by Tom Nicoli
Ah, success. The word either creates a warm feeling or makes you feel scared to death. If it scares you, I believe it’s mainly because you don’t have the tools to become as successful as you desire. If that’s true, I have good news. It doesn’t take special attributes, genealogy or luck at birth to skyrocket your personal success. As I was preparing to launch Skyrocket Personal Success, I interviewed experts in areas that need to be focused on to truly skyrocket personal success. Knowing success isn’t strictly limited to finances, I gathered in depth information from experts in physical fitness and nutrition, wealth and abundance, mind strategies and techniques, business and relationships.
Tom Venuto, B. Sc., CSCS – Health and fitness expert
Since 1989, Tom Venuto has been involved in the fitness industry as a personal trainer, success coach, nutrition consultant, health club manager, publisher and freelance writer. Tom has written over 170 articles and has been featured in IRONMAN magazine, Natural Bodybuilding, Muscular Development, Muscle-Zine, Olympian’s News (in Italian), Exercise for Men and Men’s Exercise.
Peggy Pattison, M.A. – Organization and business expert
Peggy is the author of 11 books and how-to courses, a keynote speaker and trainer of personal and corporate development. With 30 years of experience building, structuring and organizing teams of people, Peggy has her finger on the pulse of what it takes to skyrocket personal success. Her client list and successes include Eaton Corporation, National, City Bank, First of America Bank, Prab Robotics, International Paper Company, Clark Equipment, Michigan State University / KCMS and The Upjohn Corporation.
Judith Sherven, PhD. & Jim Sniechowski PhD – Relationship experts
Jim and Judith are best selling authors, lecturers and consultants to understand and improve relationships and have been guest experts on over 600 radio and television shows including Oprah, The View, Mars/Venus, New Attitudes, The O’Reilly Factor, This Evening with Judith Regan, and 48 Hours. They have conducted over 2,500 trainings with well over 100,000 couples attending and maintain a healthy marriage.
After spending time with these experts and a few others I had met, I reinforced something I always believed…
Though all these people work in different fields, I found there were common themes amongst them all. These common themes I consider to be fundamentals, the basics. Just like in all things we do, once you forget the basics you lose your foundation. Imagine a basketball player who can shoot a 3-point shot but cannot make a lay-up or the racecar driver who can control the racecar at 150 mph but can’t merge well into the pack of cars with good steering ability. It doesn’t matter what talents you have if you do not apply the basics and maintain them.
Here are 4 basic principles I have found that successful people share regardless of what they do or how they achieved their “success”.
Mental Attitude
How long ago did we hear the words, “I think I can, I think I can?” Once you have decided what you want, the most important key to success begins with a thought. Those of us in the field of human behavior realize how essential it is to focus on our thoughts before we take any action for our realities are results of our inner thoughts.
If you don’t believe you will be successful, however success is defined by you, well then, accept it… you’re right.
The people I interviewed and have spent time with who are true experts in their field, all know the same thing, you must think successful thoughts. Again, keep in mind we are not talking about money, we are talking about personal success on all levels and “targeted positive thoughts” are necessary for the actions for success. Target your thoughts on what you want in a positive way. Imagine as if you have already achieved and succeeded. In Quantum Physics this relates to the Law of Attraction. Keep thinking negative thoughts and guess what you’ll attract? Yup… more negativity.
Passion
Another thing I became aware of is that all the people who have achieved their success have a passion for what they do. You have heard that you should find something you like to do when it’s time to choose a career or job. That’s because if you like doing it, you won’t mind putting in the time and will be passionate about what you are doing. Passion creates high standards, pride and respect at what you do. Without the passion, you could care less and that’s not the way to skyrocket personal success.
Keep in mind, if you believe success is having millions of dollars and you achieve that but are miserable as you do, you are not successful, you are rich and miserable. To make my point, here is the last line from a book I wrote: “How successful are you, really, if you’re just not happy?”
Consistency
No one key is the way to open the door to success. Imagine each point is a number in the combination to open the lock of success… ingredients to the recipe to skyrocket personal success. The great thing is that the recipe is not difficult; it’s rather easy once you do it… consistently.
I personally consider consistency to be the catalyst of success. We can have a great idea, fantastic plan, take action for a while and then stop. And when we aren’t successful, we blame everything and hide from the truth. If you don’t do what you’re doing consistently, you most likely may not reach the point of success. Isn’t it said that luck is when skill and perseverance meet? That doesn’t happen without consistency.
Health
Are you surprised? You might already be thinking of the people you know who are overweight, smoke, drink excessively or haven’t taken a walk any further than the distance from their car to the restaurant in years yet, they are “successful”. I have to ask you, are they really? Do you believe that true personal success comes with harmful, self inflicting behaviors? Do you believe you can work the hours it may take, have a hectic schedule, be clear in your mind and strong in your actions if you are unhealthy?
You may keep it going for a while, but we are talking about real success, to have money and time freedom while also having the emotional and physical health to enjoy it. It isn’t going to benefit anyone if you create the lifestyle you always wanted but didn’t stay around long enough to enjoy it.
Now we all know that there are more ingredients in the recipe for success however, with these 4 basic principles you will become unstoppable. When you have a positive mind, healthy mind and body, passion about what you want and consistency in your actions to achieve, your own personal success skyrocket will be lit and on it’s way.
Tom Nicoli, BCH, CI
Author, speaker & trainer
