What is keeping you from success?

"The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure" - Sven Goran Eriksson

I heard once that fear could mean false emotions appearing real. It is scary sometimes when we are down and we look at our past, and maybe we made a mistake so we project that mistake forward. Sometimes fear leaves us finding excuses and reasons. This is where we enter the realm of impeding our success.

Do you have a great idea? Do you think about exploring a different career?

But you find yourself saying, I don't know if I will make enough money. It might not work. I could end up broke. It worked for that guy because he was lucky. I am not smart/fast/strong enough to see it through. As long as our head fills with these notions we will never move on to success.

Fear and Failure are all things we will encounter in life. Success will depend on what we do when we face these obstacles. Will we rise above? Will you take that chance? For inspiration lets look at some colossal failures who have changed the very world we live in

• Thomas Edison's teachers said he was "too stupid to learn anything" and was fired from two jobs for being "non-productive" and before he successfully invented the light bulb he encountered over 1,000 failures at bring the idea to light so to speak.
• Albert Einstein did not speak until he was 4 years old and could not read until the age of 7. and was described as being mentally slow as a child.
• Henry Ford failed and went broke 5 times before he succeeded.
• It took R.H Macy 7 attempts to get his store in New York City. I am sure you have seen the Macy's day parade.
• Michale Jordan at one time was cut from his high school basketball team.
• Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because "he lacked imagination and had no good ideas"
• Charles Schultz, the guy that wrote Charlie Brown, had every cartoon rejected that he submitted to his High School yearbook staff, and later in life Walt Disney turned him down for a job.
• 27 publishers rejected Dr. Seuss's first book.
• Charlie Chaplin was initially rejected by Hollywood studio chiefs because his pantomime was considered nonsense.

Now is your chance to follow your dream... Failure may come, but I encourage you to learn from your failure and use it as a teachable moment to build your foundation to success. As Nike says, Just Do It!!!

Steve Jobs on living life

On living life "you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future." - Steve Jobs, Commencement Stanford 2005



There are a lot of ways to look at this, we can take the the quote, interpret, misinterpret, do as we like. What I like about this particular quote is the word "trust". I see his thought reflecting on my worldview to say "trust what is happening today, it will all mean something tomorrow". In Jeremiah 29:11 the Bible says "For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, Plans to give you a future and a hope" Don't live each day in fear, do what you love, maybe it will not make sense, but in the end we can look back and connect the dots and find the sense in all the madness. Greatness is out there for you, me and everyone we touch everyday. We just have to get up and take a hold of it.



If you never had the chance to see it, I recommend taking the time to check out Steve Jobs commencement address, you can find it on You Tube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

He had three main points... with my added comments...

1. Connect the Dots (Life will work out and make sense later)
2. Love and Loss (we will have this, embrace it)
3. Death (it is certain, embrace life with this in mind)

Check it out, and thank you for reading my meandering thoughts!!!!

Plan for a great day!!! Use your time to do it!!!!

"Ordinary people think merely of spending time. Great people think of using it."
-Author Unknown

Sometimes I have gone through a day and regretted all the time wasted. I knew I could have gotten so much more done and the day is at it's end and I am sitting in bed pondering, "where did the day go?"

Our most valuable resource is TIME. It is the only thing we cannot get back. We can always save more money, buy more things, but we will never get our time back. When I think back to my most productive days, projects they all began with a plan. When I find myself in a tragic miscalculation of events, I realize I could have planned better.

A to do list is a great place to start, how you do it is personal, but I believe exploring these tips will help you capture your most valuable commodity, time. Here is are some things to consider to add planning as a daily discipline.

1. Find the right way to record your list - you might use a pad, a notebook, excel, iPhone etc.
2. Prioritize your tasks, where is your passion?
3. Be realistic, you may try to stretch yourself to grow, but don't kill yourself or set yourself up for failure.
4. Be specific, each task should be short and measurable.
5. Breakdown complex tasks, this will allow you compartmentalize and delegate portions if possible.
6. Consider grouping and categorizing similar tasks.
7. Delegate things that you can, and make sense.
8. Be flexible, plans always change.
9. Leave spaces in your life for the unexpected.
10. Review your day at the beginning and the end and fine tune your process as you find successes.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life, plan for a great day!!!!

Make a Difference today!!! Stay Positive!!!

"Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference." ~Winston Churchill
Look back at those "bad" days with no sales, the days where it seemed all went downhill in the office. Those were not fun days by any means. Can you see a constant? Now look back on some of those dazzling sales days, or the days in the office where everything seemed to go right. How was your attitude in those different circumstances. If you look back, is it possible that your attitude preceded the events?

With a positive attitude you build momentum around you and things, even "bad" things will not seem to bother you. With a good attitude you may look at the daily challenges as building blocks for future success rather, than horrific mountains you must endure. As you build momentum, you allow good things to happen. If you are looking for trouble you will find it. Likely if you plan for success and seek it, also that will be found.

Success is not synonymous with luck, it requires planning. Success happens where preparation and opportunity meet. In preparing, you must get your mind right. Right thinking begins with a positive outlook. SAY I CAN DO IT TODAY!!!!!

There always has to be a beginning

Likely I scrawl this blog with no readers. Maybe one day this blog will reach out and touch the lives of countless and someone might come back and read this first entry. There always has to be a beginning.

I live in the middle of the country, am approximately at the middle of my life span, one thing I am grateful for is I am not currently in the middle of a crisis. I have spent most of my life near the east coast, most recently I have relocated to Middle America. I have found it is not too much different here than the coast, so I feel in that respect my life experience might be relevant to yours no matter where you read this from.



The title of my blog is affirmative contemplation, derived by using an online thesaurus and translating Positive Thoughts. Positive Thoughts will make a bad situation a valued lesson. Positive Thoughts lead to positive lessons and life experiences. We can all benefit from an infusion of positive thought. I am writing this blog to remind myself to remain positive and maybe infect a flow of positive thinking.



I am a Christian and this will also affect the content of this blog. If you are not a believer perhaps this may open a door or spark an interest. I hope it will not scare anyone away.



Thank you for reading, please share a positive comment for anyone who might come along in the comments section.