Marcel Legros - Play the Game of Life

Listen to what you say you are going to do and then watch what you actually do. Are you walking the walk, the same as you talk the talk. If not, take steps to do what you say you will do. Your self-esteem will go up and you will be motivated to do more, in addition to drawing other people to you because of your integrity. You need to make your behavior reflect your values. You will have inner and outer conflicts, if your beliefs, values, goals and most importantly, actions aren’t in agreement. Look at what you say and do, versus what you believe. Put all the pieces together and go forward as a team.

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Embrace change, you need it in order to be successful. If nothing changes, then nothing changes. If you want a different outcome, you have to do something different. Some of your habits and actions are working fine for you, but you probably have other habits or take other actions that don’t work for you. You need to change things, in order to create change for yourself. Look through the outcomes you are getting and see what you would like to be different, then work backwards and see what may be causing these unwanted outcomes. Perhaps you have to change your education, your friends, your work habits, whatever, but you will find that change is needed. Start to make those changes and you will find that things change for you.

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Our negative self-talk does more damage to ourselves, than anything, anyone else can say about us. Our subconscious mind pays a great deal of attention to what we say and tends to accept what we say as true. If we say we can’t do something, our mind buys into that and goes on as if that were true. The reverse is also true, if we say we can do something, our mind goes on, operating as if we can do it. So be careful of what you say, your mind can and will use it against you or for you. Use assumptions to help you instead of hurting you. Most of assume the worst, when we think of a new idea for ourselves. We assume that people won’t like it, that it won’t work, it will be too expensive, and so on. Why not assume that everyone will like it, that it will work and it will come in under budget and ahead of schedule. A change to positive assumptions will give you the power to move ahead and make your ideas happen, so challenge any negative assumptions that come up and find positive assumptions to replace them.

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If you want to put more joy in your life, put more effort into the things you do. We get more satisfaction and joy from things we have worked hard on, than we do from things that came easily to us. Extra effort pays the dividend of giving your better results and also the increased satisfaction of seeing the work pay off.

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Don’t try to go it alone, become part of a team and you will make it to your goal faster. Form a T.E.A.M. (Together Everyone Achieves More) that takes advantage of everyone’s special abilities, and the sum will be greater than the parts, resulting in bigger payoffs for all concerned. One way to do this is to form a Mastermind Group, that brings a group of people together, on a regular basis, to talk about each person’s particular goals, and then the rest of the Mastermind Group, gives that person feedback and suggestions to help them attain it. Remember, none of us is as smart as all of us.

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If you’re new to blogging, you’re probably interested in learning how to attract more readers to your site. Many articles have been written by other bloggers but the most effective suggestion I can make is to submit your site to StumbleUpon. I ran across StumbleUpon last year, before I even started blogging.

The concept is unique, fun, and effective, both for the reader as it is for the blogger. Sign up for free at their site and install their toolbar on your browser. Choose the topics you’re interested in, and when you press the Stumble button in your toolbar, you’re taken to random site in your topics list. If you like the site, you press the ‘thumbs up’ button on the toolbar; if you don’t, you press the ‘thumbs down’ button. You can also submit other quality sites that haven’t been stumbled yet where they enter circulation for other Stumblers to discover. It works like a user voted playlist.

It’s difficult to find unique and interesting websites among the millions on the net, but StumbleUpon makes quick work of finding the best. I’ve bookmarked hundreds of fantastic sites I never would have found using a search engine. Oddly enough, I’d never thought to submit my own site to StumbleUpon.

My First StumbleUpon Experience

Last week, a submitted a post to Reddit. The results were decent - I got 95 hits in half an hour. I went out and came home and check my traffic a few hours later. Here’s what it looked like:

I received over 1000 hits in a few hours after a Reddit reader submitted my post to StumbleUpon. In the last few days, I’ve been receiving around 500-700 daily from other StumbleUpon submissions. Not bad, considering my blog is only a few months old and until now has only been receiving 30-50 hits each day! Not only was the traffic spike high in quantity, the quality was better too - the number of visitors returning to my blog since that day has increased over 1000%.

Topical news sites like Digg and Reddit are fine if you make the front page, but if you’re interested in increasing your online visibility with consistent daily returns, use StumbleUpon.

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There are thousands of self development, self-help, psychology, motivational, and spiritual titles on the market today. Only a few rare authors make it to the best-sellers list. Even fewer build a successful, highly trafficked website with a dedicated readership. I can think of only 5 living self-development superstars:

1. Tony Robbins
2. Brian Tracy
3. Wayne Dyer
4. Deepak Chopra
5. Eckhart Tolle

How many high quality, best-selling authors of popular fiction can you name? The list in that category is massive by comparison.

Tony Robbins is heavily criticized for misrepresenting the truth and for his aggressive sales techniques. He was busy marketing products for the perfect marriage while going through a divorce. Deepak Chopra has also been criticized for writing questionable science.

Most self-development authors never achieve the kind of success they write about. They’re trying to teach us methods for success while they’re clearly not very good at it themselves. Where are all the great wisdom teachers?

Living in a Positive Thinking Bubble

Harsh criticism isn’t well accepted with this group. Peers don’t criticize for fear of losing credibility in their field. When someone does speak up and trashes the book or article, the criticism is denounced as being negative. Self-development authors need to be held accountable for the quality of their work just like everyone else. If the quality of my writing isn’t up to par, I have no chance for success by ignoring criticism. If my writing doesn’t sell, am I ahead of my time or living in denial?

You Can’t Sell Your Way Out of a Paper Bag

The most successful people in any field know how to sell their ideas. You must appeal to the customer’s desire for a solution to a problem. A best-selling author isn’t necessarily the best-writing author. You might be an excellent writer, but to reach your audience you must be able to sell your ideas. Take a sales course. Learn to appeal to your audience’s desire for answers and then deliver it to them in an approachable way.

The Field Is Crowded With Snake Oil Salesmen

Authors often sell their opinions as facts. Opinions are fallible; facts can be measured, proven, or demonstrated. How many times have you read titles like “43 Power Laws,” “7 Steps to Incredible Riches,” or “30 Secrets of Successful People?” Get rich quick schemes have damaged the whole genre. Anyone can make up a system of laws and principles for success but do they work? Where’s the proof? If those opinions and advice were factual, why is the author mired in obscurity and living in his parents’ basement?

People Want Progress, Not Perfection

Buddha, Jesus, Gandhi, and Mother Theresa all had their bad days. Someone burned their toast or stepped on their foot and they might have reacted with anger. Spiritual teachers and motivational coaches don’t like to talk about this, but every human being has negative thoughts and feelings. To deny one half of our nature is to deny reality. I believe in self-improvement but no one is perfect. People give up on a unrealistic systems that work only half of the time.

Measure Your Own Success Before Teaching It To Others:

* Do you have healthy relationships with your friends, family, and co-workers?
* Are you earning enough to support your needs? Are your finances in order?
* Do you receive positive results from the efforts of work and service? Are your customers happy?
* Are you physically healthy and free from life-draining addictions or habits?
* Are you happy and fulfilled?
* Are you living the life you dream about or only wishing for it to happen?
* Do you have goals and the plans to achieve them? Do you have faith that these goals and plans will succeed?
* Do you sincerely care for the welfare of all living things? Do your actions reflect your beliefs?

I’m writing this because people urgently want answers to their problems. We need real life skills, authentic wisdom, and inspired teachers who lead by example. Are you selling a hard-to-follow set of opinions or is it simple and accessible? People know the truth when they hear it. The truth sells, because it’s simple and it works.

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Two men are standing by the shore of a lake.

‘I’ll bet I can swim across this lake to to other side,” the first man says to the other.

“No you can’t! I’ll take you up on that bet,” the second man replied.The first man strips off his clothes, jumps in the lake and begins swimming. After about 20 minutes, he’s nearly to the other side. He gets about 10 feet from the beach, then turns around and swims back.

The first man is amazed and yells across the lake, “What the hell are you doing? You were almost there!”

“I got too tired, so I’m coming back!”

Of course, this joke is ridiculous. Who would give up 10 feet short of their goal when quitting required 10 times the effort? The answer: almost everyone.

Consider the law student who studies for years and pays thousands of dollars to a university, only to give up and fail her bar exam. Consider the blogger who writes faithfully for months, only to quit because there are only 10 visitors coming to his site every day. How about the employee who passes up an expensive training course that would prepare him for a real career once it’s completed. Maybe you think it’s too difficult to save $200 a month to invest in assets that will pay for all your living expenses when you retire.

What Do People Mean By “Don’t Work Hard, Work Smart?”

Pushing hard until you reach your goal is always tough, but the quitting is even tougher. It takes desire, focus, faith, imagination, and effort to be successful. Mediocrity only requires effort, so many people think it’s the easier path. There’s nothing wrong with being average, as long as you’re happy paying your dues with 10 times the effort. Do you want to work hard for low pay all your life? That’s the cost of taking the ‘easier’ path. Working “smart” doesn’t mean it’s effortless - it means you use your mind to achieve greater rewards and better results. Pretty simple, huh?

Great ideas, great riches, and great people are created with focus, desire, faith, and imagination. Nurture these qualities and don’t give up when you’re 10 feet from your goal - it’s a long swim back.

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Don’t confuse having and idea with having a plan. You need an idea first, and that is of key importance. But if you are going to turn your idea into reality it is going to take a plan and of course action on the plan. Many times the idea comes to us easily, in fact it almost hits us over the head. On the other hand, making a plan, takes real work carried out over a period of time, and stopping at any point along the way dooms your idea to an early death. Things like budgets, timetables, contingencies, etc, are not as much fun as having the big idea, so keep thinking of the final outcome your idea will generate and keep working to turn you idea into an action plan. And then do it.

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