“Your biggest break can come from never quitting. Being at the right place at the right time can only happen when you keep moving toward the next opportunity.“ -Arthur Pine
A search of Arthur Pine revealed the following:
One Door Closes, Another Door Opens: Turning Your Setbacks Into Comebacks by Arthur Pine and Julie Houston
Using personal stories of failure and rejection from celebrities such as Michael Jordan, Robert Merrill, Elton John, Ed Asner, Carol Burnett, Katarina Witt, Walter Cronkite, and others, this encouraging book illustrates how painful experiences can change lives for the better — how setbacks can open the door to new opportunities.
Prior to discovering the quote above, I was not familiar with this author although I am quite familiar with this genre of work. One of the most well-known books in this genre is not just a book, but an entire series of books; The Chicken Soup for the Soul series by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen gave rise to an entire “Chicken Soup for the Soul” Brand.
One of the interesting details that many people don’t know about the first book is the number of rejections it received from publishers. Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen saw every single “no” not as a no, but as an OPPORTUNITY for the next publisher to review their manuscript. They knew that eventually the right publisher would say “yes.”
What they didn’t know though, was that it would take 144 rejections before that “YES” finally came. And even when the YES finally came, the publisher had an extremely limited vision for the potential of the book and didn’t offer much in the way of support to the authors.
Jack Canfield said: “Chicken Soup for the Soul” was rejected by 144 publishers. If we had given up after 100 publishers, I likely would not be where I am now. I encourage you to reject rejection. If someone says no, just say NEXT! (Jack Canfield Facebook post dated November 18, 2015 at 11:27 PM).
The book was a runaway success story and held a spot on the New York Times Bestseller list from 1994–1998. The rest is history! The brand was eventually sold and now has over 250 publications and other product lines as well. Simon & Schuster is the current distributor of the Chicken Soup For The Soul LLC Brand.
Opportunity is often just on the other side of rejection or hiding behind an obstacle!
Keep Pedaling, Keep Going, Keep Growing!
Advance Confidently!
If you enjoyed and found value in this article, please share it.
In Gratitude,
Bobby Kountz, Author, Speaker, Sobriety Scholar, Inspirationalist!
PS. You can find out more about me here. You can find my book on Amazon.
“If you have dreams, goals, or aspirations, you need to GROW to achieve them. But, if you’re like I was — and if you are like most people — you have one or more mistaken beliefs that create a gap that keeps you from growing and REACHING your potential. Each of us has the opportunity to bridge that gap. But we must make that a goal and follow through.” ~John Maxwell
It’s a well-known leadership principle that we either grow or die. However, this harsh dichotomy is not consistently applied to the lives of the broader community.
Many of us never actually choose a path, so we naturally just drift along from job to job, place to place, or path to path. Be assured there is nothing wrong with any of these choices.
Life tends to temper the resolve of an individual much the same way steel becomes hardened with fire. When we become ready, a subtle shift develops almost imperceptibly. In this shift, the sub-conscious prepares the waking mind for the acceptance of new ideas. This is where the gap is either bridged, or not. If the “GAP” is identified and acknowledged, progress is all but guaranteed. However, if the “GAP” remains unexamined, it will invariably prohibit growth.
Growth almost always occurs because of one of two pairs of things: planning or pain, goals or inanity, success or failure, dedication or procrastination, contemplation or COMMITMENT!
This is the paradox…
If we will simply commit, we can then learn to bridge the gap. The bridge spanning the gap typically comes in the form of a goal or mentorship. With proper coaxing and collaboration, a healthy dose of guidance or coaching, an individual becomes ready for the step of CHANGE. With this step, knowing the “how” is unimportant. However, the “why” is critical. Our “why” provides the fuel for commitment. We conquer the how with the why. This process requires action and resolve. These attributes are activated with one small word: commit! The strategy is simple: COMMIT, then figure it out! The plan will unfold and develop once the act of resolve is initiated. The final phase comes with dedication, persistence, and hard work! This is the process of going from unsure to UNSTOPPABLE!
Welcome to the path of success!
Success is not a destination but a commitment to the process. Success is showing up again and again. Success is baby steps… Success is the natural result of commitment and persistence. Success operates on her own schedule and her own timeline.
Many give up before she reveals herself… She is often just on the other side of the most recent obstacle we encountered. She readily hides just on the other side of one more feeble attempt. She often blends in with circumstances and even disguises herself as failure.
She is elusive, not unlike an early morning mist or the evening fog that ebbs and flows with the setting sun. As darkness falls, she can be seen in the shadows, just out of sight, just out of reach. She is often experienced in the dusty recess of our fading dreams as we awake only to find it was indeed just a dream…
Ah, but what is a dream if not a prelude to the possibility, for it has been said that if we dream it, we can do it. And beware the dreamer of the day for they may act their dream with open eyes and bring it into the physical realm of existence.
“All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.” ~T. E. Lawrence
Keep Pedaling, Keep Going, Keep Growing!
Advance Confidently!
If you enjoyed and found value in this article, please share it.
In Gratitude,
Bobby Kountz, Author, Speaker, Sobriety Scholar, Inspirationalist!
PS. You can find out more about me here. You can find my book on Amazon.
“Time is a fixed income and, as with any income, the real problem facing most of us is how to live successfully within our daily allotment.”~Margaret B. Johnstone
Time truly is a fixed income.
Each of us receives the exact same amount every single day. There is no
hierarchy of time. There is no aristocracy of time. Wealth won’t buy you one
second more than the poorest of the poor. Intelligence provides no advantage
here either. The most intelligent person on the planet receives the exact same
allotment of this precious commodity as does the person who struggles to think.
Wisdom however, now that’s a
different discussion. Wisdom is the gift that allows for the full utilization
of our very precious 86,400 seconds of income. Wisdom helps us determine how to
best invest this precious resource. Wisdom is often mistakenly referred to as the accumulation of knowledge.
Wisdom is not the accumulation of knowledge, it’s the application of knowledge.
“Time is the inexplicable raw material of everything. With it, all is possible, without it nothing. The supply of time is truly a daily miracle, an affair genuinely astonishing when one examines it.” ~Arnold Bennett
Time can never be managed. It
can only be invested into the activities of our choosing. Time management is a
catchy phrase that made a complex issue seem simple. What we manage, if we are
disciplined enough to see the importance of it, is activity. Time is simply a
receptacle for activity management.
As it relates to time, we don’t
even get paid for our time even though many of us are paid by the hour. What we
get paid for is the activity we put into the time allotted for the activity.
Some would argue this is semantics, but if we truly got paid for our time we
could just simply stay home and eat bon bons all day. No, if we work for a
company or for ourselves, either way, whatever we are paid, it will be for what
we produce, for the activity we put into the time allotted.
As human beings we have free
will, which also means we have free choice. We choose how we invest and spend
our time. We choose our work, our vocation, our creative outlet, our leisure
activities, what we read or don’t, what we watch, or don’t, what we listen to,
or don’t. The allocation of our time is one of the most important decisions we
make on any given day.
A common phrase we often hear
is, “If I only had more time.” The hard truth was expressed over a hundred
years ago by the author Arnold Bennett and was captured for all eternity in the
following quote.
“We never shall have any more time. We have, and we have always had, all the time there is.”
When determining how to best
invest your income, consider what you really want and then strategically
allocate specific blocks of your daily commodity into that activity.
Most of us procrastinate to
avoid the discomfort associated with a specific task or activity. We fool
ourselves into believing we can do it tomorrow, or the next day, or the day
after that, or even worse, someday…
As a recovering
procrastinator, I am all too well versed in the many ways of avoidance.
Creativity is NOT a superpower for procrastinators! But let’s be honest, we all
do it at least every now and again. As a matter of fact, we are prone to it and
without discipline and vigilance it’s easy to have a day slip away never to be
regained.
Fortunately, tomorrow is kept
for us, no way to get into debt, impossible to borrow from the future. Now, now
is all we have. We talk about our twenty-four hours because of the system we
use to measure time, but the truth is all we have is this moment and then it’s gone,
and we are onto the next moment. Therefore, it’s so important to structure the
proper use of this ever-precious commodity.
Another note on time. We tend
to overestimate what we can accomplish in a day and to drastically underestimate
what we can accomplish in a decade. Here’s a rudimentary example that might
shift your thinking based on what I refer to as the cumulative effect. One hour
per day invested into the endeavor of your choice is 365 hours per year which
equals approximately 45 workdays. Multiply the 45 days by 10 and you have 450
days or 1.25 years. When we think about all the things we could accomplish in
this amount of time, it’s absolutely amazing. All because we suddenly
understood the value of an hour consistently invested into the activity of our
choosing. No, it won’t happen overnight, but think how much smarter you’ll be a
decade from now.
Ponder this one-hour rule and
think of all the different experiments you could conduct in your own life by
applying this rule every day. Oh, and as it relates to habits, think of how
many productive habits you could develop and apply to your future with this one
simple change in focus. This is an example of what I call the cumulative effect
and what Darren Hardy calls “The Compound Effect” in his bestselling book.
“Decide what you want, decide what you are willing to exchange for it. Establish your priorities and go to work.” ~H. L. Hunt
Be “WISE”, don’t
leave this task to chance, for if you do, you will find this gift slipping away
just as the sand slips from one side of the hourglass to the other…
For a truly interesting read,
check out the work of Larry G. Maguire.
Learning To Practice Radical
Gratitude “One Day At A Time”
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
ADVANCE CONFIDENTLY!
“One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity.” ~Albert Schweitzer
What kind of strength is
gained in the overcoming of obstacles? What obstacles have you overcome and
what did you find on the other side of the conquered obstacle? What is that
feeling called? Is it pride? Is it satisfaction?
Perhaps it’s a new sense of confidence, or even better, a renewed sense of confidence… Maybe, just maybe, in the process of pushing past the obstacle, by simply becoming curious, you discovered something about yourself you didn’t even know existed… Self-confidence!
Just like curiosity, gratitude
is a superpower!
When we consciously express gratitude for the difficulties and challenges we face, we give ourselves permission to see the obstacles and adversity from a different perspective. I have come to understand over time and from the experiences of others, all events in life are neutral until we label them.
“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” ~Epictetus
Instead of asking why something happens to us, we ask instead, what’s the lesson here? What is this experience trying to show me? What’s trying to emerge? This simple reframe changes everything. Then, once we have given ourselves permission to see the experience for what it is, we can authentically express our gratitude for both the experience and the lesson.
Radical gratitude is the
understanding that we are responsible for how we react to whatever happens in
our lives. Our response can be one of gratitude or blame. Choosing gratitude
gives us the power of choice. If we blame others or circumstances, we are, in
essence, giving our power away.
What is inner strength? Ah, now we’re on to something. Inner strength is the internal resolve where we move from the small “c” of contemplation, to the CAPITAL “C” of commitment!
Commitment is where an idea meets RESOLVE. When we combine commitment, resolve, persistence, determination, dedication, patience, and hard work, the outcome is a steppingstone on the path of achievement! And what might the name of that steppingstone be you ask? It’s the “steppingstone” of ADVERSITY now reduced to its actual size (adversity) and true functionality. It’s the first and most important step on your path to freedom…
Freedom is gaining the self-confidence
to believe you can accomplish almost anything you previously thought
impossible. Freedom comes from the act of commitment! Freedom is found in the
ability to commit, then figure it out! Freedom comes from knowing that
if our WHY is big enough, HOW will always materialize in support of WHY!
History is the teacher here…
A kite and a key, manned flight, harnessed electricity, a trip to the moon and back, telecommunications, computers, and now, multiple trips to a distant red planet that was once thought unreachable…
Impossible?
“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it.” ~Muhammad Ali
What are you ready to change?
Embrace adversity for the
teacher it is and express gratitude for the lesson adversity offers. See
obstacles as a natural part of the process of becoming whoever you choose to
be. And finally, remember, a kite rises against not with the wind.
Keep Pedaling, Keep Going,
Keep Growing!
Advance Confidently!
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it 🙂
In Gratitude,
Bobby-
PS. You can find out more about me here. You can find my book on Amazon.
“I know of no great man except those who have rendered great services to the human race.“ -Voltaire
What
does it mean to be great? What does it mean to be a great human? What does it
mean to be a great man or woman?
When I think of men and women who are considered great, I think of
those who made a commitment to the betterment of humanity, their profession,
their passion, or their vocation.
What comes to mind for me are the names of leaders. You don’t have
to lead a team or a company to be great. Albert Schweitzer was both a great
leader and humanitarian. He was also a teacher. Humanitarians are not regularly
thought of as great success teachers, at least not in the monetary sense.
However, money is actually a poor measure of success. Here is another measure:
“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” ~Albert Schweitzer
Great people are people who are committed to making a difference
not only in their own lives, but in the lives of others as well. Being great
does not mean that you must become rich or famous to be great.
Helen Keller was deaf, dumb, and blind. She found a way to be
great. However, she would have never been great without her teacher. The
unknown great in Helen Keller’s life was Anne Sullivan. Because of the patience
of her teacher, she went on to not only learn to read, write, and speak, but to
graduate cum
laude as well.
“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.” ~Helen Keller
Another example of greatness are the countless teachers we entrust
the lives of our children to. Not every teacher is great by whatever standard
they may be measured by, and nonetheless they make a great difference in the
lives of the children they influence and the encouragement they provide.
As individuals, we may never rise to the level of greatness as
defined by fame, fortune, or popularity, but each of us has the ability to rise
to the highest level in the way we conduct ourselves and the way we represent
both ourselves and the various companies we work for and the customers we
serve.
Greatness is a mindset shift. Greatness is a decision, not an act.
Greatness, like excellence, is a habit. Decide to be great and you
will be great. Decide to provide excellent service and you will provide
excellent service. Decide to be the best and you will deliver the best results
you are capable of. Decide to be a great human being and you will be a great
human being.
Decide!
Keep Pedaling, Keep Going, Keep Growing!
Advance Confidently!
Please consider sharing this article. Also, claps are free, clap
away!
In Gratitude,
Bobby-
PS. You can find out more about me here. You can find my book on Amazon.
“Let the people discover you! You might have the key of the locked doors in their lives! Open yourself to the world; you might be the magic the world needs!” ~Mehmet Murat Ildan
The key in your pocket may not open your door. As a matter of fact, there is no way to know for sure how the key even found its way on to your ring.
The lesson you learned 10 years ago or 10 minutes ago may be the lesson your potential client or customer needs to learn NOW! Your willingness to share your experience might mean the difference between success and failure. What if what you have to share could save thousands of dollars, save a contract, or shave months or years off your clients learning curve? What might that be worth to them? To you?
It’s not knowledge that creates value. It’s the proper application or exchange of knowledge that creates value. Here’s an illustration:
In the early 80’s when a local factory experienced a mechanical failure that brought production to a screeching halt, they quickly called the city’s most renowned local experts to resolve the problem. They tried but were unsuccessful.
Hours passed with no solution in sight…
Every minute the factory remained idle was costing them thousands of dollars. With a looming contract project deadline and a six-figure bonus for finishing on time hanging in the balance, the owners were desperate!
The CEO commanded his chief engineer to go global. The search began immediately. It was quickly discovered the world’s foremost factory expert had recently retired and was unavailable for the job.
Undeterred by this news and refusing to take no for an answer, the CEO personally called the expert and offered to pay him whatever price he thought was reasonable to come out of retirement and resolve their issue.
After careful consideration, the technician agreed. The CEO sent the corporate jet to pick him up and bring him to the factory which was located minutes from the airport.
Upon arrival, the technician was scooped up by a very efficient limousine driver and quickly whisked away to begin his work at the factory.
Before beginning the job, the technician demanded a guarantee of payment from the CEO no matter how long it took to complete the work and that the job would be paid in full immediately upon completion.
The CEO agreed.
Ten minutes later, the factory was whirring, spinning, buzzing, and back in business.
A smiling technician presented himself to the office of the CEO where he requested payment for services rendered.
The CEO, checkbook in hand, had a big smile on his face because he knew it had only taken 10 minutes to fix the problem.
When the technician confidently asked for $50,000 the smile vanished from the CEOs face. He said absolutely not, it only took you 10 minutes to fix the problem, how on earth could it be worth $50,000 for 10 minutes? Unless you can produce an invoice that demonstrates the validity of the price you’re asking, I refuse to pay.
The technician, unbothered by the rude response, quietly and calmly asked for a piece of paper on which he wrote the following words:
Up until the time you called me, I was retired. I came out of retirement because you were desperate. Here is my itemized invoice for services rendered:
Fee for getting the factory back online $500. Fee for coming out of retirement and knowing exactly what screws to turn and what circuit breaker to reset, $49,500.
Thank you for the opportunity to serve and share my expertise, I am grateful.
Amount now due in full, $50,000. Solution Services Inc.
“For someone who doesn’t have the key, the door becomes a wall; for someone who has the key, there is no door.” ~Mehmet Murat Ildan
The technician then very deliberately presented the note to the CEO for review. As he read the note, the technician could see a shift in posture, the puffed out chest receded, a deep breath was taken, and the defiant look slowly became a smile.
The CEO suddenly understood. No more words were required. He happily wrote the check as he thought about his own salary and why the company paid him what they did to run their business effectively and efficiently. Just before he handed over the check, the CEO asked the technician to write the name and number of a trusted associate on the invoice, just in case they ever had another breakdown… The technician complied and the two men shook hands, each with a smile of respect and admiration.
The lesson is simple. We are not compensated for our time; we are compensated for the value we put into the time. The $50,000 wasn’t for the 10 minutes, it was for the knowledge of knowing exactly how to solve the company‘s problem.
What problem do you have the knowledge to solve for your customers or potential customers? What lessons have you learned that could help shave years off the learning curve of your potential clients? How can you market that knowledge? How do you demonstrate the knowledge you have is relevant, relatable, transferable, and will save either time, money, energy, or ideally, all these elements?
Answer these questions and you’ll be on the road to creating a business that not only serves but is service-oriented and highly sought after because of the value it brings to the marketplace.
There is no better advertising than a completely satisfied customer who raves about their experience.
The purpose of a business after all is to both get and keep customers, not just in a database, but to keep them completely satisfied so they are ready to share with their friends who might also need your services about how your business is different and why they should contact YOU!
Ask yourself, if you were the CEO of the factory and it broke down in the future, who would you call?
What problem can you solve or help your potential clients to overcome? How can you make their lives better? And remember…
“It’s hard to be nervous when your heart is on service.”
~Rory Vaden, Author, Speaker, Entrepreneur, Business Owner
Keep Pedaling, Keep Going, Keep Growing!
Advance Confidently!
In Gratitude,
Bobby-
PS. You can find out more about me here. You can find my book on Amazon.
