IN THIS CHAPTER

Pursuing excellence throughout your life

Working at improving all aspects of yourself

Excellence is an art won by training and habitation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit. — Aristotle

There are countless measures and models in establishing your pathway to success. For anyone who has the desire to be more successful, we have to define what success might be to us. And success is defined differently by each of us for the benefit of all of us. Success in life is really about playing all out at your present level of skill, thought, action, and idea. It’s the pursuit of excellence throughout your life journey.

Playing Your Game

Success is a striving for excellence while still playing the game of life within the means and parameters presently in front of you. Here's an example: I am not an exceptional golfer. I carry a handicap that fluctuates between 12 and 15 depending on time of year and how frequently I play and practice. If you ask any of my playing partners, they would describe me as a successful golfer, which means that I enjoy the sport, strive to get better, and play my game.

I have strengths and weaknesses, as most golfers do. The key to being successful in golf is to intimately know what those are in your game. One of my weaknesses is that I'm not a long hitter of the golf ball. So to compensate, my game is keeping the ball in the fairway, having a very good short game, and putting well. I play to my strengths so that I can score well.

Successful people play their game. They know their game, whether it's at home, at work, and in their world. They focus on playing to their strengths. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t working diligently to improve their game or remove their weaknesses. They aren’t complacent or stagnant. They realize that playing to their goals, strengths, and objectives leads to success, satisfaction, and well-being. And playing your game in business and life leads to fulfillment, happiness, and wealth.

Keeping Up with Daily Habits

Success is really achieved in the daily victories of life. It’s in the daily habits, routines, and disciplines you execute. If you can win the day, you can create long-term sustainable success. That is true of any measure or category of your life. Here are the questions to ask yourself to check how you did today:

• Did I get up and start my day at the planned on time?
• Did I begin my day with gratitude?
• Was my attitude positive today, especially at the beginning of my day?
• How well did I stick to my morning routine?
• Did I affirm, recognize, and demonstrate love to my kids and spouse before leaving for work?
• Did I arrive early for work?
• How much idle or unproductive time did I allow to creep into my workday?
• Did I achieve my key objectives for the day at work?
• Did I encourage someone at work today?
• Did I move my body vigorously today for health?
• How were my eating habits today?
• Did I spend less than I made today?
• Did I give exclusive attention to the people important to me today?
• Did I listen to or read something for at least 30 minutes to learn?

If you complete the vast majority of these habits daily, you wouldn’t even recognize your old life within 30 to 60 days. You would have love, passion, energy, and success filling your whole life.

Staying on Top of Your Physical Health

As I've discussed earlier in the book, when you don’t have physical health, you are at a severe disadvantage in creating success. As someone diagnosed eight years ago with Meniere’s disease, which can only be managed well rather than cured or eradicated, my views of health have evolved.

My definition of physical health is being free of disease that blocks your pathway to success. It's the ability to control and live well in spite of physical infirmity. And it results in being productive in achieving your goals and dreams.

As we age, we lose strength, flexibility, and stamina. And that means time is of the essence. We all have a limited amount of time to accomplish our goals, but that doesn’t mean our goals should change. It means that our focus on physical and mental health needs to be a priority. We need to allow ourselves more time to complete specific tasks and functions, and we do that by striving for good health.

Serving Others

The greatest success I have in life is helping others succeed in life and fulfill their dreams. Success is helping and serving others. Service, whether it's for your family, friends, or complete strangers, is the essence of success. Ask yourself these service success questions:

• Who could I serve right now?
• Who needs my help?
• What organizations in my community could I impact?
• How could I help them?

Service to others makes our world better. We all need to look at our own lives and decide how we can devote time to serve others. What can we do to benefit our community?

Maintaining Business Savvy or Entrepreneurial Spirit

The ability to create something out of an idea is success. All large businesses of today started with an idea. Facebook, Google, and Microsoft were all ideas hatched in college dorm rooms across the United States. These companies have grown to become the most powerful technology companies the world has ever known. A wonderful method of achieving more success is starting your own entrepreneurial business. Then invest time in your business and watch it thrive and serve people.

Entrepreneurial businesses are the lifeblood of the United States. Small-business owners provide 49 percent of all jobs, according to the Small Business Administration. Think about it: Just about half of all jobs are in companies with fewer than 100 employees. Having owned numerous small businesses for more than 30 years, I know that I provide a valuable benefit to my community by offering solid, good-paying jobs with benefits to a handful of families.

We all have unique talents beyond what we do for work. These talents can be used to earn more ancillary income. As your side gig begins to grow and flourish, it has the opportunity to expand beyond your current full-time employment situation.

Working toward Security

There is an element of security we all want to achieve that connects with success. This is especially true for the people who have a Steady behavioral style, which is 40 percent of the population. The achievement of security speaks to a large swath of humans. (If you want to know more about your behavioral style and how you are wired, turn to Chapter 4, where I include a link to take an assessment that will help you know your behavioral style.)

Being able to create a model of security for your life requires some introspection through questions:

• Does money or wealth play a role in you feeling more secure?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how big a role does wealth play?
• How much would you need to feel secure?

• Would paying off your home enhance your security?

  If so, craft the plan in what additional you can put toward the mortgage.

• Do you have six months of personal expenses in savings? If not, how short are you?

  Craft a plan of additional monthly savings to achieve six months of personal expenses savings.

• What makes you feel more secure?
• What can your significant other do to help you feel more secure?
• What actions can you take at work to increase your value and job security?

Building Self-Confidence

The people who achieve more significant success in life have unshakeable self-confidence. Being focused on achieving a growing, thriving confidence in yourself is a measure and indicator of success. As you gain self-confidence, you will take bold action toward success.

All successful people assess risk and take the risk anyway. They take smart risks that have a high probability of a positive outcome. If you are waiting on the sidelines because a lack of self-confidence or an overinflated sense of worry, it will be challenging for you to achieve the success you desire. In order to build self-confidence, ask yourself these questions:

• What am I really good at?
• When were some times that I had fear but acted anyway?
• What small successes have I had that seemed impossible at the time?
• What large successes have I had that seemed impossible at the time?
• What actions could I take to help me increase my belief in myself?
• Who are some of my biggest fans or cheerleaders?

To raise your confidence, spend more time with your fans. Talk with them about your goals and dreams. Those cheerleaders in your life will encourage you, help you, and be rooting for you. If you lack those types of people, go find some because we all need them in our lives. They could be family, friends, or colleagues.

Looking for Self-Improvement

Success is life is the constant pursuit of self-improvement. It’s the small incremental improvement in ourselves each day. If you only improve yourself by 1 percent each day, you will achieve a staggering the amount of improvement in a year. Would you care to take a guess as to how much? The normal guesses fall between 365 percent and about 500 percent because some realize there is compounding involved. The truth is, both figures are way off the mark. Give up? The increase within 12 months, based on a 1 percent improvement each day is 3,800 percent. Yes, you read that correctly. It’s 3,800 percent! A small improvement in our knowledge, skills, and mindset yields exponential results. That doesn’t even factor what it will do to your bank account, health, and relationships.

Staying Mentally Tough

The only guarantee in life is that there will be death, taxes, and adversity. There is no success without failure and adversity. That’s why mental toughness is required. You are going to have days where you will want to retreat back to your bedroom, pull the drapes, turn on the electric blanket, and go back to bed. You will have tragedy in your personal life, financial life, and business life. You will have days where you are crying out to God for comfort, where it feels like the whole world is against you in every move you make.

Successful mental toughness is well illustrated in this Mark Twain quote:

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear.

Being mentally tough requires you to want something more, to be willing despite logical and even illogical fear to act in pursuing what you want. It means that you will pursue your goals to the ends of the earth. That you won’t quit … ever.

Creating a Legacy

The most successful people have created a legacy to have a meaningful impact on the world. Andrew Carnegie is a wonderful example to follow. Carnegie spent the first half of his life becoming the wealthiest man alive. He then decided to give all his money away before he died. We owe most of the libraries that exist today in the United States to Carnegie. A legacy of that magnitude is astonishing and wonderful.

Creating a legacy of success starts with the people you have the greatest influence on. That would be family, friends, church, and community at large. You can create a legacy of love, acceptance, service, and loyalty. You can set up a legacy of the unexpected accomplishment — that you succeeded against the odds and adversity.

You can create a financial legacy through giving to charity, endowing a scholarship at a university, or endowing a needs-based ministry at your church to help the disadvantaged. You can create educational accounts to pay for college for your grandchildren and great grandchildren. You can create whatever legacy you desire to leave behind that demonstrates your love and what you value. A wonderful legacy lives out of your principles and beliefs long after you are gone. You can do as I am doing and write down your principles and beliefs to share. That's why I write books: to help people achieve success with the hope that the positive results live on for generations.