Three Things YOU absolutely NEED to know about SUCCESS

As a young man I wanted to be successful and so read everything from Think and Grow Rich and The Magic of Thinking Big and backward to the Stoic Philosophers.

It dawned on me that whether I was listening to a #motivationalspeaker or an inspirational businessperson, the message was fundamentally the same. Now, as someone who has achieved a modicum of success, I am coaching and mentoring others on their journey, and have returned to my original summary of my take on success advice.

You may be surprised at how short the summary is, as it’s just three points:

Decide what you want

1. Calculate the price
2. Pay the price.

As short and simple as this list is, most fail at one or all the steps.

Decide What You Want

I was visiting one of my longest-standing clients at his beautiful home in California. As he was showing me around, he asked if I recognized the house. I was confused, as this was the first time, I had seen it. ?“Remember”, he said, “when 20 years ago you did a visualization exercise with me, and you asked me what success looked like? I described my perfect house down to the color of the brick, recognize it now?”

This is a concrete example (pardon the pun) of the power of creation. Everything that is built around us, started first in someone’s imagination.

In 2001, I wrote my first manuscript on communication skills with the idea to become an author. I got a call from the publisher and went for a meeting. “We like your book”, they said. “Great”, I said. “We are not going to publish it”. “What”, I said, “then why am I here?”

“Do you know anything about flirting”, they asked. “Well yes”, I said, “I’m a single man living in Sydney, and flirting is basically a communication skill”. “Well”, they said, “our competitors are releasing a book on Flirting in the Autumn, and we wondered if you could rewrite this manuscript if we pay you an advance up front”. As I wanted to be an author, the answer was yes. I am now the author of four books, on leadership, not flirting, but one of the exercises in this first book leads us to the next point.

Calculate the Price

For people who want to learn to flirt, success usually meant meeting someone to partner with. Applying success rule number one, I invited my readers to list the characteristics and qualities of the person they wanted in their life. Then came the kicker.

“Who do you need to become to have that person attracted to you?”

This is calculating the price. If you want to be fit, what is going to cost you in time and effort to achieve the fitness you want? If you want to be educated, are you prepared to do the study? If you want to be at the C-level in your organization, are you ready to practice self-leadership and develop the influence capital to achieve this?

Having coached hundreds of people over the last 25 years, many stumble on these first two steps. They are unclear about what they want and do not do their research on what is required to get there.

Pay the Price

Obvious, right? Well, there’s a story, source unknown, about an admirer who approached a great pianist, after a concert and said, “I’d give my life to be able to play like you.”

The pianist replied, “I did.”

One of my mentees once said to me, I want to be able to speak and influence people as you do, how do I do it in the shortest possible time?

As he was young, so my answer was to get some life experience. “Go and travel”, I said. He took my advice and now, Radu Palamariu, is a successful Managing Director of his own company, and an author in his own right.

The thing about the price is that it’s like a variable mortgage in volatile times. Your repayments can go up but rarely down. If you stop making the payments, you lose the house.

I tell my audiences that I don’t wish adversity upon anyone, but neither do I not, because it is only through adversity that we truly understand who we really are.

And finally, each person’s path to success is different. Sometimes we climb a ladder and sometimes slide down a chute or a snake. Comparison said the Buddha is the seat of all unhappiness. So, don’t compare your journey with anyone else’s.

Self-leadership is the practice of intentionally influencing your thinking, feeling, and actions toward your objectives. So, decide what your objective is, influence your thinking, and take action toward your success.

And if that action is to get support from someone who has gone before, connect with me.