… BUT IT UNQUESTIONABLY WILL BE CREATED BY EVERY CHOICE THAT WE EACH MAKE FROM THIS DA FORWARD.  We choose our lives by choosing our actions!  At some point each and every one of us has to say, my past be damned.  My past doesn’t control me.  Every choice I make is mine.  Each choice has it;s own set of consequences and I’m responsible for where they lead.  Henceforth, I choose to make the right ones.   

                                 An incontrovertible fact of life is that Better Choices ALWAYS produces Better Results!  Make better choices and don’t give up.  that’s the key.

See Universal principles of success.

WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE?
Attitudes and Beliefs ALWAYS manifest themselves in actions and choices. For better or worse, we are all the sum total of the actions and choices we have made up to this point in our lives. If we are not satisfied with every aspect of our existence, we need to analyze our past choices and start making better ones.   Attitudes and beliefs that were instilled from childhood and beyond, may have laid the groundwork influencing the choices we made, however, regardless of underlying motivations, the choices were ours.  They were in our control.  The choices you make today, tomorrow and beyond are, likewise, are in your control.  CONTROL YOUR CHOICES… CONTROL YOUR LIFE.

You can start making better choices for a better future, right now!   if you, in anyway are less than satisfied with any aspect of your life, you can start changing it and improving it right now!   Not enough money? Imperfect relationship. Want better “things”?  It doesn’t matter. It’s all in your hands and it’s all a matter of choice.

STOP BLAMING, START DOING-  Blaming outside circumstances for your situation is simply laying the groundwork for a lifelong excuse for failure.  When you truly take responsibility, you begin to understand that you are in control and it becomes easier to see and begin taking advantage of the opportunities that abound.

IT’S A FACT
Realize no matter where you came from, no matter where you are, right now, today you can start making choices and decisions that can dramatically improve your life and your future. But it requires more than just reading and “knowing” these truths, it requires internalizing them so that they are a part of you.  The must be internalize to the point you naturally react in a way that comports with them.  In a future article we will discuss exactly how to do that.

It doesn’t matter what you know… it matters what you do.    http://wp.me/p2EGlL-36